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Amen, Deuteronomy chapter 22 has a lot of assorted laws and rules for the children of Israel and a lot of these things might seem a little bit just random or out of context like he's just kind of just going from one subject to another but as you study this chapter a little bit more carefully you can actually see that there are certain themes that come up in this chapter and that these things are connected to one another. So it starts out in verse number one here and by the way there's so much good stuff in this chapter I'm probably not going to be able to get to it all tonight so I would say that this might end up spilling into Sunday night or something. So don't get nervous if we're 45 minutes in and I'm not getting close to the end of the chapter or I'm not going to make it a marathon but it says in verse number one thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray and hide thyself from them thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother and if thy brother be not nigh unto thee or if thou know him not then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it and thou shalt restore it to him again. Now this is talking about a lost and found system basically. You find something that belongs to someone else. You don't know what it is or who it belongs to. You hang onto it so that if they come after it then they will be able to pick it up or if you know who it belongs to God is saying that you're supposed to go take it to that person. If you find the wallet on the ground it's got their address on their driver's license. You want to get that to its rightful owner or if it doesn't have any identifiable marks on it you want to take it to the lost and found and so forth. But the part that I want to focus on here in verse number one is that it says thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or his sheep go astray and hide thyself from them. Now what does this mean? You know you see your neighbor's ox going astray and you hide yourself. It's basically saying that you pretend not to notice or that you just actually just don't care or just purposely don't help him out. The Bible is saying that we should take an interest in helping other people in the community and the first theme that I want to bring out in this chapter is the idea of community. Keeping others out, loving your neighbor as yourself, looking out for other people around you and unfortunately today in the United States of America especially in big city life we don't always necessarily have that sense of community that maybe other people in smaller towns or at other times in history have had but we still want to look out for our neighbors and obviously within the local church where we have a few hundred people there is supposed to be that sense of community of caring about other people, looking out for other people and so forth. It says in verse number three in like manner shalt thou do with his ass and so shalt thou do with his raiment and with all lost thing of thy brothers which he hath lost and thou hast found shalt thou do likewise thou mayest not hide thyself. So don't have this attitude of well it's not my problem, I don't care, yeah his ass is wandering around but you know what it's not my property, I don't care. We shouldn't just go through life just caring about ourselves, we should care about other people. The Bible says look not every man on his own things but every man also on the things of others. Don't go through life just self-centered, only caring about your own stuff, look at other people's stuff too and help them out whenever you can and this is what develops a right sense of community where we're looking out for each other and the neighborhood is a place where we're kind of looking out for each other, the church is a place where we're looking out for each other and even if it's on the job or at school look out for other people and think about what they need, think about what they're going through. It says in verse number four thou shalt not see thy brother's ass or his ox fall down by the way and hide thyself from them. The third time we've seen this phrase hiding yourself. Don't hide from them, don't pretend that you didn't see it or pretend that you didn't notice but rather you shall surely help him to lift them up again and I was thinking about examples of this in our modern society because obviously people aren't going around with an ox and an ass in 2023 America but you know this could be you see somebody and they need help with a tire change, you see somebody they're broken down by the road, you see somebody that's being mugged or being attacked or something, you don't want to just hide yourself like I didn't see anything. Of course we think about Jesus' parable of the good Samaritan right, what's that parable all about? There's a guy that's been beaten and left half dead in the ditch because he's been assaulted by robbers and the first two people who walk by just pretend that they don't see him, they hide themselves, they cross over and walk on the opposite side of the street so that it doesn't seem like they're just walking right by the guy like oh you know I'm just going to go across the street and get a little further away and then people will just think I didn't see him or that's hiding yourself right and then of course the Samaritan he stops and he makes it his problem right because remember the whole idea was love your neighbor as yourself and the question is well who's my neighbor and then Jesus tells that story about the good Samaritan, how the good Samaritan stopped and helped the guy, picked him up, took him into town, took him to the lodging, dressed his wounds, made sure that he had a roof over his head and so forth and Jesus said well who was neighbor unto him and obviously the Samaritan who showed mercy was neighbor unto him even though he was a foreigner, even though he could have just said well I'm a Samaritan, he's a Jew, nuts to him, he still made it his problem and was neighbor unto him and so that's what we should go and do likewise the Bible says. So we don't want to hide ourselves when we see people in trouble, when we see something bad happening, we want to step in and help out if it's possible, if we can help somebody change a tire or help them out in any other way, we shouldn't have this attitude that I'm not my brother's keeper, I don't care, nuts to him, whatever and even people of another nationality because the story of the good Samaritan that was kind of the whole point is that the Samaritans and the Jews don't like each other but if you see him lying in the ditch, help him out, it doesn't matter what nationality he is, that's the point of the story and so we don't want to hide ourselves when we see people in trouble. Now obviously we have to be careful because we're living