about.
don't do it.
This is for you.
That's all.
Thanks.
You're welcome.
I'll leave it at that.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thanks.
And what I want to spend time with you guys today is going to be a lot more beautiful than I thought it would be, because we are all beautiful as men.
So, I'm very excited.
Yeah, for sure.
Thank you so much.
I want to go here.
Thank you.
Where are we sitting?
Hi, how are you?
Yes.
Hi.
Good evening.
Welcome to our services tonight here at Faith Ward Baptist Church.
It's really good to see you all here on this Wednesday night.
If you would all please find your seats and take your song books as we begin our congregational singing tonight.
Let's go to hymn number 419 tonight.
We'll begin hymn number 419, 419, 419, sound the battle cry.
Hymn number 419, sound the battle cry, see the foe is nigh.
Let's sing it out on that first verse together, hymn number 419.
Sound the battle cry, see the foe is nigh.
Praise the standard high for the Lord.
Urge your lover on, stand firm, everyone.
Bless your cause upon his holy birth.
Crows and soldiers, rally round the banner.
Ready, steady, pass the word along.
Onward for one shout of love, hosanna.
Price is captain of the mighty cross.
Long live the cause, marching on and on.
All our cause, we know, must prevail.
Shield him and ride, leaning in the light.
Baddling for the right, we ne'er can fail.
Crows and soldiers, rally round the banner.
Ready, steady, pass the word along.
Onward for one shout of love, hosanna.
Price is captain of the mighty cross.
Long live the law, hear us when we draw.
Help us, wonderful, by thy grace.
When the battle's done, when the victor's won.
They beware the crown before thy face.
Crows and soldiers, rally round the banner.
Ready, steady, pass the word along.
Onward for one shout of love, hosanna.
Price is captain of the mighty cross.
Dear Holy Father, thank you for allowing us to be here tonight.
Thank you for the songs that we're able to sing.
Please help us to sing praises to you.
And I pray you fill our pastor with your spirit.
Have everything that's said and done tonight.
Bring all the glory to your name, for it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Over to hymn number 292.
His way with thee, hymn number 292.
292. Would you live for Jesus and be always pure and good, number 292.
Let's sing it on this first verse together.
Would you live for Jesus and be always fair and good?
Would you walk with him in the narrow road?
Would you have a care you're willing to carry on your load?
Would you have his name with thee?
His power would make you what you ought to be.
His blood could raise your heart and make you free.
His love can build your soul and you will see.
Would you live for Jesus and be always fair and good?
Would you have a care you're willing to carry on your load?
His power will make you what you want to be, His blood will press your heart and make
you free.
His power will make you what you want to be, His blood will press your heart and make
you free.
His blood will make you what you want to be, His blood will press your heart and make
you free.
His blood will press your heart and make you free.
Now next Wednesday night, actually, we're going to have Pastor Bruce Mejia preaching
for us one week from tonight on Wednesday night.
So tonight it's Ezekiel 12, but one week from tonight will be Pastor Mejia.
So keep that in mind.
And then below that, we've got the soul winning times listed below as well as salvations and
baptisms.
Across the page this Sunday, we've got the chili potluck, which is going to be at five
o'clock and then the normal evening service will be pushed back to seven o'clock on that
night.
So we're providing the apple cider, the corn muffins, the bean dip, but we want as many
people as possible to bring a pot of chili to share.
And so who's planning on bringing a chili to this thing?
Put up your hand nice and high.
All right.
Lots of people.
Very good.
So think about bringing one and we'll provide outlet strips if you want to bring it in a
crock pot that you can kind of keep it warm.
And then below that, we've got the church picnic on November 20th.
The portraits are almost over, so be sure to get signed up right away if you haven't
gotten your portrait taken yet for the yearbook.
That's the back of the auditorium.
On the back, we've got the note about baby Moses.
Congratulations to the Casas family.
And so be sure to congratulate them.
Below that, we've got the zip line tour thing on November the 19th.
My wife's not here tonight, but you'll want to get in contact with her about that.
And that's about it for an announcement.
One other thing actually.
Yes.
We're canceling the soul winning for tomorrow at 10.30 and five.
Okay.
So no soul winning tomorrow at 10.30 and five.
So those two soul winning times are not happening tomorrow.
The Thursday 10.30 and five soul winning.
So make a note of that.
Also speaking of soul winning, we've got another mission strip coming up.
Of course, we just had the big Sierra Leone trip.
It was a big success.
Well, we've got another one coming up.
I think this one is probably going to be able to involve a lot more people than the Sierra
Leone trip because it's a lot cheaper, it's a lot easier, it's a lot closer.
So this is going to be in the US Virgin Islands.
So the great thing about it is that it's the United States, so I can't get banned.
No, I'm just kidding.
Just joking.
Because I'm actually not going to make it on this particular trip.
But the good thing about it is that you don't even have to have a passport to do it because
it's the United States.
So it's the US Virgin Islands.
It's going to be the week of January 16th through 22nd.
So if you want to mark the calendar, start thinking about it, see if that's something
that you could do.
January 16th through 22nd.
It looks like, just kind of looking at different flight ticket prices from Phoenix, from other
parts of the country, it looks like you can get flights as cheap as like 400 bucks.
And in fact, there are even some flights cheaper than that.
So it's only like a $400 flight.
There's no vaccine required.
There's no passport.
It's the United States.
But it's also very receptive for soul winning because I believe, did you and Brother Raymond
win and scoped it out or no?
Raymond won.
You weren't on that one.
Yeah.
But anyway, Brother Raymond went out there and scoped it out.
It was super receptive.
Seems like it's going to be great.
It's going to be a fun trip.
And then also the way we're going to do the lodging, we're going to be renting Airbnbs.
So the lodging is going to be pretty cheap as well.
So you might be able to get a flight for around 400 bucks.
And then the lodging may end up being as low as like 30 bucks a night if you're basically
sharing lodging because we're going to get houses with a bunch of bedrooms and work
that out.
So we'll have more details as it gets closer.
But honestly, if you got 1,000 bucks, you should be able to easily go on this trip as
far as paying for your flight, your lodging.
And then we're going to provide a lot of the food for the team there.
We're going to be providing a lot of meals as far as just stocking the fridge at these
Airbnbs for people.
Just kind of stock the fridge, prepare some basic meals.
And so if you got 1,000 bucks to set aside, you should be able to easily do this mission
strip out the door for that price.
That even gives you a little bit of pocket money for knickknacks and so forth.
So anyway, something to think about.
It's coming up.
Obviously, the Sierra Leone trip was an awesome place to go, but it's a little more difficult
because the flights are expensive.
