Amen. Now this is kind of a side point before we really get into the main part of the sermon.
But you look at verse 33, I thought this was interesting, it says,
And the Lord spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, When ye be come into the land of Canaan.
Now, did Moses and Aaron enter into Canaan? They did not.
So what's interesting here is, God has given instructions to Moses and to Aaron.
When he become into the land of Canaan, he wasn't just talking to those two people.
You see, we're expected, when we hear the word of God, to spread it on to other people.
It shouldn't just stop with one generation and that's it.
We need to be giving it to the next generation. Our kids ought to know the truth.
You know, it's amazing. I don't understand how you can, you know, preach the truth and know the truth,
and yet the next generation just completely loses it.
And the last couple generations, we've been fighting this losing battle because we're not telling the next generation.
But he said to Moses and Aaron, When ye become in the land of Canaan, you see,
let's say they didn't spread that word to other people, then that would have been gone.
This wouldn't even be in the Bible. It would be done.
But they spread it to other people like we're expected to.
And another thing, too, we're talking about the King James Bible here these next few weeks.
A lot of people say parts of the Bible aren't for us.
Like, well, this book's just for these people. This is just for these people.
You know, this chapter, no, don't worry about that. That's just for that generation.
The entire Bible is meant to show us something.
Even if it doesn't directly apply to us, this didn't apply to Moses and Aaron, but it was still needful for them.
The whole Bible, every word is important for us.
We say, wait a minute, that was 4000 years ago when they followed those rituals and did that.
It still applies to us. God is showing us something.
So the Bible says, When ye become in the land of Canaan, which I give to you for possession,
and I put the plague of leprosy in a house in the land of your possession.
Verse number 35, the Bible reads, And he that owneth the house shall come and tell the priests,
saying, It seemeth to me there is as it were a plague in the house.
So this person comes to the priest and he says, I think I might have a problem, you know, in my house.
Kind of like when I had my apartment, I said, I think I might have a problem in my apartment.
Well, I knew I had a problem in my apartment.
But this person thinks he has a problem in his house, and so he tells the priest.
Well, how does the priest react to this?
Well, this is what it says at the beginning of verse 36.
Then the priest shall command that they empty the house.
You see, when a pastor sees a problem, when he sees worldliness spreading,
he's going to command, he's going to preach boldly the truth.
You know, don't be mad at the preacher that steps on your toe and tells you to get the worldly TV out of your life.
Tells you to get the wrong music out of your life.
You know, a good preacher is going to command you to empty your house.
And that's what he's called to do.
The Bible says, Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet,
and show my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins.
You see, that is the job, that's the calling of a pastor.
To have the Spirit upon him, to preach boldly.
He needs to see the problems. He needs to see what's going on.
He's going to be aware.
I mean, if you look at the rules for what makes a pastor,
you know, and he needs to be vigilant, you know, several of the things.
He's got to be looking for those things.
He's going to preach boldly, have the Spirit upon him to preach the truth.
You know, worldliness, if that spreads, you know, one area of your life, it's going to destroy everything.
You know, why is a preacher going to command?
Why does he preach so hard on this topic?
Well, look at verse 36.
It says this, before the priests go in to see the plague,
that all that is in the house be not made unclean.
You see, if you have just a little bit of sin, it's going to spread to the rest of your life.
You know, just a little bit of worldliness.
You say, wait a minute, I could just, you know, I just really like Aerosmith.
You know, I'm just going to listen to them.
No other rock music, just that one band that's all I'm going to listen to.
There's just this one TV show I like to watch.
Everything else I'm going to get rid of.
No, it's going to spread to the entire house.
It's going to make everything unclean.
You see, if you just keep this one pocket of sin in your life,
let's say, for example, you know, it was easier when I was preaching in junior church.
I had a little square, I was able to, I had a marker.
But let's say you have these 20 things in your life,
and when you first get saved, you start realizing there's a lot of stuff you didn't realize was wrong.
I remember, you know, just all these movies.