in perilous times and so if you see somebody pulled over by the side of the road that needs help, sometimes especially if you're a woman, you might be scared and rightfully so to just pull over and just approach strangers and so forth but then you could whip out your cell phone and call 911 and ask for help if someone is having a serious problem or if you're big and ugly enough to take care of yourself, you know, you could pull over and help them out or whatever. Obviously you have to use your own discretion and your own judgment but we don't want to just have an attitude of just not my problem, don't care. You know, if a building's on fire or if someone's injured or if, you know, at least go over and see what's going on, see if you can help and don't just assume everybody's got it covered. At least check in and make sure somebody's doing CPR or somebody's calling 911 or somebody has got jumper cables or whatever. You know, we want to have an attitude of helping people out, doing good deeds, loving other people, doing things for people that are never going to do anything for us in return. This is a Christian attitude and what God's trying to do here in Deuteronomy 22 is to develop a sense of community where he wants the Israelites to have a sense of community where everybody's not just in it for themselves but that they'll help each other out when it's necessary. Now we get through those first four verses and then all of a sudden it seems like a major gear change in verse 5 when it says, oh, by the way, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so are abomination of the Lord thy God. And that might seem a little bit out of the blue since we just spent four verses talking about people losing their stuff or their animal is collapsing and they need help picking it up or a lost donkey or whatever and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, by the way, no cross-dressing and then the next verse is like, oh, and by the way, you come across a bird's nest. So it's all kind of lovey-dovey in the first four verses and then you just have, oh, by the way, transvestites are an abomination and then boom, now we're talking about birdies in a nest. So what's going on here, right? Because it seems a little bit out of place, doesn't it? But it's not out of place at all. Actually, there is a method here. I don't want to say it to the madness because the Bible isn't madness. This world's full of madness. But the Bible here is actually making sense in the way that it puts these things together. So why is this verse just kind of all by itself tucked in here with these other things that seem unrelated? Well, I'm going to give you several reasons. The first reason that I think is the most obvious reason is that I think that God put this Bible verse all by itself where nothing around it is talking about that exact subject because he wants the verse to be taken on its own by itself because otherwise people would try to twist it and say, well, you know, if you take it in this bigger context, it doesn't really mean what it's saying. By just making it this little punchy statement all by itself, it's harder for people to twist it. It's just pretty clear. Men don't wear women's clothing. Men don't wear men's clothing. People who do that are an abomination. All right. Let's get back to the birds. Let's get back to our regularly scheduled broadcast. So I think that's one good reason for not having it directly connect to the material that's right around it. But I do think that it also fits in with the greater themes here. The first thing that I mentioned is that God is trying to create a sense of community and a sense of helping others in the nation of Israel. Well, let me say this. You're not going to have a sense of community with a bunch of cross-dressing faggots around. How are you going to have a sense of community? No normal people are going to want to have a sense of community. I mean, think about it. I want to get to know my neighbors unless they're faggots. See what I'm saying? Everybody wants to get to know them if they're weird. If they're sexual perverts, if they're predators, if they're rapists, if they're child molesters, how can I have a sense of community with people like that? Man, that makes me want to go live alone somewhere, being around people like that. Does everybody see what I'm saying? And so if God wants to have a sense of community, there has to be some limits to what society accepts if we're going to be in one accord, if we're going to be able to have that sense of community. You have to draw the line somewhere. You know, well, axe murderers don't fit in in this neighborhood. Cross-dressing queers just don't fit in in this neighborhood. And by the way, lest you feel bad for those people and say, well, we've got to include them too, the Bible says these people are an abomination. They're an abomination. And listen, if they're an abomination to God, then why are you mad at me if they're an abomination unto me? You know, if I just have the same attitude toward these people that God has, if they're an abomination to God, then, well, they're going to be an abomination to God's people. And so God is not expecting the children of Israel to have these people as members of the community in good standing. Because if I see their ass fall in the ditch, I'm leaving it there. If I see them with a flat tire, you think I'm going to pull over and change a tire of a sodomite or a cross-dressed queer? Think about it. You're driving down the road, and some dude in a dress is out there, like, you know, trying to figure out what to do with his tire. You know, I'd probably just make sure that I drive by just to where, like, my tire kind of goes in the puddle, and I can kind of send up, like, a wave of mud and grime, a little bit of spray, okay? You see, getting to know the neighbors is great. Having a sense of community is great. Helping people out is great. Random acts of kindness are great. But when you have these horrible predators amongst us, these disgusting, evil perverts who just gross you out to even have to look at them. And by the way, you know why I'm offended? I'm offended that my kids have to grow up in a world where they have to see these things that corrupt and pervert their mind just by seeing these weird people in drag and whatever transvestite freaks. And so you can't have a sense of community with that kind of an abomination going on, all right? Let's come back to that verse. In fact, let's just keep coming back to it throughout the whole sermon. But look at verse number six. It says, if a bird's nest chance to be before thee in the way in any tree or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs and the dam sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young. Now what does the word dam mean? The word dam is referring to the mother, OK? You