Our reading today from the Word of God is in the book of Hebrews, chapter 13. We'll be reading from verse 1 to verse 10. So that's Hebrews 13, 1 to 10. So let's listen to our great God, who's perfect in power, in love, and purity. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some has unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners, as if chained with them, those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. Marriage is honourable among all, and the bed is not undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have. For he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is our helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follows considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines, for it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them. We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no right to eat. You may be seated. Amen. Let's pray together. Oh, righteous Father, as this, your Word, is to be preached now, we pray that you would peel back all of the layers from our minds and our hearts, that we might receive your Word, that it would take root and grow in your grace. For it is, O Lord, it is the world that wants to distract us and wants to distort our eyesight. But it is you, O Lord, that we look, that you would give us eyes that are clear, that we might see your word with a fresh set of eyes, and that you would grant to the one preaching that he might preach your word in a way that brings you all of the glory, for it is you and you alone that is to receive the honor, and that it would be for your people, that we would understand in a way that would strengthen our faith in the midst of a culture that wants to undermine it. Though we stand on the beach of the ocean, yet it may it be that we stand on a rock, not on shifting sand, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. This morning, we continue in Hebrews chapter 13. We come to verse 4. I've entitled the sermon, Faith Standing Against the Tide. The title will become self-evident in its purpose as we go through it. Let me just, by introduction to our subject, recall to mind that Christ, as we've seen in the book of Hebrews, the mediator, the king priest of righteousness. Remember we saw in the very first chapter, the scepter of righteousness is that which he holds sway. And it's his righteousness over all his redeemed people. And so in other words, we are holy. Holy means we are set apart from that which is unholy and set apart unto him and his kingdom and righteousness. And so his holy rule makes us different from the ungodly. That's the idea. And so God's word here clearly teaches us how to be that people of contrast who stand apart from and not conform to the things of his world. And so we see here in these key areas of our lives of how this is demonstrated. And so we pick up here with verse four, and we see the love of God in marriage. You remember we began in verse one with brotherly love, that is to say, the love for one another in brotherly love. And then it went on for the word quite literally translated, love of strangers. And frequently hospitality or hospitable is a translation frequently used. But literally love of strangers. And then the third thing we saw was love of prisoners. Love of those who are especially persecuted for the cause of Christ. And so we come this morning to verse four, the love of husbands and wives. Now, this is not going to be one of those things that I get to get us into trouble, I don't think. So I know some are probably getting nervous about now. But we're going to be as frank as we can without being crude in any way. And first of all, marriage is to be honorable and pure. As we read here in verse 4, marriage is honorable among all, and the bed undefiled. but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. In other words, the bed is undefiled, it's those who are fornicators and adulterers who defile the bed is the idea. And so when we look here at these descriptions we have in verse four, Remember that Jesus Christ had a high view of marriage. You know, it was God's design from the beginning. Remember in Genesis chapter 2, you don't have to go very far in the Bible to come to the point of marriage, where God had all the animals pass before Adam. And Adam, you know, saw Mr. and Mrs. Giraffe, Mr. and Mrs. Bunny Rabbit, Mr. and Mrs. Whatever. And he named them all. But he didn't see a correspondent to himself. And so God took a rib from his side. And remember, he had created Adam from the dust of the earth. But he took from Adam, from his side, a rib. And he created Eve. Or that's what Adam named her. But he created woman. And he said, this is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. And then it goes on to say, in the verses that follow that, it says, for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. When we think of the image of God, you know, you see in chapter one where both Adam and Eve are created in the image of God. And each, you know, as God put us together as husbands and wives. And every time I do premarital counseling or something like that, I say, you know, you men, we