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This is chapter 1. We're kind of concluding, really, the book of Joshua. This is kind of almost the epilogue of the book of Joshua. And the first few chapters of the book of Judges are introductory, leading us into the subject matter of the book of Judges, which is the constant cycle, the constant up and down that the children of Israel went through in their early history, in the times of the Judges, where they were serving God, they loved God, then they forsook God and went after other gods. Then they were taken captive and basically enslaved by some of the surrounding nations, usually the Philistines, sometimes some of the other nations, that would put them into slavery. Then they would cry out to God and say they were sorry when they were in affliction, and beg God to help them. Then God would send a deliverer. He'd send some kind of a judge, a warrior, a preacher that would come and take them out of their bondage, defeat the enemy, and then they would all live happily ever after for that generation, and then what would happen? The next generation would come up, they would not know the Lord, as I said here, they would serve other gods, they'd go back into bondage and slavery, they'd cry out to God again, he'd send a deliverer. And this is a cycle that goes on again and again in the book of Judges. I mean, you'd think that they would learn their lesson, but they didn't. And you have to understand that the events of the book of Judges cover a period of about 400 years, so it's not like they're going back and forth every couple of years, every couple of years back and forth. You see, they didn't have a memory of history to understand what had happened 100 years ago or 200 years ago, they were just looking at right now, and they just kept making the same mistake again and again and again. But I don't want to focus on the book of Judges right now, I want to talk more about just these first two introductory chapters that we read at the beginning of the service. Look, if you would, flip over, actually just look down at the book of Judges. We saw here, in verse number 1, let's just look at a few key verses. Now after the death of Joshua, it came to pass that the children of Israel asked the Lord, saying, Who shall go for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them? And the Lord said, Judah shall go up. Behold, I have delivered the land into his hand. Now that's past tense. He said, I've already delivered it into his hand. It's as good as done. I mean, you're just going to go do it, but really it's already been done because the battle is the Lord's. I've already delivered it into your hand. Go ahead and just go up and get it done, just defeat these enemies. But the problem is, right away, we see Judah's lack of faith. Did you notice? He goes to Simeon, his brother, and says, Can you come help me? Right away, we see that they don't trust God. They're relying on the flesh, and they say, Simeon, will you come help me? And then I'll help you. Now did God tell him to do that? He said, Judah is to go up first and defeat the enemy, and I've already delivered it into his hand. He's going to win. But all throughout this chapter, we see them going out to fight the enemies and not finishing the job. The first time we see it is with Adonai Bezek. Look at verse number 5. It says, And they found Adonai Bezek in Bezek, and they fought against him, and they slew the Canaanites and the Perizzites. Now they killed his armies, but, it says, Adonai Bezek fled. And they pursued after him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and his great toes. Now is that what God said to do? God said they were supposed to slay all the inhabitants of the land, and yet they catch the leader. This is exactly what Saul does later. Remember when Saul keeps just the leader, Agag, alive, and disobeys? He lost his whole kingdom for doing that, but it was the same thing that they did here. It says that Adonai Bezek said, in verse 7, Three score and ten kings, having their thumbs and their great toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. He had done this to seventy other nations, captured their king, and cut off their thumbs and their great toes. Where do you think they learned that? Did they learn it from God? Where in the Bible does it say to capture the king and cut off his thumbs and his great toes? Where in the Bible does it tell you to dismember anybody? You know, and keep them alive, but just dismember them? Nowhere. Where did they learn it from? See, they have to learn it from somebody. They learned it from the world. They learned it from people like Adonai Bezek, who is their worldly custom. So here they disobeyed God, and they left the king alive. Not only that, look at this, it says, And they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died. Now, it's not saying that he died immediately. It's saying that he lived in Jerusalem until he died. You see what I'm saying? Jerusalem was kind of a capital city, not of the nation of Israel at this point, but of that region where Judah and Benjamin were, it was a major city. And he lived there until he died. They had this evil, sinful, wicked, we'll get more into that later, evil, sinful, wicked man living among them. But it's okay, it was safe because he didn't have any thumbs, and he didn't have any great toes, so he couldn't really do anything to harm them. No. If you think about it, what do you need your thumbs and your great toes for? Well, you need your thumb to grip a sword, right? You can't hold a sword. But do you think Adonai Bezek was going out single-handedly, wielding the sword, defeating the enemies? No, he was a leader. He was leading armies of people who did have thumbs and did have great toes. You know, you can't run if you don't have any toes. Believe it or not, without your big toe, you can't really keep your balance very well. Yeah, that's a fact. If you have your great toe cut off, you can't walk properly, you can't keep a good balance, and you can't run into battle and you can't hold a sword. But this cancer that they allowed to stay in the promised land of all these wicked nations, it started with just one man that they spared, right? The first mistake that they make here, besides their lack of faith by getting Sydney involved, the first time they disobeyed God's command was keeping one person alive, right? But now let's continue down the story. And keep in mind as we go down the story that this chapter takes place over several months and years. Okay, this is not... If you study the book of Joshua, it'll give you the timeline. This is a repeat of what we saw in Joshua. And so keep in mind, this is not happening in the course of a couple days. This is happening over months and years of conquest in the promised land. Look down, if you would, to verse number 19. We're still talking about Judah's conquest. And the Lord was with Judah, and He drove out the inhabitants of the mountain, but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had chariots of iron. Now, is that compatible with what God said in verse number 2, when He said, I've already delivered them into your hand? And they say, well, we can't do it because they have chariots of iron. Look down, if you would, at verse number 21. Because Judah, the first kingdom that was supposed to drive these inhabitants out, because they didn't do their job properly, watch others begin to follow suit. And the children of Benjamin, now we're getting to the next tribe, did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem, but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day. Again, they failed. Abinai and Isaac's already there. Let's let the Jebusites stay there also, okay? Then we go down, and what starts out as a very triumphant chapter, if you were paying attention as we read it, I mean, it's just one victory after another, a few mistakes along the way, but the first part of the chapter is very triumphant, talking about the conquest. By the time we get to the end of the chapter, almost every verse is a negative about what they failed to do. Look, if you would, at verse 27. So all the way up to verse 26, most of it's very positive. But then we get to verse 27. Neither, we just begin this series of neithers. Neither did Manasseh drive out the inhabitants of Beshian and her towns. Verse number 28. And it came to pass, when Israel was