Our text (Isa. 56:1-57:13) documents a time in history when the watchmen don’t watch, the dogs don’t bark, and the shepherds do not lead because they are obsessed with their own comforts. We live in times like these. We live in a time when the church must speak. Biblically defined civil and religious liberties are being trampled. It is a time to speak to uphold Justice the way the Bible explains it. The New social justice movement is injustice when you compare it to scripture. It has become very dangerous to speak. The clear teachings of the Bible on gender and morality is now judged to be hate speech. It is time to bark.

Please open your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 56. That will be the focus of our time. I want to bring greetings from Hope Baptist Church in Wake Forest, North Carolina and all my family. I know a lot of you know those folks and it's a blessing to have others of my family here as well. I've titled this message, A Time to Bark.

We have been talking about the tongue and the use of the tongue. But yesterday morning, early in the morning, I determined to take us into Isaiah chapter 56. It's an illustration of the harmful effects of those who don't bark, unwatchful watchmen as a result of the idolatry in their lives. And so this text documents a time in history when the watchmen don't watch and the dogs don't bark and the shepherds don't lead. That's what this text is about.

We live in times like these. We live in a time when the church must speak and many places is not speaking. I'm grateful for the churches here. You bark. I praise God for that.

You're not afraid to bark. But we live in a time when biblically defined civil and religious liberties are being trampled and it's a time to speak and it's a time to uphold justice the way that God defines justice not the way that man has defined justice. The new social justice movement is injustice when you compare it to scripture. And it frankly has become a dangerous time to actually speak the clear teachings of the Bible on gender, the clear teachings of the Bible on morality and economics, particularly the first two Have ended up somehow as hate speech That's where we live Isaiah 56 speaks to this now. Let me tell you about Isaiah 56 first of all Isaiah is speaking to the nation.

He has the ear of the king, amazingly. Four kings, he lives. He preaches to four kings in Israel. That's what preachers are supposed to do. They're supposed to preach to the civil magistrate.

How about that? And that's what we will do for all of you who are in authority. Everybody in this room has some relevant of authority, some position to speak as a father, as a mother, as a husband, as a wife, as a civil magistrate, as a leader of business. Every person is given agency and authority to speak in their realm of jurisdiction. And it's very important that we understand that.

Now, in Isaiah 56, I won't read the first part of Isaiah 56, but we're really going to start in verse 9, but let me just tell you about the verses before verse 9. The verses before verse 9 are all about how pivotal it is that the church gathers together on the Sabbath day to establish justice. That's one of the reasons God designed his people to gather one time a week is that they might confirm justice. Well I'll read verse 1. This is what the Lord says, maintain justice and do what is right, for my salvation is close at hand and my righteousness will soon be revealed.

Blessed is the one who does this, the person who holds it fast, who keeps the Sabbath without desecrating it, and keeps their hands from doing any evil. So in the first verses, Isaiah is describing a people who are being made happy by coming together, being instructed in the word of God, setting a day aside just to celebrate how good God is. In Isaiah 58, he calls it the day of delight. Here he calls it the day for justice. And people gather to hear preaching, hear the reading of the word, to establish justice.

People need coordinates, they need a litmus test for understanding what justice is. And justice is communicated in the word of God and in the word of God alone. So, but this picture, If you read the verses, you'll see it's a happy gathering. The outcasts, the sinners, the people who've messed up their lives are gathering together to the mountain of the Lord and they're happy. That's a summary.

I believe that the Sabbath is for today. It was established before the law was given in creation, reestablished again in the Word of God. And there are 10 commandments, not nine commandments. That's my belief. You want to take one of them out, that's fine.

I'm not taking any of them out. There are 10 commandments, and the fourth commandment is one of them. So there's this gathering of this happy community of people coming together and getting calibrated by biblical justice. That's what the people of God need. That's why the local church is so pivotal for everything that happens in the world.

