The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - “He Will Save His People From Their Sins”

00:00:00.000 This morning we continue with our series through the book of Matthew.

00:00:04.500 If you're joining us for the first time, the Steady Diet here at Covenant Bible Church

00:00:08.860 is expository preaching through whole books of the Bible, starting at the beginning,

00:00:13.300 working towards the end, taking a few verses each week as the primary text for the sermon

00:00:18.560 that Lord's Day. We have most recently done this with the book of Joshua and then the book of Ezra,

00:00:24.440 And by God's grace, we're going to now work through a New Testament gospel, namely the gospel according to Matthew.

00:00:32.420 And so this is our second week now. We began last week with the genealogy of Christ.

00:00:37.980 And this week we're going to be looking at the latter half of the first chapter of Matthew, which is Matthew chapter one, verses 18 through 25.

00:00:46.020 Again, that's Matthew chapter one, verse 18 through 25.

00:00:49.660 I'll read our text in its entirety. When I finish reading the text, I'm going to say this is the word of the Lord.

00:00:54.080 at which point I'd appreciate very much if you would respond by saying thanks be to God.

00:00:59.420 One final time, our text for today is Matthew chapter 1, verses 18 through 25. The Bible says

00:01:05.420 this. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed

00:01:12.180 to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

00:01:17.420 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame,

00:01:22.080 resolved to divorce her quietly but as he considered these things behold an angel of the

00:01:30.020 Lord appeared to him in a dream saying Joseph son of David do not fear to take Mary as your wife

00:01:38.100 for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit she will bear a son and you shall call his

00:01:44.080 name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins all this took place to fulfill what the Lord

00:01:50.980 had spoken by the prophet behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his

00:01:57.700 name Emmanuel which means God with us when Joseph woke from sleep he did as the angel of the Lord

00:02:04.780 commanded him he took his wife but knew her not until she had given birth to a son and he called

00:02:11.700 his name Jesus this is the word of the Lord all right please be seated let's begin so there's four

00:02:19.520 primary points that I would like to draw out from the text today, namely focusing our attention.

00:02:26.900 We're looking at verses 18 through 25, but we'll focus the lion's share of our attention on verses

00:02:32.240 18, 19, 20, and 21. So one key point from each of these four verses. In verse 18, the first thing

00:02:39.880 that I want us to see is the goodness of marriage and fatherhood. Again, that is the goodness of

00:02:45.860 marriage and fatherhood. That Jesus came about in his conception by the Holy Spirit with the virgin

00:02:53.020 Mary. And yet God in his providence did not allow his son, the son of God, Jesus, to be raised

00:03:00.840 by a single parent. Joseph was not needed in terms of conception. And yet God saw fit, even though

00:03:09.020 Jesus, his true ultimate heavenly father, is God the father himself, God still saw fit that his son

00:03:16.340 would have an earthly father, that he would be raised by an earthly father in a two-parent home.

00:03:22.740 So the goodness of marriage and fatherhood. The second point, verse 19 of our text, that I want

00:03:27.500 us to see is the goodness of capital punishment in general and the goodness of mercy in particular.

00:03:34.100 And so I'll do my best to flesh that out from the text, namely verse 19, the goodness of capital punishment in the general sense, but also the goodness of mercy in the specific or particular sense.

00:03:46.920 And then in verse 20, I want us to see from the text the goodness of a royal identity, the goodness of a royal identity.

00:03:56.820 And then lastly, in verse 21 of our text, we'll see the goodness of the Savior.

00:04:01.460 The goodness of Jesus Christ himself in his name.

00:04:05.740 You shall name him, call him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

00:04:11.660 What does that mean, the name Jesus?

00:04:13.500 What does it mean for Jesus to be the Savior?

00:04:16.480 I think there's at least two primary capacities of this saving role of Christ that we see in the text today.

00:04:23.760 So let's begin verse 18 to read it once more so that it's fresh in our minds.

00:04:28.100 The Bible says this.

00:04:29.160 Now the birth of Jesus took place in this way when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph.

00:04:35.620 Before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

00:04:40.560 I'll be using Matthew Henry again as I did last week, the late great Puritan, and his commentary on our text today.

00:04:47.280 He says the following about verse 18.

00:04:50.220 Christ was born of a virgin. 0.99

00:04:52.680 That's true. 0.92

00:04:53.200 and indisputable. Christ was born of a virgin, but it's worth noting he was born of a betrothed

00:05:02.140 virgin for these three reasons. Why is it significant that Christ was conceived by the

00:05:07.820 Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, but she was not merely a virgin, but a betrothed virgin? What is

00:05:13.580 the significance of her being a betrothed virgin? Well, there are at least three key significant

00:05:20.080 points. Number one, to put respect upon the marriage state and to recommend it as honorable

00:05:27.120 among all against that doctrine of devils, Henry says, which forbids one to marry and places

00:05:34.640 perfection in the single state, right? Roman Catholics hardest hit, right? This is a tough one.

00:05:41.140 Tough day to be a Roman Catholic, you know, if this is the text. No, it is not special

00:05:46.920 or privileged or superior or elite to be single for life. God does gift some individuals with

00:05:57.880 the gift of celibacy. First Corinthians chapter 7 is in the Bible. It's there. And you've got to

00:06:03.860 do something with it. The goal of every Christian should be to have no problem passages, right?

00:06:09.240 That there's no particular passage in scripture that the Christian says, I don't know what to do 0.70

00:06:13.520 with that or oh I you know that's that's a cringe verse I'm embarrassed for God no it's not a you

00:06:19.580 know just a little rule of thumb if you are embarrassed by something that God says God is

00:06:26.060 not wrong you are God's not wrong you are and so first Corinthians 7 is in the Bible the apostle

00:06:32.520 Paul he does place a distinct and special sense of honor on the gift of celibacy but here's one

00:06:41.840 of the mistakes that I think modern theologians have made, modern quasi-theologians within

00:06:49.180 evangelicalism, especially those who have a following predominantly of young people in this

00:06:56.200 very recent modern Western era. What they want to do with 1 Corinthians 7 and the teachings of the

00:07:02.740 Apostle Paul is that they want to place the emphasis and the esteem on singleness rather

00:07:10.060 than celibacy. And what I'm saying is that what the Apostle Paul references as a supernatural

00:07:16.540 spiritual gift is not the gift of singleness, but rather the gift of celibacy. Celibacy is a gift

00:07:25.020 that the Spirit of God sovereignly gives to those whom he wills. And it is not the norm,

00:07:32.720 nor should it be the norm. There's some really practical reasons for that. One, it would be the

00:07:39.080 end of the human race. So just, you know, that's kind of how things work. You need marriage. You

00:07:45.360 need children. These are good things that Christians celebrate. And yet there have been multiple times

00:07:52.060 throughout church history where marriage and children have been frowned upon or outright

00:07:58.480 condemned. That they have taken this pseudo over-spiritualized Gnostic kind of position

00:08:06.680 that really what matters is just being single and going into the wilderness

00:08:13.140 and digging a little cave for yourself in the side of a rock

00:08:18.640 and then praying in isolation and fasting until the end of your life.

00:08:25.580 I know that sounds extreme and hyperbolic, but it's not.

00:08:29.500 The Desert Fathers, look it up. 0.91

00:08:32.000 This was a common occurrence, especially in early church history, of this over-spiritualized Gnostic view of Christianity. 0.97

00:08:42.140 When I say that word, I've explained it before, but by God's grace, there's always new people each week. 0.94

00:08:47.960 Gnosticism is a heresy, and it was rightly condemned as a heresy very early on in the early church, within the first and second century.

00:08:57.020 Gnosticism comes from the word gnosis.

00:09:00.520 Gnosis meaning knowledge, but particularly secret knowledge.

00:09:05.920 So the idea of Gnosticism is that there was, well, really what it asserts,

00:09:11.260 at least by way of implication, is it asserts a subtle slander towards the character of God.

