In his sermon, Peter Allison explores Proverbs 28, focusing on the relationship between the law and the character of God. He emphasizes that the law reflects God's holiness, justice, truth, and love. The sermon challenges the common perception that love and law are opposites by asserting that true love fulfills the law. Allison argues that societal issues such as cultural instability and moral decay result from rejecting God's law. He discusses the different biblical contexts of the term 'law' and emphasizes the Bible's sufficiency in guiding all aspects of life. The sermon criticizes modern societal practices and institutions, including private corporations, law enforcement, and cultural attitudes towards marriage and sexuality, as deviations from biblical teachings. Allison calls for repentance and a return to living by faith according to the entirety of God's word.

Alright, Proverbs, Chapter 28. Please remain standing out of reverence for the Word of God. I'd like to read this entire section. We'll be looking at just a couple verses in this. I'll start at verse 1.

I'll start at verse 1. The wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are bold as a lion. Because of the transgression of a land many are its princes, but a man of understanding and knowledge, but by a man of understanding and knowledge, right will be prolonged. A poor man who oppresses the poor is like a driving rain which leaves no food. Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them.

Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all. Better is the poor who walks in his integrity than one perverse in his ways though he be rich. Whoever keeps the law is a discerning son, but a companion of glutton's shames his father. One who increases his possession by usury and extortion gathers it for him who will pity the poor. One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer, is an abomination.

Whoever causes the upright to go astray in an evil way, he himself will fall into his own pit, but the blameless will inherit good. The rich man is wise in his own eyes, but the poor who has understanding searches him out. When the righteous rejoice, there is great glory. But when the wicked arise men hide themselves." May we not delay to keep His commandments. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word and for Your instruction. It is truth, sanctify us by it. And grant us faith this morning to hear, to see, and to understand with a new heart and new eyes and new obedience, and sanctify my sinful lips, that they may proclaim the gospel of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Amen. Please be seated.

Please be seated. This is the blessing of the law, part two. Last week we saw how the scriptures both define the law and They tell us what that law is and they honor the law as a transcript of the character of God. The scriptures honor the law as a transcript, a copy, a reflection of the character of God. By that, by saying that the law is a transcript or a reflection of the character of God, we mean that the law conveys who God is.

God is holy, holy, holy. The thrice holy God. He is just. God is just. He is Truth.

God is love. So Paul says in Romans 7, therefore the law is holy. It's holy because God is holy. And the commandment, holy and just and good. David said in Psalm 119, your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness and your law is truth.

The law of truth, Micah says, is in his mouth. And so the things, the very things that are said of God, the attributes of God, are also ascribed to His Word, to the law. Because the law is a reflection of who God is. God is love. What about the law?

Is the law love? I mean, we often think of love and the law as opposites. He did the lawful thing or he did a loving thing, as somehow those two things are different. That's our common perception, I would guess, for many in evangelical America. But that's not how scripture views the law Bible says oh No one anything except to love another for he who loves another has fulfilled the law it's saying you can't love somebody unless you follow the law in other words The law is the definition of love.

Now that is different from our I would guess from how we normally think of things. Love, Paul said, does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. Paul said to the Galatians a book that is speaking about the dangers of trying to earn salvation by keeping the law. Paul says in that book, for the law is fulfilled in one word even this you shall love your neighbor as yourself." Or James 2, if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scriptures, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

You do well. The law is the definition of love. We tend to think of the law as condemning sinners and as and that the opposite of the law is to love sinners. Jesus who is love saves sinners from the condemnation of the law. That's true.

That's the gospel. But that doesn't mean that love and the law are opposites. When the law condemns us as sinners under the wrath of God, it is saying exactly that we are not loving God and our neighbor as we ought to love. The condemnation of the law is that we are not loving God and we are not loving our neighbor. The thunder of the law condemning us is the thunder of a holy and just God condemning unloving people who have scorned what is good and praised what is evil, who have rejected what is true, who have rejected the truth and believed a lie.

See confession of our sin is to come into agreement with God and His definition of love. Confession means to say with. It's to come into agreement with what God says about our love or our lack of love. It's coming into agreement with God's definition of love, of God's definition of truth, of God's definition of justice, of what is good, and it's acknowledging that our ideas and our standards are not good. They're not just, they're not loving, and they're not holy or true in any way.