could maybe think of the word dame as an antiquated word for a woman. Damsel is a young woman or a maiden or a virgin. But here we see the dam is the mother bird. She's sitting upon the young or upon the eggs. The Bible is saying, do not take the mother with the eggs or the mother bird with the little baby birdies. But thou shalt in any wise let the dam go and take the young to thee that it may be well with thee and that thou mayest prolong thy days. Well, why is he saying don't take the mother, just take the eggs, just take the baby birds? Because you want that mother to live so that it will be well with you. Why? Because then she's going to go lay more eggs and she's going to have more baby birdies. Obviously it's very foolish for us to hunt animals to extinction. We don't want to just hunt animals to extinction and just chop down every single tree and just use up every single resource because then there's nothing left for the next generation. And so what we're talking about here is sustainability, right? So you want to have a sustainable population of birds. You want to have a sustainable setup when it comes to your interaction with the natural world, with plants, with animals, and so forth. You say, what does this have to do with people cross-dressing? Being a homo is not sustainable because they can't reproduce. How is it sustainable? Two dudes, they're not laying any eggs, my friend. Dudes can't lay eggs. And so it's not sustainable, okay? That's one thing. They're not reproducers, they're recruiters. And they're after your children, by the way. And so it's not sustainable. And by the way, when it comes to our culture or our society or our nation, allowing that to just go wild in our society, which is what we're doing in America right now where we just think this is acceptable to have homos in government, homos on TV, homos in the music industry, and it's just everywhere. You go to school and you're sitting next to a homo and you just allow this to be everywhere and it's protected and it's even celebrated, that society is not sustainable because every society in the history of mankind that has ever done that has gone down the tubes. If we look at the ancient Greeks, when they started getting involved in all that filth, well guess what? They declined. Their society went downhill. They eventually fell from prominence. Same thing with the Romans. Whenever a society gets decadent and immoral and wicked, they end up getting destroyed. When the children of Israel did this in the Old Testament, they went into captivity. When the children of Judah did this, the Babylonian captivity was the result when they start getting into sin and degrading themselves. And this is the most heinous thing that you'll see in a society. That's really the last stop on that downward spiral in a society when you have this level of perversion of the homos and cross-dressing and perversion, the transgender, whatever. I don't like the word transgender because transgender means cross-gender. You can't cross, it doesn't work. You're still a dude. It's still a woman. They can cross-dress. That's why I use the word transvestite because vest vestirse in Spanish means to dress yourself. So you can cross-dress, you can be a transvestite, but it's not the same thing as transgender because you're still the same gender. But having a decadent, anything-goes, pervert-loving, pervert-exalting society is not sustainable and America is no exception. If America continues to indulge this and celebrate this, it will not be sustainable. And any church or denomination that allows this to come in and allows these people to be members in good standing and to attend services and to teach Sunday school and to be even behind the pulpit, that denomination can't last. That church can't last. That nation can't last. That family can't last because they can't even literally reproduce. And so it's unsustainable. So number one, it destroys a sense of community. Number two, it's unsustainable. It's not going to work in the long run. But let's move on. The next verse says in verse number eight, when thou buildest a new house, then thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof and that thou bring not blood upon thine house if any man fall from thence. So the Bible is saying, look, when you build a house and you have a roof and people are going on the roof, you want to have a border around the edge to keep people from falling off the roof so that somebody doesn't fall off the roof and get injured and then it's your fault because you put them in an unsafe situation. And of course today when we go on really tall buildings, I don't know if any of you have ever worked on rooftops. I know I've been on rooftops literally hundreds and hundreds of times working on HVAC units back when I did fire alarm systems and I'd be up on these roofs and really tall rooftops virtually always have a battlement around the edge, meaning they have a little wall around the edge so that you can't just walk off the edge. Now our houses typically don't have a battlement in today's world and it always freaks me out when I see people working on roofs because I'm just afraid that they're going to fall off, especially the way sometimes they seem so flippant and casual about the way they walk around on those roofs and I'm just like, oh man. We were out soul winning the other day. We talked to this guy who was a painter and he said that he had fallen off, was it you that was with me, Anna? Where's Anna? She's in, okay. The guy said he'd like fallen off of the roof like five times or something. Do you remember that? And the guy was like severely messed up and disabled and he couldn't talk normally. He had to like press his hand against his neck when he talked to us because his vocal cords were destroyed and he was just crippled in multiple ways and he said he had had five major falls from the roof and he's still doing the exact same job. He's like, I was on a roof today painting and I was just like, wow, what in the world? Bring back Deuteronomy 22 five, get this guy a battlement. That's what the Bible is talking about. It's saying, look, you know, you don't want people falling off the roof of your house so you make it safe. Obviously we don't know exactly what their houses even looked like or how they were built because this is a really long time ago and so it's hard to say exactly what this looks like, but I think we all understand the principle of not having a death trap of a house or a sidewalk or a driveway or whatever because you don't want people getting hurt on your property because you had a big pit in your front yard with a tarp over it and then you put leaves over it or something, you know, and then somebody just fell in. So you, you know, you don't want to trap people, but if we take a spiritual view of this, you know, the battlement, what is