And open up our notes to song number 126.
We begin this evening's service by singing the song number 146,
Shelter in the Child's Court.
["Shelter in the Child's Court"]
And the song is 208, Race Greater Than Our Sin.
["RACE GREATER THAN OUR SIN"]
Praise, praise that is greater than all our sin.
Sleep in despair like the sea makes cold.
Threaten the soul within human cost.
Praise that is greater than grace control.
The voice of the refuge of higher cost.
Praise, praise God's grace.
Praise the world for any place within.
Praise, praise God's grace.
Praise, praise, greater than all our sin.
God is the strength that we can provide.
God in a veil to wash it away.
One who is growing up in certain time.
One who is slow, you may be too heavy.
Praise, praise God's grace.
Praise the world for any place within.
Praise, praise God's grace.
Praise that is greater than all our sin.
God is the building that shows grace.
Free me, restore all who believe.
We are longing to see His face.
In this moment, His grace we see.
Praise, praise God's grace.
Praise the world for any place within.
Praise, praise God's grace.
Praise that is greater than all our sin.
At this time, we'll go over the announcements.
And if you need to be following, we'll
be sitting at Sun Level 415, if you'd like to check that out.
Sun Level 415.
Thanks for coming out, everybody.
If you need a bulletin, go ahead and slip up your hand for that.
And we'll bring you one.
As always, we've got our service plan listed there.
Well, that's in 1 Kings Chapter 12,
and that is in this print there.
All that, we've also got the salvation and baptism
for both month and year.
And before we come up with salvation,
we're going back to Monday or Tuesday.
Do you have anything on Tuesday that's different than that?
Yeah.
We did, didn't we?
Three, wasn't it?
Three, yeah.
And then Wednesday, and then today, we want?
That's great.
And also, just a couple notes there about the church.
Please silence your cell phones if you haven't already done so.
New Testament holiday challenge.
Today was the last day, right?
Yeah, 31st, right?
So that's it.
So go get a sign-up sheet, and then
we'll have some more details about when
we're going to have the pizza party and all that stuff.
So that's, you know, sit tight.
So who got that finished?
All right, lots of hands.
Great, great.
Good job.
And don't forget, tomorrow night is,
I know that's why you're all here.
So you're not going to show up tomorrow and be like,
where were you yesterday?
But you got the movie night starting,
so that's going to be at 7.
So all the refreshments, the hot dogs,
popcorn, everything's here.
All we need you to do is show up tomorrow.
And again, it's not too late.
If you have a trans family, people
that you know, that you think would be interested in this,
you can find them on our website.
Wasn't able to get the best quality of any of the scientists.
The original file is corrupted, so we lost that.
We didn't get the high quality truth about Hinduism,
which that's the one we really want the high quality,
because there's some wild stuff in that one.
So that's going to be a fun one.
But come on out tomorrow night, 7 p.m.
Again, just a reminder about the refreshments.
This isn't a meal.
This is just a snack.
So there's going to be plenty of popcorn.
But you might not want to skip dinner completely
and then come to this and expect to be filled up with hot dogs.
And it might not be enough.
So we'll just throw that out there.
And that's Preacher Night came and went.
Mexico Monday.
Next Monday coming up.
At 9 a.m., so Rose is going to swing through here.
If you're playing and going, please let me know.
If you haven't let him get over, I
can just let him know.
That's great too.
But he usually stops here about 9.
And I don't know.
Does he get back?
He's gone on the trip.
Does he normally get back here around 9?
Or is it earlier than that?
9, maybe 10.
9, maybe 10?
That's even worse.
I think last time was about 9.
About 9?
OK.
Well, I don't want to make it too early
and then have you get here too late.
You know what I mean?
If I'm too late, what's the time?
And when you get here early, it's good.
But the other way, it's not good.
So that's an approximation there on the return time.
It all depends on how long you take to eat some tacos
and stuff like that.
I understand there's been some good eating going
on in the next day or two.
So I don't know if that's not reasonable to get
a lot of oil in.
Oh, yeah.
I appreciate that.
Anyway, below that, we've got this Sunday, April 3rd,
10 AM.
Join us early for coffee and donuts.
And I will celebrate you for taking one for April.
We've got the weekly Bible and memory passage.
You can get that done in people and children on Sunday.
That's going to end our pronouncements.
We'll go ahead and sing one more song.
Song number 415, Victory Through Grace.
["D
And now let's go to the ground.
What is this wonder for me?
Prince of the armies, will you lead it?
All of his glory they sing.
He is our Lord and redeemer, Savior and God, our Divine.
They are the stars and forever.
God in his name, God will shine.
God to the strongest of heaven, God to the strength
is the grace.
Heals to the true and the faithful.
Victory through grace.
And now let's go to the ground.
Jesus, the ruler of all.
Whose death I said was also bearish,
was an expenditure for me.
Prince of the armies, have faith in us.
They will intrude through the glass.
God in their patience, eternal.
Yes, for their own care is blest.
God to the strongest of heaven, God to the strength
is the grace.
Heals to the true and the faithful.
Victory through grace.
Amen.
At this time, we'll pass you off to the plate
as the plate goes around.
Let's turn our bodies to 1 Kings chapter 12.
That's 1 Kings chapter 12.
As always, we'll leave you a prayer factor.
Please follow the law of sanity as we read from 1 Kings
chapter 12.
1 Kings chapter 12.
First one of the Bible reads, the male thread
of all Israel will come and she will make the king.
And it came to pass that there are
going to be some of the evil.
He was yet to be heard of it, for he
was left in the presence of King Solomon,
and there are going to be all the evil.
They sent and called him there alone,
and the congregation of Israel came
and stated to her alone saying, that father
may I yield grievous.
Now therefore, make thou a grievous service
to that father, and his head a yoke,
which he put upon his lighter, and he will serve you.
He sent him to them to depart yet for three days,
and come again with, and the people departed.
And he grew up alone, consulted with the old man
that stood before Solomon and his father,
and what he had lived, and said, how do you advise
that I may ask of this people?
And he staked him in the sand, if thou
will be a servant of this people this day,
and will serve them, and ask of them,
and speak good words to them, then they
will be thy servants forever.
But he pursued the counsel of the old man, which
he had given him, and he consulted
with the young man that had grown up with him,
and which stood before him.
And he sent him to them, what counsel
he gave thee, that we may ask of this people.
So I spoke to him in the sand, with the yoke,
which thy father had put upon his lighter.
And the young man that was growing up with him
staked him in the sand, thus shalt thou
speak unto this people, as staked as it
be, saying, thy father may our yoke
heaven, and make thou my apprentice.
Thus shalt thou say unto them, I
blow a finger which shall be thicker than my father's
horns.