have strengths and weaknesses. We have certain things that we're, the way we're hardwired that are different from women. And women, well, we're still trying to figure them out. No. They're different, too. You know, and God made the women to be, you know, the nurturers and the ones who deal with the children differently, as a mom should, and a father is the one who's a protector and provider. And we see how he's put us together in our strengths. You know, we augment each other. We're together, you see. We have all of those qualities that is glorifying unto God, where he has husbands and wives and families, if he should bless. And so God has created this as a beautiful thing before him. And so is that Jesus was in quoting that in Mark 10. I'm going to turn to Mark 10 if you don't mind. Jesus quotes that verse I just gave you off the top of my head out of Genesis chapter 2. And in Mark chapter 10, Jesus is being quizzed about divorce and that sort of thing. And in verse 6 he says, from the beginning of creation, notice, from the beginning God made them male and female. Stop there. We've just made a desperately counterculture statement, haven't we? God created them male and female. They didn't choose. I think today I'm gonna be in the nature of a, I don't know, a salamander. It is to make it absurd. But you see, God created us male and female. And for this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So that, and this, he goes on from there and he says, so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has joined together, let no man separate. And so when Jesus does this, he gives high praise for this. When Jesus performed his miracles, we all are familiar with the miracles of Jesus Christ. The very first miracle that Christ ever performed, what was it? It was turning water into wine at a wedding. And so here, to be blessed with the very first miracle to be formed, done at a wedding there in Cana. And so anyway, there is the idea of being one flesh. There's the idea of physical intimacy in this marital relationship only. And it's honorable in that way and blessed of the Lord. And so when God did this, this isn't something that is developed. This is the way God did it from the beginning and was blessed of him, designed this way by him. If you were to go over to 1 Corinthians 7, and you read there in verses 3 and 5, it makes it clear, it says, render affection due to one another. We should be affectionate to one another. Do not deprive one another. And so when we're looking here at what God says, this is something that's blessed by him. He says the marriage bed is undefiled. You know, God even gave us a book on romance in the books of the Bible. Remember Song of Solomon? He teaches us men now to speak to our wives in a romantic way. And he says, when I saw you, your hair was like a flock of sheep, excuse me, flock of goats that just came off the mountain. He says, your teeth, your teeth are like a flock of sheep that have just been shorn and come up from the river. You're laughing. My favorite, your neck is like a strong tower. But, you know, the Lord gave us these things. They were relevant terms, especially for those who raise sheep. And they think of the beauty of the white teeth and the hair that was flowing like the goat's hair would. They think of the neck of a woman and that sort of thing. So he's talking about the beauty and all. And you read through there. And you read that it's not comical at all, but you see the love of the groom for the bride and the bride for the groom, and you see how her eyes are longingly looking for her groom, and he is calling to her. And you see here that that's the element that should be there. It's not, you know, in our society we can be formed into thinking, you know, that it's somehow weak or not manly to be one who expresses your love in such a romantic way for your wife. You know, we have to be the gruff macho guy. There's plenty of time for macho things. But remember the weaker vessel in love. And it said, you know, in Ephesians 5, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it. And so wives to honor their husbands. And so when you're looking at this thing, you see God has put this together where there is this fact that there is to be this relationship where they become one flesh. And it's interesting that in the scriptures, There is a heresy that's pointed out in 1 Timothy chapter 4. You go through there and it says that, you know, that in the last days men will come along preaching doctrines of demons. Listen to this. Doctrines of demons. And it goes through the various things. And one of the things that come out of it says, forbidding to marry. Forbidding to marry. You see, there was the idea that those who remain single, that's the only way to be godly, the only way to be a holy person is to remain single. Now, singleness has its own blessing of God and for that purpose, but they thought that's the only way. Have you ever heard of the Montanists? The Montanists were a heresy that was current at the time of the New Testament. That's what they believed. You ever heard of the Qumran community, Dead Sea Scrolls, that