The scripture

the text for Pastor John's message this morning is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 6,

verses 12 to 20.

All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful.

All things are lawful for me, but I will not be enslaved by anything.

Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food and God will destroy both one and the other.

The body is not meant for immorality, but for the Lord and the Lord and the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.

Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?

Shall I therefore take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never.

Do you not know that he who joins himself to a prostitute becomes one body with her, for as it is written, the two shall become one flesh. But he who is united to the Lord becomes one spirit with him, shun immorality.

Every other sin which a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit

within you which you have from God? You are not your own. You were bought with a price. So

glorify God in your body.

Friday morning I looked out the bedroom window while I was buttoning my shirt and I saw the

parable of modern secular American life.

There was a man in a three-piece green suit walking westward along the north side of 18th Street toward our house.

Had something yellow in his hand, I couldn't see, looked sort of like maybe a banana peel or a potato chip bag and he looked to his left and

then he looked behind him and he tossed it over the freeway fence.

In that little parable, there are two marks of contemporary American life.

One, practical atheism and two, physical hedonism. I'll explain. The freeway fence is on his right with bushes so that nobody can see through.

His eyes are head so he can see there. The ground is underneath. He checked on his left and he checked the behind and he tossed it over the fence.

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