It's all the way on the other side of the world.
Yellow fever vaccine requirement and all of those hurdles that made it tough.
It's a huge success.
But this is something that's a little bit closer to home, but it also promises to be
very receptive as well.
And so if we can get a big group to go there, we could really do a lot.
And so anyway, just throwing that out there and you can start thinking about that.
And then what else have we got?
I think that that's about it for announcements.
So let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days.
So going back to Monday.
Anything from Monday?
Gotcha.
Okay.
Anything else from Monday?
What about Tuesday?
Okay.
Anything else from Tuesday?
Gotcha.
Got it.
All right.
And then what about Wednesday today?
Okay.
All right.
Is that a...
All right.
Didn't you just say that there was one or...
Oh, he already reported it.
Okay.
Cool.
All right.
Very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
With that, let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right.
Take your song books, please.
And turn to hymn number 469.
469.
Jesus bids us shine.
Hymn number 469.
Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light, number 469.
Let's go back to that first verse now that we're familiar with it, and sing it again.
Song the first.
Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light, like a little can of money in the night.
Like a little candle burning in the night,
To the sword of darkness we must shine,
Filling the soulful matter and guiding light.
Jesus, we just shine with the hope for him,
When he sees and knows that in the light is there,
He looks down from heaven and sees us shine,
He renders hope for her and I am mine,
Jesus paints us shine when we're all around,
Filling the eyes of darkness and his world around,
Sin and wanton sorrow he must shine,
He renders hope for her and I am mine,
Jesus paints us shine as we work for him,
Waking in the wonder from the clouds of sin,
He will never help us as we shine,
He renders hope for her and I am mine.
We'll go ahead and pass the offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn in our Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 12.
Ezekiel chapter 12, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads.
Ezekiel chapter 12, starting in verse number 1.
In Ezekiel chapter 12, the Bible reads,
The word of the Lord also came unto me, saying,
Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house,
which have eyes to see and see not.
They have ears to hear and hear not, for they are a rebellious house.
Therefore, thou son of man, prepare these stuff for removing,
and remove by day in their sight,
and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight.
It may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house.
Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight,
as stuff for removing, and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight,
as they that go forth into captivity.
Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby,
in their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders,
and carry it forth in the twilight.
Thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground,
for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.
And I did so as I was commanded.
I brought forth my stuff by day, as stuff for captivity,
and in the even I dig through the wall with mine hand.
I brought it forth in the twilight, and I bear it upon my shoulder in their sight.
And in the morning came the word of the Lord unto me, saying,
Son of man, hath not the house of Israel the rebellious house said unto thee,
What doest thou? Say thou unto them, Thus saith the Lord God,
This burden concerneth the prince in Jerusalem,
and all the house of Israel that are among them.
Say, I am your sign. Like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them.
They shall remove and go into captivity.
And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulders in the twilight,
and shall go forth. They shall dig through the wall to carry out thereby.
He shall cover his face, that he see not the ground with his eyes.
Mine head also will I spread upon him, and he shall be taken in my snare.
And I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans,
yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there.
And I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him,
and all his bands, and I will draw out the sword after them.
And they shall know that I am the Lord when I shall scatter them among the nations,
and disperse them in the countries.
But I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence,
that they may declare all their abomination among the heathen whither they come.
And they shall know that I am the Lord.
Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness.
And say unto the people of the land,
Thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
and of the land of Israel,
They shall eat their bread with carefulness, and drink their water with astonishment,
that her land may be desolate from all that is therein,
because of the violence of all them that dwell therein.
And the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste,
and the land shall be desolate, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, what is that proverb that ye have in the land of Israel,
saying, The days are prolonged, and every vision faileth?
Tell them therefore, Thus saith the Lord God,
I will make this proverb to cease,
and they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel,
but say unto them, The days are at hand, and the effect of every vision.
For there shall be no more any vain vision, nor flattering divination within the house of Israel.
For I am the Lord, I will speak, and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass.
It shall be no more prolonged, for in your days, O rebellious house,
will I say the word, and will perform it, saith the Lord God.
Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, behold,
they of the house of Israel say, The vision that he seeth is for many days to come,
and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.
Therefore saying to them, Thus saith the Lord God,
There shall none of my words be prolonged any more,
but the word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord God.
Father in heaven, thank you for the free gift of salvation.
I pray that you feel the password of the Holy Spirit and give us ears to hear.
In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.
Man, Exodus chapter 12, the Bible reads in verse number 1,
The word of the Lord also came unto me, saying, Son of man,
thou dwelleth in the midst of a rebellious house,
and then notice these next words,
which have eyes to see and see not,
they have ears to hear and hear not,
for they are a rebellious house.
When we think about being rebellious in the word of God,
sometimes the Bible will talk about people being stiff-necked.
You know, he who being often reproved hardeneth his neck
shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy.
So stiff-necked, you think of someone kind of stiffening or bristling,
or if you try to tell someone that they're wrong,
maybe you try to correct an employee or try to correct a child or a teenager,
sometimes they'll stiffen up,
which is just physically representing what they're doing on the inside,
which is resisting what they're being told,
not being pliable or bendable or being willing to change
and fix problems in their life.
They're stubbornly being stiff-necked.
But here the Bible uses this other statement of
they have eyes to see and see not,
they have ears to hear and hear not.
Another thing you'll notice is that when you're trying to correct someone
who's rebellious, again, think of an employee,
a teenager or something like that,
then if they're rebellious, you'll notice they won't look at you.
They're kind of like looking all over the place, you know,
and also they'll just start to tune you out
where they're not even listening to you, right?
If you try to rebuke a rebellious teenager
and they're just kind of like looking around, not listening.
And so we're all kind of familiar with that.
And so here, the House of Israel, they're a rebellious house,
they're a stiff-necked people,
and they don't want to see and they don't want to hear the Word of God,
so they're just kind of just tuning it out,
just covering their eyes, closing their ears,
just shutting off from the Word of God, not listening.
People don't like to be told that they're wrong.
You know, people don't like being rebuked or corrected.
That's why the Bible says,
everyone that doeth evil hateth the light,
because he doesn't want to come to the light
lest his deeds would be reproved.
And so we're living in a generation today
where a lot of people have turned away their ears from the truth
and they're turned into fables.
They don't want to listen to preaching that tells them about their sin
or tells them what they need to change about their life
or tells them what God expects from them.
They're rebellious,
so they don't want to hear God's Word,
they don't want to think about it.
They'd rather just not see it, not hear it,
just push it as far out of their mind as possible.
