Hot Button Issues, Part 1 | Sunday Message

Hey there, thanks for listening to the Greg Laurie Podcast, a ministry supported by Harvest Partners.

I'm Greg Laurie encouraging you. If you want to find out more about Harvest Ministries and learn more about how to become a Harvest Partner, just go to harvest.org. And we live in a world and in a culture with half truths, outright lies, things that are so out of sync with you. So Lord, it's a refreshing thing, like an oasis really, to come and take a long drink of cool water, living water, from scripture. So speak to us and help us have a biblical worldview so we will see this world, this culture, as you see it. Speak to us from your word. We pray in Jesus' name we ask this, amen. You can all be seated. Welcome to church everybody.

Welcome Harvest Riverside, Harvest Kumulani, all of you watching at Harvest at Home as well. So we're going to do a little three part series called Hot Button Issues. And we're going to start in Exodus chapter 20. So grab your Bibles and turn over there, Hot Button Issues.

Alright. The best known verse in the country, maybe even the world, was John 3.16. We all know that verse, right?

Let's say it together. John 3.16. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's a good verse to know. That's the gospel in a nutshell. But I think probably the most popular verse today would be Matthew 7.1. And I don't even think they know the reference but they know the statement which is judge not lest you be judged.

Right? You ever had that verse quoted to you from a non-Christian? And usually the context is you're making a statement. You're saying well I don't really agree with that. I think this because the Bible says. And then they retort yes but doesn't the Bible say judge not lest you be judged.

How dare you. Have an opinion. How dare you believe in absolute truth because there's so many people today that reject that outright. You know I find that the most narrow minded people out there today are the ones who claim to be the most broad minded. They've seen your opinion. Today folks we live in an ABC culture.

ABC. Anything but Christ. You can believe in anything you want. Say anything you want. But if you dare to mention the name of Jesus Christ.

If you dare to pull out one of these books and quote from it. You're going to be cancelled. You're going to be opposed.

You're going to. Some will even try to silence you altogether. They want us to just be quiet. Keep our opinions to ourselves. But the Bible teaches we should do the very opposite. As Christians we need to engage our culture. We need to influence our culture.

We need to try to the best of our ability to change our culture. We are according to Jesus to be salt and light in the world. So what does that mean? Jesus said you're the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its saltiness what good is it? What good is unsalty salt? It's sort of like a decaf soy latte.

Why? Or some of the things that people order at Starbucks now. I'll have three squirts of this gross syrup and some whip cream. Just go to 31 flavors. But I don't know if we even have 31 flavors anymore do we? I used to go to one quite frequently. And they shut down.

I'm very disappointed by that but maybe it's a good thing. But the point is you don't want to be unsalty salt. When Jesus gave this statement salt was considered a valuable commodity. So much so that they would sometimes pay people in salt believe it or not. Hence the term you're not worth your salt.

Right? So Roman soldiers would be paid in salt. So first off Jesus is saying you're valuable. You're the salt of the earth. You matter. Your opinion matters.

Your presence matters. Secondly salt was used to preserve meat. They didn't have refrigeration obviously so they would rub salt into the meat to preserve it to stop it from rotting. Our modern equivalent would be beef jerky. You know those little bits of beef in the packages at the gas stations. They sell for like $50 a bag.

They're very expensive now. But it preserves meat and we're a preservative in the culture. We're effectively stopping the rotting process. Speaking out against what is wrong. Speaking up for what is right. But another thing salt does is stimulates thirst.

If you have too much salt in something it makes you thirsty. And as followers of Jesus we should be stimulating in others a thirst for Christ and then we're to be light. You are the light of the world.

A light that is on a hill. That can be seen. So let your light so shine before men that they might see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. We are to be a bright light in a dark place and let that light shine.

How? Through good works? Doing things for people in the name of Jesus and obviously through gospel proclamation. So we are not to retreat. We are to advance. We are not to evade.

We're supposed to invade infiltrate permeate and have an influence in culture and have a biblical world view. Now as we do this people are not going to always love it. But we have to say what is true. Now I want to talk about some hot button issues. Some would call these controversial.

I don't think you fear a believer in the Bible. Anything I'm about to say to you is controversial. But for some of you some of the statements I will make today will be controversial. Some of these statements I'm about to make might offend you. But let me just say at the outset I am standing on what the scripture says.