And now, wherever my father delayed you
with the heavy yoke, I will add to you,
my father had chastised thee with whips,
and I will chastise you with scorpions.
So there are gone, and all the people
came to Rehoboam the third year, as the king had appointed,
saying, come to me in the third day.
And the king answered, and the people
rushed, to serve the old man's counsel, that we gave him,
and staked him then after the counsel of the young man,
saying, my father may our yoke heaven, and I will add
to you, my father had chastised you with whips,
and I will chastise you with scorpions.
Wherefore the king art not for the people,
the cause was from the Lord, and he
might perform the same in its more spade,
by a hydrangea of Jerusalem, the son of Levi.
So when Elizabeth saw that the king parted not into them,
the people answered, and came, saying,
what portion have you engaged, that
have you inherited from the son of Yeshua, to your tents
in Israel?
Now see to that no one else did.
So Israel occurred into their tents.
But as for the children of Israel,
it was flawed in the city of Judah,
where Rehoboam reigned over them.
Then to Rehoboam said Adariah, who was over a tribute,
and all Israel was stoning with stones, and it died.
Therefore, King Rehoboam made a speech
to give him up to his chariot, to teach Jerusalem.
So Israel rebelled against the house of David until his day.
And it came to pass, when all Israel heard
that Rehoboam was coming to his tent,
and called him up for congregation,
and made him a king over all of Israel,
there was none that followed the house of David,
nor the child of Judah only.
And when Rehoboam was coming to Jerusalem,
he assembled over the house of Judah
for the child of Benjamin, and 144,000 chosen men,
which were warriors to fight against the house of Israel.
Then the kingdom began to Rehoboam itself solemnly.
But the word of God came unto Shemaiah,
and now God sent his people to Rehoboam itself solemn,
unto Judah, and unto all the house of Judah,
and Benjamin, into the remnant of the people, saying,
Thou save the Lord, and shall not go up,
nor fight against your brethren, the children of Israel.
Return every man to his house, for this thing is for me.
They harken therefore to the word of the Lord,
and return to the park according to the word of the Lord.
Then Rehoboam built him cheaply in Mount Ephraim,
and dwelt there, and went out to the dance,
and did penulah.
And Rehoboam said in his heart,
Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David,
if its people go up and be sacrificed
in the house of the Lord, Jerusalem.
Then shall the heart of its people turn again unto their Lord,
and unto Rehoboam, king of Judah,
they shall kill me, and go again to Rehoboam, king of Judah.
Whereupon a king took counsel, and ate two calves of gold,
and said unto them, It is too much,
and you can go up to Jerusalem,
behold thy God, Israel, which brought thee up,
and led them out of Egypt.
He set the one who met thou, and the other put him down.
And this thing became a sin to the people,
and to worship before the one, king of Judah.
And he made a house of the high places,
to make priests of the lowest of the people,
which not of the sons of Levi.
And Rehoboam had made a feast in the eighth month,
on the fifteenth day of the month,
like unto the feast that is in Judah,
and he offered upon the altar.
So that he and Bethel had sacrificed
unto the calves they had made,
and replaced with Bethel the priest
from the high places which he had made.
So he offered upon the altar,
which he had made in Bethel,
the fifteenth day of the eighteenth month,
even the month which he had died in no heart,
nor being of peace, and which was of Israel,
and he offered upon the altar,
and put her into it.
And with that, I would like to say a prayer.
Heavenly Father, just thank you for today,
Lord God, just thank you for your goodness,
and your mercy in our lives, Lord.
Thank you just for allowing us to be in church today,
Lord God, as you just give us ears to understand your word,
and still, Brother Corbin, with your spirit,
allow us to be bold to this, Lord God,
and to come and pray, amen.
Amen.
You know, this is a real,
probably a better known story,
where you have Rehoboam getting the counsel
from the older men and the younger men,
and he goes with the younger men's counsel,
and he ends up being rejected.
And we know that, really,
either way he would have gone,
if he had gone with, you know, either counsel,
you know, this was ultimately of the Lord,
that things were not going to work out for him.
But, you know, it does serve a good lesson here.
It shows us, you know, the danger of being arrogant.
And I don't want to say that arrogance is necessarily
just a young man's sin,
but, you know, these are young men
that seem to have this arrogance in them.
And it's something that, you know,
pride and arrogance are things that kind of go hand in hand.
You say, what do you mean by being arrogant?
Well, just being kind of a know-it-all,
just kind of, I can't learn anything else,
that, you know, my elders don't have anything to teach me,
I've already got all this figured out.
You know, that's an arrogant attitude,
that's a proud attitude.
And it's something that God hates.
He said, pride and arrogance and the evil way do I hate.
I mean, God hates these sins.
And we see here that there's some arrogant young men
in this chapter, and it ends up,
and Rehoboam himself being an arrogant,
you know, I'm assuming he's a young man,
you know, he's Solomon's son,
we don't know exactly how old he is,
but, you know, he's exactly how young these men were,
but they weren't the old men, right?
They weren't the ones that had been there,
had, you know, been with Solomon,
had gone through those 40 years,
knew about ruling with Solomon,
knew what it took to run a kingdom,
knew what to, you know, they had,
they were the ones that had people skills, right?
They were the ones that had dealt with people.
And you can see that Rehoboam and these young men,
and their pride and arrogance,
just have absolutely no people skills at all.
Like, they don't, they just don't get it at all.
And we'll pick it up here in verse,
we'll just pick it up in verse one.
It says,
So what they're saying is, you know,
hey, don't make us work so hard.
And you say, well, maybe they're just lazy,
maybe they're just, you know, they're idle.
Or maybe really Solomon was kind of a bit of a slave driver,
because if you think about it, you know,
they built the temple and his house,
you know, in 20 years.
But then, you know, he reigned for 40.
And that was quite a big work, you know, to build.
We already went over all that.
That was obviously a huge project, you know,
where they're making the stones out in the field,
and then they're setting it in place
so they can't use any tools of iron in that place.
You know, so it's this massive project that they all worked on,
and they're probably glad.
But then, you know, I mentioned it last week,
or maybe it was Sunday night,
about the fact that, you know,
Solomon also had these other civil projects
that he was working on.
You know, he was building, you know, a milo,
and he was repairing the bridges in the city of David his father.
So he had all these other projects going on too.
So you can kind of see where these people are coming from,
like, hey, you know, we broke our backs under your dad.
We really worked hard for him, you know.
You need to make our yoke a little bit lighter.
We've already done all this work.
Take it easy on us.
So I don't want to say that it's not a reasonable request.
It seems like it's probably, in all likelihood,
a reasonable request.
And again, they're saying, look, we will,
we will serve you.
Like, he had that promise.
