Culture vs Church | Dr. Ed Young | Woodway Campus

i invite you to kneel with me father we're here in thy house today to give praise to you to listen to truth that speaks through your word and lord be willing to open up our lives our hearts and our minds to that which will you would touch forgive change renew and heal lord we come with all of our ideas our dreams our presuppositions may we become transparent so that your divine infallible and error truth might explode on you into our hearts and our lives and we'll leave this place brand new refreshed alive as never before is our prayer in jesus name amen in 1932 a polish novelist wrote a fictitious book as a novelist and his thesis was there was a country that was about to be invaded by some mongol hordes from the east and the people were frightened and wondering how in the world we can defend off these pagans that are about to attack us but a psychologist got along with some chemist and in this fictitious book they came up with a pill the murtai bean pill and this pill had the effect of when anyone would take it they would not worry and be happy it was a not worry be happy pill and so the people in this land took this pill the murder being pill and sure enough they didn't worry they were happy and therefore when the invaders came when the mongols came and they took over the land no bloodshed they'd taken this supernatural pill and they didn't worry and they were happy but the effect of the pill wore off and then they awakened and discovered that they were taken over by a state that destroyed their freedom their independence their liberty a state that dominated every area of their life and that if they did not conform they were canceled they were obliterated they were considered a non-person and therefore the novelist introduced us to another word a persian word the word kitman and the people there in that land begin to do what they did in persia when the islamic hordes came in they said you become a muslim or you die and therefore so many of them became muslims but they practiced what the author called kitman what is that is that they pretended to believe in the muslim doctrine they went to mosque they said all the right words but they didn't really believe and so they became actors because the baltic being pill did work be happy don't worry now they realized the oppression upon which they were under and so they pretended to accept all the authoritarian power that was put over them but they didn't really believe it what happened to them they became schizophrenic they said well this is who i really am but this is what i profess that i am and therefore the whole nation ended up with the people who had lost their soul alexander sozenitson a russian dissident powerful godly brilliant christian man spoke out was a writer opposing the soviet communist government and he got to the point that they arrested him and put him in a gulag in monterey and he was there for many many years until finally they decided to let him go and they exiled him as the russians called it into the western world but before sosa needs and left he had written gulag archipelago which is a hard book to read but a classic book as far as the struggle in which the world finds itself before he left russia he left them with one little phrase it was advice to them and it's still advice to all of us today sosa needs and said don't live by lies like yes don't live by lies don't become a kid money we would put it in the words of the novelist don't don't pretend you believe and accept but don't live under the cover of lying things that are not true and ladies and gentlemen in our culture how desperately we need and we needed more than one president for the person who is the chief executive of the executive branch of our government to simply tell the truth we haven't had a whole lot of that in a number of years and the truth needs to be told and there's an accountability that we must give as we question things and the press and all the powerful establishments of education must stand up and verify what is said is indeed the truth we're studying first corinthians we're studying what was going on in the city of corinth in the first century and the apostle paul is writing to this church that he was the founding pastor and he is instructing them how they are to live in a society and a culture that was increasingly pagan and godless what was the problem in corinth the thesis simply stated is this the church was becoming more like the world instead of the world becoming more like the church and therefore the morals the morays that you find there in the church were not being exported out into corinth and paul here begins diagnosing the problem you got to have a diagnosis of where you are right a medical a social a philosophical a theological diagnosis what's wrong and with the diagnosis you have symptoms and then also with the diagnosis and the symptom you have a cure and this is what paul is doing a diagnosis it's been some years ago i think was general motors they put out an automobile in a middle midwestern town a man bought a brand new car but something began to happen that was very strange and he wrote about it to the ceo of general motors and this was his complaint and by the way he said he took the complaint to the dealership and they didn't understand it he said almost every night when i get off from work i go by the same little ice cream shop and i buy my family some ice cream and he said every time i buy vanilla ice cream for my family i go back to my new car and it doesn't start but he said when i buy different kinds of varieties of ice cream i go back to my car and it starts every time and so this was a joke and they passed the letter up all the way through the complaint he got to the ceo and the ceo thought it's hilarious you buy vanilla the car doesn't start you buy other ice creams and the car starts but an engineer happened to be in the executive room he said you know i know the people in that dealership and they can't figure this out let's go see if this guy is really a kook or there's something legitimate here so he flew to the midwestern city he went to the dealership and all the mechanics