You'll notice that sometimes when you go out soul-winning,
sometimes people will just be,
they'll be so hostile to the things of God.
Before you even say anything,
before you even have said a word,
just the idea that you're just bringing up God or church or the Bible,
they're just already just bristling,
like, no, we don't want to think about that.
And, of course, the extreme case of that would be the reprobate
who doesn't even want to retain God and His knowledge,
doesn't even want to remember that God exists.
So the house of Israel is a rebellious house.
They have eyes toward, I mean, they could see what's happening,
but they're purposely choosing to put their head in the sand
and ignore what God is showing them.
And they're purposely just stopping their ears
and not listening to the Word of God.
They have ears to hear, but they hear not
because they are a rebellious house.
So because of the fact that the house of Israel
doesn't want to see what's going on right in front of their eyes,
they don't want to hear the Word of God,
Ezekiel instead is told to use these extreme object lessons
in order to get people's attention,
because these people are dull of hearing the Word of God being preached,
so he does these strange things.
We've already seen this earlier in the book, right,
he's laying on his side and building the little model city
and destroying it and cutting off his hair
and throwing it in the fire and doing all these radical things.
So God is going to have him do another one of these things
because they're this rebellious house, they don't listen,
so he has to do something more extreme to get their attention.
So it says in verse 3,
Therefore, thou son of man, prepare these stuff for removing.
And what we would just call this moving today,
like switching from one city to another,
switching from one house to another,
but in the older language of the King James Bible it calls this removing,
switching to another location.
So he says, prepare these stuff for removing,
and remove by day in their sight,
and thou shalt remove from thy place to another place in their sight.
It may be they will consider, though they be a rebellious house.
So they're not going to listen to the Word being preached,
so maybe this object lesson will kind of get their attention
and make them think a little bit.
So it says in verse number 4,
Then shalt thou bring forth thy stuff by day in their sight,
as stuff for removing,
and thou shalt go forth at even in their sight,
and as they that go forth into captivity,
dig thou therefore through the wall in their sight,
and carry out thereby.
In their sight shalt thou bear it upon thy shoulders,
and carry it forth in the twilight.
Thou shalt cover thy face, that thou see not the ground,
for I have set thee for a sign unto the house of Israel.
And I did as I was commanded,
I brought forth my stuff by day,
as stuff for captivity,
and in the even I dig through the wall with my hand,
I brought it forth in the twilight,
and I bear it upon my shoulder in their sight.
And then the funniest part to me of this whole story is verse 8,
And in the morning came the word of the Lord unto me, saying,
Son of man, hath not the house of Israel,
the rebellious house, said unto thee,
what doest thou, say thou unto them,
and then he begins to explain.
The funny thing is that God doesn't even explain to Ezekiel
what any of this means before he tells him to do it.
So he tells Ezekiel to do it, and then he does it,
and then in the morning after,
the word of the Lord comes unto him,
and he says, okay, people asked you what you were doing, right?
Here's what you were doing, and then he explains it to him
so that he can then turn around and preach this
to the children of Israel.
But while he's doing it, it seems that he hasn't even had it
revealed to him what he was supposed to do.
So he's supposed to get all of his stuff.
Basically, he just starts emptying all of his stuff out of his house.
He gets it all ready, piles it up, boxes it up,
gets it all ready to go, and then in the evening time,
he takes it all to the wall, digs a hole in the wall,
and brings the stuff through the hole in the wall that he creates.
It's a very strange way of doing this,
and while he's doing it, he's not making eye contact with anybody.
He's told, you know, look at the ground, don't let, you know,
and they're asking, like, what are you doing?
And he just keeps doing it,
because remember the whole point is he does these kind of strange things,
and then it gets their attention,
and then he preaches them and explains,
here's what I did, here's what it meant, okay?
So you have to hand it to Ezekiel for his obedience and his faith,
where God tells him to do all this strange stuff,
and even without an explanation, he just does what God tells him to do.
And there's a great lesson in that for us, too, that, you know,
sometimes we may not always understand all the commands of God,
but we need to do what the Bible tells us to do.
We need to follow the commands of God,
whether or not they make perfect sense to us,
because here's the thing, as we get older, we're going to learn more,
and there are certain commandments of God that I didn't really understand
when I was a kid or a teenager, but now that I'm an adult,
I look back and say, okay, I understand why God said that,
or even rules that our parents had.
You know, I might, as a teenager, look at rules that my parents have and say,
well, I don't think this rule makes any sense.
I don't understand why we have to do it this way.
But then you become an adult and you look back and you say,
yeah, those rules actually made sense.
I see why we did that.
And so the idea here is you obey first and understand later
when it comes to the Word of God, right?
God's ways are above our ways.
His thoughts are not our thoughts.
As the heavens are high above the earth,
that's how high God's thoughts are above our thoughts.
So we're not necessarily going to understand the why
of every commandment in the Bible,
but we still need to just do what the Lord commands us to do,
and then later it'll all make sense.
And that requires faith.
That requires trust.
We have to trust that God knows.
And you say, well, I don't know about that.
You know, I need to understand before I'm going to obey or whatever.
But think about it.
Is a four-year-old going to understand everything
that their parents tell them to do?
Is a five-year-old going to understand the reasons
why their parents have the rules that they do?
Well, here's the thing.
We are unto God as a five-year-old is unto their parents.
I mean, God is way beyond us.
No matter how smart we are, we're on a much lower level.
And so if there are certain things that we just can't grasp
or can't understand, we need to just have the faith to say,
look, the Bible says to do it.
I'm just going to do it.
And I find that when we do obey God, he'll reveal truth to you.
He'll give you wisdom.
You know, if Ezekiel had not obeyed this command,
he might not have ever understood why he was told to do that.
But it's after he obeys that God opens his understanding.
And then he's able to share that with other people.
And so in the morning, the word of the Lord comes to him
and explains to him what he's to preach.
And what he's to preach is basically, OK, you saw me packing my stuff
and taking it out and moving and going at night
and going through the wall.
He's saying, this is what you're going to do.
You know, you're looking at me saying that what I'm doing is strange.
Well, guess what?
This is you a few months from now.
This is you a few years from now.
You're going to do this because the Babylonians are going to come
and you're going to go into captivity
and you're going to be stalking away, hiding your face,
ashamed in the middle of the night, taking your stuff,
and leaving so it's a warning from God that everybody's going to be doing what I'm doing.
I'm just showing you your future right now.
So that's basically the sermon that he preaches to them.
He says in verse 11, say, I am your sign.
Like as I have done, so shall it be done unto them.
They shall remove and go into captivity.
And the prince that is among them shall bear upon his shoulder in the twilight.