strong, that they put the Canaanites to tribute. That means that they were taxing them and taking money from them, but they didn't destroy them like God had said. Look at verse 29. Neither did Ephraim drive out the Canaanites that dwelled in Geezer, but the Canaanites dwelled in Geezer among them. Mixed in with them. Verse 31. Neither did Asher drive out the inhabitants of Akko. We skipped to 30. Neither did Zebulun drive out the inhabitants of Chitron. Verse number 33. Neither did Naphtali drive out the inhabitants of Vashimesh. And the Amorites, look at verse 34. It keeps getting worse. The Amorites forced the children of Dan into the mountains, for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley. But the Amorites would dwell in Mount Heres in Eitelon, and enthale them, yet the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, so they became tributaries. And the coast of the Amorites was from the going up to Aqrabim, from the rock and upward. This was their problem. They thought that they could handle having these wicked people living among them, and they just said, well, we'll just make money off of them. We'll tax them. We'll make them tributaries. The word tributary occurs one, two, three, four times at the end of that chapter. Four times they said, we're going to tax them. We're going to make them our tributaries, our servants. We're going to use them for our own financial gain. So we see that they thought Adonai Bezek was not a threat, because they had taken his thumbs and his great toes off. Then they said, well, these other nations aren't going to be a threat, because we're going to oppress them and make them tributaries. We can make some money off of them, and we're going to use them for our own financial gain. Now look, this is a picture of your life. This is a picture of our life. The children of Israel were going into the Promised Land, which represents a victorious Christian life. God's will, God's plan for your life. I mean, God's will was not for them to be in Egypt. God's will was not for them to stay in the wilderness. God's will was for them to conquer and live in the Promised Land and be a victorious nation. But the problem is, they thought that they could take over the nation, they could do God's will, but they thought that they could reserve these little enclaves, these certain little areas of sin and filth and wickedness that they could have in their nation and in their country without it hurting them. You see, sometimes we as Christians can think that we can obey God's commands, do God's will, fight the battles of the Lord, but just keep a pocket of sin in our life that we have under control, that's not going to destroy us. See, the nation of Israel is a picture of your life and your heart. If you take the nation of Israel, they said, as long as we dominate 95% of it, we can leave a few little pockets of sin and filth and iniquity and we can keep it under control, we can handle it. You know, I heard people say this about the television, I'm going to get more into television later, but they said, if you can't handle it, get rid of it. If you can't control it. You know, that's what I'd like to say. That's what the mentality was of the children of Israel. They said, well, if we can't control the Jebusites, we'll get rid of them. But if we can put them to tribute, if we can, you know, have them obeying us and doing what we say, then we'll keep them around. Well, if you can't control Abi Bezek, he's going to have to go. But if we can cut off his thumbs and his great toes, then we can keep them around, because we've got them under control. You can't keep the sin in your life under control. You've got to exterminate. You've got to get it out. Now look down, if you would, we'll quickly finish this and get into the rest of the sermon, but look at chapter 2. It says, "...came up from Gilgal to evoke him, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land, which I swear unto your fathers. And I said, I will never break my covenant with you, and you shall make no leave with the inhabitants of this land. You shall throw down their altars, but you have not obeyed my voice. Why have you done this? Wherefore I also said, I will not drive them out from before you, but they shall be as thorns in your sides, and their gods shall be a snare unto you." What happened? I believe that the Bible is legitimately saying that they could not drive out these certain inhabitants. I mean, the Bible's saying it, it's true. Look back at Judges chapter 1. It says right here, in verse 19, at the end of the verse, "...but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." Go down, if you would, and look at verse number 34. "...and the Amorites forced the children of Dan unto the mountain." I've heard preachers refer to verse 19 of Judges 1 and say, I don't believe that for one second. They read that verse, but could not, I don't believe that, they could not. But look, the Bible says they couldn't. But the reason that they couldn't was because they'd already kept Adonai Bezak alive, and they were already leaving these pockets. And according to chapter 2, look down, it says, "...wherefore, because of the fact that you have not killed all of them, he's saying, I will not drive them out from before you, be as thorns in your sides, and their gods..." He said, now you're stuck with them. Do you see what happened, the progression? He started out telling them to destroy them. They would not finish the job, they would not do what God told them to do, so God started allowing them to win battles as the enemy. And they ended up being stuck with maybe a little bit more pockets than they thought that they were going to have. And they had them under control for a while, until, it says in verse number 10, "...and also all that generation were gathered under their fathers..." This is chapter 2. "...and there arose another generation after them, which knew not the Lord..." Whose fault is that? The parents' fault. "...nor yet the works which he had done for Israel." Nobody had even told them. Are you listening to this? Nobody had even told them the works that he'd done. They didn't even know, they weren't even aware of some of the miracles that God had done in bringing them out of the land of Egypt and through the wilderness. "...and the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and certain bailed them." You say, what's bail them mean? The word bail is the name of a false god. I am ending in the Bible is a plural, in Hebrew. That's why you'll see the word cherub, singular, and cherubim, plural. You'll never see the word cherubim in singular in the Bible. Because I am is a plural Hebrew ending. And so our English language has retained that with the word cherub, cherubim, seraphim. Well here, bailim is talking about multiple bails. That's the difference between the word bail and bailim. Bail is just talking about, it's kind of like a heathen word for God. Kind of like the word Allah, Allah. The word Allah is just Arabic for God. But to us it means a false god, because we're thinking of the Islamic god. Do you understand what I mean by that? Same thing here, bail is always referring to a false god in the Bible. Bailim is talking about multiple false gods, and they forsook the Lord God of their fathers, verse 12, which brought them out of the land of Egypt and followed other gods. See there's the plural, that's what I was talking about. The Bible always defines itself. Of the gods of the people that were round about them, and bowed themselves under them and provoked the Lord to anger, and they forsook the Lord and served Baal, see the singular, and Asherah. Now flip over to 1 Kings, chapter number 11. 