Children playing in the background.
All right, this time we'll pass the offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles
to Ezekiel chapter number 22.
Ezekiel chapter 22, as we always do.
Read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with brother Hester as he reads.
Ezekiel chapter 22, starting in verse number one.
Ezekiel chapter 22, the Bible reads.
Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Now thou son of man, wilt thou judge?
Wilt thou judge the bloody city?
Yea, thou shalt judge all her abominations.
Then say thou, thus saith the Lord God,
The city shedeth blood in the midst of it,
That her time may come, and maketh idols against herself
To defile herself.
Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed,
And hast defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made,
And thou hast caused thy days to draw near,
And art come even unto thy years.
Therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen,
And a mocking to all countries.
Those that be near and those that be far from thee
Shall mock thee which art infamous and much vexed.
Behold the princes of Israel.
Every one were in thee to their power to shed blood.
In thee have they set light by father and mother.
In the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression
With the stranger.
In thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.
Thou hast despised mine holy things,
And hath profaned my Sabbaths.
In thee are men that carry tales to shed blood,
And in thee they eat upon the mountains.
In the midst of thee they commit lewdness.
In thee have they discovered their father's nakedness.
In thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.
And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife,
And another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law.
And another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter.
In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood.
Thou hast taken usury and increase,
And thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion,
And hast forgotten me, saith the Lord God.
Behold, therefore I have smitten mine hand
At thy dishonest gain which thou hast made,
And at the blood which hath been in the midst of thee.
Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong
In the days that I shall deal with thee?
I the Lord have spoken it, and will do it.
And I will scatter thee among the heathen,
And disperse thee in the countries,
And will consume thy filthiness out of thee.
And thou shalt take thine inheritance in thyself
In the sight of the heathen,
And thou shalt know that I am the Lord.
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, the house of Israel is to me become dross.
All they are brass and tin and iron and lead
In the midst of the furnace, they are even the dross of silver.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God,
Because ye are all become dross,
Behold, therefore I will gather you in the midst of Jerusalem.
As they gather silver and brass and iron and lead and tin
Into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to melt it,
So will I gather you in mine anger and in my fury,
And I will leave you there and melt you.
Yea, I will gather you and blow upon you
In the fire of my wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof.
As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace,
So shall ye be melted in the midst thereof,
And ye shall know that I the Lord have poured out my fury upon you.
And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man,
Say unto her, Thou art the land that is not cleansed,
Nor reigned upon in the day of indignation.
There is a conspiracy of her prophets in the midst thereof,
Like a roaring lion ravening the prey.
They have devoured souls, they have taken the treasure and precious things,
They have made her many widows in the midst thereof.
Her priests have violated my law and have profaned mine holy things.
They have put no difference between the holy and profane,
Neither have they showed difference between the unclean and the clean,
And have hid their eyes from my Sabbaths,
And I am profaned among them.
Her princes in the midst thereof are like wolves ravening the prey,
To shed blood and to destroy souls to get dishonest gain,
And her prophets have daubed them with untempered mortar,
Seeing vanity and divining lies unto them, saying,
Thus saith the Lord God, When the Lord hath not spoken.
The people of the land have used oppression and exercised robbery,
And have vexed the poor and needy,
Yea, they have oppressed the stranger wrongfully.
And I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge
And stand in the gap before me for the land,
That I should not destroy it, but I found none.
Therefore have I poured out mine indignation upon them.
I have consumed them with the fire of my wrath.
Their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord God.
Father in heaven, please bless the service and edify our ears.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
In Ezekiel chapter 22, the Bible reads in verse 1,
Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Now, thou son of man, wilt thou judge?
Wilt thou judge the bloody city?
Yea, thou shalt shew her all her abominations.
One of the interesting things about the book of Ezekiel
is that we think of Ezekiel, or at least I think of Ezekiel,
as being this really hard preacher,
just because some of the hardest preaching in the Bible
is found in the book of Ezekiel,
and it just has some really just strong language
and just really harsh sermons.
