{"id":19170,"date":"2016-07-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-24T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/the-bible-and-voting-part-4\/"},"modified":"2016-07-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-24T05:00:00","slug":"the-bible-and-voting-part-4","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/the-bible-and-voting-part-4\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bible and Voting – Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[65],"series_event":[466],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-19170","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 4","sermon_date":"20160724","sermon_month":"7","sermon_year":"2016","sermon_notes":3776,"sermon_slides":3777,"sermon_mp3":3779,"sermon_id":"724161021460","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\nJuly 24, 2016 The Bible and Voting, Part 4\n\nGood morning everybody.\u00a0 If we could take our Bibles and open them to the book of Genesis, chapter 9, verse 6.\u00a0 [Genesis 9:6, \u201cWhoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.\u201d]\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that a relief when the preacher says open to the book of Genesis?\u00a0 It\u2019s easy to find; it\u2019s at the beginning in case you didn\u2019t know.\u00a0 Genesis 9:6, the title of our message is The Bible and Voting, Part 4.\u00a0 The last time I was with you I think I was running out that door to catch an airplane, along with my family; where we were up in the Colorado mountains all last week with a\u00a0 Christian camp called Camp Aret\u00e9, which is a Greek word, aret\u00e9<\/em>, it means excellence.\u00a0 And I was invited up there to teach some lessons to the average age 14-17.\u00a0 Now I have a Jr. High School friend that refers to age 14-17 as the pre-human years so I really didn\u2019t know how this was going to work.\u00a0 And there\u2019s a lot of things going on in\u00a0 youth ministry where people think kids can\u2019t learn, you have to constantly entertain them. And I\u2019ll tell you, I went up there and this was probably the most Bible focused group, camp, I\u2019ve been at.\u00a0 These kids not only listened they took notes, asked great questions, and so I just have a renewed vision for\u00a0 youth and youth ministry.\n\nIt wasn\u2019t just Bible study all the time, it was activities, hiking, skits, your typical camp environ\u00adment. My daughter, who is ten, who hopefully didn\u2019t bring her duck whistle with her to church today, got a duck whistle and she fit right in so it really was a really blessed week.\u00a0 So if you all prayed for us God must have heard you.\u00a0 I did get a mile headache though, Colorado is high, now they\u2019ve legalized drugs so that\u2019s another emphasis on Rocky Mountain High I guess.\u00a0 Of course, we partook of none of that while we were there.\u00a0 But the altitude did give me\u2026 you know, it is a tough altitude but fortunately with a few aspirin I was fine after the second day.\n\nAnyway, we are here today talking about the Bible and Voting, and politics and political parties, these are things really on our minds today as Americans.\u00a0 Most of us understand that our country is really in a precarious place.\u00a0 We just finished one major convention last week and another major political convention I think is going to happen this week or next week if I\u2019m not mistaken.\u00a0 And so there\u2019s just a lot of talk in the air about voting and who should I vote for and those kinds of things.\u00a0 And I hope you hear my heart in this series which began on Independence Day.\u00a0 The point of this series is not to tell you who to vote for; in other words, I\u2019m doing the best I can to stay out of the weeds, if I can put it that way, I\u2019m trying not to name political parties, I\u2019m trying not to name political candidates.\u00a0 I\u2019m really not trying to weigh in on this particular election which is on everybody\u2019s minds.\n\nWhat I\u2019m trying to do is direct you back to the Bible.\u00a0 And I\u2019m trying to give you a set of eternal and immutable principles that we find in the Bible.\u00a0 These principles are not given by man; sometimes they\u2019re ignored by man, but they\u2019re given by God and therefore very important to God. And so when we as Christians vote, not just in this election but in any election, for any office, we ought to be looking at first and foremost a set of principles.\u00a0 We ought to be getting behind people that hole to certain immutable principles that God is the author of.\n\nI planned on covering all of this in one sermon, I haven\u2019t gone too well with that, have I?\u00a0 I\u2019ve divide this into economic issues, social issues and foreign affairs issues, having looked at economic issues.\u00a0 What does the Bible say about economics?\u00a0 I gave you a set of issues to think about as we vote.\u00a0 And then from there, last week we moved into what are called social issues, cultural issues, hot button issues.\u00a0 Now you say why would you get into all of this, this stuff is so controversial.\u00a0 Well, my answer to that is the same answer John Walvoord gave.\u00a0 He was asked once why are you focusing on prophecy?\u00a0 Don\u2019t you know that prophecy is so controversial?\u00a0 Don\u2019t you know that prophecy is polarizing?\u00a0 And John Walvoord\u2019s response to that was classic; he says you know what, the whole Bible is controversial, including prophecy.\n\nI feel that any time\u00a0 you enter the pages of God\u2019s Word it, by nature, polarizes and it causes controversy, and so if a person is afraid of controversy then they probably have missed their calling as a preacher and a teacher of God\u2019s Word because you can\u2019t talk about anything in the Bible without provoking controversy of some kind.\u00a0 My goal is not to be controversial for the sake of being controversial.\u00a0 It\u2019s to let the Bible speak to the culture.\n\nAnd we\u2019ve looked at several issues concerning cultural issues that we should be looking for in candidates.\u00a0 We talked about legal protection for the unborn because God\u2019s Word says something about that.