You have a church out of order, you're gonna have a society out of order. You have a church out of order, you're gonna have a family out of order. You have a family out of order, you're gonna have a church out of order, and the change just keeps going on, it's endless. So that's the first part of this. Now, we get to verse nine, look at verse nine.

When we get to verse nine, the Lord speaks of the danger there is when you have dogs that don't bark, shepherds that don't lead, and the peril that's there. And it has a root cause, we'll see what that is. Now, I title this message A Time to Bark because we live in a time when the church really does need to speak up and defend biblical justice, biblical morality, and everything else around it. And we're in danger. So I'm gonna read this text and make a couple of comments along the way.

Are you with me? Fine, verse 9. You're going to need to be looking at these words or you won't have any way to follow me. Verse 9. The first thing we see in verses 9 through 11 is the danger of lazy and self-indulgent watchmen.

Verse 9. All you beasts of the field come to devour. All you beasts in the forest, his watchmen are blind. That means there's something they don't see. They don't see what's going on.

They are all ignorant. They're something they don't know. They are all dumb dogs. They cannot bark. They're something they're not doing.

They're not barking. Sleeping, lying down, loving slumber. They're drawn to leisure, to slumber. Verse 11, Yes, they are greedy dogs, which never have enough. They are shepherds who cannot understand.

They all look to their own way, every one for his own gain, from his own territory. Come, one says. I'll bring wine, and we will fill ourselves with intoxicating drink. Tomorrow will be as today and much more abundant. And then turn the page, if you need to, to the next chapter.

Next chapter, chapter 57. Because what we see is the practical impact what happens when the dogs don't bark and it's tragic. Well, Let me read it. Verse 1. The righteous perishes and no man takes it to heart.

Merciful men are taken away while no one considers that the righteous is taken away from evil. He shall enter into peace. They shall rest in their beds, each one walking in uprightness. But come here, you sons of the sorceress, you offspring of the adulterer and the harlot. Whom do you ridicule?

Against whom do you make a wide mouth and stick out the tongue? Isaiah is full of imagery. He's always telling stories of remarkable things. He just told you about people who are sticking out their tongues to one another. How about that?

They stick out their tongues. Are you not children of transgression, offspring of falsehood, inflaming yourselves with the gods under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks. Among the smooth stones of the stream is your portion. They, they are your lot. Even to them you have poured a drink offering.

You have offered a grain offering. Should I receive comfort in these? On a lofty and high mountain you have set your bed. Even there you went up to offer sacrifice. And behind the doors and their posts you have set up your remembrance.

For you have uncovered yourself to those other than me, and have gone after them. You have enlarged your bed and made a covenant with them. You have loved their bed, where you saw their nudity. You went to the king with ointment and increased your perfumes. You sent your messengers far off and even descended into Sheol.

You are wearied in the length of your way. Yet, you did not say, There's no hope. You have found the life of your hand. Therefore you were not grieved. And of whom have you been afraid or feared?

That you have lied and not remembered me, nor taken it to your heart. Is it not because I have held my peace from of old that you do not fear me? I will declare your righteousness and your works, for they will not profit you. When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you, but the wind will carry them away. A breath will take them, but he who puts his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain.

And one shall say, heap it up, heap it up, prepare the way, take the stumbling block out of the way of my people. Well, This passage teaches that there's a time to bark, to warn of danger. You know, during this conference, you know, the taming of the tongue over the past three days, we've been explaining the doctrine of the tongue from the Bible and what the Bible says about the tongue, that the mouth only speaks what's in the heart. That's really important to understand in this whole discussion. The tongue is a good gift for blessing, or it's a gift that's used for evil, to either slander or carry falsehoods or destroy people's lives.

The Bible tells you how you should talk to God, talk to your spouse, and here he's talking about how you talk to the world as a church. And so this is a kind of speaking that we didn't really deal with in the conference. It's a different kind of speech. It's a very important kind of speech. So Isaiah is calling for barking.

Now, God's people have always been people who've raised their voices. Think of John the Baptist who was raising his voice against the sexual revolution in his town. He told the civil governor that he was committing adultery and he lost his head, literally. It's actually dangerous to lift up your voice and to speak biblical morality in your time. It's always been that way.