And that's where I get my opinions and that's what I'm going to be speaking from. What does the Bible say? What does the Bible say about the family? What is a family? What isn't a family? What is the place of sex in our life? What about homosexuality? Is that ever acceptable? Are people born gay? Is it wrong for gay people to marry? What about abortion? Is it really that big of a deal? And what if the mother's life is in danger? Now someone said Greg stop.

Stop right now. You're getting political. Well listen for thousands of years these topics were regarded that we might regard as political have been spoken about in scripture. Just because something has political political ramifications doesn't mean that I'm going to avoid that topic if the Bible addresses it. Slavery was once a political issue as well.

A controversial issue even in our nation and around the world. But slavery was always wrong. It was always an evil. Back in England there was a man named William Wilberforce. He was a British parliamentarian and he came to Christ and he felt impressed by God that overturned slavery in England. And then of course Abraham Lincoln our president was contributed to that as well.

So that's an evil it had political ramifications but that doesn't mean we should avoid it. But before I address these hot button issues I want to ask you a question. Do you believe the Bible is the word of God yes or no? Okay so we start there. If you believe the Bible is the word of God then what I'm going to say you're going to say well of course the Bible says that. And here's how to tell if you have a biblical worldview or not.

If you find some of these subjects uncomfortable or you don't agree with them your disagreement is not with me. Your disagreement is with what the Bible says. Now we all have a worldview. Some have a biblical worldview. Some have a secular worldview. So you have to get your worldview my opinion from the right place. Because far too often our worldview is based on our emotions. I feel this.

I think that. Okay so we don't want to reason that way. We want to reason from scripture what does the Bible say about this particular topic. God has given us absolutes to live by. He's given us tent poles if you will. He has given us the commandments.

The 10 commandments to protect us. Years ago we had a German shepherd and he was the best dog I ever owned. Great dog. So one day I looked through the window my German shepherd is staring intently at something in the grass.

I thought what's going on. So I go in my backyard and I walk over and look and there's this beautiful brightly colored little finch like you would buy in a pet store nestled in the grass shaking as my dog is looking at him. So I'm thinking is that someone's pet bird that got out. So I stooped down and I put my index finger out and the little bird jumped right on my finger. So I walked into the house hey Kathy look what I just found. So she's cooking something in a big old pan and and she grabbed the bird threw it in we ate it.

No we didn't. Okay beautiful little bird. I said what do I do with this bird. I can't just walk around with it on my finger and our son Jonathan who was very little then said there's a girl up the street that used to have a pet bird and it died and she has a cage.

I said go get the cage and so he runs and he gets the cage and we set it on the counter all the time. I'm holding the bird on my finger. We opened the door to the little bird cage. That bird jumped into the cage and got on the little swing and was swinging back and forth seeing happy days are here again. See we think oh no don't put the bird in the cage. Give the bird its freedom. He had his freedom and he was staring down a German shepherd.

See that little bird did not see the bars of that cage as a prison keeping him in. He saw them as barriers of protection keeping bad things out. That's how we should look at the commandments of God. That's how we should look at the absolutes of scripture. So the 10 commandments can be divided into two sections. Not five and five as you might think but actually four and six. The first four commandments have to do with our relationship with God.

The final six have to do with our relationships with people. So I think most of you know the 10 commandments. Commandment number one the Lord says have no other gods before me.

Commandment two have no graving images. Number three don't take the Lord's name in vain. Number four remember the Sabbath day keep it holy. And then we shift gears to the final six commandments dealing with our relationships with others and it starts with the family. Exodus 20 12 honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

So if you're taking notes here's point number one. God starts with the family because he created it. God starts with the family because he created it.

Just as he created us male and female and brought Adam and Eve together he brings the man and the woman together in a marriage and that is the foundation of everything else in our culture. You all know that Adam was lonely. He was in the garden of Eden alone giving names to the animals and the Bible says the Lord said it's not good for man to be alone and he caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and as he slept from his rib he took Eve and Adam woke up and saw her was very excited. He says this is now bone of my bones the flesh of my flesh she shall be called woman for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and be joined into his wife and the two will become one flesh. So she came from Adam's rib. By the way a story you may not have heard but Adam and Eve were talking one day and Eve said to Adam, Adam I think you've been unfaithful to me. Says Eve no no by the way there's only one woman on earth and it's you. I haven't been unfaithful.