kind of thing? And here, this is a community that they've gone through, they found the graveyard of these people, where they would bury their people. And they were all men. And so you have all of these men that were buried there, you see. And so the Qumran, and you read in the writings of the teacher of righteousness and stuff in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And you find that it was, that they looked at it, that this celibate, male-only kind of a society was the only way to be godly. That's been replicated in history quite a bit, that wrong way of thinking, wasn't it? The Roman Catholic Church, you know, they think that the priests must be celibate, must be single, because that's the only way they can be holy. This is why I think that the teaching about Mary, of course, Mary was, gave, was, you know, Jesus was born of a Virgin Mary, but They came up with a perpetual virginity of Mary because they saw somehow that would be corrupting, somehow that would be defiling, even though there were other children born. No. What this is saying, beloved, don't ever look at that as husbands and wives, as though the intimacy in a marriage is somehow wrong or defiled. No. There are ways to defile it. We'll get to that, you know, with this unfaithfulness and stuff. But the way it's put forward here is that it is glorifying and honorable unto God. And so I remember, there's another thing, putting it in our modern time. There's a show that escapes me, I think. I wrote it somewhere, but I can't remember the name of it. It's The Gaines, now I remember. The name of the couple is The Gaines, and they are in Texas, and they build houses, remodel houses, you know, and make them into the dream house that you think you want. Well, anyway, what happened was that they had a fifth child. And I was reading this on the internet, it's on my news, you know, I get on my phone, and it said they had all kinds of hate mail because of the people who had watched the show, loved the show, but they thought that here they were ruining things because they're expanding the population of the world and, you know, this is something that's wrong and you couldn't believe the hate mail that they received because of it. You see, we have a society. that does not look at marriage in a favorable way, at least the biblical way, by and large, at least in our country. But I hasten to my second point, and that is the idea of marital honor impurity. It's compared to the Lord's relationship with his people. Not here, it's not mentioned so much, but any of you come to mind in the Old Testament, the book of Hosea, Remember in the book of Hosea you had the prophet who was, Hosea of course, who was told to marry a woman of ill repute by the name of Gomer. And if you see the three children that are named, you know, the first name, you know, you know, I don't even remember their names now, Loruchama and, oh I forget them, I'm sorry. Sleep deprivation. But I do remember what they were getting at. The first child, you know, is my people, ami. It's my child. And then you got lo ruchamah. Lo ruchamah is the word, you know, that means it's doubtful. And then finally, lo ami, not my child, because of her unfaithfulness. And God said to do this in this relationship because he said this, your life, poor Hosea, is a living, walking illustration of the way I look at Israel. Remember, Israel was called the wife of Jehovah. And Israel is unfaithful to me, like your wife. And so your children's names will be the illustration, the message, because they've broken that relationship with false gods, spiritual adultery. It's even more graphic in Ezekiel 16. You read that sometime, that chapter. And you'll find there that the Lord talks about Israel as a woman he found as newly born, still having the cord attached and the afterbirth. And he took pity upon her and loved her. And he picked her up and he cleaned her up. And he washed her. And he put a ring in her nose and all of these things. And dressed her in fine linen and the whole thing. And then eventually he married her. She became his wife. And she went after all these other lovers, he called them, these gods of Egypt, the gods of Assyria, the gods of Canaan, all these others committing spiritual adultery. So you see, the relationship there that God had with his people was one that was not the physical relationship we're talking about in the other sense, but now looking at this love, intimate love relationship. where God has loved them, and there I have a bond, a union, a faithfulness. That's what should have been there. You can have the same thing in the New Testament. You look at the end of the Bible in Revelation, you look in chapter 18, for example, 17 and 18, and you find there this woman of ill repute who is the mother of unfaithfulness, of adulteries. Mystery Babylon. And as you look at this woman, she's known for everything that is anti-Christ. You go through the materialism that's there, you go through all of the wickedness that's there, you go through all the immorality that's there, and here the Lord talks about a world that's against him, that would not be the