Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Faith Ward Baptist Church.
It's so nice to see you all here on this Wednesday evening.
Find your seats, please.
Grab a song book.
Go to hymn number 29.
We'll get started this evening.
Hymn number 29.
At the cross.
Hymn number 29.
Once you find your place, we'll start on that first verse together.
Hymn number 29.
The last and bid my Savior plead.
Hymn number 29.
The last and bid my Savior plead.
And then my sovereign died.
Hymn number 29.
Sing it out on that first now.
The last and bid my Savior plead.
And then my sovereign died.
For he has borne that sacred hand.
For such a warm hand's eye.
At the cross.
Where I first saw the light.
Where the burden of my heart rolled away.
At the cross.
Where I first saw the light.
Where the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith I received my sight.
And now I am happy all the day.
Once in the crimes that I have done.
He groaned upon the tree.
Amazing did he grace on the land.
Love beyond he grieve.
At the cross.
Where I first saw the light.
Where the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith I received my sight.
And now I am happy all the day.
Once in the crimes that I have done.
He groaned upon the tree.
Amazing did he grace on the land.
Love beyond he grieve.
At the cross.
Where I first saw the light.
And the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith I received my sight.
And now I am happy all the day.
Come, find the Son in darkness.
O land of creatures sing
At the cross
Where I first saw the light
And the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there by faith I received my sight.
And now I am happy all the day.
But I fiscal.
In their
Green can ne'er remain the dead of love I owe.
Dear Lord, I give myself away.
It's all that I can do.
At the cross, at the cross, where I've heard some light.
And the burden of my heart rolled away.
It was there my faith I received myself.
And now I am happy all the day.
Can I go start blessing this evening?
We want to ask the Lord's blessing on 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 the privilege that we have to be in church.
We thank you for the safety you've allowed us to have to be able to be here.
We ask the Lord your blessing upon us as we lift our voices to you in praise and worship.
We just ask that you help us focus on the words of these hymns as we sing them out to you.
And that you would just meet with us this evening.
Help us to have open hearts and ears to receive the message tonight.
That you would fill pastor with your Holy Spirit.
And that he may preach with power and unction.
And that everything that's said and done would give the honor and glory back to you.
And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen.
Back to hymn number 15.
Hymn number 15, lead me to Calvary.
Hymn number 15, we'll start on that first verse.
King of my life, I crown thee now.
Thine shall the glory be.
On that verse number 15, sing it out.
King of my life, I crown thee now.
Thine shall the glory be.
Lest I forget thy form, crown, crown.
Keep me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane.
Lest I forget thy agony.
Lest I forget thy love for me.
Leave me to Calvary.
Show me the tomb where thou wast laid.
Tenderly born and fed.
Angels and rogues of light array.
Garden we must now smell.
Lest I forget Gethsemane.
Lest I forget thy agony.
Lest I forget thy love for me.
Leave me to Calvary.
Let me, like Mary, through the gloom,
come with a gift to thee.
Show to me now the empty tomb.
Leave me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane.
Lest I forget thy agony.
Lest I forget thy love for me.
Leave me to Calvary.
May I be willing more to bear
daily my cross for thee.
Even thy cup of grief to share,
thou hast borne all for me.
Lest I forget Gethsemane.
Lest I forget thy agony.
Lest I forget thy love for me.
Leave me to Calvary.
This time
we'll 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, today, in fact, will be
2 Chronicles, chapter number 19. We've got the soul winning times listed there
below, as well as salvations and baptisms.
The baby shower already happened on Sunday. Thank you to everyone who participated in that.
Keep praying for the ladies that are expecting that they'll have a safe and healthy
pregnancy and delivery. On the back, we're taking portraits
for our annual church yearbook, and this is starting up this
Sunday, so you can get your picture taken any Sunday
from September 15th through November 3rd. The sign up is over here
to my right. They're asking that photos be taken
of families that have small children before the service, everybody else
afterwards. So, if you're a single, married couple,
family, whatever your situation, we want to make sure that everybody has a chance to get
these beautiful portraits taken, and we want to get everybody
in the yearbook, so please participate in that. Below that, there's a
trip to the Indian Reservation next weekend,
Friday and Saturday trip, leaving Friday morning, coming back Saturday evening.
The details, the schedule, and the sign up are over here to my right, and
that's also going to include a trip to Canyon de Chelly.
Missions conference is going to be here before we know it. It seems like it's this far
out thing in the future, but yet, it's less than two months away now,
and so keep that on your radar. Obviously,
you may not necessarily be able to come to every activity, but
if you can, great, if you end up just deciding to just have the time off and just do
everything, or you can just come to the evening services, or whatever you want
to do, but we will be having stuff going on from Wednesday night
all the way through Sunday. There will be services on Thursday, Friday,
Saturday, morning, and night, and then like fun
activities during the afternoon, and then
soul winning times, so lots of stuff going on that week. We'll release a
more detailed schedule once we get closer to that, and that's
about it for announcements. Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days, so going
back to Monday. Anything from Monday? Got it?
Okay. Anything else from Monday?
Gotcha. What's that? Oh, that's, you guys
took a missions trip.
To Vanuatu. Very nice. Did you want to come up and give a little testimony
about that on the spot? You look a little tied down there, so
we're going to hear from him at the missions conference.
So, they went out and did a missions trip in Vanuatu, and it sounds
like they had a total of 127 people saved on that trip.
So, it sounds like it was super receptive. Great. Who all was on that trip?
Rob Vichulano?
Oh, this Rob. Okay, cool.
Alright, so Rob, Theresa, you, nice. Well, great work, guys.
And then, anything from Monday? How about Tuesday?
Soul winning. Alright.
And then, today, we had five for the church van.
Anything outside of the van today? Anything else outside of the five?
Alright, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning, and with that, let's
sing our next song. Come lead us. Alright, you should find the insert in front of your hymnal
with Psalm 126. If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand and you'll receive one.
We'll start on that first verse together.
The Lord have done great things for them. The Lord have done
great things for us. Whereof we are
glad. Turn again our captivity.
Oh, the Lord has the
screams in the sound.
May the soul in tears shall reap in joy.
It's the day among the heathen. The Lord have done
great things for them. The Lord have done great things for us.
Whereof we are glad.
He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing
precious seed, shall now let's come again.