I was like, wait a minute, it's definitely wrong to watch this,
definitely wrong to listen to this.
But a lot of times you come to one thing and you say, well, wait a minute.
Don't really want to get rid of that, you know?
Because there's a lot of things that aren't that hard to get rid of for various reasons.
We all struggle with different things.
Drinking is not something that was a hard thing for me to get rid of.
No temptation for me.
But, you know, getting rid of, you know, the rock music I listened to,
that was not very easy.
That didn't come overnight.
It wasn't like I got saved, never wanted to listen to rock music again.
I repented of all my sins, never desired the wrong music,
never decided to do anything wrong.
No, it was a struggle for me.
You know, when I got saved, it was hard to listen to the right music.
And there's a lot of stuff I didn't know at the time,
but there's also a lot of music I knew, well, this is definitely wrong.
You know, once I started hearing the lyrics and seeing that,
and I didn't want to get rid of all that.
But see, here's the thing.
God's going to start showing you things you need to get out of your life.
And if you keep certain pockets of sin in your life,
eventually all those other things are going to creep back in.
It's going to make everything unclean.
And it makes sense for a lot of reasons.
One, you know, God's our spiritual father.
Just like my dad Curtis Stuckey, you know, when he told me to do things,
a lot of things maybe I obeyed, they were very easy.
But let's say, for example, I just disobeyed him.
Well, I'm going to get a punishment from God for that.
And once you disobey him in one area,
it's a lot easier to start disobeying in other areas, you know.
And it's the same way with God.
If you decide to directly disobey God's word when you see it in the Bible,
you know what, eventually everything's going to come back.
And that's the way we see so many people.
We get excited, they come to church.
They get baptized, they're coming soul winning.
And eventually one day, never see them again.
So many people we've known, all of us have known,
that have come and gone.
Why? Because they see something in their life
and they decide, you know what, I'm going to disobey God.
Oftentimes, that's the reason.
And eventually, everything comes back.
Because when you first start serving God, it's exciting, right?
I mean, you're going soul winning for the first time.
It's exciting, looking for God.
You've seen all these things in the Bible.
But eventually, the excitement kind of wears off.
And you've got to follow based on what's right or wrong.
You know, whether it's exciting or not,
I guarantee you that John the Baptist was not having fun when he was in prison.
But you know, he was still doing what was right.
It had probably lost a lot of its excitement at that point.
It's exciting for us to read in the Bible how he's, you know,
just like laying the smack down on the button.
But for him, I'm sure it wasn't that exciting,
being in prison, being beheaded.
You know, there's a lot of things in our life, you know,
You know, it's exciting when we first start serving God.
But then eventually, it comes to the point where we've got to just follow out of principle.
And here's the thing.
The Bible says a pastor is going to command you to empty the house.
And notice this, though.
The person that owns the house doesn't seem that to me
there is, as it were, a plague in the house.
He isn't just like, I've got this major thing that I need to get rid of.
You know, a pastor, if he even sees a potential problem,
the Bible talks about, you know, the pastor being a watchman, a watchdog.
I mean, what's a good watchdog going to do?
You know, he's going to bark if he sees a potential problem.
You know, sometimes, you know, I had a dog grow up,
sometimes you look outside and you're like,
what are you barking at?
But see, the dog sees a potential problem.
It might only be right one out of 20 times,
but thank God when it is right.
And the same thing with the pastor.
You know what, if you know something's right, don't get mad at the pastor.
You know, if he cares about you enough to step on your toes.
Because I guarantee you, it would be a lot easier to just say,
you know, be like Joe Lowstein.
Well, you know, God's got a wonderful plan for your life.
A lot more people would probably be in here tonight,
if that's the sort of preaching there was.
You know, it's like God's got a wonderful plan for your life.
You know, but thankfully, we have a pastor that's going to preach the truth.
And he is going to step on your toes.
The Bible tells us to preach the whole counsel of God.
So the pastor's going to command you into your house
that all that is in the house be not made unclean.
