🎵Music🎵
It's very nice to see you all here on this Wednesday night.
Let's all find our seats now, grab a hymnal.
We'll start with hymn number 82 in your song books.
Number 82, When He Cometh.
Hymn number 82, we'll sing it out on that first verse
once you find your place.
Number 82, When He Cometh, to make up His truth.
Hymn number 82, on that first verse together.
When He Cometh, when He Cometh, to make up His truth,
all His human bones, precious jewels, His love and His own.
Like the stars of the morning, His Christ found adorning.
They shall shine in their beauty,
righteous for His crown.
He will gather, He will gather, all gems for His kingdom.
All the pure ones, all the bright ones, His love and His own.
Like the stars of the morning, His Christ found adorning.
They shall shine in their beauty,
righteous for His crown.
Little children, little children,
full of their thinking, are the true Lord's precious jewels.
His love and His own.
Like the stars of the morning, His Christ found adorning.
They shall shine in their beauty,
righteous for His crown.
Thank you, Lord, for our singing this evening.
We want to go to the Lord in prayer for the service,
so if you would, bow your heads together with me.
Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening,
and we thank you for this opportunity to be in church
and to be in your house and to sing and worship you.
We just ask, Lord, your blessing upon us
as we lift our voices to you in praise.
We ask that you would help our hearts
to be stirred by the singing and by the words of these hymns
that we have.
And Lord, we just ask that you would
meet the needs of our church, whatever they may be,
and that you would just help us to put our thoughts aside.
To focus on your word this evening,
please fill Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit
as he comes and preaches to us this evening.
We just ask that you fill in with power and unction
that we may be attentive to the preaching
and that everything that's said and done would be honoring
and glorifying to you.
And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Hymn number 65, number 65, just over in the glory land.
Hymn number 65.
We'll sing it out on that first verse now, hymn number 65.
I, the home prepared, sing it out, number 65.
I, the home prepared, we're the saints of life,
just over in the glory land.
And I long to be by my Savior's side,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
I'll join the happy angel men, just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
There with the mighty host I'll stand,
just over in the glory land.
I am on my way to those mansions there,
just over in the glory land.
There to sing God's praise and his glory share,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
I'll join the happy angel men, just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
There with the mighty host I'll stand,
just over in the glory land.
What a joyful God that my Lord I'll see,
just over in the glory land.
And the kindred saved him forever be,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
I'll join the happy angel men, just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
There with the mighty host I'll stand,
just over in the glory land.
In the blood washed gong I will shout and sing,
just over in the glory land.
I'll stand us to praise the Lord and be,
just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
I'll join the happy angel men, just over in the glory land.
Just over in the glory land.
There with the mighty host I'll stand,
just over in the glory land.
Thank you singing.
Alright, it's time to go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
This week will be in 2 Chronicles, chapter number 16.
We've got the soul-winning times listed there below,
as well as salvations and baptisms.
Across the page is the note about the baby shower.
That ship already sailed, but thank you to everyone who participated with that.
Keep praying for the rest of the ladies in our church that are expecting
that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
On the back, church skating night is tomorrow night.
I repeat, tomorrow night, 5.30 p.m.
Make sure you go to the right location because there are two different skate lands.
So pay attention to the address so that you go to the correct one.
Of course, it's totally free of charge as all of our church activities.
You just show up and you can be part of the fun.
5.30 to 8 p.m. tomorrow night.
And then thank you to those who participated in the Navajo trip.
15 people saved.
There's another small town, soul-winning, coming up in Bryce, Arizona
on Saturday, August 17th. That's this Saturday.
And then next weekend, another Navajo trip.
And a baby shower on August 25th.
So not this Sunday, but next Sunday for Mrs. Olivia Stiles,
also here at 2 o'clock.
And then the Don't Go Back to School Party at Svalpa Park,
which involves water balloons and ice cream.
That is going to be on September the 2nd, which I believe is a Monday.
Should be that, what, Labor Day holiday.
And that is about it. Four announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul-winning going back to Monday.
Anything from Monday to report.
All right.
How about Tuesday?
Okay.
All right.
And then today, I don't think we got a total for the band.
Did we, Raymond?
One for the band? Okay.
Anything outside of the band?
Okay.
Why were you outside of the band?
What?
You're always there.
No, I'm just kidding.
I'm just messing with you.
All right.
Very good.
Keep up the great work on soul-winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right.
Take your hymnals, please.
Let's go to hymn 233.
Hymn 233.
Tell me the old, old story.
Hymn 233.
We'll sing it out together right on that first verse.
Tell me the old, old story of unseen things above.
Hymn 233.
Sing it out now.
Tell me the old, old story
of unseen things above.
Of Jesus and his glory.
Of Jesus and his love.
Tell me the story steadily
as to a little child.
For I am weak and weary
and helpless and defiled.
Tell me the old, old story.
Tell me the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
Tell me the story slowly
that I may take it in.
That wonderful redemption
God's remedy for sin.
Tell me the story often
for I forget so soon.
The early till our morning
has passed away at noon.
Tell me the old, old story.
Tell me the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
Tell me the story softly
with earnest thoughts and praise.
Remember I, the Savior
whom Jesus gave to me.
Tell me the story always
if you would really be
in any time of trouble
but a murder to me.
Tell me the old, old story.
Tell me the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
Tell me the same old story
when you have God's to give.
That this world's empty
but open is God's thingly to give.
Yes, in that world's glory
is God in our high soul.
Tell me the old, old story
Christ Jesus brings me home.
Tell me the old, old story.
Tell me the old, old story
on Jesus and his love.
And that good thing everyone,
let's go up to hymn number 228,
or back to 228.
I love to tell the story.
Hymn number 228.
228, I love to tell the story
of unseen things above.
Let's meet out on that first verse.
228.
I love to tell the story
of unseen things above.
Of Jesus and his glory.
Of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story
because I know it's true.
It satisfies my longing
as nothing else can do.
I love to tell the story.
It will be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story
more wonderful than it seems.
And all the golden fancies
of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story.
It did so much for me.
And that is just the reason
I tell it now to thee.
I love to tell the story.
It will be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story.
It is pleasant to repeat
what seems to try my telling
more wonderfully sweet.
I love to tell the story
more some have never heard.
The message of salvation
from God's own holy Word.
I love to tell the story.
It will be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
I love to tell the story
for those who know it best.
See hungering and thirsting
to hear it like the rest.
And when it seems of glory
I sing the new, new song.
It will be the old, old story
that I have loved so long.
I love to tell the story.
It will be my theme in glory
to tell the old, old story
of Jesus and his love.
That's a good singing tonight.
We'll quickly pass our offering plates
as the plates go around.
Let's turn to 2 Chronicles 16.
2 Chronicles 16, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter,
beginning in verse 1.
Follow along silently with
Brother Hester as he reads.
2 Chronicles 16.
2 Chronicles 16, the Bible reads,
In the sixth and thirtieth year
of the reign of Asa,
Baasha, king of Israel,
came up against Judah
and built Brahma, to the intent
that he might let none go out
or come in to Asa, king of Judah.