Shall now let's come again
with rejoicing, bringing his sheets
within. It's the day among
the heathen. The Lord have done great things for them. The Lord
have done great things for us. Whereof we are
glad.
Thank you, everybody. Let's go in your hymnals now to hymn number 168.
Hymn 168. All hail the power of Jesus' name.
This is the diadem version. This is not the version you're used to, so
if you know the parts of this, sing it out, and we'll sing it on that
verse, number 168. Sing it out now.
All hail the power of
Jesus' name. Let angels
come to call. Let angels
come straight home. Break forth
the royal diadem
and crown him,
crown him,
crown him, crown him,
and crown him Lord of all.
He chose and seen
of Israel's praise. He
ransomed from the fall. He ransomed
from the fall. Hail him
who saved you by his
praise, and crown
him,
crown him, crown him,
crown him, and crown him Lord
of all. Let every
injured, every drug
on this terrestrial home, on
this terrestrial home
to him, O majesty,
a strike, and crown
him,
crown him, crown him,
crown him, and crown him
Lord of all.
O man with daughters, save with
drug, we at his feet
may fall.
We'll join the ever-blasting
song and
crown him,
crown him, crown him,
crown him, and crown him
Lord of all.
All right, this time we'll pass the offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to 2 Chronicles 19.
2 Chronicles 19, as we always do.
We'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Hester as he reads.
2 Chronicles 19.
2 Chronicles 19, the Bible reads,
Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned to his house
in peace to Jerusalem. And Jehu, the son of Hanani
the seer, went out to meet him and said to king Jehoshaphat,
Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord?
Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord. Nevertheless,
there are good things found in thee, and that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land,
and hast prepared thine heart to seek God. And Jehoshaphat
dwelt at Jerusalem, and he went out again through the people from Beersheba
to Mount Ephraim, and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.
And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah,
city by city. And he said to the judges, Take heed what you do,
for you judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.
Wherefore now, let the fear of the Lord be upon you. Take heed,
and do it. For there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons,
nor taking of gifts. Moreover, in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat
set of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel,
for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies when they returned
to Jerusalem. And he charged them, saying, Thus shall you do
in the fear of the Lord, faithfully and with a perfect heart.
And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that dwell in their cities,
between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and judgments?
You shall even warn them that they trespass not against the Lord,
and so wrath come upon you and upon your brethren.
This do, and ye shall not trespass. And behold,
Amoriah the chief priest is over you in all matters of the Lord,
and Zebediah the son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah,
for all the king's matters, also the Levites, shall be officers before you.
Deal courageously, and the Lord shall be with the good.
Dear Father in Heaven, we are grateful to be here this Wednesday night
to help study and please bless Pastor Anderson and fill him with the Spirit, and we may be touched
by his message. We say this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Amen. 2 Chronicles 19, we're continuing the story of
Jehoshaphat. And if you remember, Jehoshaphat is a
great king. He's a godly man. He's a righteous man.
And if you remember, his father, Asa, had also been a righteous and godly king.
But then toward the end of his life, he ended up relying
on some enemies of the Lord that he teamed up with.
And that seemed like he was doing things right and doing well for a long time,
but he just had this one downfall is that he's just too nice.
And so Jehoshaphat, back in chapter 18,
he ends up teaming up with Ahab, who is the king of that northern kingdom.
And the northern kingdom of Israel is super wicked, and so
God was not pleased with the fact that Jehoshaphat teamed up with Ahab.
And if you remember, Micaiah the prophet was that
righteous prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel. Remember, just hundreds
of prophets are supporting Ahab and telling Ahab
what he wants to hear. But then Jehoshaphat said, you know, isn't there another
prophet of the Lord that we can inquire of? He could tell that those guys were bogus.
Micaiah came in, preached the truth, and
of course, Ahab ends up falling in battle and so forth.
And so it says in verse 1 of
chapter 19, Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned
to his house in peace to Jerusalem. So Jehoshaphat
had teamed up with the king of Israel. They had gone to battle.
The king of Israel is killed. Jehoshaphat comes home in peace.
But he never should have teamed up with him on that venture in the first place. And so now
a prophet is going to come and rebuke Jehoshaphat for
what he did in chapter 18. It says in verse number 2,
Jehoshaphat's son of Hanani, the seer, went out to meet him and said to
King Jehoshaphat, shouldest thou help the ungodly
and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is
wrath upon thee from before the Lord. And the person who hates the Lord
here that he's talking about, he's talking about the northern kingdom of
Israel, right? He's talking about teaming up with the king of Israel. He's saying, should you help
the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? The northern kingdom
of Israel is super wicked, worshipping Satan. They hate the Lord.
And so he shouldn't have teamed up with them. But look at verse 3.
It says, Nevertheless, there are good things found in thee, in that thou hast taken away
the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.
And Jehoshaphat dwelt to Jerusalem, and he went out
again through the people, from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim, and brought
them back unto the Lord God of their fathers. And so
the good thing here is that even though Jehoshaphat had done wrong
and made a mistake, and he's being rebuked by the man of God,
he doesn't get offended by that. He actually seems to
take it to heart, because the guy says, look, this is what you're wrong about.
This is what you've done right. And Jehoshaphat seems to accept his message
and focus on doing the right things, and focus on continuing
the good work that he'd already been doing. A lot of people, though, especially
in this generation, you just can't tell them no. And if you say
anything negative about them, even if you connect it and say, well, you know, you do
have this good quality, people today just cannot take any
criticism. And we've already seen an example of that with Jehoshaphat's
father Asa. Because when the prophet came
and corrected Asa, Asa got angry with him and threw him in prison,
instead of just accepting the correction. Like when David
had sinned with Bathsheba and killed Uriah. Remember when Nathan the prophet
came to him, he accepted that correction. He said, I've sinned,
and he was repentant. He was sorry. That's how we should
react when someone corrects us with the word of God.
Okay. Jehoshaphat did something wrong. The man of God came and
corrected him, and at least we don't see him in this passage,
uh, you know, killing him, or putting him in prison, or something like
that. He continues serving God. He doesn't get offended. He doesn't get out
of church over it or something, because someone told him no.
So Jehoshaphat continues serving God. But let's back up, and we really need to park
it on verse 2 here, because of the day that we're living in, where
everything's just love, and Christianity's all about love,
and, you know, it's just, it's not about right and wrong. It's not about
sin. It's not about heaven and hell. It's just about love and
inclusiveness, right? Well, that's not what the Bible says.