1 Kings 11, go forward in your Bible. You see what I want to illustrate in this morning's sermon, I'm going to show you from several different stories in the Old Testament, is that allowing little pockets of sin, little enclaves of wickedness and iniquity, to stay in your life and to fester, will cause them eventually, they will take over. Now it may not happen right away, but if you don't deal with the sin in your life, if you don't perform a spiritual surgery, and remove that cancerous tumor of sin that you're keeping in your life, it will eventually take over the whole body and kill you. It happened to the children of Israel. It will happen to you, it will happen to anybody. Let's look at an example. Number 1, Solomon. King Solomon was a great man. In chapter 10 of 1 Kings, we see Solomon revered and extolled for his wisdom, for his riches, his military power, his might. The Queen of Sheba was in awe of his greatness. The kings that were around him, the King of Tyre, was in awe of his greatness and said, God has blessed Israel by giving them such a great, wise, godly, righteous king to rule over them. This was a great man. Don't just blow him off as being... I mean, this is the author of the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes, the book of Song of Solomon. A man that had more wisdom, more riches, more honor than any man who had ever gone before him in Israel. This was a great man. He's known in the Old Testament. He has the term all to himself. It's only used one time in the entire Old Testament, the preacher, Solomon. It's a great man, but look at chapter 11. We'll see one downfall in his life, one thing that destroyed his life. Here's the but. See, in chapter 10 was all his greatness, but King Solomon loved many strange women. That was his one downfall. I mean, other than that, this was a wise man, a great man, a great leader, a Holy Spirit-filled man, a righteous man, a godly man, a man who... He wasn't an immoral man. I mean, just breaking all God's laws, just out in all kinds of sin. God would not have chosen him. God would not have blessed him for that. But later in his life, the one sin that, yes, he had earlier in his life, one downfall is he liked a variety of women. Now, God has not ordained this to be so. God in the beginning made a man and a woman, and he said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and cleave unto his wife singular, and they too shall be one flesh. And so God did not design a man to have multiple wives and multiple women. He didn't put inside of man a desire for a variety of women. He designed man to choose one woman and to be married and committed to that woman for life. Period. And yet we see Solomon has this desire for many strange women. He wants exotic women from all over the world. This is going to be his downfall. But look where these women came from. Women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Zidonians, and Hittites. Look at the next words. Where did Solomon get these women? Of the nations concerning which the Lord said unto the children of Israel, Ye shall not go into them, neither shall they come into you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods. Solomon, cleave unto these in love. It's the same thing that God had said about the nations of the land. Let me ask something. Should there have been a Hittite on the face of the earth in 1 Kings chapter 11? No. That was one of the nations that they were supposed to get rid of. Should there have been a Zidonian? No. They should have been gone. Now the Moabites and the Ammonites and the Edomites are a different story. Those came from the sins of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why those people even exist. But we see that just as the children of Israel were supposed to get rid of these wicked nations from that, exterminate them. He said, they will turn your heart after their gods eventually. And he said, it won't happen in your generation. He said, your sons and your daughters will marry, will intermarry among each other, is what God promised them back in the book of Deuteronomy, before they went into the nation of Israel. He said, your sons will take their daughters to be their wives, and their sons will take your daughters to be their wives, and they're going to turn away their hearts from God. That's exactly what happened. All the generation of Joshua, all the elders that outlived Joshua, that whole nation served the Lord, and did not depart from the earth. But as God had said, their children intermarried with the heathen, and turned the whole nation away from God, just as Solomon married all these heathen women, and his heart was turned away from God. Verse 3 of chapter 11, it says in the end, 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned away his heart. I mean, marrying an unbeliever is ungodly, it's wrong. We're not to be unequally yoked together with unbelievers, and here's one of the greatest men who ever lived, but his unbelieving wives turned away his heart in his old age. It wasn't until he was a very old man, just say the Bible. At the end of his life, he became weaker morally, weaker spiritually, and these women eventually grinded him down, wore him down, and they turned away his heart from God. And because of it, his kingdom was taken away, not in his lifetime, but of course his son, Rehoboam, lost the kingdom, and was left with one tribe, just so that God was technically obeying what he had promised David. One tribe was left unto him, and all the rest forsook him, and went with Jeroboam the son of Nebat. So we see here that one sin, given enough time to fester, will take over and destroy your life. It won't happen right away. But if you let one sin fester in your life, it'll grow and grow and grow. Eventually it's going to... You may have it under tribute now. You may have it under control now. Eventually it will grow and take over, period. I mean, this is what the Bible's teaching. Turn, if you would, to Leviticus chapter 18. You say, well, what was the big deal about having these nations... I mean, why'd they have to kill all these nations? What's wrong with just subduing them, and maybe teaching them the right way, or cut off their thumbs, or whatever? Why not keep them around? Well, we're going to see in Leviticus 18, but let me give you a personal insight from my life. When I was 17 years old, when I turned 17, right when I turned 17, it was in July, I began to go to a soul-winning, independent, fundamental Baptist church. Now, for the last five years, we've been going to, as a family, very liberal churches. The NIV, you know, rock and roll. Nobody ever got saved, those type of churches. Dead as a doornail. And we went to those churches for five years. When I turned 17, throughout my 16th year, I was reading the Bible a lot. I was trying to win people to Christ. I didn't really know what I was doing, but I read through the Bible cover to cover. I was seeking after God, and so God led somebody to invite me to this right kind of a church. And that's a story in and of itself. But anyway, we started going there when I was 17, and I began right away to go soul-winning. Right away, jumped into soul-winning. And I went soul-winning, you know, a couple times a week, as of about two or three weeks of going to the church, started going on Wednesdays. Then I started going on Wednesdays and Saturdays, both. And I was soul-winning, soul-winning, soul-winning. Now, I'd already been reading the Bible, and when I was 17, I read the Bible cover to cover. When I was 18, I read cover to cover four times, cover to cover in that year. And I was really growing because I was out soul-winning, I was reading the Bible, I was changing things about my life, I was in church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. But there were certain little pockets that I had not eliminated. Kind of like what we're talking about here. For example, my music collection was still intact. I mean, I had the same ungodly music from when I was a younger teenager, and I had, you know, hundreds, literally hundreds of CDs, cassettes and LPs of the music that was wrong. I mean, it was worldly, ungodly music. Looking back, I'm shocked that I listened to it. Because while I was listening to it, I couldn't really realize how wrong it was until I got out of it from that witchcraft or that garbage. And then I looked back and said, whoa, it was like, hey, how could I have been listening to it? But I'm telling you, that was like kind of the one thing that I was withholding from God. I mean, other things started changing. You know, obviously, I wasn't perfect and I'm not perfect right now. Okay, that's not what I'm saying. The nation of Israel wouldn't have been perfect if they would have eliminated all these nations, okay. These are just major blots, if you will. Sin that's just allowed to be there and recognized. But here I was as a 17, 18, 19-year-old young man, and even slightly into my 20th year, I just still had all this music that I was listening to. And you know, I knew that a lot of it was wrong. Some of it I was pretending was okay. But I knew that a lot of it was wrong. Some of it