No I think you've been unfaithful. Okay and so he went to sleep and he felt something poking at his side. He woke up and it was Eve. He says what are you doing?

She says I'm counting your ribs. Get it? That's not in the Bible. Forget it.

It's just a silly joke. Number two our very existence as a society is contingent on the success of the family. Maybe that's why Satan hates it so and has declared war on it. Listen to this. Most societal ills in America today are the result of the breakdown of the family. We throw billions of dollars at our problems and they just get worse. What's the real problem? The real problem greater than drug addiction, greater than homelessness, greater than all the things we deal with. It's the breakdown of the family and I can prove it with a bunch of statistics.

I'm going to kind of bombard you with them for a moment but let me start with this. Children born out of wedlock used to be the exception not the rule. But now today there were 624,828 live births in 2021 in which 320,713 that's 51 percent were registered to women who are not in a marriage. So for the first time in our history there's more children coming now from families single parent families or broken families and there are coming from intact families. Now when I was a kid I was the only one I knew who came from a broken home.

As you know my mom was married and divorced seven times. And so I all my friends had their parents at home except me. So they would all have to go home at dinner and they envied me because I didn't have to go home to dinner.

There was no dinner to go no home to go home to have dinner at. So I went to a little restaurant some of you might remember it it was called the snack shop on Pacific Coast Highway. And every night I would go to the snack shop and get my dinner. Hamburger, french fries, vanilla malt. In fact when I go to In-N-Out Burger I still get that same order. Though there are vanilla malts are a little on the thick side but I still like them.

The flavor is just right. So every night hamburger, french fries, vanilla malt. All my friends said man I wish I was living your life but I wanted to be living their life. I even had a friend who had dinner at home with his family and I would go have dinner with him just to be with the family and I didn't even like the food they ate.

Because they they ate gross peas that were all squishy and and I but I put up with it because I love this idea of a family but today that's the norm broken homes. Now we talk about homelessness. How do we cure homelessness? We have spent billions of dollars fighting homelessness in California alone.

But listen to this. 95 percent of all homelessness and runaway children are from fatherless homes. It's broken homes that's at the root of it. 71 percent of high school dropouts are from fatherless homes. 85 percent of all youths sitting in prison are from fatherless homes. A child from a fatherless home is 68 percent more likely to use drugs or alcohol. 63 percent of teens who attempt suicide are from fatherless homes. Fatherless daughters are 111 percent more likely to have children as teens and 164 percent more likely to have an out of wedlock birth.

You see how the cycle repeats itself over and over again and it just goes on and on and on. That's why the home that's why the family is so important. Point number three. Listen God's order is to honor your father and mother. It doesn't say honor your father and father. It doesn't say honor your mother and her live-in lover or partner.

It's father and mother. We tamper with God's order at our own peril and there's a movement happening right now to redefine marriage and the family. Something that's very popular now is same-sex marriage. The normalization of homosexuality is gaining momentum momentum especially among young people. Now you would think with all the emphasis on this that we must have a huge gay population and we'd have a whole month gay pride month.

How about a happy Christian month? You know there's a lot more Christians. And then there's all these extra holidays and so we'd say wow they they must be a huge part of the population. Recent survey was done uh among 121,000 people that revealed that 3.4 percent are gay. So it's a very small part of our population identify as LGBTQ. But here's where it's interesting and alarming to me. 9.8 percent of millennials identify as gay and 20 percent of Generation Z identifies as gay. Those numbers are higher.

So something is happening with our young people. But you say well Greg hold on now if two people of the same sex love each other why can't they be married? Because homosexuality is outside of God's order.

Look don't get quiet on me you applaud that point. Do some of you have a discomfort with what I just said? This is clearly in the Bible. Oh will it make you more comfortable if I say extramarital sex is out of God's order? Will it make you more comfortable if I say premarital sex is outside of God's order? Well see they all are. That's the point.

God gives us his absolutes. This is the lane you stay in. This is the way you live. These things are not my plan. They're not my purpose.

And this is what is happening. And God is anti-sin no matter how it is expressed. I'm sorry but you cannot be a gay Christian. Any more than you can be an adulterous Christian.