it? It's a boundary. It's a barricade and it's to keep you from danger. It's to keep you from falling off the cliff. Okay, well here's another important boundary is how about this? Don't just wear any clothes. Wear men's clothes. Here's a boundary between male and female and that boundary between male and female is there to protect you and it's a God ordained boundary where you're not to cross that line because God doesn't want you to go off the cliff. He doesn't want you to get hurt. He doesn't want other people to get hurt. Have a boundary. We live in a society that just has no boundaries. Anything goes, well people are going to get hurt. It's detrimental and so you can see how even though Deuteronomy 22.5 feels a little random at first, now you can kind of see how it fits in the broader context. Number one, you know, having these transvestites around, it destroys the sense of community because let's face it, most of the populations grossed out by them and when people are grossed out and scared and everything, they're like, eh, let's do this online because they don't even want to go to, they don't want to go to work in person anymore because they're sitting next to some weirdo or something, you know, whereas like if people were working with normal people, they'd probably rather, you know, go into work and actually be around people or whatever. You know, if it gets too weird out there, people start withdrawing and people are afraid to help each other out. They're afraid to get involved. They're afraid to get to know the neighbors because who knows what kind of sick perverts they are anymore, you know, and that's sad and so it really hurts our community. It really hurts our sense of community. Number two, it's not sustainable, right? It destroys a society. It destroys a bloodline. It ruins everything and then number three, it's a crossing of a dangerous boundary, right? God has put boundaries in place for a reason. You know, guard rails are there to keep us from going off the cliff. You know, you go to the Grand Canyon, there's a guard rail there, okay? Unfortunately at Horseshoe Bend, there's no guard rail. I almost walked off the cliff one time because I was just a little bit aloof. I wasn't really paying attention and I kind of zoned out and then I realized the last second like, whoa, I just almost stepped off a cliff. You got to be careful, right? Why do they have the guard rails there at the Grand Canyon is just to keep people from falling in. God has some guard rails. He's got some battlements. There are some boundaries that we need to not cross and it's for our safety. It's for our protection. It's for our benefit that these boundaries are in place. Then we move on to the next verse, verse nine. It says, thou shall not sow thy vineyard with divers seeds, lest the fruit of thy seed which thou has sown and the fruit of thy vineyard be defiled. Thou shall not plow with an oxen and ask together. Thou shall not wear a garment of divers swords such as of woolen and linen together. Now what are these verses about? Not mixing seeds, not mixing fabrics, not mixing animals. What's he saying here? And of course, atheists, they'll make fun of this and say, oh, you know, well, how do you, you know, uh, oh, you follow the Bible, you know, why are you wearing a shirt of mixed fabrics? Well, I'll have you know that my shirt is a hundred percent cotton tonight. And so what do you, what, you know, your move atheist, what now? But they say like, oh man, you know, uh, you're mixing, uh, linen and cotton. Here's the thing. The Bible doesn't say you just can't mix any fabrics. It's specifically saying not to mix woolen and linen together because what he's talking about is not mixing animal based textiles with plant based textiles. And of course this has a spiritual significance of saying that the, the animal based textiles represent salvation by faith in the lamb, Jesus Christ, and then the plant based textiles represent a works based salvation. You say, where are you getting that pastor Anderson? Well, if you think about all the way back in the garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve sinned, they wanted to cover their nakedness. And so what they did to cover their nakedness was they made themselves aprons, okay? Not necessarily a full ensemble when you just are wearing an apron, but they got themselves aprons that they made out of fig leaves, right? So they're making a plant based garment, a fig leaf apron, and of course it left their naked backside exposed. Then God comes along and provides them with coats of skins to cover their nakedness, to cover their naked rear end, okay? Now the coats of skins, well, skins come from what? Animals. So an animal had to be killed in order to produce that garment because if you're going to take the skin of the animal, it doesn't survive. You don't skin an animal and it grows a new one or something. You know, if you skin the animal, the animal's dead. And so he made them coats of skins. Well, that animal that died is a picture of Jesus dying. Just like the animal died and then they got the covering for their sins, Jesus died and then we're covered in his righteousness, right? So we put on that robe of righteousness at Christ's expense because he died for our sins, right? So that is the significance there of the animal-based textile versus the plant-based textile. The plant-based is what they made of their own works. The animal-based textile is what God made for them. God provided those coats of skins. God made those coats of skins versus the apron that they made for themselves. Then you move on just a little further and you've got the story of Cain and Abel. And in the story of Cain and Abel, Abel's offering is of the lamb. The firstlings of the flock, the fat thereof. He's bringing an animal sacrifice representing Jesus, the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Whereas Cain brings an offering of fruits and vegetables which represents his own work, the produce that he grew, what he was able to create as opposed to the substitutionary death of an animal pointing us to the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ. So there's kind of this theme where you've got the plant-based versus the animal-based, right? One of them referring to our works and one of them referring to what Christ has done for us on the cross, his substitutionary death. Now here's the thing. There's nothing wrong with our works. Works are good. Let's all go do works. We're not against doing works. Hey, I'm not against repenting of your sins. In fact, I want you to repent of as many of them as you possibly can, and so will I. Sound good? We're all for repenting of your sins. We're all for doing works, but you know what we're not for is claiming that that saves you and here's what we're not for. We're not for mixing that with the work of Jesus