But in verse 5, it says,
and he said to them,
Depart yet for three days.
They didn't come again to me, and the people departed.
And of course, we understand that's because he has to take counsel.
He has to go to everybody and kind of talk, you know,
talk to the young guys, the old guys,
and figure out what he's going to do.
And it kind of shows you that Rehoboam isn't already,
you can see that he's not a very good leader.
Now, obviously, there's a lot, you know,
in a multitude of counselors, there is safety, the Bible says.
But, you know, a part of being a leader is you have to be decisive.
Sometimes you just have to make a decision.
Sometimes you just have to say, you know, you should have,
and really, you should have had the discernment to say,
you know what, my dad was a bit of a slave driver.
You know, I don't want to lose the kingdom.
You know, he should have been more of a people person, right?
But you can already see he's kind of an indecisive guy.
And then it says in verse 6,
And King Rehoboam consulted with the old men
that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived,
and said, How do ye advise that I may answer this people?
And then we read what takes place.
It's like, well, why are you even asking these guys, Rehoboam,
if you're just going to dismiss them out of hand?
You're just going to go listen to the other guys
and not even care what they say.
You know, it seems like they're kind of wasting,
he's kind of wasting their time.
But they give them good counsel, and it says,
And they spake and said unto him, saying,
If thou wilt be a servant,
and I want to point that out right there,
is that if you will be a servant,
you know, these guys have perspective
that the younger crowd didn't have,
that being a leader is not all about you.
It's not all about what the people are going to do for you.
It's not being this big, bad, tough guy.
It's not about throwing your weight around.
It's not about flexing, right?
Is that another thing to say now?
You can't flex on the people, right?
It's not about, you know, trying to just,
you know, be some big shot.
It's about being a servant.
And that's what these old men understood.
This is their people skills.
They're saying, look, if thou wilt be a servant,
you know, maybe that's what Rehoboam did like to hear.
Maybe he heard that part and was like,
well, I'm not all about being a servant.
I mean, I'm the king's son.
You know, I was a prince.
You know, he had a life of privilege.
You know, these people should just be glad
that I'm even stepping into this role, you know.
So they start out by saying,
look, if thou wilt be a servant.
And it just shows you that these older guys,
they understand something about leadership,
that it's about serving others.
It's about servant leadership.
They say if thou wilt be a servant unto this people this day
and wilt serve them.
And he's like, oh, servant, serve.
This keeps going bad for worse.
And answer them and speak good words to them,
then they will be thy servants forever.
He's saying, look, it's give and take in leadership.
You know, if you serve them, they'll serve you.
You know, being a leader isn't about being
this merciless dictator where you're just a slave driver.
And look, we could debate about whether or not Solomon was that.
Obviously, he was doing a lot.
He accomplished a lot.
But it took its toll on the people.
You know, there's a time to step on the accelerator.
There's a time to kind of back off.
You know, there's a time to really push hard.
And there's a time to kind of let things rest a little bit
and people catch their breath.
And that's probably, you know, this is good advice,
saying, look, you should serve them.
They'll serve you.
You know, don't be overbearing.
You know, use your, you know.
And really, he should have listened to them.
And this is what I'm talking about.
Arrogant young men.
Arrogant young men who get sound counsel from somebody
who has more experience from them.
And this, pfft, whatever.
You know, and this is something that I experience a little bit.
Not that I'm, you know, one of the old men.
You know, I would consider myself a younger man.
Maybe older, younger.
I don't know where I am in the spectrum, right?
Not as young as some.
Not as old as others.
You know, I'm somewhere in the middle, right?
But I've had younger guys come to me
and ask me, you know, merit, like, about finding a wife.
Like, what do I got to do to find a wife?
What would you recommend?
Like, I have the, you know, this answer.
Like, well, I'm glad you asked because, you know,
it just so happens I know exactly what you should do to find a wife, right?
But, you know, I've thought about it.
You know, I've tried to put myself in their shoes.
And, you know, here's the thing.
Once you get married, you kind of don't care about the other guys anymore.
It's kind of like, I got my wife.
You know, tough.
I don't care.
You know, figure it out.
But, you know, you can't be like that.
When people are asking for advice, you know, you want to give them something.
And, look, the advice I've given out, none of them have ever taken it.
You know, and at the first, I used to, like, kind of go out of my way.
Like, if I knew a guy was kind of looking for a wife, I'd say, hey,
have you thought about doing this?
Have you ever thought about trying this and maybe looking for a wife here or there?
And then I got to the point where I realized, like, none of them,
like, they would nod and they'd go, oh, yeah, that's a good idea.
You know, but then they would never take it.
So then I was just like, you know what, I give up.
And then they'll ask me and then I'll still give it, you know,
and they just act like I don't know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I'm married, you know, and you're not.
It's like maybe I didn't.
Now, in all fairness, you know, God pretty much clubbed me over the head with my wife.
But, you know, it's still, you know, there's still something to be said
about somebody who's figured some things out in life, you know.
If I'm going to, you know, want to learn something about child rearing,
you know, I'm going to go to somebody who's raised children.
You know, I'm going to look to somebody else as an example and say,
well, what have they done in their family?
I'm not just going to start out in my family and say, oh, I already know.
I got it all figured out.
You know, it's that parent that just, they just had their first child
that's six months old and all of a sudden they're just a superstar parent.
They just, they know everything.
You know, they've got it all figured out.
Yeah, you might know a few things about raising one child for six months,
but you don't know anything about raising five kids.
I mean, what do you know about raising six, seven?
It's a whole other bottle of wax, right?
And if we're wise, if we're smart, if we're not arrogant and proud and puffed up,
we'll look at other people who have more experience than us and say,
well, I want to learn from them.
You know, what are they doing well?
And maybe even, well, maybe they've done some things wrong or, you know, made mistakes.
We can learn from other people's mistakes rather than to make it ourselves.
You know, we can look at good examples and say, hey, what are they doing right?
What are they doing wrong? What can I do?
You know, go to that council and when they give it to you, actually take it.
You know, so if you guys that are curious about finding a wife,
come up to me after the service and want my advice, you know,
I may or may not give it to you.
I don't know.
It's pretty generic anyway, but, you know, that was Rhea Boehm's problem here
is that he went to these older men who had more council.
They had stood before Solomon, the wisest man that had ever lived.
I mean, the wisest man had the greatest kingdom.
These guys, you don't think those old guys knew a few things?
They had learned some things?
You know, apparently Rhea Boehm didn't take the time to read his dad, read dad's own book, Proverbs.
He didn't even take the time to figure out what needs to be, go to Proverbs 27.
Go to Proverbs 27.
Because it says there in verse 8 that he forsook the council of the old men,
which they had given him and consulted with the young men that were grown up with him.