But if you stop and think about it, throughout the book of Ezekiel,
we're actually just reading what the Lord is telling Ezekiel to preach.
And in fact, whenever we get a glimpse of Ezekiel's personality,
he's usually telling God that maybe he needs to back off a little bit,
or that he's being harsh, or he's really just going to kill everybody,
you know, what's going on.
And so one of the things that I learned from that
is that, you know, God commands us as preachers to preach hard,
even if it's not necessarily in our personality,
or doesn't come naturally.
As the pastor of a church, it's my job to preach hard on sin.
It's my job to get up and reprove, rebuke, and exhort
with all longsuffering and doctrine.
It's part of the job, you know, and all of us as preachers,
we have our own personality,
and maybe there are sermons that we like to preach,
and then other sermons that we don't like to preach as much.
But at the end of the day, we have to preach all the counsel of God.
And it's not right for me to just say,
well, you know, I'm just more of an encourager,
and so I'm just going to abstain from the hard preaching.
Because, you know, I feel like Ezekiel was a really compassionate guy,
but yet God is constantly telling him that he needs to preach hard,
and he needs to judge.
He doesn't really seem like a very judgmental guy, you know,
when you read the few narratives that deal with him personally in Ezekiel,
but yet he's told to judge.
And even in this verse, you can get the idea that God is asking it as a question.
Are you going to judge these people, or what?
You know, wilt thou judge?
Wilt thou judge the bloody city?
Yea, thou shalt show her all her abominations.
And the thou shalt there, it's not just a future tense.
Of course, it is a future tense,
but in the Bible, that future tense, thou shalt, is often used for what?
It's a commandment, right?
Just like in the Ten Commandments, it's like, no, you're going to do this.
You know, we'll use that sometimes as a very strong command,
and the Bible does the same thing.
And so when it says, thou shalt show her all her abominations,
this is God commanding Ezekiel, saying, look, you need to pass judgment here,
and you need to show Israel and Jerusalem the abominations.
And as we go down through this chapter,
it's pretty much a catalog of the abominations and sins.
Now, the first thing that came to my mind as I looked at this chapter
is the famous verse in Isaiah that says,
cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
It's a verse that we'd always point to when we're talking about
why do we yell as preachers?
You know, why do we not just speak calmly and softly?
Why do we get up and shout when we preach?
Because the Bible says, cry aloud, spare not,
lift up thy voice like a trumpet.
But the rest of that verse says,
and show to my people their transgressions.
The house of Israel, their sins.
You see, a lot of times we have blind spots in our life
where we have sins in our life,
and we don't really know that it's a sin until someone points it out to us.
Because our society, let's face it, is drifting away from Christian values,
drifting away from the commandments of the Bible,
to where a lot of things, if we told people it was a sin,
something that they do or a way that they live,
it would be a revelation unto them.
They've never even thought that there could be anything wrong with that,
because of the fact that our society preaches a different morality than the Bible.
So we need preachers to get up and show us what our sins are
and explain, look, this is what the Bible says to do,
this is what you're doing, they're different,
and so you need to get on God's program.
And so that's one of the aspects of showing God's people their sins,
is just telling them that things are a sin,
because they might not even know that those things are wrong,
because their society might condone some things that God condemns.
So that's one aspect of show them their sins.
So I get up and I preach that certain things are wrong,
and then people get it now.
Okay, yeah, now I see that I'm wrong, I need to change that.
But you know, another aspect of this is that
it's our job as preachers to take the Word of God
and actually apply it to the times in which we live.
You know, a lot of people have this attitude,
and I've heard a lot of pastors say this,
they're pretty much just pastors who don't like to preach hard,
don't like to offend anyone, don't want to make any waves,
and this is their excuse.
They say, you know, I'm just going to preach exactly what the Bible says,
and I'm going to let the Holy Spirit do his job.