Okay, and we need to park it on a verse like 2 Chronicles
chapter 19, verse 2, in our day where everything
is labeled as hateful and hate speech. Well, guess
what? Hate is biblical. There's a time to love,
and there's a time to hate. That's what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes
chapter number 3. These things have a time and a place.
God both loves and hates. God's people are supposed to both love and hate. I mean, these are
just normal human emotions that need to
be in their proper context. And by the way, every single person,
even these ooey, gooey, sloppy, agape, just
bleeding heart, wonderful little, perfect little people, guess what? I guarantee
you that there are people and things that they hate. The difference is that they
just lie about it, because they're a holier-than-thou that just loves everybody.
But then you see their hateful actions, but they're just
so loving, right? Well, the Bible says, let us not love in word, neither
in tongue, but in deed and in truth. And so
let's make sure our love is actually true, and it actually comes through in our actions,
not just talking this big talk about, oh, I
just love everybody. I just love, you know, pedophiles
Adolf Hitler and the Pope and Charles Manson. It's just like, that's just stupid.
Doesn't even make sense.
Jehu the son of Hanani, verse 2, the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat,
Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love
them that hate the Lord? This is a rhetorical question.
Should you do that? Should you help the ungodly? Should you
love them that hate the Lord? But the answer to the question is found
in the next statement. Therefore, and the implication
is, therefore, because you did that, because you helped the ungodly, because
you love those that hate the Lord, is wrath upon thee
from before the Lord. Now, what does wrath mean? Wrath
is intense anger. Intense
anger from God is directed at you because you love
those who hate the Lord. Now, a lot of people have this attitude that says, well,
I don't know about this whole, you know, love-hate thing, so
just to be safe, I'm just going to be safe, and
I'm just going to love everybody. Well, you know what? This whole
love-everybody mentality doesn't seem to be safe, according to
2 Chronicles 19, if a guy is getting rebuked for loving
people who specifically hate God. So
I have an idea. Why don't we just play it safe by doing
what the Bible says? Here's the safe way to go. Read
the entire Bible and do everything that it says, and not just pick and choose
the parts that line up with our modern culture, and then just kind of just
be safe by just helping and loving and participating in everything.
No, my friend, you, when you team up with
wicked people, when you support wicked people, when you help wicked people, you become
a partaker of their evil deeds. That's what the Bible says.
In fact, even something as simple as just blessing them in the name of the Lord.
You know, what does the Bible say in 2 John? It says,
whosoever, I'll just quote it, whosoever transgresseth and abideth not
in the doctrine of Christ hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine
of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you
and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,
neither bid him Godspeed, for he that bideth him Godspeed
is partaker of his evil deeds. So if there's some false prophet
preaching a false Jesus, preaching another Christ, like say, for example,
the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses, and you
bring them into your home, if you bid them Godspeed,
here, let me give you food, let me give you water, have a good day, God bless,
you're a partaker of their evil deeds.
Because they're not bringing the doctrine of Christ. They don't believe in the Father and the Son.
They believe a perverted, twisted theology, a perverted
and twisted gospel is not the gospel of Christ. They have
a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different spirit. And if you
support them, you are supporting wickedness and you're a partaker
of their evil deeds. You know, I got
in trouble as a teenager one time because one time my dad
got home and the Mormons were in our living room. And I was sitting
in the living room with two Mormon missionaries and I was like trying to straighten them
out and I was rebuking them and trying to get them saved and I was preaching to them.
But you know, it looked weird, my dad comes home and I'm sitting in the living room with a couple of Mormon
missionaries. And he just immediately threw them out of the house.
And I said, well dad, you know, I was, you know, they weren't, they weren't converting
me to Mormonism, dad. I'm like, I'm saved, you know what I mean?
I'm like, these guys were here because I was preaching to them and
I'm trying to straighten them out. He said, it doesn't matter, Stephen, if you
are trying to straighten them out, the Bible specifically says not to bring them into the house.
And he pulled out the Bible and he turned to this passage and he showed
me 2 John and he said, this is what the Bible says.
And I looked at that and said, I'm sorry dad, you're right, I should have not brought them
into the house. And I never brought them in the house again.
And I never bring them in the house now, you know, because I took that correction because
that's what the Bible says. Right? And so we need to stop and
think about the fact that these biblical principles, they go
beyond just one statement in 2 John or one story
in 2 Chronicles. We're supposed to apply these principles to our lives in general.
The Bible does not describe every possible
situation or scenario you're going to get into in your life. You're supposed to take
2 John 9-11 and understand the principle and then
apply it more generally. You're supposed to take this story and apply it more generally
and say, okay, I shouldn't be teaming up with false prophets
or helping the ungodly or loving people who are haters
of God. And I think the perfect example of this is when Pastor
Shelley was under attack for preaching the truth
about the Sodomites. He's preaching the word of God, he's
preaching true doctrine about the Sodomites and he had a bunch of Sodomites and
freaks. And I know that that's redundant since every Sodomite is a
freak, but he had these bunch of weird perverts, you know,
protesting his church and they're outside of his church, harassing the
church members and yelling all these horrible things and whatever.
And the Nazarene church that was just right down the street
decided that they're going to help the ungodly and love those who ate the Lord.
And so the Nazarene pastor, first the Nazarene pastor gets up and preaches a sermon
against Pastor Shelley, which is the biggest joke that I've ever
heard in my life. I listen to the sermon and let me just
save you some time. This is basically what the sermon is. Yeah, the Bible
does say the stuff that Pastor Shelley's saying, but can you believe it
that he's preaching that? Can you believe this
guy? I mean, that's pretty much his argument.
I mean, I mean, because obviously he's wrong,
right? I mean, can you believe it? That's basically the sermon.
And then he literally reads the verses that say
that homos are worthy of the death penalty. He reads the verses and this is what
he said. Yeah, I remember struggling with these verses in Bible college and we were, we were
as a class kind of wrestling with these verses and, and he said, you know,
there's just certain things you're going to get to heaven and just ask God, like, why is this in the Bible?
What is it? Like, like he's acting like he's going to confront God
someday. Like, why did you put this verse in the Bible about killing homos?
Like, what is this? And look,
in the documentary film that many of you have probably seen,
um, The Sodomite Deception, put out by Pastor Shelley,
in The Sodomite Deception, it plays clips from this pastor
literally saying that. And I wouldn't listen to the whole sermon in context. It's even
worse in context. But the guy literally admits that that's what
the Bible says, but just of course we know that's not true though. I mean, of course, you know,
we just need to, we'll have to wait until we get to heaven. And he said, you'll have to
take it up with God. I'm like, I'm not going to take it up with God when I get to heaven. You know, I'm just
going to be giving a high five to Moses for writing it.
I'm not taking anything up with anybody. I'm going to say like, hey, Leviticus
2013, am I right? You know, it's going to be a high five with Moses.
There's no issue. Why are you tripping about it? Right?
It's a great verse. Leviticus 2013. There's no
issue except for people who don't like what the Bible says.
And so that pastor, that
Nazarene pastor is aiding and abetting the enemies of God.
People who literally hate the Lord. What did he do?
He brought Subway sandwiches and waters. While they're out there
protesting a man of God for preaching the Bible, they're openly
perverted, open deviants, open haters of God.
He just came over and said, we just want you to know that we down at so and so
in the Nazarene church love you guys. And here's a water, here's a
Subway sandwich. Literally helping the ungodly,
literally loving those who hate the Lord. I mean,
that's the most textbook example of this verse in action
that I've ever seen. And it's wrath upon them
from before the Lord. Except the difference is, there's no way God's going to say to
Nazarene pastor, hey, but at least there are some good things found in you. He's going to say, nope,
you're just full of crap. Period. And because
by the way, Nazarene's newsflash, Nazarene's aren't
saved because they believe you can lose your salvation.
They don't believe in eternal salvation purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ
by grace, through faith. They believe that you can walk away
from your salvation. You know, I guess you can just walk away
from your parents' DNA and your body too, right?
Because you know what? When you get saved,
you are a son of God. You have been passed
from death to life. You have everlasting life. You shall not come into
condemnation. You've been passed from death to life. Jesus said, I give unto them eternal
life and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of
my hand. Right? You are saved. You are sealed by
the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption. You're a child of God.
You've been transformed. You've been regenerated. If any man be in Christ,
he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. Behold, all things are become new.
Oh, just kidding. I walked away from it. What is that?
Well, you can't lose it, but you can just lose it.
That's basically what they're saying. No, I'm not saying you can lose it.
I'm just saying you can lose it. That's what they're literally
saying. Because they're just like, well, I'm not saying you can lose it. Because I remember trying to give the gospel to Nazarenes.
So many times. And they're like, we can't lose it, but you can walk away from it.
He's not going to take it away from you,
but you can give it back. Like, just stop and think about how dumb this is.
Who would just be like, hey, God, I changed my mind. I want to go to hell.
Like, I got this free gift of salvation. I'm going to heaven. I'm on my way to heaven.
But no, I changed my mind. I prefer hell. No one would do that.
But this is what it is. It's all just this weird semantic game that they're playing.
Here's what it really comes down to. It's like, well,
he is sinning, so that shows that
he's giving it back or walking away. You know, it's not like somebody's literally like,
okay, God, you know, I did believe in you. I was going to heaven.
But, you know, I changed my mind. I prefer damnation.
What it really is is just, well, he got out of church,
and he's living in sin, so he walked away. He gave it back.
It's the exact same thing as any other person who's teaching that you can lose your salvation.
It's just another way of just
spinning that. But it's the same thing. Like, at the end of the day, salvation
is by grace through faith. You have eternal life. You're sealed by
the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption. He which has begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. And so, if you've been passed
from death to life, cannot come into condemnation, you're a child of God, there's nothing
you can do to change that. Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord. And then the fruit of that perverted
doctrine is that the Nazarene pastor says what?
Oh, we just love homos, and we're going to side with homos against
a Bible preacher who's preaching the Bible. Admittedly, I have no answer
to the Bible that he's preaching. I can't debunk what he's saying from the
Word of God, but can you believe it? So here's a subway
sandwich, here's a footlong, here's a bottle of water.
What is that? It's garbage is what it is.
Jehu the son of Anani the seer went out to meet him and said to King Joshua, shouldest thou help
the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath
upon thee from before the Lord. How do you know that homos hate the Lord? Well, keep your finger there
and go to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1
will tell us everything we need to know about sodomites.
The Bible says in Romans chapter 1 verse 26
for this cause God gave them up unto vile affections for even
their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature.
Verse 27 of Romans 1, and likewise also the men leaving
the natural use of the woman burned in their lust one toward another.
Men with men working that which is unseemly
and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat
and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God
gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not
convenient. Which things? Those men with men gross things
that no normal person would ever even dream of doing.
Now notice at the end of verse 28 look at the punctuation.
The sentence is not over. Same sentence, same thought
being filled. That is not the start of
a new sentence or a new thought. This is a dependent clause
that is pointing back to the same subject of
they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge. God gave them
over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient. Being filled with
who is being filled with? Them, they, the men with men.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
maliciousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters
of God.
Men with men that have been given over to a reprobate mind are haters
of God. That is what the Bible says. So shouldest thou
help the ungodly or love them that hate the Lord? No.
And therefore is wrath upon thee from the Lord thy God. Now look, this is
not an isolated scripture. 2 Chronicles 19 2 is not alone.
Okay, I found 22 verses
that clearly, clearly
talk about God hating people. Okay, and
what's funny is that people will act like, oh, this is
an obscure doctrine based on a couple verses or something. I mean, look
it up. There are a multitude of verses about hating
people in the Bible. You know, if you want, you can just ignore them, but they're
there. Okay, and the thing about that is that
a lot of doctrines that we would really stand firm on and strongly believe in
are based on less scripture than this doctrine. I mean, this
doctrine actually has a lot of scripture that talks about hate.
Okay, even just a simple concordance search of the word
hate is going to bring up a bunch of verses for you that are relevant, but then
you also have to look up abhor, loathe,
you know, and other synonyms for hate as well.
So, if you would, well, we don't have to turn there, but we, you know, hopefully
we're pretty familiar with Psalm 139 from the song
where we sing the psalm set to music where it says, do not I
hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?
And am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee? I hate them
with a perfect hatred, I count them mine enemies. Right? So,
I hate them that hate thee. I hate them with a perfect
hatred. Perfect in the Bible means complete. Saying I hate them with complete hatred.
Now, a lot of people will say, oh, that's just David talking.
Folks, when the New Testament quotes the book of Psalms,
it says, well spake the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David
the prophet. Okay? So, the Psalms,
yeah, they're penned by David, some of them, but
they're inspired by the Holy Ghost. It's the Holy Ghost speaking by the
mouth of Isaiah the prophet. The Holy Ghost is speaking by the mouth of David the prophet.
Otherwise, if you're just going to take Psalms and say, well, that's just David
talking. That's just David getting a little, getting a little wild there.
Okay, then I guess you could just, then you could just turn around and
say, oh, well, you know, when Paul said something we don't like, like when
he said that women should not teach and that they should keep silent
in the church, you know, oh, that's just Paul. It's just Paul talking.
Oh, this is Peter. Well, darn that Luke, you know, over here.
It's just like, where does that end? Where does that logic end?
It's the word of God. And the Bible says in Thessalonians,
he said, when you received the word of God, which you heard of us, you received it not
as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God.
The Bible is the word of God. It doesn't matter if Paul's writing it down,
Peter, David, whoever, holy men of God speak as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost. And so God's word is just that.
It's God's word. Human authors are penning it down,
but they're inspired by God and the Bible is infallible
and inerrant. It is right all the time. Here, though,
we clearly have a prophet of God being sent by God
rebuking him, saying, shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them
that hate the Lord? Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.
That sounds to me like David's right in Psalm 139,
when he said, I hate them that hate thee. Do not I hate them,
O Lord, that hate thee? In them not I grieve with them that rise up against
thee. I hate them with perfect hatred. I count them mine enemies.
And then he said, search me, O God, and know my thoughts. Try me and know my heart.
See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the path everlasting.
Hopefully I'm quoting that right. I'm kind of just freestyling here.
But it pretty much says that. The point is, those verses,
the verses before that are really famous and the verses after that are really famous.
Right? Because the part about him forming and fashioning us in our mother's
womb in Psalm 139 is a super popular passage.
Also, the last two verses are super popular. There are
songs based on it. Search me, O God,
and know my heart today.
Right? So, it's amazing how Christianity
grabs onto one part of Psalm 139, grabs onto
another part of Psalm 139, and then the part right in the middle between those two things,
they don't touch it with a 10-foot pole. Why is that?
It's because of the fact that in many cases, they're more interested in what our
society likes, what they think, what they condone,
than what the Word of God actually says. You know? And frankly,
I'm not interested in what our society thinks about the Bible or theology.
All I care is what the Bible says, and I want to read the whole Bible
and base my worldview on the entire Bible. That's my worldview.
That's what I believe. And I'm not interested in trying to
synthesize that with, you know, whatever is popular right now
as far as what Christianity is supposed to be like
to a bunch of, you know, long-haired idiots. And I'm talking about long-haired
dudes, of course. We want the women to have long hair. But a bunch of, uh,
you know, uh, hippies that want to have a hippie Jesus.
Long-haired hippie Jesus, peace, love, dope Jesus,
you know, and I'm not interested.
So, there is some anger
on Joshua because he made a mistake. But, God says,
but you do have a lot of good things going for you. And Joshua proceeds
for the rest of the chapter to continue doing good things. Look, just because someone
preaches against your sin, just because someone calls out something
about your life that's wicked, it doesn't mean that they hate you or
that they're throwing you in the trash or, you know, you need to just learn to accept
correction. You know? And it doesn't mean that you're just a horrible person
because you're wrong on some things. You need to just acknowledge that you're wrong
on some things. And grow and learn from that
because it's the Word of God that's correcting you. Don't kill the messenger. I mean,
is it really Jehu's fault? Jehu is sent by God.
Jehu's just the messenger, right? He's not the one to get
mad at. So, verse 3 says, nevertheless, there are good things found in the end
that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and has prepared thine heart
to seek God.
The groves were
a way that people would worship false gods,
a place that they would traditionally worship false gods, and God did
not want them worshiping him in the groves because he didn't want them
to pattern their worship of the Lord after pagan
heathen worship that had already existed in that geographic area.
And so, because they had done the groves in the high places, God
said, I don't want you to do groves in high places. You know, I want you to worship me in a
unique way that's based on Scripture, not patterning
your worship after the worship that is already in
the place that's indigenous. You know, you'll
hear a lot about religious syncretism
or hybrid religions where something like
Roman Catholicism will show up and kind of mix with
Native American groups or something like that and produce, like, a
syncretic religion, and they'll have these type of feasts or
holidays that are mixtures of things from
before the Spaniards got there and then Catholic elements brought in. Like, for example,
the Day of the Dead or something. Right? I mean, do you really think that God
wants us celebrating the Day of the Dead and doing all this weird
pagan, skull, death, mumbo jumbo, but
that stuff actually predates the Spanish conquest.
Right? Those are, like, indigenous practices of these
weird, idolatrous, pagan death cults, and then
Roman Catholicism shows up and sort of, like, they make a hybrid thing.
And that's what God doesn't want. You know, God wants someone who gets
saved out of a false religion to totally ditch that false
religion and not try to mix it in. So if you used to be a Hindu
and then you become a Christian, like, you don't bring in elements of Hinduism
and say, hey, let's incorporate these into Christianity. Let's incorporate
Buddhism. You know, let's incorporate Islam or something like that.
No, you need to just come over to Christianity and leave all that stuff behind.
Just get rid of it. And so that's what we see going on here
in verse 3. That's one of the things that Jehoshaphat did right, was getting rid of that stuff.
Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem and he went out again
through the people from Beersheba to
Mount Ephraim and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers. So, I mean, Jehoshaphat
is proactively evangelizing the countryside
and getting people to turn back to the Lord God. So he's not
just a good king. He's a great king because he's very evangelical
about getting people back to the Lord. Even personally,
he lives at Jerusalem, but he's literally leaving Jerusalem and going on an evangelistic
mission throughout his country, turning people to the Lord God.
He's a great man of God. But guess what? Even a great man of God can make a mistake
and be too nice and too soft and get God mad at him
and get in trouble for that, which is what happened.
Now, what does this mean from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim? Well, you'll often
read scripture that will say from Dan even to Beersheba. Dan is the
northern extremity of both Israel and Judah, right?
So it's the northern extremity of the northern kingdom, Dan.
Beersheba is the southern extremity, right, of the southern kingdom.
And so, obviously, Jehoshaphat's domain does not reach all the way to
Dan. He has only power over the southern kingdom
and if you remember, Jehoshaphat also and
you know, Asa and Jehoshaphat had made some inroads into the northern kingdom
to kind of push the border up a little bit to even include Mount Ephraim
as being part of his domain. So he has some control over
even some stuff spilling up into Ephraim. So the idea here is that every
area over which he has any authority, he's
evangelizing. You know, all the way from not Dan to Beersheba
but from Mount Ephraim to Beersheba because that's his domain.
Verse 5, he sent judges in the land throughout all the
fenced cities of Judah, city by city. And of course, he's following the Bible,
right, because the Bible sets up a system of judges
to govern them. Before they had a king, they only had judges. But even after
they have a king, they're still supposed to have these judges as
another component of government. You know, it's found in Exodus
and Deuteronomy and so forth. And so he set up these judges
and he said to the judges in verse 6, take heed what you do, for you judge not
for man, but for the Lord who is with you in the judgment.
Wherefore now, let the fear of the Lord be upon you.
Take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord
our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking
of gifts. He's saying, look, don't be one of these crooked judges
who's taken bribes, he's receiving gifts, and he's
perverting judgment, he's respecting persons, and you know, he's saying you've got to
judge a righteous judgment. Why? Because you should be afraid
of God punishing you if you
pervert judgment. He's saying, look, the judgment belongs to God.
And so you need to be fair and
impartial and make right judgments because of the fact that
God is the ultimate judge, and you know what, you should fear God.
You see, you might think that you can get away with things on this earth and
do wicked things and slander and
bear false witness or pass a false judgment or whatever,
but at the end of the day, God is watching.
And we should be in the fear of the Lord all the day long.
And today that's not necessarily a popular thing to preach anyway,
or either sometimes, and people try to say, well, fear doesn't really mean fear.
That's funny because the Bible says fear and trembling.
Well, fear is just respect. Okay, well, if fear
is just respect, then why does it say fear and trembling? You're going to start shaking
because you're so respectful? No, I'm pretty sure fear
includes respect, but it also means fear like,
hey, I'm afraid that if I screw up, God
is going to come down on me like a ton of bricks. And look, obviously
as we grow and progress in our Christian life, we move
from fear toward love. That's what 1 John talks about, right?
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of instruction, but we
move away from fear toward love. Why? There's no fear
in love. Perfect love casteth out fear. Why? Because here's the thing.
If I'm just loving God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength, and
loving my neighbor as myself, I'm not in fear of God punishing me
because I'm doing right. And eventually we get to a point
where we're doing right not just because we're afraid, but because we want to do
right because of love for God. That's a better reason, right?
I mean, look, I can either abstain from fornication
because I'm scared God's going to kill me if I commit fornication, or
I can abstain from fornication because I love the Lord. And I know that
God has commanded me not to commit fornication, and Jesus said, if you love me, keep my
commandments. What is the superior motivation? What is the best
thing? The best motivation is
to be doing the right things because you love God, and you're not even thinking about the punishments
because you're just doing the right things out of love. Punishment
is not on your mind because you're focused on just loving God and doing the right things because you
want to. But here's what's funny. You've got a bunch of baby Christians
whose lives are filled with sin, who are
not mature in the Lord at all, don't know the Bible, are not
living for God, and then they just want to talk about, oh, there's no fear in love
and man, it's just all love and blah, blah, blah. It's like, dude, you don't love God.
This is the love of God that you keep his commandments. Okay, here's the thing.
If you're living a sinful life, you're in the fear of God stage.
Don't even talk to me how, oh, I'm done with fear, man.
I've moved on to the love stage. Nah, you really haven't.
Because that is a
high level of Christianity. So a really, if someone's living a
really godly life and serving God, then
I would expect their life to be more about love and for them not
necessarily to be trembling and dwelling on the fear of God as much.
But for some watered down, backslidden,
sinful Christian to be just
like, oh, I don't need the fear of God, man. It's like, no, you need the
fear of God. And you're proving that by the fact
that you are brazenly breaking God's commandments. That shows
that you have not graduated from that fear of God stage.
Now look, if you want to just do the right things because you love God,
then we don't have to talk about fear so much. But when
you're living a super sinful, worldly, ungodly life, you need the
fear of God. You need a swift kick in the pants. You need
somebody to tell you that it is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God. You need somebody to tell you that our
God is a consuming fire. You need somebody to tell you that
wrath is upon you from before the Lord our God. And don't just say,
oh, man, you're just trying to scare people with that. You better know I am.
Yeah, I'm trying to scare people. Because the fear of the Lord
makes men depart from evil. That's why. And you know what? Even in my
own personal life, the fear of the Lord plays a role.
Right? Obviously, I love the Lord
and I serve God because I love Him. But fear still plays a role.
And it ought to. But let me tell you this. When I was
much younger, if I went back to my immature days
back when I was a teenager, it was like way more
about the fear of God than the love of God when I had all these temptations
to commit fornication and so forth. When you're a teenager and the temptation
is strong. You have these strong desires and you're surrounded
by temptation. And you know what? I was scared to death
to commit fornication because I truly believed that
someone who had been taught so much Bible and had grown up in church
and been given so many privileges and was so blessed and so
many benefits of my Christian home. I was just scared. I was like, man, if I commit fornication,
God's just going to literally kill me. That's why I believed.
I'm like, man, God is going to punish me so bad. So I didn't
commit fornication because I was scared to commit fornication. Now, if somebody would have just
not preached all that fear and preached about
23,000 people dying in one day because of fornication, if I would have been in some
milk toast watered down church that just said, oh, just, you know, save
yourself for marriage because, you know, give that gift to your spouse and all this stuff.
Like here's the thing, that's all true. And now I understand that that is all true.
But, you know, as a 15 year old, that probably wouldn't have meant that much
to me. But God killing me?
That kind of resonated with me. And here's the thing, you need
both. You need both. I do think it's smart to say,
hey, you know, this is something you should reserve for marriage because you're going to have a better marriage.
You know, reserve that for your spouse. Give that gift to your spouse
of being a virgin on your wedding. That's all good stuff. Amen.
Or saying, hey, this is, you know, this is
you know, if you love Christ, do what Christ says because you love him.
But you know what? It's also pretty healthy to say, you know, let's turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10 and find out how we shouldn't commit fornication
like they did because God killed 23,000 people in one day
over fornication. So, you know, be afraid.
Be very afraid. Folks, you know what?
When I was a teenager, fear of the Lord
is what kept me on the right path as a
young, dumb teenager. It was the fear of God.
Okay, then I grew into more of a
thing of, well, I'm going to do what's right because I love God. Because, see, fear
is only going to take you so far. Right? Fear is not going to get you all the way to
a mature Christianity. Here's why. Because fear
is only going to get you to kind of do the minimum, to just kind of avoid
getting your butt kicked by God. Right? Fear is just kind of like get you
out of the woods, keep the wolf away from the door, and just kind of
do a minimum to just not be one of those 23,000.
If you're really going to be maximum for Jesus Christ,
if you're really going to do great works for God and go beyond the
minimum and really do extra and really get serious about serving God,
only love can propel you into those higher levels of service for God.
Because fear has nothing to do with that.
Because it's not like God is demanding that you do all this extra.
God has some serious things that you need to abstain from.
Fear will at least get you out of the, you know, it's sort of like on Duolingo. You've got the demotion
zone and the promotion zone. Who knows what I'm talking about?
A lot of people. Alright. You know, it's like, you know, fear will kind of
keep you out of the demotion zone of the Christian life.
But to get into the promotion zone or to get into the top three,
right, where you're actually getting the gold or the silver or the bronze, you know,
that's going to take love to get you up there.
So, of course, we're moving from fear toward love, but the fear of the Lord
is the start. And guess what? When people are super worldly
and backslidden, I can already tell you what they need. They need the fear of God.
The wickedness of the wicked is what shows us that they have no fear of God.
When they just brazenly do wicked things.
That is a demonstration of their lack of fear for God.
And I'm sorry, but fear does actually mean fear, believe it or not.
And if you go back to the Greek, it means fear. And if you go back to the Hebrew, it means fear.
And the word in Spanish is fear.
So, the Bible says here, let the fear of the Lord.
So, first of all,
let's look at verse 7. Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you.
Take heed and do it, for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God,
nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.
Moreover, in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites
and of the priests and of the chief of the fathers of Israel for the judgment of the Lord
and for controversies when they returned to Jerusalem.
And he charged them saying, does shall you do, watch this,
in the fear of the Lord. Isn't it interesting that for the second time
he's bringing up the fear of the Lord. Why? Because he wants
these judges to be fearful of becoming
a crook and to stay honest
knowing that God will punish if they don't.
He says, thus shall you do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully and with a perfect heart,
and what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that dwell
in their cities between blood and blood, between law and commandments, statutes
and judgments. Ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against
the Lord, and so wrath come upon you and upon your brethren.
This do, and ye shall not trespass. Notice
two things what he's saying here. He says, first of all, you guys need to fear the Lord
as judges, not to take bribes, not to pervert
judgment, not to respect persons. You should be scared to do that
as judges. But then number two, when people come to you
and they have a controversy, blood and blood, you know,
maybe relatives having a controversy or, you know, controversy
and business or whatever. When people come to you, you need to teach them
that they need to have the fear of God. So not only do the judges need to have
the fear of God, but he says you shall warn them, look part way through
verse 10, that they trespass not against the Lord.
He said, look, you come in here bearing false witness against
your neighbor, you are trespassing not just against your
neighbor, you're trespassing against God. God
is the one that said, thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
If you come in here in the courtroom, you're not
going to be found in contempt of court, you're going to be found in contempt of God.
Because God is the one who said, thou shall not bear false witness.
And if you come in and bear false witness, you're in contempt of God. You are
actually trespassing not just against your neighbor, you might be okay
with that. No, you're trespassing against God.
You're disobedient to God. Warn them that they don't
do it, that they don't trespass against the Lord. Why? Because the result
will be that wrath will come upon them and upon their brethren.
Right? If you sit there and trespass against the Lord your God, you go into
court and start lying and whatever judges are being crooks or
the people coming into court, the plaintiff or the defendant or whatever,
they're lying. Witnesses on the witness stand are lying and bearing false
witness. God is saying, you are going to bring down
wrath from God upon you and upon your brethren.
And this is why the wrath of God comes upon the children of
disobedience. You know, this kind of junk of sinning
not just against God directly, but sinning against other people.
When you sin against other people, this also incurs the wrath of
God. And of course, Israel throughout their history would frequently
experience the wrath of God. When they would get involved in sin,
God would judge them. And why is Jehoshaphat
going around evangelizing people to actually believe in the Lord?
Number one, because that's the first thing is that they just believe in the Lord
and not be worshipping Baal or these other gods. So he goes around
and he's turning them back to the Lord God of their fathers. Number one, he's trying to just get them to first base
of at least believing in the Lord. But then he's saying,
we've got to follow the commandments of God because we don't want the
wrath of God to come upon the nation. Look, he's the king.
He wants his kingdom to last. And he knows if I want my
country to be blessed, people better be right with God. And look, if we want
America to be blessed, it's not enough just to get people saved.
And we're all for getting people saved. And we try to get as many people
saved as we can. I mean, just this afternoon, we were all out there,
what, 16 of us out there, soul winning this afternoon
in Mesa and got five people saved, right? So we're getting people out of hell. We just got five
people out of hell this afternoon out soul winning. Okay? Hey, that's
great. But that's not the only thing we need to do in order
for God to bless America. We also need to teach people
the statutes and the judgments and the commandments and to have the fear of God.
Because what's the Great Commission? Teach all nations.
Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost, and teaching
them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you.
Not just getting them saved, but then teaching them the entire
Bible. All of Christ's commandments. So we're teaching
people also, don't lie, don't steal, don't kill, don't
commit adultery, don't do all these things, don't covet, etc.
And so he says,
in verse 11, he says at the end of verse 10, this do and ye shall not trespass.
Verse 11, and behold, Amoriah, the chief priest, is over you in all matters
of the Lord, and Zebediah, the son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of
Judah, for all the king's matters. Also the Levites shall be
officers before you. And then look at these last statements
here. Deal courageously. Who's he talking to?
The judges, right? Deal
courageously and the Lord shall be
with the good. Look, if you do what's right,
if you're on the right side, if God is with you,
no one can be against you. Right? If God is on your
side, if God be for us, who can be against us?
And so he says, don't fear man. Because what did he
tell him twice? Fear the Lord. Fear the Lord. But now he's saying
be courageous, which in many ways courageous is the opposite of fearful.
Right? Like, if you're fearful, it's like a lack of courage. Or if you're
courageous, it's a lack of fear. So here's the idea. Fear God, fear
God, and be courageous in the face of man.
Right? Courageous is talking about
in the face of man. When it comes to God, we should have fear and trembling.
When it comes to our fellow man, we need to be courageous and do the right thing no matter what.
What gives us the boldness to stand for what's right?
What gives us the boldness to stand up for the word of God to do right
even in situations where it might get us into trouble or cause us problems
to do the right thing? We do the right thing courageously
because we know that God will be with the good.
The Lord shall be with the good. You know, there's a scoreboard in heaven
and it always reads the right score.
You know, even if down here on earth people are cheating and
lying and deceiving, you know what? Who cares?
Because you know what? There's a scoreboard in heaven and it always reads
the correct score. Okay? God knows what's going on.
God knows the truth. And you know what? He will be with the good.
What's the implication? He's not going to be with the evil.
He's not going to be with the liars and the deceivers
and the people who are not fearing the Lord. He's not going to be on their side.
And here's the thing about that. Let's just kind of tie the whole chapter together now, right?
Because we kind of, we worked through the whole chapter. We started out talking about
helping the ungodly and loving those that hate the Lord. Right? Don't do it.
Then we kind of worked down through the chapter
and saw Jehoshaphat evangelizing
his area and also setting up judges
that would judge the people righteously in the fear of God
and then he ultimately ends up with this statement, deal courageously and the Lord
shall be with the good. Okay? So here's the thing. The Lord's going to be
with the good. The Lord is not with the wicked.
And so that's why we don't want to help the ungodly and love those
that hate the Lord. We don't want to get teamed up with and yoked up
with people who are under the wrath of God. Right?
We want to be doing right, doing good, and be under
God's blessing. And what we don't want to do
is hitch our wagon to some evil reprobate
or hook up with some evil pervert or whatever
and basically team up with them, yoke up with them, work with them in any way.
We don't want to help the ungodly. We don't want to love those that hate the Lord.
You know, we want to just courageously stand on our own two feet and do
what's right and if God's with us, that's all we need. You know?
He plus God makes a majority. Right? Because if God's
for us, no one can be against us.
And so this is what we need to focus on is making sure
that we're doing right. And if we're doing right, let the heathen rage.
Let the people imagine a vain thing. If you're doing right, God's going to
be with the good. Have the courage to live your life
doing what's right and let God deal with the wicked people.
He'll deal with them. You know? And when you see
wicked people, ungodly people, don't fret. Don't worry about it
because you know what? They're going to get what's coming to them. Maybe it's today.
Maybe it's tomorrow. With God, a day is like a thousand years. It doesn't really matter when.
It doesn't matter if it's today or five years from now. They're going to get what's coming to them.
Believe it. But don't help them.
Don't participate in the wicked deeds of the evil.
And this is the downfall, if you remember, of Asa
leaning on the wicked. We need to stand on our own two feet.
Deal courageously. And I guarantee you these judges, sometimes they had to make
decisions that might make someone mad in the community who's a powerful person.
Because if they're being told, don't respect persons in judgment,
some rich, powerful guy comes in to the courthouse and he's wrong.
The judge has to rule against that guy. And he might be making a
powerful enemy. But he's got to deal courageously and
say, look, right is right. Wrong is wrong. Even if this
guy is some big crime boss and he has all this power, I've got to convict
this guy. I've got to rule against this guy. Like, I'm not going to fear this guy
because the Lord's going to be with the good. I'm going to justify
the innocent. I am going to condemn the wicked.
And I'm not going to care what people think about it. And that, look, do you think
that there's ever been a judge murdered
because he pronounced judgment on some horrible criminal?
You think so? Absolutely, right? I mean, I don't know.
I'm not as into crime or whatever. But I guarantee you, like,
if you looked it up, you'd find judges who were murdered
because they put away some crime boss or something. Or I guarantee you
that there have been prosecutors and district attorneys
and witnesses and people who went to court, told
the truth, did what was right, and got murdered. Am I
right? And so this could cause people to
lie or to make rulings that are not right.
That's why God's saying you've got to deal courageously and do what's right
and trust that God's going to be with you. Because God can protect you from
that. Okay?
You say, well, you know, God didn't protect those people. But here's the thing. God's not
necessarily going to protect everyone. But God's going to protect his children. God's going to protect
those who love him. And in the rare, in the super rare event
that a righteous, godly person does
just end up getting smoked or whatever, then you know what? At that point, God has
a reason for it. You know, like Stephen getting stoned or something.
The rare exception where a man of God ends up
getting martyred and doesn't get protection, it seems like. But you know what?
God used that stony of Stephen probably to inspire the apostle Paul.
It's definitely inspired literally hundreds of millions of readers of the
New Testament. It's inspiring us today, the story of Stephen.
You know, that's why Stephen is even a popular name.
Because of that inspirational story in Acts 6 and 7. So the idea here is
that, you know, in the rare event that God does allow you to die
or be harmed, it's for his glory. You've got to just
trust him. But 99% of the time, God ends up delivering the
righteous anyway. And if you get martyred, well, even so,
amen. Do what's right. Deal
courageously. God will be with the good. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much
for this great chapter, Lord. Thank you for the great
example of Jehoshaphat, Lord. Please help
us not to follow his bad example of teaming up with the wicked or
being a big softy who is too nice to God-haters.
But also, Lord, let us please follow his example
of the good things that he did, the evangelism and the preaching that he did
and his right decisions, Lord. Help us to always
apply these Bible stories to our own lives and live our lives
in such a way that you would be honored and glorified. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
May I take your psalm books? Go to hymn 131. If you need the words
Christ is all I need, 131. We'll sing this
and be dismissed. Number 131.
Christ is all I need
All I need
Christ is all I need
All I need
He was crucified
For he died
From Calvary
That is why I know
He loves me so
He is all I need
Say a good thing tonight and do yours best.
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