So notice the progression there, like the sequence of events, right?
He forsakes the council of the old men, which they had given him and consulted with the young men.
So it's not like he heard what the old guys had to say and then went to the young guys
and then sat down and thought about it and waited out.
He heard what the old guys had to say and said, I don't like that.
I'm just going to go find my friends. I'm going to go find the guys that are going to tell me what I want to hear.
Look, you're always going to have yes men.
There's always going to be people in your life that are more than willing to tell you what you want to hear.
If you want to do wrong, if you want to get into sin, if you want to, as a Christian,
if you want to go against the word of God, you can go find somebody.
They'll tell you, oh, yeah, it's okay to fornicate.
Or it's okay to be a drunk.
Any manner of sin, you pick the sin, if you want someone to justify it for you, they will.
They're out there.
You can say, well, I'm going to forsake the ancient wisdom.
I'm going to forsake the old wisdom.
I'm going to forsake the word of God that's been around for millennia upon millennia.
And I'm just going to go find some new evangelical church.
I'm just going to go find some, you know, hipster pastor who's going to just tell me what I want to hear.
There are a dime a dozen.
You can find them.
But that's a sequence of events.
Forsake the counsel of the old men and just go find somebody I know that's going to tell me what I want to hear.
Not, he wasn't weighing it out.
He wasn't saying, oh, you know, this is what they said.
They said, hmm, I just made a bad decision.
As soon as he heard what the old guys had to say, forsake that.
Servant?
No.
Serve them?
Be nice.
You know, back off.
Be a good leader.
I don't want any of that.
You know, I want them to know that I'm the boss.
You know, or whatever.
Here in Proverbs chapter 27, look at verse 10.
It says, Thy own friend and thy father's friend forsake not, neither go into thy brother's house in the day of Calamity.
He's saying, if thy father's friend forsake not.
You know, there's something that should be said for the value of relationships.
You know, these men that stood before Solomon, there was value in those men.
You know, they had an interest in Rehoboam, didn't they?
I mean, they were probably the old guys that said, oh, Rehoboam, and I remember you were just this big.
You know, they had seen him grow up.
They loved Solomon.
You know, they want to see him succeed.
They're, you know, they're invested in him.
And this is a principle you've got to learn.
Thy father's friend forsake not.
You know, these long-term relationships are important in your life.
Okay?
Don't burn these bridges.
Don't just burn bridges that, you know, you might have a friend of the family or, you know, an uncle or, you know, somebody that's been a friend to, you know, your parents even.
You know, somebody's proven themselves over time.
That's somebody that's worth listening to.
And keep something in Proverbs.
We're going to come back and forth throughout the night.
You know, and you say, why are you in Proverbs so much tonight?
Well, because that's a great book for young men.
And we're talking about some young men tonight.
Some arrogant young men.
Rehoboam, who didn't even, you know, apparently didn't even read, his dad didn't read Proverbs 27 verse 10.
You know, he's probably too busy playing water polo or whatever.
You know, whatever privileged people do.
I don't know.
So he forsakes the council and then we're going back to 1 Kings 12.
And he goes to the grown men which were grown up with him which stood before him.
So he's going to his yes men and saying just, and they already know what he wants to hear.
And he said unto them, What counsel give ye that we may answer this people who has spoken unto me saying,
Make the yoke which thy father did put upon us lighter?
And the young men that were grown up with them spake unto him saying,
Thus shalt thou speak unto this people that spake unto thee saying,
Thy father made our yoke heavy but make thou it lighter unto us.
Thus shalt thou say unto them, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins.
So he's saying, look, my pinky is going to be like thicker than my father's thigh.
You know, he's going to comparisons like, Oh, you didn't like what my dad did?
I'm going to be even meaner.
So basically, he's saying, they're saying go tell them the complete opposite of what they want to hear.
Right? I mean, that's what they say. Hey, make our yoke lighter.
Make it make it easier.
He said, No, I'm going to make it heavier.
You know, this is really bad advice.
Right? But this is what Rehoboam wants to hear, because, you know, he doesn't want to hear what the old guys have to say,
because he just knows better.
He's saying, My little finger shall be thicker than my father's loins.
And now, whereas my father did lay you with the heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke.
My father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
I mean, this is what's so this is what's so scary about pride and arrogance.
Is it just completely blinds you to what's coming.
To the destruction, you know, to the to the fall that's coming to those that are haughty in spirit.
Right? It just you just blinds you. I know I've already talked about this.
You know, you're just so blind you walk right off the cliff.
You know, it just keeps coming up in these in these stories.
You just see it over and over again.
You know, and you know, what do you think is going to happen when you're going to go tell these people this?
What did he expect was to happen? Like, Oh, no, I know that's what you said, but actually I'm going to make things worse.
How do you like that?
Did you really think they're going to be like, Yeah, you know, he's great.
I mean, what was he expecting?
You know, of course, he should have seen this coming.
But, you know, that's what pride and arrogance he does. It just blinds you.
You just think, Oh, I'm just going to push my way through it or whatever.
Verse 12. So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day,
as the king had appointed, saying, Come to me again the third day.
The king answered the people roughly and forsook the old men's council that they gave him
and spake to them after the council, the young men saying,
My father made your yoke heavy, and I will make your yoke add to your yoke.
My father also chastised you with eyes with whips. I will chastise you with scorpions.
Go to Proverbs 15. Proverbs 15.
So, you know, he hears this. He doesn't even really think about what he's saying to these people.
He just repeats what the young man said, because that's just what he just wanted to hear.
Whatever, you know, whatever was cool.
Whatever was, you know, whatever was in, whatever was hip,
whatever was, whatever the cool kids were doing, he said, That's what I'm going to do.
I'm just going to go along with that. I'm not going to be one of these stuffy old guys.
What do they know? Right? And that's pride and that's arrogance.
If you look at there, Proverbs chapter 15, you know, and he goes on,
he just spews this out of his mouth. It says, A soft answer, Proverbs 15, verse 1,
A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger.
I mean, these are grievous words that Rehoboam is going and speaking to these people.
I mean, think about it. What if we, what if a similar scenario played out here?
You know, what if you guys came to me and said, You know, Brother Corbin,
you know, I know you've had us out soul winning every day of the week for the last, you know, 40 years.
You know, just two hours a day we've been out there.
Could we just go down to like one hour a day or can we just go down a few days a week?
And I was just like, Oh, yeah, that's going to be eight hours a day.
Right? And what am I doing? I'm just like stirring the pot.
You know, I'm just going to go kick the hornet's nest and just make everybody mad.
You know, it's stirring up strife.
It's, you know, if he had said, You know what? You're right. You guys worked hard.