It's that way now. Don't worry about it. This is the way it is. And when the justice of God and the love of God in Jesus Christ and the laws of love that are in the Bible become hate speech, you have conditions like the conditions that John the Baptist experienced. Your tongue can get you in a lot of trouble if you stand up and speak against the progressives, particularly of the sexual revolution today.

And we're living in times, or speaking biblical truth about these things, can be very harmful to your reputation. It can be harmful to your job, and it can be harmful to your standing in your community and even your neighborhood. So the question is, though, will we be people of the Word of God or will we be people of the words of the world? And it's always costly to be people of the Word of God. You know, in recent years, I've felt like we are living in the insane asylum of gender derangement.

We are, frankly. It is the biggest pretend-ville ever. And so let's talk about the danger here. So we encounter the vulnerability of the people in conditions like this. The Lord describes these conditions as, all you beasts of the field come to devour all you beasts of the forest." In other words, it's open season.

No one's watching. Come on in and tear up the ground. No one's speaking. No one's barking. The watchmen are asleep.

Everyone is vulnerable. The wolves can break in anywhere because no one's barking. Well, if you have a dog that barks, especially if he has a big bark, there are certain people that won't go on your property. That's the idea that's here. It's open season and they make every day the same here.

In other words, they just are living their lives, you know, and these are the leaders of the people of God. Now, the way that I apply this to all of us is these watchmen are people who have jurisdiction over some realm of authority. They could be fathers, they could be mothers, they could be civil leaders, they could be preachers, but they provide leadership to something and they have a duty to speak in their realm of jurisdiction. And so there are these these graphic images, the watchman, the dog, and the shepherd. The blind ignorant watchman, the dumb sleepy dogs lying down in Camp Barck, and the shepherds who've lost understanding and have lost themselves in living just for this life.

So that's the picture. Look at verse 10. They're blind. Because watchmen are blind. Verse 10.

They're ignorant. No knowledge. There's a vacuum. They've not fed themselves on the justice of God. They don't even know the justice of God.

They're ignorant. Don't be a stupid leader. Know the word of God. Fill your families with the word of God so that they know justice. By the way, in Genesis 18 we learn one of the purposes of Abraham's life was that he would teach his children justice and righteousness.

That was one of his jobs. That's what your job is as a father and mother. Teach your children justice and righteousness so that they can tell the difference. It's interesting. You know, our family read through the Bible every year for, I don't know, probably a dozen years.

Here's what happened. My kids can smell a rat. They can just smell it, because they've seen what justice actually looks like. And your children should be raised up with the word of God. When you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Verse 10, they're silent. They are asleep, verse 10. Sleeping, lying down, loving slumber. They're greedy, verse 11. Greedy dogs, they never have enough.

Just more, more, more, more, more. Without understanding, verse 11. They look to their own way, verse 11. They're self-indulgent, verse 12. Do you see that?

Come, one says. I'll bring the wine, let's fill ourselves, let's just keep living like we've been living. No repentance, no change, no life of Jesus at all. Just cruise for pleasure. So pastors, they serve as prophets and priests and kings, so do fathers and mothers serve as teachers.

Civil leaders serve at the gates of the city to do justly and love mercy and walk humbly and to execute justice and righteousness. You know about the Proverbs 31 woman. You know what she was doing? She was instructing her son. You know what she said to her son?

Speak up for the defenseless, my son. That's teaching a kid justice. So that your children would stand at the gates and defend righteousness and justice in every right way. That's why God gave you children. Wow, I'm so thankful for all the children in this room.

Some of you have so many children it's not even funny. You know, well I praise God for that but fill them up with the Word of God. That's what you need to do. Now you got them, fill them up, you know. Well, Let's go to the next chapter.

We've seen what they're doing. They're not barking. Now, we're going to talk about what happens. I'm going to give you 12 things that happen when dogs don't bark. You'll see how it's happening today.

