{"id":19164,"date":"2016-09-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-09-25T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-bible-and-voting-part-12\/"},"modified":"2016-09-25T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-09-25T05:00:00","slug":"the-bible-and-voting-part-12","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-bible-and-voting-part-12\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bible and Voting – Part 12"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[65],"series_event":[466],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19164","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-proverbs","series_event-the-bible-and-voting-2016","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"The Bible and Voting - Part 12","sermon_date":"20160925","sermon_month":"9","sermon_year":"2016","sermon_notes":3962,"sermon_slides":3963,"sermon_mp3":3964,"sermon_id":"92516943344","series_or_event":466,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":65,"chapter_and_verse":"14:34","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nSUGAR LAND BIBLE CHURCH\n\nSeptember 25, 2016 The Bible and Voting, Part 12\n\nMark 7:20-23\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 If we could take our Bibles and open them to Mark 7, verses 20-23.\u00a0 The title of this message is The Bible and Voting, Part 12.\u00a0 We have been really working our way through this whole subject of voting, what does the Bible say about this issue of voting.\u00a0 Voting is a really an issue that\u2019s on everybody\u2019s mind today; a lot of political talk.\u00a0 And in this series we really tried, very, very hard not to get into political names and political parties, but rather we\u2019ve been focusing on issues.\u00a0 When you go to cast a vote for someone and you vote for them what issues should be foremost on your thinking?\u00a0\u00a0 So we have taken a look at some issues related to economics.\u00a0 We\u2019ve taken a look at issues related to what we would call social issues.\u00a0 \u00a0And we\u2019ve been sort of working our way through issues related to foreign affairs.\n\nWe\u2019ve looked at several things.\u00a0 First of all we\u2019ve looked at the whole subject of world government from God\u2019s point of view.\u00a0 We\u2019ve looked at the subject of the nation state from God\u2019s point of view.\u00a0 We\u2019ve looked at the whole issue of border enforcement from God\u2019s point of view.\u00a0 And then for the last three Sundays we\u2019ve been taking our time looking at the nation of Israel; as we interact with the nation of Israel what is to be our attitude towards the nation of Israel?\n\nAnd this morning we find ourselves in the very last part of our series and this is really the last foreign affairs issue that we should think about when we vote, and here is the question:\u00a0 Will the candidate pursue a foreign policy of what I would call peace through strength.\u00a0 And one of the things that we\u2019re going to start getting into here is the whole subject of terrorism.\u00a0 Now I know I should have planned my sermons a little better; we just had a baby dedication, now we\u2019re moving into the subject of terrorism but we\u2019ll full of lots of interesting transitions here at Sugar Land Bible Church.\n\nOf course terrorism is something that is now a normal part of our world; it\u2019s really a normal part of American life, sad to say.\u00a0 We all remember 9\/11, we remember Fort Hood, we remember what happened recently, maybe a year or two ago with the Boston Marathon bomber, we had a recent terrorist attack in Orlando.\u00a0 And then just this week if you followed the news another terrorist attack has occurred on American soil in Chelsea, New York.\u00a0 And we\u2019re seeing these things all of the time now on our television sets and in our newspapers and over the radio.\n\nAnd the question is, when we look at a very difficult and controversial subject like this does the Bible actually have anything to say related to this issue.\u00a0 Does the Bible address the issue of terrorism?\u00a0 I\u2019m of the opinion that it does.\u00a0 So here\u2019s our outline and we may not finish this today, we most likely will not finish it today, we\u2019ll finish it next week, but we want to look really at six things.\u00a0 Number 1, terrorism\u2019s false causes.\u00a0 What I mean by that is a lot of people attribute terrorism to the wrong motive.\u00a0 Number 2, we\u2019ll look at terrorism\u2019s true causes, what really causes terrorism from a biblical point of view.\u00a0 Number 3, we\u2019ll be taking a look at ineffective deterrents of terrorism; here is how not to stop terrorism.\u00a0 Number 4, we\u2019re look at effective deterrents to terrorism.\u00a0 In other words, here\u2019s how to stop it biblically.\u00a0 Number 5 we\u2019ll be getting into the subject as follows: is it possible for a government to go too far in stopping terrorism.\u00a0 The answer to that is yes.\u00a0 And then finally number 6, we\u2019ll close with some legitimate methods in dealing with the subject of terrorism that governments can employ.\u00a0 Again, I\u2019ve tried very hard to make this not my own personal opinion, as we will be seeing I\u2019m coming from a biblical base on these things.\u00a0 So when we look at the subject of terrorism in our world are we looking at it through the lens of God\u2019s Word?\n\nLet\u2019s start here number 1, terrorism\u2019s false causes.\u00a0 When an incident happens and lives are lost and property is destroyed because of some sort of terrorist activity it\u2019s interesting to turn on the news and watch all of the people pontificating as to why this happened.\u00a0\u00a0 I would say nine times out of ten the news people get it wrong in terms of motive.\n\nSo what would be, first of all, to start off, some wrong reasons as to why terrorist activity takes place.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not coming from the position of the Scripture, which deals with the subject of the depravity of man, you have to assign some kind of motive to explain what just happened.\u00a0 And typically what people will say is this terrorist activity took place because of poverty or a lack of education.\u00a0 And as I started to look at this subject I got intimidated because it\u2019s a controversial subject and I pulled off of my shelf a book by Theologian Wayne Grudem; the title of this book is Politics According to the Bible<\/em>.\u00a0 \u00a0And I discovered in this book a wealth of information.\u00a0 Now you should probably be praising the Lord that I\u2019m just looking at this book now as our series is ending, because he covers every issue much deeper than I have.\u00a0 And this series could go on for the next several years if I\u2019d discovered this book early on.\n\nBut in chapter 11 he has this fascinating chapter on national defense.\u00a0 Now I don\u2019t know if you know much about Wayne Grudem; Wayne Grudem is a conservative systematic theologian.\u00a0 He believes in the inerrancy of the Bible and he is dealing with the subject of political issues, much like we have been dealing with it, from a biblical point of view.