Thank you for everything you've done. We'll back off a little bit.
You know, that would have been all thanks.
You know, and things would have been maybe perhaps would have been different.
A soft answer turned with weight graph, but grievous words stir up anger.
You know, we don't want when we find ourselves in a situation where, you know,
where people are upset with one another, when you get into like an argument or sometimes the best thing to say is just say,
You know what? I'm sorry. Let's just talk about this later.
You know, when you have when when two people are in a heated argument, you know,
and you both got a couple of hot heads, sometimes the best thing to say is just, you know, I apologize.
Let's let's just come back this later and cool off and talk about it.
You know, have get a soft answer, you know, and turn away that wrath.
But look at verse two. It says the tongue of the wise uses knowledge aright, but the mouth of fools pour out foolishness.
The mouth of fools just pour out foolishness.
You know, foolish people, again, and the Bible says that the rod of pride is in the mouth of fools, the rod of pride.
You know, foolish people, they're they're proud people.
It's not just that, you know, they're you might think of a fool you think like like the jester or something like that.
You know, he's just a clown. He doesn't take anything seriously.
Look, you can be an intelligent, you know, articulate, well spoken person and still be a fool.
You know, you can still you can still have the rod of pride in your mouth and that makes you a fool.
And the mouth of the fool just pours out his foolishness.
You know, the fool just goes but goes when he goes by the way, he tells everybody that he is a fool.
Why? Because of the things that come out of his mouth.
You know, and that's what's going on here with Rehoboam.
I mean, he's going and just saying, oh, that's why you just go into his guys and just say, what do you want me to tell them?
Oh, that's all I go tell them.
And just gives him the stupid answer.
I mean, just dumb, just this grievous answer that's going to do nothing but stir up strife.
He's a fool.
You know, and that's that's something that, you know, that that can happen to young men.
When they get proud and lifted up and they and they and they're arrogant, you know,
they won't listen to other people that are that are older than them that have more experience is that they can become very foolish
and they can say stupid things and just start pouring things out of their mouth.
You know, and it's just and I know a big kind of ragging on the young guys in the room and just the young people in general a little bit.
But, you know, we have quite a few of them here, so someone's got to get it, you know.
But it's important, you know, because I've seen some things in the last week that just reminded me how important this is.
You know, I saw, you know, a couple of guys that, you know, I won't name their names, just call them dumb and dumber.
You know, and if you know what I'm talking about, you know, I'm talking about that, you know, I read their missionary letter.
And it's just the first thing that comes to my mind. The rod of pride is in the mouth of fools.
You know, and it's a couple of young guys who just their feet haven't touched the ground and maybe never will.
You know, and their mouth is just pouring out foolishness, strange doctrines, you know,
and it's something that that guy that young men need to be on guard against because as you get older,
you know, here's what happens with young guys is they grow up, you know, physically and they have the body of a man,
the desires of a man, but in a lot of ways you still have the mind of a child.
And you might not like the sound of that, you know, and if I was a young man, I probably wouldn't like the sound of that.
That might rub me the wrong way. But that's a biological fact.
That's inescapable that the human brain isn't fully developed until you're like in your 20s, early 20s.
And it's the part of the brain that's responsible for like controlling your emotions, having rational thoughts,
you know, calculating risk correctly. You know, that's why young guys are always taking, you know, crazy risks.
You know, watch me jump off this building. I'm going to tie a rope around my waist and swing into this canyon.
You know, I mean, and you go watch, you know, all the people are amazing, whatever, compilations on YouTube.
It's all just a bunch of young people just doing the dumbest things in the world.
We're like, one thing goes wrong and it's over. You know, I'm going to go slackline in Washington, you know,
a thousand feet in the air with no safety harness. It's like, I bet you you're in your early 20s.
Or you just never grew up, you know, or that part of the brain just never developed. Right.
You know, and the Bible talks to this too. And I won't take the time to go to Numbers chapter one.
But, you know, if you wanted to, you could. And look at just the first three verses in Numbers chapter one,
where he's numbering the people to go to war. And often when God numbers the people in Scripture,
it's though he would only count those that are what, 20 years old and upward. Right. That was kind of the cutoff.
You say, well, I'm 18. You know, society says, you know, I can gamble and buy cigarettes and vote and go to war.
Yeah, but the Bible says, you know, that 20 is when that's supposed to happen, not buying cigarettes and stuff.
You should never be buying cigarettes. Right. But, you know, I mean, at least at 20, you know, he's saying,
hey, go to war. They can go to war and assess risk properly. And maybe by that point,
they're, you know, starting to process some things and understand, you know, what's at stake.
But, you know, that's a problem with, you know, some young guys. And if you realize this and you understand this,
you know, and I remember being in my early 20s and I didn't know this fact, you know, and it's a fact.
It's been proven that your brain isn't fully developed. I didn't know that.
But I remember when I got to be about 25, I realized, I was like, oh, maybe I don't know everything.
You know, because maybe, you know, I did, I poured out some foolishness out of my mouth.
You know, I had some pride when I was younger and some people had to come along and, you know,
proverbially smack me upside the head and say, you're an idiot. You know, you need to figure this out.
You know, quit doing this and quit doing that. Anyway, you know, I've got more for you guys.
Hang on. But that's, you know, that's what you see going on here with these young guys.
Right. They're just pouring out foolishness. They're just blinded by their arrogance.
They don't even see what's coming. I mean, it's like, what reaction did you expect when you're going into the people and saying what you said?
You know, we're going to, I'm going to make things worse. I'm going to whip you with scorpions.
Oh, cool. Thanks. No, of course they're going to revolt. But, you know, that's what pride, arrogance does to a person that blinds them.
Let's move on here in the story. It says, Wherefore the king hearkened not unto the people,
for the cause was from the Lord, that he might perform the saying, which the Lord spake by a hyge of the Shilinite unto Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
So when all Israel saw the king hearken not unto them, the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David?
Neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse to your tents, O Israel. Now see to thine own house, David.
So Israel, excuse me, departed under their tents. But as for the children of Israel, which dwelt the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.
Then Rehoboam sent Adoram, who was over the tribute. And that's like the tax, right? They go collect the tax.
And remember, there was a levy in the land where Solomon's collecting taxes. And all Israel stoned them with stones.
Now, I mean, that's sometimes, you know, it's April. Probably a lot of us are feeling like that right about now, right?
April 15th is coming and you're just looking at that rock in your yard like, Oh, man, I'm going to go find that IRS, man.
I don't know. But you know, hey, some things never change. No one's ever like paying taxes, apparently. There you go, right?
It says, Therefore King Rehoboam made speed to get him up to, it was chariot to flee to Jerusalem.
So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day, and it came to pass when all Israel heard that Jeroboam was come again.