Then Asa brought out silver and gold
out of the treasures
of the house of the Lord
and of the king's house
and sent to Ben-Hadad, king of Syria,
that dwelt at Damascus, saying,
There is a league between me and thee,
as there was between my father
and thy father.
Behold, I have sent thee
silver and gold.
Go, break thy league
with Baasha, king of Israel,
that he may depart from me.
And Ben-Hadad hearkened unto king Asa
and sent the captains of his armies
against the cities of Israel,
and they smote I John and Dan
and Abel-ma'am and all the store cities
of Naphtali.
And it came to pass,
when Baasha heard it,
that he left off building of Rhema
and let his work cease.
Then Asa the king took all Judah,
and they carried away the stones
of Rhema and the timber thereof,
wherewith Baasha was building,
and he built there with Geba and Mizpah.
And at that time,
Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah
and said unto him,
Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria
and not relied on the Lord thy God,
therefore as the host of the king of Syria
escaped out of thine hand.
Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims
a huge host,
with very many chariots and horsemen?
Yet, because thou didst rely on the Lord,
he delivered them into thine hand,
for the eyes of the Lord
run to and fro throughout the whole earth
to show himself strong on the behalf
of them whose heart is perfect toward him.
Herein thou hast done foolishly,
therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars.
Then Asa was wroth with the seer
and put him in a prison house,
for he was in a rage with him
because of this thing,
and Asa oppressed some of the people
at the same time.
And behold the acts of Asa first and last,
lo, they are written in the book
of the kings of Judah and Israel.
And Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign
was diseased in his feet,
until his disease was exceeding great.
Yet in his disease he sought not the Lord,
but to the physicians.
And Asa slept with his fathers
and died in the one and fortieth year of his reign,
and they buried him in his own sepulchres
which he had made for himself in the city of David,
and laid him in the bed,
which was filled with sweet odors
and diverse kinds of spices
prepared by the apothecaries' art,
and they made him a very great burning for him.
Father in Heaven, I pray that you please hasten
and help Pastor recover from his jet lag earnestly.
Please fill him with the fullness
and the power of the Holy Spirit
as he preaches your word now
so that your word would be a blessing unto us,
all your children here.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Man, of course, we've been gone
from 2 Chronicles for about a month,
so if you remember,
we're going through the life of Asa,
and Asa gets several chapters devoted to him.
And just to kind of briefly refresh your memory,
Asa was a really great king.
His father Abijah was a guy who gave lip service
to the things of God,
but his heart was not really right with God.
He had that short reign of just 3 years,
but Asa is the real deal.
He really loves the Lord.
He is really sincere about his service for God,
and if you remember,
he started out reigning very well, serving God.
About 10 years in,
he has the trouble where the Ethiopians
come up from Africa,
and he ends up defeating the Ethiopian host.
There's warfare and fighting associated with that
from around the 10th year of his reign
to around the 15th year of his reign.
After that, there's peace for about 20 years,
and now in the 35th year of Asa's reign,
toward the end of his reign,
he's dealing with another problem now.
So there's been peace for 20 years.
He's serving God.
Things are going great.
They're prosperous.
Everything's wonderful.
But then he begins to have problems
with the king of Israel
because remember, Asa is the king of Judah,
the southern kingdom of Judah,
and if you remember, after King Solomon,
the kingdom was split into the northern kingdom of Israel,
southern kingdom of Judah.
Northern kingdom of Israel is really never right with God.
All of their leaders are bad,
whereas the king of Judah sometimes is good.
Sometimes it's bad.
They have good kings.
They have bad kings.
It goes back and forth,
but the northern kingdom is just always messed up.
Okay.
So it says in verse number 1 of chapter 16,
in the sixth and 30th year of the reign of Asa,
Baasha, king of Israel, came up against Judah
and built Ramah to the intent
that he might let none go out
or come in to Asa, king of Judah.
So the northern kingdom of Israel just opens hostility
by embargoing the southern kingdom of Judah,
not allowing them to continue their trade
and the supplies that they need coming in and out.
And so this is an act of warfare,
and it says in verse number 2,
Then Asa brought out silver and gold
out of the treasures of the house of the Lord
and of the king's house,
and sent to Ben-Hadad, king of Syria,
that dwelt at Damascus,
saying, There's a league between me and thee,
as there was between my father and thy father.
Behold, I've sent thee silver and gold.
Go, break thy league with Baasha, king of Israel,
that he may depart from me,
and Ben-Hadad hearken unto king Asa.
So he's giving him a bunch of money
both from the house of God and out of his own pocket,
and he's telling him to break an agreement
that he already has, to break a treaty
that the king of Syria already has with Israel.
And when he says, Well, there's a league between me and thee
and between my father and thy father,
you know, that isn't necessarily true.
It's more like it's becoming true
because he's saying it.
Like he's saying, Hey, remember, we're buddies, right?
Here's a bunch of money. We're friends, right?
Okay, now go break your treaty with the king of Israel
and fight against him because, you know,
I don't want to deal with this embargo.
And so, you know, money talks,
and so therefore the king of Damascus gets involved,
and he ends up defeating Israel.
It says in verse 4, Ben-Haden harkened unto king Asa,
sent the captains of his armies against the cities of Israel,
and they smote I John and Dan and Abel-Mayim
and all the store cities of Naphtali.
And it came to pass when Baasha heard it
that he left off building of Ramah and let his work cease.
Remember, Ramah is that city that he was using
to create the embargo to not let people come in and out of Judah.
So he is defeated by Damascus.
He ends up stopping building the city,
and then he opened a grocery store chain in Arizona,
especially on Indian reservations and places like that.
It's known as Baasha.
And then verse 6, it says,
Then Asa the king took all Judah,
and they carried away the stones of Ramah and the timber thereof.
So notice it says Asa took all Judah,
so basically just all the citizens
because they want to just destroy this city completely
because they don't know if maybe later when things cool down
and the kingdom of Damascus is tied up somewhere else
that maybe Israel could use this city of Ramah again
as a staging point for hostilities with Judah.
And so they just get everybody and their brother
from the southern kingdom of Judah
to just take this place apart piece by piece
and carry every brick and every piece of timber
back to the southern kingdom of Judah
and just reuse those building materials
just to make sure that this Ramah business never becomes a problem again.
So pretty straightforward story,
but then this preacher comes,
and God inspires this prophet to come and preach to Asa
and to tell him that what he has done is wrong,
that he should not have involved the king of Syria.
He should have just fought against the king of Israel himself.
Okay?
And look what the Bible says in verse 7.
At that time Hanani the seer came to Asa because of Judah,
or sorry, excuse me, came to Asa king of Judah
and said unto him,
Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria
and not relied on the Lord thy God,
therefore is the host of the king of Syria
escaped out of thine hands.
So the big problem here is that he's not trusting in the Lord.
He feels like he has to involve this wicked nation
that should be his enemy.
He's not supposed to make an alliance with these nearby heathen nations.
And that's why he says that now the host of the king of Syria
is escaped out of thine hand.