Christ. There's our works and there's Jesus' work and there's no mixing. We don't want to mix and say, well, I got this garment of linen and woolen together. You know, we were just out sewing an hour ago and we knocked the door and we're giving the gospel to some really receptive people, but then this other lady starts yelling from another room. You forgot to tell them about repentance. You're forgetting repentance. You're leaving out repentance. And we're just like, oh God, shut her up. Shut her up. That's what I was praying. I was a silent partner, so that's what I was praying. I know because I was the one doing it. I was like, God, if it be your will, shut her up. That's what I prayed. That was word for word what I prayed. So then she marches over and she's like, we believe everything you're saying, but we believe it works in this house. It's faith plus works. It's both. You got to do both. It's a mix of faith and works. That's what God's saying. Don't wear a garment of linen and woolen together. The symbolic meaning there is the robe of righteousness. Don't be mixing. Go ahead and wear a linen garment. Amen. Wear a woolen garment. Amen. Hey, do works. Trust Christ, but don't try to mix the two and say, well, I'm trusting Christ and doing works for salvation. No. Trust Christ for salvation. Do works because it's the right thing to do. Do works in order to earn a reward. Do works to be a good Christian. Do works to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but don't try to bring that into salvation because if it be of grace, then is it no more of works? Otherwise grace is no more grace, but if it be of grace, is it no more works? Otherwise work is no more work. Can't be both. No mixing. And so that's the symbolic meaning here. When we say don't wear the mixed garment. So the atheists, they can make fun of it, but it's just because they don't understand the salvation doctrine that's actually at the heart of this. And that the things in the Old Testament law are symbolic. Killing an animal on an altar isn't just for the sake of having a barbecue. It's also to picture the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's picturing something greater. And so is this. So that's what's going on with that. But he says, you know, don't mix, don't sow the vineyard with diverse seeds, right? Don't mix the word of God because the seed could represent the word of God. You could say, don't mix the word of God with corrupt bogus fake scriptures. You know, I'm not going to go out soul winning with a mix of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, the Bible and the Quran mixed, you know, the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, or I don't want to go out with one of these modern Bible versions that corrupts the seed and has a bunch of wrong things in it that have never been seen before in Christianity. New readings and new doctrines and strange new readings that have never been in the traditional text of our Bible until recently. And so we don't want to go out sowing with a diverse seed in that sense. We don't want to plow with an ox and an ass together. You see, the ox could represent the actually saved preacher. You know, let's make the ass represent the unsaved fake phony preacher, the false prophet. Hey, because, and I'm not just making up this illustration, but actually, you know, the Bible does use the term ox as a symbol of a preacher. Okay. It talks about, for example, in the New Testament, you know, don't muzzle the ox when he treads out the corner. About pastors. That is the ox. In the story, the false prophet is the ass in the story. He's saying, don't plow with both together. Hey, let's team up with, you know, the United Methodists and hey, let's team up with this charismatic church over here. Let's team up with the Roman Catholics, you know, because we're all against abortion. Let's team up with the Roman Catholics. No, because I'm not going to plow with an ox and an ass together. So you can find a lot of great symbolic meanings here. But at the end of the day, if we could kind of sum this all up in one word, what is God trying to get across in verses 9, 10, and 11 when he talks about the ox and the ass, the woolen and the linen, when he talks about these different categories of diverse seeds, what would we say to just sum this up? We'd say, you know, separate or distinction. Separation, right? Keeping things separate. Well, I got another thing that we need to keep separate, male and female. So are you starting to see how Deuteronomy 22.5 is right at home in this chapter? Because Deuteronomy 22.5 connects beautifully with verses 1 through 4. It connects with the part about community, it connects with the part about sustainability, it connects with the part about boundaries, and now it connects with the part about distinction. So distinction in gender is what we're talking about. And this is what I want to focus on. Like I said, I'm not going to be able to preach the entire chapter because I want to be able to do this justice because this is such an important subject and you don't really hear it anywhere else. So it's important that this be covered in church because we are living in a gender-bending society. Are we not? Now let's do a little bit of a deep dive on verse 5, shall we, now that we've seen the context. It says, the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment, for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. Now this is pretty easy to understand, especially the part where it says that a man should not put on a woman's garment. I mean if you saw some dude walking down the street in a summer dress, a flowery summer dress, would you be offended by that? Absolutely, right? And in fact, most people, even as weird as things are getting out there, a lot of people would really be bothered by that to see some hair-legged man, some grown man walking down the street and he's in a flowery summer dress. He's wearing a woman's garment. What is this dude wearing a woman's garment? What's going on? Well how does God feel about it? Well God said that all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. What does that mean to be an abomination? It's basically something that's an abomination is something that you detest it, you want to avoid it, you hate it, you're disgusted by it. Maybe think of a food that you don't like. That food is an abomination unto you. You don't want to touch it, you don't want to eat it, you want to stay away from it, you want to avoid it. So this is something that God doesn't like at all and that's putting it mildly. Now a lot of people will say, well it's just the sin itself that God finds an abomination, not the person who's doing it. God's not mad at the person, he's just mad at the sin. Is that what the Bible says? In fact I heard a preacher one time say there is no verse in the