They sent and called him into the congregation and made him king over all Israel.
There was none that followed the house of David, but the tribe of Judah only. And when Rehoboam was come to Jerusalem,
he assembled all the men of the house of Judah with a tribe of Benjamin and 104 score thousand chosen men,
which were warriors to fight against the house of Israel to bring the kingdom again to Rehoboam and to the son of Solomon.
So get the picture. Everybody's left him. He's got one tribe left. And this just goes to show how arrogant he is.
Oh, I'm just going to go fight everybody and take it back. I'm just going to go fight the other 11, you know, or 10 tribes and take it back.
I'm just going to go fight and get in some war and I'll get everything back that I lost.
You know, that's again that six foot tall and bulletproof mentality that young people can have.
The word of God came unto Shemaiah the son of God saying speak unto Rehoboam the son of Solomon king of Judah
and unto all the house of Judah and Benjamin and to the remnant of the people saying thus saith the Lord
you shall not go up nor fight against your brethren children of Israel. Return every man to his house for this thing is from me.
They hearken therefore to the word of the Lord and return to depart according to the word of the Lord.
You know, and here's the lesson you can learn from that is that sometimes what's done is done.
You know, sometimes when you make mistakes and you do wrong, the damage is done.
There's nothing. There is no repairing it. There's no fixing it. It's over. And you have to learn to just move on with your life.
You know, especially when it's from God when God just says no, you know, you messed up. You made a mistake.
It's too late. You can't fix it. You need to just move on. That's a whole another sermon right there.
Verse twenty five. Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the Mount Ephraim and dwelt therein and went out from
thence and built Penuel and Jeroboam said in his heart now shall the kingdom return to the house of David.
And I talked a little bit about this last week and you know, this is unfortunate because you remember in chapter 11 Jeroboam was given a chance.
He's saying God said, look, I will I will build you a sure house even as David, my servant, like he had that promise.
If you walk in my ways, if you keep my statutes and my judgments, he was going to preserve him and set up his house.
And he could have had, you know, something completely different than what he ends up with.
But notice what's taking place here. It says that he if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem,
then shall the heart of this people turn again of their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah.
And they shall kill me and go against to Rehoboam and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah.
So, you know, he's what he's worried about is the people. Right. He gets in this. And this is another example of bad leadership.
You get a couple examples of bad leadership. Being indecisive, you know, not listening to a wiser council, older council,
forsaking the old paths, you know, being arrogant, being proud, being overbearing.
You know, these are all things that we're seeing about that are bad examples of leadership.
And here you see it again where you where you're afraid of what the how the people are going to react, what the people might do.
You know, and this is something, you know, maybe I'm just picking up on this because it's something that I have to kind of always keep in check as a preacher.
As somebody is getting up and preaching the counsel of God, because I don't know if you've noticed, but the Bible has a way of making people mad.
You know, you've probably all noticed that, you know, if you preach the whole counsel of God, you know, people are going to give me a look.
People are going to do this and they're going to get mad and they're going to come to you after the service and say, I didn't appreciate this and I didn't appreciate that.
And I used to hear preachers say that, you know, they'd say, hey, don't come to me after service and tell me how you did what you didn't like about my sermon.
And I'm thinking to myself, nobody does that. There's no way anybody just walks up to a preacher after you just got done ripping face and saying, oh, I don't like what you said in your sermon.
And then one time when I finally got up and preached a sermon where I ripped some face, that's exactly what happened to me.
Someone walked up and said, you know, it was a good sermon, but I didn't like that part. I'm just like, I can't believe this is happening right now.
That's why they said that. Right. And here's the thing. If you know that's going to happen and I already know it's going to happen, you know, eventually, you know, if it's not somebody in church,
it's somebody online or, you know, who knows how far it could go. It could escalate. Right. You already know somebody's going to come to you and say, at some point, say, I don't like what you preached.
I don't like what you said. I don't think you should have said that. You know, and that's an awkward, uncomfortable, not fun situation to be in. Right.
And you might not want to avoid that. You might just say, well, I'm just not going to preach that. And I'm just not going to, oh, you don't think that happens?
You don't think there's people out there and say, well, that'll make somebody mad. You know, Leviticus 20, 13, we can't preach that. You know, we can't preach on, you know, all these other sins.
We can't preach on these things because it might make somebody upset. You know, that happens all the time. There's churches all over the place, you know, and that's why they have a full house because they won't ever step on your toes.
But, you know, if you're going to be a leader, if you're going to be a man of God, if you're going to preach the word of God, you have to be prepared to upset people. You know, and they might even turn on you.
You know, I mean, go tell it to Jeremiah. Go tell it to Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. You know, go tell it to Jesus and the apostles, you know, about, you know, about feeling uncomfortable because somebody might make a face or say something.
You know, they might, they might drag you out of town and stone you to death. That's what they'd say. Has that happened? Or have you been cast into prison for preaching? Oh, then, you know, suck it up, buttercup, and preach the word of God.
You know, the fear of the people. That's why, you know, he told Jeremiah in chapter one, well, for the sake of time, he said, you know, and I'm kind of paraphrasing, he said, fear not the face of these people, you know, for I am with thee.
You know, don't be afraid of their faces. So what was it about their faces? Did they have weird faces? You know, did they have scary faces? No, it's because when you're preaching, people make faces.
You know, and whether you realize it or not, I know I don't stare everybody in the eye all the time, but I see what's going on out there. You know, I know, I know who's yawning. I know who's biting their nails. I know who's checking their phone.
It's all very subconscious, you know, but it's there. You're all in my peripheral. You know, I know who's, you know, anyway, right? But you know, you know what faces people are making, right? You know, making a face at you.
He's like, that doesn't happen. Look, it happens. The temptation is, oh, I don't like that. I don't want them to, because people want to be liked, right? Most people, I mean, if you're normal, unless you're some kind of psychopath or something, you want to be liked.
You want to have friends. You want people to like you, but you know, if you're going to preach, if you're going to be just a leader in general, you know, at work or something like that, you know, you're going to have to do some things that might make you not very popular with other people.
You know, if you're going to take that supervisor position and be the one that's going to be telling people what to do, and you're going to be the one that has to draw a hard line in the sand, be prepared to not be liked.
When you become the foreman on the job, and now you have to go tell those guys, hey, lunch breaks over, get back to work, you know, or whatever, and lay down the law, they're not going to like you either.
You know, when you're getting up and preaching the word of God and calling out sin and stepping on toes, people, you know, when you step on someone's toe, they don't giggle. It's not like tickling. It's the complete opposite reaction.
So that's, you know, that's another bad characteristic that we see here when it comes to leadership is being afraid of how people are going to react or what might happen.