and the authorities there said it really happens i've been with him and so this man came and got with this man and sure enough after work they went to the ice cream shop and every time they would buy vanilla they'd go back the car wouldn't start next day they would go and they'd buy some fruity kind of mixture of ice cream and about the car started and and the engineer said this is wild and so it went on for about four days and he wrote back to the company and said listen this sounds bizarre but it happens every time by vanilla won't start buy any other ice cream it starts and then he figured it out remember where we are we're doing a diagnosis right what's wrong he figured it out he said when you went in by vanilla there wasn't a line there and you buy vanilla in a few minutes you go back go back to the car and the car wouldn't start because of vapor lock but when he would go and buy a fruity kind of ice cream there'd be lines there it'd take 10 minutes or so and by that time the car would cool down and the car would start you see a diagnosis paul looked at the situation in current and said i want to give you a diagnosis and then he begins to tick off the problems that they had and the major problems that they had dealt with life l i f e life first of all there was no reverence for life in corinth they had child sacrifice many of their temples a child pre-born or after the child was born you could do anything in the world you could sell them you could throw them away you could sell them to some rich people they'd become a sex slave that was the mentality the morality and current in the first century no reverence for life number two they had no borders people came from all over the world to current read the history they came from china they came to israel they came all over the middle east they came of course from from asia they came from africa they all went to current for one reason to make money it was strategic seaport that little isthmus and it was a thriving city and they had every kind of religion every kind of understanding every kind of mysticism every kind of witchcraft they all went to corinth to make money and some to exercise all the hedonistic pleasures that were available in every form you could imagine and we'll get to that in the chapters that are coming you talked about sickness in the whole area of human sexuality corinth could match anything we can talk about but that's coming just keep that down right now so the problem was life no reverence anyone was made an image of god far into the corinthians no borders everybody came everywhere to make money and to have pleasure and then there was another problem there you say well how did they have a government there were no ballots the emperor and the roman senate they'd appoint some governor to run with a total power and you yielded to those who were in autocratic control and you bowed before their ideology and you became in the words of the polish novelist kikman didn't believe it but bowed before it it's not true but we believe we accept it as if it were true to those uh problems that you find in corinth ring a bell with anybody does it resonate with anybody ask our governor and our lieutenant governor the state of texas what are we facing right now in our legislature in in the order of our state and they will tell you clearly number one would be abortion and a bill will be passed i hope it was in the process of a heartbeat type of bill and hopefully it will be ver worded in such a way it'll make itself supreme court and the supreme court maybe will have a chance to look at the constitution and the bylaws and to realize there is no place there for abortion on demand and roe v wade will be defeated god can never honor a country when 50 or 60 million children have been murdered in the womb of their mother god cannot honor that ever you write it down and believe it it's true in all of history cicero said you read history or you remain a child your entire life life what another problem our leaders tell us life but also they would go and talk about borders corinth had no borders all of a sudden we wake up one morning and the whole southern border of texas is totally open whereas before with the corporation of the mexican government and with walls being built there was some control to immigration which we won't and we rejoice in but now suddenly thousands thousands millions are coming last month what was it 170 000 were processed into our state and across our southern borders someone said the figure would be close to 250 000. so you're talking about a million million plus illegals coming into texas in the months and the years to come and you say why in the world write it down book it understand it the powers that be [Music] know that it is the state of texas primarily that blocks total domination by the liberals and the progressives that seek to run and organize our society and you put millions of people voting it changes the whole demographics of our state and we move from being a red state to being a dark blue state because every one of the illegals will be given balance it's to destroy our state now that's the political part let me tell you the part that i care about the children god loves children in the womb of their mother and loves god love children outside the womb of their mother and jesus said suffer little children are coming to me what are we to do as a nation those that are left believe we're a nation under god there is issue all of these being used as a political floor with disregard for the people of texas can't even go where these children are housed and love and care and feed and help because there are barriers that are there what kind of people would allow this to happen in the 21st century i can't even imagine the children the children the children and then the other issue we have of the balance the balance there must be an integrity of voting in america one county if you know your texas history one county in our state just a few years ago allowed many many illegal votes and texas elected lyndon bain johnson to the congress who is i believe the most corrupt immoral godless president that have ever held that office there may be others