\u00a0 We talked about legal protection for the elderly because God\u2019s Word says something about that.\u00a0 We even talked about the standard of heterosexual monogamous marriage as the standard of society because God\u2019s Word talks about that as early as Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.\n\nAnd so what I\u2019ve done is put together a series of questions to ask candidates or to think about before we pledge our support to anybody.\n\nAnd we come now to the fourth social issue and this one may surprise some of you and the issue is this: Will the candidate support or seek to abolish the institution of capital punishment.\u00a0 When we use the expression \u201ccapital punishment\u201d we are referring to the death penalty given to people who commit murder.\u00a0 Does the Bible actually address this issue?\u00a0 I believe it does and that\u2019s why I had you turn to Genesis 9 and verse 6.\u00a0 And in fact, let\u2019s even go back earlier, let\u2019s go back to Genesis 6:11, which is the context for Genesis 9.\u00a0 This is just prior to the flood.\u00a0 Genesis 6:11 says this: \u201cNow the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence.\u201d\n\nNo extra charge for this but you might be shocked to discover that the Hebrew word for violence here is Hamas<\/em>, and that should provoke something in your memory because isn\u2019t there a Middle Eastern terrorist group called Hamas.\u00a0 And I asked my Hebrew teacher, I said does this word have anything to do with that Middle Eastern terrorist group.\u00a0 And he said yes, they\u2019re naming their group after this Semitic word.\u00a0 And that\u2019s important to understand because many of us look at these groups in the Middle East as peace brokers, and that has to do with the ignorance of the Western mind regarding Semitic languages.\u00a0 The very name itself, Hamas, is indicative of terror.\n\nAnd Genesis 6:11 uses this word Hamas<\/em>, or a derivative of it, Hamas<\/em>, to describe the violence and the bloodshed and what I would call sort of a wild, wild west vigilante mentality that had taken over just prior to the flood.\u00a0 This, of course, is one of the reasons that God brought the deluge, having spared Noah and his family in the ark.\n\nAnd then as we go from there to Genesis 8:21,\u00a0 Noah and his three sons are in the ark, eight total, Noah and Mrs. Noah were in the ark, Ham, Shem and Japheth were in the ark with their respective wives, bringing the grand total to eight. \u00a0\u00a0And God began to repopulate the earth through those three sons.\u00a0 And Genesis does a tremendous job tracing the lineage of those three sons, Ham, Shem and Japheth; the Bible wants us to keep our eyes on Shem because through Shem, who had the blessed line according to Genesis 9:26 would come the Hebrew race.\u00a0 And through the Hebrew race ultimately would come the Messiah.\u00a0 In fact, the very name Shem, we get the word Semite from; from these Semitic people groups of the earth the Messiah is going to come forth, Genesis 9:26.\u00a0 [Genesis 9:26, \u201cHe also said, \"Blessed be the LORD, The God of Shem; And let Canaan be his servant.\u201d]\n\nBut at any rate the earth began to be repopulated through these three lines and what the Bible is very clear on is\u00a0 yes, the environment had been cleansed because of the flood but man\u2019s nature never changed.\u00a0 Genesis 8:21 says this as the earth was being repopulated, \u201cThe LORD smelled the soothing aroma; and the LORD said to Himself, 'I will never again curse the ground on account of man, for the intent of man's heart is evil from his youth; and I will never again destroy every living thing, as I have done.\u201d\u00a0 That is a post flood statement.\n\nThe nature is now different, the environment is different, but the same sin nature exists in fallen man.\u00a0 Now if that is true, if war and murder exists within the heart of man, Jesus was very clear on that, it does, Matthew\u00a0 15:18-19 teaches that, if these are natural emanations of the sin nature how do you prevent the world from returning to the Hamas <\/em>or the violence that existed in the pre-flood world? \u00a0[Matthew 15:18, \u201cBut the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and those defile the man.\u00a0 [19] For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.\u201d]\n\nAs the earth is repopulated and man\u2019s nature is the same how do you prevent a rerun of the violence that swept the world like a tidal wave just prior to the flood?\u00a0 The answer to that is a covenant that God made with Noah.\u00a0 The covenant that God made with Noah is the origin or the beginning of, if you will, the institution of human government.\u00a0 And notice what he said in this covenant, in the book of Genesis, chapter 9 and verse 6, it\u2019s very clear:\u00a0 \u201cWhoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.\u201d\u00a0 So it\u2019s interesting here that if somebody commits the sin of murder that is actually an attack, if you will, on God Himself because you have just shed the blood of a being that bears God\u2019s very own image.\n\nAnd when that happens God doesn\u2019t say I\u2019m going to step in and judge.\u00a0 He says very clearly here \u201cBy man,\u201d government in other words, \u201cBy man shall his blood be shed, For in the image of God He made man.\u201d\u00a0 Notice that man in his post fall state, even in the post flood state, still has value to God.\u00a0 The image of God has not been erased in fallen human beings; it has been effaced to some extent but not erased.\u00a0 Even in our fallen state we still have value to God.\u00a0 In fact, that\u2019s one of the reasons we shouldn\u2019t be slanderous in our speech towards each other, because James 3, that great chapter that deals with the taming of the tongue, says we should not slander one another because we are slandering beings made in God\u2019s likeness.\u00a0 The Bible is very clear that the image-bearing status of God in man has continued not only after the fall but after the flood and it continues on to this very day.\n\nAnd this is why God set up human government and he set up the institution of capital punishment; there must be justice, in other words.