Bible where God says that homosexuals are an abomination. And then he turned to Leviticus 18 22 where it says a man shall not lie with mankind as he lies with womankind, it's an abomination. And he said see it's the act that's an abomination but God never says that they are an abomination and yet behold right in front of you, what does the Bible say, all that do so are an abomination unto the Lord thy God. So the Bible is saying that to be cross-dressed is an abomination and if you cross-dress you're an abomination. That's what the Bible says. So the guy who's walking down the street in a dress is an abomination and let me tell you something this is becoming more and more commonplace in America today to see this. Now I believe that when the Bible says all that do so are an abomination I believe that he's talking about people who are all the way cross-dressed, all the way cross-dressed those people are an abomination because they're typically sodomites. Because what kind of a dude walks around in a dress? He's a reprobate, he's a queer, he's an abomination to the Lord. That's what I believe is going on here. But I will say this, you know if God is saying these people who do this are an abomination, sodomites, homos, lesbians, right, he's saying they're the ones who cross-dress so here's what he's telling his people, don't be like them. So look if a Christian wears, if a man wears feminine clothing maybe he's not all the way cross-dressed but he's dressed in a feminine manner or if a woman is dressed in a masculine manner okay I'm not saying that God hates that person because God doesn't hate any of his children. God doesn't hate saved Christians but he does hate the evil reprobates, the perverts that are out there and they're the ones who do this and so you shouldn't do it because all those who do that are an abomination so why do you even want to go part of the way down that road? Why do you even want to dabble with that? You know look if people who are cross-dressed are an abomination in the sight of God I want to make sure I'm wearing men's clothing all the time. And if you're a lady you should want to make sure that you're wearing ladies clothing all the time so that you're not treading where the abominations tread. Now of course everybody agrees about a man not wearing a dress but then all of a sudden when we talk about the women they just get a free pass you see today women are just allowed to wear everything. So I'm a man in 2023 America I can't wear a skirt, I can't wear a dress, why? Because if I did I'd be putting on a woman's garment. But then the Bible says on the flip side that the woman should not wear that which pertains to a man. But if you ask everybody well what's a woman's garment everybody knows. It's a dress. It's a skirt. But then if you ask them what is the woman not supposed to wear what is the clothing that pertains unto a man that the woman's not supposed to wear it's just crickets. Nobody knows. Nobody can figure this out. This is a mystery. Behold I tell you a mystery. What is it? It's clothes. Right? But I'll tell you what it is. It's pants. And let me tell you why because if men aren't supposed to wear skirts and dresses men are supposed to wear what? Men are supposed to wear pants or shorts obviously are just short that's short for short pants. Shorts or pants they're just shorter. And so you know and when I say shorts I'm saying down to your knee brother. Don't be wearing a bunch of Daisy Dukes around town. Don't be going out in your boxers and calling them shorts. And man you know why did that trend have to come back recently? What the? I mean you know I remember when I was a kid that that trend had kind of just ended. And the shorts had gotten longer and it was kind of like every once in a while you'd see that guy who's still in the 70s he's still stuck in the 70s he's got his little shorts on and you're like come on dude what are you doing? But thankfully man when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s early 2000s the shorts stayed pretty long. Now all of a sudden I see a bunch of people walking around in their boxer shorts and calling his shorts and they're you know they're taking that word short a little too literally. And you know I believe that God wants us to cover our nakedness and to cover our loins and our thighs. You know and look why does God want them to wear pants that go down to their you know to cover the thighs? Because he says that they would wear britches to cover their nakedness from the loins even to the thighs they shall reach. And people are like well from the loins to the thighs okay that'd be like a literal thread because the loins pretty much come in contact with the thighs buddy. That's inclusive because if it's exclusive it's a literal thread. Take you know you want to be a bone in the nose guy or something with a little thread wrapped around you. Obviously when he says the loins to the thighs that's inclusive. Now look let me explain to you the reason why. I listen and I love wearing shorts. I wear shorts constantly. I don't preach in shorts unless it's like a camping trip or something. But you know in my daily life man I'm always wearing shorts because it's Arizona. I wear shorts in February here. Just like everybody else because we live in Arizona. And so I'll wear my shorts and my shorts go down to my knee right. But you're not going to believe this when I sit down. Guess what they do. Oh they come up a few inches don't they. And when I'm running guess what they kind of float up a little bit don't they. Well guess what if I'm wearing shorts down to my knee and they go up a little bit. No harm no foul. Because this little part above my knee isn't really a big deal. You know what I'm saying. But guess what. If you're wearing these little short shorts and then you sit down and then you move weird or do something. Now we're seeing stuff that we're not supposed to be seeing. Does everybody understand what I'm saying. And the same thing goes for the ladies. You know the reason that you should have a skirt that at least goes to your knees. Look when you sit down it's going to slide up just a little bit. We're going to see a little bit above your knees. No harm no foul. But guess what. If it's already a short skirt well then what happens when you go up the stairs and some guys going up the stairs behind you. I remember when I was in Bible college they had a rule in the rulebook that said you are never allowed to walk up the stairs behind any woman. It literally said in the rulebook it said when you approach the stairs men go up the stairs first and the women walk behind the men up the stairs. But you know you're in your little mini dress walking up the stairs. Well guess what the guy behind you he's seeing things that he shouldn't be seeing. And so this is why these boundaries are in place. And so you