Like, I'm going to let the Holy Spirit apply the Word.
I'm just going to say exactly what the Bible says and let God apply it.
Here's the problem with that.
You know, then we don't need you,
because anybody can just get up here and just read.
Or, in fact, we could even just get a machine to do it.
We could just have an audio Bible.
I mean, we could all just show up and just read the Bible out loud for an hour
and just kind of let the Holy Spirit do his job
and just listen to it for an hour.
We could listen to Ezekiel for an hour and then go home and be like,
well, there you have it, folks.
I mean, I don't have anything to add.
I mean, that was powerful stuff, amen?
I hope the Holy Spirit spoke to you about your life and we could go home.
But is that really what a preacher is called to do?
No.
We're supposed to get up and make application
because the things in the Bible are written for that time.
We live in a different geography, different time, different culture,
and so we need to make application and make the connections
and show which things carry over.
For example, in this chapter, it talks about people, you know,
killing their children or shedding innocent blood.
And there are all kinds of passages in the Bible
about people making their children to pass through the fire.
That's a common theme in the Bible.
Well, here's the thing.
Nobody in Arizona is literally making their children pass through the fire.
That doesn't exist in the United States to my knowledge
that there's just some kind of a conveyor belt or something
where people are just making their children to pass through the fire
and burning their children.
That's not happening.
But is there something analogous to that that's happening?
Yes, it's called abortion.
And so all throughout history, people have practiced infanticide.
They have killed their children.
Passing them through the fire onto Molech is just one example of that
for one place, one time.
But it's really the only example that we need
because guess what?
Abortion is the same thing.
And so if God tells us, don't pass your children through the fire,
don't sacrifice your sons and your daughters to devils,
then we need a preacher to get up and tell us that means Planned Parenthood.
That means killing your children through abortion
or taking an abortive drug or something
to induce a miscarriage on purpose because you're trying to cause an abortion
through taking some kind of poisonous substance
or going to the abortion clinic or whatever.
You know, we need a preacher to make that connection
so that people don't try to justify the sins of today and say,
well, you know, the Bible never mentions abortion.
Well, it sure does because it mentions infanticide.
Or, well, you know, the Bible doesn't mention cocaine.
I mean, what's wrong with snorting a little cocaine?
You know, but the Bible tells us to be sober.
The Bible tells us not to be drunk.
And so if the Bible tells us to be sober and the Bible tells us not to be drunk,
you think God wants you snorting cocaine, which is way worse?
Which is way worse than drinking alcohol.
But yet it's unmentioned.
But obviously we should put two and two together.
You know, if the Bible says that we should throw people out of the church
for committing fornication,
what if there was some man in the church who's sleeping with another man's wife?
I mean, that's kind of a no-brainer that we would say,
okay, not only is that akin to fornication,
not only is that tantamount fornication, in fact, it's even worse.
Or if the Bible said that someone should be thrown out for drunkenness
and they're a heroin addict, it's a similar sin.
It's worse.
We need somebody to actually read the Bible and interpret it,
make application, not to just read it and say, hey, enough said.
That's a cop-out for pastors who don't want to preach against the sins of 2022 America.
We need to make application to today.
So let's go down through the list here.
Show her all her abominations, verse three.
So we're going to see some things that are an abomination to the Lord,
things that God hates.
It says in verse number three,
then say thou, dost sayeth the Lord God,
the city shedeth blood in the midst of it that her time may come
and maketh idols against herself to defile herself.
Now, notice here in verse number three that the Bible says
that the city shed blood in the midst of it that her time may come.
Basically, what the Bible is saying is that by shedding innocent blood,
by committing murder, whether it's infanticide or any other manifestation of murder,
it's saying that that basically expedites the judgment of God,
that her time may come.
It makes the time of her destruction come sooner.
It speeds up the judgment of God by doing that.
So they are harming themselves when they do that.