\u00a0 If a person is going to take the life in a premeditated way of another human being then justice itself demands that his life be taken.\u00a0 And there is a concept that the sociologists and the legal experts talk about, it is called deterrence.\u00a0 Deterrence is the idea that if I don\u2019t have the value system of God in my heart, if the Holy Spirit is not within me, then what in the world is going to hold my hand back from looting, theft, violence, and mayhem.\u00a0 The answer is the threat of punishment, in this case punishment coming from the government.\u00a0 If I will not be constrained by the Bible then I will at least be constrained by the bayonet, in other words.\u00a0 I will be so fearful of punishment that I will keep my hand back from evil activities.\n\nNow there are many times in my life that I want to sail on into work at about 80 miles an hour but I don\u2019t do that.\u00a0 And I can assure you I make a decision not to do it out of the goodness of my own heart because I\u2019m such a wonderful person but I am scared of the officer with the radar gun who is going to clock me at going 80 miles an hour and give me a ticket that I can\u2019t afford and increase my insurance which I have a hard time affording anyway in terms of the premiums.\u00a0 So we, in essence, are held back from a Hamas, a pre-flood state through the threat of punishment, and this is why God created the institution of human government and He actually vested the government with the sword or the power to execute murderers.\n\nThis is not my personal political belief, this is what the Bible clearly teaches; this is what the Bible says.\u00a0 And many people challenge this idea of deterrence; I mean, does this really work?\u00a0\u00a0 In other words, if you execute murderers will other murderers stop from murdering other people.\u00a0 And they have big debates on this.\u00a0 In fact the issue to God is not debatable at all; Deuteronomy 13:10-11 in the nation of Israel says this:\u00a0 \u201cSo you shall stone him to death\u201d that\u2019s a reference there to someone that has violated God\u2019s law, \u201cstone him\u201d is not what they do in Colorado; \u201cstone him to death\u201d is actually having literal stones thrown at the individual.\u00a0 And then it says in Deuteronomy 13:11, \u201cThen all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such a wicked thing among you.\u201d\n\nGod understands the wickedness of the human heart and He understands what we would do if that threat of punishment were somehow avoided or [can't understand word]\u00a0 and He knows that our hearts would be given to unprecedented evil if no punishment existed.\u00a0 People ask the question, would you rather have no government or a bad government?\u00a0 Would you rather have no government or a corrupt government?\u00a0 And any day of the week I will pick the latter; I will pick a corrupt government over no government because if there is no government what you will have is Hamas<\/em> again spreading throughout the earth, Genesis 6:11.\u00a0 [Genesis 6:11, \u201cNow the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence\u201d]\n\nThe book of Ecclesiastes chapter 8 and verse 11 says this: \u201cBecause the sentence against an evil dead is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to evil.\u201d\u00a0 What the book of Ecclesiastes is promoting is a rapid punishment for crime, particularly murder.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what will instill fear in the heart of a sinful human being and keep their hand back from a murderous deed or action.\n\nI haven\u2019t looked into this for a while but the last time I looked into it there is about ten years between a person committing a murder and actual execution of that murderer or average.\u00a0\u00a0 Your average murderer on death row had access to about ten appeals.\u00a0 And so when people challenge this idea of deterrence, does deterrence really work, we have to keep in mind that many times in our country we are not executing rapidly and quickly like the book of Ecclesiastes tells us to do.\n\nNow I\u2019ll tell you something about capital punishment and this is sort of politically incorrect for me to say this, but capital punishment works every time it\u2019s tried.\u00a0 Every time it\u2019s tried it works.\u00a0 Now why would I say that?\u00a0 Because if someone has committed murder and they are executed rightfully by the state after being given full access to the court system, then they will never commit murder again.\u00a0 How does a dead man commit murder again.\u00a0 And there are many instances of people who have been in prison and murdered others in prison, or escaped and murdered others.\u00a0 We actually had a case in California where the [can't understand word] was fairly still well connected to the outside world and he was actually plotting his next murder from his jail cell.\u00a0 And you see, capital punishment, if rightly implemented, does away with this and it has a tendency to bring peace and harmony to the world and hold back the evil that is naturally in human beings.\n\nI remember a case in the 1990\u2019s of Karla Faye Tucker, anybody remember that case?\u00a0 She was an individual on death row, she received Christ, she became born again and it was so interesting to me to watch the whole Christian community rise up, not all of them, but many of them saying she ought to be released from death row because after all she is now a born again Christian. I was of the position that she should not be released from death row and the reason I believe that is because of Genesis chapter 9 and verse 6.\u00a0 [Genesis 9:6, \u201cWhoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.\u201d]\u00a0 She is still subject to this principle of capital punishment even if she did receive Christ after the fact.\u00a0 I\u2019m happy she received Christ, I\u2019m happy that she is in heaven today but let me tell you something about God; the blood of Jesus Christ only removes the eternal consequences of our sins, which is hell.\u00a0 The temporal consequences of our sins we must still pay for to a certain extent.