Why do we have churches approving of homosexual fornication, the destruction of history, the rewriting of history, changing what is true, trying to rewrite the truth, transgenderism. It's because we as the church, I don't have to point out there, it's because we as the church have become ashamed of the law of God. We've become ashamed of what God says is love, of what God says is true, of what God says is just, and what God says is holy. And so we saw, to review what we covered last week, we saw that widespread obedience brings cultural stability in verse 2. Widespread obedience brings cultural stability.

In verse 3, we saw that law breaking, even by the powerless, brings famines and food shortages. In verse 4, we saw that observance of the law produces resistance to evil, Those who stand up and resist what is evil. We also looked at what do we mean by law. That's a term that's used a number of different ways in the scriptures. It's helpful to clarify exactly what we are meaning by law.

So by law the Bible can mean a doctrine, a system, a principle, a system of truth. It uses the word law in that way. It talks about the law of faith and so forth. It can also secondly be used to refer to the commands and ceremonies and ordinances associated with the temple worship. We sometimes call that the ceremonial law.

That was a law that was a tutor. That law taught us about and pointed us to Christ. Once Christ has come that law has passed away. What it taught isn't passed away, but how we observe that law. We don't bring sheep and sacrifice them anymore because Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed for us.

And to bring a sheep or a goat would be to deny His sacrifice. We don't need an earthly tabernacle or mercy seat because we have a heavenly tabernacle and a heavenly mercy seat and our Savior Jesus Christ has ascended through the heavens and sanctified that heavenly mercy seat with his own blood. And it is to that that we come. We no longer need this earthly one, which was a pattern of the heavenly one. So that's the second way the word law is used.

It's also used to refer to the moral law, that which is summarized in the Ten Commandments. But it's of course, if the Ten Commandments are just summarizing the moral law, the Ten Commandments are not the entire moral law. The entire moral law is found in the scriptures, summarized in the Ten Commandments, but it contains our duty. The moral, the law can also refer sometimes to the Pentateuch, The first five books of the Bible can be referred to the law of Moses or the law that Moses wrote. And also the law can be used to refer to the Scriptures as a whole.

The entire Scriptures. The Bible uses the law to refer to the scriptures in general. And so that's the sense in which I am using the word law this morning in most situations, unless it's specified otherwise, either as the moral law, which comprises our entire duty and is found in the scriptures or the scriptures themselves. That is how the word law is used in many of these cases and how it's used in this text and how we will be looking at that law today, or how we will be speaking about it. And so We saw then that the law of God divides between what is good and what is evil, what is true and what is false.

And as Christians contend for the law of God, is that which is loving, true, good, and just. It transforms cultures and it brings them under the righteous and gracious rule of King Jesus. So we come now to then with that introduction and quick review of some of the things we looked at last week. We come to verse 5, evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek Jehovah or the Lord understand all. That's a very, very broad and comprehensive statement.

Evil men do not understand justice, but those who seek the Lord understand all. The Bible speaks to every area of our life. It doesn't speak equally clearly, or I should say equally in detail about every single thing, but the Bible does give to us everything that we need as Christians to be thoroughly equipped for every good work. It tells us everything that we need to know to do what is right in every situation that we will ever encounter in life. The Bible is sufficient.

Paul could tell Timothy that the scriptures are profitable for doctrine, for correction, for instruction, for training in righteousness. So that we are perfect, complete, thoroughly furnished, thoroughly equipped for every good work. And Paul, at that time, was just talking about the Old Testament Scriptures. The New Testament wasn't written yet. It wasn't available.

Paul could say that just of the Old Testament scriptures. Because as you've all heard, I'm sure by now that the New Testament is in the Old Concealed. There's no new truth or gospel that's taught in the New Testament. When Jesus came and the apostles began to witness to him, they all explained everything from the law and the prophets. Remember Jesus on the way to Emmaus, He went through and explained from all the scriptures about himself And so the old the new is in the old concealed and the old is in the new revealed the new gives us greater Greater clarity greater detail, but it doesn't teach something that wasn't already taught in the Old Testament.

In fact, some people have even gone so far as to say that every truth is contained even in the Pentateuch in some form, in seed form, in some way. And so the Bible speaks to everything, everything, such that it is sufficient. And so this is not an understatement. Those who seek the Lord understand all. Those who are evil don't understand what is just.

But we have to study. Paul said we have to study. He told Timothy, who is a pastor, we have to study to show yourself approved unto God, rightly dividing the word of truth. Rightly dividing. That literally means to cut a straight path through like a woods where the path is obscured.