00:09:19.600 The slander being this. It asserts that God is holding out on you.

00:09:24.660 that there are deep things of the Lord

00:09:28.200 and that these things are true and wonderful things,

00:09:32.180 things that would be incredibly beneficial for his people

00:09:35.120 if they only knew these things.

00:09:37.060 And yet God has chosen to veil and withhold these things

00:09:42.620 and only reveal them for an elite few.

00:09:47.600 It's only for the elites.

00:09:50.220 Gnosticism, in some sense,

00:09:51.780 It's kind of the the OG elite regime, you know, grid work. Right. You know, George Soros would probably I mean, if he read some of the early guys, heretics on narcissism, he'd be like, yes, they did it.

00:10:06.000 This is it. This is my whole my whole view. You know, that that's I mean, that is his worldview.

00:10:11.260 There's there's, you know, the the the peons. That's you and me. Right.

00:10:16.140 And then there's the guys who are smart enough to know what the world really needs.

00:10:21.520 And those guys can be given the intel, the secret gnosis, the secret knowledge.

00:10:27.300 And then furthermore with Gnosticism, so that's one element at the rudimentary level.

00:10:31.880 It's this secret knowledge that can be attained by the elite.

00:10:34.840 But getting more specific now, what is it that distinguishes the elite from the peanut gallery? 0.50

00:10:42.100 What are the kinds of things that you need to do in order to be enlightened, in order to join this rare minority group of elite Christians that can have access to this higher level of knowledge?

00:10:55.520 Well, in a nutshell, it can be fleshed out in multiple different varieties of ways.

00:11:01.680 But to get to the common denominator, what is required in order to attain this secret higher level of knowledge, according to Gnosticism,

00:11:11.300 is a foregoing of the physical

00:11:14.700 and a despising of the practical

00:11:18.260 and replacing that,

00:11:20.920 substituting that exclusively

00:11:22.740 for those things which are spiritual.

00:11:26.400 Have you ever heard the expression,

00:11:28.960 he's so heavenly bound,

00:11:30.560 he's no earthly good? 0.99

00:11:32.960 Well, that's kind of the Gnostic mantra. 1.00

00:11:36.380 That would be their, 0.53

00:11:38.440 Their, you know, that would be like their pledge of allegiance.

00:11:42.900 Their anthem is being so heavenly minded that there's no earthly good. 0.92

00:11:49.340 And Gnostics, actually, there were, you know, the majority of them, they viewed the body, all of them, viewed the body, the flesh, the physical as actually it was a hindrance. 0.95

00:11:59.820 There was nothing good in the material, physical world.

00:12:03.580 And that pertains not only to the cosmos at large, but to the human body in particular.

00:12:10.760 And so all of them had this view.

00:12:13.100 And then the majority of them, in light of that view, of a very low view of the physical human body,

00:12:19.640 they viewed the body as a prison that was hindering and trapping the soul that was good,

00:12:26.460 the spirit of man that was innately good, but the body was evil.

00:12:30.860 the flesh, sarx, was carnal, but not only carnal in the practical fleshly sense, but evil and

00:12:39.120 sinister. And so the majority of Gnostics would beat down their body, right? Because this is the 0.91

00:12:45.200 prison and the prison needs to be little by little chipped away at so that the spirit, that which is

00:12:51.380 innately good, can eventually be liberated. And so they would beat down the flesh in the negative

00:12:57.800 sense of perpetually fasting. This is where you get some of the desert fathers, but also some of 0.91

00:13:04.260 certain strains of monks within Roman Catholicism that would sleep on slats of wood without any

00:13:12.560 sheets or covers or pillows. And they would have, you know, they would have a little bit of room

00:13:17.420 between the slats of wood in the ground and they would leave, you know, gaps in the wood for a cold

00:13:23.320 breeze. You know, it was optimizing, you know, maximum discomfort. How can I be as uncomfortable

00:13:30.280 physically as possible? Because if I am, if I achieve maximal physical discomfort, then I will

00:13:38.500 be pleasing to the Lord. And so long fast, also flogging themselves in sessions of prayer and

00:13:46.020 petitions and these kinds of isolation from community and going off and being completely

00:13:51.640 alone for sometimes years at a time. But there was a minority of Gnostics that thought, well,

00:13:57.580 if the flesh, they have the same worldview, if the flesh is of no account, if the flesh is ultimately

00:14:04.160 not only of no account, but actually sinister and evil and a prison for the spirit, which needs to

00:14:09.420 be liberated and released. Well, then I could tear down the flesh in the opposite way. And so some of

00:14:16.040 them were gluttons and constantly you know giving themselves to a limitless degree of pleasure 0.97

00:14:22.520 breaking down the body instead of fasting they're like we'll break down the body by overeating 0.98

00:14:27.180 which to be honest if I was going to be a heretic I would prefer that strategy I've got to you know 1.00

00:14:33.680 at least tip the hat to you know to the the gluttonous Gnostics I feel like if you're going 1.00

00:14:38.000 to destroy the body that's a that's a better way to go in my opinion so but either way the common 1.00

00:14:44.520 denominator was no positive view of the physical cosmos that God has made. And it is true that all

00:14:52.760 the world is under the curse of sin because of Adam. It's important that we recognize in the

00:14:59.860 beginning of scripture in Genesis chapter 1 and 2 and in the fall that we find in chapter 3

00:15:04.560 that Adam was the federal head not only for himself and his wife and all their posterity,

00:15:11.580 Not just for humankind, but Adam was the federal head of all the created order.

00:15:17.940 That God gave him authority and dominion over not just his posterity, not just his children,

00:15:23.620 not just mankind, but beasts of the field and the birds of the air and fish of the sea.

00:15:29.660 And that's why, that is precisely why when Adam chose to sin,

00:15:34.520 and when God confronts Adam in his sin, and God is dealing out his just judgments for sin,

00:15:41.400 God curses the serpent.

00:15:44.240 God curses the woman. 0.99

00:15:47.700 And with the woman, there are two particular curses. 1.00

00:15:50.400 One, your pain will be greatly increased in childbearing. 1.00

00:15:54.140 I do believe that there still would have been some sense of pain,

00:15:57.660 even in a prelapsarian, if there had been no fall,

00:16:01.280 some degree of pain for the woman in childbirth.

00:16:03.900 But those pains will now, because of sin, be greatly increased.

00:16:07.340 That was one curse for the woman. 0.95

00:16:08.660 The others, the other curse is your desire will be for your husband, but he shall rule over you.

00:16:16.520 And that word desire in that context of Genesis chapter three is very much the same kind of context that we find just a chapter later in Genesis chapter four, where God confronts Cain.

00:16:27.460 Cain is bothered by the fact that God accepted the sacrifice of his brother Abel, but had rejected Cain's sacrifice.

00:16:34.640 And so Cain is envious and jealous and embittered.

00:16:38.660 And God confronts him and says, Cain, sin is crouching at your door, and, here's the word, it desires to have you, but you instead must have it.

00:16:52.640 Meaning, sin desires to master you, to subdue you, but instead you must master sin.

00:16:59.760 You must rule over your passions.

00:17:02.700 You must have self-mastery.

00:17:05.100 Otherwise, if you are not self-controlled, you will be sin-controlled, flesh-controlled, passions-controlled.

00:17:14.460 So, Genesis chapter 4, sin desires to have you.

00:17:17.680 So what is the meaning of the word desire in that context?

00:17:20.800 Well, it's not sin desires to take you out to a nice seafood dinner with a candlelit table,

00:17:26.520 and it's going to be romantic, and it's going to be sweet and beautiful.

00:17:30.580 No. It's not a good, happy, romantic desire.

00:17:35.100 No, the desire that sin had for Cain

00:17:38.140 was the desire that a lion has for a gazelle.

00:17:43.960 It was the desire to subdue, master, devour.

00:17:49.200 Sin desired to devour Cain.