We just say hey how are you? I'm an adulterous Christian. What? The same thing as saying I'm a gay Christian. Oh hi I'm a Christian that it's engaged constantly in premarital sex.

You're not defined by your sin or what you're drawn to. And so that's what you call an oxymoron. An oxymoron is something that sort of contradicts itself. An example of an oxymoron is a freezer burn.

How do you get burned in a freezer? Or genuine imitation. Or jumbo shrimp. That's an oxymoron. Here's another oxymoron.

Government efficiency. You see it just. So. Now we all struggle with different temptations. We're all tempted to do sinful things. Sometimes we act on those things. But that doesn't define me.

What I'm drawn to or what I'm attracted to. Here's the biblical statement on the topic. Verse six. First Corinthians six nine. Don't you know that those that do wrong will have no share in the kingdom of God.

Don't fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin who are idol worshippers, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, abusers, and swindlers. None of these will have a share in the kingdom of God. So yes homosexuality is a sin that can keep you out of heaven. So is premarital sex. So is extramarital sex. So is being an idol worshiper.

So is being a drunkard. This is what the Bible says. Now some would say well I don't agree. I don't agree. My God would never say that to a person.

Judge not lest you be judged. Okay hold on. Your God? Who is your God?

Well my God. Did you just make up your God? See my God he's in the Bible.

He reveals himself. And if you say my God would never judge a person or my God would never deal with a person according to their sins you're effectively making up your God and you're having another God before him. But Greg you're wrong. Gay people are born that way.

I don't agree with that. I think we're all born as sinners. Now as sinners we all have our we all have our temptations. Most are drawn to the opposite sex. Some are drawn to the same sex. And now we add transsexualism and transgenderism and gender dysphoria where people feel today a lot of times kids that their biological gender does not match what they perceive themselves to be. And so they want to change their pronouns and and they maybe want to change their sex altogether. It's as reinforced with tampon machines in boys restrooms and in men entering women's sports or women's bathrooms.

And some engage in hormone therapy and gender reassignment surgery. And this trend has become a social contagion especially with the young and that is why it's impacting millennials and especially gen z. And it's reinforced on platforms like TikTok where influencers come on and say yes I'm I'm gay or I'm getting a gender reassignment surgery and this is wonderful and this is liberating. And impressionable young people are drawn to this. And I think there's a deeper issue here than all of this. And I think young people are looking for identity. They're looking for purpose.

They're asking the questions who am I? What is the meaning of my life? How can I be happy? Maybe this will make me happy. Maybe that's the problem.

I was supposed to be a boy and I'm a girl or vice versa. No. You know what you're really looking for? You're looking for God.

That's what you're looking for. And this surgery where young people or any people are mutilating their bodies but especially with young people it concerns me because that's such a permanent decision. That's not going to bring them meaning and happiness.

Sweden is ahead of us in a way if you want to use that phrase. They've been doing this for quite a long time and they've done an extensive study on it over 30 years. And they found that after 10 to 15 years the suicide rate of those who had undergone gender reassignment surgery rose to 20 times of their comparable peers. So you don't need to change your gender. You need to have your heart changed by God. That's the bottom line.

That's the bottom line. Coming back to same-sex attraction. All of us are sinners. All of us are attracted to do certain things.

That doesn't mean I should act on that thing any more than a heterosexual man or woman should act on their attraction to a member of the opposite sex. Paul wrote in Romans 7 I don't understand what I do and what I want to do I don't do and what I hate I do. It's no longer myself that does it. It's sin living in me.

Again you're not defined by your sin. You need to resist it. You can change. Christ can help you to change. No you can't. You're born gay. You'll always be gay.

Nonsense. I've heard the stories of many people who've come out of a gay and lesbian lifestyle to follow Christ. Let me tell you the story of one. A lady I met named Rosaria Butterfield and by the way isn't that the greatest of all names. Rosaria Butterfield and so she was a professor and a very intelligent woman and in her own words she was fervent for the world views of Freud Marx and Darwin and she used her position as a professor to promote those views and she was married to a woman and living her life. She was effectively a lesbian activist and so there was a promise keepers event.