Not only that, it says that they make idols, she maketh idols against herself.
So when we make idols, again, we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
We are being our own worst enemy.
She maketh idols against herself to defile herself.
So three times in that passage is this kind of reciprocal idea
that when we sin, we are bringing bad things upon ourself.
We're harming ourselves when we commit sin.
It says in verse four, thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed
and has defiled thyself in thine idols which thou hast made
and thou hast caused thy days to draw near,
same ideas are being repeated in this verse,
and art come even unto thy years.
Therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the heathen
and a mocking to all countries.
Do you want to be humiliated before the entire world?
Do you want people to look at you as an example of what not to do
or be held up as an example?
This is what a failure looks like.
What a loser.
This guy has ruined his life.
Would you like to be that kind of a cautionary tale?
Because that's what sin does to you.
It destroys your life and makes you look like an idiot to everyone around you.
That's what the Bible is saying here.
A reproach unto the heathen and mocking to all countries.
You know, we as Christians are supposed to be a light unto the lost,
and they should look at us and see our good works
and glorify our Father which is in heaven.
But if we end up going down a dark path and living a sinful life,
we could actually end up becoming the exact opposite of a good testimony unto the lost,
whereas instead of being a light to the lost,
we end up being an object of scorn and derision.
Have you noticed that the heathen,
have you noticed that the non-believers, especially atheists,
they love to hear about some famous Christian or famous preacher
or somebody who's involved in some horrible scandal
where he's committing adultery or he's stealing a bunch of money
or he's committing some other horrible act.
They delight in that, don't they?
They love that.
And you know, when David committed adultery with Bathsheba,
Nathan the prophet told him,
You've given great occasion for the enemies of the Lord to rejoice.
You know, so when you start to think about giving in to temptation
and committing some awful sin,
stop and think about the fact, you know,
do you really want to be the cause for someone to drag Christ's name through the mud
or that the heathen, the unsaved would basically mock you
as being an example of another phony Christian,
another washed up Christian who's a hypocrite,
he's not practicing what he preaches or she's not practicing what she preaches.
You know, don't you want to be a good testimony to the lost?
So, you know, that should be one of the things that motivates us to live a clean life
so we can have a good testimony
so that people will take our Christian message seriously,
they'll take the gospel seriously,
we'll be able to lead people to Christ
instead of turning people away from Christ where they would look at us and say,
Well, I don't want to be like that guy, so therefore I don't want to be a Christian
if that's what a Christian is like.
And so he made them to be a reproach unto the heathen
and a mocking to all countries.
Now for them, you know, it's Israel, they're the people of God,
the heathen are other countries,
but for us, Christians are the people of God in our time
and the heathen are just unsaved people,
not necessarily other countries, but just unsaved people around us here even in America.
Those that be near and those that be far from thee shall mock thee.
Why? Because they heard about it on the internet.
Those that be near will hear about it because they're near
and then the rest will be put on social media about you
because nowadays your sins will be plastered all over the internet
if you commit some awful sin and someone wants to humiliate you.
They'll just post all your transgressions for those near and far to deride you and ridicule you.
And it says they shall mock thee which are infamous and much vexed.
Behold the princes of Israel.
Everyone, verse six, were in thee to their power to shed blood.
In thee have they set light by father and mother.
In the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger.
In thee have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.
You know, these type of lists give us an insight into the type of actions that anger God.
What is it that makes God angry? What is it that brings God's wrath?
Obviously bloodshed and idolatry are pretty obvious all throughout the Bible.
What's the first commandment in the Ten Commandments?
Thou should have no other gods before me.
God doesn't want idolatry, graven images.
He doesn't want us to worship other gods.
Obviously thou shalt not kill is a big one.
And God hates the shedding of innocent blood.
That's why he flooded the world in Genesis chapter six.
The Bible says the earth was full of violence before him.
It mentions violence there several times.
And so those are pretty clear, pretty obvious.