I was justifying and whatever. And slowly I began to purge it out and purge it out. But you know, there came a time in my life where I had to just get rid of all of them in one fell swoop. You know, I was phasing it out, phasing it out, phasing it out. But I had to just get to the root of the problem and just say I must just destroy it all, get rid of it all. I must kill every last single Zydonian. You know, I must kill every last Hittite. I must destroy Adonai Bezek, you know, that final CD, okay, that's still in my collection. And I remember it was very difficult. It was hard to cut out that cancer. But you know why? I talked to other people who it wasn't really that hard for them to get rid of all the worldly sinful music. And I'll tell you why. Because it hadn't grown as big. See, in my life, this cancer, this tumor of this worldly ungodly music had become such a giant cancerous tumor that it was going to take a major surgery to remove. And it was going to take a painful surgery to remove. And I still remember just struggling to give it up. And it may not seem like a big deal to some of you that are here that maybe have not been as into music and things, but I'm telling you music is like a sorcery that can control and take over your life. It is almost like a false god. I mean, it will take over. And I'm telling you, and I'm not going to preach against music just because I don't have time in this sermon, but I mean, get the sermons on music. I mean, it's bad. I mean, the world's music is filthy. It's vile. It's ungodly. I mean, it'll mess you up. It'll warp your mind. And it's very sorceress in its control of your mind and life. To this day, I can't get some of the songs out of my head, you know, a decade later. That's how powerful music is. But you see, there came a point where I knew this to be true, and I can stand here right now and tell you that this is true. If I had not removed that pocket of sin out of my life, if I had not decided to get rid of Adonai Bezek and the Hittites and the Hivites and the Perizzites of my life, I'm going to tell you something. I would not be standing here today, and I would not be winning souls today. I would not be serving God today because eventually, if you let sin like that go unchecked, it will take over. It will ruin your life. It wouldn't be like, well, I would just be kind of stuck in my spiritual growth. No. I wouldn't be... See, the children of Israel could not maintain this situation forever, where they were all serving God, but they just have these pockets of sin. Something had to change. And what happened was those pockets grew bigger and bigger and bigger until they started taking over and making the children of Israel tributaries. See, what goes around comes around. They said, well, we're going to enslave you and make you a tributary. Read a few chapters. They're the slaves to some of those same people. Okay. You know, Adonai Bezek, he crippled 70 kings. He ended up being crippled. That's the way things are in the world, my friend. What you reap is what you sow. And so, what you sow is what you reap, rather. And so, this could not stay that way. And I'm telling you, I couldn't stay the way I was when I was 19. I couldn't stay in that position forever. Something had to go. Either I was going to cut out the cancer of that particular sin that I'm mentioning, or eventually I believe that it would have just continued to grow and fester, and it would have just killed me. It would have destroyed my, and I'm not talking about physically killing me, but I'm talking about just killing my potential, killing my spiritual, killing my walk with God. I'm telling you, I have watched people, I could name for you people right now, and this is just one sin that we're naming. It could be whatever the sin. It doesn't matter whether it's the Hivites or the Peresites. Does it really matter? It's just the fact that they kept them there. And so, we can name any sin. This is just a particular sin. Even that sin, and most people would consider that a more minor sin, listening to bad music. I mean, certainly that's not on par with adultery, is it? No, it's not. Certainly, listening to wrong music is not on par with committing murder. Certainly, listening to the wrong music is not on par with abstaining from church, or abstaining from soul wedding. Certainly, it's not the biggest sin in the world. True, granted. I'll agree with that. But that one sin still has the potential to destroy you. I've seen people, I'm telling you, I've seen people who literally, I could give you their names after the service, who literally, I watched rock and roll music, and you won't even believe me when I say this, but I promise you it's true. I watched rock and roll music eventually lead one thing to another to cause people to get a divorce. You say, what? I don't believe that. It's true, I'm telling you. I can tell you this or I can tell you how it happened. How rock music led to divorce. I've seen others, rock music led to people getting out of church. I can name for you a young guy, where rock music is what got him out of church as a teenager. A guy that I went to church with. And I believe that this man sincerely loved the Lord. This young man, I'm saying, this teenager. But that one sin just took over in his life and just pulled him away from church. Pulled him away from the things of God and the people of God. If it goes unchecked. Now, Solomon loved these strange wives. Solomon clave unto them in love. They turned away his heart. The children of Israel would not exterminate these nations. What was the big deal? Look down at Leviticus. Are you in Leviticus 18? Let's read about the nations that God told the children of Israel to destroy. That they thought were so harmless. That they thought they could exploit for financial gain. Look at verse number 20. The Bible says, Moreover, thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbor's wife, to defile thyself with her. That's talking about adultery. And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech. Neither shalt thou profane in the name of thy God, I am the Lord. That's talking about murdering your children. That's pretty bad. This would be on par with abortion. Destroying your own seed and offspring. Number 22. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind in its abomination. Homosexuality, sodomy. So we have adultery, abortion, murder, sodomy. Verse number 23. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith. Neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down there to his confusion. I'm not even going to mention what that's talking about. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things. God, why are you bringing this up? I wouldn't even dream of doing those things. I wouldn't even dream of killing my own child. I wouldn't even dream of sodomy or bestiality, these unbelievable sins you're listing. But he says in the latter part of verse 24, For in all these the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you. Do you see now why it was so important to kill Abinai Bezek and to kill all these people? I mean, this is the kind of stuff that they were into. Wicked stuff. Murder, abortion, sodomy. Filthy, perverted things that we wouldn't even dream of speaking of. And he says, all these, he's saying all these things, everything I just listed, the nations are defiled, which I cast out before you. And the land is defiled. Therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomited out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations, neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you. He's saying, I don't even want you to have a stranger come into town that does these kind of filthy things. They let whole cities and whole families and parts of these nations continue to live there. You think that they all stopped when the children of Israel took over? They stopped all this stuff and just became these God-loving, God-fearing, righteous citizens. He said the land is spewing them and spitting them out. It's vomiting them out. We've got to clean this place out. It's disgusting. And what happened? They kept huge groups of them living right around them. Oh, well, they're just over the hill, though. We've got this mountain between us. You know, we're in the mountain, they're in the valley. You know, it'd be kind of like, well, they're in Tucson. You know, we're in Phoenix. It's no big