See, the prince, the leader, the ruler, you'd think he'd have servants
doing everything for him.
No, no, the Bible is saying he's going to be carrying his own stuff on his own shoulder
because even he is going to be humiliated.
The most elevated guy in the kingdom, he's going to be humiliated.
He's carrying his own gear and he's stalking away in the night
and not wanting to make eye contact and sneaking out of there.
And by the way, when we think of rebellion, we would associate that with pride.
You know, being prideful, arrogant, puffed up,
not making eye contact to the person that's correcting you,
not listening to what other people have to say, hardening your neck.
It makes you think of being proud.
And what's the opposite of pride? Humility.
If we humble ourselves, right, then God doesn't have to humiliate us.
Right, because we have these two words, humbleness and humiliation.
Now, humbleness is something that we do to ourselves, right.
Instead of being prideful, we humble ourselves and humbling yourself is a good thing.
It's a blessing, but is it a blessing to be humiliated?
No, it's not. You don't want to be humiliated.
You know, I want to be humble, but I don't want to be humiliated.
But if you refuse to humble yourself, then God will humiliate you.
And so the prince here, the Bible is telling us, is going to be humiliated.
That's why he's not making eye contact.
That's why he's looking at the ground and hiding his face because he's embarrassed, he's ashamed.
And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be humiliated.
So I'd rather humble myself because the Bible says that if you humble yourself, you'll be exalted.
Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that he may exalt you in due time.
Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up.
But the Bible says that if you exalt yourself, you'll be abased.
And here's another word for being abased. You'll be humiliated.
You'll be humble one way or the other.
Either you do it to yourself in a good way or God does it to you in an embarrassing way.
And so that's what we see here.
The prince himself is going to bear upon his shoulder, verse 12, and shall go forth.
They shall dig through the wall to carry out their by.
He shall cover his face that he see not the ground with his eyes.
My net also will I spread upon him and he shall be taken in my snare.
Snare is like a trap.
And I will bring him to Babylon to the land of the Chaldeans.
Yet shall he not see it, though he shall die there.
Now, how is he going to go to the land of Chaldeans and not see it even though he's going to live there until he dies?
He's going to go there. He's going to be brought there.
And he's going to live there until his death, but yet he shall not see it.
How does that work? Well, here's how it works is this is Zedekiah and he's going to have his eyes poked out.
He's going to be blinded by the Babylonians while he's still in the land of Israel.
He's going to be blinded and then carried away captive as a prisoner.
So it's kind of interesting that he's kind of covering his own eyes and and looking down and not see.
And then that's also a picture of the fact that he's literally going to lose his eyesight because his eyes are going to be poked out before he's taken away captive to Babylon.
That's humiliating. Think about Samson.
When the Philistines wanted to humiliate Samson, what was one of the things that they did to him?
They poked out his eyes. They blinded him.
And so that's what's going to happen to King Zedekiah as well.
And so it says he will not see it, though he shall die there, verse 14, and I will scatter toward every wind all that are about him to help him and all his bands.
So anybody that would try to protect him or be his bodyguard, they're all going to be scattered in all directions.
They're going to be dispersed.
And it says, I will draw out the sword after him at the end of verse 14.
So I'm going to persecute him. I am going to make him suffer.
Verse 16, but I will leave a few men of them from the sword, from the famine, and from the pestilence, that they may declare all their abominations among the heathen, whither they come, and they shall know that I am the Lord.
So God's talking about destroying the children of Judah.
He's going to completely destroy the nation.
He's going to destroy Jerusalem.
And he's going to scatter them into all countries.
And in fact, he really has a mind to pretty much wipe all of them out.
He pretty much has a mind to do that.
But he says, you know what, I'm going to leave some of them, some of these most wicked people, to survive just so that they can tell the story about what I did to them.
And basically declare their abominations in these other countries by saying, hey, here's the stuff that we did, and here's how God punished us.
And so God kind of accomplishes a few different things when he does these captivities, like where he brings the northern kingdom of Israel into captivity, the Assyrians, or the southern kingdom into captivity with the Babylonians, is that not only does he punish these people who need to be punished, but he also ends up spreading God's word in a sense, because everybody hears about the God of the Bible.
Because by scattering them into all nations, they're kind of like a reluctant missionary.
You know, it's kind of like forcing them to be a missionary, not necessarily bringing good news, but bringing some bad news about, hey, God's mad, and here's what he punishes, and here's what happened to us.
And so they end up declaring God's name among the heathen, because at the end of verse 16, it says, they shall know that I am the Lord.
So what's interesting is that even in the worst situations, all things work together for good to those that love God, and God's name always ultimately ends up being glorified.
So even when God has to punish Israel, he's glorified because they go taking the story with them everywhere.
They take the scripture with them, they take the Bible with them, they take their story of what they did and how they were punished, and people just hear about God.
They just learn about God. So that's one way that God's word is constantly spreading throughout the world in the Old Testament, was through these captivities.
And then if you look at the New Testament, you've got the Christians being persecuted in the Book of Acts, and it says, they then that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Gospel.
So you have Christians that are kind of reluctant to leave Jerusalem, everybody's staying put in Jerusalem preaching the Gospel, and God wanted the Gospel to go to the whole world.
So he brings persecution on the early church, he allows that persecution to happen, and then what happens? You know, then they go scattered and preaching the Gospel everywhere.
So God's word gets out to all nations one way or the other.
And it's the same way now. I mean, whenever Christians are persecuted now, God's word still goes forth.
You know, you think about mission strips that we've had, where the mission strip had to be canceled because of the government not allowing us to enter the country, like in South Africa, for example.
You know, we had a big event planned, we're going to do all kinds of soul winning and missions, and not only did they ban me from South Africa, but they banned like anyone from our church from going to South Africa.
They listed like 20 people by name, they just kind of went on Facebook and tried to find people's names that looked like they were going or that were friends with us.
They banned my wife from South Africa, she wasn't even interested in going.
But the point is, you know, they banned the whole group, and you know, we had a guy from our church literally fly over there, show up, his name wasn't even on the list, but as soon as they figured out that he had anything to do with us,
they just put him on a plane and sent him right back home.
So he literally just flew to South Africa, stuck on a plane, sent right back home.
That's no fun.
It's already a nightmare just to fly to South Africa because it's so far.
You don't want to do that twice in one day, you don't want to turn around and just come right back.
So that was a dr- yeah, it's not even one day, it's just days of traveling.
What a nightmare, right?
What a pain in the neck.
And you think, man, think about all the soul winning we could have done on that trip.
And we got just shot down and we ended up having to redirect and it cost us a ton of money, the event never happened.