\u00a0 For example, if I am an alcoholic and I abuse my body and I abuse my liver and then suddenly I get saved and become a Christian, praise the Lord I\u2019m headed to heaven but that doesn\u2019t mean I get a new liver; I am still reaping the consequences of the bad seed that I have sown in my pre-Christian era.\n\nAnd so this is what we would call the institution of capital punishment.\u00a0 I believe it is a biblical teaching; if I did not believe it was a biblical teaching I would not embrace it.\u00a0 And it begins with an understanding of the Noahic Covenant and what God was trying to curb in the post flood world.\n\nNow many people say well, you\u2019re building your case from the Old Testament; I thought we were not under the Old Testament law any longer.\u00a0 And what we need to start understanding by way of response is the difference between the covenant that God made with Noah and the covenants that God made with the nation of Israel.\u00a0 The covenants that God made with the nation of Israel were given only to the nation of Israel but the covenant that God made with Noah is different; it is a covenant that God made with the whole world and it\u2019s still binding today.\n\nLet me just show you this, if I could, I have a chart that helps us, perhaps you can read it.\u00a0 Understand the difference between the Noahic covenant on one end of the stick and the covenants that God made with Israel on the other end of the stick.\u00a0 We have the Noahic Covenant, the one we just read about in Genesis 9.\u00a0 Later on God entered into a covenant with Abram, who through Abram would come the Jewish race, called the Abrahamic Covenant, and later on He added some details to His dealings with Israel through the covenant that He made with Moses at Mt. Sinai.\n\nThe human agent in the Noahic Covenant is Noah; the human agent in the Abrahamic Covenant is Abraham; the human agent in the Mosaic Covenant is Moses.\u00a0 Those are the people that God worked with in these different covenants.\n\nThe covenant with Noah is given in Genesis 8 and 9.\u00a0 The covenant that God made with Abraham is given in Genesis 12 through17.\u00a0 The covenant that God made with Moses is given in Exodus 19 through 40.\u00a0 Now what you\u2019ll discover in all of these covenants is a very important Hebrew word called berith<\/em>, in fact, notice, if you will, Genesis 9:9, it\u2019s a very significant word.\u00a0 It says in Genesis 9:9 regarding the Noahic Covenant, \u201cNow behold, I Myself do establish My covenant\u201d now you might want to underline that because that\u2019s the Hebrew word, berith<\/em>, \u201cMy covenant with you, and with your descendants after you;\u201d\u00a0 When God enters into a covenant God is, in essence, entering into a binding contractual agreement.\u00a0 And here God is entering into a binding contractual agreement with Noah and the whole human race in what is called the institution of human government.\n\nThat same Hebrew word is\u00a0 used to describe His covenant with Abraham, Genesis 15:18.\u00a0 [Genesis 15:18, \u201cOn that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, \u2018To your descendants I have given this land, From the river of Egypt as far as the great river, the river Euphrates:\u2019\u201d\u00a0 That same Hebrew word is used to describe God\u2019s covenant with Moses in Exodus 19:5.\u00a0 [Exodus 19:5, \u201c'Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine.\u201d]\n\nThe parties in the Noahic Covenant are God and the world, God and humanity.\u00a0 His covenant with Abraham, on the other hand, is a covenant between God and the nation of Israel.\u00a0 And same with His covenant with Moses, it\u2019s between God and the Jewish people.\u00a0 The covenant that He made with Noah is pre-Israel; it\u2019s before God ever called Abram from the Ur of the Chaldeans and began to give him promises and through these promises would come the Jewish nation.\u00a0 But the covenant with Abraham, the covenant with Moses are post Israel covenants. So the Noahic Covenant, the covenant with Noah is pre-Israel.\u00a0 The covenant with Abraham and Moses are post-Israel.\n\nHere\u2019s a little bit more on this.\u00a0 There\u2019s a difference in the Bible between a conditional covenant and an unconditional covenant.\u00a0 A conditional covenant means God will act if someone does something first.\u00a0 You fulfill your part then God will do His part.\u00a0 An unconditional covenant means that God is going to act no matter what the other party does.\u00a0 So the covenant with Noah is unconditional; it\u2019s simply stating what God is going to do as He has contractually bound Himself.\u00a0 The covenant with Abraham is unconditional, this is a little bit tricky, but the covenant with Moses is conditional.\n\nLet me explain that a little bit more.\u00a0 The covenant that God gave to Noah involved three promises: no more flood judgments, the earth is going to endure until God destroys it, you find all of this in Genesis 8 and Genesis 9.\u00a0 And the institution of human government comes into existence with the power to execute murderers, Genesis 9:6.\u00a0 Those are unconditional things that God has obligated Himself to do through human government.\n\nThe covenant with Abraham, on the other hand, is specifically to the Jewish people and it gives them ownership forever of three things; land, seed and blessing.\u00a0 The covenant with Moses given at Sinai, on the other hand, is conditional.\u00a0 The Abrahamic is unconditional; the Mosaic Covenant is conditional.\u00a0 And what it is simply saying is this: for any generation of Jews to enjoy what they own, to enter into their blessings they must fulfill their obligation under the Mosaic Covenant which is to enthrone Christ on His terms.\n\nThis is why the nation of Israel today is the owner of land, seed and blessing, given through the Abrahamic Covenant but they are not yet enjoying in fullness those blessings because they have not enthroned Christ as their Messiah.\u00a0 They have not fulfilled the condition in the Mosaic Covenant\u00a0 And even though today the nation of Israel has been regathered to the Middle East what they possess today is quite minor and quite small in comparison to what they will possess one day, once they enthrone Christ.