It'll be so obvious. What was happening in the 7th century BC is happening in the 21st century today. What happens? There are, well, if you have, you're taking notes, I'm gonna give you 12 things from this text that happen when the dogs don't bark. Okay, are you ready?

Do you have a pen? So turn the page into this next chapter and you'll see the devastating consequences of not barking. And you know, and think about your own jurisdiction. Don't think about the other guy. Think about your own self.

Fix yourself. Here's what happens when the dogs don't bark and the watchmen don't watch and the shepherds don't lead. The righteous perish, verses 1 and 2. The righteous perish from the land. The righteous perish.

Well, that's what the first verse says. And no man takes it to heart. Nobody cares. Merciful men are taken away, they disappear, nobody cares, they're gone. No one considers that the righteous are taken away.

In other words, a righteous taken away from confronting evil. And this actually, this is a picture of a funeral of a religious person and nobody cares that they died. Even in times of apostasy, there are faithful men, but when they die, what will the people think? Well, if there's nobody barking, nobody will care when the righteous who are upholding justice die. It's so tragic.

What else happens when dogs don't bark and watchmen don't watch and shepherds don't lead? Number two, people fall into superstition. That's verse three. Look at verse three. But come here, you sons of the sorceress.

That's superstition. You offspring of the adulterer and the harlot. Well, this is what it means to become sorcerers. People believe lies and here they're being confronted by their sorcery but it's because the dogs aren't barking And there is the son and the offspring. So this is like a picture of a family.

If you don't get the family right, you'll never get the church right, and you'll never get the civil realm right. Your son and the offspring. It really matters what you do with your sons and your daughters. These are children of idolatrous parents. They led their children into idolatry.

You know, they let the world run free in their homes. And as a result, they created idolaters. You know, you parents who are gatekeepers, you know, are you raising sons, offsprings, daughters of idolatry? Is there anything that you're neglecting? It's time to bark.

So what else happens when the dogs don't bark and the watchmen don't watch and the shepherds don't lead. Number three, mockers arise. That's verse four. Mockers arise and Isaiah is here to challenge their mocking spirit. Whom do you ridicule?

Against whom do you make a wide mouth and stick out the tongue? There's Isaiah again, painting in a remarkable picture. I preached through Isaiah several years ago. The imagery, the colors, the scenes, Isaiah is always painting these scenes. And Now he's saying, who are you to stick out your tongue at me?

Are you not the children of transgression, offspring of falsehood? Well, they're ridiculing certain people. They're ridiculing the righteous. They're sticking their tongue out at the righteous and getting away with it. The watchmen are despised.

The ones who are barking Have people sticking their tongues out of you know what if you don't want people sticking your tongue out sticking their tongues out at you You're not going to be able to be a Christian in this world You know if you're afraid of somebody sticking their tongue out at you You know you you haven't embraced Christianity. This is just generic Christianity here. What else happens? Idolatry spreads, verses 5 through 7. Idolatry spreads.

Inflaming yourself with gods under every green tree, slaying the children in the valleys, under the clefts of the rocks, among the smooth stones of the stream, the stream is your portion, they, they are your lot, Even to them you have poured a drink offering. You have offered a grain offering. Should I receive comfort in these? So this is a rhetorical question. Now he's talking about the idolatry of the day.

One of the Old Testament commentators describes this. From the tree worship with its orgies, which was so widely spread in antiquity, the prophet passes to the leading Canaanite abomination, human sacrifices, which had been adopted by the Israelites. When you have a society in collapse, when you have a pagan society, when you let worldliness run, when the dogs don't bark, you start killing your children. Well, we've killed at least 60 million of them. That doesn't even count the Board of Patients and everything else.

The hundreds of millions. It comes from idolatry. It's time to bark. What else happens when the dogs don't bark and the watchmen don't watch and the shepherds don't lead? Number five, the sexualization of everything.