But here's the thing, you know, going on the analytics of our YouTube channel and on our church website, we already had, you know, a bunch of listeners.
We had a pretty big listenership in South Africa but it quadrupled.
If you looked at it six months after that happened, we had quadrupled the amount of listeners from South Africa.
And I got tons of emails saying, oh man, you know, it's a bummer that they banned you but I'm kind of glad they did because I heard about your preaching and we're listening to this stuff and we're doing soul winning now.
And there were locals who continued the soul winning after that event.
Because by the way, we did have a few people slip through the cracks and do the soul winning in South Africa.
Later, we sent brother Segura to do a black ops soul winning trip there and, you know, had tons of people saved, trained a bunch of people.
But there was a soul winning crew that was, I believe it was called Morning Star Baptist Church or something they were going by.
They had hundreds of people saved like just because they're giving me reports like months later and years later about just going out soul winning every week and just getting hundreds and hundreds of people saved.
So the bottom line is that sometimes God could use a bad situation and turn it around for his glory to where I think more people probably heard the gospel in South Africa by us not going.
Because we were just like on the front page of the newspapers and media and people are curious and when they start listening to the preaching, they visit the channel, they're going to get the Bible way to heaven, they're going to hear the gospel.
And so I guarantee you a lot of people got saved as a result of that.
So the bottom line is this, you know, they mean it for evil but God means it for good.
And so even these wicked Israelites who are disobeying God and doing all this idolatry, ultimately God's even going to take those people and use them for his glory because he's going to scatter them into the nations so that they can at least kind of tell everybody be very afraid of what the Lord is capable of.
Because this is what happened to us, how we got whooped by God because of our sins.
And so at least that's something that God gets out of this, you know.
And then there are also the righteous people that because, you know, a couple chapters back there is that dichotomy of how some of the people who are scattered were going to get right with God and be righteous.
And then some people who are scattered are stiff-necked people.
The righteous people then are going to actually, you know, preach the word of God in a positive way.
Like, hey, here's the bad thing that happened to us but, you know, the Lord is good and here's what it means to worship him and here's who he is.
And, you know, basically the bottom line is God's word went forth as a result of this.
And so ultimately all things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to his purpose.
But not only that, not only do all things work together for good to them that love God but also all things end up working together to glorify God as well so that God's name goes into all the earth and so that people hear about the word of God.
Because ultimately at the end of the day this world is not about us.
It's not like the world exists for my benefit and the whole world revolves around me.
No, no, no.
It ultimately is all about Christ being glorified and the word of God going forth.
And so many times we must decrease so that he can increase.
And at the end of the day that's the most important thing.
And so we see here that even these sinful people being scattered into all nations is ultimately going to be used for God's glory because they're going to declare their abominations among the heathen.
And why is it good that they declare their abominations among the heathen?
Verse 16.
Because why?
And they shall know that I'm the Lord.
People will hear about the Lord.
And that's ultimately the goal.
Look at verse 17.
Moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying son of man eat thy bread with quaking and drink thy water with trembling and with carefulness.
So this is another strange thing that Ezekiel is supposed to do in front of these people.
He's eating his food and he's shaking and this is what it means to quake, right?
It's to be like shaking in fear.
Trembling is also associated with fear and with carefulness.
So what does that mean with carefulness?
Basically as he's eating he's supposed to be kind of like looking around.
He's like scared and shaking and looking around.
And what in the world, right?
And say unto the people of the land, thus saith the Lord God of the inhabitants of Jerusalem and of the land of Israel, they shall eat their bread with carefulness and drink their water with astonishment that her land may be desolate from all that is therein because of the violence of all them that dwell therein.
So again he's doing something and they're going to look at him like what are you doing?
Why are you eating like that?
Why do you look so weird?
And he's like oh you think this is weird?
Guess what?
This is what you're going to be doing except you're not going to be kidding.
You're going to be serious.
I mean you're going to be doing this.
You're going to live this.
Every strange thing that he goes through is a picture of what they're going to do.
Remember when he had to eat the bread that was baked with the dung?
But he's telling them you're going to eat defiled bread in your captivity.
I'm just picturing your future.
So Ezekiel's a very animated preacher.
Not necessarily because he wants to be.
But you know God is telling him this is what you're going to do.
And so out of all of the prophets Ezekiel is probably the most colorful as far as the stuff that he does.
Like the object lessons and the sermons that he preached.
It's a very colorful book.
The book of Ezekiel.
You know I guess Hosea is a close second you know with that woman that he was told to marry.
But I digress.
So it says in verse number 19 at the end that you know the reason why they're being punished is because of the violence of all that dwell they're in.
You know God hates violence.
And toward the end of books like 2 Kings that's one thing that just gets emphasized when God's talking about them going into captivity at the end of 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles.
You know especially in 2 Kings it just hammers the fact that they've shed innocent blood.
It just keeps saying you've shed innocent blood.
You've filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.
You've shed innocent blood.
You've been violent.
One of the things of course that comes up a lot is them murdering their children.
Sacrificing them to false gods.
Human sacrifice.
Passing them through the fire onto Molech and doing all that.
But in general you know the Bible says the Lord trieth the righteous but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.
So God's soul hateth those who love violence.
Okay.
What is violence?
You know well it comes from the same root word as our word violate.
Basically violence is talking about harming innocent people.
Hurting innocent people, harming innocent people.
That is what it's talking about and God hates it.
It's not something that he takes lightly.
It says in verse 20 the cities that are inhabited shall be laid waste and the land shall be desolate and you shall know that I am the Lord.
So right now they've got cities.
They've got businesses.
People are living in homes.
The roads have commerce and people traveling on them.
Things are growing in the fields.
But God is going to make the cities that are inhabited just laid waste.
They're going to become like a ghost town.
Like a ruin.
Nothing's there.
No one lives there.
Houses are empty.
Dilapidated.
The animals come and take over.
I mean that's what's going to happen.
The roads are going to be empty.
The land's going to be desolate.
The cities are going to be waste.
And you'll know that I'm the Lord he says.
Verse 21.
And the word of the Lord came unto me saying son of man what is that proverb that you have in the land of Israel saying the days are prolonged and every vision faileth.
So God's angry about this little saying that's going around that oh the days are prolonged and every vision faileth.
No prophecies are coming true.
You know it's exactly what people are going to say in the end times according to 2 Peter chapter 3.
Where is the promise of his coming?
Where's the second coming?
For since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
Where is the promise of his coming?
Same mentality here of making fun of Bible prophecy and saying it's never going to happen.
So God is rebuking this proverb and he says in verse 23 tell them therefore thus saith the Lord God I will make this proverb deceased.