\n\nNow every covenant has a sign.\u00a0 The Noahic Covenant, what\u2019s the sign?\u00a0 The rainbow.\u00a0 The Abrahamic Covenant, what\u2019s the sign?\u00a0 Circumcision, Genesis 17.\u00a0 The Mosaic Covenant, what\u2019s the sign?\u00a0 It\u2019s the Sabbath.\u00a0 And all of these covenants are designed to accomplish different purposes.\u00a0 God gave the Noahic Covenant, as we spoke of earlier, to restrain evil and preserve society and the world from the innate sin nature of human beings.\u00a0 So the Noahic Covenant is what I would call an preservative that God built into the human race to keep it in perpetuating itself and not destroying itself.\u00a0 But you see, the Abrahamic Covenant and the Mosaic Covenant are different.\u00a0 Those are not to restrain and preserve, those are redemptive covenants.\u00a0 Through that covenant structure would come the Messiah who would pay the price for the sins of the world.\n\nNow what am I trying to say with all of this; what\u2019s the bottom line?\u00a0 BLT, Bottom Line Time as I like to call it.\u00a0 Is the Noahic Covenant binding today?\u00a0 Yes it is.\u00a0 Is the Abrahamic Covenant binding today directly on us as a church?\u00a0 No it\u2019s not.\u00a0 We have received a lot of blessings indirectly from the Abrahamic Covenant but it\u2019s important to understand that we were never parties to that covenant.\u00a0 We would be what the legal system calls a third party beneficiary where two people enter into a covenant and someone else that\u2019s not even a party is blessed as a result.\u00a0 It would be like me driving in here and I see\u00a0 your car is very dirty, it needs a wash, so I enter into a covenant with Eric and I say Eric, that car out there looks so bad, I\u2019m going to pay you money and you\u2019re going to wash their car.\u00a0 So who are the parties to the covenant?\u00a0 Eric and myself.\u00a0 The party with the dirty car, they may not even know we entered into a covenant but they benefit from the covenant.\u00a0 So the Abrahamic Covenant we benefit from but we were never direct parties to, as members of the church, and that\u2019s the same with the Mosaic Covenant.\n\nSo all of this to say that while the Mosaic Covenant and Abrahamic Covenant are not binding directly on us as a church the Noahic Covenant continues on.\u00a0 And I\u2019m simply trying to explain this to help us understand why and Old Testament principle found in Genesis 9:6 continues on until the present time.\n\nNotice, if you will Romans 13:4, I believe Paul is making a reference to the Noahic Covenant.\u00a0 It says this, romans 13:4, speaking of government, \u201cfor it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.\u201d\u00a0 Is it not interesting here in Romans 13:4 that God calls government agents ministers.\u00a0 Why are they ministers?\u00a0 Because they are fulfilling a function in society.\u00a0 What is their function?\u00a0 It is to restrain evil and prevent the world from reverting back to what it was in the pre-flood world.\u00a0 Do you look at government that way, as ministries?\u00a0 Sometimes when we get pulled over by an officer for a speeding ticket we don\u2019t really look at them as ministers; we look at them as irritants.\u00a0 But the Bible teaches that we ought to have respect for government; we ought to pay our taxes, we ought to pray for the institution of human government.\n\nLet me ask you a question; do you pray for those that are in authority over you?\u00a0 The Bible tells you to.\u00a0 And the Bible tells us to do that because they are fulfilling a basic function that God built into the Noahic Covenant.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll also notice here that the government bears the sword; it\u2019s right there in Romans 13:4.\u00a0\u00a0 [Romans 13:4, \u201cfor it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil.\u201d]\n\nWhat do you do with the sword?\u00a0 You do not spank people with swords; you execute people with swords.\u00a0 And thus this becomes the foundation for the whole institution of capital punishment.\u00a0 I\u2019m taking a little time on this because there\u2019s a lot of confusion on it and I want us to understand why this is actually a biblical concept and a biblical idea.\u00a0 And people say well, do you really think that\u2019s still binding today?\u00a0 Let me ask you a question: when\u00a0 you look into the sky, after it rains or while it\u2019s raining what do you see?\u00a0\u00a0 You see a rainbow.\u00a0 In fact in Colorado I saw, probably the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen (this last week) in my entire life, and how the intensity of it grew as it began and it sort of dropped off in intensity but it was still very visible and the intensity grew as it was at its final destination in that ark that a rainbow makes.\u00a0 Every time you see the rainbow which exists today you\u2019re reminded of the Noahic Covenant because God gives covenants with certain signs.\u00a0 And part of the Noahic Covenant is the institution of human government and the beginning of something called capital punishment.\n\nNow some of you are probably asking yourself, and by the way, there\u2019s the covenant that God entered into with Israel, the Abrahamic Covenant, land, seed and blessing which is binding upon Israel but this is quite different than the Noahic Covenant.\u00a0 The Abrahamic Covenant is redemptive; the Noahic Covenant, by contrast, is there to restrain evil and preserve society.\n\nNow some of you are probably asking yourselves, well wait a minute, didn\u2019t\u00a0 you last week tell us that abortion is wrong?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t you tell us that we should be pro-life in our viewpoint.\u00a0 How can you support the sanctity of life for the unborn but at the same time advocate capital punishment which takes away life.\u00a0 And the answer to that is very simple, it\u2019s just a basic distinction between the two.\u00a0 In abortion we\u2019re dealing with the unborn; with capital punishment you\u2019re dealing with someone that\u2019s already born.\u00a0 With abortion you\u2019re dealing with a person in their mother\u2019s womb who has never committed a crime.