Because otherwise, your entire life is going to be destroyed
because of that one sin, that pocket of sin.
We've got to get it out of our life.
It says in verse number 37,
And he shall look on the plague and behold of the plague
be in the walls of the house with hollow straits,
greenish or reddish, which in sight are lower than the wall.
Then the priest shall go out of the house to the door of the house
and shut the house seven days.
Now, the symbolism here about seven days to me is this.
You know, the Bible, there's so many different topics to preach on.
You can't just preach everything every single week.
We can't preach against alcohol every sermon.
We can't preach, you know, about divorce every sermon
or Noah's Ark or homosexuality.
I mean, you've got to pick different things, different topics to preach on
and show what the entire Bible says.
Because if you just do drive-by doctrine
and kick this dog and that dog,
you're not proving anything from the Bible.
And people are going to be mad and offended
because they don't even see the Bible to support what you're saying
or understand in context what you're saying.
You know, the Bible is going to be what shows us what the truth is.
And so it says, shut the house seven days.
So what I look at it is this.
You know, you have new people that come to a church.
We also have to be further edified on stuff.
Like, for example, hearing about alcohol one time in 20 years isn't going to cut it.
It's got to be at various different times.
You've got to hear it from time to time.
And so the house is shut up seven days
because it's got to be from time to time.
Now, it says in the next verse, and this is where it gets really interesting to me.
And the priest shall come again the seventh day and shall look.
And beholdeth the plague be spread the walls of the house.
So here's the thing we see.
Is the plague spread now?
He looks at it, and if it's spread in the walls of the house,
you see, that's the way sin is.
That's the way worldliness is.
It's going to spread to all areas.
It's not just going to stop here and just be done.
A little bit of sin, a little bit of worldliness,
it's going to spread to your entire life.
It's going to infest your entire life just throughout the way you go.
You won't even realize it either.
You know, eventually it's just going to permeate your entire life.
And so it says in the next verse here,
then the priest shall command that they take away the stones in which the plague is.
The same thing, once again, the preacher's going to preach on it.
He's going to command you take away the stones in which the plague is.
Get it out of the house.
Get that worldliness out of your life.
Get that rock music out of your life.
Get the world intelligence out of your life.
Get those movies out.
Clean up your life.
A preacher's going to command that you do that.
And this is what it says in the second half of this verse.
And they shall cast them into an unclean place without the city.
Two things here.
An unclean place.
Now let me tell you about when I got rid of my worldly music.
I was listening to a sermon and I remember I paused the sermon
because I saw with clarity, you know, what the truth was.
And this is a smart idea to do.
When you hear the Bible and you know what the Bible says on the topic
and you have a clear mind about what the truth is, do it immediately.
Go to now.
Most people I know that got rid of their worldliness,
you know, the worldly music, you know, the rock music.
It was usually like in an instant.
It wasn't just like, well, today I'm going to learn Zephyr.
The next day, Aerosmith.
The next day, ACDC.
When I got rid of that music, because that's what I used to listen to,
it happened like that.
Immediately, I paused the sermon.
I said, right now, I've got a clear mind.
And I just took them out one by one, CD after CD.
You know, 10 bucks here, 10 bucks here.
All that money, threw it right in the trash.
That's an unclean place, right?
A trash can, that's an unclean place.
You see, you're supposed to throw it into an unclean place.
But you know what I did? I didn't just stop there.
Immediately, I bundled up that trash can and I threw it outside.
You say, well, aren't we that scared?
You crawl back in and you get the same garbage.
Honestly, yeah.
I mean, I knew what the truth was.
I said, I don't even want to tempt myself.
Don't even put ourselves in this position.
You know, a lot of times people have this sort of attitude.
Like, if you're a real man, you can be around any temptation.
You have the strength.
You know, that's called being an idiot.
You know, being a real man, you're going to avoid those situations.
You know, you're not going to be like, I'm too strong.
I would never do this.
You know, Satan loves that.
He'll just wait until you're weak and then hit you at that right moment.