What the preacher is basically saying is that
God could not only allow the king of Judah to defeat the king of Israel,
but that if the king of Judah, Asa,
would have fought against the northern kingdom of Israel,
and let's say Syria would have backed up the northern kingdom of Israel,
because remember earlier he said that there was a league
between Syria and the northern kingdom of Israel.
Remember he said break your league with him
and make a league with me instead.
What God is saying is that if you would have trusted in the Lord,
fought your own battle against the northern kingdom of Israel,
then Syria would have gotten involved and you would have defeated both.
He's saying you could have defeated not only Israel,
but also Syria,
and then you would have gotten the spoil and the benefits from that.
Now let me refresh your memory a little bit on this.
Back in chapter 15,
when the Ethiopians and the Lubims came up and fought against Asa
and he defeated them,
he ended up getting a ton of spoil from that victory.
Like he ended up recovering tons of spoil,
and not just from the Ethiopians,
but also from the cities of the Philistines, right, into the bargain.
Just like if he would have defeated the Israelites,
he would have also gotten the Syrians into the bargain,
and that spoil would have enriched him and gave him more glory
and so on and so forth.
And so that's what basically this story is harkening back to.
It's basically saying look, you know,
you could have not only defeated Israel,
you could have also defeated this wicked nation of Syria as well.
Now you didn't because you teamed up with the bad guys, Syria,
in order to defeat the other bad guys, the northern kingdom of Israel.
It says in verse 8,
Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubims a huge host,
with very many chariots and horsemen?
Yet because thou didst rely on the Lord,
he delivered them into thine hands.
So the idea here is that we need to trust the Lord
and not team up with wicked people
or compromise our standards, compromise our beliefs,
compromise our doctrine in order to just get along
so that we, you know, can win whatever battle we think
that we can't do on our own or with God backing us up.
Now this next verse here, verse number 9,
is probably one of the most famous verses in the book of 2 Chronicles.
I would say the number one most famous verse in 2 Chronicles is what?
What did you say?
714 is of course the big one, right?
That my people, which are called by my name,
shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face,
turn from their wicked ways.
That's the big one, right?
2 Chronicles 714.
This is probably the second most famous verse in this book.
It says in verse 9,
because this is such a quotable verse even just in isolation,
you could rip it out of the story just by itself.
It's just a powerful verse.
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth
to show himself strong in the behalf of them
whose heart is perfect toward him.
Herein thou hast done foolishness, therefore from henceforth thou should have worse.
Typically Hallmark leaves off that last little part there
and they would just pretty much end it at, you know, perfect toward him
and then it's like, you know, 2 Chronicles 16 9 A or whatever.
Okay.
But the idea here is, and I absolutely love this verse, okay,
the idea here is that God is just up in heaven
just waiting to do something powerful, to do something amazing,
to help us out, to do something great.
I mean, it's a missed opportunity here
when you just involve the Syrians and you just pay for mercenaries
and you just avert the situation that way.
It's a missed opportunity.
God could have done something great here.
God could have done something powerful and gotten the glory
like he did with the Ethiopian horde.
But no, you know, you had to go to the Syrians.
And look, I firmly believe that this verse is a universal principle
that does deserve to be ripped out of context
and put in Hallmark cards, posters, motivational, whatever paraphernalia, okay,
because this is a universally true principle.
God is unchanging and God is always up in heaven
looking for an opportunity to do something great.
And who's he looking for?
He's looking for the people who have the heart that is perfect toward him
so that he can show himself strong on those people's behalf, right?
So he's looking for that guy that loves him, that trusts him,
that wants to do something great,
and he's ready to just show himself mighty on that guy's behalf.
Now, if you've grown up as an independent fundamental Baptist,
which I know like 90% of you have not, except the children,
most people here, you know, didn't necessarily come from that background,
but they constantly talk about revival, right?
They just always, it's just, we got to pray for revival
and, you know, we want revival to come.
And they're always talking about revival.
And it's sort of like this mythical thing that's kind of like
always right around the corner, but it never quite arrives, you know,
but it's kind of like, it's like the golden pot at the end of the rainbow
where the closer you get to it, the more elusive it becomes.
But they've got all kinds of wonderful stories from the past
that none of us were really there for, can really verify,
but stories from the past, a long, long ago in a galaxy far away
where all this revival happened and all these wonderful soul winning events
and preaching and things happen.
But now we just kind of are in this mode where we're just kind of like
waiting for revival or praying for revival.
You know, God needs to send revival and stuff like that.
But, you know, I don't believe in this idea of revival in that sense.
And here's why I don't like all this revival talk
because I think we can just have revival anytime we want to.
Like, I don't think that God is like, well, you know,
I think I'm going to wait till the year 2032 to send revival or whatever.
That makes no sense.
God's eyes are going to and fro throughout all the earth.
He's just looking for someone who wants to do something great for him
and he's ready to pour out his spirit.
He's ready to show himself mighty on their behalf.
He's ready to do a great work anytime.
The only question is, are we ready?
OK.
And instead of this kind of elusive praying for it to happen,
waiting for it to happen,
wondering if it's going to happen,
you know, the idea is that we're supposed to be out making it happen.
Making it happen.
You say, well, that's not true because it's got to be a work of God.
It's got to be a work of the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, but God's already involved.
God's already in play.
So it's not like, well, you know,
and I remember hearing this a lot, too, growing up.
We don't want to get ahead of God.
You know, let's not get ahead of God.
You know, let's wait for the working of the Holy Spirit.
But here's the thing about it.
You can't get ahead of God.
God's already in play.
He's already running.
He's already running to and fro in the earth.
His eyes are going everywhere.
He's like this.
He's like this recruiter for a sports team, you know,
and he's looking for that new talent to put on the basketball team or whatever.
Okay, and he's going everywhere, and he's ready to do a big work at any time.
It's really up to us whether we're going to take advantage of the power that's already there,
the promises that are already there.
All of the tools are there.
And so instead of this talk of waiting for revival,
praying for revival, hoping for revival,
and all this talk about these stories from the past,
here's the thing about these stories from the past.
I don't really buy that a lot of them are even real.
I question whether they're even real.
Maybe they are real.
I hope they're real.
Probably not.
You know, because, you know, I'll believe it when I see it.
You know, and so when I see a group of people that are kind of dead,
and then they talk about all this stuff from the past,
and then I'm thinking to myself, well, why aren't you doing that now?
Like, you know, where's it at?
Where's the proof right now?
Because there's no reason why you would have had all these glory days a long time ago.
Now you're dead as a doordale.
What changed?
God didn't change, okay?
Maybe the stories are overrated,
or maybe you were doing something totally different back then,
and if you started doing that same thing again now,
you'd probably get the same results again now, okay?
And look, I don't like this kind of doom and gloom attitude of like,
well, you know, back then you could do it,
but today, you know, it's just too hard today.
It's just we're living in that Laodicean church age,
and, you know, back then it was the Philadelphian age or whatever, you know,
but now it's the Laodicean, you know.
First of all, those church ages aren't real and don't exist, okay?