The sexualization of everything. That's verse seven, look at verse seven. On a lofty and high mountain you have set your bed, even there you went to offer sacrifices. Now, he's speaking of nudity here and by the way, you have loved their bed where you saw their nudity, okay? Now, why did the people of Israel like to go to the high places?

Oh, do you think it was because they wanted to see the statue? No. There was stuff going on around the statue. It was idolatry, it was sexual immorality, it was prostitution, it was homosexuality, and there was music there. You know what?

It's not much different than the halftime show on the Super Bowl. It's not much different than what you see on the most popular internet sites. You bring the high places into your home. You don't have to go anywhere anymore for the high places, you just bring them into your home or on your phone going to the high places. It's the sexualization of everything.

That's why Baal worship was so popular. Don't think that Baal worship was something different than the culture of pornography. It was exactly the same thing. Every time you go to a pornographic site, you're going to the high places of Israel, Because that's exactly what they were doing there. Nothing has changed.

Just have different manifestations. You know, the other problem with the high places is that they operated like trade guilds. And if you wanted to be a player in the economy, you went to the high places and you paid your dues. If you didn't go to the high places and pay your dues and drink and see what everybody else was having so much fun seeing, You didn't get to play in your trade the way everybody else did. There were sanctions against those who didn't play the game.

It affected people's jobs if they didn't go to the high places. That's what happens when the dogs don't bark. Things just keep going on and the dogs don't bark. It's time to bark. What else happens?

Number six, religious hypocrites proliferate. Religious hypocrites proliferate. That's verse eight. Do you see it? Also, behind the doors and their posts.

Oh my, there's something going on behind the doors. There's this person's outward persona, and there is something that they are really all about when the doors close. They're religious hypocrites. He's exposing those who want to hide. You have set up your remembrance, you have uncovered yourself to those other than me.

In other words, publicly, oh yes, you know, privately, no, you're exposing yourself to the world. You have gone up to them, You have enlarged your bed and made a covenant with them. You have loved their bed while you saw their nudity. It's the double life. It's the pornographic life in the back room, late at night.

God is making public what they're trying to hide. I mean, you know the verse. The eyes of the Lord are in every place keeping watch on the evil and the good. You know there's a remarkable scene in the book of Ezekiel where God takes Ezekiel by the hair in a vision and lifts him up and shows him what the 70 priests are doing in the temple and the ways they're defiling themselves behind closed doors. It's time to bark.

You know, what else happens when the dogs don't bark and the watchmen don't watch and the shepherds don't lead? Number seven, ever-expanding idols, ever- expanding idols, just multiplying idolatry in every possible fashion. Verse 9, you went to the king with ointment and increased your perfumes. You sent your messengers far off and even descended into She-Yah. In other words, you could find an idol anywhere.

You just want a replacement from God. When the dogs don't bark, people continually look for replacements for God. Some way to make them happy, apart from God. It's time to bark. What else happens?

Oh, this one's tragic. Verse 10, number 8. People are trapped in weariness. Trapped in weariness. This is what happens to people when the shepherds don't lead and the dogs don't bark.

God is, in this verse, verse 10, God is divulging the true impact of the idolatry and he analyzes it in other words you're you're you're weary but you don't even admit it you are You know you're so messed up, but you just can't bring yourself to say it. Well here's the verse, you are wearied in the length of your way, Yet you did not say there's no hope. In other words, they didn't repent. They didn't throw their idols away. You have found the life of your hand.

You found the life of your hand. There you have it. You got what you wanted. It's kind of like when Moses was in Egypt. Oh, you like frogs?

You want to worship frogs? I'll give you frogs. They'll be everywhere and you will hate them. Isaiah, in another place in Isaiah, he says, There'll be a day when you'll hate your idols. You'll want to throw them into the bat hole.

You're going to want to burn them. You will want nothing to do with those idols anymore when you see what they do to you. It might happen in hell. You know, when I thought of doing this message, I had no thought it would be such a hard message. I had no thought of it.

People are trapped in their weariness. The drugs to medicate the weariness and the pain. You know the suicide rates are so gigantic among those who play the pretend game of the sexual revolution. Massive. The transgender suicide rates, astounding.