deal. Man, they sure are in Tucson, too. Good night. I've been down there. There's some weirdos down there. But it says the land's spewing them out. He said, don't even let any stranger, don't even let one stranger who's visiting perform any of these things. And yet, they allowed whole societies to continue to exist who daily took part in these kind of activities. Isn't that just unbelievable? I mean, they'd majorly disobeyed. They had the Book of Leviticus in their hand, by the way. They had Leviticus 18 in their hand when they went into that nation. Yeah. I mean, Moses wrote out all the words of the law. They wrote them down. Hey, you know what else they did? They carved them into a rock. Before the events of Judges chapter 1, they wrote all these words into stone, the blessings and the curses describing these kind of things, later on in the Book of Deuteronomy. They knew what was going on. They had the whole law read to them audibly, and all the people said, Amen, the Bible says. I mean, Moses, when Moses had spoken all these things according to the law, Hebrews chapter number 10, Moses literally read Genesis through Deuteronomy audibly to the entire nation of Israel, and all the people said, Amen. All the words that the Lord commanded, will we do. Remember Joshua said, choose you this day whom you'll serve. As we laugh, he said, you cannot serve the Lord. The Lord's a jealous God. He said, we will do everything that God has told us to do. We will eliminate the inhabitants of the land. We will not perform these kind of acts. And yet, they didn't perform the acts, no, but they did not fulfill what God had told them to get it out of the land, and eventually it grew up and took over their children and destroyed the nation of Israel, and threw them into this 400 year cycle. The whole events of the Book of Judges are a result of the first two chapters. You say, man, I understand the Book of Judges. It just seems like this yo-yo. Read the first two chapters is where you're going to get the understanding of where it all came from. People who were unwilling to get all the sin out, all the wickedness out, all the abominations out, they thought they could live with a little bit of it. That's the macro of a nation who allows sin and filth and iniquity to fester within its borders. And by the way, that's where we live. We live in Canaan land. We live in the land of the Hivites and the Perizzites now because of the sins of our fathers, because our fathers forsook God, because our fathers wouldn't take a stand against sin, because our forefathers would not stand up and fight the moral fights that needed to be fought. We are living, we're not living in Judges 1 and 2, we're living in like Judges 17. You know, we're living in Judges 18 and 19. That's where we live, because of the sins of our fathers. And so we can look around and see the proof. When we see homosexuality, sodomy on the rise... Okay, you remember that story that I read last Sunday night at the beginning of the sermon? I pulled out a news article and I read that unbelievable story about the boy who was returning to school as a girl. He's eight years old in Colorado, which is, you know, you wouldn't normally think of it, I guess, as being the most extremely liberal, crazy place in the world. I mean, Colorado is a... I don't know, every time I've been there, it seemed pretty normal, okay? But in Colorado, I think it was Castle Rock, Colorado, or something like that, and, well, the next day after I read that story on Sunday morning, or Sunday night, rather, at the beginning of the sermon, I was in the bank on Monday doing some banking and there was a television screen behind me. My back was to the television and as I was doing the transaction, I was handing over the money to the banker. I heard behind me, this week in Colorado, you know, and they began to recite that same story, this boy is returning as a girl as a school, blah, blah, blah, and this is what I heard them say behind me. I think this was in the article that I read. They said, you know, literature is being given out to the kids to explain to them, you know, like, why this is normal, how to deal with it. No, literally, I mean, they said, and they said construction crews are going to be building these two unisex bathrooms. I mean, I heard it while I was doing the banking. It was exactly what I just read. You know, they're going to be... Just on the national news, I mean, CNN, or I don't know, whatever it was, it's like CNN or something, and they're saying, well, he's coming back and there's going to be counseling available for any student that's confused about it or upset about it. We'll counsel him. So basically, some kid stands up and says, what the blankety blank are you doing, you freak? Oh, let's go put them in a room, right? So basically, a kid with a brain injury, because that's exactly what I would do, okay? So they take that kid, right? This eight-year-old boy says, you sick freak, okay? They take that kid. They're going to take him to some little office somewhere and put him across the desk from some weirdo that's going to explain to him how it's normal for somebody to do that. I mean, are you... Do you comprehend that? I mean, I can't even believe that. But that's what's going on. Do you think it started overnight? It didn't start overnight. While men slept, an enemy came in and sowed tares among the wheat. And when they rose up from their sleep, they were already grown together, and they couldn't even tell the difference. You know, in the parable, I'm talking about the book of Matthew. Hey, they couldn't even tell the difference between the wheat and the tares. It was so embedded and ingrained in the society. And that's where we live. But you know what? Whose fault is it? You know, I will place the blame on Christianity and Baptist churches of decades ago, who back then, and the American people as a whole, could have uprooted this cancer 50 to 60 years ago if they would have nipped it in the bud. But now, my friend, it's just, you can't do it. It's like when the children of Israel could not cast out these nations with the iron chariots. They couldn't get rid of them, because they'd already blown it. They should have got rid of them when God was helping them to get rid of them. I mean, can you even fathom how far things have gone when that's on the news, and the newscaster's just stating it as just normal? Just pushing their agenda a little bit for pushing it, pushing it. And I don't know, sometimes I feel like some people that I know live in a bubble, and I understand that, because I do a lot of traveling, and I work in a variety of places, so I see a lot more things than some people see. It's kind of good, because at least it exposes me to what's really going on, but it's kind of bad, because it just turns me into, you know, a person who's just filled with rage and anger, because I see the things that go on. I mean, you know, I literally, I mean, I was on a plane yesterday, you know, and who's serving the drinks but some filthy sodomite? You know, it's just commonplace now. I mean, but it didn't even faze me. I just sat there, so, pfft, great. Another one, great. I should have flown U.S. Airways. Part of the reason why I'm a frequent flyer with U.S. Airways is that it just seems like there's just barely a sodomite ever. But, alas, it was a cheaper ticket on Continental, and there he was, a man that was dressed like a man, had a face like a man, looked like a man, but he had a woman's hairdo. Like, and I'm not just saying he had long hair, okay, which I'm against men having long hair, but this guy had a woman's hairdo. It was just, it was weird. I mean, it was like, look, I'm just like, what are you doing? I mean, at first I thought it was just a really ugly woman. I mean, I'm not trying to be silly, but honestly, I looked at this guy, I thought, oh wow, you know, this woman's a little bit ugly, because his hair was a woman's hairdo. And sometimes, you know, a stewardesses will wear like a tie and stuff because that's part of it. Yeah, as long as they dress them up like men. I don't know why they think that's appropriate, but, you know, they'll have them in pants and a tie and everything like that. So at first I thought, that's the ugliest woman I've ever seen. And she's also six foot one. And she also has a five o'clock shadow. Wait a minute, that's a man. And I was just filled with this disgust. You