00:17:51.620 So what does the word desire,

00:17:53.520 now just backing up one chapter to Genesis chapter 3, 0.97

00:17:56.460 this curse that is given to the woman, 1.00

00:17:58.240 twofold, greatly increased pains and childbearing, 1.00

00:18:01.380 but also your desire will be for your husband,

00:18:04.060 but he shall rule over you. 1.00

00:18:06.640 Well, that poor woman 0.99

00:18:07.640 and poor all womankind ever since. 1.00

00:18:11.800 All she wanted 1.00

00:18:13.060 was just a desire for her husband.

00:18:15.840 The word desire, it must mean

00:18:17.820 she just desired a romantic,

00:18:21.400 you know, authentic

00:18:22.380 and deep, loving, compassionate relationship

00:18:25.980 with her husband.

00:18:27.800 But the curse that God dealt out

00:18:29.880 because of sin is that

00:18:31.040 the husband would rule over her.

00:18:32.820 no no no what what god is saying is that the curse is you will desire and what's baked into

00:18:42.740 the word there is the same thing as sin crouching at the door of cain desiring to devour cain

00:18:47.440 you will desire to be insubordinate you will desire to be your husband's head you will desire

00:18:56.380 to be in authority over your husband,

00:18:59.800 but the design and the good created order

00:19:03.380 that existed even before sin entered the world

00:19:05.880 is that your husband would rule over you.

00:19:09.520 Now, is it true that because of sin

00:19:11.280 that the husband can rule in a way that is sinful?

00:19:14.500 That he could be overly domineering

00:19:16.680 in his authority over his wife?

00:19:18.820 Of course. Of course.

00:19:21.560 But the curse, specifically,

00:19:24.100 as it pertained to Eve

00:19:25.580 and all her daughter's sins,

00:19:27.800 the curse, say it like this,

00:19:29.580 as simply as possible.

00:19:31.320 The curse for Eve was not patriarchy. 0.96

00:19:34.640 The curse for Eve is that she wouldn't like patriarchy.

00:19:39.000 That was the curse. 0.98

00:19:40.800 The curse was not male headship. 0.99

00:19:43.780 The curse was the woman's innate disdain 1.00

00:19:47.460 towards male headship. 1.00

00:19:49.980 But for the righteous woman,

00:19:51.340 who has been saved by grace through faith in Christ alone,

00:19:54.900 in justification and is also by the power of the Holy Spirit

00:19:59.160 in His indwelling ministry progressively embracing

00:20:02.260 sanctification, for that woman, the disdain

00:20:06.980 towards male headship and the authority of her husband

00:20:10.280 is removed and instead replaced not by disdain

00:20:15.060 but rather a sweet, sanctified delight.

00:20:19.620 And that patriarchy is viewed as something wonderful.

00:20:22.340 to be accepted with thanksgiving and gratitude,

00:20:26.500 especially when that particular woman

00:20:29.680 in the mercy and kindness of God

00:20:31.580 is given a righteous husband

00:20:33.320 who loves her as Christ loves the church,

00:20:37.200 who is willing to give himself up for her

00:20:39.600 as Christ gave himself up for the church.

00:20:42.480 The righteous woman loves godly biblical patriarchy. 0.99

00:20:48.340 It is the wicked and evil woman 0.94

00:20:50.820 who disdains and despises biblical patriarchy. 1.00

00:20:55.320 Now, the sad thing, though, is that that wicked woman 1.00

00:20:59.020 comprises not most of our society, 1.00

00:21:02.840 but most of the Christian church in 2024. 1.00

00:21:07.780 You don't have to go out of the church to find feminism. 1.00

00:21:11.860 I would argue that, in fact, 1.00

00:21:14.900 one of the easiest contexts to find feminism today 1.00

00:21:18.620 is actually in the church. 1.00

00:21:20.820 Part of the reason why is because those outside of the church, among unbelievers, 0.93

00:21:25.540 they have gone so far progressive, they have so run headlong into sin 1.00

00:21:32.480 and rebellion against God's word and the natural order and the way that God created the world 0.61

00:21:38.680 that, well, for them, feminism doesn't even logically make sense anymore 1.00

00:21:44.920 because, as it was once famously asked, what is a woman? 1.00

00:21:50.820 You can't really have feminism without women. 1.00

00:21:54.520 But the church, evangelicals, because we're conservative, 1.00

00:21:59.060 we at least still believe in women, so feminism still exists. 0.99

00:22:03.460 In the world, feminism has been destroyed by its natural outcome. 1.00

00:22:08.260 The natural outcome of feminism was eventually the eradication. 0.99

00:22:13.280 Not the esteeming of women, but the eradication of women. 1.00

00:22:17.900 Feminism doesn't actually work. 1.00

00:22:20.820 and the world, because it followed the logic to its natural conclusion, 1.00

00:22:25.500 the world is kind of in a sense,

00:22:27.420 I don't know if you've identified this or noticed this,

00:22:30.540 but there's a sense in which the unbelieving culture outside the church

00:22:34.760 has actually moved past feminism.

00:22:38.300 And so there's actually, I think, a fair argument to be made

00:22:41.320 that not only is feminism to be found in the church,

00:22:45.680 it's not just that feminism is in the world and even in the church.

00:22:49.100 No, I would say feminism is actually going away in the world, but it is especially still found in the church.

00:22:56.980 That the church is not, it's not even the church is feminist.

00:23:01.020 It's especially the evangelical church is feminist. 0.96

00:23:05.020 So all that being said, the curse for the woman, the curse for the serpent.

00:23:09.080 But then notice that the final curse that God deals out in chapter three of the book of Genesis,

00:23:15.280 is he then looks at Adam, but he curses the ground.

00:23:22.060 All that was to get back to my original point, which is this.

00:23:25.240 Adam is standing in as federal head, that is representative.

00:23:28.980 Think of federal representatives in a national government, right?

00:23:33.760 There's someone that represents.

00:23:35.400 You don't all just represent yourself.

00:23:37.300 You have designated and hopefully elected representatives of counties and cities and states.

00:23:45.280 Well, Adam was God's chosen representative, not just of mankind, he, his wife, and all their posterity, but all the created order.

00:23:56.200 So that when Adam sinned, even the ground was cursed because of him.

00:24:02.900 Even the ground was cursed because of him.

00:24:06.080 and so in all these things back to the original point in verse 18 and all these things the curse 0.99

00:24:18.120 of even the dirt that work in the same way that i believe women would have had some measure of child

00:24:23.940 of pain in childbirth but the curse is that it would be greatly increased so to work certainly

00:24:29.780 existed before the fall but the curse is not that men will have to work the curse is that

00:24:34.400 men will have to work but there'll be a futility now assigned to his work where the ground is

00:24:39.960 actually working against the man in his work that work would be hard and at times even unnecessarily 0.95

00:24:47.040 hard all these things it's easy for the gnostic to then come in and say well the earth and the

00:24:57.040 created order and even the ground not just mankind but even the ground and the animals

00:25:01.280 everything is under the curse of sin so all the world now is bad it's all sinister it's all

00:25:09.260 not just vain not just shallow but it actually has some kind of innate wickedness attached to it

00:25:17.060 some evil is is attached in a way that it can never be severed from the physical material

00:25:24.420 world. And that's what the Gnostics hopped on board with. That was their idea. And so they 1.00

00:25:31.280 despised the flesh, viewed it as a prison entrapping the soul. They despised not only

00:25:37.080 themselves and their flesh, but the world around them. They despised nature and they despised the

00:25:44.340 natural order as it pertained to, for instance, marriage. And many of them opted for a perpetual

00:25:52.980 singleness, thinking that it was somehow more spiritual and therefore somehow more pleasing

00:25:59.620 to God. That to be married is permissible, perhaps, but it really is a concession.

00:26:08.320 At some level, it's a degree of compromise to get married and have kids. The Lord will allow it.