God hates bloodshed. God hates idolatry.
What about some of these other things?
You know, the Bible also says, in thee have they set light by father and mother.
You know, having disrespect for your father and mother also is very serious in the sight of God.
That's why honor thy father and mother is the first commandment with promise,
that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.
You know, a lot of commandments in the Bible telling us not to steal, not to kill,
not to commit adultery, not to covet, not to bear false witness against our neighbor.
But isn't it interesting that this commandment, honor thy father and mother,
has a special promise associated with it?
That it may be well with thee and thy days may be long on the earth, which is what we all want.
We all want it to go well with us. We all want to live long on the earth.
Well, you know what? You better honor your father and mother.
And if you dishonor your father and mother, you are in danger of angering God severely
and shortening your life or ruining the quality of your life.
So don't ever think that this is a small thing.
You know, how I treat my parents is a little thing.
Look at the soul winning I'm doing. Look at the Bible I'm reading.
Here I am praying. Here I am faithful to church so I can go ahead and treat my parents like garbage
because look at all the other wonderful Christian things I'm doing.
You better watch out because God takes this commandment pretty seriously.
And, you know, right there after we talked about idols, huge sin, right?
Murder, bloodshed, huge sin. It's like, oh, by the way, in thee have they set light by father and mother.
You know, and by the way, in other lists in the New Testament of serious sins like Romans chapter 1,
what do we have? Disobedient to parents.
Right up there with a bunch of horrible sins. Disobedient to parents.
And so you better take very seriously this command, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right.
Honor thy father and mother. It's very important.
In thee have they set light by father and mother.
In the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the stranger.
You know what this is? Ripping off foreigners. Basically thinking, oh, this foreigner, he doesn't know what's going on.
He doesn't know how much money things really cost or he doesn't really know our way of doing things.
So I can charge him extra. I can rip him off. I can steal from him. I can swindle him. I can trick him.
And the Bible looks at that and says, you know, God looks at that and says, you know, this is serious sin.
This is taking advantage of people that are in a vulnerable situation.
Right? Because we're supposed to love our neighbor as ourself.
And not only just love our neighbor as ourself, the Bible even says love the stranger.
You yourselves were strangers in the land of Egypt. Love the stranger as yourself.
And in the story of the good Samaritan, we have a Samaritan and we have the Israelite and so we're talking about foreigners.
And when he said, well, who is my neighbor? Part of loving your neighbor, he said, even love the foreigner.
The stranger that dwells among you is one that you should love.
What's your attitude toward foreigners? Are you one of these people that just hates foreigners?
You just hate everybody who's not just born and raised here and you hate people who have immigrated here from somewhere else.
You know, is that a biblical attitude? I mean, I'm sure that, you know, some of your talk show hosts might approve of that attitude.
You know, or that might be an attitude that you've cultivated in certain circles that you've run in where, you know, you just think that we're better than everyone else here in America and everybody else is trash.
But you know what? That is a wicked mentality. It has no place in the house of God. And it has no place in your personal life either.
You should not disdain people or hate them or look down on them because they came here from Mexico or they came here from Africa or they came here from wherever, Asia or whatever.
Now look, obviously, you know, we don't like necessarily to see Islam, you know, flooding into our country. We don't like that.
You know, so, so, you know, I get it. Okay. But at the same time, you know, that individual though is a soul for whom Christ died and they know not what they do.
Ninety-nine percent of the time that person is deceived by Islam. That person is a victim of Islam. We should see that person as a mission field.
You know, we could have two attitudes. When we see Muslims, we could just get mad and say, oh man, the stinking Muslims are taking over.
They're bringing their garbage pedophile religion over here. And look, hey, that is a legitimate point. They do come in and take over countries, right?
But you know what? That attitude isn't really going to bring me closer to God. It's not really going to do anything for me spiritually. It's not really the love of Christ or loving my neighbor as myself.