say, oh, I can't believe it. You say that, Pastor Anderson. You'd be disgusted with another human being. Look, God said that even the earth itself was disgusted with these people. He's like, I don't even know if this is possible, but the earth is about to throw up. I mean, isn't that what He said? I'll read it for you again. It says that the land spew, and the word spew in the Bible is like my bomb, and it has P-U-E. Spew not you out also, when ye defile it as it spewed out the nations that were before you. I mean, when I looked at that guy, it was like... That's how I felt inside. No, I don't want orange juice. No, I don't want water and peanuts. Get away from me, you filthy freak. But we've become so numb to it, and so used to it. I'm not. I still feel like planet earth. I'm not going to sit there and just act like it's normal. But let's go... But see, we can look at that on the macro, and it's pretty easy to see. You know, we look at America and say, Good night. We have allowed the queers, the weirdos to take over. But let's go from the macro to the micro. Let's bring it to our life, our personal life. We looked at one man, Samson. I'm trying to hurry up. I don't know where time is going. But is this clock wrong? Can't be that late. But anyway, we looked at Solomon, and we saw one sin ruined him. One sin destroyed his life. But not only that, look, if you would, at Judges 13. You're in Leviticus, I believe. Flip up to Judges 13. Judges 13, and look at verse 24 of Judges 13. Judges 13, 24. We're going to look at another man, Samson. Now, did you know that King Saul and Samson, they are tied for having this phrase said about them more than any other man in the Bible. The Spirit of the Lord, we can call him. King Saul and Samson. We're not going to talk about Saul, but here's another man who one or two little mistakes took over his life. But look at Judges 13, 24. The Bible reads, And the woman bare a son, and called his name Samson, and the child grew, and the Lord blessed him. And the Spirit of the Lord began to move him at times in the camp of Dan between Zorah and Eshtael. Let's hurry quickly. Judges 16, just to quickly move forward. Judges 16, 1. The Bible says about Samson, This great man blessed of God, the Spirit of the Lord upon him. Verse 1. Then went Samson to Geza, and saw there in Harlot, and went in there. You see the downfall? Lust. You see the downfall? Fornication. Look at verse 4. And it came to pass afterward that he loved a woman in the valley of Sorek whose name was Delilah. And did he marry this woman? No, but he just lived with her. He just slept with her. You see, this one sin that began his life with a lust for an ungodly woman then became a visit to a prostitute. Then became a visit to a prostitute. And then it became living in fornication. I mean, living with somebody he's not married to. And eventually it ended up with his eyes being blinded, grinding at the mill like an animal, and being publicly humiliated and mocked, ending in his own suicide. The once great Samson reduced to a blind animal. Why? Because he let this one sin just take over. I'm going to skip the rest of the people examples, but we have Noah drinking. His one downfall led to a whole portion of his descendants. The Canaanites, the people that we're talking about in Sorek, being cursed. The Canaanites were cursed because of Noah's drinking problem. We have his drinking problem. Even I'm using these euphemisms that have been taught to us by the world. A drinking problem. That eight-year-old kid's just having an identity crisis. It's just alcoholism. No, it was drunkenness. And his drunkenness destroyed his life. Lot. What was Lot's downfall? He was a righteous man, a just man. Worldliness. Hanging around with the world. Pointing his tent toward Saba. Living in Saba. Eli. Think about Eli. Eli was a righteous man, but, and I have to skip part of the sermon, but overeating and laziness was his downfall. It started out where him and his sons were taking too much of the meat from the sacrifice because they, and God said this. He said, you and your sons have made yourselves fat with the best of my offerings. And then later on when Eli dies in 1 Samuel 4.18, he's a very heavy man, the Bible says. He fell over in his chair and broke his neck because he was so fat that he broke his neck when he fell over. You say, well, what's the big deal? You say overeating's not the worst sin that there is. Agree. There are much worse things than overeating. There are much worse things than rock music. There are much worse things than even smoking or drinking. There are other things that are worse. It doesn't matter. When you have an enclave of sin in your life, it will eventually destroy you. Period. You say, well, I'll deal with it someday. You'll deal with it when it's too big to deal with. You'll be like Judah and say, okay, let's go finish them off. They couldn't do it. God said they couldn't do it because they didn't do it at the beginning that they were supposed to. And it got to a point where they couldn't even do it anymore. And they just had to live with it. But guess what? It destroyed their life and their children's lives. We see here Eli overeating, and he was also lazy. You can tell from the story that he was too lazy to deal with the problem. Gorging himself with food, too lazy, and what happened? His sons inherited his same bad habit. You remember? They also were overeating. They also made themselves fat, the Bible says, with gorging themselves with the best of the offerings and eating the fat. They were supposed to burn off the fat presently. Remember that? I had my sermon to read the whole story, but it's too long, and the sermon's too short. To burn off the fat presently, okay, and then eat it as much as you want. But no, they said, we want it raw with all that fat. We want to chew up that fat. And they got fat, okay? And so, what did his sons do? His sons weren't just as fat. His sons were just as overeating and gorging themselves, but they took it up a notch, and they also just fornicated freely, because if Dad can fulfill one appetite and be the high priest, we can just go out and lay with all the women that assemble at the door of the congregation. And so they not only, they added to gluttony the sin of fornication, and it ended up destroying his whole family, and eventually the priesthood will be transferred from his family in the days of King David. The priesthood was taken away from Abimelech, the son of Abiathar, and it went to Zadok, the priest. It was taken away from one child of Aaron to another in the days of David, when Solomon took it away from Abimelech and gave it to Zadok. Why? Because of what Eli did here. Because he couldn't control himself from putting food into his mouth. I mean, this is the ultimate of letting the flesh rule over the spirit. Paul said it, and if you remember, I preached on this on Wednesday night, a week and a half ago. Paul said, but I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, because I don't want to say it. Is that what he said? No. He didn't say, I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, because I don't want to get overweight. I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, because I want to keep my ministry flawless. He said, I keep under my body and bring it into subjection, lest having preached to others, I myself should be cast away. He said, I know that if I don't keep under my body and bring it into subjection, I'll be discarded from the service of the Lord. I'll no longer even be preaching. He said, God will be done using me. Why? Because Paul understood the fact that sin in your life that runs rampant, eventually destroys your life permanently and irreparably. Period. You can't control it. It will destroy your life. It'll ruin you. One sin. One sin? Yes. I'm not talking about committing one sin, but one sin that just is allowed to build a house and reside in your life permanently, permanently will eventually keep, because they'll have children, and keep growing and growing and growing and growing and growing. Take over. You've got to get rid of it. Quickly, turn to Leviticus chapter 13. Leviticus 13 verse 27. Leviticus 13, 27. The Bible reads, And the priest shall look upon him the seventh day, and if it be spread much abroad in the skin, then the priest shall pronounce him unclean. It is the plague of leprosy. And if the bright spots stay in