00:26:15.860 But man, if you really want to please Him,

00:26:18.720 you should have no kids and no spouse, 0.88

00:26:22.660 live in a hole, beat yourself when you pray, 0.99

00:26:26.520 and sleep on slats of wood so that you're uncomfortable at night.

00:26:31.900 And this is how the Lord is truly pleased.

00:26:35.140 And by God's grace, I think that Gnosticism has been thoroughly debunked

00:26:40.880 by the church fathers and the ancients early on within church history.

00:26:44.940 And yet, although the work has theologically been done, the heavy lifting is already there for us.

00:26:51.460 Gnosticism, with each generation, finds new variants and tends to once again rear its ugly head.

00:27:00.060 And we see that, I think, within evangelicalism, especially over the last couple of decades with groups like the Gospel Coalition.

00:27:07.300 And when you think about it, the reason why the Gospel Coalition emphasized and esteemed singleness so, so, so, so, so much was not because they had the correct exegesis of 1 Corinthians chapter 7.

00:27:23.940 Because again, the Apostle Paul does not say that the state of singleness is the gift.

00:27:30.140 The gift is celibacy, which would enable someone to remain single.

00:27:35.940 But singleness is actually a form of suffering.

00:27:39.520 It is.

00:27:40.820 And we should recognize it as such so that we might actually, as a church and as the people of God, brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, have compassion towards those who later in adult life find themselves single.

00:27:54.800 in the same way that you want to go up to someone with cancer

00:27:58.920 and say, congratulations, man, I'm jealous, lucky.

00:28:05.480 That would not be the appropriate response.

00:28:07.880 But rather you would have humility and compassion and concern

00:28:12.040 because you would recognize this illness as suffering.

00:28:17.680 And so too, singleness is suffering.

00:28:21.600 And for many, at least those who are righteous,

00:28:23.720 and have a correct view of Scripture

00:28:27.240 and the goodness of marriage

00:28:29.060 and the goodness of children,

00:28:31.260 it is almost certain that for those individuals,

00:28:34.820 their singleness is not deliberate.

00:28:37.820 It's not something that they would choose.

00:28:40.540 It just happens in the province of God

00:28:42.380 to be their current state.

00:28:44.960 And they are suffering.

00:28:47.680 They are struggling to be content with all things

00:28:51.440 in that state of singleness

00:28:53.360 because they rightly so eagerly desire good and righteous marriage

00:28:59.440 and the blessing of children.

00:29:01.680 The Bible clearly says that it is a blessing.

00:29:05.540 So celibacy is a gift.

00:29:07.660 And then the other gift is not singleness,

00:29:09.560 but what the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7

00:29:12.380 is that the other gift, on the other hand,

00:29:14.480 or the other side of the coin, is marriage.

00:29:17.140 And that everyone receives a gift.

00:29:19.880 Some have received the gift of marriage.

00:29:22.480 And some have received the gift of celibacy, which might allow for the state of singleness, but the state of singleness is a hardship in many regards that must be endured and could rightly be referred to as more of a form of suffering than a gift.

00:29:42.000 But celibacy would be the gift that allows for that state

00:29:45.080 so that even in the midst of a state of singleness,

00:29:47.940 which is a form of suffering,

00:29:49.880 that single Christian might do mighty things

00:29:52.480 for the glory of God in the midst of that state.

00:29:56.120 And that each of us should be content

00:29:58.360 with whatever state the Lord called us to.

00:30:01.320 That's also in the context of 1 Corinthians 7.

00:30:03.840 So that if you come to the Lord in conversion

00:30:06.760 by God's grace and the sovereign work of the Spirit, 0.95

00:30:09.920 and you are married, and perhaps in your case married to an unbeliever,

00:30:16.100 if that unbeliever resolves to remain with you despite your newfound Christian faith,

00:30:22.040 that you too should be willing to remain with your unbelieving spouse. 0.92

00:30:26.540 So the larger context of 1 Corinthians 7 is contentment.

00:30:31.360 In whatever various state of life the Lord sovereignly called you to.

00:30:36.160 So none of it is esteeming singleness as this positive, supernatural, spiritual gift

00:30:44.060 that's somehow more spiritual and superior to the state of marriage.

00:30:51.580 That's a wrong reading of 1 Corinthians 7.

00:30:53.700 But the reason why modern evangelicals like the Gospel Coalition

00:30:57.320 spoke of not the gift of celibacy, but actually the gift of singleness

00:31:01.800 is because they were acclimating to the culture and the times,

00:31:08.580 which much of that, as I've already said,

00:31:10.360 was already seeping into the church and its culture.

00:31:14.380 And so they instinctively knew that many men and women in the church were single,

00:31:23.120 and not just because they were 21 years old,

00:31:25.500 but were single into their 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s. 0.66

00:31:30.920 And so the Gospel Coalition had a brilliant, in terms of business strategy, that was wicked and wrong in terms of Christian obedience, but in terms of raw business strategy, they had a brilliant idea. 1.00

00:31:43.840 They realized, wait a second, women work. 0.90

00:31:48.200 It's not the 1950s anymore. 1.00

00:31:50.320 Women work and single women especially work. 1.00

00:31:53.260 And single women don't have a lot of expenses. 1.00

00:31:55.960 There's not a lot of overhead.

00:31:57.000 And so if single women are in the workforce and they're getting preference over men, which they are, it's a statistical fact you need to recognize that if you're going up for a job interview as a young man and you're competing against a woman who is going up for that same job, you have statistically less of a chance of getting the job. 0.67

00:32:17.480 the wage gap disparity that women are, that is a joke. If you think that women are victimized today,

00:32:25.620 then you just don't know what time it is. You just got to wake up. You have to wake up.

00:32:32.780 There, there is disparity, but the sex that is at, you know, the short end of the stick 0.86

00:32:40.640 is men not women women have every advantage today and that being said that has ultimately made women

00:32:50.440 more depressed more suicidal so i i am very compassionate for the record i think we should

00:32:57.280 have much compassion and concern for women because all these advantages have actually made them less

00:33:04.420 happy but we should be aware of of which way the statistics link and the statistics are not

00:33:11.560 leaning in the favor of the patriarchy to the oppression of the the poor woman that is that

00:33:18.620 is a fantasy land that's like never ever land you know it's it's great if you want to dress up in a

00:33:24.160 costume you know and and pretend but if you want to live in the real world and you know put on your 1.00

00:33:30.300 big boy pants and grow up and be an adult, then you got to drop the narrative of women getting, 0.93

00:33:36.940 you know, getting mistreated. That's not the case. And again, I'm speaking in group dynamics. 1.00

00:33:45.300 We have to be able to speak in categories. So I'm speaking in generalities. That is not to say

00:33:49.060 that there's never an isolated individual case of a woman being mistreated. Of course there is.

00:33:54.600 right in the same way if i said men are stronger physically than women and of course somebody would

00:34:00.860 object and say well i know you know one woman who can out bet bench press you know one man is

00:34:06.120 that wasn't my statement my statement was not that there's never been one woman in the history of all

00:34:11.100 you know humankind that doesn't have more physical strength than one man it's a general truth in

00:34:17.340 general men are stronger physically than women and so too in general in western society in the

00:34:24.180 year of our lord 2024 the deck is rigged against men far more than it is against women and so the

00:34:31.420 gospel coalition knew this they knew women aren't getting married they're foregoing marriage but

00:34:37.800 they are they're not getting husbands but you know what they are getting they're getting jobs

00:34:41.520 and they're getting jobs with a low overhead of expenses right all they have to do is pay for

00:34:47.920 themselves and there's 17 cats but cats are a low cost you know low maintenance kind of animal 0.98

00:34:55.460 and so you know what these women have they have money to give to us and so in came article after 0.99

00:35:02.860 article after article and sermon after sermon and video after video and podcast after podcast 1.00

00:35:08.540 that all anytime they would talk about marriage what kind of language would be used to be

00:35:13.760 are you sure you aren't idolizing your marriage right it was always idolatry it was always the

00:35:21.040 idol of family the idol of patriotism the idol of children the idol of parenthood the idol of

00:35:29.840 healthy eating the idol of working out like basically they took everything that would be

00:35:34.780 good for society and said yeah it is good but actually it could be an idol and then everything

00:35:43.060 that ultimately is not good for society

00:35:45.000 and tried to normalize it.