To be able to cut a straight path through what might otherwise be a difficult place to go straight. So metaphorically we need to study the scriptures so that in God's eyes we're not distorting, twisting or misapplying the Word of God, but we are able to cut that straight path through every decision, every occasion that we need to make decisions along in our life. Peter warned against people who by bad exegesis twist the scriptures, people that are untaught or unstable. They twist the scriptures to their own destruction as well as those who follow them. And so we want this morning to be those who study the scriptures and rightly apply them so that we do understand all in every situation that we find ourselves.

We are able to speak what is true and to do what is right and to understand justice. Everything we encounter in life is addressed in Scripture. We could sit here for months Looking at what does the Bible say about, about acts, fill in the blank. I'm going to give you a few examples. But I want you to realize that I'm just picking a few random examples of things that are often maybe perceived as not addressed by Scripture, or areas where our culture has abandoned what the Bible says about Scripture, or where we may have accepted views that are not biblical.

So these are just a couple examples. I'll give you a couple examples here. That we'll look at this morning. What about hemaphrodites? We live in an era when people are seeking to have many many different genders.

God created men male and female. And Our society, men, has come along today and said, no, there's actually 67 or 107 different genders. Amaphrodites are those who are born with both XX and XY chromosomes. So it's somewhat challenging sometimes to know whether they're male or female. And so this is one occasion for people to inject uncertainty into what is clearly a creation order, gender.

Well, Matthew 19, in that passage speaking about marriage addresses this. I think it touches on it. Jesus is talking about how divorce, God hates divorce. And the end of that discussion, the disciples say, well if that's the case, it's better that people don't get married then. And Jesus says, well only for those to whom it has been given, who have the gift of continence not to be married.

And then he talks about people that are born eunuchs from their mother's womb. People that are born, let's say, without this clear definition of gender. And those are given, that is given there as those who might not be able to marry or who would have the gift of continents and and can't marry what about women in combat What does the Bible say about that? Does it address that Specifically? Well, there are three places in Scripture where we are commanded not to boil a baby goat in its mother's milk.

Three times in the Bible that that command is given. You think maybe it's important? I mean there are other things that we would consider far more egregious that are only mentioned once. But this is a command given three separate times. Do not boil a baby goat in its mother's milk.

Just maybe it's important. Maybe there's a principle here that we should pay attention to. Maybe it's not loving to kill with what is intended to nurture life. That goat's milk is intended to nurture that baby kid. The Bible says, do not use that milk as an instrument of death.

Mothers are givers and nurturers of life in a way that men never will be. Their bodies are uniquely made to give life, to bear life, and to nurture life. Their very makeup is oriented to that. Everybody knows, except the people in the government, military, that men are stronger as a class than women. Not saying you can't find many women that are far stronger than some particular men, but as a class, men are stronger than women.

But women are able to nurture in ways that men never could. Their very emotional makeup constitutes them to nurture. Maybe they're not meant to be killing machines. Those like King David who said that the Lord had trained his fingers to make war. Plus, women, of course, aren't to wear the military garb of men.

That's another command that might bear on that. What about artificial insemination? That uses genetic material that could be inside or outside of marriage to conceive babies outside of people. Or even inside, depending. But often it's outside.

What about that? What does the Bible say about that? Well, if it's using genetic material that's from outside of marriage, and that's clear, that's adultery. That's conception of life outside of marriage. That's adultery.

Or if it is resulting in newly conceived life being washed down the drain, that's murder. We know murder isn't loving and adultery isn't loving. So if it can be done within those confines then at least it's not obviously wrong. What about fornication? We have an epidemic of fornication.

So severe in our land that even proven fornication and philandering in a presidential candidate means nothing. It means nothing. People don't care because they don't see any problem with fornication. Or the pornography plague that has crushed young men, a generation, several generations of young men and even older men. Destroyed families.

That's fornication too. Why do adulterous fathers and homosexual mothers get custody of children. Well, I would submit to you this morning that these things are because we've thought ourselves, and I say we meaning the church in America, The people who claim to know the Lord and to be his disciples, we have thought ourselves to be more righteous and more loving and more enlightened than God's Word. And so we have completely ignored what God says in his Word is the loving thing. And gone our own way.