his place, and spread not in the skin, but it be somewhat dark, it is the rising of the burning. And the priest shall pronounce him clean, for it is the inflammation of the burning. How was leprosy recognized in the Old Testament? If you read the whole chapter of Leviticus 13, leprosy was recognized by its ability to spread and take over. Leprosy is a picture of sin in the Bible. And so leprosy was a disease that you would get just one little spot, right? One little white spot for a rising. A little lump with a little white hair in it. And the skin was somewhat yellow in color. A little bit whiter than the skin around it. And he describes a pretty minor thing. I mean, if you read Leviticus 13, just a little dot. One hair on your arm that's white instead of black. He says, go get that checked out. And he said, this is how we'll do it. Go down to the priest, the priest is going to look at it. He's going to look at Leviticus 13, compare it in his mind. Wash it up, and then go be quarantined for seven days. Seven days later, they look on it again. If it has not spread, it wasn't leprosy. If it did spread, leprosy. I mean, he's not what he said right here. I mean, he said, you can tell it's leprosy because it's spread. Sin is the same way. It has a way of spreading. That's the characteristic thing about having iniquity and sin in your life. It's a thing that tends to grow and expand unless it's removed. Period. That's what leprosy will do to you. The Bible talks about later in the chapter about a person being covered in leprosy from their head to the sole of their foot. Wow, all from one little spot. How great a matter a little fire kindleth, the Bible says. The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. Even so is the tongue among our mothers that it seteth on fire of the course of nature, and it is set on fire of hell. I mean, he's saying just one thing in your life. It's like a little spark that can light a forest fire. That's the way sin is in your life. But look at the last place, 1 Corinthians 5. 1 Corinthians 5. You see, the Bible says, Wherefore take unto you the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all the standing, you cannot stand unless you have the whole armor on. I mean, he's saying if you have the breastplate and the belt, you've got the shoes, you've got the shield, you've got the sword, he said without the helmet, you're going to fall. You've got everything except a shield, you're going to fall. You've got everything except the sword, you're going to fall. You've got everything except your shoes, you will fall. He's saying you must take unto you the whole armor of God in order to withstand in the evil day. One chink in the armor will be your downfall. It's sad to say, but it's the truth. You've got to shore up these chinks in your spiritual armor. You've got to decide to cut out these cancers, and you know what they are. You know what that thing is that disfesters in your life that you refuse to get rid of? It will destroy you. Get it out, get rid of it. You've got to give it all to God. You've got to present your body a living sacrifice to God. Holy! Okay, you've got to give him the whole thing. You don't present the heart of your body. Here God, here's my hand, here's my foot. The Bible says that if one member of your body suffers, the whole body suffers. I mean, let's take your pinky. You think your pinky's the most important part of your body? But let's take your pinky, and let's put it on the pulpit right here, and I'm going to take a hammer. I'm going to slam that hammer down as hard as I can onto your pinky. Your whole body will feel it. What a big deal. Is this your pinky? Grow up! Toughen up a little. Or let's take your pinky and just press it down on a 450-degree stove, an electric frying pan. Big deal. It's a wound like a centimeter in size. Grow up. It doesn't hurt that much. Of course it does. Is that true? I mean, is that your pinky? Oh, good night, Sister Pinky. Suck it up. Be a man. No way, man. If you burned your pinky like that, or if you hammered your pinky, you'd be going... Your whole... You feel it pulsating throughout your whole body, from your head to your toe. Because when one member suffers, the whole thing is out of work. And when one part of your life... When you say, I'm going to give it all to God, except the rock music. I'm going to give it all to God, except I'm going to continue to smoke cigarettes. You say, oh, that's not that bad. Well, you know what? Neither is eating fattening foods. But it'll still destroy your life. Oh, well, I'm going to give it all to God, but I'm just going to have a glass of wine with dinner sometimes. You better watch out. I can name people right now. A pastor who used to have a glass of wine with dinner, right? He retired from being a pastor. Now he just drinks every day. And his wife drinks every day. Every day. And they're constantly buying new accoutrements to store all their wine. And now they're joining a secret society. You know? I mean, it's like... I mean, these are true stories. I'm telling you the truth. The glass with wine at dinner becomes alcoholism. It becomes daily drinking. Period. It destroys your life. You can't let it exist. The glass of wine at dinner. The cigarette. The cigar. The television. I sat on the plane this week. I looked up... I was reading a book on American history. I looked up and saw all the idiots on the TV screen. You know? They're all these young punks. You know? And they're all effeminate and weird and everything. I looked up at the screen and I just thought to myself, Why in the world would a Christian want to watch these same people who in their hearts hate God, hate America and hate Jesus and hate everything we believe? Why would it be fun to watch people that hate us? I mean, why don't we just add to your cable bill? Why don't we add to your satellite television programming? A special channel of, like, Osama Bin Laden Central. You know? Because that's what America considers an enemy, right? I mean, he's somebody who murdered and killed and he is our enemy. He should be killed and brought to justice for what he's done. Can you imagine? The Osama Bin Laden Comedy Show! Ta da ta da ta da ta da! You know, Osama Bin Laden comes out. He's our zany host. Right? He's got the turban on his head, the long beard. Hi folks! I'm Osama Bin Laden! And we're here to play Wheel of Osama. You know, and you spin the wheel and it's a big joke and he has guests. Or the late, late, late, late show with Osama Bin Laden. It's out at 3 o'clock every morning. Wouldn't that be ridiculous? Do you think it'd be fun to watch our enemy, our avowed enemy that hates us and hates everything we believe? Would it be fun to watch him cracking jokes? Huh! There wouldn't be nothing funny about it. You'd be mad. You'd say, I can't believe this is on TV. And you'd say, well if it's on TV though, nobody in our church should watch that show. That guy's our enemy. That guy hates us. You know what? The Hollywood stars hate God. They hate the Bible. They hate Jesus. They hate America. I mean, you know they hate America? Did you know that? They go around to other countries and blaspheme America. I mean, it's the truth. They go around and, you know, trust me, I'm not too fond of America myself anymore. You know, now that we have cross-dressing eight-year-olds being taught in the classroom, now that Arnold Schwarzenegger in California has made it illegal to use the words father and mother in the classroom and to use the words husband and wife, now it's just your parents or your partner because it's offensive. And that's a fact. You can deny that? Go get on the internet. I heard that and I thought it was too weird to be true. I went to the governor's website. I'm talking about stateofcalifornia.gov. I mean, I went to the government website of the state of California and I went to the day that people told me that that bill was passed. I went to that day on the governor's blog where it lists off the video clips of him speaking. Did you know that you can go on the internet and watch every speech that Governor Schwarzenegger makes? On the California website. I've gone on there and looked at them and watched them before. You can go on that website and I watched and I read about the bill. This is true that they were allowed to have two-prom kings or two-prom queens, not to use the words like father and mother to prefer words like