00:35:50.040 Oh, yeah, well, it's perfectly normal 1.00

00:35:51.960 that 60% of Christian women 0.98

00:35:54.980 in the evangelical church today 0.90

00:35:56.400 would be single at 35.

00:35:59.100 What? 0.59

00:36:01.780 Celibacy is a gift.

00:36:03.260 1 Corinthians 7, C.A., it exists.

00:36:05.480 It's real.

00:36:06.800 But you're not calling celibacy a gift

00:36:08.780 and a gift that God gives rarely.

00:36:11.520 Paul acknowledged that his gift was rare.

00:36:13.540 It was not the norm.

00:36:14.980 Celibacy is a gift,

00:36:15.820 but you're not calling celibacy a gift.

00:36:17.400 You're calling singleness a gift.

00:36:19.160 And more than just a gift,

00:36:20.500 you're calling it the normative gift.

00:36:22.920 The gift that God gives more often than not.

00:36:27.060 And the other side of the coin,

00:36:29.060 the gift of marriage,

00:36:30.200 if you have that gift,

00:36:32.040 you know, we won't say it definitively,

00:36:33.920 but you're probably an idolater.

00:36:36.800 But if you're single, great! 1.00

00:36:40.600 why why was that the strategy for the last 20 years well because those single women gave a lot 0.57

00:36:48.580 of money to the gospel coalition that's why it was a great i mean it was a brilliant you gotta

00:36:54.480 every now and then you know i just i'll look at the gospel coalition and i'm i'm angry but then

00:36:59.080 every now and then i'm like touche i'm impressed and you gotta you gotta give honor where honor

00:37:04.380 do and when it comes to getting money from single women well done well done got hats off so all that

00:37:12.600 being said here's the point notice that in our text today in the very first verse this is not

00:37:19.820 merely the birth of jesus conceived by the holy spirit of a virgin mary who then remained in a

00:37:28.040 state of singleness throughout her life and proved that the patriarchy is a joke and that women can

00:37:35.900 do it. Rosie the Riveter, she was a single mom and proved I don't need a man and raised Jesus 0.87

00:37:42.720 all by herself. No, that is not the story of our Savior. It is not the story of his birth.

00:37:50.900 It is not the story of his childhood, infancy, upbringing.

00:37:57.540 No, God saw fit, and it's not arbitrary or by mere coincidence,

00:38:02.380 but God in the councils of eternity, the Godhead saw fit that by providence,

00:38:09.840 he would see to it that his son in his incarnation, in his human life here on earth,

00:38:16.620 would be raised by an earthly father.

00:38:19.900 and none of that is to discount his mother mary is extraordinary and she deserves honor she does

00:38:29.860 not worship but honor but if we're speaking of those saints of old that deserve honor

00:38:38.020 well so does joseph joseph was an honorable man and it's explicitly said in our text

00:38:44.580 because he was a just and honorable man.

00:38:48.900 He had determined that he would send Mary away quietly

00:38:52.740 instead of publicly.

00:38:55.540 And this is what brings us to the next verse.

00:38:58.800 Verse 19, which says,

00:39:00.100 And her husband Joseph, being a just man

00:39:03.020 and unwilling to put her to shame.

00:39:07.140 So there's two aspects of Joseph,

00:39:09.080 two characteristics being mentioned here.

00:39:10.820 A just man, but also a merciful.

00:39:14.580 man. Joseph, being just but also merciful, that is, unwilling to put her to shame,

00:39:20.460 resolved to divorce her quietly. Matthew Henry, on verse 19, he commentates this.

00:39:28.660 Joseph was not willing to make her a public example. He might have done so. That is to say,

00:39:34.540 it would have been permissible within his rights, his legal rights and lawful rights according to 0.77

00:39:40.460 the law of god to do so for by the law a betrothed virgin if she played the harlot was to be stoned

00:39:47.060 to death that's deuteronomy chapter 22 verses 2 23 and 24 but joseph was not willing to take

00:39:54.860 the advantage of the law against her how different was the spirit which joseph displayed from that

00:40:01.720 of judah remember judah who in a similar case with tamar he hastily passed that severe sentence

00:40:10.140 of capital punishment against her saying, bring her forth and let her be burnt. Genesis chapter

00:40:16.340 38 verse 24. So bringing her to punishment is here called making a public example. Going back to

00:40:24.180 Joseph now. If he were, he did not do this. But if he were to bring Mary to punishment, it here is

00:40:31.680 called making her a public example which shows what is the end or the aim the goal the purpose

00:40:41.420 of punishment it is to be aimed at in punishment which is the giving of warning to others that all

00:40:49.000 may hear and fear to smite the scorner and the simple will be aware so a brief word

00:40:57.920 number one it would have been within joseph's rights to bring mary up on public charges

00:41:04.340 and mary comes to him and he realizes that she is conceived and she says it's supernatural

00:41:13.040 it's the holy spirit and he says yeah right which is a fair response

00:41:20.660 until the angel comes and reveals otherwise but at that moment this is before

00:41:28.080 This is before Joseph is visited by an angel.

00:41:31.620 It's worth noting how honorable of a man Joseph really was.

00:41:36.200 That God, the Heavenly Father, in the ultimate sense, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ,

00:41:41.960 that he saw fit in selecting an earthly father for his son,

00:41:46.780 he didn't pick a deadbeat.

00:41:51.040 He picked an honorable, outstanding man, namely Joseph.

00:41:55.520 before Joseph has supernatural knowledge

00:41:58.680 it being revealed by an angel

00:42:00.280 that indeed Mary is telling the truth

00:42:02.940 that this child is conceived by the Holy Spirit

00:42:05.960 and is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God

00:42:08.740 before Joseph knows any of this

00:42:10.780 he had resolved to divorce her

00:42:13.340 to put her away quietly

00:42:14.960 in order to preserve her public reputation

00:42:18.240 and ultimately to preserve her life

00:42:21.020 because it would have been within lawful means

00:42:25.080 for her to receive capital punishment for the crime, not only sin, but in that case, in that 0.99

00:42:32.220 society, the crime of adultery and promiscuity. But Joseph is merciful. Now, here's the point.

00:42:42.640 We have to be able to speak in categories. I say this regularly. This is the second time now I'm

00:42:48.420 saying it even just today in this sermon. In general, as it pertains to the populace at large,

00:42:55.520 and as it pertains to legal categories within the civil sphere outside of the church,

00:43:02.920 capital punishment for those crimes which merit capital punishment is a good thing. Because the

00:43:10.800 purpose of it, as Matthew Henry says, is so not that everyone would be put to death. That's not

00:43:18.560 the way statistically and historically capital punishment has worked. The way that it has worked

00:43:23.480 is that when capital punishment is on the books and when it's carried out with one, the rest stand

00:43:29.820 in fear. Do you know what happens with capital punishment? Well, everybody commits the crime and

00:43:35.420 everybody dies. No. People see the just penalty for the crime, and people get their act together.

00:43:43.340 People stop committing the crime. It's been said that, you know, eye for an eye, that that mentality

00:43:49.340 leaves the world blind. No. That's foolish. No, eye for an eye, which was said by God, by the way,

00:43:57.720 and God's never wrong. Eye for an eye doesn't leave the world blind. Eye for an eye leaves the world

00:44:04.340 in a state where people stop poking out people's eyes because they don't want to lose their own.