God's Word says, for example in Leviticus 20, that the man who commits adultery with another man's wife, he who commits adultery with his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress, shall surely be put to death. The man who lies with his father's wife has uncovered his father's nakedness. Both of them shall surely be put to death. The man who lies with his father's wife as uncovered his father's nakedness, both of them shall surely be put to death Their blood shall be upon them. If a man lies with a male as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.

They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them." That's what God says is loving. The loving thing to do in these circumstances. And when we say, well, we think we know better, we're fools. And we bring upon ourself all the woes and the sorrows that we are living under today.

Those who seek the Lord, those who seek to know what His Word says, What He says is loving and good and kind and holy and true. Those understand all. Now this doesn't mean we would be putting millions and millions of people to death. Quite the contrary. Just laws like this restrain sin.

They also drive it from public view, relegating it into the back alleys. And see, when there are just laws, then this kind of sin is restrained. People, whether they like it or not, are restrained from their evil and preserved. And that preserves a culture. That's good for people even if they don't like it.

It preserves homes. Preserves families. Think of all of the families today that are torn apart by divorce, brought on by fornication in all its various forms. What if we had said, here's God's law, this is what's loving. Think of all the children that cry themselves to sleep every night, because they don't have a mother or they don't have a father because their family has been torn apart by fornication who grow up not knowing the care and attention of a mother or a father.

See what is really more loving? Our way or God's way? What about Masonic or Muslim temples, shrines in our country. How do we handle that? Some Christians don't like it.

But they've committed themselves to this idea that, well, every religion is okay, so I guess we have to allow it. But the other people realize that's a problem, because here's people that are worshiping a false god, an idol, demons, and they are gonna bring God's wrath on our land. Well the answer is right in the Word of God. Deuteronomy 13, If your brother, the son of your mother, this is personal, your brother, the son of your own mother, this isn't some guy down on the other side of town. Your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom or your friend, who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, Let us go and serve other gods which we have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are around you, near to you or far from you, from one end of the earth or to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him, but you shall surely kill him.

Your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. And you shall stone him with stones until he dies because he sought to entice you away from the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of bondage here is the God who's saying I'm the one who delivered you from the burning oven, from slavery and bondage. I am the Deliverer. This will enslave you. Or in Deuteronomy 17, a few chapters later, if there is found among you within any of your gates which the Lord gives you, a man or a woman who has been wicked in the sight of the Lord your God and transgressing his covenant, who has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, either the sun or the moon or the host of heaven, which I have not commanded, and it is told you, and you hear of it, then you shall inquire diligently.

And if it is indeed true and certain that such an abomination has been committed in Israel, then you shall bring out to your gates that man or woman who has committed that wicked thing and shall stone to death that man or woman with stones." He who sacrifices Exodus 22 to any god except the Lord Jehovah only, he shall utterly shall be utterly destroyed. You notice there are safeguards in there. This is not a Salem witch hunt where any where hearsay and any conjecture is okay. There is inquiring village and we'll look in a little bit later at some of those safeguards. There are many safeguards, many many safeguards that are being abandoned also in our land But see as we are finding out a culture can't have two gods We can't be divided either Jehovah is God and we serve him which means that we honor his word and we're jealous of his worship because he is jealous for his worship or We serve idols Now here's one that I'll step on every toe, including mine.

What about corporations? What about corporations? Private corporations. I'm not speaking of public charters of incorporations for cities or other civil organizations. In fact, the church itself is an incorporation.

It's a body. The church is incorporated as the body of Christ. We're incorporated in him. But I'm talking about the private corporations. The proliferation of private corporations is something relatively new.

Coming into really only common existence in the 19th century, just as interestingly as America was rejecting the law of God. As science was proving that God didn't create the world and God wasn't needed to explain any of the phenomena of the natural world. Right in that latter half of the 19th century, the church was even beginning to reject the word of God, abandon the word of God. In fact, the very last heresy trial for somebody who denied the word of God, I'm talking about in the Presbyterian Church, was in 1890, I believe. After that, nobody was ever convicted of denying the word of God.

Because the church had abandoned the word of God as the standard of truth. So what's a private corporation? Well, Judge Marshall defined them as an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in the contemplation of law. So they're a legal entity created by the state and existing by the authority and permission of the civil magistrate. Now Robert Dabney wrote about the problems of private corporations in a book published in 1892, long before any of the things he wrote about, the fruit of any of the things he wrote about was evident.

His foresight is truly remarkable. I think his foresight is a perfect illustration of the truth taught in this verse. Those who seek the Lord understand all. Those who seek the Lord understand all. Those who seek the Lord understand all.