And again, it's an unfounded fear, you know, and I talked about this earlier. It's, you know, Jeroboam here is having a lapse in faith, or if you had any faith to begin with, I don't know.
Because he's already been promised by God, by the prophet, and saying, look, just obey me and everything's going to be fine.
But he gets in this position of power and he starts worrying about losing his power, which is something he wasn't going to have to begin with. I mean, think about it. It's not like he was destined to become king.
Right? He wasn't Solomon of Solomon's son. That wasn't even the cards for him, you know, until, you know, Adonijah comes to him and prophesies, hey, you're going to be king, you know, tore up his garments, it's going to happen.
You know, I mean, it was something that was just, it fell into his lap. And now, but once he has it, now he just can't, he's afraid of losing it. Right?
And that's the crazy thing about power. It's like once people get some power, they can't, you know, stand the idea of losing it. They just got to hang on to power at all costs.
In fact, they'll hang on to it to where they'll compromise on the word of God, what they've been told. You know, they'll, you know, some preacher builds some ministry, you know, and it's successful.
And, you know, maybe he'd be tempted to start compromising and saying, well, you know, maybe the people start saying, you know, we want that contemporary Christian music in here.
Can we use, can we use a different version of the Bible? You know, can we drop these standards and people can start putting pressure on him?
And he might, instead of taking a hard stand, you know, he's more afraid of losing what he's amassed, you know, what he's created, what he's gotten, he'll compromise out of fear.
You know, the thing to do is just say, you know, go, no, we're not going to change.
Look at verse 28, it says, whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem, although that's the way it's always been.
Think about it, you know, it's always been, it's like, what? We've always gone to Jerusalem, you know, it's always been that way. Well, it's too much for you to go to Jerusalem.
Behold thy gods are Israel. So he's making it what? Easy, convenient. You know, this is how people, you know, compromisers work. They just want to, oh, I'll just make things easy for you.
You know, oh, I want to build this great big massive mega church. So I'll just, I'll just make things easy on the people. You know, I won't preach certain passages.
I won't say certain things. I'll just, you know, it's too much for you to hear all that. So we'll just talk about, you know, all the gentle goodness and everything that, you know, there's plenty of that in the Bible to talk about.
But if that's all you're going to talk about, you're leaving a lot of the other, the rest of the Bible out. You know, they're just making it convenient.
It's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods are Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.
I mean, this is a guy who had man of God come and tell him and prophesied in that he's going, what was going to take place and it happened.
I mean, it's not like he didn't know who the Lord God of Israel was. And this is the length he's willing to go to, to hang on to his power and not lose his position.
This is the level he's willing to stoop to. And look, this is, people still do this today. You know, preachers do this all the time.
I mean, think about some of the most popular preachers there are. I mean, think about Joel Osteen, right? I mean, I don't know.
If I started charging you to come to church, you probably wouldn't come, right? But he can charge people to come. Do you want a seat in Joel's church?
You know, when it comes to one of his conferences, you better pay up, right? But why are willing people willing to do that?
Because he's just going to go there and just, you know, give them a little ear massage and just scratch their back and tell them what they want to hear.
And they're just going to walk out feeling good and everything's great. I mean, I don't know if Joel Osteen could ever rip face.
I don't know if that guy could even rip a piece of paper. He's so weak, right?
Anyway, he says in verse 29, and he set up one in Bethel and put the other in Dan. I mean, he's just making it so easy.
Look, you don't have to go to Jerusalem. You just stay with me.
And this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one even unto Dan.
And if you know your Bible from here on out, this is just a sin that just sticks with them and it ends up just destroying, you know, the northern kingdoms completely.
This is something that just completely wipes them out over time.
It says in verse 31, and he made in house, excuse me, made in house of high places and he made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not the sons of Levi.
So, you know, when you're compromised, you know, like he is, when you're just trying to make things easy, when you're just trying to hang on your position, you're compromising things,
what you're going to end up doing is you're going to lower your standards, aren't you?
You lower your standards and you say, well, you know what? The lowest of the people will ordain them.
We'll make priests out of the lowest of the people. And he's not talking about in terms of height.
He found all the short people, right?
He's talking about base, low people who had basically were unqualified.
They weren't, which were not of the sons of Levi.
That's what he says there. He's saying the lowest of the people, just anybody who wants to be a priest can.
He's just ordaining them into the ministry, you know, and this should be warning us.
And this tells us, and if you would, and I'm almost done, but go to 1 Timothy chapter number three, 1 Timothy chapter number three.
You know, this should be a warning us that, you know, qualifications matter when it comes to being in the ministry.
That's not something you can compromise on and be right.
You can't compromise on qualifications. The qualifications are there for a reason.
And look, and you have to keep ringing this bell because people keep trying to push the limits on this.
People keep wanting to just, you know, get into the ministry without meeting qualifications.
They want to be a leader. They want to be, you know, on staff. They want to be a full-time preacher or whatever.
It's like, great, you know, if you have that ambition, you know, if a man desired the office of a bishop, he desired the good work.
You know, but it goes on, it says, a bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife.
Vigilant, sober of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach, not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre,
but patient, not a brawler, not covetous, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity.
You know, and then there's a whole qualifications for the, you know, for the deacons too.
That's great if you desire the work, but you know what, you still have to meet up the qualifications.
They're still, they're there for a reason. You know, we can't just ordain the lowest people in there who have no business being in,
and look, it's only wicked people who absolutely have to be in the ministry.
You know, I've noticed that over and over and over again.
People who insist on, you know, when they get disqualified or they don't cut the mustard and then say,
it's not for you, you know, it's like, well, let me just run over to my dad's church for six months and have him ordain me.
Tyler Baker, you know, it's bad people who insist on being in the ministry.
Can't just let it go.
Look, if for some reason I got, you know, and I'm going on record right now,
if for some reason I got kicked out of the ministry or I got disqualified or, you know, I just curled up and quit or whatever,
and it just got out of it, you know what, I would just go back to my normal life.
I would just go back to working a nine to five and just Monday through Friday and going to church and going right back to where I started right out in the pews.
And that'd be fine with me. You know, I'm obviously if it, you know, I'm getting a huge hypothetical situation.
What I'm saying is that, look, I don't want to be one of those people that insists on being in the ministry because there's qualifications for a reason.
Look, I want to point out one of the qualifications in particular here.
Okay, I just rattle off a bunch. But look at verse six, not a novice, not a novice.
Now, what's novice mean? New. New. Can't be somebody that's new.
You know, here, let me throw you another word. Young.
Right now, I don't think that there's like an exact age where you must meet, you know, because some people will say, oh, you know, there was some bozo in Texas.
Well, you know, I just think you got to be 30 years old before. That's when Jesus started his ministry, brother.
