Such Were Some Of You

Introduction

After you’ve turned to number 282, will you please turn your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 6th chapter? 1 Corinthians the sixth chapter. While you’re turning there, I want to give you a little bit of background for this lesson. In mid-December of last year, there was a controversy that many of you heard about, I’m certain, when Phil Robertson, the leader of the Robertson clan of Duck Dynasty fame, was interviewed in GQ magazine, and in doing so was cut off from AE. Was basically his contract was suspended, and he was not allowed to be on that program. Of course, they were in, they were outside of the time when they were recording particular programs. But the reason that he was is because in this interview, he had made statements that were considered by the homosexual community to be offensive to them.

And therefore A and E bowed to their pressure. Nine days later, A and E reversed itself, and everything seemed to be going the way that hopefully everybody wanted it to do. What is interesting about this is AE made its decision on the basis of money rather than on the basis of anything that was right. And we see also that it did create an event by which there could be discussion about the issues that have to do with homosexual rights in this country that have become so prominent over the last several years. One of the things that was done during this particular time is Phil Robertson was filmed talking at the congregation where he attended and alluding to 1 Corinthians the sixth chapter. My purpose tonight is not to justify Phil Robertson.

I do not care whether you watch Duck Dynasty or not. There are certain kinds of things that are practiced by the Duck Dynasty Enterprise that I do not particularly care for. The fact that they’ve got a line of wine products I don’t particularly care for. That sounded bad. Let me say that again. I don’t care for the fact that they have a line of wine products. Not that I have tried those products and don’t like them. You see, when you stand up in front of people and talk, all kinds of things can happen, and most of them are bad. You have to be real careful. This is the lesson where I said, and such were some of you after the fool’s lesson, too.

But anyway, the purpose is not to try to justify that and make you watch Duck Dynasty, make any comment in reference to that. But the very fact that Phil Robertson alluded to 1 Corinthians 6, now that is something I’m very concerned about. Because I want us to be able to understand as Christians what is being taught by the Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul in this particular passage, so that we might be able to understand not just what our culture thinks and what our culture does, even what our culture filtered through Phil Robertson might say or think. But what we might be able to understand comes clearly from the Word of God and clearly from His mind so that we might conform to what God would have us to do.

We’ve talked about having a better relationship with God over the course of this series of lessons. And we’ve talked about the importance of making sure that we look to God’s word and what God’s will is to do what God would have us to do. We’ve also talked about the importance of making sure that we learn how to deal with the difficulties and stresses and strains of life in order to be able to have a better relationship with God. We talked last night about dealing with the problem that comes with other people, not necessarily helping us in our efforts to try to do the things that are right. Tonight I want to talk about an important passage of Scripture that talks about those that will not enter into the kingdom of God.

And therefore make sure that we learn how to deal with the problem of culture. Frankly, most people get their religious views today not so much from the Bible, but from what they see on television. They’ll basically come up with things that they believe are right because that’s what the culture seems to think are right in any given occasion. I can remember when I was in graduate school, one of the things that I was told by some of my teachers, and I argued with them about it, was they would argue that what is right is what society at any given time thinks is right. And I argued that that’s not true. What God says is right, as outlined in His will is exactly what is right, and that’s the only way we know anything about what is right, is to look and see what God tells us.

But yet most people still come up with what they think according to what society and culture tell them to come up with their moral underpinnings. If you don’t believe that, just look and see the changes that have occurred in the last 60 years in our country, in which you find things that weren’t even discussed, now discussed commonly. Lifestyles that were hidden away from polite view, now paraded in front of people, and many things that were done in society just are completely different than the world that I grew up in. When I was a child, men that cursed didn’t curse in front of children and women. And we see cursing going on even from the mouths of children and women in the televisions that we have in our houses.