can say well I don't care I'm just going to wear it halfway up my thigh. God said to cover the loins and the thighs with your garment. Do it. And then you don't have to worry about somebody seeing your naked butt cheeks or something even more private than that. And so men are to wear pants and shorts not the skirt not the dress. Well then obviously if we flip this over then let's put the women in the skirts and dresses. Here's what God's getting at here. We want to be able to tell the difference between men and women. You understand? And this is what precisely we're having a problem with in 2023. And here's what's funny. When I was growing up this was the norm was men wearing pants and shorts and pastors would get up and preach about this. Every Christian school had this rule. When my dad and mom were a kid even the public school had this rule. Girls had to wear skirts and dresses. Boys wore pants. But it's funny how in 2023 America when we need this when we need this idea more than ever when we need this commandment more than ever all of a sudden now all the churches they're just they've just already just they've basically conceded defeat and I can see why because this is this is a losing battle in America today. Like trying to get up in 2023 America and say no pants on women like that is not going to sell today. People aren't buying that. The young people that's not what they want to hear. They're not like it. And so it's kind of like a losing battle. It's kind of like hey just give it up. It's a losing battle. You dinosaur. You're done. You're Al Qaeda. You're the Taliban. You know let it go. But here's the thing about that is that I'm not going to because I'm right. I don't really care if it sells or not. I don't care if people like it or not. I don't care if it makes everybody upset. I'm not going to stop because I'm right and I am a professional truth teller. I'm up here to tell you the truth. Do what you are with it. But I'm not going to get up here and just be like well you know we fought this battle for decades and you know it's just we're not just going to die on that hill. OK honey you know let's take you down to Ross and just hit the men's section and whatever or hit the women's section get all the women's pants. And you say well you know women can wear women's pants they just can't wear men's pants. OK then why don't I get a men's dress. Why don't I get a men's skirt right. Folks the point is that I walk down the streets of Tempe Arizona and I can't figure out what I'm looking at sometimes. And it drives me nuts. Don't you just hate it when you can't tell like is this a man. Is this a woman. What the hell am I looking at. Right who does that bother you. It bothers me because you know what. I don't want there to be no boundaries no distinctions. We don't know what the gender is. And I mean you look at something and you just think you haven't figured out and then it opens his mouth and speaks. And all of a sudden all your theories just went out the window and you're back to square one. It's like you're in that circle of the scientific hypothesis the scientific method. It's like all right new hypothesis. Let's go start over. Look this is how you want to know what God wants. This is what God wants. God wants there to be multiple ways to tell. That way you have a backup. Right so like you know you can actually check a few boxes. So like God says in the New Testament because people are like oh that's Old Testament. The New Testament says that it is a shame for a man to have long hair. But that for a woman her hair is her glory. But that a man it's a shame for him to have long hair. So here's the thing. If we have a society where men have short hair and women have long hair. And then on top of that. We also have men wearing pants and shorts women wearing skirts and dresses. Men we're going to be able to figure this out. Because here's the thing. You know what if what if for some reason the woman has you know lost her hair. Maybe she's a cancer patient or something. But hey she's in a dress. She's in a skirt. OK. We know what we're dealing with here. You know there are situations like that right. You need a couple different ways to tell. Look I want to be able to tell what gender you are from a mile away. I don't want to have to come at you with a magnifying glass trying to figure out. You know whether you have an Adam's apple or not. And trying to figure out the ratio of the size of your shoulders to the size of your head or something. Because you know you unfortunately in 2023 America we're having to kind of learn the ropes of this. You know we're starting to look at shoulders like we've never looked at them before. And you know the sad thing is what if there's a girl that's shoulders are just kind of broad. You know that's that you want to know who you know you want to know who I feel bad for that I legitimately feel bad for is like girls who are just kind of born with a little bit masculine features or or you know what I mean or or even boys that are born with a little bit feminine features because basically people are probably walking down the street thinking that they're a transvestite or something. And they're just totally normal people and they can't help the fact that they're born you know maybe not necessarily the most beautiful girl or the most manly you know dude with some square chin or something. And it's like it's just sad because I'm thinking like you know a generation ago nobody would have wondered but now this person probably has to go through life you know carrying around a birth certificate or something. You know and it's just like and people are making sure that you've always been a woman right you know I mean it's madness we're living in a crazy world right. But I'm crazy right I'm crazy for saying that men and women should have totally different hair and men and women should have totally different clothing. Now a lot of people would say well women can still dress like a lady and still be feminine wearing pants. But here's the thing about that is that if pants are allowed on women let's just say women can wear pants is no issue. Well then here's the thing about that is that that means my wife and I can dress exactly the same because my wife and I can throw on a pair of sweatpants and a faithful word t-shirt and a pair of flip flops and we're and we're good to go. Let's go. Isn't that isn't that cute. Isn't that cute when couples dress alike. And so we can put on our flip flops and we can put on our sweatpants and we can put on a faithful word t-shirt and we're dressed in identical clothes or how about yet better yet maybe we can be like a dystopian science fiction film and we can just each wear a set of coveralls and I got my space suit on and she's got her space suit on and we're walking around in matching jumpsuits. What is the spirit of the