So, I bundled up that in the trash can.
Same thing when I got rid of my DVDs.
It wasn't the same sermon, but same thing.
It happened all at once and then I got rid of them, you know?
And so, into an unclean place without the city.
You see, you get it away.
You get it out of there.
You know, I didn't just keep it in the house.
You know, I know a lot of people that have chosen to get rid of their worldliness,
but they didn't get it out of the house.
They said, and I think in the back of their mind,
a lot of people were thinking, well, I paid 50 bucks for this.
Paid 20 bucks for this.
You know, if I go back into the same sin, then, you know,
and what ends up happening with all those people I know,
guess what they ended up doing?
They ended up watching the same movies,
listening to the same music,
playing the same video games.
They went right back into it
because they didn't put it in an unclean place
and they didn't take it without the city.
You know, when you know what the truth is,
you know, you need to do it immediately.
You need to do it now.
And I'm not saying this sermon,
I'm not trying to go on what's right or what's wrong,
but stuff like Led Zeppelin, we all know it's wrong.
There's stuff that there is no doubt about it
and that stuff, we need to throw it into an unclean place without the city.
We need to get it out of there.
So we need to take it into an unclean place without the city,
get it out, get that worldliness out of your life,
get it far from you.
And it says in the next verse,
and he shall cause the house to be scraped within round about.
See, here's the thing,
it's not just getting it out of your life,
but here's the thing, when you hear the good preaching,
you hear the word of God, scrape your house round about.
Check where has it infested other areas.
Because here's the thing,
if you have a certain sin that's in your life, worldliness,
you think, I got rid of Led Zeppelin,
I got rid of Aerosmith, it's done, right?
It's probably spread to other areas of your life
that you don't even realize.
And here's the thing,
when you first come to that moment,
you probably don't have the sort of strength
to overcome that sin very easily.
People that have been without the wrong music for 20 years,
they're going to tell you it's a lot easier now
than when they first did it.
When someone quits drinking or quits smoking,
and let's say they do it for 20 years,
do you think their temptation is stronger or less after 20?
It's going to be less after 20 years.
They've gone a long time without it.
And it might never be gone completely.
I mean, there's still rock songs
that float in my head from time to time.
There's still country songs
that float in my head from time to time.
It's still there,
but the temptation has gone down quite a bit over time.
And so the Bible says to scrape the house round about.
Look for every area where it might have infested.
I remember when I got rid of my music,
I thought I had it kicked.
I thought it was done,
and then all of a sudden I found out
another area of my life where it had spread to.
I mean, I'm driving 30 minutes a day,
sometimes more, sometimes less,
and then you have the radio on, right?
And so I had the radio on,
and the temptation was too great for me at the time.
And so what I ended up doing,
I ended up removing the audio from my car.
You say, that sounds like a little extreme.
Sometimes you have to go to extremes to live for God.
If there's a sin that you can't overcome,
don't be embarrassed to say, I can't overcome this.
I'm doing this and this.
Go to extremes if you can't overcome it.
I mean, and it can be,
we all have various different things that we struggle with.
Some people are obsessed with sports
their entire life.
If you're that obsessed,
go to the extreme to get rid of it.
Do what you have to do to get it out of your life
so it doesn't destroy your entire life.
And that's something that isn't necessarily a sin
watching a sporting game,
but it can just spread where it destroys your entire life,
destroys all of your time.
If you have a problem with something,
go to the extreme.
Don't be embarrassed to do that.
The Bible says that,
to cause the house to be scraped within roundabout,
and they shall pour out the dust
that they scrape off without the city
into an unclean place.
Once again, get it out of there
into an unclean place.
The most important verse to me
during this entire thing
is verse number 42.
The one that's the most interesting.
It says, and they shall take other stones
and put them in the place of those stones,
and he shall take other mortar
and shall plaster the house.
So it says take other stones
and put them in the place of those stones.
So here's the thing.
When I got rid of my worldly music
and I got rid of the audio in my car,
you know, 30 minutes of driving, nothing to do.