You ever heard of promise keepers a big men's christian event and men are encouraged to live godly lives. I've actually spoken a lot of them over the years and days gone by and so so promise keepers event came to town so she wrote a column for the newspaper very critical of it and so she said I got two kinds of letters back affirming letters people applauding me and very critical letters what I would call hate mail. She said I had two waste baskets one for the hate mail one for the letters that affirm me and she said then I got this one letter that was not either. It was from a Christian and a pastor and he said hey I read your article with great interest why don't you come over to our home my wife and I would like to make you dinner. She's like what don't you hate us and she was intrigued because she didn't really know any Christians and she wanted to see what they were like and try to figure out why they were so weird right. So she goes to this couple's house for dinner and they got along very well and then she went back again and again and again this went on for weeks then months and and they were praying with her and reading the Bible with her and Rosaria's heart began to change and then suddenly it just dawned on her this is all true and she gave her life to Jesus Christ and now she's a very public voice on this topic and speaks authoritatively as well but I love how she framed it. She said they entered her world. So here's our position. We love people no matter how they express their sin.

We want to enter their world. We want to show them that there's a God in heaven who loves them and has a plan for them and will fill that void in their life. They're trying to fill with other things so summation point homosexuality is a sin so is premarital and extramarital sex. God's order is that a man and a woman live together in marriage and a monogamous relationship. You're not born gay nor are you born a different sex in your biological gender and if you turn from this sin God can and will forgive you.

That's my summation. That's the biblical worldview. Do you accept it or not? For some reason there's like discomfort with this topic so let me shift gears and talk about another topic. Let's talk about sex in general. Sex is created by God. Let's not forget God created sex okay and sex can be good in its proper context. Sex can be blessed in the proper place which is in a marriage relationship period.

That's it and Hebrews 13 four. Oh now we're clapping again. All right wait till I get to abortion. We'll see if gets quiet again.

Woo. Hebrews 13 4 says give honor to marriage. Remain faithful to one another in marriage. God will surely judge people who are immoral and those who commit adultery and then Proverbs 5 15 says drink water from your own well.

Share your love only with your wife. Sometimes people will characterize sex as it's there for procreation. Christians teach it's just there for you know reproduction that's on. Well no that I mean it is there for reproduction. Thank God for sex we wouldn't be here without it right. But God gives it to us for pleasure in its proper place and God also gives it to us as a way to express our oneness. When a man and a woman come together sexually a oneness takes place. The two become one. Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 6 15 don't you realize your bodies are parts of Christ should a man take his body which belongs to Christ and join it to a prostitute never if you join yourself to a prostitute you become one with her because the Bible says two are united into one so run away from sexual sin no other sin so clearly affects the body this one does but we marginalize it oh no it means nothing it's just a hookup it's just a one-night stand no it means a lot and it matters it's not a toy well it doesn't hurt anyone as long as it's consensual doesn't hurt anyone well first of all it separates you from God because of your sin but then there are longer lasting repercussions the University of Tennessee did a study among young women that found there seems to be a direct correlation between illicit sexual behavior and serious emotional problems also it will hurt your future marriage the University of Oregon did a study among young men and found that those who engage in premarital relationships make poor marital risks and and the trend today of course is we'll just live together you know is enjoy the benefits right friends with benefits uh-huh well that's not a trial marriage that's basically a trial divorce because studies have been done and have revealed that those that live together for before marriage have a far higher divorce rate than those that don't God has set this up the way it's supposed to be set up it's there for your own good you know is that ride still at Disneyland Autopia you know the one the little car he's driving but really you're you know you when you're a little kid it's so exciting I'm driving a car well you kind of are but not really first of all you can't reach the pedal okay let's deal with that so you need your mom and dad to get your foot in the pedal but you're moving the wheel around but in reality of little barriers there to keep you in place and those are there so you don't kill yourself okay we're not going to put you out on the freeway and let you drive your little Autopia car you know you get yourself in trouble again back to the barriers they're there they're there for your own good they're there to protect you from harming yourself but then there's a connection between sex outside of marriage and pregnancy of course one million teens become pregnant every year many of these babies never make it to term and and here's the thing about abortion this is not this is not an unclear message in the bible the bible clearly teaches life begins at conception not at birth at conception the moment conception takes place you are a living soul david writes in sum 139 13 you made all the delicate parts of my body you knit me together in my mother's womb thank you for making me so wonderfully complex your workmanship is marvelous how well I know it you watch me as as being formed in utter seclusion I was woven together in the dark of the womb you saw me before I was born every day of my life was recorded in your book every moment was laid out before a single day had passed showing that God has a plan for us before birth God says in Jeremiah 1 5 I knew you before I formed you in your mother's womb so it's so important God had a plan for you even before you were born and you say well what if the baby is conceived out of wedlock I was conceived out of wedlock I am the result of a one-night stand of my mother in Long Beach California but thankfully she carried me to term thankfully she did not abort me God spared my life every child has a right to live we don't think about the repercussions of abortion it's celebrated in the magazines they make a joke out of it as though it's nothing and they don't talk about the depression that follows they don't talk about the higher suicide rate the University of Minnesota study on teen suicide found that the rate of attempted suicide increased 10 times for teens who had aborted during those previous six months and I've talked to women who had an abortion maybe much earlier in their life and it came back to haunt them later in life because they sort of mark time like the day of that abortion and 10 years later they see a 10 year old young person to think well that would be the age that my child would have been oh yeah but we don't want to think of them as a child that what was that they're just the product of conception or an embryo or a fetus or some other word we would use they even say what was a potential human being oh really what else would it become okay so sometimes the full implications of getting an abortion doesn't hit you till later in life and that's a very hard thing to deal with it's not a potential human being it's a human being with incredible potential and a lot of these ministries to pregnant women have sonogram machines because they have found that 90 percent of mothers who have a sonogram decided against abortion you ever seen sonogram so when our first son Christopher Kathy was pregnant with him and we went looked at a sonogram sonograms were very primitive back then they were like drawings on cave walls it's along with dinosaurs and no but I mean you couldn't really you could see there was a living baby in there but you couldn't make out details now sonograms are almost like 3d you can see the face of the baby they're amazing aren't they so yeah but Greg hold on now what about when the mother's life is in danger what if let's play it out for a minute I think the normal maternal instinct of a mother is to save the life of her baby no matter what a couple years ago we were in Maui well that wasn't a couple years ago it was many years ago actually because my grandson was quite young then maybe one and a half and so I was on the beach and his mom was not far from me and he was playing dumb by the water's edge and a little wave rolled in and kind of toppled him over and I'm you know I'm getting out of my seat to run to him his mother Brittany is already there I've never seen a human being move so fast she was like a panther it's just like I'm like oh get up help Christopher she's like carrying him back and I'm like I'm almost up now I was moving as quickly as I could but that's just a maternal instinct that's what a mother does father too but for the sake of the point of mom if you're walking across the street with your little child and they're a little bit ahead of you and a car's coming you say oh car's coming I can't get in the way of the car my life would be in danger see a kid that's bad and I shouldn't laugh you know that's just an illustration but you laugh because it's so ridiculous of course you would push the child out of the way of the car maybe the car hits you acceptable risk right what about if the mother's life is in danger so I heard an amazing story not long ago about a young lady living in Samoa her name is Simia Mativa but her nickname was simply Teva and her name means poor thing so Teva got pregnant and she had a rare blood disease and there was no cure for it at the time so the doctor said Teva if you have this baby you will die for sure you will die and so her whole family