I read several years ago, the average homosexual without AIDS lives to age 41, or age 41, and without AIDS, 42. I don't know if that's true. I'm not sure if that's true. People trapped in weariness, finding every possible way to feel good, but they can't. And they never will, unless they repent and turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and find Him as their only hope, you know, their only joy in life, their only way through their problems, their only food.

You know, Jesus said, I'm the bread of life. He said, I'm living water. Come, take, eat. I'll give you life. It's time to bark.

What else happens when the dogs don't bark? A fearful society is created. Now, verse 11. Now, just hang on this for a second. A fearful society is created.

Does that sound familiar? And of whom have you been afraid or feared? That you have lied and not remembered me, nor taken it to your heart. Is it not because I have held my peace from old that you did not fear me? In other words, God is saying, you know, I've not come in and swept you away.

I've not come in and destroyed you. I've held my peace. I've held back so that you would repent, but you don't fear me, but you are fearful of everything else. Here's the reality. If you fear God, you'll fear nothing else.

You'll have nothing else to fear if you fear God. That's why David said, I sought the Lord and he heard me and he delivered me from all my fears. That's what God does. He delivers you from your fears. The devil just wants to plunge you into every possible reason for you to fear.

People are filled with fear of the economy, of political leaders, fear of germs, fear of sickness, fear of the weather, fear of food, you know, fear of even a debate. We're living in a weird time right now, you know. The men in our church, you know, often go down to the Pride rally in Raleigh. And it's always so disturbing to me at how fearful the homosexual community is. Like, they will call the police on you if you make them feel uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable. Like the worst thing you can possibly do is make somebody feel uncomfortable. It's because they're fearful people. And running from God makes you fearful of everything. But running to God makes you fearful of nothing.

He holds everything in His hands. Nothing happens in the world without his ordaining it. Whatever God ordains is good, he's running everything. And he's going to sum up everything in Jesus Christ, everything, all of your troubles, all of your sorrows, all of your sins, all the terrible things you've done. You know, some of you might be in really big trouble right now, and if you're in trouble, just know, run to Jesus Christ.

That's who he takes into his family. Well, that's how this whole chapter started. It just started with the outcast coming and worshiping God and getting recalibrated on justice. Number 10, what else happens? Religious passion does not profit.

Religious passion does not profit. Emotionalism, I will declare your righteousness and your works for they will not profit you. You know this is this is a picture of people who have all these outward emotional manifestations, but there's no substance. They might sing and cry and raise their hands and worship, but they don't. They have no true enduring comfort and they have no desire for holiness.

They still want the world. They haven't decided to really follow Jesus. The churches are full of unbelievers. That's probably why the dogs don't bark in a lot of places. They're afraid they're going to offend the unbelievers.

That's why Spurgeon said, well, he said, it's better to feed sheep than it is to entertain goats. And that's what's happening in a lot of churches, because the shepherds are afraid, the dogs are afraid to bark because they know they'll lose everybody because they're a bunch of worldly people. They don't love the holiness of God. They don't want to be holy. They don't want only what is pure.

They don't say what David said, "'I will set no unclean thing before my eyes. They don't want that kind of life. And so they'll get the fruit of that life. It's time to bark. What else happens?

Number 11, People are powerless and empty. Total powerlessness. When you cry out, let your collection of idols deliver you. Yeah, yeah, but the wind will carry them away. Breath will take them.

Let your idols rescue you, you know. It's time to bark. Number 12, the last thing that happens when the dogs don't bark. God will preserve a victorious remnant. That's in verse 13.

God will preserve a victorious remnant. But he who puts his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain." So there's this sharp contrast. Now you have a people that God is carrying, that God loves and who loves God and God empowers his own people. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and they have a way to walk. It's walking in the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's the cure for it all. It's the gospel. When you have a truly converted population of people, they are a holy people. And the reason we have so many people who say they are converted, but they're not a holy people, is that they're not really converted. That's the problem.