00:44:10.920 Eye for an eye. Here's a crazy thought. It works. The law of God works. Proportional retribution

00:44:18.500 works. Justice should be shown without favoritism. You do not favor the rich, but nor, as the Bible

00:44:27.320 says, shall your eye pity the poor. That's what social justice does. That's what wokeness was all 0.92

00:44:32.640 about is hey you know what we won't show favoritism to the rich although they did in private but

00:44:37.960 publicly will virtue signal by showing favoritism to the poor which means what well if we deem that

00:44:43.680 you're in an oppressed category then you can be a deadbeat you can be a criminal so long as

00:44:50.480 we think that you're poor or you're oppressed or you know someone in your family line was

00:44:57.260 oppressed at some point 200 years ago, then you can be a criminal. But that's not biblical justice.

00:45:04.360 Social justice is antithetical to biblical justice. The reason I'm against social justice

00:45:10.520 is because I love justice. And social justice is injustice. But biblical justice, one of the first

00:45:16.420 characteristics, is that it is blind. Lady justice wears a blindfold for a reason. Right? If you hear 1.00

00:45:23.640 of some story, some police shooting, and you have to figure out what color the police officer was

00:45:29.260 and what color the alleged victim was before determining what was just and right, well then

00:45:35.260 you're not doing justice. You're not. So first, biblical justice, unlike social justice, is

00:45:42.260 impartial. But secondly, biblical justice is swift. It's not delayed. The Bible also says in

00:45:50.760 Deuteronomy that when justice is delayed, then others are spurred on to commit crimes. He got

00:45:56.740 away with it. Maybe I can too. So biblical justice is impartial. It's blind justice, but it's also

00:46:03.560 swift justice. And lastly, it is proportional justice. And that's where we have the concept

00:46:10.140 of what God says. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and a life for a life. That the penalty

00:46:16.060 should fit the crime.

00:46:18.500 So you have an unbiased justice system

00:46:21.600 that does not show favoritism,

00:46:23.060 neither to the rich nor to the poor.

00:46:25.480 It's a swift justice system.

00:46:27.660 It is thorough and fair with witnesses and evidences

00:46:30.820 being clearly laid out so that

00:46:33.060 the person who is being accused,

00:46:37.000 it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt

00:46:39.800 that they truly are guilty of the crime

00:46:41.620 they've been accused of committing.

00:46:43.980 But once that's happened,

00:46:45.420 it happens thoroughly but it also happens as swiftly as possible so it's impartial it's swift

00:46:51.960 and then it's also proportional and this kind of justice what happens when this justice reigns

00:46:58.800 supreme in a land and is upheld in a land is that crime goes down now this is all as it pertains to

00:47:08.440 the civil realm and it would theologically be within the category of the law of god and the law

00:47:13.660 of God is powerless when it comes to regeneration so this doesn't actually change the hearts of

00:47:19.920 the people it doesn't save people in the ultimate eternal sense but what the law of God does do

00:47:26.820 especially as the law of God is accurately reflected and legislated and carried out by

00:47:32.180 the civil magistrate in the land when when the law of the land matches the law of the Lord

00:47:37.500 when the law of the land accurately reflects the law of the Lord what happens is that the law of

00:47:43.140 God saves everyone no but what happens is that the law of God works as a shield and restrains

00:47:48.780 outward manifestations of evil so that at the level of the heart inwardly the individuals are

00:47:54.580 still totally depraved still in need of the gospel still in need of a savior but at least outwardly

00:48:00.640 the world becomes a safer place outward manifestations of evil are on the decline

00:48:06.560 because why because people love Jesus no but because they fear punishment and that is enough

00:48:11.980 incentive to keep outward manifestations of evil at bay but this leads and paves the way for churches

00:48:19.300 to do their job to administer word and sacrament to preach the gospel of free grace that is received

00:48:25.140 by faith in christ alone and when when the civil magistrate executes the law justly another thing

00:48:32.500 that happens is not only does it restrain evil and therefore restrains persecution and and

00:48:37.820 increases and multiplies liberty and freedoms for the church to function at her highest capacity

00:48:43.360 in gospel preaching but also the civil magistrate legislating the law of god righteously

00:48:48.320 begins to tutor the law is not a savior but the law is a tutor what i mean by that is that when

00:48:57.140 the law of god the law of the law of the land accurately reflects the law of god what it does

00:49:02.320 is it informs the population,

00:49:04.980 the people, the citizens,

00:49:06.740 that they actually are sinners

00:49:08.380 and that they're actually in need of a Savior.

00:49:11.800 Today, one of the biggest hurdles

00:49:13.480 that you have to face as a Christian,

00:49:15.220 whenever you do the work of an evangelist,

00:49:17.260 you share your faith,

00:49:18.380 you share the gospel with someone

00:49:19.760 who's an unbeliever,

00:49:20.860 who doesn't know Christ, 1.00

00:49:22.080 here's one of the biggest hurdles

00:49:23.700 that you have to overcome.

00:49:25.840 It's not that they hear the gospel

00:49:27.360 and they say, 0.97

00:49:28.260 that's too good to be true.

00:49:29.440 no the message of the gospel falls on deaf ears today not because people can't believe it because

00:49:36.540 they think it's the god would have grace for sinners that's such good news it's it just seems

00:49:40.220 too good to be true no that is not how unbelievers in america in 2024 respond to the gospel no they

00:49:47.600 respond and and you say god loves you and the response isn't wow that's it that news is so

00:49:54.260 good it's hard for me to believe no they say of course god loves me if anything god would be

00:49:59.220 wicked and unjust not to love me. Of course God loves me. They've been taught their whole lives

00:50:07.460 the importance of self-care, self-esteem. I'm a lion. Hear me roar. I'm worth it. I'm worth it.

00:50:18.060 I deserve this. I deserve that. So the love of God for sinners is not scandalous in the sight

00:50:25.900 of unbelievers today, it's not shocking for them. And part of the reason it's not shocking is

00:50:31.400 because the church has failed in its role of accurate biblical preaching, but also because

00:50:36.300 the civil magistrate has been failing in his role of legislating the law of God, which functions

00:50:42.220 as a tutor. When the laws of the land reflect the law of the Lord, they tutor the people,

00:50:48.080 showing them, wow, I really am a sinner. Wow, I really do need a savior. So all of this is good

00:50:55.140 right. And as it pertained to Joseph in their society at that time, he would have been well

00:50:59.480 within his rights. It would have been lawful in his land. And that was accurate according to

00:51:04.300 the lawfulness of God. It would have been accurate for him to publicly hand over Mary 0.88

00:51:10.400 and for her sin to actually be treated not only as a sin, but a crime. And it could receive up to,

00:51:18.340 as a maximum penalty, capital punishment. It could have cost her her life. And the result

00:51:24.720 of this kind of law and this kind of legislation is not that God is capricious or that he is harsh.

00:51:31.900 It's not that the whole world ends up blind with eye for an eye mentality. No, it actually,

00:51:37.200 if you look at Israel, what happened with all of these different laws is that most people just

00:51:44.180 didn't break these laws. You know, people say, well, the Bible, God is harsh in the Old Testament.

00:51:49.200 The Bible, you can't say that the Bible should be the law of the land today because God said

00:51:53.140 that if a child was disobedient and disrespectful to his father,

00:51:58.120 that he should be put to death. 0.97

00:52:00.140 Okay, but maybe read a few verses before and a few verses after. 0.98

00:52:05.380 What kind of child are we talking about?

00:52:07.280 Are we talking about a toddler has a tantrum,

00:52:10.520 and so then they get capital punishment the next day?

00:52:13.480 No.

00:52:14.600 The child that is in view in the Old Testament when this is said

00:52:18.120 is a child that strikes their father,

00:52:20.460 who is debaucherous.

00:52:23.500 I don't know about you. 1.00

00:52:24.200 I know disobedient Tavos.

00:52:27.160 I don't know any debaucherous Tavos.

00:52:29.500 Debauchery is not just a haphazard word.