You've got to replace that with something, right?
I replaced it with the audio Bible,
with preaching, with things like that.
Whenever you, I mean,
if you get rid of your worldliness
and you have all of a sudden a couple hours in the day,
I remember when I got rid of a lot of stuff in my life,
I was like, well, what do I do with my time now?
You know?
I used to do this and this and this.
What am I going to do now?
You've got to replace it with something.
And I think it is significant
that it says you replace stones with stones.
So I think it should be something relatively similar.
Similar.
I mean, if you have three hours of your day
used to just waste in various different areas,
I don't think necessarily a good replacement
is three hours of Bible reading.
That's great if you do that,
but here's the thing.
I don't think it's going to last.
You know, we need to be balanced as a Christian.
I mean, Bible says we should sing the hymns every day.
We should sing praise to God every single day.
And since music is probably maybe the biggest area
or a huge area for most people,
part of it should be singing the hymns during the day.
You know, listening to the audio Bible,
that's a great replacement.
You know, you're hearing audio music in the car instead,
listen to the audio Bible.
Instead of audio music, listen to audio preaching.
You've got to replace those stones with other stones.
And that is extremely important because I'll tell you why.
I remember when I got rid of my worldly music,
and like I said, I got rid of the music in my car,
I ended up getting another car a while later
and I wasn't even thinking about it.
So I didn't really listen to music in a long, long time.
And on my new car, I did have the radio.
I didn't think anything of it because I wasn't tempted.
You know, I had the audio Bible,
I was listening to preaching, you know,
but then all of a sudden my CD player started to skip.
Like anything I put in there were good for like five seconds
and started to skip every single CD.
I couldn't really listen to anything.
And I didn't have like an iPod that I was listening to
or anything, and I wasn't thinking anything of it,
but I started to drive with nothing to do
during that time period.
And so you start thinking foolish thoughts
when you have nothing to do, you know.
And eventually, the temptation starts coming there
and I started listening to the radio again.
Why?
Because I didn't replace those stones with other stones.
You see, we need to make sure that we replace,
we can't have dead time in our life.
If we have dead time in our life, it's gonna destroy us.
We gotta replace those stones with other stones.
It says in the rest of this verse,
and he shall take other mortar and shall plaster the house.
So this house has been sealed up.
We made sure it's good.
But then you should take other mortar
and shall plaster the house.
I mean, look at the extra measures you go to
to make sure that sins out of your life.
Don't just say I got rid of it, now I'm good to go.
Check other areas, see where it might have infested.
There's lots of areas in life where music is a huge thing.
You know, I believe if people have that sort of struggle,
there are a lot of restaurants they should probably avoid.
Yeah.
Yeah, there's a lot of gyms that they should probably avoid.
Yeah, there's some restaurants you go to
where the music is literally just blasting.
You can't talk, you can't think.
You know, my favorite restaurant in Morgantown
used to be Texas Roadhouse.
You know, but the country music is absolutely blasting there.
And I used to listen to a lot of that music.
It starts drawing you back, and honestly,
I mean, I go there maybe once a year, once every two years.
It's a place I try to avoid.
Because even after all this time,
at the same time, that's what I used to listen to.
And also, I don't want to have that blasting music.
I don't care what the music is.
I don't want to have it blasting in my ear.
You know, I would love it if they just played,
you know, classical music or classical music,
or obviously the hymns.
That would be really great.
The audio vibe of a restaurant, probably not going to happen.
But there's certain restaurants people ought to avoid.
You know, there's certain places you ought to avoid.
Even certain stores where if it's the sort of music
that you listen to, it's something,
or you should go in and put something in your ear
so you're not hearing it.
You should go to the...
And a lot of times I think we don't do these things
because we're embarrassed to do them.
Because you're going to be the one person who's doing that.
Because that says we're peculiar people.
We shouldn't be intentionally strange.
We shouldn't just dress like Yamash just to be different.
You know?
We shouldn't just dress different just to be different.