\u00a0 With capital punishment, by contrast, you\u2019re dealing with someone who has been convicted of a crime, convicted of murder.\u00a0 In abortion the unborn child has never been tried by a jury of its peers, but in capital punishment you\u2019re dealing with people that have been tried by a jury of their peers, they\u2019ve been found guilty of murder.\u00a0 With abortion the innocent unborn child, although that unborn child has a sin nature they have committed no crime, they are innocent in that sense.\u00a0 But with capital punishment you\u2019re dealing with someone that has already committed a heinous crime.\n\nSo all of this to say that one of the questions I always like to figure out when I\u2019m trying to figure out who I\u2019m going to vote for and not vote for is I want to know what that candidate believes about the institution of capital punishment, because there\u2019s an awful lot of people out there that want to abolish capital punishment.\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing to fix capital punishment, to perfect capital punishment, to make sure that capital punishment is applied equally and fairly and justly.\u00a0 It\u2019s one thing to fix problems in the system; it\u2019s a totally different matter to come out and say I\u2019m against capital punishment and I\u2019m going to abolish it because the moment someone speaks against capital punishment, the institution of it itself, is the moment they are verbally attacking or criticizing something that God as established, something that God has ordained.\u00a0 So question number four, does the candidate advocate or do they want to abolish the institution of capital punishment.\u00a0 Now if you think that is controversial wait till we get to number 5.\n\nNumber 5, will the candidate support the legal right of communities to restrict the use of alcohol, pornography and gambling from their neighborhoods, schools, homes, children and churches.\u00a0 Take a look, if you could, at the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 5, verses 21-22.\u00a0 Will the candidate support the legal right of communities to restrict the use of alcohol, pornography, and gambling from their neighborhoods, schools, homes, children and churches.\n\nI\u2019m a little bit biased on this subject of alcohol; part of my bias comes from the fact that I had an uncle who started his drinking about 11:00 every morning and literally drank himself right into the grave.\u00a0 And I understand the argument that social drinking is acceptable at times; I am fully versed in the argument that Jesus turned water into wine in His first public ceremony, I don\u2019t think it was grape juice that He created there, I think it was wine.\u00a0 I think there is a place for social drinking.\u00a0 But at the same time the Bible is very clear that we are not to put our self under the influence of a power that\u2019s greater than the Holy Spirit.\n\nThe book of Ephesians, chapter 5 and verse 18 says, \u201cAnd do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be\u201d instead, rather, \u201cbut be filled with the Holy Spirit.\u201d\u00a0 And what do I mean here when I talk about gambling?\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about what I would call games of chance, games that you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than winning.\u00a0 The Bible doesn\u2019t have a lot of good things to say about these kind of games of chance.\u00a0 It says in Proverbs 13:11, \u201cWealth obtained by fraud dwindles, But the one who gathers by labor increases it.\u201d\u00a0 And what do I mean here by \u201cgames of chance.\u201d\u00a0 You know, in California we had what\u2019s called the lottery; the purpose of the lottery, we were told, was to help the schools.\u00a0 So in other words, let\u2019s institute gambling, a game of chance, to help the public schools.\u00a0 Quite frankly, as a Biblicist if you want to help the public schools I\u2019d just rather be taxed for that rather than attach it to a game of chance because the last time I checked taxation is biblical.\u00a0 \u201cRender unto Caesar that which is Caesar\u2019s.\u201d \u00a0Gambling, on the other hand, is not biblical.\u00a0 [Matthew 22:21, \u201c\u2026 Then He said to them, \u2018Then render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's; and to God the things that are God\u2019s.\u2019\u201d]\n\nAnd what do I mean by pornography?\u00a0 Notice Matthew 5:27-28, it says, \u201cYou have heard that it was said, \u2018YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY\u2019;\u00a0 [28] but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.\u201d\u00a0 We can commit sexual sins that are, in God\u2019s mind, akin to physical adultery just by allowing our minds to go down a sexually charged prurient direction.\u00a0 When someone is looking at pornography and they are married they are violating the oath of marriage to be faithful to their spouse until their dying day.\u00a0 America, as you probably know, is one of the greatest exporters of pornography all over the world.\u00a0 Pornography has become, if not a multimillion dollar business, it is a multibillion dollar business.\u00a0 Pornography has destroyed, I believe, more marriages than any other single thing.\n\nWhy would I say that?\u00a0 Because it forces an individual to create a standard for their wife or their husband, sexually, which is unreasonable.\u00a0\u00a0 You look at somebody in pornography, whether it\u2019s a man or a woman and you see a picture of them which is picture perfect.\u00a0 They have no blemishes, they have no wrinkles, they have no gray hair, there\u2019s no sign of aging.\u00a0 And let me let you in on a little secret; by the time that model leaves that studio she (or he for that matter) doesn\u2019t even look like that picture either, because what they do is they go in and they airbrush, through modern artistry and graphics, and airbrush and make that body to be something that is picture perfect, in fact, too perfect.\u00a0 And so then you have the sexual relationship with your spouse within marriage and you expect your spouse to compete to that standard.