law. There's the letter of the law and then there's the spirit of the law. What is the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is that God wants men and women to wear different clothing and if they're both wearing pants they're wearing the same clothing. If they're both wearing blue jeans they're wearing the same clothing. If they both have a hair that goes right to here or something they're wearing the identical hairdo that's not going to work right. We need men to have short and look I'm not saying men need to have hair as short as mine. Obviously my hair is very short and you could have your hair quite a bit longer than this and still be clearly a short haired guy. But you shouldn't try to see how long you can get where we're kind of wondering like are you know are we on that borderline. Same thing with the ladies you know you should have your hair in such a way that it's clearly classified as long hair. I'm not going to sit here and define that for you and sit there and micromanage and try to you know dictate that to you. And by the way I'm not dictating this you know what you go out of here ladies and you go wear pants every day for all I care because you know what it's not my problem. You know but I'm going to enforce this in my house and I'm going to preach this in my pulpit because it's the truth. And guess what it was illegal in the beginning of the 20th century in America for women to wear pants so maybe I'm not crazy if it was literally even in secular society illegal 100 years ago. And you say well you know times change okay well but don't be shocked if 30 years from now men wearing skirts is allowed in Baptist churches. And we just think it's totally cool and totally normal and we just think like and the pastor just gets up and says hey make sure you wear a manly skirt because you don't want to wear a woman's garment make sure you got your skirt from the men's department. You say that'll never happen. Why not? And by the way I've already seen men wearing skirts recently and they weren't in drag like they weren't like totally because you know sometimes you see a guy it's like that guy's in drag and you go like throw up and you go to one of those like you go to a chemistry lab and put your eyes in one of those like wash where you wash for 15 minutes after getting chemicals in your eyes you step on the pedal and like do an eye wash you throw up. But the point is like you see dudes that are just straight okay that was a poor choice of words that are just outright in drag. Right but you know I've gone to some running events some marathons where I showed up and there are guys where the rest of their appearance looks normal their hair maybe even a beard normal men's t-shirt and they're just wearing a running skirt and they're just running a marathon in a tutu running a marathon in a skirt I'm joking about the tutu but like it was you know because it was a manly skirt you know I've seen a biker wearing like a jean skirt rugged manly skirt is that I mean is anybody comfortable with that? But the reason that we're comfortable with women in pants is because we've seen it our whole lives we've been around it our whole lives it's it's it's just if you see something enough you're going to get used to it but at the end of the day just because I've seen something a million times and been brainwashed that it's normal and I feel comfortable with it because obviously I don't freak out at all when I see a woman in pants because I've grown up with it my whole life whereas if I see a dude in a skirt I'm like what the right but when you know I'm comfortable with it but that doesn't make it right. Okay God said that a woman should not wear what pertains to a man he wants men and women to have distinct clothing and so women should not be wearing pants they should be wearing skirts and dresses because that is distinctly feminine clothing whereas pants are distinctly manly clothing and we don't need to have this just women wear everything and and if women are allowed to wear pants then pray tell me what are they not allowed to wear ball caps neckties socks I mean obviously that's the garment the bathroom if you if you have trouble understanding the sermon go to Wendy's and look at the bathroom door and and think think about that for a little while okay it's a silent sermon over at Wendy's on the bathroom door that will explain to you the difference and again I just feel like I just feel like now's the time more than ever for women to be in skirts and dresses and for men to be in pants because if anything men we need to make sure that we don't get sucked into this kind of gender bending mentality and then can I also just say something from my own opinion you know skirts and dresses just look nicer on women anyway women just look classier in skirts and dresses anyway you know you want to be able to treat you a little bit better wear skirts and dresses and you actually come off as a little bit classier and look nobody's trying to dress you up like Little House on the Prairie nobody's trying to put you in some kind of a weirdo Muslim ninja suit I want you to be beautiful and stylish and happy and confident but you know what why don't you wear distinctly feminine clothing and leave the sweatpants and the jeans to the men okay don't raid your brother's clothing or your dad's clothing that's all I got tonight because we you know we don't have time to delve into all these other things maybe a Sunday night sermon is in order to cover some of this stuff and look I'm not trying to I'm not trying to fight you I'm not trying to offend you but at the end of the day I think if you will actually think about these things and study the Word of God I believe that this is a clear situation where God wants us to be wearing gender specific clothing and our nation culturally understood this for centuries and what's actually new and different is putting women in pants because it was extremely out of the ordinary even just a few generations ago and so you say well times change yeah but they're changing in kind of a scary way so maybe we should go back to books like Deuteronomy and First Corinthians and figure out what God wants us to do with our lives and so let's bow our heads in our word of prayer Father we thank you so much for your word thank you for these principles about being neighborly loving people sense of community sustainability Lord God thank you for giving us boundaries and distinctions in our lives and Lord help us not to get sucked into this gender bending society but that rather we would be old fashioned when it comes to gender and believe that there are two genders male and female and help us to keep those distinct and Lord help us to be people that please you in the way that we dress and wear our hair so that we can be clearly male or female respectively in Jesus name we pray amen.