\u00a0 And in this particular chapter he quotes many people who come up with the wrong cause of terrorism.\u00a0 One of them is named Jim Wallis; I don\u2019t know if you know the name, Jim Wallis.\u00a0 Jim Wallis is what we would call a liberation theologian; he is someone that in essence is trying to mix the principles of Karl Marx with the principles of the Bible, which to me is like mixing water and oil together.\n\nAnd there is something in this country called the religious left; there used to be something in this country that was very strong that was called the religious right, people promoting a conservative political agenda from the Scripture.\u00a0 But what has eclipsed the religious right is what we would call the religious left.\u00a0 Jim Wallis is what we would call a progressive, would be a member of the religious left using the Bible to promote a leftist progressive agenda.\n\nIt\u2019s interesting to note that Jim Wallis is the key spiritual advisor behind the current President of the United States.\u00a0 Jim Wallis wrote a fascinating book called God\u2019s Politics<\/em> but he comes up with the wrong answer to the issue of terrorism.\u00a0 Jim Wallis writes this:\u00a0 He says, \u201cAn even more courageous national commitment would be to face honestly the grievances and injustices that breed rage and vengeance are continually exploited by terrorists to recruit the angry and the desperate\u2026. It is indeed impossible to comprehend adequately the terrorists acts of September 11 without a deeper understanding of the grievances and the injustices felt by many people around the world.\u201d\n\nHe goes and he begins to talk about some of these grievances and injustice.\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThe American and western appetite for oil, the United States sits atop and its leaders of a global economy in which half of God\u2019s children still live on less than two dollars a day.\u201d\u00a0 Wallis goes on and he says, \u201cThe United States will be blamed around the world for the structures of injustices that such global economy daily enforces.\u201d\u00a0 He says, \u201cWe have contributed to the grievances and injustices that breed modern terrorism.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s sort of a theme that goes through Wallis\u2019s book, what we would call a blame America first mindset.\u00a0 He talks about global poverty reduction as a key strategy towards eradicating terrorism.\n\nSo in other words, what he is saying is you really can\u2019t fault the terrorists only, it\u2019s the injustice of the world in which we live in; it\u2019s the lack of education, it\u2019s the lack of a decent standard of living.\u00a0 And so many people have this idea that somehow terrorism is caused by poverty or a lack of education.\u00a0 The problem is, when you begin to scrutinize the facts and scrutinize the evidence the evidence really does not support this kind of a conclusion.\n\nFor example, there is a terrorist, a Middle Eastern terrorist, and now pardon me because I\u2019m going to be trying to pronounce some Middle Eastern names, I\u2019m not necessarily up to speed in my Arabic, but his name is Zawahiri, and it\u2019s interesting that of this man, Zawahiri, we read the following, and this comes from a book by Lawrence Wright and the title of the book is Tunnel Terrorists.\u00a0 <\/em>And it says this: \u201cZawahiri was also an Egyptian, was a brilliant student, from a prominent family who finished medical school and became a recognized surgeon.\u201d\u00a0 So that immediately casts into question this idea that somehow terrorism is caused by poverty.\u00a0 The individual involved here in terrorist activity was actually an individual who had a medical degree and was a practicing surgeon.\n\nYou might know the name Ben Laden; has anybody heard that name\u2014Ben Laden?\u00a0 We know what he was responsible for in terms of 9\/11; have you ever looked into the actual history of Ben Laden?\u00a0 Ben Laden, born in 1957 was born into an extremely wealthy family in Saudi Arabia.\u00a0 His father, Mohammed Ben Laden owned a huge construction company that was responsible for building many of the highways as well as the largest mosque in the country, including the Grand Mosque in Medina.\u201d\u00a0 It goes on and it talks about Ben Laden\u2019s wealth; his share of the company at that time was equal to about seven million dollars, plus he had a substantial annual income.\u00a0 Ben Laden was not motivated to engage in terrorist activities because of poverty; in fact, Ben Laden had more money than most of us will see in an entire lifetime.\n\nAnd where do these terrorists recruits come from?\u00a0 Have you ever asked that?\u00a0 Do they come from these poverty stricken environments?\u00a0 No they do not!\u00a0 This book I mentioned before by Lawrence Wright makes this statement: Wright points out that young men who joined up with Al Qaeda<\/em><\/a> in Afghanistan were quote, \u201cmiddle\/upper class,\u201d end quote, were largely college educated with a strong bias towards the natural sciences and engineering.\n\nWho\u2019s being recruited into this terrorist activity?\u00a0 Not the downtrodden, not the poor, not the oppressed but shockingly some of these terrorists come from some of the most educated and affluent backgrounds.\u00a0 And one of the great things about coming to the Bible and letting the Bible speak to the issues of the day is you start to see that sin is not necessarily caused by poverty.\n\nFor all of my entire life I\u2019ve heard this statement from people that are non-biblical, they would say people steal because they\u2019re poor; people commit mayhem because they\u2019re poor.\u00a0 Let me ask you a question?\u00a0 How do you explain a man like O. J. Simpson who had money to burn and\u00a0 yet he committed those horrible acts and was prosecuted for murder.\n\nIf nothing else the place of the Bible that resolves this fact once and for all, that evil is not caused by poverty, it\u2019s the millennial kingdom.\u00a0 Have you ever studied the millennial kingdom?\u00a0 Take a look in your Bible, if you could, at the book of Revelation, chapter 20, verses 7-10.\u00a0 Let me give you a quick crash course on the millennial kingdom, if I can, the thousand year reign of Christ.\u00a0 The thousand year reign of Christ, the world will be repopulated after the tribulation period, those that repopulate the earth will be the descendants of those who survived the great tribulation period.\u00a0 There\u2019s a reference to that in Matthew 25:31-46.\n\nIn other words there will be people who will survive the great tribulation, that would not include us, we will be, as members of Christ\u2019s church, in resurrected bodies at this time.\u00a0 But these survivors will survive the great tribulation period; they will pass through what is called the sheep and the goat judgment, they will be decreed by God as believers and sheep and will enter the millennial kingdom in glorified bodies, they will reproduce, they will have children and their children will have children, and their children will have children, and the earth will be repopulated but what is passed down through the bloodline?\u00a0 The sin nature.\u00a0 The millennial kingdom will be the \u201ccat\u2019s meow.