And you shouldn't ordain people until they turn 30 years old.
Well, show me in the Bible. Well, that's when Jesus. Yeah, but did Jesus ever say thou must be 30 to be a pastor?
No. Did Paul ever say that? Uh-uh. He says not a novice. And I, you know, I agree that you could apply that to not being a young person.
And when I say young in the terms of inexperienced, you know, you could be young in the faith.
You could be new to the faith. You could be, you know, 40, 50, whatever years old and still be a novice because you got saved yesterday.
You know, and that's why, you know, one of the qualifications that that Faithful Words has for being ordained is that you have to be saved for at least seven years.
I think that's what it is. It's been a while since I've had to brush up on that.
But, you know, there's a limit on how long you have to at least have been saved and in church, not just saved and just doing whatever you want.
You know, wandering around from country to country, you know, not in a Baptist church, you know, actually in a local church, faithful, serving for X amount of years.
Saved, you know, because it's the church that ordains people. Obviously, the pastor has veto power. He's the one that makes the ultimate decision.
So, you know how the pastor makes the decision on who's going to get ordained? He talks to the church members.
You know, that's part of his decision making. Does he have a good report, right?
Because you have to have a good report of them which are without, how much more so of those which are within.
You know, are there any red flags? Is there anything I should know about this person?
They're saying, not a novice. Now, what's the dangers of putting somebody who's young, inexperienced, right?
And again, inexperienced in life, you know. You say, well, you know, Pastor Anderson was young when he got ordained in the ministry.
I mean, I can't remember exactly how old he was, but he was a young man. But, I wouldn't say he was exactly young in life.
I mean, when you're married and have a couple kids, you're learning a lot. I'm not saying you're the most seasoned guy ever.
But, you're not some wet-behind-the-ear 19-year-old or 18-year-old or 20-year-old with no prospects.
I mean, there's a big difference when you're, you know, you see what I'm saying about novice?
You know, about, you know, there's being young, there's being inexperienced in life.
You know, that's an important thing you have to have going into the ministry. You have to have some experience.
Because you're going to have other people coming to you with marriage problems, with how to raise children.
And you're going, well, I've never done that. Well, it's like, well, what good are you then?
You know, I know what the Bible says and I get that. You should preach it. And look, you know, I'm kind of harping on this.
But, I'm telling you, I know personally people that have been ordained in the ministry as pastors and they weren't even married.
Let alone, they had kids. They just weren't even married. Oh, you're not married? Just, you know, nuts to 1 Timothy 3 and Titus.
Just go start a church. It's ridiculous. Then what are these here for? You know, why did Paul waste his breath, I guess?
You know, if we're just going to blow him off. But, again, notice the problem with being a novice, being young and getting put in this position.
He'd be what? Lifted up with pride. Isn't that exactly what you see with Rehoboam?
He's him and his young guys. He gets in this position and he just gets lifted up with pride.
And you fall what? Into the condemnation of the devil. Right? It leads to condemnation.
Your pride causes you to act out and do stupid things. The next thing you know, you're getting to sin. You get puffed up. You fall.
Go over to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. 2 Corinthians chapter number 10.
You know, people will argue and say, oh, no, no, I know I'm meant to be in the ministry.
You know, it's obvious by, you know, they'll have their long list of all the reasons why they should be in the ministry.
Why they should be ordained. You know, and they're commending themselves. Right?
But look at 2 Corinthians 10 verse 18. For not he that commended himself is approved.
Look, you can sit there and tell me all day why you're just the man for the job.
Why you're just, you know, you're the greatest preacher, the greatest soul winner, and you belong in the ministry.
But you know what? The Bible says that not he that commended himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth.
That's who the Lord commends. You know, and part of being commended by the Lord, you know, who's the Lord going to commend?
The people that meet the qualifications. The people that have measured up to the standard that God has already given us in his word to meet these qualifications.
Go back to 2 Kings, we'll wrap it up there. But these qualifications, they matter.
You can't just ordain the lowest of the people. Even if, you know, yeah, but the lowest of the people, you know, the guy, he was so convincing.
Doesn't matter, you know, if he doesn't meet the qualifications. Back then in the priesthood you had to be the sons of Levi.
Yeah, but you should have seen the way he butchered this calf. I mean, the way he got the call above the kidneys and the way he separated the fat.
I mean, he could fry that stuff and he was just so good at it. You know?
Boy, he really knew how to stoke that altar, get that fire just going. Yeah, but was he of the sons of Levi? Then he's not approved.
You have to meet these qualifications.
Look at verse 32,
So, you know, this is what arrogant young men do. When they get puffed up, when they don't want to meet the qualifications, when they get worried about losing their positions of power, they just devise things out of their own heart.
They'll just make up some feast. They'll just make up some doctrine in an attempt to just hang on to their position or whatever it is that they think they're doing.
And I know we're not all young men in here, you know, some of us aren't even men at all, right? But here's the thing, you know, pride is something that can affect every one of us. It's just that, you know, it's something that tends to be, you know, that men in particular struggle with, that fall into.
And even more so, young men, right? Because when you get younger, you know, you grow up and you got, you're strong, you know, you start to feel your Wheaties a little bit, as I used to say, you know, there's that tendency to be puffed up over that, you know, and forget that there's a lot more to life than just being, you know, a young man.
You know, there's that tendency to be puffed up over that, you know, and forget that there's a lot more to life than just being grown, you know, physically big. There's a lot of mental, you know, maturity that has to take place.
And, you know, that's still something that goes on, obviously, out through all. I'm not saying that 25 or whatever, just boom, you're done. You know, they've done a lot of studies, a lot of different other, you know, abilities and skills are even more developed when you get older. Your ability to concentrate is a lot better, you know, in your 40s, according to some studies that I saw, some articles that I read.
You know, your vocabulary is supposed to be really good when you get into your 60s, which kind of makes sense when you think about it, because you've been, hopefully, you've been reading and talking all these years, you know, you've developed that vocabulary.
So, if you think I'm bad now, just, you know, if I'm really, if you don't think I'm very eloquent, right, just stick around for about another 20 years, you know, and I'll keep reading and I'll keep talking and I'll get more gooder at this.
Okay? And I'll have a more gooder vocabulary. All right? But, you know, that's the message, though, is that, you know, and I know I'm kind of going after, you know, the young guys in particular, but there's a reason for that.
You know, the Bible's kind of highlighting it. It was these, Rehoboam went to the young men. He was a young man himself. You know, Jeroboam was probably a young man and it's all these bad decisions in leadership.
Look, we don't want to let pride creep up on us and blind us, you know, and make us an arrogant people. We want to be humble people. Let God exalt us in due time and He will do that, you know.