It's dangerous to be free. Let's talk about it on this edition of Key Life. You're listening to Key Life, a program that isn't designed for nice Christians doing nice things for God and helping you to be nicer. This is Bible teaching for real living. Here's Steve. Thanks, Mike. If you have your Bible open into first and second chronicles, as we continue with our study in those two books, which is a part of a larger study, an Old Testament survey. And we're taking time with each of the books of the Old Testament. Now, next week, we're going to take a break from this for a week. And I want to talk to you about Easter and the death of Christ and why he had to die and the implications of a dead man getting up and walking. But then the week after, we'll come back and we'll probably still be in chronicles when we do that. So if you're in a place where you can open your Bible, you might want to open it to those books. Having done all of the exegetical spade work that is necessary for this particular book, I'm simply taking you through the book and showing you some very interesting texts in these two books. Yesterday, if you were listening, we looked at first chronicles 1525 through 28. We looked at an ancillary text, which is second Samuel 6 to give us some details on it. And that's the place where the ark is being brought back to the Holy City and David is rejoicing and in fact dancing and in fact dancing naked before the ark had gone. We saw how Michael, the daughter of Saul was really upset with that and she railed and jumped all over him and then we went to Samuel to check out some details on that. We saw that God judged her and not David that God was pleased with David. No, I'm by no means suggesting that you dance in the buff. But I am suggesting that there ought to be more freedom when you become a Christian than you had before. Let me ask you a question. Can we talk? You find that after you became a Christian that you're more uptight than you were before. Or do you care a lot more about what people think about you than you did before because you might hurt your witness? You find yourself just walking a really straight line and never getting off it because you want to be a good Christian. You find yourself not laughing as much as you used to trying never to say anything inappropriate or anything that would in any way disturb anybody. Let me tell you something. You can get that from Jesus. You've got that from some other place. When Jesus sets you free, you're free indeed and in that freedom there's laughter and joy and there's sometimes just plain old giggling. Sometimes inappropriate action takes place. I think this thing with David is a perfect example of that. David dances before the arc of the covenant and Michael represents the same people that you'll find in the New Testament who tell Jesus when his disciples are making all the noise at the triumphal entry. They're not proper. Tell them to be quiet. You remember what Jesus said? I'll tell you. If they're quiet, these rocks are going to cry out. It's very important that we understand that when Jesus sets you free, you really are free. Now I'm not suggesting you go out and sin. But sometimes you need to be offensive. That's what Martin Luther said. I wish I'd brought the peace into the studio so I could read it to you. It's from his freedom in Christ. And Martin Luther said that some people preach Christ wrongly and that we are to offend them, which are to break out of the mold. We are to be free. But let me tell you something. It's dangerous to be free. And yesterday I gave you some principles. Let me give them to you again because they're quite biblical. It'll help you understand the way people are. It's dangerous to laugh because the morose will hate you for it. It's dangerous to be free because the bound will hate you for it. It's dangerous to be saved because the lost will hate you for it. I remember this lady sitting across from my desk in the study and she was weeping. We've talked for a long time. She was talking about her sister in particular and then out of the blue. I mean, these kinds of things happen sometimes in counseling sessions. She said, I hate her. And then realizing she had said something that was quite inappropriate. There was a big silence and in the big silence, I asked a big question. I said, why do you hate her? And in the midst of her sob, she said, I hate her because she's beautiful and she's good. The principle is that those who are ugly will hate those who are beautiful. It's something about human nature that is really, really bad. And so when somebody jumps up and says, praise God in the middle of a worst of service and the usher comes down and says, you can't say that in year. What's going on? The bound or upset because the free are really free. And so using this text, and I believe it's clearly biblical. I think it's found throughout the scriptures we talked yesterday about the book of Acts and Pentecost when everybody thought that the disciples were drunk, there's something about Jesus that set you free. And if you look around and you see people that are bound and uptight and critical and mean-spirited, constantly producing guilt in other people, when you see that, do know that it didn't come from Jesus. You can think about that. I mean, well, we're going to continue with Chronicles tomorrow. And then, as I said next week, we're going to break for some teaching, surrounding Holy Week, Easter Week. And I'm kind of looking forward to that. I read a lot of the Old Testament. But sometimes you just kind of get bogged down in it and you think, you know, I look at Chronicles and then I look at the last book in the Old Testament. I think, Lord, we're never going to get there. But we are. But let's take a break. A breather next week for Easter Week. And then we'll come back to our Old Testament survey. A couple of things. A reminder, key life is a member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability ECFA. It's a widely recognized council as a financial organization created to assure ethical monetary practices. Number two, we have a website. You got to check it out. It's keylife.org. You're going to learn about key life. You can get a lot of good stuff that will help you in your walk with Christ. You can get this broadcast on the previous 30. And then we're going to do questions today, which is our practice on Wednesday. My pastor will be on Friday and we'll answer some more questions. We get thousands of questions, and we love to get them. But you have to write them down. Send them to keylife. Post office box 5,000. Madeleine Florida. 