\u201d\u00a0 It will be the time in history where the earth, Isaiah 11:6-9, Isaiah 2:1-4, will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord.\n\nIsaiah 11:6-9, \u201cAnd the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them.\u00a0 [7] Also the cow and the bear will graze, Their young will lie down together, And the lion will eat straw like the ox.\u00a0 [8] The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, And the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den.\u201d\u00a0 Isaiah 2:1-4, \u201cThe word which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.\u00a0 [2] Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.\u00a0 [3] And many peoples will come and say, \u2018Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob; \u00a0That He may teach us concerning His ways and that we may walk in His paths.\u2019\u00a0 For the law will go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.\u00a0 [4] And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.\u00a0\u00a0 Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.\u201d]\n\nIt will be a time in history when the nations will beat their swords into what?\u00a0 Plowshares.\u00a0 War will be a thing of the past.\u00a0 It will be a time in history where Jesus will literally be reigning on planet earth from David\u2019s throne.\u00a0 The presence of Christ will be so real in that day that people will actually be able to go up to Jesus Christ and shake His hand, and they won\u2019t even have to give a campaign contribution in the process.\u00a0 And yet how does the millennial kingdom end?\u00a0 It ends in a total worldwide catastrophe; we have a description of it in Revelation\u00a0 20:7-10.\u00a0 It says, \u201cWhen the thousand years are completed,\u201d that\u2019s the thousand years of peace and prosperity, \u201cWhen the thousand years are completed Satan will be released from his prison, [8] and will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together for the war;\u201d notice this, \u201cthe number of them is like the sand of the seashore.\u201d\u00a0 The moment the inhabitants of the earth are given an opportunity to rebel against God, basically as I read this every member of the human race takes that opportunity.\u00a0 Think about all of the sand on the seashore; that\u2019s the amount of rebels that will be involved in this rebellion, even though they have been living in a perfect environment for one thousand years.\n\nVerse 9 says, \u201cAnd they came up on the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city, and fire came down from heaven and devoured them.\u201d Why is God allowing this terrible time in history to go forward?\u00a0 He is proving once and for all what man\u2019s problem is. \u00a0Man\u2019s problem is not his environment; it\u2019s his nature.\u00a0 You can put a sinner in a terrible environment and guess what he\u2019ll be?\u00a0 A sinner.\u00a0 You can take that same sinner and put them in a perfect environment, which is what is going to happen here in the millennial kingdom, in an environment where there\u2019s no unemployment, in an environment where there\u2019s no educational need, and what will be at the end of the day?\u00a0 He will be a sinner.\n\nGuess what happens, folks, when you educate a blue collar thief?\u00a0 He becomes a white collar thief;\u00a0 (unless his nature is altered by the Holy Spirit) you have simply enhanced his capacity to steal.\u00a0 This is the biblical position that we call the depravity of man.\u00a0 This is what is missed over and over again by people who have no biblical worldview as they\u2019re trying to explain terrorist activities.\u00a0 It must be caused by something in the environment, a lack of education, poverty, a bad family background, and yet nothing could be further from the truth.\n\nAnother false description or a false cause or a false root of terrorism is what I call American imperialism; many people believe that terrorist activity takes place in our country and around the world for the simple reason that we, as the United States of America have caused it by our imperialist policies around the word.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019ll mention a political name (if I can do that, this individual is not running for any known office that I know of) Ron Paul, who ran for President of the\u00a0 United States in 2007 made this statement in one of the Presidential debates.\u00a0 Paul goes on and he talks about this:\u00a0 (quote) \u201cHave you ever read about the reasons they attacked us\u201d speaking there of 9\/11, \u201cHave\u00a0 you ever read the reasons they attacked us,\u201d he says this on national television, \u201cthey attacked us because we\u2019ve been over there; we\u2019ve been over there bombing Iraq for ten years.\u201d\u00a0 So it really is not the terrorist fault that they engaged in this terrible attack on 9\/11, it\u2019s our fault as Americans as we are trying to spread the American brand around the world we have inculcated the wrath of the world and so if we want to blame someone for terrorism let\u2019s look into the mirror.\n\nThis kind of thinking you find, not only of people on the right, like Ron Paul, but you find it with people on the left.\u00a0 You might know the name, Jeremiah Wright.\u00a0 Anybody heard that name?\u00a0 Jeremiah Wright was the pastor of the President of the United States, not for twenty weeks or twenty months but twenty years.\u00a0 Two decades the President of the United States sat in a church in Chicago, The Trinity United Church, and he heard sermon after sermon from Jeremiah Wright.\u00a0 Jeremiah Wright, when you look into his writings, is also what you would call a progressive, somebody who is trying to mix through liberation theology the principles of the Bible with the principles of Karl Marx.\u00a0 And Reverend Wright, and this came to national attention when Barak Obama was running for President back in 2008, made statement after statement that America\u2019s chickens (as he called it) have come home to roost.\u00a0 What happened to us on 9\/11 is our own fault because of American imperialism spread abroad.\n\nThere\u2019s just one little problem with that.\u00a0 The problem with that is the following: Terrorism started a lot earlier in American history.\u00a0 In fact, you can track terrorism all the way back to the administration of Thomas Jefferson in his encounter with what is called the Barbary pirates.\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson was one of our first Presidents who actually bought and began to read the Koran.\u00a0 Why did he buy the Koran?\u00a0 Why did he read the Koran?\u00a0 The historical revisionists will try to tell you that America was founded on Islamic principles because of Thomas Jefferson\u2019s interest in the Koran.\u00a0 Nothing could be further from the truth.\u00a0 American was not founded on Islamic principles.\u00a0 The reason Thomas Jefferson was reading the Koran is he was trying to figure out, way back at the beginning of American history, why do these Barbary pirates keep attacking us over and over again?\u00a0 Thomas Jefferson called these attacks unprovoked and it was a strange idea to him; what is in the minds of these people causing relentless attack after relentless attack?