said don't don't have the baby you know let let the doctor abort the baby and we want you to live and she said I agree so she signed the paperwork then her family left the room and she called the doctor back can I ask you a question he came back she said I want to change that I want to have the baby he goes you could die Teva she says I know but I want to have the baby so he delivered the baby and tragically Teva did die so before she died she gave a name to the little baby she named him Moses so Moses grew up to be a man he went to Vietnam fought for our country he married and he and his wife had 12 kids 34 grandkids and 21 great-grandkids that's 67 in total all have come to Christ and 14 of them are in ministry today you've heard isn't that great you heard of the Catinas the group of brothers that sing no relation but no there's really I'm kidding there's relation yeah they're part of this Katina clan great godly men good friends so Teva whose name meant the poor thing did a great thing didn't she it was a sacrifice the ultimate sacrifice we don't think about long-term repercussions you know you bought this child who knows what would happen with that child who knows what would happen with the children of the child and the grandchildren of the child and the great-grandchild who knows but we cut that short it was an inconvenience the uterine content it's my decision really well what about the little baby's decision well it doesn't matter wow what a tragedy this is but here's the good news if you've had an abortion god can and will forgive you if you've committed adultery god can and will forgive you if you've lived a homosexual lifestyle god can and will forgive you so we have to call these things for what they are but god doesn't expose these things or convict us of these things to shame us but rather to save us because you might be a more moral person well I've never committed adultery okay great I'm glad of that have you ever looked at a woman or a man with lust in your heart uh yeah okay you know what Jesus said about that in the sermon on the mount right you've committed adultery in your heart you've committed adultery in your heart you've committed adultery in your heart you've committed adultery in your heart we've all sinned we've all broken god's commandments we all need Jesus Christ I love the story of the woman caught in the act of adultery the religious leaders came and threw her before the feet of Jesus and they said the law says she should be stoned what do you say he looked at all of these creeps and stooped down and wrote something in the sand and then he stood up and said let him that is without sin cast the first stone and the bible says they left from the eldest to the youngest then Jesus looks at this woman and he says woman where are your accusers it's an interesting phrase he uses for her woman it's a term of respect like ma'am or lady I'm sure that girl had been called a lot of things but I doubt anyone had ever called her ma'am or lady ma'am where are your accusers lady where are your accusers she said I have none lord why would he say that to her because he didn't see her for what she was he saw her for what she could become right he would change her don't define yourself by your sin you can become a new person in Christ old things passed away everything can become fresh and new that's what the bible says that's the biblical worldview and Jesus saw that and then he said go and sin no more so I just heard a story my wife told me about we have a ministry here called mentor mentoring matters and the older ladies help the younger ladies you know they share from their life's experience and and from the scripture these are godly ladies and it's wonderful and so they had a little time of sharing yesterday and many of the young women got up and talked about how it had helped them and so one young woman in particular got up and and said yeah well I just came to Christ and I prayed the sinner's prayer with Greg and I got my new believer's bible and she immediately enrolled in the new believer's bible group and she talked about how one of the people in the group was texting her are you coming make sure you come they're following up on her in a beautiful way and then she joined the mentoring matters and as she learned more about the bible she realized she can't live with her boyfriend anymore and so they both stopped living together and now he's a Christian and then they go both got baptized at our last baptism at pirates cove and now they're walking with the lord and they're a part of our young adults group just classic transformation but I left out something in 2017 she was a prostitute walking the streets and you might drive by and go there's no hope for her really Jesus looks at her and sees her for what she can become there's no hope for him there's no hope for him we might see of that drug addict or that criminal or whoever he might be or whoever she might be but God sees what you can become and Christ can transform you that's the biblical worldview and that's what God wants for every person but we must come to him and admit we're sinners and stop making excuses for our sin and be willing to turn from our sin the bible says that we will confess our sin he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness now look every one of us have sinned and if we haven't done it in actions we've done it in our minds and we all need God's forgiveness and there might be somebody here that's trapped by an immoral lifestyle there might be somebody here that's trapped by an addiction to drugs or alcohol there might be somebody here that is under the control of some other sin or vice or whatever it is and you don't think you can ever get free again that's a lie you can be changed by Christ he can change the narrative of your story but you must come to him and call out to him I just think of this young lady I mentioned what a change in her story and it can be your story too but you must come to Jesus and say I'm sorry for my sin I turn from that sin and I choose to follow you Jesus died on the cross for your sin he bore all the wrongs and sins that you've ever done on himself and he rose again from the dead and now he stands at the door of your life and he knocks and says if you'll hear his voice and open the door he'll come in so we're going to close with a prayer and I'm going to extend an invitation for anyone here that wants Jesus Christ to come into their life let's all pray father thank you for your word to us thank you that it's true thank you for your promises and I pray for any person here or any person watching wherever they are if they don't have a relationship with you let them come to you now and believe now while our heads are bowed and our eyes are closed and we're praying if you want Jesus Christ to come into your life I want you to pray a prayer with me you can pray it out loud if you like or you can pray it quietly in your heart but I want you to pray this if you want this relationship with God just pray these words Lord Jesus I know that I am a sinner and I know that you are the savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead I'm sorry for my sin I turn from it now and I choose to follow you from this moment forward as my savior and Lord as my God and friend in Jesus' name I pray amen God bless you hey everybody thanks for listening to this podcast to learn more about harvest ministries follow this show and consider supporting it just go to harvest.org and to find out how to know God personally go to harvest.org and click on know God