\u00a0 And consequently we can become, through observing pornography, sexually dissatisfied with the spouse that God gave us.\u00a0 You\u2019re asking her, or you\u2019re asking him to compete at a physical level with something that is impossible, with something that is unreasonable and this destroys the marital bed, it destroys the marital relationship, it destroys the sexual satisfaction that God has designed for the marriage bed.\n\nAnd people, all of the time say this, well, what you look at really doesn\u2019t affect your behavior. Let me ask you a simple question: if that were true why does Madison Avenue, through marketing, spend millions and millions and millions of dollars on marketing and advertisements if it weren\u2019t true that what you watched somehow influenced behavior. They spend all of this money on marketing because they know that you watch, or what we watch and observe is going to influence buying patterns.\u00a0 And so pornography influences attitudes, it influences behavior.\n\nSome very important studies were done on this years ago, they\u2019ve been updated by other studies, called the Donnerstein <\/em>studies and they took some individuals and they segregated them into separate groups, I believe it was about three groups, and one group they exposed for about the course of a week, mild pornography; the second group they exposed for about the course of a week a heavier dose of pornography, and the third group they exposed for about the same length of time, what we would call very, very intense pornography, they were watching it all week long.\u00a0 And they did a survey after the fact and asked each group member some basic worldview questions.\u00a0 Are women sex objects?\u00a0 Is divorce and remarriage acceptable, common or normal.\u00a0 Is it okay to have a sexual relationship outside of marriage?\u00a0 Is adultery okay?\u00a0 Is adultery acceptable?\u00a0\u00a0 How frequent do individuals commit adultery?\u00a0 What about rape?\u00a0 If a woman is raped who\u2019s at fault?\u00a0 Is the man at fault or was the woman (quote) \u201casking for it?\u201d (close quote)\u00a0 What about group sex?\u00a0 What about bestiality, is that okay and is that common?\n\nAnd you know how these studies came out; the group that had been exposed to a milder form of pornography basically gave answers that weren\u2019t good but they were less likely to look at women as sex objects; they were less likely to think divorce and remarriage was common and normal; they were less likely to think that sex outside of marriage was okay.\u00a0 They were less likely to think that adultery is okay.\u00a0 They were less likely to blame a woman if she got raped.\u00a0 They were less likely to think that group sex and bestiality was okay.\n\nBut the answers got worse with the middle group.\u00a0 They took a negative turn.\u00a0 And then with the third group they gave terrible answers to all of those questions that I posed.\u00a0 Women are sex objects.\u00a0 Divorce and remarriage is common and normal and okay.\u00a0 Sex between unmarried couples is normal and common and okay.\u00a0 Adultery, no big deal with that, it\u2019s okay.\u00a0 Rape, usually it\u2019s the man\u2019s fault but sometimes they would say it\u2019s the woman\u2019s fault.\u00a0 Group sex, bestiality, those things are common and okay as well.\n\nAnd what these studies categorically showed is that pornography alters a person\u2019s worldview.\u00a0 We, by way of common sense, understand that or else, as I mentioned before why would Madison Avenue spend the money that they spend on commercials if commercials did not somehow influence our buying behavior.\n\nNow you might say to yourself, well wait a minute, Andy, come on, there\u2019s a First Amendment in this country.\u00a0 Don\u2019t you understand that we live in America and you can export pornography wherever you want to export it?\u00a0 You can put it on any channel you want to put it on.\u00a0 And I would say simply that that is not true.\u00a0 The Supreme Court has ruled that obscenity and pornography is NOT protected under the First Amendment.\u00a0 In fact, there\u2019s a case called Miller versus California going all the way back to about 1973, and in that court case the jurists developed a definition of pornography.\u00a0 And they said that pornography is outside the protection of the First Amendment.\u00a0 It\u2019s pornographic, the Supreme Court said, if it lacks serious artistic literary or political value; it\u2019s pornographic if it appeals wo that they called [can't understand word] or sexual interest, and it\u2019s pornographic if it violates a common well defined State Statue.\n\nAnd the reason I bring this up is when you get into the subject of pornography what people ask over and over and over again is can it be stopped.\u00a0 Can it be regulated?\u00a0 Can I prevent the people that run the media from pumping filth into my living room.\u00a0 And the answer is it can be regulated, it\u2019s just a matter of political will to do it.\u00a0 And we\u2019re living in what I would call the pornification of American culture, where almost everywhere you look there is some sort of image that\u2019s designed to arouse individual sexually.\u00a0 I mean, you can\u2019t even get through the commercials any more without blushing.\u00a0 I can\u2019t even sit and watch the Super bowl with my daughter because I know the commercials are coming and I also know that the half time show is always pushing the limit and making things more and more risqu\u00e9.\n\nAnd let me tell you where America is headed; we are headed the exact direction of the Canaanites.\u00a0 The Canaanites were a generation and a society that God destroyed through the hand of Joshua and if you want to understand why God was so upset with the Canaanites, read Leviticus 18; it\u2019s a description of the horrific practices of bestiality, group sex, adultery, fornication, that that society was caught up in for about 400 years.\u00a0 And I\u2019ll tell you something else; the archeological remains of that society have been unearthed and what has been discovered is these pornographic images all over and the worship of certain deities on the basis of their sex organs, that type of imagery has been found all over.\n\nAnd I look at the direction of our country, I look at the direction of our nation, I look at the righteous and holy standard of God against sexual perversion and I want to know something if I\u2019m going to vote for a candidate: what do you believe about these things. Do you believe that these things can actually be regulated?\u00a0 Will you keep this stench and this filth away from my church, my family, my daughter and my house?\u00a0 A basic question to ask.\n\nAnd you say well, gee, Andy, you must be some kind of prude to talk like this.\u00a0 Let me tell you something about sexuality; sexuality is authored by God.\u00a0 If you don\u2019t believe me read the Song of Solomon.\u00a0 People say well, sexuality is just there to procreate.\u00a0 No it\u2019s not, sexuality is there as a beautiful statement of physical intimacy between husband and wife within the context of life-long marriage.\u00a0 Sexuality is something that God Himself embraced, endorsed, created, and as you study the Song of Solomon you will not see one reference to a child.\u00a0 I say that because many people say sexuality is just there to procreate, to produce children.\u00a0 No it\u2019s not!\u00a0 It\u2019s there as a beautiful level of intimacy between a husband and a wife.\u00a0 God id the author of it, it is the gift of God, God gave it.\n\nBut let me tell you something about God.\u00a0 God hates it when we invent our own rules, when we develop our own standards, when we take the sexual energy that He has given us and we channel it the wrong way.\u00a0 That\u2019s what pornography does, that\u2019s what adultery does, that\u2019s what all of these things such as the Canaanites were doing and God is against that.\n\nWould you not say that God who created the rules knows what\u2019s best for us?\u00a0 Is it not true that God, who created the rules, knows how the sexual experience is going to be optimized within marriage.\u00a0 He knows what will damage us given the power of sexuality.\u00a0 He knows what can hurt us. He knows what can destroy us and that\u2019s why the Creator, who gave us sexuality, gives us specific rules to follow as we express ourselves sexually.\n\nI am astonished at some of the discussions that we\u2019re having today.\u00a0 I\u2019m astonished at the word l-g-b-t-q, I didn\u2019t know what the q stood for.\u00a0 Do you know what the q stands for?\u00a0 It stands for questioning\u2026 questioning.\u00a0 Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transsexual and then we have to throw the Q on there because a lot of people are uncertain about their sexuality.\u00a0 We\u2019re entering a time period which to me is so reminiscent of the Canaanites just prior to judgment.\n\nAnd I don\u2019t mean to go on and on about this but it\u2019s a subject that we have to understand as Christians.\u00a0 It\u2019s a very serious matter and I want to know what a candidate thinks about that.\u00a0 I want to know what his or her standards are.\u00a0 I want to know what they\u2019re going to do working within the legal system to curb these pernicious influences.\n\nWell, I was going to move on to number six, which I won\u2019t get into because the clock is running out of time, because this one may be a sermon in and of itself; you actually got two sermons today, one on capital punishment, one on pornography, and assuming anybody comes back to church next week we\u2019ll take a look at the subject of parental authority over children.\u00a0 Who governs children?\u00a0 The school board?\u00a0 The school district?\u00a0 Or the parents. And what does God\u2019s Word have to say about it.\n\nIf there\u2019s anybody here that may be unfamiliar with how to have a relationship with God, you may be sitting here under guilt and condemnation because you say I\u2019ve committed all of these sins.\u00a0 We have very good news for you, Jesus did the hard work, He bridged eternity, He stepped out of eternity into time and absorbed the wrath of a holy God for all of our sins.\u00a0 And He gives us an offer and a promise.\u00a0 The offer is believe on Me; believe means to trust, to rely upon, to depend upon.\u00a0 And the moment\u00a0 your personal trust is in Christ He gives you a promise.\u00a0 What is that promise?\u00a0 That you have the gift of eternal life, your sins are forgiven and should you die today, should you die tonight, should you die next week that your soul would immediately go into the presence of the Lord.\u00a0 Becoming a Christian is not a ten step program or a twelve step program, it\u2019s a one step program where the Spirit places you under conviction and you place your personal faith in Jesus Christ.\u00a0 It\u2019s something you can do right now without raising a hand, walking an aisle, joining a church, pledging to give money.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of privacy between you and the Lord where the Lord places you under conviction and you respond by way of faith in the privacy of your own mind and in the privacy of your own heart, and you receive that gift of eternal life.\u00a0 It\u2019s something you can do right now as I\u2019m talking.\u00a0 If it\u2019s something you are doing then on the authority of the wo you have just changed your entire destiny.\u00a0 If it\u2019s something that you have further questions on I\u2019m availabel after the service to talk\u00a0 Shall we pray.\n\nFather, I pray that You will be with us during this difficult series in a culture that\u2019s politically confused, sexually confused.\u00a0 I pray Father that somehow in Your providence You would use this series to give us clarity in our minds concerning not our own standards but Your standards.\u00a0 And help us, Father, to live out Your standards of sexual purity and help us to bring these blessings of the standard of sexual purity to a lost sinner in a dying world.\u00a0 Help us, Father, in the midst of the perversion that we live within, help us to stand out as lights as we call for a certain standard and direct others to the right path.\u00a0 We\u2019ll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory.\u00a0 We ask these things in Jesus\u2019 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