Evil men do not understand justice, but he who seeks the Lord understands all. So long before most people saw any problem with incorporations, and I'll admit, when I first read that article, I was very skeptical. I was kind of surprised actually. It took me 20 years to become convinced and realize the truth of what he was saying. I'm slow.

But long before people saw any problems with corporations, Dabney articulated many of the things that we are seeing today. Now, I don't have time or we're not prepared, this isn't the place to go into detail on all the things that he saw and more, because we can certainly talk a lot more than what he saw back then. But I'll just give you one little tiny example. One example. One reason for using corporations is that they are a shield from liability.

That's one big reason. There are other valid, there are other reasons like to pool money together for major projects. But let's just think about what that means, to be shielded from liability. To be liable means to be bound, to be obligated in law or equity, to be responsible for what we do, or answerable and accountable for our actions. Shouldn't people be liable for what they do?

Paul said, if I have done anything worthy of death, He said this in a court of law, if I have done anything worthy of death, I refuse not to die. To seek to evade responsibility or liability for our actions is the very definition of irresponsibility. And isn't that exactly why we have so many oppressive government organizations like OSHA and onerous building codes and inspectors and so forth? Because people are trying to replace that accountability of what people have done for dangerous actions that people have done like builders or or factories and so on they're trying to replace accountability for those actions with rules forbidding dangerous activity. But it's a never-ending process.

You can never, by rules and regulations, outlaw or govern every single dangerous practice. If people are not liable for their actions, it becomes impossible, very difficult, only with a draconian slave state to be able to regulate everybody's actions that might possibly be dangerous. There's a lot more, and I realize I haven't given anywhere near adequate justification for this, but I just point that one thing out. If you're interested, I commend you to read Demney's article. Another problem, though, within corporations is monopolies.

Corporations join with the civil magistrate to create a monopoly. There are many examples of those. The American Medical Association is an example of a corporation that's joined with the government to create a monopoly to the destruction of our health. I've taken to calling it government medicine. But it's a monopoly that increasingly blocks healthcare providers who bring healing, healthcare providers who have knowledge of the medicines that God has created and bring real healing to people, this monopoly blocks those in favor of those who can bring profits from ruining our health.

They ban things that God has created and given to us for our benefit. The American Bar Association is another example. It's made obtaining competent legal representation almost out of reach for many Americans. Because it's a monopoly and you can only hire the person that they allow you to, that plays in their monopoly. Moving on then, What about courts?

Part of our problem here lies in the courts and law enforcement community in general. Many prosecutorial methods and investigative methods of the police are blatantly unrighteous. Today, the police are trained to lie, According to the training manual of the Reed Institute, which is a nationally recognized police training institute, they're nationally recognized, they are held in high regard. I'm not quoting a shady fly-by-night manual. This is a manual from the Reed Institute and they teach police officers that quote, when all other methods have failed the investigator should accuse the subject of committing the crime and proceed with an interrogation as though that person was in fact considered to have involvement in the crime." They also teach interrogators how to intimidate people by threatening them with all sorts of actions.

If they have children, they threaten to call social services if they don't cooperate. They threaten to arrest and so on. This manual goes on to say, quote, when using interrogation tactics involving deception... Now, Wait a minute. The police are lying to us?

When using interrogation tactics involving deception, the investigator should not manufacture evidence against the suspects. Well that's nice to know. They shouldn't manufacture evidence. Courts make a distinction between false verbal assertions, we found your fingerprints on the car. A lie.

They make a distinction between false verbal assertions, we found your fingerprints in her bedroom, which are permissible, and manufacturing evidence which is not permissible. Of course, that's done too actually. What a perverse distinction. Entrapment was known in ancient times, it's not an invention of modern FBI police investigations. It's known in ancient times the witch at Endor accused Paul of entrapping her.

But it was shunned by the righteous and it was forbidden in scripture, condemned in scripture. Jeremiah 5 says, for among my people are found wicked men. They lie in wait as one who sets snares they set a trap they catch men Wicked men set entrapments to catch people or Psalm 141 keep me from the snares They have laid for me and from the traps of the workers of iniquity Let the wicked fall in their own nets while I escape safely. Entrapment is unrighteous, yet it's a common police tactic. Sting operations and other diligent searches for information can only be engaged in after there is credible evidence for a crime and somebody has brought charges and remember if you bring charges according to the Bible then you are liable for the punishment of that crime if it's found that you brought false charges.