He says people are going to stop saying this because it's going to start sounding stupid.
When everything's actually happening the proverb's not going to seem cool anymore.
And so he says I'll make this proverb deceased that they shall no more use it as a proverb in Israel but say unto them.
Here's your new proverb right?
Say unto them the days are at hand and the effect of every vision.
Everything's happening.
Everything's coming true.
For there shall be no more any vain vision nor flattering divination within the house of Israel.
For I am the Lord I will speak and the word that I shall speak shall come to pass.
It shall be no more prolonged for in your days this is going to happen in your lifetime.
Oh rebellious house will I say the word and will perform it sayeth the Lord.
So saith the Lord God.
So a couple things here.
First of all God hates this mentality that says oh it's not going to happen anytime soon don't worry about it.
He wants us to realize that God's judgment is always right there at the door.
And that's the way that we should feel about it.
Even if we're not necessarily living in the days of the Great Tribulation or the actual end of the world or the abomination of desolation.
Here's what we need to understand.
The Great Tribulation is coming right?
But you know the Bible tells us that all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
You know the Bible says verily when we were with you we told you before that we should suffer tribulation.
Even as it came to pass and you know.
So even though the Great Tribulation is coming somebody there's always tribulation going on.
It's always going to happen in our lifetimes in some way.
Not only that but you know we think about God pouring out his wrath in Revelation with the seven trumpets and the seven vials.
But here's the thing about that is that every unsaved person right now today has the wrath of God abiding on them.
So you don't necessarily have to wait for the end times for God to pour out his wrath.
You know God could pour out his wrath on an individual person or an individual city or an individual nation whenever he wants to.
And it could come at any moment so we don't want to have this attitude that says oh it's far off it's not going to happen for a long time.
First of all we don't know when the end is going to come so we don't know if the tribulation and the wrath of God is far away.
We don't know.
It could be within the next several years or so we don't know.
But even if it's not even if it's 200 years from now those type of events will happen in every generation.
God will bring judgment.
God will bring his wrath.
God will bring persecution.
We're going to go through that on a smaller scale no matter what anyway.
So we shouldn't have that attitude.
And you know God has brought major natural disasters even in my lifetime.
Now I've seen major natural disasters in my lifetime and you know a lot of people don't agree with this but they're wrong.
Natural disasters are the wrath of God.
Natural disasters are the judgment of God.
I mean it's there's so much Bible on that where God uses natural disasters to pour out his wrath.
In fact atheists will point to this and and and think they think it's a proof for why God doesn't exist.
I saw this atheist guy recently saying and they call this the problem of evil.
Who's heard this before?
The philosophical problem of evil.
And so these atheist philosophers, very wise men, they put forth the argument and the argument goes something like this.
You know if God is a is a good and loving God and God has the power to like prevent evil things from happening but yet God doesn't prevent these things from happening so there is evil in the world.
So here's what they say.
They say well if there's an all-powerful God who's good and loving and he has the power to stop the evil in the world but yet there is evil in the world these three things aren't compatible.
They can't all be true.
So therefore they say there's no God.
So here's the problem with their argument.
The problem with their argument is that we have an atheist defining for us what it means to be good and loving.
That's the problem with this argument.
Well if there's a good and loving God and he's all-powerful and all-knowing and he knows the future, he knows everything and then bad things happen, evil things happen, people are harmed.
Well then he must not either be good and loving or he must not be all-powerful and all-knowing.
Well I've got news for you.
He is all-powerful and all-knowing and he is good and loving just not the way you want him to be good and loving.
The problem is we have an atheist defining what is good and what is loving.
So they just they try to sound all smart and the guy I saw he spent like a half hour or something just going in all these circles and just showing how logically it's impossible for God to exist.
But all he proved is it's impossible for the God that he dreamed up in his own imagination to exist.
Santa Claus God who's good and loving.
Guess what? God is good and God is loving but that's not defined by an atheist.
And one of the things that this guy brought up was the major earthquake and tsunami that took place many years ago in Indonesia.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
And does anybody remember roughly what the death toll was on that?
I mean it was like six digits.
You know don't quote me on this but wasn't it like around a hundred and seventy five thousand people dead or something?
It was some incredible numbers. Did somebody want to Google it real quick?
But it was some incredible number of people that died. Right?
And I mean this guy and so here's how this atheist philosopher he just kind of brushes off.
Well you know I mean if we don't know that that's evil and bad that God did that I mean then we just don't know anything.
So he just doesn't spend any time on that.
Instead he just spends time fighting a straw man and arguing about dumb things that make no sense whether we're in a simulation or something.
What? So two hundred and thirty thousand dead.
So this guy just assumes any God who would do that is evil.
But let's stop for a second. Stop and think for a second.
The God of the Bible killed everyone on the planet in the Bible in a flood called a tsunami.
He killed every person on the planet in the days of Noah except eight people.
So this guy didn't prove that the God of the Bible doesn't exist.
He proved that a God in his imagination who is a sweetness and light unicorns and rainbow God who never kills any quote unquote innocent people.
He proved that that God didn't exist.
But guess what? The God of the Bible is alive and well and he's still throwing people into hell every minute of every day.
So he didn't prove that God doesn't exist.
And here's what's so stupid. These atheists, they claim to be so smart and they're so philosophical and they're so scientific and they just got all this knowledge figured out.
But then their whole premise is so illogical because here's their argument basically.
We don't like God, therefore he must not exist.
We don't approve of God, therefore he doesn't exist.
That doesn't even make any sense.
Just because God, so basically according to an atheist, God is bad, therefore he doesn't exist.
Well, according to them, I'm bad and yet I exist.
Apparently things can exist without you approving of them.
And apparently the creator of the universe doesn't need your approval to exist.
And so here's the thing about God, OK?
God says in the Bible, I create evil.
The Bible says in the book of Amos, is there an evil in the city and the Lord hath not done it?
God brings destruction upon the wicked.
Not upon innocent people, upon the wicked.
And let me tell you something, this world is a wicked place.
And specifically, Indonesia is a super wicked place.
And you say, what's so wicked about these people?
Well, I don't know, how about the fact that they're not worshiping the God of the Bible?
Now that means nothing to an atheist.
Oh, how can you demand that they worship?
Shut up!
God created this world and if you don't believe on him, you have God's wrath abiding on you.
I don't like it, it doesn't matter whether you like it.
Who asked you?
Go be a Mormon and you can have your own planet and make your own rules, right?
Go to Kolob and, you know, they'll assign you one.
They'll assign you a planet where you can have all your rules and the way you want it.