You know, obviously you've got a point with that, but is that really the best attitude that we should have? Because I'll tell you what I think.
When I see the head scarves and I see the Muslims that are over here, you know what I think to myself? I think to myself, this is an opportunity to give the gospel to Muslims because if I go to their country, I'm not going to be allowed to do it.
So this is the mission field coming to me and this is God allowing me to witness to Muslims without worrying about getting my head chopped off or something in some weird Muslim country somewhere.
So why not have a positive attitude about, you know, why go through life angry all the time and upset all the time? Why not look at things and think about the good and say, okay, you know what? Maybe I can win this guy to Christ.
And in fact, I reckon that God in his omniscience and God in his providence, you know, he might often know that a certain guy is going to be receptive to the gospel and maybe that's why he even worked in that guy's life for him to even end up in the United States anyway.
Because maybe he knew that this guy would get saved, but you got to get him out of Iran to get him saved. You got to get him out of Afghanistan to get him saved, get him out of Iraq or Palestine or wherever to get him saved because when he's over there, he's too steeped in it.
You know, I guarantee you it's a lot easier to get Indians saved after they're out of India because, you know, we get more Indians saved in the Caribbean than you would probably get in India where they're steeped in it.
They're surrounded by it.
And so, you know, when we talk, I was on a missions trip about 15 years ago, 14 years ago in Norway, and I knocked on the door of an Iranian refugee in Norway.
He's from Iran, hardcore Muslim country.
You're not going to be going and door-to-door soul winning in Iran without running into problems.
Okay. So that'd be like kind of an off-limits place to do any kind of a mission trip for me or something.
But I was in Norway, which is a pretty unreceptive place, but, you know, I sought out the refugee camps.
I sought out some of these other places where I could talk to some foreigners while I was there in addition to witnessing to the Norwegians themselves.
But, you know, I gave this guy the gospel. He was in his early 20s and he got saved.
And he said, you know, I always knew that there's something wrong with Islam, but I didn't really know what the truth is.
And so this guy, this was like one of the best soul winning experiences where this guy's just ready to go.
I mean, he's just, he's looking for something. He's out of Iran. He's here. He's open. He's young.
And, you know, or you could just kind of just, ah, stinking Iranians, whatever.
You know, I'd rather go over and talk to the guy because you know what? I might be able to win him to Christ.
And so that guy got saved. I guarantee you that God knew that this guy's going to be receptive.
That's probably why he worked things out for this guy to get shipped to Iran of all or to Norway of all places.
And then and then a fundamental Baptist soul winner happens to be knocking doors in Norway,
which probably doesn't necessarily happen all the time either because there aren't a lot of Baptist soul winning churches in Norway.
There are only like two or something in the whole country of like approximately what, five million people or something.
But, you know, God works things like that out. So, so, you know, think of it that way.
You know, I, I see people with, with, with headscarves and Muslim looking people.
I saw, you know, I saw a kid not too long ago wearing a free Palestine T-shirt.
You know, I walked right up to him and said, Hey, I got a documentary for you to watch about Palestine.
And started talking to him and talked about the gospel as well.
And, and set him up with the Beyond Jordan film. Okay.
You know, think of it that way.
Instead of just hating the foreigner, why don't you love the foreigner as yourself?
And you know what? Even if the foreigner never gets saved, I'm still going to love him as myself and treat him as myself because that's what the Bible says.
You know, and so, you know, ripping off strangers, dealing by oppression with the stranger, it's not justified.
Like, well, I'm going to do right by my fellow Americans, but you know, if I can rip off the Pakistanis, I'll do it.
Is that what the Bible teaches? No way.
So they set light by father and mother in the midst of the, if they dealt by oppression with the stranger, stranger meaning foreigner in the, have they vexed the fatherless and the widow.
Again, taking advantage of vulnerable people, praying upon the weak is wicked in the sight of God.
God is the defender of the defenseless.