that will surpass him but the immorality and the scumminess of johnson is firmly established if you doubt that i challenge you to read four volumes by cairo who wrote the autobiography of that man and that one county got him into government and we've never had a more immoral person in that office oh he did some good things sure but that's what we did there must be integrity of balance there must be that and by the way let's go to the state of georgia follow the news the house the senate there and the governor have rewritten some of the election laws in georgia and if you read them they're very clear and plain it says simply that everybody in one way or another is to be able to sign their name a photo id and the idea is coming from some of the establishment there oh my goodness this is return to jim crow election laws and the jim crow election laws were as evil as godless as demonic as immoral as anything that we've ever had written trying to suppress people's vote to keep them from voting that is godless but to compare the georgia election laws with jim crow is like comparing you know i noticed this morning that some breeze was blowing through the top of the trees in my yard man that's just like hurricane katrina didn't you know that and to say that minorities do not have photo id can't sign their name is racism that is racism so the ballot in a state under god in a nation it must be one vote for one person and there has to be an integrity of the ballot or we are done for as a people russia votes every year the chinese vote every year the cubans voted every year what was the result did it make any difference we must have integrity at the polls i want every citizen who's qualified to vote we in this church do not take sides we just simply say under god we are to vote the ballot is important they had no ballot in corinth and we could easily become as monolithic as that in a skinny new york minute the diagnosis corinth america do you see it do you understand it you see the parallels and then paul goes on and says this is how christians are to live this is how those who are in the church part of the church peripheral the church claim the church where to live here is this crucible of god's word god's truth god's people what do you find there in the church and he tells us exactly as we walk through a little section of first corinthians paul says this by the way i'll tip you off he says there are three kind of persons there are three kinds of persons and you describe he says chapter 2 verse 14 but the natural person the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of god for they are foolish to him nor how can he know them because they are spiritually discerned the natural man is the person without christ and he says a natural man cannot understand the things of god william wilberforce you need to know who that is wilberforce for 21 years in the house of commons presented a bill that would strike down godless slavery in the british empire for 21 years he presented the same bill over and over and over on biblical basis talking about the godlessness the evil of slavery and for 21 years they voted down that bill but the 22nd year he presented the bill and they the whole british empire made slavery illegal and branded it as godless that's the kind of born-again man wilberforce was his friend was william pitt for a time was prime minister of england pitt was a member of the church you know he he checked the box oh yeah oh yeah i'm a christian but i had no understanding of what that meant wilberforce kept witnessing to the younger man pit hoping he'd come to believe in christ pitt didn't get it he didn't follow but will before took him to a worship service and will before said the service was powerful the music like we've experienced the the clear presentation of the word of god how people can come to christ and have a new life it was so clear that will before said surely pit then prime minister would get it but after the service he asked pitt what he thought about what was said and pitt said you know i didn't know what that fellow was talking about how can that happen it's because those who are in christ begin to understand the value and the permanency of spiritual things paul talks about it everybody went to corinth and a lot of us live today as natural people and our life is centered around what pleasure possessions popularity power and that's the center of anybody's life they are a natural person paul would say and away from god and away from christ and spiritual things don't excite them at all they don't get it and so there are natural people paul says who hang around in the church have a general belief about god but nothing personal to realize the revolutionary nature that happens in a life who gives their life to jesus christ and stop centering their life around self and selfishness there's natural people then paul goes on to talk about spiritual people he said that's another category that you find look at verse 15 chapter 2 but he who is spiritually spiritual judges all things we have discernment yet he himself is rightly judged by no one we stand on biblical principles for who has known the mind of the lord that he may instruct him but we have the mind of christ the mind of christ that's what i'm seeking that's what god's billing in us it sure takes a long time with me and it may be slow with you but we have we are developing the very mind of christ i remember a woman years ago she said to me oh i've been asking god to make me a christian for over a year and it hasn't happened and i said you know i'm glad to meet you you're the first person i've ever known that god has deceived and lied to you see we think we come to christ because i am i'm a hundred percent i'm pure clean i'll never stumble and fall again no no no we grow spirituality and knowledge and you see the contrast go home and read it i bet you will read it in galatians chapter number three the contrast between somebody who's natural and somebody who's spiritual somebody's spiritual we're growing up we don't even know it it's gradual love joy peace patience kindness goodness faithfulness self-control all of it's there and that's gradually slowly