Look, God will destroy people who are wicked.
He'll destroy a nation that's wicked.
I mean, he rained fire and brimstone from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah.
He flooded the entire planet in the days of Noah and saved eight people alive and flooded the rest of the planet.
But you say, well, is God good and God love?
Of course God's good and of course God's loving because God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
That's the love of God.
God gives the opportunity to be saved.
God offers salvation as a free gift, okay?
But you know what?
Islam is a perverted, wicked, evil religion.
And by the way, Indonesia is the biggest Islamic country in the world.
And I realize it's not all Muslim.
It's got all kinds of other apostate Christians and other false religions and Hinduism and Catholicism and all this other paganism of other brands.
And the bottom line is that, you know, God looks down and he sees all this wickedness and in many cases he will destroy a nation or bring some kind of a wrathful destruction in the form of natural disaster.
And in the end he's glorified because sometimes that kind of a disaster will make people think about their mortality and think about their lives and actually be more receptive to listening to the gospel or hearing about Christ and actually getting saved.
And so obviously an atheist is not going to understand what I'm saying right now.
But that's because the fool has said in his heart there is no God.
And so he's going to think to himself, I mean he's going to look at a couple sodomites and say they're innocent people.
I mean atheists are so stupid they'll look at a faggot nightclub and say 49 innocent people were killed.
Isn't that what they'll say?
In fact, that's what Baptists were saying.
I mean, you know, our friend Pastor Jimenez in Sacramento passed a church called Verity Baptist Church.
Well, there's another Verity Baptist Church in Colorado.
And so when the whole Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting happened, they changed the homepage of their website to just giant letters.
We are not that Verity.
I kid you not, this church in Colorado, you went to their website, it just said like, we are not the Verity Baptist in California.
Leave us alone.
And then it's, yeah, exactly.
But then below that, this is what it said, we mourn the deaths of the innocent victims of the Pulse nightclub shooting.
And you know what?
That's garbage.
You know, I guess we should all be sad about the innocent victims of Sodom and Gomorrah when God rained fire and brimstone on them.
See, here's the problem with your innocent victims is that number one, the only innocent people in this world are people that are like babies and toddlers who have not yet reached the age of accountability.
That's the only innocent person in this world.
None of us is innocent.
Okay.
And if an innocent person dies, they go to heaven.
So if a baby dies or a toddler dies, if anyone who's truly innocent dies, obviously they're going to heaven.
They have nothing to be punished for.
They're innocent.
They're not to that point yet.
So God, no, God doesn't go around killing innocent people or destroying innocent people.
But I mean, come on, the Pulse nightclub, okay, and obviously nobody's saying that we should go and just take things into our own hands and kill anyone.
But the Bible says that homosexuals should receive the death penalty.
That's what God's word actually says in Leviticus 2013.
It says if a man lie with mankind as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination.
If they shall surely be put to death, their blood shall be upon them.
So how can you turn around and say, oh, it's an innocent victim?
Now, again, it's sort of like this.
You know, if somebody bombs an abortion clinic, I don't approve of bombing abortion clinics.
I would never do it.
If someone came to me and said, hey, I'm going to go bomb an abortion clinic, I would say, no, don't do that.
We're not to wrestle against flesh and blood.
You know, we're fighting a spiritual battle.
You're not against flesh and blood.
You need to focus on preaching the gospel, preaching the Bible.
It's a spiritual fight.
You can't just go out and break the law and just start blowing up buildings and doing all this stuff.
I would tell people, no, I wouldn't do it.
But you know what?
If somebody blows up an abortion clinic, you know what?
I'll say burn, baby, burn.
And guess what?
That's not the same thing.
Somebody explain this to the idiots in the media.
That's not the same thing.
Because if I don't approve of doing these acts, but if they happen, I'm just like, good.
I'm like the grumpy cat.
It's like, good.
You know what I mean?
And see, if people actually read and studied the Bible would understand what I'm saying right now.
Because if you study the Bible, God will often use wicked people to punish the wicked.
I mean, he brought in the Babylonians to punish Judah.
And they're killing and burning it all down.
It doesn't mean the Babylonians were good people.
It doesn't mean it was good for them to come in and just be slaughtering everyone.
But still, that was God's hand that allowed that to happen.
And so, you know, if the Bible says that homos should be put to death, if the Bible paints them as violent predators,
which is what I believe they are because that's how the Bible portrays them,
and then one of them slips on a banana peel and cracks his head open and dies,
I would just be like, you know, well, good.
God has punished this wicked person and cleansed the earth from this pedophile.
So he's not going to molest anyone else on his trip to hell.
You know, I'm not saying that I'm going to be like Mario Kart just throwing banana peels in front of these guys.
But if it happens, it happens.
But I just wonder how perverted your doctrine has to be as a Baptist church when you start calling homos innocent victims.
Innocent. Think about that word for a second. Innocent.
They're committing the grossest, most heinous sin in the Bible.
The worst sin in the Bible, punishable by the death penalty under Moses.
Innocent victim.
Well, I mean, I'm sure we can all agree that, you know, what God did in Indonesia is wicked.
I don't agree. I disagree.
I think that God had a reason for doing that and he was right.
I don't know the details about who was wiped out, whose homes were lost, who died.
But you know what? I don't have to know the details.
I already know that God was right to allow that to happen and that God could have stopped it if he wanted to.
And God chose for that disaster to happen when it did, where it did.
And it's under his control.
Now, some people might just, you know, just say, well, you know, I just I just can't believe in a God like that.
OK, well, enjoy hell.
OK, because that's where you're going, because there's only one God, you know, is not pick the God you like.
There's one God. He's the God of the Bible.
Better you better figure out who he is.
You better figure out what he wants.
Figure out what the love of God is.
And you better be sure you get on God's good side.
See, and look.
I'm not worried about I'm not worried about it because I already know where I'm going.
I already know I'm saved. I'm going to heaven. God loves me. I'm his child.
I'm good to go. I'm not worried about it.
But you know what? If you're not a Christian, if you don't believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as your savior, be very afraid.
Be very afraid.
Because God is a consuming fire.
Now, again, the problem is that we've had too many years of a fake Christianity being preached in our country where we don't talk about hell.
We don't talk about the wrath of God.
We don't read the Book of Ezekiel.
We don't talk about God destroying the wicked and punishing people and bringing natural disasters and the Book of Amos.
We don't talk about that.
And so we have lost a lot of these doctrines.
And now I get up and preach this and people would literally listen to this sermon and think I'm some kind of a lunatic.
Yet every single person in America, I'll bet, who's an adult probably knows the story of Noah's ark.