32794. Or in Canada. Key life. Canada. Post office box. 32150. Cambridge. Ontario. In 3H5. In 3H3. Or you can email us your questions and see that keylife.org. But give us your regular mailing address if you want to respond. And you do get a response from me or a staff person around the broadcast or in the magazine. And we don't think any question is done. Don't use the 1-800 number for questions. That's to become a part of key life tapes to make a contribution to get the booklets that we offer free. But you got to write out the questions. And as I said, we love to get your questions. And we get thousands of them. I'm going to get to some of these now and quit chatting so much. This is from a teenager. No state is given. It says, it God is everywhere. Why do I have to go to church? Listen, if you have a teenager and your teenager likes to go to church, it's probably something wrong. Or if not that, they're probably not that many pretty girls are good looking boys there. There's something about teenagers that kind of break out of the box. However, God does these stuff and teenagers. And this is a good question and I'm going to answer it because... And I want you to listen. And I'm not saying this because I said so, but because God said so. God said for Satan not to gather together. In other words, you're supposed to be a part of a church. And so, young man, I would suggest that you go, not because your parents say to go, or because I say to go, but because God says, and now it'll be a reason sufficient, but there's some other reasons to do. Other reasons is you can do this thing by yourself. You know, God is so fixed, the body of Christ that we need each other. Now, we're like porcupines trying to uddle together in the middle of a storm. And sometimes it isn't that much fun. But I want you to know you need your brothers and sisters in Christ. Let me tell you something, it's hard to be a teenager. I have friends who think of those years and their lives as the happiest of their lives. When they were the most fulfilled and it was the most fun, it wasn't for me. I don't ever want to be a teenager again. That was a time of being confused and lonely, of being so concerned that somebody would like me. I mean, it was just a miserable time, and I don't want to go into it, but it wasn't often. Listen to me, you can't go through that kind of stuff and be a Christian unless you get some help. And you get some help from your brothers and sisters in Christ who are there. Plus, it's a place of teaching and growth. And then fourthly, it's a place to express your convictions. We don't have very many convictions in our society. Not many people are willing to stand up and do anything. So when you go to church and nobody else does, you're saying, I want you to know that I stand for something. And so that's a good reason. And those are the reasons. And then there's some other good reasons. Someday you're going to get married. A good place to find a wife is a church. I mean, were you going to go to a bar or a raid club or something? So listen to me, dear friend in Florida. You ought to be a part of a church. You ought to make it regular. You ought to be involved in what's going on there because of the reasons I just told you. This is from Oklahoma. I don't read my Bible much, certainly not as I should. I wonder if you have any suggestions. Do it. Listen to me, that's a volitional choice. You're about to be sitting on an attack. And the psychologist came along and said, you're there because of some dysfunctional psychological issues in your background. That's why it hurts so much. And the religious person comes along and says, the reason it hurts so much, you're not reading the Bible the way you should. You're not praying the way you ought to pray. And the kid comes along and says, sir, why don't you get off the pack? You see, there's some things you simply make a decision to do. But let me use some suggestions because believe it or not, I'm not making fun of you. I'm making fun of myself. Sometimes that's hard for all of us. And I've been there and I will be there again. So let me make a suggestion. Don't try to be a Bible scholar in your devotional time reading the Bible. Most Christians set aside an hour and say, I'm going to be godly. And then they get out commentaries and books of the Bible. And they decide that for an hour, that's God's time. And after five minutes they're bored to death. I don't know what to do or where to go. They've said the Lord's Prayer three times. They've read the scripture they were supposed to read. And they're just, they don't know what to do for the rest of the time. Instead of doing that, why don't you get the gold down a little bit closer to where you really live. Why don't you say, look, I'm going to take five minutes every morning. I'm going to say the Lord's Prayer. I'm going to pray for five people that I love. And then I'm going to read five verses of scripture. And I'm going to read the same five verses every day for a week. You can do that. That's simply a volitional choice. And don't increase it until you have to. When you increase it, it'll be for the right reasons. Hey, I've got to go guys. Whenever you write a call, would you do me a favor and give me the call letters of this great station? A lot of good folks make this blog cast possible. And we love to hear who they are like another name. And one other thing, key life is a production of key life network.