00:52:32.340 It has an actual definition.

00:52:33.980 It's specific.

00:52:35.560 And it also describes this child as a drunkard.

00:52:39.240 I don't know a whole lot of three-year-olds

00:52:41.160 who are drunk on a regular basis.

00:52:45.020 Praise God.

00:52:46.160 So who's in view here?

00:52:48.300 This is not a three-year-old who is disobedient.

00:52:50.800 God's harsh saying three-year-olds,

00:52:52.280 if they ever disobey even once,

00:52:53.640 they should get capital punishment.

00:52:55.000 Said the Bible, never.

00:52:56.860 No.

00:52:58.120 What is God saying?

00:52:59.260 He's talking about a grown man

00:53:01.440 who publicly disrespects his father and mother in society

00:53:06.000 and puts them to open shame

00:53:08.400 or strikes his father publicly.

00:53:11.940 That that grown man,

00:53:13.380 and this is the way that case law,

00:53:15.340 this is what we have in the Old Testament,

00:53:16.840 biblical case law,

00:53:17.680 the way the case law works is that capital punishment didn't even in that case didn't

00:53:22.560 have to be dealt out but it could be dealt out it was there as a maximum penalty think of it like

00:53:27.580 this don't mess with texas right you see the signs you know if you litter if you mess with texas

00:53:33.380 you could get a two thousand dollar fine you know and up to two years in prison now i don't know

00:53:38.500 about you i don't have anyone that i personally know right now doing hard time in the state of

00:53:43.460 Texas for throwing a Coke bottle out the window. Do you know anybody's like, you know, six more

00:53:48.980 months to my parole. It's been a, it's been a brutal year and a half. What are you in here for?

00:53:55.200 What, what got you into the, into the tank, into the, you know, what, what, what put you here?

00:54:00.820 Did you murder? Did you steal? I just, I put my candy wrapper outside of the window

00:54:06.320 and that state trooper he got me right that well it's it's on the books it's not you know it's not

00:54:14.700 a joke it is there you could get jail time for throwing a wrapper out the window but nobody does

00:54:21.140 it's a maximum penalty and it's there in many cases for serial offenders or extreme offenders

00:54:29.840 so like you're not throwing a candy wrapper out but like you you are throwing out your trash in

00:54:34.780 the middle of the street by by the the ton and doing so on a weekly basis is for these kinds

00:54:41.740 of cases it's the same thing that uganda recently did a few months back right and all the liberals

00:54:46.980 lost their mind and when i say the liberals i mean evangelical christians but i repeat myself

00:54:51.300 all the christians lost their mind and it made me live it i was angry because all of this pushback 0.61

00:54:58.160 was coming from the church Christians dunking on Uganda thinking like thinking we're cool as we 0.98

00:55:06.640 make fun of Uganda because Uganda had just passed a law that homosexuality could be punished up to 0.73

00:55:14.380 the death penalty and if you just read the law it wasn't like 1500 pages it was like a paragraph

00:55:21.100 all you had to read was a few sentences you would see that it immediately said that capital

00:55:25.000 punishment was the maximum penalty, not the norm, but the maximum penalty for repeat offenders and

00:55:32.220 some extreme cases that I will not mention with children in the room. It was a perfectly just law

00:55:38.140 in other words. Perfectly just law. That Christians should celebrate that righteous law. We should say

00:55:47.340 Uganda, way to go. Can we get some of that over here? Like can we get some laws like that over 1.00

00:55:53.420 here that would be great but instead christians not just not just leftist not just you know the

00:56:00.640 the biden regime or something i'm talking christians and pastors are like this is terrible

00:56:05.560 and this makes christianity look bad yeah to who it makes christian you know who thinks christianity

00:56:11.360 looks bad satan demons democrats i repeat myself but i don't care who cares

00:56:22.620 who cares if if those who hate god think that those who love god look bad didn't jesus promise

00:56:30.260 that that would be the case if they hated me they'll hate you the student's not above the

00:56:34.700 teacher right the the slave is not beyond the master if the world hated me then the world will

00:56:39.620 hate you that's that's always been the case we shouldn't be surprised by that and so all this

00:56:45.480 being said the point is this in a general sense in the civil sphere capital punishment for certain

00:56:52.600 sins which the bible says should also be viewed as crimes capital punishment listed on the books

00:56:58.600 as a maximum penalty not always throwing the book at them but it's there that is actually in general

00:57:05.120 that's a good thing for society did you know back to biblical case off for just one moment in the

00:57:09.880 old testament there's actually only one sin which is also a crime that that must receive capital

00:57:15.420 punishment. And we find that within the Noahic covenant in Genesis chapter 8, 9. With Noah,

00:57:23.040 it's if a man lives by the sword, if he takes a life, so too he forfeits his life. He must be put

00:57:30.280 to death. So when it comes to murder, if you take someone's life, then in that case, the penalty 1.00

00:57:37.620 must be death. It must be death because that's the only penalty that could be proportional for

00:57:45.080 that sin or crime. Life for life. In other lesser crimes, they're still serious and can have

00:57:52.080 destructural, harmful effects on society as a whole. But the death penalty is there as a maximum

00:57:59.260 penalty, but it doesn't require, doesn't necessarily demand the death penalty. It could work up to that

00:58:06.060 for, again, a serial repeat offender or extreme cases. All of this is logical. All of this is

00:58:12.680 legal. And this isn't just, well, that's what Israel did under the old covenant, you know,

00:58:16.760 2,500 years ago. No, that's what America did.

00:58:20.920 We're talking about laws and ways of

00:58:24.820 society functioning together that happened here and that happened

00:58:29.020 recently. Some of these laws were on the books in the state

00:58:32.980 of Oklahoma and the great state, the great republic, Texas,

00:58:36.540 just a few decades ago.

00:58:38.160 so it was not that long ago and spoiler alert if you think well but but society is better today

00:58:48.200 then you're just in the wrong church you must have google maps you know led you astray this

00:58:55.480 morning you made a grave mistake coming to covenant bible church no things are not better

00:59:00.080 things are not better so joseph could have had mary put to death and in general in a legal sense

00:59:06.820 in the civil sphere,

00:59:08.040 this is actually a blessing to society

00:59:09.720 to have certain sins

00:59:11.560 rightly identified

00:59:12.640 not only as sins but as crimes

00:59:14.300 because they're not just degrading

00:59:15.720 to the individual who commits them,

00:59:17.080 but they actually have

00:59:17.960 a negative, destructive effect

00:59:19.320 on society as a whole.

00:59:20.940 Well, whatever happens

00:59:21.720 in the privacy of our bedroom

00:59:22.780 is our business.

00:59:23.840 No, no, here's the problem.

00:59:25.260 What happens in the bedroom

00:59:26.340 turns out it actually affects

00:59:28.300 the whole society.

00:59:30.460 And here's the thing,

00:59:32.280 little trick here,

00:59:34.200 spoiler alert,

00:59:35.280 it doesn't stay in the bedroom. 1.00

00:59:37.580 We just want the same rights as everybody else.

00:59:39.740 No, you don't.

00:59:41.400 You want to shove your way of life down all of our throats. 1.00

00:59:44.800 And you want our kids. 1.00

00:59:47.840 That's what you wanted.

00:59:49.080 And it's not that you changed or got a little cocky along the way.

00:59:52.180 No, it's what you always wanted.

00:59:53.700 It's in their manifesto.

00:59:55.060 A 40-year plan for less than 3% of the population to take over the entire country.

01:00:02.920 To reign in the highest positions of civil leadership.

01:00:06.160 state and federal levels to change laws to change culture to change curriculum and school and all

01:00:13.540 these and here's the thing they won you know part of what gives me hope that we can win

01:00:18.560 and not just win in the bottom of the ninth because of a secret rapture but we could actually

01:00:24.640 win in real human history that we could win in tangible physical ways and we could win in my

01:00:29.580 lifetime if god would be so gracious part of what gives me hope two things number one

01:00:33.480 what God says in His Word

01:00:35.560 and the power of Jesus Christ.