Because when people are converted, they actually run toward him. That's what repentance is. Well, you know what repentance is. It's a word picture in the Bible. It's a word picture and it pictures a person going along a trajectory of life and they turn around.

They're running toward the world and then they turn around and they start running toward Jesus Christ in all of his ways. That's repentance. And they run headlong to him. And they desire holiness. The things that they used to love they don't love anymore their idols They hate their old idols, and they still hang around But they said that they hate them and they want to get further and further and further away from them That's what it means to be a Christian Now Jesus said if you love me you will keep my commandments.

If you don't love me you won't. It's really very... Christianity is not very complex in that sense. Okay, it is time to bark. Now, let's just make some applications.

If you have authority, bark, don't fear, speak. There are ways in all of our jurisdictions that we ought to be barking. We ought to be extremely concerned about this word, these words social justice. We should be very concerned about those words. First of all, because justice is a word in the Bible and it has a very rich definition.

God in his wisdom has revealed what is true justice in his word and in his word alone. And so we must read our Bibles to find out what justice is because we grew up in a world, we went to schools, where they did not know what justice was, and there's only one way to know what justice is, and that is by the word of God. But social justice is not a biblical term, justice is a biblical term. The term social justice, the way it's being used today is contrary to biblical justice. It's Marxist ideology.

It's liberation theology. That's what it is. And our Lord Jesus Christ is the summary of all justice and all righteousness. He is righteousness and justice. If you want to know what justice and righteousness is, follow Jesus Christ.

He'll take you there. The Bible speaks of perverting justice. That's what we have now, and the dogs need to bark really loud now because of the perversions of justice that are about us right now. Social justice is the new litmus test for inclusion in society. And, But the social justice of today is all injustice.

The reproductive justice is the justice that says you can kill a baby right when it's born. That's injustice. Gender justice has become really of the rejection order of manhood and womanhood. That men and women are made in the image of God as male and female, and to pretend any other thing is injustice. But today, if you don't celebrate transgenderism, if you don't celebrate homosexuality, you will be called unjust.

The new social justice is injustice. Sexual justice has become the right to choose your own gender. This is fairly new, frankly. I mean, it was up until 1970, homosexuality was classified by the American Psychological Association as a mental illness. Well, but not anymore.

It's now a moral virtue. It's such a virtue that if you refuse to bake a cake for a homosexual wedding, you're gonna get fined real dollars. You know, same-sex marriage is a social justice that no civilization has ever really legitimized. It happened, but it was never legitimized. Here's the truth.

There's no such thing as transgender. It doesn't exist. Human beings are born as male and female. They have, if they're a female, an XX chromosome and if they're a male XY chromosome. That's all that exists.

There is no other gender. This is This is pretend-ville. Okay? This is pretending, right? It's actually hating the way that God made you as a man or a woman, and pretending that you're someone else because of your emotions.

Well, This goes back to Rousseau and the Enlightenment and Sigmund Freud and the great psychiatrist. That's who taught that, that you can be anything you want to be. Go girl, you can do anything you want to do. You can be anything you want to do, but don't get in a boxing ring with a man who's pretending to be a girl. That would be bad.

Here's a quick course in genetics. Every Single cell in the human body is coded either male or female, and that's it. There's no homosexual gene. You know, there was just a big study last week. The headline said, oh, there may be a homosexual gene.

If you actually read the article it said no way we can't find it there isn't one. The headlines didn't bear witness to the research at all. You know if If you die and are buried out in the desert and they find you 50 years later, guess what? When they get a hold of your bones, they're going to find out what you are. You're going to either be a man or a woman conclusively.

So we can't be playing this pretend game on gender. Here's why we can't play pretend on this. There are forces at work to make you pretend on this issue. But let's be very clear. This is all about man made in the image of God.

This is the creation order. This is man made as male and female. And if you want to pretend that somebody is not the gender that they were born with, how in the world are you ever going to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ that says, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? Turn from your wicked ways, turn from your idols, turn from your idolatry. How are you going to do that?