faithful wife to him. And then it contrasts in the book of Revelation, especially chapter 21. We've already looked in chapter 12 here about the heavenly Jerusalem. There is where our ultimate citizenship is, and that in the new creation, the new Jerusalem will descend from heaven. And it says there, describing that, it says, I saw the heavenly Jerusalem descending from heaven like a bride prepared for the bridegroom. So if God talks and compares in these ways, this relationship you see, his relationship with his people, how wholly should we view the marital relationship? When he takes that as the paradigm, the illustration, the example, the symbol of his relationship with his people, how we husbands and wives ought to look upon our marriages as being something that if God should compare it to that. How special should we view this relationship that the world would constantly be desiring to sully? And so the point, as we look in the scriptures here, it says the marriage bed undefiled, but it talks about two things. And two things are brought up, and one of those is, well, it's translated fornication or fornicators. And I'll give you the Greek word, pornoi, ring a bell? Pornoi, that's where we get porn and pornography and that kind of stuff. And so fornicators, and then it goes on, the next word it says, and those who are adulterers. Now it's a completely, it's a different word, it's moikoi. And so when you're looking at this, not to be confused, so fornicators are those who are not married and yet they're still involved in immorality in every way. When it says adulterers, these are those who are married, at least one of them married, and that they're involved in immorality, which is contrary to the marital vows. And God says, that's defiling. Let me read to you Ephesians 5. Would you turn with me 5, 30 to 33? Everybody knows Ephesians 5. You've been to a wedding. At least, if you've been to many weddings, one of them's got to use Ephesians 5. Somewhere along the line, that's a very popularly used text. And appropriately so, because it talks about marriage and comparing it to Christ and his bride, the church. And so here in Ephesians 5, 30 and following, for we are members of his body, of his flesh and of his bones. And then it quotes that verse we've already mentioned twice. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. This is a great mystery I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless, let each one of you in particular so love his wife as himself and let the wife see that she respects her honors, her husband. And so you see, the Lord draws from this and he says, you see what impact it should have on the preciousness and the holiness and everything that's involved in our relationship that he should compare it to Jesus Christ and his church. And so when we are considering this, what about the immorality? What about adultery? What about fornication? What does scripture tell us about it besides these things? Well, you know, in the Roman world that this was written in, it was written that, you know, if you think of Corinth, I'll give you a text out of Corinth in a minute, out of 1 Corinthians in a moment. But in Corinth, that was known for its illicit activity. If you were to look at, you ever heard of Vesuvius? You know, Mount Have you ever heard of Vesuvius or Pompeii? You know, Vesuvius is this volcano, you know, that blew in 79. And Herculaneum, these cities were buried in tufa or buried in ash, you know, like up to this glulam up here, that deep. And they had to dig it all up over a century or more. And then as they dug it all up and they found that There were symbols everywhere, murals on the houses and all, that all of these things were just consumed with immorality. That's all it was about, it seemed. And you find and you say, this is the Lord's judgment upon these cities. But this was current in their society. And it shouldn't be surprising, beloved. It's replicated in history time and time and time again. In Leviticus chapter 18 and Leviticus chapter 20, the Lord is talking to the Israelites about to go, soon to go into the promised land. And he said that, and he goes through this list in both chapters. You read the list that's there and it goes through all of these lists of, of, of just horrifying type immoral, immoral type practices of the people. And as you read through all of these things, you get to the bottom and the Lord says, for this reason, the land is defiled, corrupted, unclean. And he says the land will, and he uses this explicit language, vomit out the people who live there in both texts. And he says, because they have defiled it. In other words, this is the way God looks at it, an abomination, something that is vile and unclean. And the land will actually be revolted and boot him out. What you see here, the idea is the marital relationship is to be held as holy. But let me go further, a little further, and go to 1 Corinthians 6. Remember, this was a place that was, well, a very vile place for its practices that we're describing. And in 1 Corinthians 6, verse 15, the Lord says, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. So in verse 17, he says, but he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Verse 18, flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside his body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Now verses 19 and 20, the capstone on the rationale. Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you and you have from God and you are not your own? You've been bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's, they belong to him. So notice the rationale in 15. He says, don't you realize that, what does Romans 6 say? Everybody knows Romans 6. Romans 6, when you were baptized, this is the initial stage of their, here you are part of the body of Christ. What does it say? That you died with Christ, you're buried with Christ, you're raised to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus. Romans 6 says that we're no longer slaves to sin, but that we're set free in Jesus Christ, etc. And that we're united to him in union with him. Well, this says here that don't you realize in verse 15, it says that your body, your members, your arms, your feet, your legs, your fingers, your eyes, all of it belong to him or joined to Jesus Christ. And then it goes on to say that your spirit is united to Jesus Christ. And then finally, it says your body has become the temple of the Holy Spirit. The word temple, I've told you before, I believe, is there are two words. Iran is the word for the temple and its precincts. You see this, you look at the Temple Mount. In the old days, you'd see that temple and the whole thing. That was the temple. But when you talked about the Naas, that's what this is describing here in this verse. Your body has become the Naas, the temple of the Holy Spirit. That's talking about the sanctuary. Think of it. And so the rationale there is, how can you take this that's holy unto God and do that, you see? And that's why he says, flee. Think of the illustration of flee. We all know here about Joseph, don't we? Joseph was a slave. He could use the rationale, I can't help it, I gotta do what my boss tells me. But Potiphar's wife, day after day after day, tried to seduce him. time and time again. And finally, she cornered him when no other servants were around, you know, to see. And she grabs his cloak and he flees, leaving it in her hand. And false accusations, of course, and imprisonment happen. But you see, beloved, how, he says before that, how can I sin against my master, but also against God to do that? And you see, beloved, that kind of a mindset, to flee from sin, should be the first instinct, not the last, when it's too late. So, in this text, it's the opposite of looking at marriage lightly esteemed, isn't it? But instead, looking at our marriage as high number one priority. Furthermore, chastity, I'll get it in a minute, chastity before marriage is absolutely required. Now that's not popular. It's scoffed at even. The young, you know, those of you, if any, go to a public school or those who have friends that are of the world or something like that, you will be left to scorn. You'll be called a child. You'll be called someone who is, you know, a backwards, an old-fashioned, and anything else they can use to try to taunt you and tempt you into sin. Don't listen. Remember in chapter 12 we were looking at, you know, Jacob and Esau. And what was it that we learned that Esau did? For just something as paltry as something to eat, immediate gratification in other words. An immediate gratification that would be soon past, he sold his birthright. And how many have squandered their chastity in just such a thing, destroyed a marriage, ruined family, shipwreck of all things because of it. And the Lord's saying, no, love between husbands and wives is something to be holy. And for those who are not yet married, we are to recognize our body as joined to Christ And we're his. And so we wait until the time of marriage. And so, beloved, as we look at these things together, you see they're very relevant indeed, aren't they? In our modern lingo, it's used two words, straight and gay. We'll use those two words just because they're elusive enough that we won't be too explicit. The words that we looked at, remember the pornoi and moikoi? are just as much to those of the gay persuasion, the LGBTQ plus crowd. It's talking about that too. And immorality coming into the church, expressed in the family and everything else, it includes every form of immorality, including that. And so let me give some points to ponder in Jesus Christ. Like I said, we are no longer slaves to sin. You read in the Bible it says we're no longer slaves to sin. You read in the Bible it says that we died to the lust of the flesh. Remember that one? Or it also says walk by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Or it goes on to talk about do not be conformed to this world. Remember that one? Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. All the world tries to squeeze us into its mold, doesn't it? And that's what it says we cannot let happen. Confess, repent. You say, well, I've sinned, it's too late. No. Be restored. Confess and repent of your sin. Christ and his grace can restore. Cost consequences? Yes. But restoration is available. Do not become complacent. You know what complacency is, right? I don't have to worry about it. I'll never have any problem like that. Don't drop your guard. There's an account given in the Old Testament. You recall a fellow by the name of David. a man after God's own heart and it says that he was on his roof when kings go out to war he stayed home and he was on his roof and that's when he gazed upon Bathsheba and he kept gazing and he lusted and he acted upon it and you know what happened is there was the adulterous affair and he tried even tries to cover it up and so he He calls her husband home, you know, he's a soldier, calls him home from the front, and he won't even go in the house because he's trying to confuse it like maybe it's not his child, and the man won't go in. He's too loyal to David and too loyal to the Lord to do it. Isn't that extraordinary? And so murder, you see how domino effect? Murder of Uriah the Hittite occurs. And finally the child is born and it becomes open scandal. And there is Nathan pointing his finger at David. You know the one man had, here you had, someone had this big flock of sheep and he looked upon a man with one little ewe lamb and he coveted that one ewe lamb and he killed the man and took his ewe lamb and David's indignant and he stands up, where is he? I'll take every last bit of anger out upon him and destroy him, and he says, you're the man. And so before God, he paid a price. And so anyway, marital honor and purity is to be guarded like gold. Well, finally, he says at the end of this verse, the judgment of God will fall upon Those who defile in this way, what awaits them, as it says here in verse 4, fornicators and adulterers God will judge. You know, when we think of the judgment of God, also we must think of the bigger picture, the bigger war. The kingdom of heaven versus the kingdom of this world, the bigger war. If we were to go through the scriptures, remember Jesus talking in Matthew chapter seven, remember he said, he said, by their fruits, you shall know them. He says a good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. By their fruits, you shall know them. In other words, the deeds that are done, what occurs in these adulterous or illicit, not affairs, by the way, not flings, adultery. hard fornication, what happens is really something that Jesus says it's showing the heart. Like he said, it's about speech. He says out of the abundance of the heart, man speaketh. We see the heart is really on display. There's where the business must be done. Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And so as we read there in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, we saw that about, you know, our body joined to him and all of that sort of thing. If you were to go back previous to that in 1 Corinthians 6 and look at the verses 9 through 11, it goes through all of these sins and that sort of thing. And it talks about adultery and fornication and immorality and all of these matters. And it says, and those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Doesn't mean if you've sinned once, you've lost your salvation or something, but don't ever take it lightly. It means those who show forth this kind of behavior, there's no repentance. Beware. Judgment awaits. So as we look at our whole society infected with this, how big a deal is it? It's ubiquitous. Why are there, what was it, 65 million babies who have been aborted since 1973 or something like that? Could be more for all I know. Why are so many of them aborted? Because of convenience. Because of avoiding the consequences of sinful behavior. Or look at the child trafficking that we've heard so much about, or child pornography, or that which is broken homes and children who are growing up in these environments and think that's the pattern they're to follow. And it replicates and it spreads like a cancer until the whole society is a mess. How about your marriage, holding it up honorably? How about all those sets of eyes, if you have children, and others that are around you watching, mom and dad. You know, they're learning a whole lot more about marriage by watching yours than they are by anything you say to them. And so, be the loving parents, the loving husband and wife that you're called to be. The love of God, the love of God in brotherly love, the love of God in love for strangers, the love of God in love for prisoners, the love of God in the love of husbands and wives, honorable and pure. You know, there's a way to dishonor marriage and not even realize you're doing it. You ever get caught off guard and laugh at something you wish you hadn't? We have experts in this sort of thing called comedians. And they feel that they need to cause people to laugh more and more and more to the dishonor of their spouse. And make jokes about them, you know, and that sort of thing. It ought not be. Hold your wife, hold your husband in high esteem. They're not a joke. They're not to be scoffed at. But they're to be treasured. Always. And so in clarity of scripture, as we look at this in closing, there's Christ's bride in all of this that's going on. We're not surprised, are we, that we see all of this infecting our whole society? We have a sex-crazed society, don't we? And the way that we've had the most bizarre and corrupting type illicit behavior is extraordinary, where men would marry men, supposedly, and women, women. I'm going to close, if you don't mind, with my looking at Romans 1 real quickly and remind us all of the war, I said the greater war, this is what I'm getting at, a spiritual war that's taking place. And this is in the time of Paul, so this is 2,000 years ago, so it's not new, but it certainly hasn't gotten any better over the last 30 years in this country. Let me just pick out some high points in verse 18, talking about all of these things. He says, the wrath of God is revealed against all those who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And you, you hurry along to verse 21 and he says, they become futile in their thoughts. Their, their hearts are darkened. And so, as you move to verses 24 and 26 and 28, you find a common thing there that says, therefore, God gave them up, gave them over to. And he talks about what he gave them over to. He gave them over to defiling lust to dishonor their bodies among each other. He said God gave them over to vile passions, contrary to nature. God gave them over to a debased mind. Now think of the descriptions of all those things and compare what you hear people saying this type of behavior really is. Is it vile passions, debased mind, etc. In verse 25, I skipped that, I come back to it now, it says there they exchanged the truth for a lie. And they worship and serve the creature rather than the creator. Everywhere from preschool to colleges and everything in between, this is being rammed through. It's ubiquitous. Adoption of children by gays. Marriage of these legal between gays. We have this whole thing that's infiltrated into the body of Christ, even. If you were to look at, like, Andy Stanley's church, and you've got the unconditional conference that he had just recently. Tens of thousands of people attend, and all of it about the LGBTQ is good and acceptable to be had in the church. Or think about, you know, Rick Warren and other megachurch pastors. Rick Warren, and of course recently retired, but still influenced in that church. You got the Rick Warren or the Joel Osteens, the same thing. Or many other churches that are infected with this and saying, we must support this or it's unloving. And you even have good men shockingly support. going to a wedding, so-called, of two men. Beloved, that, as we've seen in everything we've shown, is not marriage. And so as we go through this matter, beloved, I say it for this reason. And it's quite simply this. The enemy is at the door. The time for us to, you talk about, I said, you know, that it doesn't sound very heroic to be a godly couple in the midst of these days of darkness, but it is heroic. It is heroic when they try to have, you know, a sensitivity training rammed down into your ears and brainwashing, you might call it, where you go to work. And there will come the day, beloved, and we know that, where tough choices will be required of us all. Today's the day to get it clear. But as we go from here, beloved, back to the marriage, a true marriage blessed of God, cherish it, and do everything verse four has described. It says that, you know, like we saw, Jesus said, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother, Cling to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Where God has joined together, God joined it together. Let no man put us under. The marriage bed is undefiled. Keep it that way. Without fornication, without adultery. But to sanctify your marriage is holy before God, knowing we are in union with Christ. There's no compromise, there's no surrender. It's standing true to Him. May God give us the grace for it. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father, as Your Word has been opened and has been read and preached, and we see the clarity of the truth of Your Word the world having exchanged it for a lie, yet may we cling to your word as we cling to you. And as we think about what has been said out of your word and what your word says, as the moon reflects the light of the Son. Marriage, O Lord, may it be a godly reflection of union of Christ and His Church. Oh, Heavenly Father, if we really think about that, what an absolutely perfect and pure is Christ and His love for the Church. And so may it be, we pray, that we would look afresh on all things related, that we might stand in faith in the truth of Your Word against the tide that is a great high tide against godliness. But we pray you would grant to this church of repentance and faith in the one who forgives and restores. So it is we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. Now receive the benediction of the Lord. And may the God of patience and comfort grant you to be like-minded towards one another, according to Christ Jesus. That you may be with one mind and one mouth, glorifying God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray it. Amen.