\n\nAnd those that want to blame terrorism on the United States of America need to understand that terrorism began long ago, before America ever rose to super power status.\u00a0 Other people say it\u2019s our overreaction, we overreacted to 9\/11 by going into Afghanistan and going into Iraq, and that\u2019s what causes terrorist activities around the world.\u00a0 Let me remind you of something: 9\/11 was not an isolated event.\u00a0 Prior to 9\/11 there were multiple attacks on American soil.\u00a0 Let me mention some of them: February 26, 1993, the first World Trade Center bomb exploded through terrorist activity.\u00a0 June 25, 1996 you have the bombing of the towers, a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia. \u00a0Then August 7, 1998, this is long before you have the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Nairobi, Kenya.\u00a0 August 7, 1998, you have the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania.\u00a0 October 12, 2000 you have the bombing of the USS Cole in\u00a0 Yemen. And then finally, after all of these incidents we finally had the terrorist activity that really got our attention, September 11, 2001, with the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.\n\nYou simply can\u2019t blame terrorist activity on the\u00a0 United States overreaction to 9\/11 for the simple reason that these terrorist activities long preceded 9\/11.\u00a0 This is all part of an orchestrated plot against the United States of America, even going back to the days of Thomas Jefferson and even back to the days of the Barbary Pirates.\n\nAnd what troubles me about all of these false solutions to supposedly what causes terrorism is we\u2019re taking our eyes off the ball.\u00a0 We no longer have a sense of right and wrong.\u00a0 We think terrorism is somehow our responsibility as Americans or we think terrorism is because of poverty or a lack of education, or something else.\u00a0 And we become so engrossed with these theories that we\u2019ve moved into what I would like to call moral equivalence.\u00a0 Moral equivalence is the idea that you take two evil acts and you essentially put them on the same level.\u00a0 Let me rephrase that; one evil act, one good act and you act as if those two acts are both equally evil.\n\nHere is a quote from Gregory Boyd.\u00a0 Gregory Boyd is a Christian pastor, much like I am a Christian pastor, and this is what Gregory Boyd writes in one of his books.\u00a0 He says, \u201cYou probably passionately believe that our cause is just and theirs is evil but the terrorists passionately believe that their cause is just and ours is evil.\u00a0\u00a0 Your passion for American justice is mirrored by their passion for Islamic justice.\u201d\u00a0 And what he just did is he put our actions in Iraq and Afghanistan on the same level as what happened in 9\/11 and this is what you call moral equivalence argument.\n\nThese are all examples of what I would call false cause of terrorism.\u00a0 Terrorism, as I\u2019ll show you in just a moment, is not caused by poverty; we\u2019ve just proven that.\u00a0 It\u2019s not caused by a lack of education, we\u00a0 have disproven that notion as well.\u00a0 It's not caused by some sort of American Imperialism that\u2019s being exported throughout the world.\u00a0 Biblically there is a much different answer to this, and so this takes us now to part 2, what then is the true cause of terrorism.\u00a0 I\u2019ll give you two answers to that question.\n\nWhat causes terrorism, take your Bible, if you could, and go to Mark 7:20-23, is good old fashioned human depravity.\u00a0 That\u2019s where the Bible roots the issue.\u00a0 [Mark 7:20, \u201cAnd He was saying, \u2018That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man. [21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, [22] deeds of coveting and<\/em> wickedness, as well<\/em> as<\/em> deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and<\/em> foolishness. [23] All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.\u201d]\n\nRomans 5:12 says this: \u201cTherefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men because all sinned.\u201d\u00a0 The fact of the matter is I am born with a nature that is at war with God.\u00a0 It\u2019s interesting that we never have to teach our children how to sin.\u00a0 My wife and myself don\u2019t sit down with our daughter and we don\u2019t say to her, okay, here\u2019s how you sin, ready?\u00a0 Here\u2019s how you throw a tantrum when you don\u2019t get your way.\u00a0 Here is how you become selfish with your toys.\u00a0 Here is how to act aggressively towards\u00a0 somebody else that hasn\u2019t hurt you.\u00a0 We never had to teach her those things.\u00a0 We never had to teach those things to our daughter because of the influence of her mother\u2026 NO, I\u2019m just kidding!\u00a0\u00a0 We never had to teach these things to our daughter because of the sin nature that\u2019s passed down from parent to child.\u00a0 What we have to teach her is how to be considerate, we have to teach her how to share, we have to teach her how to keep your anger under control.\u00a0 This is largely the role of parenting which we dedicated this morning, these parents involved in that process before God reigning in that sin nature, creating a climate in the home whereby the child can trust Jesus Christ.\n\nAnd thus the excuse for violence is not environmentally caused, it comes from within; it\u2019s who we are!\u00a0 Psalm 51:5, David writes this:\u00a0 \u201cBehold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother and father conceived me.\u201d\u00a0 David says at the point of conception I inherited a nature that is at war with God.\u00a0 And over in the book of Genesis, chapter 4, verses 5-8, have you read those verses lately?\u00a0 It\u2019s the story of the first murder.\u00a0 Cain is contemplating murdering Abel, and this is what Genesis 4:5-8 says, \u201cbut for Cain and for his offering He\u201d that is God \u201chad no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. [6] Then the LORD said to Cain, \u2018Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? \u00a0[7] If you do well, will not your countenance<\/em> be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.\u2019 [8] Cain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.\u201d\n\nCain, you\u2019re considering murdering your brother and I want you to understand that there\u2019s something influencing you that you do not fully grasp, and if you do not get this under control, i.e., Satan and the sin nature, you\u2019re going to end up doing something that you do not want to do\u2014you\u2019re going to end up murdering your brother. \u00a0\u00a0And it\u2019s interesting how Cain did not follow this advice.\u00a0 And in verse 8 of Genesis 4 it says, \u201cCain told Abel his brother. And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.\u201d\n\nThere was a force within Cain himself that was at work leading to the first murder in human history.\u00a0 Nothing here to do about a lack of education, environmental cause, poverty, it was the sin nature.\u00a0 And if there\u2019s a verse that\u00a0 you should have jotted down or underlined in your Bible it\u2019s the book of Jeremiah, chapter 17, verse 9, which says this: \u201cThe heart is more deceitful than all else, and it is desperately sick, who can understand it?\u201d\u00a0 As God today looks at the human heart He sees a sickness in it.\u00a0 In fact, the sickness is so profound (from God\u2019s point of view) that we as mere humans can\u2019t even understand the wickedness of our own hearts.\u00a0 There are things that I am capable of as a fallen human being that are sometimes hidden from my sight because I have lost sight of, many times, of my own depravity.\n\nAnd that\u2019s why I had you turn to Mark 7:20-23; before we get there think about Genesis 8:21, revealed very early on in human history, where God makes this statement right after the flood:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201c\u2026 for the intent of man\u2019s heart is evil from his youth\u2026.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is a natural disposition towards evil built into all children at the point of conception, to rebel against God, making the task of parenting more difficult.\u00a0 That\u2019s why they need our prayers, our help, our support as they seek to reign in the sin nature of children and create an environment in the home whereby a child might exercise faith in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 [Mark 7:20-23, \u201cAnd He was saying, \u2018That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man.\u00a0 [21] For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, [22] deeds of coveting and<\/em> wickedness, as well<\/em> as<\/em> deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and<\/em> foolishness. [23] All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.\u201d]\n\nNow we move into the New Testament and Jesus says the exact same thing, because in Mark 7:20-23 the Pharisees were criticizing Jesus and His disciples because they were eating on the Sabbath.\u00a0 They weren\u2019t violating the Sabbath per se because the Sabbath is designed by Christ Himself, He calls Himself here \u201cthe LORD of the Sabbath,\u201d to be a blessing to man.\u00a0 But the eating of the disciples on the Sabbath violated Pharisaical traditions and Jesus responds to the critics of the disciples and in the process He makes a tremendous statement about human nature.\n\nNotice what Jesus says: \u201cAnd He was saying, \u2018That which proceeds out of the man, that is what defiles the man\u2019\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s not what goes into him that defiles him, it\u2019s what naturally comes out of him.\u00a0 Well, what naturally comes out of the contaminated heart of the sinner?\u00a0 [21] \u201cFor from within, out of the heart of men, proceed\u201d and he gives a laundry list, number 1, \u201cevil thoughts,\u201d number 2, \u201cfornications,\u201d\u00a0 number 3, \u201cthefts\u201d what\u2019s number 4 there, I\u2019ve got it underlined, \u201cmurders,\u201d murder is part of who I am, murder is my natural proclivity, it is something that naturally wants to emanate out of my heart, I am completely capable of murder.\u00a0 If I\u2019m not physically doing it I can think about it or I can murder people verbally, damage their career, damage their reputation, although I may not actually commit a homicide, but the possibility of homicide is within all of us.\u00a0 \u201c\u2026murders, adulteries, [22] deeds of coveting and<\/em> wickedness, as well<\/em> as<\/em> deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and<\/em> foolishness.\u201d\u00a0 And then Christ is clear again, verse 23, \u201cAll these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.\u201d\n\nJesus says to the Pharisees don\u2019t focus on some kind of environmental cause; it\u2019s not what you take in, in terms of food, that contaminate you, it\u2019s what naturally comes out of the human heart because of our position in the first Adam.\n\nNotice, if you will, the book of James, chapter 4:1-2, James\u00a0 (of course) being the brother of our Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Notice what James says, \u201cWhat is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you?\u201d\u00a0 Have you ever wondered that?\u00a0 Why is that in good churches Christians just can\u2019t get along.\u00a0 James answers that and he says, \u201cIs not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? [2] You lust and do not have; so<\/em> you commit\u201d what? \u201cmurder.\u201d\u00a0 There, that\u2019s the second time we\u2019ve seen the word \u201cmurder\u201d in the New Testament as a manifestation of the human heart.\u00a0 \u201cYou lust and do not have; so you commit murder, you are envious and cannot obtain; so<\/em> you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not\u201d what? \u201cask.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 And James goes on and he says even when you do ask God\u2019s not going to answer\u00a0 you because your motives are wrong.\u00a0 [James 4:3, \u201cYou ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it<\/em> on your pleasures.\u201d]\n\nIt\u2019s interesting to me that when James addresses this issue he is speaking here to Christians.\u00a0 I know that because James 4:5, just a few verses later, talks about how the spirit within us envies us intensely.\u00a0 [James 4:5, \u201cOr do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose:\u2019 \u201cHe jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us\u2019\u201d?]\u00a0 The Spirit of God is in these people; that\u2019s why they\u2019re called \u201cbrethren\u201d all the way through the book of James.\u00a0 That\u2019s why James 1:2-4 talks about how their faith is being perfected through trials.\u00a0 You can\u2019t perfect a faith, you can\u2019t mature faith unless you first have what?\u00a0 Faith!\u00a0 \u00a0[James 1:2-4, \u201cConsider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, [3] knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. [4] And let endurance have its<\/em> perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.\u201d]\n\nSo \u201cin Christ Jesus\u201d although I have the Holy Spirit, although I have the new nature in a nanosecond I am capable of returning to the old nature, to such severity that even as a Christian I am capable of committing murder.\u00a0 Certainly with the unbeliever this is all that they know.\u00a0 When an unbeliever commits sin they are just fulfilling their job description.\u00a0 James here is talking about the Christian\u2019s ability to do this.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we need to be in the Word of God, walking under the control of the Spirit of God at all times, because at a moment\u2019s notice I can immediately return to the sin nature.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it interesting how I can stand up here and give a sermon and be used by God to bless people and then get into the parking lot on the way out of here and someone cuts me off and some of the angriest thoughts (hopefully not speech) can begin to emanate in my mind.\u00a0 I can get into an argument with my wife over something silly in just a few moments after preaching a sermon that blessed people.\u00a0 All of us are like this!\n\nThe Bible tells us about this over and over again; we are all tainted by the sin nature.\u00a0 If you want to blame terrorism on something you don\u2019t blame it on the environment, you don\u2019t blame it on poverty, you don\u2019t blame it on a lack of education, you blame it on good old fashioned human depravity.\u00a0 But if somebody is not coming from a biblical framework, a biblical worldview, they have to come up with some explanation so they typically attribute terrible atrocities to something in the environment because after all, at the end of the day we really don\u2019t want to believe that we\u2019re that bad when the Scripture, in fact, says that we are.\n\nNow I told you that there are actually two ingredients in what makes up a terrorist.\u00a0 I\u2019ve just given you ingredient number 1, human depravity.\u00a0 But there\u2019s something else and these two things have to be working in concert and if you have these two things working in concert you have a very clear explanation for terrorist activity.\u00a0 The second thing that must happen is the development of a radical ideology, an ideology which tells people that their sin nature, they\u2019re free to vent it any way they want.\n\nLet me take you to this quote here by Robert Charles Winthrop, one of America\u2019s early Founding Fathers, I believe he actually became the Speaker of the House of Representatives and this is what he said in a speech.\u00a0 \u201cMen, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet.\n\n[All societies of men must be governed in some way or other. The less they may have of stringent State Government, the more they must have of individual self-government. The less they rely on public law or physical force, the more they must rely on private moral restraint. Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled, either by a power within them, or by a power without them; either by the Word of God, or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible, or by the bayonet. It may do for other countries and other governments to talk about the State supporting religion. Here, under our own free institutions, it is Religion which must support the State.\u201d\u00a0 [Robert Winthrop, Addresses and Speeches on Various Occasions<\/em> (Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1852), 172. Speech to the Massachusetts Bible Society (1849-05-28).]\n\nSomething has to be in place to keep the sin nature in check; if it\u2019s not going to be the Bible, an internal value system, then it has to be the threat of force from the outside.\u00a0 You know, being a Christian is such a wonderful thing because I can see what my wicked heart wants to do in terms of theft, murder, idolatry, adultery and I look into the Word of God and the Word of God is telling me to do the exact opposite of what I naturally want to do.\u00a0 And so I am held back from sin after sin after sin as I come into the light of the Word of God, which is counter intuitive, which works against the natural ambitions and desires of my sin nature.\u00a0 And walking in the light of the Word of God is so advantageous because it gives me the guidelines by which I can tell the sin nature no.\n\nNow most of us find ourselves today in that position, the guidance of Scripture.\u00a0 That\u2019s why it\u2019s important to be involved with the Scripture, to be taking in a regular intake of biblical content, to be sitting in churches like this where the Word of God is faithfully taught.\u00a0 But think, for a minute, what if you don\u2019t have the Word of God?\u00a0 What if something comes into your life that tells you that expressing the sin nature is okay?\u00a0 What if something comes into your life which tells you that it is appropriately acceptable to cooperate with the sin nature to vent your sin nature and that additional substance coming into your life I would call a radical ideology.\u00a0 There are radical ideologies and religions out there on the landscape that will not tell people to curb the sin nature.\u00a0 They will tell people to cooperate with the sin nature.\n\nOne such radical ideology, I believe, is Marxism, an ideology which speaks of global conquest and it tells people that lying in the name of global conquest is okay, deceiving in the name of global conquest is okay, terrorism in the name of global conquest is okay.\u00a0 That would be an example of a radical ideology\u00a0 giving the sin nature permission to express itself; completely different than what you would have in the Bible.\n\nThe other dominant radical ideology that I\u2019ll draw your attention to is Islam.\u00a0 People say well, you can\u2019t criticize Islam; Islam is the religion of choice of many, many people.\u00a0 And I would just say to that assertion that you\u2019re completely wrong.\u00a0 Islam is not a religion.\u00a0 In fact, a very small fragment or a very small portion of all\u00a0 of Islamic teachings and doctrines deal with the issue of religion.\u00a0 Islam is a way of life.\u00a0 Islam is a political ideology.\u00a0 Islam is all about politics and the imposition of what is called Sharia law upon the world.\u00a0 When you\u2019re talking about Islam\u00a0 you\u2019re talking about a political system on equal par with Marxism itself.\n\nWhat if all of a sudden you were given a worldview that said this: murdering innocent civilians in order to advance a world conquest ideology is acceptable?\u00a0 What if all of a sudden the murder that already exists in the human heart were not curbed or contained or controlled by the Word of God but you were given permission to murder.\u00a0 And you were told that if murder transpires, particularly to innocent civilians then you were actually advancing a cause greater than yourself?\u00a0 You\u2019ve now got two ingredients working together; a depraved nature and a radical ideology.\u00a0 And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the advent or the inauguration or the beginning of terrorist activity.\n\nDid you all bring your Koran with you to church today?\u00a0 You think I\u2019m kidding, I\u2019ve got mine right here.\u00a0 Let\u2019s read a few verses, shall we?\u00a0 The first verse is Surah, which means chapter, 2, section 191, so I\u2019m looking here for my thought for the day, I\u2019m looking here for my devotion for the day in the Koran and I read these words: \u201cWhoever offereth violence to you offer you like violence to him.\u201d\u00a0 That sounds a little different than what Jesus taught on the Sermon on the Mount, isn\u2019t it?\u00a0 Where we were told to do good to those who persecute us.\n\nHere is another one: Surah 9, that would be chapter 9, section 123 and let\u2019s take a look here at that little devotional thought for the day.\u00a0 What does that devotional thought for the day teach us? \u201cBeliever, wage war against such of the infidels as you are neighbors and let them find you vigorous or rigorous in this.\u201d\u00a0 So here permission is given to wage war against one\u2019s neighbor.\n\nOr how about this one, Surah 5, section 33 and section 54, what does that say?\u00a0 Let me read that to you if I can.\u00a0 It says, \u201cEven if thou stretch forth thine hand against me to slay me I will stretch forth my hand against thee\u201d or you, \u201cto slay you.\u201d\n\nAnother section, reads like this: \u201cOh, believers, take not the Jews or Christians as friends; they are but one another\u2019s friends.\u00a0 If any one of you taketh them for his friend he surely is not one of them.\u00a0 God will not guide the evildoers.\u201d\u00a0 Did you know that in Islamic thought you, as a Christian, or as a Jew, are not the friend of a Muslim.\u00a0 In fact, you are considered evil; interesting information.\n\nHow about this one, Surah 8, line 12 this one\u2019s a doozy here so buckle your seatbelts, it makes this statement; it says, \u201cWhen thy Lord spake unto the angels \u2018I will be with you\u2019 therefore establish ye the faithful, I will cast the dread into the hearts of the infidels, strike off their heads then, and strike forth from them every fingertip.\u201d\u00a0 Wow, what if somebody that already has a vent towards wickedness because of human depravity comes in contact with an ideology like this?\n\nHere\u2019s another one, Surah 47, section 4 makes the following statement, it says: \u201cWhen ye encounter infidels\u201d that\u2019s us, \u201cstrike off their heads till you have made a great slaughter among them and of the rest make fast the fetters.\u201d\n\nWhat if somebody in a prison, for example, that knows nothing about Jesus Christ, knows nothing about the Bible, suddenly is evangelized with an ideology like this?\u00a0 Now you have two things that are working in harmony with each other, a depraved nature, which wants to murder anyway, and a religion or a theological system or an ideology that gives you permission to do so?\n\nNow I know what some of you are thinking, wait a minute, Pastor, wasn\u2019t Joshua commanded to eradicate the Canaanites?\u00a0 Yes he was.\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t he commanded to kill the women and the children and the animals in the land of Canaan?\u00a0\u00a0 Yes he was.\u00a0 So what makes the Bible different than the Koran?\u00a0 And the answer to that is the command to Joshua was a onetime command; it was to be done at a specific point in time over a narrow strip of land\u2026 and by the way, what people don\u2019t tell you when they quote Canaanite genocide is God had given the Canaanites 400 years to repent and these people were involved in some of the most despicable sin you can imagine.\u00a0 Read Leviticus 18 and\u00a0 you\u2019ll get a description of the sin the Canaanite\u2019s were involved in: incest, rape, homo-sexuality, polygamy, right down to taking their own children and sending them through a fire to satisfy a god named Molech and God allowed this sin to go on for 400 years, which is a long time; 400 years is about the United States of America and its shelf life times 2.\u00a0 And finally at the end of that time period God brought judgment through Joshua, the Canaanites were (most of them anyway) eradicated under the decree of God.\n\nBut that is a onetime command in a onetime historical circumstance and situation which was narrowly defined.\u00a0 Compare that to the Koran where it\u2019s an open-ended command for all people at all times under all circumstances, no matter what part of the world they are living in to pursue that command.\u00a0 Now you may be saying to yourself, now wait a minute pastor, I have Muslim friends, I go to a Muslim hair designer and they are very good people; are you telling me that every Muslim on planet earth is as bloodthirsty as you\u2019re making it out\u00a0 to be?\u00a0 My answer to that is there is a big difference between a Muslim culturally and a fundamentalist Muslim.\u00a0 Muslims that are living within the dictates of the law of the land are violating the Koran.\u00a0 They have chosen that they will inconsistently follow it but woe to the Muslim that wants to consistently follow everything in the Koran.\u00a0 They will be involved in all sorts of evil and wickedness.\n\nYou see, when planes fly into the twin towers, September 11, 2001, what you need to understand\u00a0 is the Muslims flying those planes into the twin towers were obeying the Koran.\u00a0 When Christians commit acts of mayhem, like in the Crusades, they are not following the Bible, they are not obeying the Bible, they are living in rebellion against the Bible.\u00a0 Consistent Christianity leads to love of one\u2019s enemies.\u00a0 Consistent Islam, Fundamentalist Islam, Islam consistently applied, leads to terrorism because it gives the human heart in the form of a radical ideology something that it already wants to do.\u00a0 So we have groups like Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS, groups that we hear about, groups that we see quite regularly on our news; those are the natural outworking of what the Koran explains and what the Koran teaches.\n\nYou need to understand something, that America, as I speak today, is involved in a religious conflict.\u00a0 It is involved in a religious war.\u00a0 It is involved in a system whereby a radical ideology is giving vent to people\u2019s sinful ambitions.\n\nLawrence Wright, in his book on the towers writes these words.\u00a0 \u201cWhy did these men turn against America, a highly religious country that had so recently been their ally in Afghanistan?\u00a0 In large part it was because they saw America as the locus of Christian power.\u00a0 Viewed through their eyes the men who were spiritually anchored in the 7th<\/sup> century, Christianity was not just a rival it was the archenemy.\u00a0 To them the Crusade were a continual historical process that would never be resolved until the final victory of Islam.\u00a0 Yet Bin Laden and his Arabic Afghans believe that in Afghanistan they had turned the tide and Islam was again on the march.\u201d\n\nIf you\u2019ll indulge me, another citation from the Lawrence Wright book, he writes this: \u201cAmerica was the only power capable of blocking the restoration of the ancient Islamic Caliphate\u201d which is world-wide government, \u201cand would have to be confronted and defeated.\u201d\u00a0 This is where a consistent Islam leads, a radical ideology that gives the sin nature opportunity to do what it already wants to do.\u00a0 There is no counter-veiling force curbing the sin nature and when you have a radical ideology to get together with the unregenerate nature you have a recipe for disaster, a recipe for terrorism.\u00a0 All of these commentators are missing this; they\u2019re blaming it on one thing or another and yet when we look squarely into the Word of God we see that God is very clear on the issue.\n\nAnother quote, this is what you call a fatw\u0103.\u00a0 What is a fatw\u0103\u201d\u00a0 A fatw\u0103 is an authoritative religious opinion signed by Bin Laden, and this is what it said.\u00a0 \u201cThe ruling to kill the Americans and their allies, civilian and military, is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it\u201d get away with it in other words, \u201cin any country in which it is possible to do it.\u201d\u00a0 This is what the religious order and the fatw\u0103 said, if you can get away with killing innocent civilians and you can get away with killing Americans in order to expand Sharia law you have religious permission to do that.\n\nHow different your Bible is.\u00a0 When the temptation to commit adultery or murder comes over any of us as fallen human beings the light of the Scripture is telling us the opposite.\u00a0 Put yourself in a situation where you don\u2019t have the light of the Word of God; you instead come into contact with this radical system whereby your sin nature is given permission to do what it wants.\n\nThe upper slide there is Iran prior to 1979.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice at the top of the slide that it\u2019s a fairly modern country, fairly progressive; you see people in normal attire, you see people pursuing education, you see women pursuing education, you see things like freedom of speech, health care, all of the things that we would associate with a modern society; the opportunity to work in a career that you want to pursue, and how everything in Iran shifted in 1979.\u00a0 Most of us don\u2019t even remember what happened in 1979; 1979 was when the Shah was deposed, it was in the days of Jimmy Carter and Iran became not just Iran but it became known as The Islamic Republic of Iran.\u00a0 And look at that bottom slide, look at how everything changed. Look at the head coverings, look at the dresses, look at the burqa\u2019s, look at the fact that women are not allowed to go out in public unless they are completely covered.\n\nThis is a modern country that shifted in our own lifetime, a progressive country that shifted in our own lifetime.\u00a0 And people all the time tell me this can never happen to the United States of America.\u00a0 Of course it can happen in the United States of America.\u00a0 In fact, there are the same forces at work in the United States of America to shift us into this system that were the same forces at work in Iran to shift Iran into an Islamic republic.\n\nNow you might be asking yourself, well, what is this Sharia real law business?\u00a0 What is life actually like under Sharia law?\u00a0 Can you give me some descriptions?\u00a0 I\u2019m so glad you asked that question.\u00a0 To get a picture of what kind of life Islamic terrorists would impose on a nation if they attained power we can look at the Taliban regime that was imposed in Afghanistan before the American military attack drove them out of power in November, 2001.\u00a0 Here is a picture of life under the Taliban, here is a picture of life under Sharia law.\n\nQuoting again the Lawrence Wright book involving the towers.\u00a0 It says this: quote \u201cWork and schooling for women were halted at once which destroyed the health care system, the civil service, and effectively eliminated elementary education.\u00a0 The Taliban forbade kite flying, dog racing and various\u00a0 unclean things were banned in an all-purpose category that included\u201d here\u2019s the things banned, \u201csatellite dishes, cinematography, equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables\u201d are banned, \u201cchess,\u201d the game chess is banned, \u201calcoholic beverages\u201d are banned, \u201ccomputers are banned, you can\u2019t even use nail polish under Sharia law, sewing, catalogues, catalogues teaching ladies to sew are banned, pictures are banned, Christmas cards are banned.\u00a0 The fashion dictators demanded that a man\u2019s beard could be no longer than the grip of his hand; violators would go to jail.\u00a0 Should a woman leave her home without the veil her home will be marked and her husband will be punished.\n\nIf you want to educate yourself on this without reading a lot of books I would just rent a movie; the title of the movie is a movie that came out a few decades ago, Sally Field is the key actress in the movie and the movie has the title Not Without My Daughter<\/em>.\u00a0 And it is a description based on real world events rooted in history of what a woman went through when she agreed to: number 1, marry a Muslim man, and number 2, go from the United States of America to an Islamic country to greet this man\u2019s parents.\u00a0 And the man, of course, told her that we\u2019ll just be staying here briefly and we\u2019ll be returning to the United States.\u00a0 But you have to understand something; in Islamic ideology there is something called taqiyya<\/em>, taqiyya<\/em> is permission to tell a lie.\u00a0 You are allowed, for example, like when the United States Government naively is negotiating with Iran over nuclear deals, you have to understand something, that the people sitting on the other side of the table are not bound by the same code of ethics that you\u2019re bound by.\u00a0 You can\u2019t lie because you\u2019re a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you have a book that contradicts your sin nature and tells you to deny it over and over again, but that\u2019s not the way they think on the other side of the table.\u00a0 The sin nature which wants to lie anyway is given permission under this Islamic ideology and system.\n\nSo they went over to Iran and he essentially told his wife we\u2019re not leaving, we\u2019re staying here and he began to abuse her physically, first verbally, then physically, she was required to wear a burka, under the Islamic system a man is allowed to beat up his wife.\u00a0 In fact, a man is allowed to rape his wife.\u00a0 In fact, to countervail one male witness under a court of law under sharia would require multiple female witnesses.\u00a0 That\u2019s how little their system values women.\n\nAnd today I hear these feminists crusading against Christianity as if Christianity were somehow responsible for the plight of the denials of women worldwide.\u00a0 Christianity, if anything, elevated women.\u00a0 Not so in a country that has never been impacted by the gospel, not so in a country that is under the control of Sharia law.\n\nWhat am I trying to get at here?\u00a0 I\u2019m trying to get at something very important.\u00a0 When you look at the issue of fundamentalism and terrorism you are being given a set of false explanations as to what causes terrorism: America is at fault, poverty is at fault, lack of education is at fault, when the reality of the situation is terrorism occurs when two things come into harmony with each other and into congruence.\u00a0 Number 1, a sin nature which we already have and number 2, a radical ideology of some sort that gives the sin nature free license to do what it wants.\u00a0 That is what causes terrorism.\n\nAnd next week we\u2019ll be looking at some deterrents to terrorism, effective and non-effective; can we go too far in deterring terrorism?\u00a0 And what can the governments of the earth legitimately do to deter terrorism.\u00a0 Would you not say that terrorism is a major issue today?\u00a0 And we\u2019re trying to look at this through the lens of God\u2019s Word.\u00a0 Shall we pray.\n\nFather, we humble ourselves as we work through this very difficult material and very difficult series but we come to a church like this to receive truth and light; we want to look at the world the way You look at it.\u00a0 We ask that You\u2019ll give us our minds and we\u2019ll have the ability to see things in the culture the way You would see them.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus name.\u00a0 And God\u2019s people said\u2026.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t