But number two, the thing is that we can have Philadelphia whenever we want,
and you can become Laodicea whenever you want.
You know, those are just examples of what churches are like
at different stages and different times,
and so, you know, what we need is more preaching about how to actually get it done
and what God wants to do and what God wants us to do,
and let's talk of this elusive revival, okay?
Because if we just go out and get it done, then revival will happen, you know.
I mean, what does the word revival even mean?
It basically means, you know, if you know Spanish,
you know what the vive part means, right?
Vivir, to live.
Revive, like live again.
If something's dead and you want it to live again.
So with this constant talk of we need revival, we need revival,
is basically you're saying like I'm dead, I'm dead, we're dead.
Breathe some life into this place because it's dead.
Here's the thing, we don't need revival because our church isn't dead.
You know, this church has been around for like 18 years.
I don't think there was ever a time when you would say
Faithful Word Baptist Church is kind of a dead church.
You know, they have a name that they live, but they're dead.
No, because for the last 18 years, there have been people getting saved every week.
Visitors virtually every week.
People are constantly getting baptized.
Lives are being changed.
Missions trips are going on all over Arizona, all over the world.
It's always happening here.
It's just a continual state of, you know, it's not a state of revival.
It's just, it's just vival.
You know, we're not into revival.
We're just vival.
We just keep on viving.
We don't need to revive because we never stopped viving.
And so, we need to get past this idea of waiting for something to happen.
Okay?
You know, God did not tell us to go by the mulberry trees
and wait for the sound of the going in the mulberry trees.
Okay?
You're not David.
This isn't the Old Testament.
You know, the New Testament is just go.
Preach the gospel to every creature.
Preach from the house top.
And you know, we're out there soul winning.
We're preaching the Bible.
We're getting it done, and stuff happens.
And the church stays exciting.
The church stays alive.
The church thrives.
We just got to keep doing what we're doing.
And so, God is always ready to act.
His eyes are running to and fro in the earth,
looking for someone whose heart is perfect toward him
so that he can show himself mighty on their behalf.
But, you know, let's change gears for a second
because this is a great verse.
And so, I want to spend a lot of time talking about this verse
because this is one of those verses that you need
to just kind of put into your brain
and make it a part of your worldview.
Right?
Like, you know, earlier I was on the phone with someone today
and I was talking about Romans 8.28.
You know, all things work together for good
to them that love God.
You know, that's a verse that I quote like every week.
In my head, I quote it almost every day
just because of the fact that it is just part of who I am.
It's part of my worldview.
It's part of how I think.
It's just one of those, like, core teachings
or core things that you constantly go back to
and it shapes the way that you view the world
and the way that you live your life.
This verse is one of those type of things
that you want to shape your worldview
and to just become a part of who you are.
Like, you want to have this verse in your heart
and understand this and think about it.
Now, you know, we talked about it from a revival perspective.
Right?
But more than that, how about if we generalize this even more?
You know, the Bible says in verse 9,
for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth
to show himself strong.
And then look at these next three words.
In the behalf, right, we would in our modern maniac
go say on the behalf, right?
We would say on the behalf of them
whose heart is perfect toward him.
You know, this tells me that God wants to help you.
He wants to show himself mighty on your behalf.
Okay?
And, you know, it's funny.
Whenever I talk to people that are doubting their salvation,
here's one of the things that I tell people
that are doubting their salvation.
You know, first of all, I make sure
that they have the right beliefs about salvation.
But if a person has the right beliefs about salvation
and has clearly put their faith and trust in Jesus
as their only way to heaven,
but then they're still just doubting their salvation
just because they're human,
you know, I want to give this person assurance
because of the fact that, you know, they clearly,
like, I know they're saved based on what they're saying,
unless they're just lying to me, but, you know,
I don't think they are.
But, you know, I know they're saved,
but it's just that we're human, so we doubt,
and they get worried and whatever.
And so I want to set their mind at ease.
I want to give them assurance from the Word of God.
And one of the things that I always tell these people
that are struggling with this is that, you know,
God wants you to be saved just as much as you want to be saved.
You want to be saved? You want to go to heaven?
Well, guess what?
God wants you to go to heaven
just as much as you want to go to heaven.
I mean, do you think God is up in heaven
just trying to mess with you and trying to confuse you
and trying to trick you,
and He just wants to just exclude you from heaven
on some kind of a technicality?
That wouldn't make any sense, would it?
Why would Jesus sit there and pay for your sins
and go through all that? Because He loves you.
He wants you to be saved.
The Bible says God is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
And the Bible says that God so loved the world
that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life.
Notice, the whosoever believeth is who is not going to perish,
but did He only love the whosoever believeth?
No, He loved the whole world.
He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son
said whosoever believeth in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life.
God is not willing that any should perish,
but that all should come to repentance.
He will have all men to be saved
and to come into the knowledge of the truth.
God wants people to be saved.
He doesn't want to damn people. He doesn't want to sit you down.
So, you know, just as much as you want to go to heaven,
God wants you to go to heaven even more.
So He's not trying to mess with you. He's not trying to trick you.
You come to Him sincerely.
Put your faith and trust in Him. You'll be saved.
Him that cometh to me, Jesus said,
I will in no wise cast out.
Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
And so here, you know, that's with regard to salvation,
but also when it comes to the Christian life,
God wants us to succeed.
He's not trying to set us up for failure.
He wants us to do well. He wants us to succeed.
Now, I'm not up here preaching some kind of prosperity sermon,
but here's the thing.
The prosperity preaching is mixing truth with lies.
So we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Here's the truth.
God does want you to prosper because the Bible,
and I'm not talking about getting rich
and having an air-conditioned doghouse and whatever.
Although in Arizona, that might not be a terrible idea.
But the point is that it's just there's a famous TV preacher
who got like exposed on TV for having an air-conditioned doghouse.
That was like the sign of his luxury or whatever.
But in Arizona, it ain't that luxurious.
I don't have a dog, so I don't know.
When you have 12 kids, you don't need pets.
You got enough fun little creatures running around to play with.
You don't need another one.
But the point is, and they're all in an air-conditioned part of the house.
But here's the thing.
You know, God is telling us all the time, you know,
that, hey, if we meditate on his word,
whatsoever we do is going to prosper.
Seek first the kingdom of God.
All these things will be added unto you.
You know, there are all these wonderful promises.
God wants us to succeed.
I mean, do you think that God wants a missionary
to go to some foreign country and just fail and not get people saved?
I mean, obviously he wants people to succeed.
He wants us, if we go on a missions trip or to a missions field
or if we go out soul-winning or whatever,
he wants us to succeed.
If we're planting a church, you know, the idea is to succeed.
Okay.
God wants us to get the job done
just as much as we want to get the job done.
Okay.
He's not trying to trick us or trying to mess with us.
And so we need to understand that God is on our side.
God is for us if our heart is perfect toward him.
Okay.
Now, perfect in this context does not mean sinless.
Okay.
Because sometimes people misunderstand the word perfect
as like we use it in 2024 to mean it has no flaw, no error.
But in the Bible, the word perfect means complete.