happening in our lives until we develop a new kind of thinking paul says we even have the capacity to have something like the mind and the discernment and the insight of jesus christ spiritual things and by the way paul also had a passage proceeding this said when the end of life comes bang last breath we're tested by fire yeah and he used the figure of fire and he says when the fire comes how's your prosperity working when you're dead well i'm paying it's not there how's your popularity how's your power all the place all of that is burned up paul says what remains the spiritual things the reality of who you are and who i am and he said he calls the body wood hay and stubble burns up but he uses gold and silver precious things remain that's the spiritual dimension ladies and gentlemen and that's who we really are anyway so he introduces us to two people and then he introduced us to a third person and this is the one that scares me chapter 3. paul says and i brethren could not speak to you as spiritual people but as carnal fleshly people they're christians but they're fleshly carnal as babes in christ i fed you with milk and not with solid food for until now you were not able to receive it and even now you're not able for you are carnal and divisions among you are you not carnal and behaving like mere men like natural people you see we can receive christ and be a christian but still live as if we were not a christian right we'd still have a fleshly existence sure and all of us have left back into carnality every single one but we begin to live like carnal people like fleshly people like worldly people and he says therefore i can't feed you paul says i came there to current and i tell you how to know christ how to be saved how to be salvaged how to have a new life to let him run your life and you responded that he said i fed you baby food i fed you milk he said now i turn around years later and i see that you're still drinking milk you're still eating baby food you haven't grown you have matured babies need milk milk nourishes them and they need when they get a little older some mashed up food they don't have teeth but babies you know about a year old they a lot of teeth have come in a year and a half more teeth have come in and time they get two years old most of the teeth have come in and therefore they're ready to eat really good balanced food and they need that to grow and develop they need milk when they're children they're babies and infants and now they need more food and paul says i can't give you more food you're still living a carnal fleshy life and you're going to stay a baby your whole life but now you've got teeth grow up i wonder if we took all of us in here as christians and god graded us as the way we are in our spiritual maturity i think a lot of us would still be in the nursery in the nursery paul is saying you're missing out on the joy of life and underneath this what was all the problems they were divided does that sound familiar they were dividing the groups one of them says you know we like peter he's a jew probably a different color others like paul he's a roman probably a different color others like apollos he's egyptian and so all of a sudden they're dividing about what they taught and how they looked in light of reality and paul says that's not the church the body of christ ladies and gentlemen we do not divide people up we read it in galatians paul said you're not male or female you're not bond or free he said that you're not jew or gentile we don't divide up in the body of christ under christ we are all one and all these human divisions that everybody's trying to divide us up in that dog won't hunt in the body of christ the church and then we're caught up into something at this moment in our history let's say you and i are going to debate we're going to debate willie langston chairman of our board of deacons brilliant guy really a m graduate stanford graduate brilliant all kind degrees highly educated i'm going to debate with willie mississippi college redneck blue neck i mean goodness it's not even close he'd win but i'm going to define the debate this is all we're going to debate about willie just what i have outlined nothing else and by the way in this debate i'm going to define all the words i'm going to say what the words mean now he's way ahead of me but i'm going to win the debate you see why you see why we're going to talk only about this and i'm going to define every word in our debate and words and definition makes a difference remember when khrushchev you read about it if you didn't remember it he went to the u.n took his shoe off pounded on the desk and you know what he talked about independence freedom democracy care for people affluence and my goodness you look at russia and you say my goodness what in the world these words mean he had redefined all the words that we used to mean something dollar to oppose to the true definition of freedom and independence and care for people redefinition of words hey you let me grow out the debate define the words i'm going to win every time let me tell you what's happening to us listen carefully take the word justice everybody in here believes in justice in fact the bible says we are not only to believe in justice we are to do justice micah chapter number six he's talking about well god how i want to get right with you i give sacrifices i give tithes i go to church i do all the rituals i go to the synagogue the temple man i'm very very religious and micah says god doesn't really care so much about all the outside and the forms let me tell you what god wants to see with you i want you to do justice not advocate it do justice and then he says we are to love kindness and then we are to walk humbly with our god now you can look at me and you can't tell whether or not i love kindness or not can you you can't tell whether or not really i walk humbly with god can you but you can look at your life in my life and you see if you and i do justice now what is justice the christian definition would be something like this we seek to have a level playing field and we seek for everybody to have an equal opportunity to live a life that's full and complete and joyful we know that justice has been provided for you and me by god who is the picture of justice and we can't justify ourselves by the way when you stand before god don't ask for justice you are there on the basis of grace and the justice has been provided for you and me and jesus christ as he took my sin and your sin and died for you and me and therefore in the eyes of god even people like you and i are just jesus provided justice for you and me before god and justice is when we go and minister to anybody anywhere any name in the name of the lord jesus christ and the church is responsibility for the word of god and for the ministry of falling up and living out that word you got it it's evangelism and it's working doing justice wherever we can this is why we're involved in acres home this is time when a catastrophe comes to our area a hurricane or a flood or a freeze what does our church do we're out there by thousands with our money with our means with our love to anybody and everybody from every walk of life this is the second family all of you know that we've done it for 42 years at least administering justice in the name of the lord god his hands his feet that's what we ought to do the word of evangelism it goes from there and then we do justice we're all for justice but wait a minute let's check a definition there we define justice in a christian understanding have we not pretty well generally let's see how it's defined in the secular world go to oxford dictionary to say it simply they say that justice is called distributive justice you catch that word distributive justice they say that justice happens only when the powerful give up power and those who have give up their means and regardless of anything the outcome is all the things for everybody and this is the foundation of socialism all of a sudden the justice conversation the words are changed and redefined and redefined because justice in the secular world is not justice defined by christ and then you use the vocabulary of the marxists oh yes where did those words come from everybody is divided to classes they oppressed and the oppressors mark this terminology all of a sudden the whole front has changed how did this happen i'm for justice but social justice all of a sudden it's the oppressed and the oppressors and then you ask the question well who are the oppressors ask the secular world they'll tell you quick as lightning men usually white men heterosexual heterosexual understanding that the gender god gave them at birth is their gender they are healthy and they're christian that is the oppressors that is the approach well why aren't the women in there there are more women in america there are men but they're a part of the oppressed you see the ideology is define people by groups groups groups christianity is an individual thing and we want to deal this group that group this group and appease this group and that group and that other group oh justice means something entirely different from what we thought it was and therefore i'll be quick here online there is something called social justice and it's christian social justice it's the largest supposedly online thing that is available that tells us what social justice is and this group which is funded by all kinds of people all kinds of woke people and those who haven't yet awakened and this is what they brag about that this christian social justice group has done listed number one fought against hobby lobby two convinced google to drop world vision probably the largest missionary group in the world pressured msnbc into dropping the hateful family research council fault fracking advocates for abortion rights for anybody anytime any stage all in the name of justice all of a sudden i signed up for justice and all of a sudden i find myself in an atmosphere where the words have been redefined and the frame of the reference is different and i find that is a long way from the justice that i see and support in jesus christ now by the way this is very important very important what i'm saying don't miss this don't go home and take part of this if you live in another part of the world all right let's say you live in i don't know tanzania pick a country and you say look there are the oppressed and there are the oppressors and i'd say who are the oppressors and they would say the united states of america oh everybody well wait a minute i'm a redneck when i was growing up i was the only person i knew in my school that their family did not have an automobile i was the only person i knew i mean how can you tell me i'm oppressed i came from a redneck background oh but you're a citizen of the united states no matter what your color your background your race your language you are a part of those who are oppressing the rest of the world therefore we should take all of our means and distribute it to all the world in which we live you see how slippery this slope is for all of us ladies and gentlemen by the way i'll not be exhausted in all this today does that surprise anybody i won't cover all the details and you did not mention this and hang on we're going to visit current for weeks to come the bottom line the bottom line where in the sight of god's kingdom does it end up i'll tell you where it ends up in the book of revelation chapter number 7 verse 9 following after these things i looked and behold a great multitude which no one could number of all nations and tribes and languages and races and peoples and tongues a great multitude standing before the throne before the lamb clothed with white robes with palm branches in their hands and crying out with a loud voice saying salvation belongs to our god who sits on the throne and to the lamb and to all the angels around the throne and the elderly and the four living creatures fall on their faces before the throne and worship god saying amen blessed and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our god forever and forever amen that's the bottom line for the family of god

Channel: Second Baptist Church, Houston

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Length: 48min 3sec (2883 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 13 2021