Because that's not being quiet and humble.
That's making a show of yourself.
That's no different than the person dressing like a freak
with like a mohawk and all these things in their face
or whatever, you know?
That's drawing attention to yourself.
That's not being humble and quiet like the Bible says.
But you know what?
If we have to do something to avoid sin,
go the extra measure.
Take the audio out of your car if you need to do that.
Don't be embarrassed to say it, you know?
There's probably a lot of people
that would do similar sorts of things,
but they're too embarrassed to do it.
It might actually encourage someone to say,
you know what?
I'm going to take the extra measure of my life.
He did this.
I'm going to do this.
I waste too much time on the computer.
If he's going to do that,
I'll get rid of the internet then.
Maybe other people you're encouraged by doing that.
After that, there's really just two different scenarios
after this.
There's a set of five verses and a set of six verses.
I'm not going to read this.
I'm just going to kind of explain it.
In the next five verses, it shows about
if the plague comes again.
It says it breaks out of the house.
Then you just tear it down.
You destroy it.
You take everything out.
It's cast forth out of the city.
It's just completely gone.
It says anyone that even...
It calls it a fretting leprosy there in verse number 44.
It talks about here that if anyone even enters the house
during that time period, he's unclean.
Anyone who eats in there has to wash his clothes.
So just being even near it,
you've already been infested by it, the Bible says.
It's going to real extremes to teach this.
Then in the next six verses,
after that, starting at verse number 48,
it talks about if the plague is gone.
Then the priest is going to declare the house clean.
But see, that's not the end.
There's still an extra cleansing process
that is in another several verses
where I really think God's trying to really drive home the point.
There's a lot of symbolism here with Jesus,
with running water, the living bird, the dead bird.
I don't understand all the symbolism yet,
but you can definitely see that there's a lot of stuff
that God's showing us here.
But even if it's gone, you still go that extra measure.
You see, when we get a sin out of our life
that maybe we struggled with,
it's probably something we should always keep an eye on.
And we've got to go to that extra measure
to make sure it's gone.
And we need to make sure
and probably check it out every once in a while.
Is this completely gone in my life?
Is this temptation gone?
And even if we think we've got something kicked,
make sure you go through the extra cleansing process.
Make sure you don't leave an avenue for it to return.
A lot of times, you know, we get rid of something.
You think about Lot leaving Sodom and Gomorrah.
Yeah, he got out of that place, right?
But he left an avenue for the sin to come back, right?
And we see that throughout the Bible
where a lot of times people,
they kick something, they get it out,
but you know what?
It's like the Bible says,
know who's left behind, but you know what?
A lot of people, they don't follow that principle.
There's still that stuff
where it ends up coming back
and it ends up destroying their life
because they left the avenue for it to return.
And here's the thing about the Bible,
and I know in my life,
and I'm sure everyone here would say the same thing,
that when you first got rid of something in your life
or achieved something great,
man, it was exciting,
but let's say you had to retread that same ground.
You see, when I first got rid of the music,
I was excited.
I knew I was doing what was right,
but retreading the same ground is frustrating.
That's what's frustrating about Bible memorization,
that all of us have tried to come up
with different techniques to have it kept in our heads.
Trying to retread that same ground,
a lot of people you see that start to backslide,
they eventually just say,
well, you know what?
It's not worth it.
And that's why it's so important to make sure
when you get something out of your life,
make sure you have not left the avenue for it to return.
Make sure you scrape that house within roundabout
and replace those stones with other stones
so you're not even tempted to go back to them.
You don't leave the avenue for it to return.
Plaster that house.
Your heavenly Father,
thank you for just allowing us to be here tonight
on this important night of prayer
and hearing your word preached, God.
I just ask you to help us take these principles
from these service nights that we learned,
and I just pray you'll bless us here this weekend
and help bring us back to a place here on Sunday for church.
I pray this all in Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
Anybody else preaching?
Mm-hmm.
Appreciate you guys stepping in.
Oh, sweet. I thought it ran out of power.