The idea of somebody living together without benefit of marriage was something that was so looked down upon, even the culture considered it something that ought not to be considered or discussed. And now you can barely turn on a television program in which you don’t find there being some illicit relationship between two people who are not married to one another. And even in our day and time, more appropriate to what we’re discussing, you’re having states, about a third of them now have gone along with the idea that two men or two women can marry one another and it be considered a legitimate marriage. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians, the sixth chapter, so that we might be able to understand the moral underpinnings of the Word of God and allow it to be what sets the tune for us rather than what society or culture at any given time thinks.

1. The Unrighteous Will Not Inherit the Kingdom

Let’s look at verse 9 beginning, because there it starts with something that I think is very important for us to consider. It says, or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? You notice it doesn’t say that this is new information for you. It’s saying, first of all, this is something that you ought to know. This is something that is knowledge, that if you had been familiar with the word of God up to this particular point, you would be able to have discerned that from statements made by others, not simply by what Paul says here. But also, he says, the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God. And just in case you missed it the first time, look at the last part of verse 10 in this same context, whereas he finishes this partial list, frankly.

He says, Thee will not inherit the kingdom of God. If you missed it the first time, get it the second time, because here he bookens things that in Paul’s own culture were often not considered that bad. And gradually in our own culture, we’re finding them not considered that bad. And that’s why I think it is important that we discuss them this evening. The idea that people will not inherit the kingdom of God is something that ought to terrify those of us who are Christians and know better. The idea that there are things that people can practice that would make it to where they are not going to be able to be with the redeemed who one day go and live victoriously with the Lord and his people forever and ever, but are cut off from God, away from God and God’s people, consigned to a devil’s hell that wasn’t intended for us.

It was prepared for the devil and his angels. But yet, if people live according to the dictates of what the devil and his angels would have them to do, that’s exactly where they will be consigned for eternity. We ought to recognize that here in these statements made in these three verses, we need to understand very clearly that we’re not talking about differences in lifestyle, difference in opinion. We’re not talking about something that is just a minor consideration. We’re talking about issues in which if people practice these things, they will not be able to enter the kingdom of God. Notice the things that it describes. Do not be deceived. Again, he talks about don’t let anybody fool you. Buyer beware. Those of you who are living in a culture need to make sure that you steal yourself against the culture that might try to sway you away from your biblical moorings.

2. Fornicators, Idolaters, and Adulterers

Don’t be fooled by a slick talking media, by the movies, by the newspapers, by the telephone, by the radio, by educational institutions, by anybody who would try to make you think that these things are okay. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Now I’ve told you it’s a partial list because there are many other things that we could go and look at in Scripture that will keep someone out of heaven. But here are things that were problems in Paul’s society and are problems in our own. And let’s look at them individually. Fornicators. Many of the modern translations translate fornication as sexual immorality. That is a bit imprecise because fornication carries with it the idea of having a sexual relationship with someone that you are not married to.

And here we see sexual immorality being a term that is broader than that. In fact, sometimes, even in the translation I prefer, the New American Standard Updated Edition. It will just use the word immorality. And again, that’s even more imprecise. Because there are all kinds of things that are not even sexual that are immoral. Things that are sexually immoral may not necessarily be fornication, although they are wrong, although they also can keep someone out of heaven. Pornography, for example. When we’re talking about, and I realize there are so many ramifications to pornography and so many manifestations of it that didn’t even exist in the past because of the advance of technology and the way that it has degraded us as a people in reference to pornographic material, but yet simply looking at nude pictures of people that you are not married to.

That’s sexually immoral. But it’s not fornication. Because fornication involves a relationship, a physical relationship with someone that you are not married to. And we need to understand that. We live in a world in which a majority of young people are sexually active before they come to marriage. We’re living in a world in which you have so many more divorces than ever existed in the past. I can remember teachers were much more nosy when I was in school than they are today. And I can remember the teacher going through and talking to all of us children, asking us where we went to church. Ask us who our mom and daddy were. Ask us other kinds of things. I remember one child whose parents were divorced, and I remember feeling so embarrassed for him.

Do you realize we’re talking about a situation that in our society, divorce and remarriage, serial polygamy in effect, exists so much in our culture that it is hard to untie the knot that exists in reference to people in our society. People sometimes, by the time they come to Jesus Christ, have messed their lives up so badly, it becomes a situation in which there are serious ramifications to their repentance. Because often they don’t have a right to the person that they happen to be married to at the time. They are committing fornication because they have allowed themselves to get into a relationship that is not a legitimate one in the eyes of God. It’s a terrible thing. But we need to understand very clearly that fornicators, in spite of the fact that living together without benefit of marriage, in spite of the fact that the state of Florida, where you live, and the state of Kentucky where I live, says that there are people who they claim are married who are not married in the eyes of God.

And people who they say are not married who are married in the eyes of God. We’re still talking about fornication. And that fornication is something that will keep someone from the kingdom of God. Talks also about idolaters. And sometimes it’s easy for us to hear about idolatry and go like this.

I haven’t passed by an idol temple in ever in this country. But you know there are all kinds of idols. Idolatry carries with it certainly the idea of exalting some image above the status that you would give just a block of wood and making it something that you represent that is that represents to you a God that you would serve and worship. How many kinds of things exist in our culture in which you find people who have basically taken God down from his position and they have placed all kinds of other things, whether they be people, whether it be a particular type of recreation, whether it be a particular relationship, whether it be a particular cause, that they put in place of the God that they should be serving and giving all of their allegiance to.

See, they’re idolaters in our time. And we need to make sure that we don’t allow ourselves to fall into that trap.

Do you realize that you can go into the bedrooms of often young people? And through the posters that you see on the wall, you may be able to identify who their idols are. Sometimes they’re sports figures whose lives certainly are not consistent with what we would like people to look to as an example or someone who would be a role model for them. But some people will make sports figures their idols. Sometimes it’s an entertainment personality. And we find people very often looking to them as the model for what they would like to look like, how they would like to sound, how they would like to be.

It amazes me. When you have somebody who showed who finally makes the 15-year mark in their marriage in Hollywood, you’ll have people asking them what their secret is. I can’t imagine the circumstances in which I would, it would, it would cross my mind to wonder what Lady Gaga thought about anything. Can you? But yet there are people who make other people their idols. I don’t think we ought to make people idols, but you know who we honor says volumes about us. If we honor those who preach the word of God, if we honor those that serve as shepherds over God’s people, if we honor those that are teachers in the Bible classes, both males and females, if we honor those people who come to church without the benefit of a faithful spouse and get the children ready and bring them to church and try to help them develop the attitudes that are going to help them be kingdom citizens one of these days.

Not as idols, but as people that are worth honor in our lives. Not these people who are slack jawed mouth breathers and people who are who hold what you believe religiously in contempt. It also describes that those who are adulterers will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Adultery in the language of the New Testament means very closely, closely to what adultery means in our language. When someone who is married adulterates the covenant that they have with someone else through being sexually unfaithful to their spouse, they commit adultery.

They can commit fornication, which is a broader category than adultery, which is a smaller category within that. But the difference is in the New Testament language, a person who was unmarried could be called an adulterer if they had a sexual relationship with someone that was married. Not only if they adulterated their covenant, but if they helped someone else adulterate theirs. And here are people who will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. God values marriage. Do you remember of all the things God created in the very beginning, he looks at them and he sees that they’re good, that they’re very good. But he sees man alone, and he says it’s not good that man should be alone. So he creates woman from man’s rib. And when she is presented to Adam, do you remember he says, This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh?

You know, we read that sometimes and we go, this is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. I don’t think that’s the way Adam said that, do you? She’s bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. There’s somebody like me. He’d gone through all the animals and there hadn’t been a helper suitable for him. But here is somebody who’s like me, but yet not like me. A helper suitable for me. And we see in the second chapter of the book of Genesis in verse 24, it says, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. You see, when anybody gets married, they are involved in a covenant between themselves and the one that they married, but also they are involved in covenant relationship, at least in their marriage to God.

So when someone adulterates that covenant through unfaithfulness, they not only are wronging the person they’re married to, they are wronging the God who sanctified the marriage between them. And we’re living in a day and time in which marriage is devalued. In Germany, I was reading an article back a couple of years ago in which it was talking about the idea of making marriage something that was based on terms rather than a lifetime commitment. Because they were spending so much money on divorce lawyers and the expenses that were involved in it, that you could buy a marriage license like you might buy a hunting license or something like that, and it would expire at a particular time. And at that particular point, you could just wash your hands of the relationship and it’d be done.

3. The Effeminate and Homosexuals

If they talk about that in Germany, do you think we could be that far away from it in the United States? Marriage is something that God values. And is shown in our culture by the very discussion of so-called gay marriage. Of the fact that basically someone can get a divorce and remarry anyone for virtually any reason, according to the laws of the states of this nation, we need to recognize that we’re talking about being counter-cultural in the way that we look at marriage and the way we value it in a society that does not value it. It also talks about those that are effeminate and homosexuals. The word effeminate, I think is unfortunate. And in my Bible, it gives a note there. And in yours, if you have the New American Standard Updated Edition, it will say effeminate by perversion.

One of the things that the Greeks knew about was homosexual perversion. And they had more than one word for homosexual perversion. And the word effeminate is used to talk about the passive partner in a homosexual act. And the word homosexual, as it’s translated in the New American Standard Updated Edition, is talking about the active partner in a homosexual act. Sometimes I, in fact, I remember when I was even in college at Florida College, there were people who would talk about we need to be manly men, not be effeminate as it describes it in the Word of God. But let’s face it, I don’t know that everybody has to be just like me to not be a sissy. You know, I realize that, you know, all manly men wear beards, and all manly men park their hair with a wide part in the middle and have a voice just like mine that’s not too deep and not too high.

See, we all, if we’re going to decide what makes somebody a sissy or not, I don’t know that we’re going to have a very good judgment on that. But that doesn’t have anything to do with what this is talking about. This is talking about someone who, as I said, is the passive partner in a homosexual act. That’s as plain as I feel comfortable being tonight. If you want to know more about that, ask me privately after. Because it’s not a pretty picture. But here it’s talking and using two words in the Greek language to describe people who engage in homosexual acts, and they are described as those who will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. It’s not just an alternative lifestyle. It’s not just somebody living in a way that is going to be accepted now by our culture and therefore accepted by God and God’s people.

It’s something that is its very core against what God has designed in nature. And it’s against in its very core what God wants his people to be.

Something that is acquired. Or that somebody who may even be tempted in that direction is somebody who is a practicing homosexual. And there is a difference between temptation and somebody doing something wrong. All of you men and women understand there is a difference between being tempted by those of the opposite sex under certain circumstances and being a fornicator. We need to understand that he’s not describing here people who may have certain temptations. He’s describing people who engage in these acts. And I’ll tell you, it is a shame in our culture that, like in my children’s school, my children are in their 30s, 20s, and 30s now, and yet when they were in high school, there were clubs that met that were so-called gay straight alliances. I don’t want my high school children talking about heterosexual sex in a club.

Much less the idea of them being able to somehow understand one another better. Or be in a situation in which there is any kind of credence given to the perverse lifestyle that these people try to perpetrate. And we need to understand that as the way the scripture describes it, people are effeminate or homosexual based on what they do and how they think rather than simply what may be a temptation to someone. The homosexual community has been brilliant in the way that it tries to recruit. It takes people when they are young and perhaps certainly inexperienced sexually and tries to make them think that in the ambiguity that exists sometimes in early adolescence that they may have had some thought, they may have had some idea in which this tempted them, and therefore you have no choice.

4. Thieves and the Covetous

You just happen to be a homosexual. That’s not what the scriptures teach. It talks about people who practice these things, and the people who do that are those who will not enter into the kingdom of God. In verse 10, it talks about thieves. Thieves are people who steal stuff. That’s not hard to understand. We know what thieves are. God has always respected property rights, and we need to understand and appreciate those property rights as well. It’s wrong to steal something that belongs to someone else, and it doesn’t make any difference how minor it is. Yet we have states that are involved in stealing through the lottery. You know isn’t it interesting? That here you have a situation where if as many people were robbed of money, and as few people as are win in a lottery, if that was practiced by you and me as individuals in a business, we’d be in jail.

But the state in which I live and the state in which you live engages in lotteries that basically promote greed and promote taking something from someone against them when they’re trying to be willing to risk something that belongs to them. That, in my view, is what’s wrong with gambling. It is wrong in the same way that dueling is murder by consent. The lottery is theft by consent. And we need to recognize there’s no place for that in the life of the child of God. Nothing wrong with working. Nothing wrong with making a living, nothing wrong with making a good living. But you need to make that living on the basis of something that is a fair exchange between people. When you have an exchange in which one person benefits at the expense of everybody else, you’re talking about something that is anti-biblical.

And we need to recognize the thieving aspects that are involved in the lotteries that are that are experienced in our country. We need to respect property rights. And no matter how little something may be, we have to make sure that we do the right thing. I remember walking with one of my children to somebody else’s house one time. It was election time. And my child, with the help of some other kids from church, had decided it would be a real lark to go steal political signs out of somebody else’s yard if it was somebody that they didn’t like politically. I heard about it, asked about it, got to thinking it might be one of my children, asked her about it, and she admitted it. I said, Where are the signs?

She showed me. We went to the people’s houses where those were taken from, and she admitted what she did. She gave them back. She took whatever tongue lashing that she ought to receive from them. And we offered to make it right in any way that we could do so. And you say, What’s wrong with stealing a political sign out of somebody’s yard? Especially if that person isn’t somebody I’d vote for. It doesn’t make any difference how little it is. Christians don’t steal. And we need to make sure that we teach that to our children and recognize that thieves are people who aren’t going to enter into the kingdom of God. The covetous. The word covetous carries with it the idea of grasping for more. Materialism is probably the way we describe it in our own time.

And you know, it’s interesting. When we talk about materialism, we often think of something that is, you know, a minor vice. After all, we live in America here in the 21st century. Who isn’t materialistic? Christians ought not to be. Those that are going to inherit the kingdom of God will not be. Because we’re going to be people who are thankful for what we have. We’re going to be people who appreciate the blessings that God has provided with us. We are going to be generous and share the things that we have because that’s what God wants us to do. And we need to make sure that as we live our lives, we find more contentment in what we have than efforts to gain more and more and more.

I realize that all of us, given the chance to improve our situation, might do so. But there’s a difference in someone who is never satisfied with what they have and is always wanting more. I remember when I was a little boy, occasionally my dad would just go nuts. And he would stop at a quick trip store. That’s kind of like a 7-Eleven in Florida. And they had a, you know what an Icy is, don’t you? They had what they call coolies. Same thing. And occasionally, this only happened maybe four times in my lifetime. My dad would stop and he’d say, Boys, go in there and get you a coolie. And before he had to say it the second time, we were in there ordering our coolies.

I can still remember my youngest brother, though, on one occasion. We are, we’re coming back from my dad’s office. We’re passing by the place. He stops and buys us coolies, and he’s sitting there sucking the bottom out of that cup of his, and he looks and he says, Daddy, next time we go with you to the office and you come back through here, can we get another coolie? Me and my older brother winced because we knew what was coming. You need to be pleased with what you have. Not always thinking, let me have something more than what I’ve got. Count your many blessings. Because that’s what the Lord would have us to do. Not be people who are grasping and greedy and always wanting more. Because you remember, as Scripture says, covetousness amounts to idolatry, which we’ve seen already condemned.

5. Drunkards, Revilers, and Swindlers

Drunkards are also people who will not enter the kingdom of heaven. You know, we have seen in my lifetime the greater acceptance of the consumption of alcoholic beverages. And it’s considered almost a right that people have, and something that is becoming more and more tolerable among Christians in the United States. You’d be surprised to know there are people who call themselves New Testament Christians who are beginning to become social drinkers. We need to understand that here as he describes drunkers, people that abuse alcohol. And let’s face it, brethren, we come from an abusive society. When you have drunkenness becoming such a problem that it is outlawed by the United States by constitutional amendment less than a hundred years ago, we’re talking about something that’s a problem.

Now, I do want to say this. At the time Prohibition was passed, the average alcohol consumption in the United States was ten times more than it is now. Drunkenness was a problem. There are societies around the world in which I think even in the New Testament, we see a situation in which probably it what they called wine had less alcohol content in it today because we can seal beverages better than they could in that day and time. And to fail to seal it, air gets in it, it becomes vinegar rather quickly before the alcohol content can rise. In Jesus’ day, usually they drank wine as a table beverage mixed with water. I remember reading in Herodotus one time in his histories. He was talking about the Scythians, who were people lived north of the Black Sea who were so barbaric that he said they drank their wine unmixed.

And when I’m talking about mixed, you know, we’re talking about it being five to one water or ten to one water. So sometimes when we’re talking about wine in the Word of God, we’re talking about something that has almost as much alcohol as Kool-Aid. And other times, like in Acts 2, when it talks about these men are full of new wine, you remember Peter responds by saying, We’re not drunken as you suppose. But we’re talking about something in our day and time coming from an abusive culture, coming from a culture in which people often celebrate their 18th or their 21st birthday by getting drunk, in which the sororities and the fraternities in our universities are known for developing alcoholism in people. We need to understand that we’re not just talking about a vice, we’re not just talking about a sickness.

We’re talking about something that is a choice people make to make themselves not as much to listen to what God has to say when they have clouded their judgment through alcohol. I’ve noticed in my lifetime among people I have known how generally alcohol lets people do what they want to do. Somebody wants to be promiscuous, they can become drunk, and after all, then I didn’t really know what I was doing. Somebody wants to be the life of the party, they can get drunk, and after all, it doesn’t make a difference what they say.

And we need to understand it’s something that’ll keep people out of the kingdom of God. Revilers. Now, again, I think most of us think of being a reviler is something that’s more of a minor vice rather than a major problem as it is described here. A reviler is someone who curses someone else and speaks evil of someone else. In fact, even the definition in a Greek lexicon says someone who insults somebody else.

But the Lord didn’t sign the Constitution of the United States. We need to be people who are not revilers you remember when Jesus talks about the importance of making sure that we don’t call someone fool or call someone racka, call someone empty head or someone worthless, because we begin to talk about people as if they’re worthless. We begin to think about people as if they’re worthless. Revilers will be those who won’t enter into the kingdom of heaven. Swindlers. Those are people who, by hook or crook, by either seizing something from them by violence, as it is defined in the New Testament language, or stealing something from someone by some trickery is a situation in which we find that.

I’ve known Christians who have been involved in things that were illegal, who yet, when challenged about it said, Well, it’s just business. I know a situation that happened in Florida one time, at a Florida church, where you had a man who was a member of that congregation in good standing, they thought, who would go down to South Florida and pick up prostitutes who would then live in a trailer that he had in northern half of Florida. He didn’t live there. He just would provide a place for them to live to apply their trade, and he received a portion of the money that they acquired. The community knew about this long before the church did, but when they finally confronted him about it, he says, Oh, listen, I don’t use their services.

It’s just business.

Wouldn’t it be terrible? Because you were a swindler? Because you basically, like this man, served as someone who was a pimp. Wound up not being able to enter into the kingdom of heaven because you cheated somebody out of something. Heard about two men one time who were putting up hay on halves. One had the one had the hay field, the other one had the equipment. So they decided they’d split up the hay. Rain was coming, and you can’t, of course, have rain in your hay because it’ll mold in the barn or under the shelter. And so they got in a real big hurry and got it all in before the rain came. And by the time they got finished, one of the men said, Oh, listen, we’re gonna have to take all these haystacks down because we didn’t count the bales when we put them up there.

The other fellow said, Listen, I’ll tell you, if you’re gonna go to hell for a few bales of hay, I’ll provide the hay. Christians ought to be people who will be wronged rather than wrong somebody. Who would swear to their own hurt and not change? Who will do the things that are right, not only that are right, but that look right before all men, so that we can be people who are known for being those people who do the things that are right. Here as it describes these people, in spite of what our culture says, it describes those as those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. But I don’t want to end the lesson without letting you understand what it says in verse 11.

6. And Such Were Some of You

But such were some of you. Never has it been the case in any single congregation where I have ever preached. But over the course of my forty years of preaching, I have gone to congregations where you had people who were guilty at one time in their lives of everything that is listed here. But look at what the Apostle Paul says, after having very clearly pointed out that people who practice these things ought not to be deceived, that they will not enter into the kingdom of heaven, he says to the Corinthian church, and such were some of you. But what’s the difference? Why were those at Corinth able to be people who were in the kingdom of God and one day would inherit the kingdom of God.

But you were washed, you were sanctified, and you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and in the Spirit of our God.

Calling on the name of the Lord. There were people at Corinth who had practiced all of these things, but you know what was different? Is here were people who, based on the fact that they believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the fact that they had repented of the things that they had done that were wrong, had confessed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, were baptized and in doing so washed away their sins. They were sanctified. Which meant after they became Christians, they were set apart for the work of God and for the Lord’s service. You know, sanctification is not necessarily a religious word. You hear it in modern Hebrew even used today. If you have a woman who has a nice hat, you’ll have someone in Hebrew, as it’s translated into English, say, Well, that hat sanctifies you.

Which means it sets you apart from all other ladies wearing hats. My toothbrush is sanctified. If you came to my house, I would share my food with you. I would share my hospitality with you. I would share all kinds of things with you. I would not share my toothbrush with you because my toothbrush is sanctified for me. And you can’t share yourself with the devil and with the world and with our culture because you are set apart for the Lord. You remember what Jesus said in John 17, 17? Sanctify them in thy truth, for thy word is truth. We need to be set apart because we’re following the truth as outlined in the Word of God. And justified. Here were people who had been engaged in all of these things, but yet, because they had come to Jesus Christ in faith and repentance, confessing what they had done that was wrong.

Conclusion

They were baptized, washing their sins away. They were set apart now for God’s use, and they were justified. You remember what it says in Romans 5 and verse 1. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justified means to be declared innocent. Isn’t that strange? Such were some of you. Here were people who were guilty of things that would keep them out of heaven. But yet those people, having been washed and having lived sanctified lives, could be people who would be one day justified because of what had been done for them in Jesus Christ. Perhaps such were some of you. But if you’re willing to come to the Lord in faith, repenting, confessing that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, we can baptize you tonight, washing you away, washing away all the sins that you’ve ever committed.

Then whatever you used to be, if you change your mind, you change your actions, and continue to live the sanctified life, you can look forward to the justification that the Lord will make possible one day for you as you stand before Him in judgment and be ushered into the kingdom of God as it’s described in this context by being someone who is what they ought to be before God rather than what they are supposed to be as outlined in a culture like ours. Think about these things. And if we can help anyone as they make things right with God this evening, we invite you to come while we stand and sing.