If you play games with gender, you have to play games with everything. Because actually gender is bound up in the message of the gospel. And guess what? A savior rescues a bride. That's the whole story of history, how God rescues his bride.

He goes and he comes and he snatches that bride out of her sins and forgives her sins and spends the rest of their lives cleansing them and caring for them. That's what God does. And he sends dogs to bark so that people will be woken up to see the reality of what's happening to them. Now, I'm tempted. I'm not going to do it.

I'm tempted to go really work through the doctrine of personhood. Because when you start calling people transgender and homosexual, you are destroying the entire doctrine of personhood in the Bible. And here's my advice, don't play games with personhood. And there are so many remarkable things going on. I mean, social justice is celebrating the woman's right to kill her baby, to escape the drudgery of motherhood and not raise up the next generation.

That's justice and it's injustice if you think any other way. Social justice is equality of income. It's getting rid of all hierarchies. It's gender quotas and reparations and all kinds of things. These things are not biblical justice.

The Bible will tell you how you deal with all these things. God has a way to deal with all these things and they're beautiful and they actually work. It's very important that we do this. Now, just one final thing. I think you get the point.

It's unjust now. It's considered unjust to call a person by the particular gender that they were born with. It's unjust to do that. You know, one of my daughters had a baby last month. She was in the hospital.

She was surprised. The induction forms had all these gender pronouns she'd never seen before. This is happening in almost every hospital in America. All the induction forms are being changed under the pressure of the sexual revolution. What are Christians gonna do about that?

So the nurse comes in and my daughter was talking to her about this, how astonished she was. She says, oh, this is nothing. You know how you used to have a blue tag for a boy and a pink tag for a girl, we've just neutralized those colors. Then she said, and I just came out of a room. They had a baby in that room.

This is the nurse talking. She said, She walked in the room and said, is it a boy or a girl? So she was so happy and the mother said, we're going to let the child decide. This was last month. In Berkeley, California, the government has decided that there will be no more manholes, only maintenance holes.

No more policemen, there will be police officers. No more man-made, only human-made. You know, we're living in a world where your children are not going to be able to be raised up to call one another ladies and gentlemen. Okay? It's time to bark.

There's so many manifestations of this. You know, last month, Joe Biden was on his campaign trail in Iowa, and somebody asked him how many genders there are. Can you imagine what he said? Oh, there are three. In other words, there's male, female, and then whatever else you want to choose along that line.

Facebook has 58 genders you can choose from. It's time to bark. Fairbanks Alaska has removed their gendered words from all of their civil documents. He and she is now they. His and hers, possessive, is now they.

Him and her will now be them and The Fairbanks assembly voted unanimously to make the change. Why? Well, because someone might not feel included. Someone might not feel safe. There are so many stories of all this going on.

I just want to suggest that it would be better to be called unjust, misogynistic, homophobic, mean-spirited, and unsafe than to play games with the creation order and man made in the image of God. Here's what I'm telling our church, we can't pretend on personhood no matter the cost. We ought to do it by speaking the truth in love. We ought to do it like Proverbs 15, 1. A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.

We should do all things with sobriety and clarity and maturity, but we must do it. We have men who won't be able to work in corporate America most likely at some time in the future. But what we believe is considered to be harmful to society. You were born either a male or a female. Anything else is a fabrication of the devil.

There is only one authority, the Word of God. There is only one Savior, and that is Jesus Christ. We're talking about what this means to be a Christian. And it means that now that you're following Jesus, You might be using your tongue in a way you never used it before, to bark, because it's the time to bark. Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for your word. It's so upsetting, it is so defining, it changes everything. And so Lord, we pray that you would give us a desire to serve you and you alone in the midst of a wicked and perverse generation. I pray Lord that you would save souls unconverted in your church and they would rise up and bark so that your loving kindness would be known in the world. And so the troubles of all the sin would dissipate, lost in your loving kindness and in your glory.

Amen.