It's not lacking any major parts.
Mature or complete or the whole thing, the whole package.
So people that the Bible refers to as being perfect
or having a heart that's perfect toward God
means they don't have some big glaring part of their life that's wrong.
Okay.
It means that they have the whole package of serving God.
They don't have some big problem where, you know,
you know, for example, let's say you have somebody who goes to church,
reads the Bible, prays, but, you know, they're living with their girlfriend
that they're not married to or something.
They're living in fornication.
You know, that's like a big problem.
Or like let's say you have a Christian who lives a really clean life
and they go to church, but they don't ever evangelize.
They don't ever witness.
They don't ever preach the gospel or go soul winning, right?
There's like something big missing from their life, right?
Or somebody who goes to church and evangelize,
but they never read their Bible or they never pray or whatever.
You know, some big missing chunk.
That's the imperfection that we're talking about here.
Whereas being perfect with the Lord
or having a heart that's perfect with the Lord
means that in general, right, you have all the pieces of the puzzle
when it comes to serving God.
You know, you've got the clean life.
You've got the, you know, the Bible study.
You've got the evangelism.
You've got the church attendance.
You've got the love for God.
You've got the love for people.
You know, go down the list, whatever the list.
There's not a list, but just the person who's got the whole package.
We're not talking about sinless perfection.
We're not talking about somebody who's without error
because if we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not.
And so what the Bible is saying here is, you know,
if you're serious about serving God, your heart's perfect before God,
it just means that you're a dedicated Christian.
You know, you're following God in general.
It doesn't mean that you never make a mistake.
Obviously, we all have areas of our life that need work,
but we do want to be one whose heart is perfect toward Him,
meaning, hey, we want to serve God in all areas of our life.
We want to please Him in all areas of our life.
And God's looking for people like that
so that He can show Himself mighty through them
so that He can do something great with them.
And God can do great things through you
because it doesn't say He's scouting talent like a sports coach,
although I used that as an illustration.
I was only kidding.
And I was talking about, you know, He's scouting for the spiritual talent
because God's not looking for the best-looking person.
He's not looking for the most intellectual.
He's not looking for the person with the academic credentials.
He's not looking for the person with the physical strength and prowess
and the highest numbers on the bench press, squats and deadlift.
He's not necessarily looking for the most eloquent speaker.
No, He's looking for the person with the right heart.
And He is ready to do something great, something mighty.
And, look, He wants us...
What do I really want you to take away from this verse?
That is that God is for us.
He wants to help us succeed.
He wants us to win.
He wants us to do great works for Him.
He wants the church to succeed.
He wants the soul wanting to succeed.
He wants to do something for your benefit, on your behalf.
He wants to show Himself mighty for you
because He wants you to succeed as you serve Him.
And it's so important that you grasp this idea
because we don't want to get this attitude
that God's somehow working against us or something.
If you're not right with God
and you're rebelling against God in some area of your life,
then maybe God is working against you, and that's a real bummer.
But if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing, God is for you.
And if God be for you, who can be against you?
And so I hope that that helps you maybe get something out of this verse.
I'm sure if you meditate on this verse, you'll probably get a lot out of it
because there's just a lot here.
That's why it's such a popular verse.
So He says at the end of the verse, in verse 9b,
Herein, thou hast done foolishly.
Therefore, from henceforth, thou shalt have wars.
He's saying, you know, if you would have done like you did with the Ethiopians,
I gave you 20 years of peace.
But now, even though you won the battle in the short term,
you're not going to have the peace that you would have had
if you would have done things the right way.
You're going to have wars from here on out.
Now, this pastor is not really pulling any punches
because he says, you know, you've done foolishly.
He's saying what you did was stupid.
So therefore, Asa gets mad.
It says in verse number 10, then Asa was wroth.
Wroth is an adjective, wrath is a noun, but it's the same root, right?
Wroth, angry.
He was wroth with the seer and put him in a prison house,
for he was in a rage with him because of this thing.
And Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time.
So this is a violation of free speech here, right?
All this guy did was talk.
He just preached. He just said something.
And because Asa's mad about the preaching, puts him in prison.
Now notice, at the same time he puts the man of God in prison
for preaching the word of God, Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time.
And what you have to understand is that our liberties are connected to one another.
And so an attack on the freedom of religion is an attack on freedom in general.
And it's easy for somebody to sit back and say,
well hey, you know, of course Pastor Anderson should be banned from YouTube
and banned from social media because he's preaching hate
and he's such a mean-spirited, you know, ugly person.
And that's how a lot of people feel.
But here's the funny thing is that, yeah, I got banned from YouTube
and I got banned from other social media platforms and so forth.
But you know who else got banned just a couple of years after I did?
Who else got banned from social media just a couple of years after I did?
Donald Trump. The President of the United States.
Now stop and think about that.
How the elected President of the United States,
doesn't matter what you think about him or what I think about him, that's not the point.
The point is that he is the person that the people elected to be the President of the United States, right?
Obviously I have problems with him morally and spiritually.
Obviously he's done and said some raunchy things.
But the point is he is the people's elected representative.
He is the leader of the free world, right?
He is the one that the people voted for to be President of the United States.
And a couple of billionaires running corporations that were not elected by the people,
that were not chosen by the people, have the power to silence the people's representatives.
So the people's representative wants to speak to the people that elected him
and some billionaire that nobody elected just says,
No, we don't want to hear what you have to say.
You're muzzled. You're silenced. Because we said so.
I mean, who made that decision?
Did the people of the United States vote and say,
We don't want to hear Donald Trump on social media?
Did the Senate pass a resolution?
We don't want to hear Donald Trump speak.
Did the Congress? No.
It's just a couple of corporations run by just a handful of people
in a dark smoke-filled room somewhere
just deciding that we don't get to hear what Donald Trump has to say.
And look, it doesn't even matter whether you want to hear what Donald Trump has to say or not.
It doesn't even matter whether he has anything good to say or bad to say.
That's not even the point.
The point is that he was the elected leader of the country
and people can't hear what he has to say because he's banned on social media.
That's bizarre.
That is an attack on freedom in our country.
It doesn't matter who it is if he's the elected representative.
You know, it'd be the same thing if Biden were kicked off of social media.
You know, for being too senile or whatever.
You know?
It'd be the same thing. It'd be like, wait a minute.
You know, even if we don't like this guy.
Like, this is the President of the United States.
Like, how can some billionaire who's unelected, some corporation somewhere,
just decide that this guy's not allowed to talk to us?
I mean, think about it. Like Franklin Roosevelt, right?
Back almost a hundred years ago now.
And he would address the nation.
What was it called, you history fans out there?
The fireside chats, right?
And so he would do the fireside chat and he's communicating with the people.
Doesn't he have the right to do that if he's the elected leader of the people?
Like, he can't communicate with people?
Back then it's the radio with the fireside chat.
Now it's the internet.
And the point that I'm making here is that, you know, banning Pastor Anderson is just like,
well, yeah, of course we're going to ban Pastor Anderson.
But it's a slippery slope, my friend, when you start limiting the free speech of people.