01:00:38.060 Secondly,

01:00:39.280 because the Sodomites won. 1.00

01:00:42.460 If 3% of the population 1.00

01:00:44.200 could literally replace

01:00:45.540 the American flag

01:00:46.480 with a rainbow in 40 years, 1.00

01:00:49.420 then why can Christians

01:00:51.260 not do that?

01:00:53.400 You hear pastors all the time

01:00:54.400 like, well, you know,

01:00:56.000 His kingdom's not of this world

01:00:57.340 and we can't do that.

01:00:58.640 Or if we did do that,

01:00:59.660 first we have to have revival

01:01:00.980 that sweeps the nation

01:01:02.020 and we have to have 50% of the population plus one

01:01:05.320 that have true, regenerate hearts through gospel preaching.

01:01:07.880 No, you don't.

01:01:09.140 3%.

01:01:09.700 3% in the degenerates, they did it.

01:01:16.620 Think of Gideon.

01:01:19.500 Think of David.

01:01:22.260 Think of Joseph.

01:01:23.640 It's not the entire Bible.

01:01:26.580 It's not the entire Bible,

01:01:28.200 just one story after another story after another story

01:01:31.060 of how the people of God in His providence

01:01:34.520 are whittled down

01:01:35.640 to where it's against all odds

01:01:38.680 and then the Lord gives them supernatural victory.

01:01:43.840 The message of the Bible is not

01:01:45.860 that God's team wins

01:01:48.100 because His team is always the biggest and the strongest.

01:01:50.760 That is not the message of Scripture.

01:01:53.980 That's not how the world works.

01:01:56.240 God is all about... 0.53

01:01:58.900 God is, he's all about David and Goliath.

01:02:04.480 That's his MO.

01:02:06.160 He loves it.

01:02:07.760 He loves it.

01:02:08.300 God will, with one hand,

01:02:10.180 he will raise up the most sinister, powerful, strong,

01:02:14.440 seemingly invulnerable, undefeatable enemy

01:02:16.900 that human history has ever seen.

01:02:19.820 And with one hand, he'll raise up this Leviathan.

01:02:23.340 And then with the other hand,

01:02:24.580 he'll take David in a slingshot 0.68

01:02:26.300 and bring it to the ground.

01:02:28.900 That's literally what Paul says in the book of Romans about Pharaoh.

01:02:32.120 Egypt was the superpower of the world at that time, the known world.

01:02:35.440 It was an empire. It was undefeatable. 0.82

01:02:39.100 And what does Paul say? He says, for this reason, God raised up Pharaoh. 0.75

01:02:43.480 So it wasn't just Egypt got this far on their own and then God took them down.

01:02:47.000 No, Egypt couldn't have become that strong apart from God's help.

01:02:49.960 God was literally actively thinking and working, saying, 0.95

01:02:52.620 I need an enemy that is so strong that I get a chance to show off a few of my tricks that I

01:02:58.800 haven't showed off yet. There are certain elements of my power and my redemption that I haven't got

01:03:04.300 to show my people yet. And part of the reason I haven't got to show it, it's like a box in the

01:03:09.220 ring. I can't show you my left hook because you never make it past my right. But I'd like to. So

01:03:15.140 I'm actually with one hand, I'm going to hold you up because you require my power to be powerful

01:03:22.180 enough for me to show off my power and then i'm going to go ahead and wail on you a little bit 0.91

01:03:27.780 that's what god does with goliath that's what he does with pharaoh that's what he does again and

01:03:31.540 again and again and by his grace he could do it with us he could he could so there is a goodness

01:03:37.780 of god's law the law of the lord being the law of the land there's a goodness there the law

01:03:43.100 functions as a tutor the law functions as a shield restrains outward manifestations of evil

01:03:47.880 It protects the church so that the church can do its job, word and sacrament, so that hearts really would be regenerate in God's sovereign plan, according to his timing, however many he determines.

01:03:59.160 And yet, when that's the case, when you have the law of the land reflecting the law of the Lord, then there's something also honorable about an isolated instance of Joseph choosing to be merciful with Mary.

01:04:11.740 So all that was the framework to show you that the headline of the story is the law of the Lord is functioning in this land.

01:04:23.700 And then the footnote of the story is one man named Joseph was a very honorable and merciful man.

01:04:31.060 And he chose to put his betrothed, his fiancee, to put her away privately in order to spare her the death penalty.

01:04:39.000 Now, how do evangelical Christians read that?

01:04:41.400 you know. They don't read it as capital punishment for adultery was good. And God is not arbitrary or

01:04:48.640 capricious or harsh. But in isolation, individual Christians can at times exercise mercy. And that's

01:04:54.680 also honorable and good and right. That's not how they read it. They read right past where it says

01:04:59.960 he was within his rights to do so. They read right past that. And they read Joseph showed mercy.

01:05:06.000 And so not just in individual cases,

01:05:07.820 should we show mercy?

01:05:09.020 No, no, no.

01:05:09.680 As a civil magistrate at a national level,

01:05:12.860 all we should have on the books is mercy.

01:05:15.680 So there is no such thing as crime.

01:05:18.040 And there is no capital punishment for anything.

01:05:20.800 There's really no penalties for anything.

01:05:23.260 And then you start getting signs in front of stores

01:05:25.560 that say, you know, it says,

01:05:28.620 will not be criminalized

01:05:29.880 if you steal less than $1,200 worth of merchandise.

01:05:32.560 Have you seen this in San Francisco?

01:05:35.120 So it's like, you can steal.

01:05:37.440 Just please don't steal too much.

01:05:40.940 And you look at that, and it's like chicken or the egg.

01:05:43.580 Were people lawless, and then we lost our laws?

01:05:47.180 Or did we, in the name of mercy,

01:05:51.080 switch categories between the church and the civil magistrate,

01:05:54.480 become lawless, and then get lawless people?

01:05:58.040 I really do think it's the latter.

01:06:00.700 And we should be aware of that.

01:06:02.660 All right, I will pick it up next time.

01:06:05.420 That's the beauty of preaching through a book of the Bible.

01:06:07.300 It's not a race.

01:06:08.460 It's a marathon, which is a race.

01:06:11.000 But it's a different kind of race.

01:06:12.180 You get the point. 0.93

01:06:13.460 You get the point.

01:06:14.360 It's not a sprint.

01:06:15.460 It's a marathon.

01:06:16.400 So we'll pick this back up.

01:06:17.660 We're going to have to do a part two on Matthew 1, verse 18 through 25.

01:06:20.580 Let's pray.

01:06:21.440 And then for those of you who are new,

01:06:23.420 we will enter into the final part of our worship gathering

01:06:26.060 where we worship through song.

01:06:27.540 We take the Lord's Supper. 0.97

01:06:28.920 We sing the doxology.

01:06:30.200 I pronounce the benediction and all that will be about 20 minutes. You've done great. We are family

01:06:34.580 integrated. So the kids are in the worship service. I know it's hard, especially if you've never done

01:06:38.400 that before. But we do believe that it's a blessing for families to worship together and to not just

01:06:44.720 drop your kids off in the Christian childcare. But the kids, you know, would go to church with

01:06:50.000 their families. And then last thing real quick is the first Sunday of every month, we do a church

01:06:55.440 wide potluck for lunch directly after service so if you're new you are uh warmly invited to join us

01:07:00.540 i'm sure there will be enough food and so we will um we'll have lunch right here as soon as we're

01:07:05.360 done let's pray uh father thank you for your word bless it to your people and we pray that

01:07:09.080 ultimately you would bring yourself great glory we pray this with confidence because we prayed in

01:07:13.580 jesus name amen

The NXR Podcast - July 07, 2024

THE SERMON - “He Will Save His People From Their Sins”

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript