Sermon Tone Analysis

RULES ARE FOR KIDS

Is it right or wrong for a women to wear a pantsuit?

Wear short shorts on Sunday morning church service.

Ok on Sunday evening?

Ok for a man to wear a pony tail?

If he is not a pony.

Is it right or wrong to go to movies?

Ok to go to any movie?

X-rated?

Ok to wear ear rings, men I mean?

Left mine at home this morning.

Is it right or wrong to smoke cigarettes, to watch ball games on Sundays, Is it right or wrong to drink coffee?

Is it right or wrong to have a beer ever now and then, not drunk even the drunk knows that is wrong.

And some of you say yes, no, yes, no, Well, who is going to say what’s right and what’s wrong.

Now, we have the ten commandments, we don’t have to guess about the ten commandments.

I thank God for the ten commandments.. Now, the ten commandments, they are here to stay, we have a lot of women and man who come and go but the ten commandments are here to stay.

They’re not up for vote.

Not the ten suggestions.

People try to break the commandments.

They don’t break the commandments really, they brake themselves on the commandments.

Commandments are here and they stand, but there are a lot of areas that are not covered specifically by the ten commandments.

Now, the bible is not a rule book primarily, it is a guidebook, the bible is not a book of minute laws, the bible is a book of great principles and I’m glad.

If the bible were a book of minute laws, in the first place you’d have to have a freight train to carry it around on.

If the bible had to make a rule for every specific situation why it wouldn’t be big enough.

Secondly, I’m glad that the bible is not a book of minute laws because what would apply to one situation mighty not apply to another situation.

For example, what does the bible have to say about paramutual wagering?

Nothing in the scripture that tells you not to bet on a horse race or make a paramutual wager.

There’s nothing in the bible that says specifically not to drive through a school zone at a hundred and ten miles an hour.

There’s nothing in the bible that says not to snort cocaine, there’s nothing in the bible that says don’t go to an X-rated movie.

Can you imagine the people in Paul’s time picking that up and reading it, now, what is an X-rated movie, what does that mean?

If it related to one generation it wouldn’t relate to another generation.

Well, I’ll tell you another reason that I’m glad that the bible is not a book of minute laws.

People can find loopholes in laws.

If you give me a law I’ll show you a lawyer who’d be able to somehow manipulate that law some way, somehow to find a loophole in a law, but you can’t find loopholes in a principle.

There’s a difference.

The bible is a book of eternal principles.

I was reading the newspaper a while back and I clipped this out of the newspaper and it is, it is an article by a man named Dick Hyman about some of the laws that have been made in the history of the universe of laws and he mentions that there are about two thousand laws on the books of the United States that could be called archaic or ludacrist or outmoded.

Some of them just plain strange, some of them silly, many of them were made in day yesterday back in the horse and buggy days to protect horses and cattle and other livestock from the automobile that was coming.

Others were made for other reasons.

I want you to listen to some of these rules, some of these laws.

For example in Dunn, North Carolina there is law I suppose still on the books that they passed an ordinance forbidding anyone to snore at night so loud that it disturbed the neighbors.

That’s on the lawbooks.

Now, here’s one, it is illegal for any postmaster in the United States to shoot ducks.

In Hot Springs, Arkansas, it is a violation of a Federal Law to make a false statement in order to obtain a free bath.

Now, this law is not still on the books but it was on the books at one time, it was illegal to drive a car while asleep.

We need to put that back on the books.

These are not all silly.

A New York traffic law stated this, two vehicles that are passing each other in opposite directions shall have the right of way.

In Kansas a law said in part when two trains approach each other at a crossing both should come at a full stop and neither shall start up again until the other has gone.

Folks, it’s the law.

Now, those are examples that tell you how silly we get.

I’ve seen things like that happen in churches where people drawing up bylaws and so forth for churches, trying to keep something from happening end up really being ludacrist and simple.

The, the Jews took the ten commandments and made six hundred and thirteen different kinds of laws of the ten commandments and they became traditions and they judged each other by these things.

Well, suffice it to say that the ten commandments are here to stay but there are many, many applications that become principles that grow out of the ten commandments.

Now, the apostle Paul dealt with that in the book of First Corinthians and I want to show you six principles that Paul gave in the book of First Corinthians that will help you tonight and tomorrow to decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong and I’ll guarantee you, if you will buy these principles heaven will smile on you.

all right, now the very first principle we’re going to find if we look in First Corinthians chapter six and verse twelve.

Now, Paul says all things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient, all things are lawful for me but I will not be brought under the power of any.

Now, the very first principle is *the principle of expediency*, expediency.

You say, well pastor, you haven’t helped me very much because I don’t know what expediency is.

What does expedient mean?

Well, let me give you another word that’s like the word expedient is the word expedition.

What is an expedition?

An expedition is a journey, a trip.

When a man is on an expedition he’s going somewhere.

Now, when Paul says that all things are not expedient, what he means is this, that all things do not bring me on my journey, all things do not bring me to my desired goal.

You see, every Christian has a goal, you ought to have a goal, if you don’t have a goal in your life there’s something wrong with you.

There ought to be a burning ambition, there ought to be a desire, your life ought to be pointed in a particular way.

Now, you ough to have some goals, they ought to be god given goals and you ought to work towards them.

The reason that so,,many people are drifting through life like a ship without a mast or rudder or sails, a compass on a dark and stormy night, just blowing around is, they don’t have any goals in their life.

Now, God will give you some goals if you’ll pray over them and you find out what it is that God wants you to do and you begin to move toward those goals and life becomes meaningful.

I heard a story when I was a little boy about a man that came to a particular town and he saw on every bond on every tree a bulls eye type target and right in the center in the very center of that thing, in the bulls eye there was a bullet hole and he said there’s a tremendous marksmen in this town, I want to meet him.

Finally, he found out he was the town idiot.

He asked this man, how he managed to do so wonderfully well?

He said well, everybody else paints the target and then shoots at it.

He said I shoot first and then I paint the target and then he explained his wonderful plan.

He said I aim at nothing and I hit it every time.

Now, you’ll do exactly the same thing if you aim at nothing but if you have a goal then you need to say dear God, I am going to measure this thing, whatever it is that I’m trying to decide is it right or is it wrong for me, it might be right for somebody else but it will be wrong for me if it does not help me to my goal.

There are some things that are not wrong in themselves but they are wrong for you because they are a waste of your time, they are anchors in your life that keep you from God’s appointed goal.

There are some specific things in my life that I don’t do that my flesh would like to do that I don’t think there’s a person in this world who could say they’re morally wrong but I don’t do them for one reason.

They keep me from my goal.

A lot of people are wasting their time and they’re out of the will of God doing things that are perfectly lawful but not expedient.

OK, so that’s the first principle.

Does it help you?

This things that you’re wondering is it right or is it wrong for me to do, whatever it is, does it bring you to the goal that God has given you?

Second principle, and that’s also found in verse twelve, look at it.

All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient, all things are lawful for me but I will not be brought under the power of any.

That means I’ll not be enslaved by anything.

There’s a second question that you need to ask and it’s not only the question of expediency, it is the question of *enslavement*.

Does this activity have a tendency to enslave you?

You see, the Lord Jesus came to set us free.

Only Christians are truly free in my estimation.

An unsaved man says no, you Christians are slaves, I am the free one, I do what I WANT.

The unsaved man is always free to do what he wants but he’s not free to do what he ought.

Only a Christian is free to do what he ought because only the Christian has the power of t he Lord Jesus Christ that enables him to be what he ought and yet there are many Christians who are enslaved.

I’m talking to some tonight who are enslaved.

Some are enslaved by lust, some are enslaved by nicotine, some are enslaved by caffeine, some are enslaved by rock music, some are enslaved by their business, some are enslaved by television, some are enslaved by their appetite, far more people die from overeating than die from poison.

You know, that’s kind of a bad descend to overeat, did you know that?

I mean, everybody says nothing wrong with that.

We laugh and joke about it and but people are enslaved.

Lots of folks are slaves to nicotine.