There was to be no coerced testimony. Even Achan was called, who God had already tried and convicted, Achan was called to give a voluntary confession. See, it's a Biblical teaching that we are innocent until proven guilty. That's biblical. That's biblical justice.

Torture and other methods to extort confessions, waterboarding and all these things that we as a nation are engaging in are unrighteous. They're wrong. They're wicked. Torture and other methods to extort confessions are allowed. They're even enshrined in our civil procedure.

If you file a civil case in our courts today there's something called discovery discovery is evil by law it it forces you to testify against yourself and it's enshrined in civil law It's the first thing that happens in a civil case is discovery. Big part of the reason for it is corporations. There's no way to investigate them otherwise. They're very difficult too. Also truth has to be established by two or sometimes three witnesses.

Trials have to be in public. Evil people like darkness. They like to hide. Corruption thrives outside of the public gaze. But many scriptures speak about the necessity of trials to be public.

Any information that the civil magistrate has on anybody should be public. And if you don't think the civil magistrate, if you don't think information should be public, then that's information the civil magistrate shouldn't have about you. People have a right to face their accusers, and there has to be cross-examination. Today we deny that routinely. In fact, there are cases now in the 21st century where the government wants to convict somebody without any evidence, simply saying, without ever presenting any evidence in court and without anybody being able to cross-examine witnesses.

They want the judge and the jury to believe the fact that, well, we have evidence, but we can't tell you. National security. That's wicked. The evil do not understand justice. We have people today, right now, sitting in jail with no habeas corpus and no ability to defend themselves.

Those are political prisoners. The evil people do not understand justice. And this is not the first time it happened. Happened in that case in Texas as well as in the, in many other cases, but very, two very prominent ones, where the biker situation in Texas a few years ago and the Capitol break in a few months ago. There are people sitting in jail right now without trials, who have not been properly charged, who are being denied the right to face their accuser and cross-examine the witnesses.

Now maybe many of you Christians, you and I, we recognize that our society is not ready to follow God's laws to correct these evils. The tragedy is that instead of turning to God's solution, which is the grace of God in Jesus Christ, to bring conversion, to bring a change of heart, to give us a new spirit, a tragedy, and even to make disciples. The grace of God makes disciples of His enemies. Makes friends of His enemies. Takes those who hated His law, hated his justice, hated his goodness, hated what's loving, and completely changes us to love where he loves and hate what he hates.

You see, instead of turning to God's solution, which is the grace of God, Too many are turning to the civil magistrate to fix the problem caused by our rejection of God's law. And really, in doing that, they're instead of looking to Jesus Christ to be our Savior, They're looking to the state to be our savior. We, brothers and sisters, have to repent of the ways in which we have embraced and trusted the chief idol of our society today, which is the state. The ways that we have succumbed to statism are really too long to list, but you know it extends almost everything that we do in some way, from taking out government backed school loans to voting for candidates that promise to solve our problems with more laws and regulations, which simply accrue more authority to the state and cause the very problems they're trying to fix. You see, God's weapons are not carnal.

They're not carnal. They're not in the flesh. But they're mighty in God for pulling down strongholds and everything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. And that's what we're seeing today brothers and sisters. The nation that has exalted itself against the knowledge of God, but God's Word says that His weapons, They're not fleshly, but they're mighty.

They're powerful. They bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of the faith. We need to live by faith. We don't think these laws are good. We think they're strange and cruel.

We need to live by faith that this law is good. David said, Oh, how I love thy law. It is a transcript of God's character. God is love And God is just and God is good and God is righteous. And in Christ he makes us good and holy and righteous and just.

And when we see God's law and think that it's strange or cruel, it's we that need to change. We need to live by faith. We need to live by faith by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Every word. Man does not live by bread alone but by every word.

Every word. Not every word minus the things that we think are outdated or cruel or unusual, but every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. May God grant us faith to do so. Almighty Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your Word, for your law. It is holy, it is good, it is just, it is loving, for it reflects you, the sovereign Creator, who are holy, holy, holy.

You who are just and loving and gracious. Oh Father, may you conform our thoughts to your thoughts. May you conform our ways to your ways. May you have mercy upon us and upon our land that has gone its own way and rejected your ways. Oh Lord may you bring living faith to us to receive your word, to believe your word, to walk according to it, indeed to live all of life by faith.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen.