.
But of course, now we understand that in our galaxy alone, there are just billions and billions and billions of stars, and that there are just billions and billions of galaxies.
And so it's just insane. It's just incredible how many stars there are. And I think each star is so massive, so much larger than the Earth.
Just these gigantic stars that are, you know, similar to the sun. The sun is like an average-sized star. And so just imagine just trillions and quadrillions of stars out there.
And again, we've never even found the end of it. It's not like we got to a point where we look at it, okay, we got the farthest star right here, and then there's just the thick darkness.
You know, we've never even reached the edge of the universe with our technology. And the technology is obviously rapidly advancing, and new stars and new exoplanets are being discovered literally every single day and all these things.
And to me, this just brings more glory to God. It's amazing how the atheistic mind, though, will turn around and take that same information and say, there is no God.
Right? The fool has said in his heart that there is no God. But they'll basically look at the amazing universe and just say, oh, well, this just shows that we're just a cosmic accident.
What are you talking about? This just shows how much higher God's thoughts are than our thoughts, how much higher His ways are than our ways, that He has made something so incredible and so magnificent that we can't even find the end of it.
We can't even look at the end of it, let alone understand it or conquer it or deal with it. And then on the same token, you could actually zoom in, right? And we're zooming in now, and we're looking at things that we've never seen before, and we're able to look at the cell and then go even down to the molecular or atomic level and see all these things.
And you keep going down, down, down. You just keep finding more complexity, more amazing things that cannot be understood. You know, just when you think you get a handle on it, you find all of these forces and things going on that we have no understanding of.
When you go down to the micro level, we don't fully understand what's going on. You know, you get down to the atom and then you split down the atom to the protons and neutrons and electrons.
Then you can even now say, oh, those are made up of even smaller components, quarks, you know, up quarks and down quarks and these different things.
You know, and then as they mine the outer reaches of the universe, now all of a sudden, oh, we have to throw out a lot of what we've understood because of dark matter and dark energy.
We don't know what it is. We don't know what it does. Look, my friend, God's ways are unsearchable.
Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to learn and understand nature, but what we should do is as we do seek to understand and comprehend God's creation, it should cause us to stand in awe of its magnificence, its complexity, its sophistication, not just to stupidly say, oh, this all just came from nothing.
It's just a big accident. It's just a cosmic accident. No, we all as human beings are fearfully and wonderfully made, the Bible says, and God's creation is magnificent.
The heavens declare the glory of God. The earth showeth his handiwork. Heaven is his throne. Earth is his footstool. He dwells in the thick darkness.
The heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. The house of God is simply a place for us to commune with God and worship God.
Now, again, I keep emphasizing this because I think it's the most important thing to understand as we read a passage like this that the Old Testament temple was the house of God and that the New Testament church is the house of God.
You say, hey, it's exciting. They're going to rebuild the temple. Folks, why would I get excited about some bogus house of God when I'm already in the real house of God right now?
And it's not just our church. It's every church that is actually preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, every church that is preaching the true gospel of Christ and is preaching the word of God.
Hey, that church is the house of God. That's the only house of God we need. We don't need a competing physical building over in Jerusalem. That is over. That's done. That's the old covenant. We moved on to the new covenant. We're never going back.
Okay. And so it says here, I have built a house of habitation for thee, a place for thy dwelling forever. Verse two. And of course, he said in the previous verse that it's to burn sacrifices before him. That's the point.
Look at verse number three, the King turned his face and bless the whole congregation of Israel and all the congregation of Israel stood. And he said, blessed be the Lord God of Israel. Verse four, who has with his hands fulfilled that which he spake with his mouth to my father, David saying, since the day that I brought forth my people out of the land of Egypt, I chose no city among all the tribes of Israel to build a house in that my name might be there.
Neither chose I any man to be a ruler over my people Israel, but I've chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there and I've chosen David to be over my people Israel.
Now this is a little bit of a strange statement in verse five to say, neither chose I any man to be a ruler over my people Israel. It's kind of a strange statement because he actually did in a sense choose someone to be a ruler over his people Israel.
And who was that person? King Saul, right? Because he did actually choose King Saul to be the ruler. That was not something that Samuel chose or that the people chose.
The Bible makes it crystal clear that God appeared unto Samuel, told him to go and meet up with Saul and brought Saul to him. And of course he anointed Saul. This is the one that the Lord has chosen and so forth.
So God definitely chose Saul, but I think that the idea here is the same as with the tabernacle, because if you stop and think about it, the tabernacle was a temporary location, right? Because it would move around. It was a tent. It was designed to be portable.
It would be in this city for a while. Then they would tear it down, move it, put it somewhere else while they're wandering in the wilderness. They keep setting it up, tearing it down, moving it, setting it up, tearing it down, moving it.
And then even once they get into the promised land, it spends different periods of time in different places. And so the thing that's special about Jerusalem is that Jerusalem is the final choice, the permanent choice, because he says, hey, I never chose a city to build my house there.
But he did choose places for the tabernacle to hang out. He did do that. And so the difference between Saul and David is that God did choose Saul to be king, but he did not choose him in the same way that he chose David, because when he chose David, he promised David an everlasting kingdom.
As opposed to with Saul, he chose him to be king, but he was kind of on probation. And then he messed it up. Even just within the first couple years of reigning, he already messed it up, and he's already on his way out.
Even though he reigns for 40 years, God already knows this guy is not going to pan out for the long run. He did not plan on his son or his grandson or his great-grandson sitting on that throne. And that's the difference.
So just as the tabernacle is a temporary setup for the house of God, Saul was chosen by God, yes, but as a temporary ruler, not as the final, eternal ruler. And so David was chosen to be the final, permanent, eternal ruler.
Now, how can this be when obviously we don't have a son of David sitting on that throne in Israel right now? Well, we as Christians understand that Jesus Christ is the son of David.
And so therefore, you have all of these different Davidic kings and Davidic rulers that reign, and then ultimately, Jesus Christ comes in, and his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, which means then that David's dynasty goes on forever, because Jesus is the son of David.
So it continues through David. Even Jerusalem continues to matter, because of the fact that in the future, Christ will reign from Jerusalem.
And so then Jerusalem isn't just totally discarded in that sense, because God is going to reuse that location, because at the second coming of Jesus Christ, sorry Mormons, he's not coming to Independence, Missouri, like you guys think.
He's actually coming to Jerusalem, and he's going to rule and reign from Jerusalem, sitting upon the throne of his father, David.
And so that's why that statement might be a little weird at first in verse 5, but you just have to understand the context of it.
The comparison is made with the tabernacle and previous leaders versus the temple being the permanent location in Jerusalem, and then you have David being the permanent leader through the Lord Jesus Christ.
And Jerusalem continues to matter because of Jesus, right?
Everything kind of gets frozen in time in the first century AD because of the fact that Christ comes and brings in the new covenant, the old covenant goes away, the temple is destroyed, now it's a spiritual kingdom, God's house is the church, not the temple, right?
We don't need to make a pilgrimage to Israel to go to the Holy Land or to go visit that physical spot or somehow, somehow I just feel more spiritual when I'm in Jerusalem or something, you know.
Well, you have a great imagination, but you know what? You could actually feel just as spiritual any time you're in the house of God.
Why don't you go to an actual Bible-believing church? You could be filled with the Spirit too there.
You could also be filled with the Spirit in your own home or anywhere else for that matter that you're walking with God.
But that being said, there is something special about the church, right? Jesus said where two or three are gathered together, there am I in the midst.
And so when I read this passage and I'm seeing over and over again this house, this house, if people are praying in this house, if people set their face toward this house,
you know, I'm thinking in my mind, I'm just swapping in the church because that's the New Testament analog. That is what is relevant to us today.
This building is no longer relevant. God destroyed this building and well, he destroyed this building and then he destroyed the replacement for it, both.
But let's go ahead and read a little further here. It says in verse number six, I've chosen Jerusalem that my name might be there and have chosen David to be over my people, Israel.
Verse seven, I was in the heart of David, my father, to build a house for the name of the Lord God of Israel.
But the Lord said to David, my father, for as much as it was in thine heart to build a house for my name, thou didst dwell that it was in thine heart.
Notwithstanding thou shalt not build the house, but thy son, which shall come forth out of thy loins, he shall build the house for my name.
So remember the temple is David's idea. God had designed the tabernacle. David has the idea to build the temple, but God says it's a good idea.
And so he blesses it, but he does not allow him to build it, but his son Solomon actually builds it.
It says in verse 10, the Lord therefore had performed his word that he has spoken.
For I am risen up in the room of David, my father, and I'm set on the throne of Israel and the Lord as the Lord promised and have built the house for the name of the Lord God of Israel.
And in it have I put the arc wherein is the covenant of the Lord that he made with the Children of Israel.
The thing I want to point out here in verse 11 is that the arc of the covenant, OK, is called the arc of the covenant because inside it is the covenant.
What's actually literally inside it, though, based on Chapter five is two tablets of stone containing the 10 commandments.
Those two tablets of stone containing the 10 commandments are the covenant that God made with Israel at Mount Sinai.
Now, obviously, there's more to the covenant because we have a lot more scripture in Exodus giving a lot more details.
But I would say that the 10 commandments are sort of the Cliffs Notes version.
They're sort of the Reader's Digest condensed version of the covenant.
The meat and potatoes of the covenant that God made with Israel is the 10 commandments, also known as the law.
Right. We can talk about the law as being 600 and some commandments that we find in Genesis to Deuteronomy.
But also the 10 commandments themselves are also known as the law, because, again, the 10 commandments give you the basics of the law.
Now, what's interesting is when people try to claim that the 10 commandments are not the law, they're just totally wrong.
Because over and over again, the Bible calls the 10 commandments the old covenant, the covenant.
The arc of the covenant is called that because it has the 10 commandments in it.
And if you want to keep your figure, just flip quickly over to 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
And this is a doctrine that needs to be emphasized a lot because we're living in a day where the Judaizers are really just going crazy.
And a lot of people are being sucked in by them.
And even a lot of people that are in independent Baptist churches, they get sucked in by this stuff.
Beware of the Judaizers.
You know, I grew up hearing all kinds of preaching against Judaizers.
You know, this is a villain in the New Testament.
The people that are trying to bring us under the law and what the word Judaize literally means is that they want us to live as do the Jews.
They want to Judaize us. Okay.
They want us to live like the Jews live.
We don't want to live like the Jews live. We want to live like Merica lives.
But we want to live like Christians live, more importantly than that, right?
But here's the thing. Culturally, we don't need to be Israeli or Jewish in our culture either.
The American culture is fine where it's not sinful.
You know, and people in Mexico, they have their culture.
What's culture? Food, clothing, language, art, whatever.
You know, those things are all fine.
You know, different nationalities have their different cultures, right?
Christianity is compatible with most of those things.
It's not like we have to change our food when we get saved or something, you know?
We don't have to change our clothes necessarily unless you're wearing something sinful, something weird.
You're all naked or cross-dressed or something.
Well then, yeah, then something's going to have to change.
But look, you don't have to just switch over to like, oh, well, you know, we're going to start eating all this Jewish food and we're going to start wearing Jewish clothes and all this.
That's Judaizing.
And a lot of people do this.
They think that if they put on some Jewish prayer shawl, that's going to bring them closer to God or put on a funny hat that Jews wear or, you know, start saying a bunch of Hebrew words is somehow going to make them more spiritual, right?
These people who just kind of pepper their speech with Hebrew words apropos of nothing.
Hey, look at me.
You know, it'd be like if I was just walking around.
I mean, it'd be like if I walked around and just, hey, amigo, you know, hasta la vista, baby.
You know, okay.
You know, you can pepper it a little Spanish.
But you know what?
People who walk around saying hola and hasta la vista, they're not necessarily fluent in Spanish, right?
Just because, you know, piñata and taco and burrito, tostada, enchilada.
I mean, we all have a big vocabulary when it comes to Spanish, right?
What are some Spanish words that we know out there?
Non-Spanish speakers only.
Gringos only.
Tortillas.
Nachos.
Quesadilla.
Help me out, people.
Hasta luego.
Hasta la vista.
Buenos dias.
Buenos noches.
Queso.
Mi casa es su casa.
Pecante.
Pecante sauce.
Look, you know why we know, you know why we can just, even just the biggest gringos in this room can just like rattle off like 30 words in Spanish just because we grew up in the American Southwest.
I don't even care if you grew up in Vermont, you probably know some of these.
Okay, but especially growing up in California, growing up in Arizona, you know, you understand that when, you know, when you go to the hotel
and the little thing on the door says no moleste, you know, that means don't disturb or whatever.
You know, you pick up stuff without even necessarily studying the language formally or anything like that or even really knowing how to even put together much of a sentence.
You don't even understand.
Well, guess what? These Judaizers, they do the same thing.
They make it seem like they know so much Hebrew.
But really what they're doing is the equivalent of what we literally just did.
It's just all these really famous words that they, that they know.
You know, of course they can say, you know, Shabbat and Shalom and Yom Kippur and Sukkot and, you know, all these different things because they grew up around that because they're Jews or Judaizers or whatever.
And so they kind of just know some basics like you would know what sayonara means or something without actually knowing any Japanese.
You know what I'm saying?
And if you're probably all geeked out on anime or something, you're probably going to know a few other things too without actually knowing the language.
And so beware of these Judaizers.
They'll try to trick you.
They'll try to fool you like they, oh, they know Hebrew.
And if you go back to the Hebrew, it says this and that.
When in reality, they are not actual speakers of the language.
You know, the King James translators, they could read it fluently.
And not only that, they studied other languages too.
They're fluent with Hebrew.
They knew a lot of Aramaic, Arabic, other languages too.
And then you just have some bozo come along.
Oh, your King James Bible is wrong.
Here's what it really says, you know, because he knows like, you know, the equivalent of what we just did.
Taco, burrito, pinata, you know, whatever.
Second Corinthians three.
Is that where we are?
So, you know, second Corinthians three says this.
It says in verse six, who also has made us ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.
But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones was glorious.
Stop right there.
What was written and engraven in stones?
The Ten Commandments.
Folks, that is what was written in stone with the finger of God, the Ten Commandments.
And what is that called?
The ministration of death.
The ministration of death, written and engraven in stones was glorious.
So that the children of Israel could not steadfastly behold the face of Moses.
Why?
Because when he came down from the mount, having received the Ten Commandments, the stone tablets, his face shone.
And they had to put a veil over his face because it was so blinding.
It says in verse nine, for if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more does the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.
So it's called the ministration of death.
It's also called the ministration of condemnation.
Right?
It's the ministration of death.
It's the ministration of condemnation.
Now, in verse number nine there, right?
The ministration of condemnation.
Why?
Because the law can only condemn you.
The law can't save you.
Thou shalt not kill can't save you.
It can only damn you.
Thou shalt not steal can't save you.
Thou shalt not commit adultery can't save you.
It can only show you to be the sinner that you are.
It can only condemn you.
The law is something that actually condemns us and shows us our need for a savior.
It's the ministration of death.
It's the ministration of condemnation.
But then we have people turn around and say,
Well, you don't have to keep the law to be saved, but you do have to keep the Ten Commandments.
What did you just say?
The Ten Commandments is the epitome of the law.
Well, you know, the law kills, but, you know, the Ten Commandments, I mean, come on.
You know, you have a seven-day Adventist come along and say,
Well, I know we're not under the law anymore, but surely we have to keep the Ten Commandments, though.
Well, then we're still under the law then.
If the Ten Commandments have anything to do with saving us, then we're saved by the law.
Right?
And if we have to keep all the Ten Commandments, well, here's the Ten Commandments that we don't have to keep.
Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy.
Because guess what?
That's part of the Old Testament.
We're in the New Testament.
Obviously, the morality that's found in the Ten Commandments still stands.
Things like thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal.
Obviously, those things continue.
But is Remember the Sabbath to keep it holy a New Testament commandment?
No, it isn't.
The Bible clearly states that in Revelation 14, for example,
One man esteemeth one day above another.
Another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
And not only that, but when it comes to the meats, drinks, carnal ordinances, divers' washings,
In that same list, when we see it in Colossians 2, the Sabbath days are brought up.
Sabbath days, meats, drinks, those kind of carnal ordinances.
The Sabbath is one of them.
And so when it comes to the Sabbath day, that is not a New Testament thing.
That is Old Covenant.
It's done away in Christ.
It's a picture of our rest that we find in Christ.
We don't have to rest on Saturday because we're resting in Christ.
Jesus is our Sabbath.
Christ is our rest.
We've already entered into rest.
We don't need an actual day.
That is one of the things that's been done away in Christ.
And you know, people would just love it if the whole Ten Commandments could just make it unscathed into the New Testament.
You know, because people like things to be a certain way, right?
And so it's just like this fly in the ointment.
Like, so nine of the commandments still apply and one of them doesn't?
Yeah, that's right.
Why? God's doing that because he doesn't want you to overly emphasize or enshrine the Ten Commandments.
So he makes one of them done away in Christ.
So that you don't go, because a lot of people will be like,
Well, to be saved, it's Jesus plus the Ten Commandments.
Nope.
It's just Jesus.
And by the way, this obsession with and enshrining of the Ten Commandments in the New Testament is not biblical.
You know, nowhere in the New Testament do we see the Ten Commandments being just put up on a pedestal
as somehow being different than the law or something.
In fact, we see the opposite, where the law is epitomized by the Ten Commandments.
The Ten Commandments, the tables of the stone, are the ministration of death.
They're the ministration of condemnation.
And let's keep reading.
In case you're not convinced, it says,
Much more, verse 9, does the ministration of righteousness, talking about the New Testament, exceed in glory.
For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect by reason of the glory that excelleth.
But here's the key verse, verse 11. Don't miss it.
For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
The Apostle Paul, writing the book of 2 Corinthians, is saying, and this is before, this is before even the destruction of the temple in 70 AD.
Right? Because the destruction of the temple in 70 AD is after Paul is already dead and gone.
And so, the Apostle Paul here is writing to the Corinthian church, and he says to them that that ministration of death, ministration of condemnation,
the covenant, the Ten Commandments, is done away.
Now, I mean, does everybody have that in your Bible?
It literally says, if the ministration of condemnation be glory, verse 9, what is that?
Go back to verse 7.
If the ministration of death, written in engraving in stones, was glorious.
Does everybody get this?
The ministration of death, written in engraving in stones, was glorious.
That's the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone.
Fact.
What is that referred to as?
That which is done away, in verse 11.
That which is done away was glorious.
And then he says, then, you know, much more that which remaineth is glorious.
The New Testament.
So, what's done away?
Old Testament, done away.
Old Covenant, done away.
Ten Commandments, done away.
New Covenant, New Testament, is more glorious.
Is also called, in the Book of Hebrews, a better testament.
A better covenant.
And then here's, just in case 2 Corinthians chapter 3 didn't do it for you,
we have an explicit verse in Hebrews 8-13,
in that he sayeth a new covenant, he hath made the first old.
Now, that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.
Done away, vanish away, it's called the New Covenant,
cause the other one's old, obsolete, outdated, done away.
It's over, it's sort of, this is what it's like.
It's like when the new electrical code comes out.
Right, the NEC.
Who knows what I'm talking about, electricians out there, right?
The new one comes out, it supersedes the old one.
Okay?
Any new buildings, you know, have to be built,
not according to the one from 30 years ago or something,
it's like you gotta be on the current edition.
Now things are grandfathered in, if they were already built back in 1965,
and they're up to date according to, you know, whatever the code was in 1965.
They're grandfathered in, right?
And I think that when Christ died on the cross,
obviously there are some people who are kind of grandfathered,
like they already were saved even before Jesus even came to this earth.
They don't have to get saved again or something, you know what I mean?
They don't lose their salvation.
Okay, but here's the thing about that though,
is that today the old covenant is totally gone,
and has been gone since the first century AD.
It's totally gone, nobody's grandfathered in,
because nobody alive today was born, you know, pre-Christ.
Everybody alive today was born, you know, almost 2,000 years after Christ,
and there's no old and new covenant going at the same time.
That's garbage.
But, you know, just last week, Pastor Shelley and Pastor Jimenez
were talking to that Jew and Judaizer on that program,
and they said, hey, the New Testament replaces the Old Testament.
Old Testament's done away, and Pastor Jimenez quoted Hebrews 8.13.
And this Judaizer fake Christian bozo is like,
no, that's not true, no, the old covenant is not done away, it's still...
It's like, what are you... Hebrews 8.13.
And if that's not enough, come over to 2 Corinthians 3.
I mean, it's not just one scripture that we're hanging our hat on, folks.
This is taught repeatedly through the New Testament,
and this is one of the reasons why we believe in replacement theology,
because the old covenant has been replaced by the new covenant.
The old covenant is obsolete.
It's like your NEC 2002 when the NEC 2005 comes out,
and, you know, there's a little bit of a time where it's like,
okay, you're still good with the 2002, you're still good with it,
but then there comes a point where they're like,
look, you gotta be on the 05 now.
You know, when the 05 first comes out, there's a little overlap,
but then it's like, no, you know, it's been enough time,
and now all the contracts, they better be on the 2005 edition.
And then it's gonna be the 2008 edition, and then it's, you know what I mean?
Now, with, obviously with God, there's only two covenants.
There's the old covenant and the new covenant,
and the new covenant is eternal.
The old covenant was always gonna be temporary.
God always knew it was gonna be temporary.
It was always intended to be temporary.
The new covenant is eternal, and it replaces the old covenant, okay?
But these Judaizers, go back if you went to 2 Chronicles,
these Judaizers are so bad, they literally believe that Jews, practicing Judaism,
are going to heaven without Jesus, okay?
Because of the fact that they say, well, they have their own separate deal with God,
they have their own covenant, you know, which is so dumb,
because verses like, I am the way, the truth, and the life,
no man cometh unto the Father but by me, you know, we're spoken to Jews.
I mean, Jesus is saying all that stuff to Jews.
John the Baptist, when John the Baptist says, you know,
he that believeth on the Son has everlasting life,
and he that believeth not the Son should not see life,
but the wrath of God abideth on him, that's all being spoken to Jews.
Jesus says, if you do not believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.
Who's he talking to? Gentiles?
It's all to the Jews.
When Peter gets up and says,
neither is there salvation in any other,
for there is none other name given among men,
whereby we, and he's talking to a room full of Jews,
whereby we must be saved.
Okay, it's absurd, and the problem is that today we've got a bunch of independent Baptists
that they don't go to those extremes,
but what it is is they're influenced by those kind of people,
and they're like kind of halfway there, so they're like,
well, the Jews aren't saved, obviously they need Jesus to go to heaven,
but, you know, they're still, you know, blessed and special,
and God's chosen people, whatever.
Like you're just chosen people on your way to hell.
So cool.
Hey, if you're going to go to hell, you might as well go to hell in style.
It's like, yeah, you know, you're going straight to hell,
but at least you're going to hell as one of the chosen people.
You're the chosen people.
Tell them what they get, Rod.
Well, here's what they get.
They get to be blessed and have God's blessing, and God's going to protect them,
and they get to have money, and they get to be famous,
and they get to run Hollywood,
and then they get the big package in hell burning for all eternity.
Here's the thing.
No matter how good you have it on this earth,
if you burn in hell, none of it mattered.
Well, you know, God just really loved Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
so he's just really good to the Jews on their way to hell.
You know, so basically, the train that they take to hell,
they travel to hell first class.
They're in the sleep compartment.
You know, they're in the dining car to hell.
Think about how stupid that is.
Think about how crazy this is.
And, you know, people think I'm crazy.
You want to know who's crazy?
These pastors who teach that Jews are being blessed
and just whined and dined and feted by God on their way to hell
where they're all ultimately going, all of them,
because there is not a single person who is going to go to hell without Jesus,
and Jews don't believe in Jesus.
Well, what about the ones who do?
Then they're called Christians.
Jews, by very definition, don't believe in Jesus,
because in Christ there is neither Jew nor Gentile.
So it's like, well, you know, those Israelis over there,
they're God's chosen people.
Folks, Israel is not a Christian country at all.
In fact, I just learned this recently
that if you want to get married in Israel, right,
if you want to get married in Israel and you want your wedding,
you want your marriage to be recognized by law, right,
because, I mean, when we got married,
those of us that are here that are married,
when we got married, we got, like, a marriage license
and you filed something, and now, like,
the state recognizes you as you're married.
I am legally married to my wife,
you're legally married to your wife,
and if you're not, well, then, as soon as I find out about it,
I'll throw you out of the church
until you actually get married,
because no concubines allowed, amen?
We don't do concubines here.
We only do lawfully wedded wives.
Well, here's the deal, okay?
If you want to get married in Israel,
these are your choices.
You can have a Jewish wedding or a Muslim wedding.
Those are the two choices,
if you want it to be legally recognized.
So what if you're a Christian?
You got to get married.
If you want to be legally married,
you have to get married somewhere else.
You have to travel abroad
and go get married somewhere else,
because the Israeli government
is going to recognize Jewish weddings
and Muslim weddings
as the legitimate, recognized-by-law weddings, right?
Isn't that wonderful?
Well, you know, it's probably not much of a problem,
because there are so ridiculously few Christians
in Israel anyway.
That's why they don't even,
it's like they don't even have the right
to even have their wedding recognized.
I mean, think about that, folks.
It's just, it's ridiculous.
And yet today, they owe God's blessing Israel,
while the whole population virtually goes to hell, right?
And look, I guarantee you
that there are saved Israelis, guarantee it,
because God tells us there are saved people
in every nation under heaven, you know?
There's always that righteous remnant.
I guarantee you there are saved Palestinians,
saved Israelis, they're out there, right?
But it's such a minuscule proportion
that the country as a whole is virtually all damned.
But yet God's supposedly blessing them
and protecting them, and he's so good to them,
and he loves them so much
that they have the platinum package
of hell-bound existence.
It's great.
Oh, man, he brought them back in 1948,
and he fought against all their enemies,
and he kept them all cozy and safe,
and he tucked them in, all wormy in their beds at night,
and then they all roast in hell.
I mean, what, what, what, wah!
It makes no sense.
It's dumb.
It's not biblical.
I don't know what it has to do with 2 Chronicles 6.
All right, verse 11.
In it have I put the ark, wherein is the covenant of the Lord
that he made with the children of Israel,
and he stood before the altar of the Lord
in the presence of all the congregation of Israel
and spread forth his hands.
And just for sake of time,
I'm going to kind of jump down a little bit,
but it says in verse number 14,
he's on his knees, of course,
before the whole congregation on a platform.
Verse 14 said, O Lord God of Israel,
there's no God like thee in the heaven nor in the earth
which keepest covenant and showest mercy unto thy servants
that walk before thee with all their hearts.
Thou which has kept with thy servant David my father,
that which thou has promised him and spakeest with thy mouth
and has fulfilled it with thine hand as it is this day.
Now therefore, Lord God of Israel,
keep with thy servant David my father,
that which thou hast promised him,
saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my sight
to sit upon the throne of Israel.
Yet so that thy children take heed to their way
to walk in my law as thou hast walked before me.
Now then, O Lord God of Israel,
let thy word be verified which thou spake unto thy servant David.
So what we see here is that
there's not going to fail a man from the Davidic line
to sit upon the throne, right?
But God is still warning and saying, you know,
if your children don't take heed unto their way
to walk in my law, you know,
they can still personally or individually run into problems.
And so what we will see sometimes in the Old Testament
is individual Davidic kings or kings of Judah, right?
Because the kings of Judah are the Davidic kings.
Kings of Israel are not of David.
Kings of Judah, so, you know,
we have guys like obviously Solomon,
and then after that we have Rehoboam, Abijah,
Asa, Josaphat, Joram, right?
Ultimately we're going to get to guys that we really like
like Hezekiah and Josiah and things like that.
You know, those Davidic kings,
some of those Davidic kings did evil in the sight of the Lord
and God ends up not blessing them.
They die young.
Something bad happens to them.
They go into captivity or whatever, okay?
And in fact, you even have this gap of the Babylonian captivity
where there's not really a son of David sitting on that throne, is there?
Now it doesn't mean that God broke his promise
because God's promising an eternal kingdom for the line of David.
So you have this kind of temporary period of 70 years
where you don't have somebody sitting on that throne.
But then if you remember the Davidic king who's in exile,
the king of Babylon pulls him out of captivity
like 30-some years into his exile
and sets him up and cleans him up
and sets him at his own table
and then eventually when they come back
after the Babylonian captivity,
you have sons of David once again ruling, right?
Because when they come back, you have, of course,
it's on the tip of my tongue, Zerubbabel.
You have Zerubbabel coming back, son of David.
Zerubbabel comes back and it's like, boom, we got our guy again.
But the thing that's so crazy about Judaism at this point
is that you have all these verses about David's kingdom being an eternal kingdom
and yet they haven't had anybody sitting on that throne of David in how long?
I mean, ever since the time of Christ,
there has been no Davidic monarch sitting on that throne.
And so therefore, if you don't have Christianity to say,
hey, Christ is the son of David, he's ruling and reigning,
Christ is the king of Israel,
then you're basically just, I guess you just have to believe
that basically there's just no Davidic king for 2,000 years and that's fine.
Because it's one thing to have a little pause button for like 70 years while they're in captivity
and then it's like the temple was destroyed for that same time, wasn't it?
The Davidic monarchy and the temple, there's connection there, of course, right?
And so it's like temple's destroyed, no Davidic monarch,
but it's like people are still alive when they build the second temple.
There are people who are still alive who saw the first temple.
It's not even to the point where multiple lifetimes have gone by.
Whereas now, you've had no temple and no Davidic monarch for almost 2,000 years.
You know, get the picture, folks. It's over. Old Covenant's over. Old Testament's over.
You need to get on the New Testament with Jesus and the local church.
That's your new temple.
Let me just, I'm almost out of time, so I'll just kind of hit a few highlights here as we're wrapping up here.
It says in verse 19,
Have respect, therefore, to the prayer of thy servant, and to his supplication, O Lord my God,
to hearken unto the cry and the prayer which thy servant prayeth before thee,
that thine eyes may be opened upon this house day and night,
upon the place whereof thou hast said that thou wouldest put thy name there,
to hearken unto the prayer which thy servant prayeth toward this place.
And then later on, he's going to talk about when different bad things happen.
Jump down, if you would, to verse 28.
If there be dearth in the land, that's like a famine.
If there be pestilence, if there be blasting or mildew, locusts or caterpillars,
if thine, if their enemies, besiege them in the cities of their land,
whatsoever sore or whatsoever sickness there be,
then what prayer or what supplication soever shall be made of any man
or of all thy people Israel, when everyone shall know his own sore and his own grief,
and shall spread forth his hands in this house,
then hear thou from heaven, thy dwelling place,
and forgive and render unto every man according to his ways,
whose heart thou knowest, for thou only knowest the hearts of the children of men.
They may fear thee to walk in thy ways,
so long as they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.
And so we see here that God's hell is a place where prayer is made,
and God answers that prayer.
Now, the Bible also talks about this in the New Testament with respect to the Church.
He says that if two or three of you shall agree as touching anything,
and they pray, right, and I'm paraphrasing, but he says if they pray,
then God will answer their prayer, God will hear them.
So there's power in praying with someone else.
Okay, there's praying by yourself.
Obviously most of our prayer is a solo activity.
You know, Jesus said, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, pray to thy Father which is in secret.
But there's also praying with someone else,
and there's power in praying with someone else when you both agree on something,
and say, hey, the two of us, or the three of us, we're gonna pray for this together.
Then that, there's something special about that, right?
It's like an amplification of your prayer.
And then if the Church as a whole prays for something, right,
then that also has power.
And you know, Solomon blesses all the people here that are at this congregation.
You know, I think there's a blessing that you get when you come to church.
I think God blesses people who come to church.
And I think that physically being here in the congregation, in the assembly,
brings a blessing upon you.
Where you're blessed by being a part of this body,
like the blessings that God's giving to the Church in general,
you kind of get a piece of that because you're part of the group.
Whereas if you're just out there on your own, you're missing out on that blessing.
And you know, we're living in a day where people are getting away from
the physical, literal, local church.
And they're missing out on a blessing.
There's power in being in church.
And you know, a lot of people, they say, well, I'll just listen to the preaching online.
And listening to the preaching online is great.
But at the end of the day, though, there's something special about being here.
Physically being here, singing the songs, being here for the fellowship,
praying with a group, listening to the preaching in person, physically being here.
And a lot of people say, well, the Church isn't a building.
But nobody's saying the Church is a building.
We're saying the Church is the group, the congregation.
You by yourself are not the Church because you're not a congregation.
Being in the group is a blessing.
Now, some people will come to church and say, I have an unspoken prayer request.
That's a little bit hard to pray for because we don't know what it is.
Here's the other thing about that.
We can't really agree with you because how do we know you're not praying for something stupid?
And the power comes from the fact that if two or three of you agree as touching anything,
it's like, hey, you and I, we've talked about this and we agree.
We're both praying for this.
That amplifies.
I think the unspoken, you might as well just do that yourself because we can't really help you with that
because we can't agree with stuff that we don't understand.
We can't say amen to a prayer that we can't understand.
That's what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 14.
If somebody prays in another language, I can't say amen because maybe I'm amen-ing
some kind of a hail Satan type of a thing.
Who knows what it is?
We don't know.
You're praying for some corvette or something and I'm just like, amen.
It doesn't really mean anything.
Obviously, I'm sure that 99% of these unspoken requests are legitimate, important things.
If you really want the power of praying in a group or praying two of you or three of you,
you do have to tell the other person what it is because the Bible says you agree with them.
We both agree and we're both kind of pulling on the same rope.
We both pray to God and then God respects that.
There's nothing wrong with saying, hey, I have a prayer request.
Can we pray about this?
Praying with your friend.
It doesn't necessarily have to be pastor or staff member or deacon.
It can just really just be any brother or sister in Christ.
You just get together with a brother or sister in Christ and just say, hey,
will you help me pray for this one thing and then you pray together.
Then God will bless that.
It doesn't have to be something formal.
It doesn't have to be a prayer meeting.
It can just be you're with your buddy and you say, hey, can you pray for me?
Typically when people walk up to me and say, will you pray for me about this?
A lot of times I'll just say, hey, let's pray about it right now.
Let's pray about it together right now and just get it done.
The worst thing is when you say you're going to pray about something, then you forget about it.
That's terrible, right?
That's why whenever I say, yes, I will pray for you, I always do it right away
because I don't want to be that guy who said he was going to pray about it and didn't follow through.
But the Bible here is talking about praying in this house.
That's talking about praying in church.
Praying in church or just praying with a Christian buddy as well.
Obviously, when we talk about the house of God, it's church.
Two or three Christians getting together is not church, but it could still be powerful prayer there.
Christ is still in the midst.
Then there's the house of God, the church.
That's another level of blessing when you're congregated with God's people.
Let's not forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is,
but exhorting one another and so much the more as we see the day approaching.
Then just to wrap up the end of the chapter, it says in verse 40,
Now, my God, let I beseech thee, thine eyes be opened,
and let thine ears be a tent under the prayer that is made in this place.
Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place.
Thou and the ark of thy strength, let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation,
and let thy saints rejoice in thy goodness.
O Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed.
Remember the mercies of David, thy servant.
Here we see God's eyes open to the church.
Just insert the house of God in the New Testament here.
If we're talking about the Old Testament, apply it to the New Testament.
The priests, all believers in the New Testament are priests,
so every saved person, man, woman, boy, or girl is a priest.
They are clothed with salvation.
They are rejoicing in God's goodness, praying in the house of God.
God's ears are attentive to those prayers.
Turn not away the face of thine anointed.
Thine anointed at this time was Solomon.
Who's the anointed now?
Of course, Christ literally means anointed, right?
And this also came up in the conversation with the Jew and the Judaizer.
I don't know who's worse, the Jew or the Judaizer?
Because the Judaizer was not better.
I think it's just a tie for last place of just being bad.
Because, by the way, oh, by the way, the Judaizer, bro, said, like,
oh, Christ isn't even God.
Well, there we go. Now we know the guy's going straight to hell.
Why? Because, ultimately, the Judaizing doctrine is trying to lead people to Judaism,
which is a denial of Christ as the Messiah, which is a denial of the divinity of Christ.
And, by the way, this Judaizer guy's like, oh, there's lots of Messiahs.
You know, there's all kinds of Messiahs.
Well, and here's the thing.
The devil, he uses lies, and there's usually a little bit of truth in every lie.
But it's a twisting of the truth.
You know, Satan in the Bible, he's twisting the truth.
Obviously, the word Christ literally just means anointed.
How do we know that?
Even just in your King James Bible, you're going to see this used interchangeably.
You know, the kings of the earth rise up, the rulers take counsel together,
against the Lord and against his anointed, Psalm 2.
That's quoted in the New Testament as against the Lord and against his Christ.
We found the Messiah, which being interpreted as the Christ.
Anointed means Messiah means Christ.
That's what it means.
So, obviously, when Saul is called the Lord's anointed, when David, remember when David says,
I'm not going to put forth my hand against the Lord's anointed, right?
If we were reading that in Hebrew, it would say, I'm, you know, the Lord's Mashiach, the Lord's Messiah.
Or if we're reading a Greek translation of the Old Testament, I'm not going to put forth my hand against the Lord's Christ.
But does that mean that Saul is the Messiah, the Christ?
No, because obviously, every prophet, priest, king is anointed, right?
The priests are all anointed.
The kings are all anointed, right?
David's anointed.
Solomon's anointed.
Rehoboam's anointed.
Does that make them the Messiah?
No, because just as the Bible talks about many Antichrists, but then there's the one big capital A Antichrist, right?
You know, we could talk about, we all have fathers, as in our dad, with a lower case f, but then there's the father.
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
God the father, the son, he that believeth on the son hath life.
But I have a son, you have a son, but then there's the son.
So you see how stupid and disingenuous, oh, there's lots of Messiahs, oh, Messiahs everywhere.
Oh, there's all kinds of sons, all kinds of fathers.
It's like, no, man, when we talk about the Messiah, there's only one Christ.
It's Jesus, okay?
There's not one in every generation.
Here's the thing, obviously, all of us are anointed by the Holy Spirit, too, every single one of us.
But are we going to start calling ourselves little Christs?
No, that would sound super weird and super blasphemous in English.
Okay, so we're not speaking Hebrew, we're not speaking Greek, we're speaking English.
And so calling yourself Christ, if you show up and say, I'm Christ, you know, we're going to say you're an anti-Christ.
You're a weirdo, you're a psychotic.
And so when he says here, turn not away from the face of the light anointed, he's talking about himself.
King Solomon is anointed as the king of Israel, right?
Ultimately, though, the big capital A anointed one, the ultimate one who is prophet and priest and king,
the eternal ultimate anointed one is none other than Jesus Christ, right?
And so he is the only Messiah.
And anybody who tries to say Jesus is not the Messiah, or he didn't come to be the Messiah,
or he's not going to be the Messiah until he comes the second time is a liar.
He was already the Messiah the first time he came.
That's why when the woman at the well said, I know that when Messiah cometh, he'll tell us all things,
and he said, I that speak unto thee am he, I'm the Messiah.
He flat out told the woman at the well, you're talking to the Messiah right now.
You either believe that or you don't.
And so beware of the Judaizers.
It might start out with just a little bit of a funny hat, a little frill, a little tassel here and there,
a little Hochflem, but you know, it's a slippery slope and it's a bobsled to hell.
And I don't care how much cushioning and padding the dyspies think that that bobsled has,
you know, it's a bobsled to hell.
Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word.
Thank you for the New Testament church, Lord.
Thank you for the house of God.
Lord God, I pray that every single person who is listening to this sermon online
would realize the importance of, of physically going to a church in their area, physically actually attending church,
uh, wherever they are finding an assembly of born again, baptized believers.
Lord, help us here in Phoenix not to take church for granted.
Help us to show up and get those blessings.
Show up and pray with the congregation and sing with the congregation and hear preaching with the congregation.
Lord, just as Solomon prayed that your eyes would be attentive and that your ears would be open to that place, Lord,
I pray that your ears and eyes would be on this place, Faithful Word Baptist Church,
and that you would bless all of your people who are here.
And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's take our hymnals, please.
Go to hymn 131.
131, Christ is all I need.
Christ is all I need.
Hymn number 131.
Hymn number 131
Christ is all I need
All I need
Christ is all I need
Christ is all I need, all I need.
He will crucify for me He died.
I'm now a free.
That's why I know He loves me so.
He's all I need.
He's all I need, all I need.