And guess what? It ends up getting to the point where now even the President of the United States
can get banned from social media.
What is that?
And so, you know, I'm kind of comparing that to this story where the preacher gets put in prison.
Well, yeah, but I mean, you know, he didn't have the right to come in and preach that hard and say those things.
Okay, but guess what? Other people are getting oppressed too.
What does the Bible say?
It says in verse 10, Asa was wroth with the seer, put him in a prison house,
for he was in a rage with him because of this thing, and Asa oppressed some of the people at the same time.
Why? Because these things go hand in hand.
You start silencing the preacher, and pretty soon you're taking away everybody's freedom.
So if you want to lose your freedom, America, just let these big corporations silence the preaching of God's word,
and then enjoy being oppressed, because you deserve it.
If you're going to sit back and say, oh, it's fine to silence these biblical preachers,
because we don't like what they're saying anyway,
okay, well then enjoy oppression, enjoy tyranny, enjoy losing your freedoms,
because you don't care about the First Amendment.
Well, guess what? The Second Amendment's next, and then it's going to be the Fourth Amendment,
and, you know, let's not even talk about the Sixth and Seventh Amendment, because they don't even exist anymore.
But, you know, I don't want to get political tonight.
And so the point is that you've got to stand up for the right for men of God to preach the word of God,
and to preach hard against sin, and even to preach against leaders.
Right? I mean, look, this guy is preaching against the king.
Well, I don't think he should do that. I don't think he should be preaching against the king like that.
Well, you know what? God is the one who sent him to do this.
You know, he's preaching by the Spirit of God.
You say, well, how do you know that this, how do you know, because we're reading a historical book, right?
How do we know, because when we're reading a historical book, we have to interpret it based on the context,
you know, how do we know that this is, that this preacher is right?
How do we know that what he's preaching is the word of God?
Well, I just showed you, it's like the coolest verse in the whole book.
And the word of God is self-authenticating.
The word of God has power.
No preacher dreams up a verse that powerful.
That kind of a powerful scripture comes from God.
So there's your proof that this guy is filled with the Spirit of God,
and that he's preaching a message directly from God, because God is clearly the author of verse number nine.
And yet, Asa doesn't like it, because Asa is not right with God.
It's a little too close to home.
You want to know why I get banned from social media?
It's for telling the truth and being a little too close to home.
I'm saying the truth a little bit too loud.
And you know, it's just, it's too easy to prove the things that I'm saying are right.
I mean, what is it that gets me banned from social media the most?
You know, because I preach a lot of stuff.
But the thing that gets me banned the most is preaching against the homos.
Right? Isn't that the big one?
You know what's funny, though, is that I was one time surfing YouTube,
and I forget why I was watching this video, but there was some kind of a video,
and it was like at a university, and it was these academics,
and they were discussing something, and somehow the subject of homos came up, whatever.
I left a comment, and I'm like, I switched into, like, academic mode.
You know, I got an academic mode.
And so I switched into academic mode, and I basically left a comment and said,
you know, hey, what was said at this minute and this second is not correct.
Here's the true story.
And I quoted statistics from cdc.gov and gave a link, and I mean, you know,
I don't know if it was MLA or APA or Chicago or Tarabian or what it was,
but I cited my source.
Isn't that what all these academics, you know,
they really want you to cite your sources?
I cited the source. I did not give my opinion at all.
I literally just said, you're wrong because this is what the CDC is saying right here.
I quoted the statistics on homos directly and gave a link and everything,
and my comment was deleted by a university.
This was a university that had this YouTube channel.
So they're just so interested in science and the truth and academic integrity.
That's why I cited a source that, I mean, I guarantee you,
if I asked any professor on that campus, if I went to that campus,
it was in Australia or somewhere stupid like that.
But I went around, you know, it was in that stupid place.
But basically, that's the thumbnail for the video.
You know, I went and if I went and just asked every professor on that campus,
hey, if I'm writing a paper for your class, is it okay if I cite cdc.gov?
They'd be like, yeah, that's a good source for academic writing.
There's not a professor on that campus that would say, oh, sorry,
that's a radical right-wing website or that's not a trusted source for information.
Typically, any kind of a school assignment, if it's .gov or .edu, they'll eat that up.
cdc.gov is perfect for them.
But no, my comment was deleted by some fag-loving idiot who doesn't care about the truth.
They don't care about facts.
Well, maybe there was missing context.
Well, that's why I gave a link to the site
so you can go look at all the gory, filthy details yourself.
There's even more diseases than I had time to mention in a short comment.
It's a disease fest.
By the way, here's a little anecdote.
You know, I was witnessing to some people from the Czech Republic,
which is like I've heard it mentioned as the most atheistic country in the world.
Who's heard something about that?
It's like the most atheistic country in Europe or atheistic country in the world, whatever.
But anyway, I was talking to these people from the Czech Republic,
and I was preaching the Word of God to them.
I was talking to them about the Gospel, but they kept wanting to talk about other stuff,
and they kept wanting to talk about homos.
You know, I want to talk about Jesus.
They want to talk about homos, okay?
Story of my life.
I'm for peace, but when I speak, they're for war.
And so I'm sitting there, and one of them was like way more normal than the other.
One of them was like married with kids and way more normal,
and then the other, these were both ladies,
and the other one was like really just hating God,
and, you know, ultimately she said that she was bisexual or something, whatever weird thing.
But anyway, so I'm, you know, I'm giving the Gospel,
and I've accidentally witnessed more homos than a lot of the bleeding heart old IFB has on purpose,
you know, but then they're mad at me for, you know, neglecting them or something.
But anyway, I'm sitting there and preaching the Gospel,
but they keep wanting, you know, they want to talk about homos and whatever.
And anyway, I started quoting statistics and scientific data
because they said, they said, we're academics.
So we're, you know, that's what they said to me,
that they're really interested in this conversation because they're academics.
And when I quoted the statistics about homos having just this incredible number of partners,
you know, there was a study done a while back
where like 43% of homos had had like over 500 partners in their life or something,
21% had had like over 1,000 or whatever.
You know, you can look it up on your own, but there was a study like that.
And I was saying that, you know, that's the real reason why, according to cdc.gov,
and again, this is the government's own website,
a male sodomite is like, last time I did the math, it's different every year,
but it was like 232 times more likely to get AIDS this year than a straight male.
A homo is 232 times more likely to get AIDS this year, you know,
and that was based on doing the math from cdc.gov's own website, okay,
just astronomical the rate of disease amongst these people.
The only way to explain it is the fact that they're having hundreds of partners,
hundreds of random encounters, then it makes sense.
And so the more normal person that I was talking to just totally scoffed at these numbers,
just said, that's ridiculous, that's crazy,
there's no way anyone could ever reach those kind of numbers.
You know, like, how can you even say this with a straight face and stuff?
But then what's funny is that the one who pronounced herself to be a pervert,
she's bi or whatever, she's sitting there going like,
wait, is that over a lifetime?
And then she's sitting there doing the math, she's like, yeah, that checks out.
And I'm just thinking to myself, yeah, well, here we go, you know,
we got one person here who's living a normal life, married with kids or whatever,
and is just mind blown by these bizarre statistics,
because it is kind of hard to believe, it's kind of crazy.
But then the one over here that's professing to be a pervert is like, yeah, the math checks out.
And you know what's funny is that the more you go through life just talking to people,
you just find that the Bible just keeps being right over and over and over again.
The Bible just keeps being right over and over again.
And you know what? CDC keeps being right about homos.
Not saying they're right about everything, but man, they've got the homos number, okay?
And it's a big number.
All right.
That was a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I have no regrets.
So, you know, go ahead and put me in the prison house, put me in Facebook jail,
but you know who's going to Facebook jail next?
Other people.
Maybe even the President of the United States himself, which I think that that's one of the,
to me, again, and I'm not even into politics.
I'm not a Trump fan.
I'm not even into it.
But I think that Trump being banned from social media is probably one of the most significant political developments that I've seen in my lifetime.
As far as just, that is so significant and just so mind blowing.
That's one of the wildest things that I think that has happened in our country recently that just shows the problem
that these giant media corporations, because what they are is they're monopolies, right?
And then other companies, remember when they banned Trump?
Other companies tried to step in and compete.
And then Amazon was like stopping those companies from competing, taking away their space on servers,
and making it impossible for them to create alternatives to Twitter and alternatives to Facebook and YouTube and everything.
They're literally making it impossible, right?
Here's the thing. If you're going to have this monopoly, and then you're going to decide who gets to speak and who doesn't,
you know, it is an attack on free speech.
Because you're effectively silencing people who are just, and here's the thing.
Nobody's saying that, hey, we should allow a speech on there that breaks the law or something.
You know, if somebody is saying something that breaks the law, then isn't that the police's job to deal with that or figure that out?
But these social media sites are banning speech that's legal.
It's totally legal to preach the whole Bible. I mean, look, if it were not legal, I would have gotten in trouble by now.
I'm getting up here and preaching the Bible and preaching everything under the sun from the Bible.
Why do I get away with it? Because it's legal. Because we're in America.
If I was in some other country, you know, I'd be getting raided by the police or whatever.
But guess what? It's America. We have free speech and we also have free practice of our religion,
which involves preaching the whole Bible, even the parts that are negative toward homos.
But then you preach those parts of the Bible, you quote those scriptures, and you get banned on social media
because they're not enforcing the laws. They're a law unto themselves.
They have their own laws that no one voted on, that no one elected anyone to decide.
It's just some pervert billionaire just decides, I don't want you talking bad about homos.
And you say, well, Pastor Anderson, you know, are you just going to keep preaching that way?
Are you just going to keep ringing that bell? Because, you know, eventually we just need to realize that we're past that.
We will never be past that. If you don't want to hear me rip on homos and call them faggots and everything else,
and talk about what the Bible says, that they're reprobates, that they're worthy of death.
You know, if you don't want to hear that kind of preaching, you're going to have to wait until I die
and get some other namby-pamby up here that's not going to tell you that.
Because I'm not, I'm never just going to be like, well, you know, we fought that battle and we lost.
We don't lose battles around here because of God before us who can be against us.
We don't lose battles. We're just always hashtag winning and we're not going to stop.
All right, let's move on. Verse 11, behold, the acts of, and by the way, neither of those people got saved.
You know, that's the end of the story. The end. They did not live happily ever after.
And behold, the acts of Asa, verse 11, first and last, lo, they're written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel,
and Asa in the thirty and ninth year of his reign was diseased in his feet until his disease was exceeding great.
Yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
Now, obviously I'm almost out of time, but man, there's a lot to talk about even just in this verse right here.
Because first of all, just the concept that something like your feet could destroy your whole body or literally kill you, right?
The Bible talks about how when one member suffers, the whole body suffers.
And think about how just the tiniest little cancer or the tiniest little infection could literally kill you or cripple you or destroy your whole body.
And so he's diseased in his feet. And it might seem like some silly thing, just, oh, it's just your feet.
It's athlete's foot. It's, you know, whatever. I don't know what kind of disease he had.
Is it a fungus? Is it a bacteria? Is it some other malady of the feet?
But whatever it is, it ends up really taking him down and crippling him and ultimately killing him.
And the thing about that is that in his disease, it says in verse twelve, he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
And the idea here is that the physicians represent Syria, right?
The disease in his feet represents the problem with the king of Israel.
And it's showing the same mentality that didn't trust God to fight Israel is the same mentality that doesn't trust God about the disease in his feet.
Now, what we don't want to do is we don't want to take a scripture like this and teach that, oh, it's wrong to go to the doctor.
That is not what the Bible is teaching. We need to take this in the context of all scripture.
Okay. Jesus Christ himself said they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick do need a physician.
So Jesus is not telling us we don't need doctors. And if you remember the apostle Paul, he had a physician traveling with him.
Luke, the beloved physician who, you know, is his personal doctor or whatever.
And so there's nothing wrong with going to the doctor. There's nothing wrong with going to a physician.
Physicians have their place. We need physicians.
We don't want to become these kind of snake handling Pentecostals who don't ever go to the doctor because we're just trusting the Lord or something.
That's an abuse of this doctrine. But what the Bible is actually teaching is that we should always seek the Lord first.
And even if we do seek medical treatment, we should seek medical treatment with prayer and with our faith in God and relying on God to even give wisdom under the doctors and so forth.
The idea that Christians should never go to the doctor is absurd and unbiblical. It's not taught in scripture.
But even before you take an aspirin, you should first pray for God to take away the headache.
Before you even take something as simple as an aspirin. I'm not saying it's wrong to take an aspirin.
I'm saying you pray first. You ask God to help you first. Then if you need to, you go to medicine.
And then you pray for the medicine to take effect.
Everything needs to be acknowledging God. In all our ways, we need to acknowledge Him and He'll direct our paths.
And you know, many times if we pray about things, we won't even necessarily need the medical treatment because God will just help us out.
But sometimes you're going to need to go to the doctor, of course.
So we don't want to be like the Jehovah's Witnesses who refuse blood transfusions or the Pentecostals who think that they should never go to the doctor and they throw their medicine on the stage at the Benny Hinn rally or whatever.
That's not what this is teaching. Okay.
You know, and by the way, you know, the Bible all throughout the Bible, we have things like also not just physicians, but also things like midwives.
Right. And you have you have midwives that are helping women give birth.
What's interesting about human beings, one of the things that's different about us from animals is that most animals can easily give birth on their own without any help.
But human beings actually need help giving birth because it's very unique the way that human beings give birth.
It's not the same as a gorilla or chimpanzee or a monkey that, you know, people look at the apes and say like, oh, you know, they're so similar to us with their DNA.
Well, you know, any you know, you don't need to look at the DNA to see that apes and humans look alike because we both have two eyes and a nose and a mouth and hands and feet.
I didn't need modern science to tell me that.
And by the way, this baloney about like, oh, 97 percent the same DNA.
That's if you ignore 40 percent of the DNA or whatever.
You know, don't quote me on those numbers.
But in order for it to be 97 percent the same, you have to ignore this huge part of the DNA.
So how does that work?
Look it up and you'll see that I'm telling the truth again.
My numbers, I'm just spitballing.
But, you know, the spirit of what I just said is 100 percent accurate and I could defend it any day of the week.
But the point is that they have to, you know, line up the DNA and ignore a bunch of sections and stuff.
And then they say, oh, mine is some percent the same.
Here's why it's 97 percent the same.
Both have hair, hands, five fingers, five toes, feet, knees, legs, chest, two nipples, you know.
Do they have a belly button?
I'm assuming.
I mean, of course, like you don't even need DNA to look at an ape and see like, hey, two eyes, mouth, nose, ears.
You know, and look, when I was, you know, when you're overseas sometimes you see some really hairy dudes that I've never seen in America.
I saw, I rode in a taxi cab.
This was the hairiest dude I've ever seen.
I mean, this guy was maybe a little more than 97 percent in common with that ape.
Because this guy, he just had a couple extra, you know, base pairs that matched up.
Because this guy was the hairiest dude I've ever seen.
And he was wearing a tank top.
He was just like, here I am in all of my hairy glory.
I was blown away.
I mean, this guy, you know, if the cab drive gets slow, this guy could, you know, work at the circus.
And I'm just kidding, you know.
God bless the guy.
But the point is, the point is that, yeah, okay, there are similarities, but you know what?
There are also colossal differences.
Like the fact that our intelligence is just exponentially beyond an animal.
And no animal actually uses speech.
They communicate.
You know, okay, but, and I know some people communicate that way, too.
But the point is that, you know, we are so unique, we're made in the image of God, we're using speech.
And it's like, oh, look, this animal used a tool.
Because it just like picks up a rock.
It cracks open a nut with a rock.
You know, we're over here like making rockets that go to space.
And then you got some monkey with a rock smashing an acorn.
It's like, oh, he's just like us.
He's using tools.
But obviously there are a lot of differences.
You know, there are a lot of things that are unique about humans.
You know, you never see animals cooking their food.
You know, and you rarely see humans going around eating raw meat.
We cook our food.
You know, we're special.
And one of the other things that makes us special is that, you know, women need assistance to give birth.
Whereas apes don't.
Because the way that they give birth is totally different.
And so obviously, yeah, I know that there are women out there who just go squat over a hole in the desert and give birth.
But that's not the norm.
In general, in general, women need assistance when they give birth.
In general, somebody has to receive, catch the baby, receive the baby.
You know, it's just the way that we're designed as humans.
We have to work together.
And, you know, that's one of the big differences between apes and humans besides all the other million super obvious differences.
You know, in spite hair levels or whatever.
But the point is that, you know, you have midwives in the Bible helping out.
And by the way, you know, I do not recommend this thing of unassisted home birth.
While we're talking about people who are, like, abstaining from medicine.
Unassisted home birth is a bad idea.
Okay?
Now you say, well, why?
You know, I know somebody and it went well.
Yeah, unassisted home birth goes great until it doesn't.
I mean, look, my wife has given birth 12 times.
How many of them at home?
Nine?
So she's given birth three times at the hospital, nine times at home.
Okay?
And here's the thing about that.
A lot of times with the home birth, the midwife doesn't really do anything that was super important that, like, we couldn't have done it without her.
A lot of times the midwife is just kind of there and just kind of supervising and just kind of helping out.
But, like, not anything that's super critical.
And you could be tempted to think, I could have done this without her.
But then there are those times, though, when something goes wrong, that's when the midwife is necessary.
Because, look, yeah, obviously the husband can learn the basics and just deliver the baby himself.
You know, I know some things because I've seen some things.
Okay?
But at the end of the day, though, when it goes sideways, no pun intended, I'm not going to know what to do.
You know, it's going to be like that time that I was hiking with Brother Antonucci and Scott and who else was with us that time?
And Quinn, yeah.
And I don't know if you remember this, Quinn, but we're down at the bottom of this canyon and Danny's finger just gets dislocated in this horrible way that made me sick to even look at it.
You know, let alone have it be on my own hand.
And I look to Quinn and Scott and I'm like, I'm like, do any of you guys know anything about first aid?
And they're like, nope.
And I'm like, me neither.
We all just knew nothing.
And, you know, it's a long story, but it had a happy ending.
And, yeah, his finger was fine.
You know, a few hours of torture later, he was fine.
The point is that like we, you know, normally hiking with Pastor Anderson is going to go great.
And, you know, and I, you know, I encourage you to go hiking with me sometime.
But if stuff goes sideways, I can't help you on a hike.
Warning, I don't know first aid.
And so the point is, yeah, of course, husbands or other friends can help out with giving birth as long as it's just a standard everything going well birth.
But when things go sideways, that's when you need the midwife there.
You have the expert there for the small percentage of times when things go wrong.
And you know what?
It's that time that you need it and don't have it when the mother could die, the baby could die.
And, you know, out of nine home births, there were a couple times when things got pretty scary where my wife was hemorrhaging and there's just a bunch of blood coming out.
And the midwife jumped in and took care of it.
Another time when, you know, Isaac was being strangled by the cord and everything.
And, you know, that kind of explains a lot.
No, I'm just kidding.
But anyway, he got a little choke there while he's being born.
But, you know, oxygen cut off.
But the point is that, you know, that's when you need the midwife there, because when Isaac was born, the midwives was like, she's just like, whoa.
And she just she just untangled him so fast.
And then everything was fine.
Right?
Everything fine?
Everything functioning?
And so the point is that, you know, that's when you need them there for those times when you're hemorrhaging and when something goes wrong.
And so it's easy to just get cocky and be like, oh, we don't need no stinking midwife.
Yeah, you don't need a midwife until you do.
And then it's too late because you're by yourself and you don't know what to do and your wife's bleeding out and, you know, what do you do then?
Right?
And not all, by the way, not all midwives are created equal.
You want to make sure that you actually have a good midwife, too, that knows what they're doing, because if you get a bozo midwife, that can be just as bad as no midwife sometimes.
And so all that to say this, the physicians have their place, but we should be constantly praying, trusting God, relying on God and not just going to the physicians without even asking God, without even realizing that ultimately God is the great physician.
He's the great healer.
And we rely on him.
I'm out of time, but let's borrow.
Father, we thank you so much for this passage and the example of King Asa.
Lord, help us to finish strong because we see Asa lived a really godly life for many decades.
And yet in his old age, he made these weird decisions of imprisoning the man of God and teaming up with wicked people instead of just doing what had worked in the past.
Lord, and if you've if you've blessed us in the past, help us have the faith that you'll bless us in the future and help us to keep trusting you and keep relying on you and praying to you first before we just run to try to get help from whatever human sources.
Lord bless us tonight as we go our separate ways in Jesus name.
We pray. Amen.
Amen.
We need a song book for I will sing of the mercies 195.
195 I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.
With my mouth will I may know, my faithfulness, my faithfulness.
With my mouth will I may know, my faithfulness to all generations.
I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever.
You