So who's a lunatic now?
Right? I mean, look, I mean, everybody knows that story.
You don't have to get very far into the Bible. You get, like, six chapters in and God's killing everyone.
So anybody who's picked up the Bible and at least got six, seven chapters in sees God kill everyone.
Eight people survive.
But then it's like, well, I just don't think of loving God.
Did you read Chapter 6?
Did you read Chapter 7?
Do you have any questions?
Like, what do you not get about the fact that he literally killed everyone except eight people?
Or what do you not get about broad is the way that leads to destruction and many there be which go in there?
What do you not get about the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever and they have no rest day or night?
What do you not get about the wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forget God?
And, folks, God's love and God's grace and God's mercy and God's goodness is the fact that Jesus Christ paid for all of our sins and we can just skate right into heaven on just a free ride.
It's so easy to be saved. It's the easiest thing in the world. You just have to believe on Jesus Christ. That's it.
It's a piece of cake.
But then if you want to be rebellious and stiff-necked and refuse to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and reject the Son of God, reject the gift of God, and believe that you're an animal and just say, I'm an animal and I can do whatever I want and I don't even want to retain God in my knowledge, and then you wonder why you get smoked.
What I'm preaching tonight may not be what a lot of people are used to hearing or are comfortable with, but what I'm preaching is the truth right now.
I am preaching the truth. The Bible is a book that talks a lot about the love of God but also talks a lot about the wrath of God.
And so sitting there and saying, well, you know, 200,000 dead in Indonesia means that there is no God, you don't know the God of the Bible because God will kill more than that in the book of Revelation.
Well, back then, you know, in the days of the flood, God was rough back then, but he softened up in his old age. No, because look at the book of Revelation.
The book of Revelation teaches us that billions of people will die in the end times. Billions of people will die.
And not only that, billions of people will wish to die. They'll want to die because it's going to get so bad.
I mean, the Bible talks about people being tormented by locusts from hell wishing for death, wishing that they would be dead.
That's the book of Revelation. That's the New Testament. In fact, I looked after Revelation and it's just like an index. There's nothing else.
You know what I mean? I'm trying to find like where things soften up and it's just like, it's just a list of names.
And then there's a map and it's just like, what? Folks, the last book in the Bible is the gnarliest book in the Bible.
So don't come at me with, well, I mean, how can he be a loving God? How can he be a good guy?
OK, but then what I would tell Mr. Atheist is, well, according to your definition, he's not good or loving.
Well, then how can he exist? Why does he have to be good or loving by your definition in order to exist? He's the creator.
He's the creator. Like, like who are you? Oh, so I guess the thing formed is going to turn around and say to him the formula.
Like, well, who do you think you are, Potter? The clay is going to start rebuking the potter.
He's the creator. He defines good and evil. He's got the tree all about it, the knowledge of good and evil.
He planted that tree. He created that tree. He decides what's right and wrong, not you.
And so if you look at what he does, if you look at this earthquake or tsunami or flood and say what God did here is wrong, who are you to say that?
I say God's right. And you know what? Those of us who actually have the faith to just accept everything God does, to accept the world that we live in as his work, to accept the word of God as our final authority.
Those of us who have that belief and then we have that faith and we stop judging God and start just actually letting him judge us and letting him tell us how it is.
You know what we find? We find that God is actually a very good God, a loving God, a gracious God, a merciful God.
We don't sit around thinking to ourselves, you know, oh man, God is just so rough. We don't feel that way.
We think to ourselves like, wow, God is so merciful and God puts up with so much and he puts up with us and he puts up with Bible characters and like, man, he's really long suffering.
He's really patient. His mercy endures forever. His mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness.
You know, so it's all about perspective. But unfortunately we have a generation whose perspective has been warped by bad preaching, not teaching the whole Bible, not even going near books like Ezekiel and so getting a wrong view.
So it says in verse 26, I'll quickly wrap up here. Again, the word of the Lord came to me saying, son of man, behold, they of the house of Israel saith, the vision that he seeth is for many days to come and he prophesied of the times that are far off.
Therefore, say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, there shall none of my words be prolonged anymore, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord God.
And what is that word that he's spoken? That he's going to follow them with a sword, pestilence, famine. He's going to destroy their city. They're going to go into captivity. They're going to be slaves. They're going to be ruined as a nation.
He's saying it's happening. It's happening now. It's not a long time off. It's going to happen in this generation.
And again, we don't know whether something of this magnitude will happen in our generation, but it's always good to have in the back of our mind that it could happen in our generation and that God is going to someday bring tribulation and wrath upon this world unlike the world has ever seen.
And we don't know when that's going to be. Not only that, there are all kinds of smaller versions of this happening all the time. And so we should serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
And remember that our God is a consuming fire and it's a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. That's not exactly the God that the atheists paint, is it?
So it's pretty easy to debunk these guys with just one chapter alone, Genesis chapter six. God is the Lord. There's no other God. This is who he is. We love him. To us, the word of God is sweeter than honey. We love the whole Bible. We love all the stories. We love even the rough parts because we love God.
It's hard for someone who's not a Christian to understand that. It's hard for someone who's unsaved to understand that because it's a spiritually discerned book. And so you have to have the Holy Spirit in order to grasp the big picture and things.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. And Lord, we know there are some hard things in the Bible, but there are also some very hard things in this world.
And so the Bible matches this world. And Lord, we're just thankful for your grace and your mercy and your love, Lord, that we could be on your good side, Lord. And if there's anybody under the sound of my voice that is not saved, Lord, I pray that they would accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior before it's eternally too late so that they could also receive the blessings and not be on the receiving end of all these cursings and all of the bad things that will come, Lord.
And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen. Let's take our song books and turn to hymn number 296.
296, follow on, hymn number 296.
Down in the valley with my savior I would go, number 296. Let's sing it on this first verse together.
Down in the valley with my savior I would go, where the forest was blooming and the sweet waters flow.
Everywhere he leads me I would follow, follow on, walking in his footsteps till the ground he won.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus. Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus. Everywhere he leads me I would follow on.
Down in the valley with my savior I would go, where the storms are sweeping and the dark waters flow.
Where the sands have made me I will never, never fear. Nature cannot fright me if my Lord is there.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus. Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus. Everywhere he leads me I would follow on.
Down in the valley or upon the mountain sea, just beside my savior would my soul ever be.
He will lead me safely in the path that he has tried, up to where they gather up the hills of God.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus. Anywhere, everywhere I would follow on.
Follow, follow, I would follow Jesus. Everywhere he leads me I would follow on.
Amen. Great singing tonight. You are dismissed.
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