parent and partner instead of husband and wife. This is really going on. This is really happening. How can you in good conscience watch the television as it promotes these things to you? And you say, well, I don't watch that show. Well, you watch a movie with Tom Cruise because he hates Jesus. He made a whole movie about the Da Vinci Code. You watch all these people. You say, oh, I don't watch that stuff. Well, have you ever seen a movie called There's Something About Mary? I've never seen it, but the leading star actor. What's that blonde girl that's in that movie? Who knows? Who's worldly? Come on, tell me. You can tell me. I won't get mad. What's that girl's name? It's on the tip of my tongue. I've never seen the movie, but I heard it in the news. There's Something About Mary is the name of the movie and all these other movies. She's some blonde ditz that people idolize or whatever. I forget her name. But she went on a visit to Cameron Diaz. Thank you. Thank you, sinner. Just joking. But Cameron Diaz, right? She's in all kinds of movies. She went to Venezuela with a purse that was a dark green with a red communism symbol on it that had a quotation from Mao Zedong, serve the people, on her purse. And the people down there flipped out and went nuts and said, How can you be supporting somebody who has killed thousands of our people here in Venezuela, the wicked regime of Mao Zedong and Communist China? How can you be promoting that? It was an uproar. But it's funny. She probably just wears it up and down the street in Los Angeles, California. Nobody even cares, right? People in Venezuela have to rebuke her for it. But she just walks up and down the street. And you know what they're probably doing in Los Angeles? They're probably running up to her for her autograph. Oh, please give me her autograph. Oh, I love you. God help us. We have a problem in the enemy recognition department of the United States of America. We can't recognize somebody who hates us, hates God, hates the Bible, hates our country. And you know, yes, our country is becoming sickening around us. But did you know this country was founded on some very great principles and was a once godly and righteous nation? An enclave in a world of slavery and religious bondage. An enclave of freedom and justice for all. But I'm sorry, it's slipping out of our fingers. Why? Because the high bites have come home to roost in America. The parasites, the Jebusites are coming home to roost. But you know what? In America, they've taken over. We've been inundated. But it's not too late for your personal life. It may be too late out there in the world. It may be too late out there in America. But it's not too late in my house. It's not too late in my family. It's not too late in my life. I want to take these enclaves in my life and get them out. God said, purge out there for the old leaven that you may be a new lump. He said, leaven, same thing. Leaven is a bacteria. You take one little packet of leaven, pour it into your bread, and you stir that dough, the whole thing will be leavened. And then those of you who cook and everything, like me, I'm a great cook. No, I'm just kidding. I never cook. My wife likes to say that I can't even boil water. And I have successfully boiled water. But a couple times. But anyway, there used to be this recipe when I was a kid for sourdough. Or some kind of bread. They call it like Amish, such and such bread. And what you would do is you would take the dough, you'd bake like 80% of it, and then you'd keep the other 20% and let it sit out. Then you'd add the ingredients, and you'd keep the same dough going. And women in the church would pass it around like the same dough. Who's heard of that? Put it up your head. They'd keep passing it around, passing it around. And the leaven just continued to spread. It could spread into just thousands of pounds of bread, as far as you want to go with it. God says, your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leavened leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our pacifier sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators. Get all together with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters, for then must ye need to go out of the world. But now I have written unto you, not to keep company, if a man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, would sense one know not to eat. For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? Do not you judge them that are within? Wherefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person? You see, he's saying, you know, you may live in a wicked and ungodly society, as the people in Corinth did. But he said, it better stop at the door of the house of God. The house of God better be clean. The house of God better be unleavened. Hey, your life better be unleavened. Your heart should be unleavened. Your house should be unleavened. You need to go home today and find the leaven in your house, and purge it out. You need to purge the leaven out of your house, or it's going to destroy your house. Purge the leaven out of your heart, or it's going to destroy your heart. Purge the leaven out of your life, or it will destroy your life. I mean, think about it, 168 hours in a week. What if I spent one hour this week at a bar? Do you think that that would be acceptable? That I'd be 99.6%? I'm living a righteous life. Hey, nobody's perfect, huh? Chill out. So what if I spent one hour a week at a bar or a strip club? Would you accept that from me as your pastor, that kind of an explanation? Come on, nobody's perfect! Come on! You wouldn't accept it, okay? Because you know that that one hour a week would destroy my sermon Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and destroy my mind, and destroy my heart, and destroy my life, and destroy my family. That's why you wouldn't accept it. Are you starting to understand the sermon now? That's why you can't accept it in your life either. You've got to purge out the leaven. I'll close with this illustration. I've used it before. Can you imagine a sandwich? 99.5% good. One teaspoon of dog, dog do, from the backyard. Used as a spread with a butter knife on the top bun. Put it in front of you. Soda pop, bag of chips. Here you go, son. Here's your dinner. Oh, gross! He said, wait a minute, son. How many times have I told you not to be a picky eater? You are being way too picky here. If this sandwich is 99.6% things that you like, you need to just sit down and eat it. Don't be picky. But did you know that you'd be able to smell that sandwich from 10 feet away? You would. I mean, if you spread it like that, you would smell that sandwich from 10 feet away. And you know what? Those of us who know better can smell those who have got the 99.6 rule in their life. You can smell them. You can smell that 4% of garbage. You can smell that one hour a week that they spend watching their R-rated PG-13 or even PG or G videos, whatever the smut that they're into. You can smell the rock music that they've been listening to. You can smell the porno that they've looked at. You can smell whatever the case may be. You know, think about smoking. Have you ever noticed that when you go to a hotel, there's a smoking and a non-smoking? Why? Because when somebody smokes in the room, it smells up the room permanently. Right? I mean, you said, well, can't the maid just go in and just spray a little glade or something? Look, I use Priceline.com to get my hotels. This message has been brought to you by Priceline.com. But I use Priceline.com. I go into a hotel room. Sometimes I get there and they don't have non-smoking available. To me, it doesn't bother me. My wife will refuse to stay in a room that's not a non-smoking room. But if I get there and that's all they've got or whatever, I just say, fine. You know what I mean? Let's do it. Smoking. But I'll tell you something. When you walk in the door, it takes you about one second to know whether that room is smoking or non-smoking. Anybody can tell. You walk in, you go, smoking. Now, to me, I'm so tired I just pass out. I don't care. But I'm going to tell you something. You've got to get the sin out of your life. Or it'll get you out of your life. It'll put itself in the driver's seat in your life. Let's borrow our hands and have a word of prayer. Father, we love you and thank you for the clear teaching of the Bible. Help us to have the same wisdom that Paul had.