It says in verse number six, behold the princes of Israel, or I'm sorry, I'm moving backwards.
So I'm a little dyslexic apparently.
Okay. Verse eight. I'm not actually.
Thou has despised my holy things, verse eight, and has profaned my Sabbaths.
Thou has despised my holy things and has profaned my Sabbaths.
You know, the, the children of Israel in the Old Testament, they had an elaborate system of rituals and they had sacrifices.
They'd go to the tabernacle and you got the holy place and the most holy place.
And, and there were a lot of rules and rituals.
And I guarantee you that sometimes it could have seemed tedious unto them because there were people in the book of Malachi that said, you know, Oh, what a weariness it is.
Like it's just kind of too much work or too much effort, you know, all the, all of these rules of holiness and all the rituals and things.
The Sabbath days, obviously, uh, one day in seven, they rested, then they had a Sabbath year.
So they have Sabbath days and then they have holidays throughout the year.
Three times in the year, they would all have to appear at the house of the Lord.
So they'd have to travel to Jerusalem, to the house of the Lord three times a year.
And so you've got holy days, you've got Sabbath days, you've got Sabbath years, and you've got all these things.
And then you've got people that despised God's holy things, meaning that they did not give them proper respect.
They thought that they're just junk.
They didn't think that they mean anything.
They look at the tabernacle or they look at, um, you know, whatever the accoutrements thereof or rituals associated with it.
They profaned the Sabbath, meaning that instead of remembering the Sabbath to keep it holy, they just did whatever on the Sabbath.
They worked on the Sabbath.
They just treat it like any other day.
And they just treated God's house as if it were just, you know, a commonplace thing.
Now, obviously, we're not living in the Old Testament.
We do not have the same system of Sabbaths and holidays and, and rituals and everything like that.
So what can we learn from this?
You know, is, is anything sacred unto us as Christians?
You know, I personally do not hold any physical object or place sacred in the New Testament.
That's my belief, you know.
And the Bible does teach that if you want to set aside one day a week and, and treat it as special, the Bible says one man esteemeth one day above another.
Another esteemeth every day alike.
Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.
You know, there are people who they treat Sunday as a special day, the Lord's day, the first day of the week.
They'll treat it as special where, where they won't play games or play sports, or they won't do any work or anything.
And, you know, I've been to people's houses where they, it's like they didn't want to do anything worldly or anything that wasn't spiritually oriented or whatever on that day.
And, you know, if, if that's what you want to do, that could be a good thing in your life to do that.
And that could be a blessing to you and it could be helpful for you just so long as you don't impose that upon other people.
Because the Bible tells us that this is not a commandment of God in the New Testament.
It's something for us to personally decide whether we want to treat every day alike or whether we want to esteem one day above another.
Okay. So we should not let any man judge us with respect to Sabbath days, New Moon feast days, because those things are done away in Christ.
Okay. But like I said, some people find this helpful spiritually. Maybe they're just kind of super busy throughout the week.
Maybe their mind is really on other things for the other six days quite a bit.
So they kind of need to take that day and really dedicate that whole day to the Lord.
But, you know, other people might just feel like, you know, my thoughts are enough on the Lord, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
I mean, every day I'm worshiping the Lord. I'm reading my Bible. I'm praying. God's in my thoughts every day.
So I don't really need Sunday to be special. I can really just do the same thing on Sunday that I do every other day.
And that's my personal point of view. That's how I live my life.
You know, I will hit the gym on a Sunday and lift weights. I'll go running.
I usually do like long runs on Sunday morning before church. I'll go for a long run or something.
You know, I don't feel like I have to abstain from sports or abstain from things like that.
You know, back when I worked a secular job, you know, I would sometimes do a service call or something on a Sunday afternoon.
I didn't miss church to do those things. I always made a priority to be in the house of God Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.
But, you know, I didn't feel like I needed to do something special with that whole day because I felt like my other days in the week were also dedicated unto the Lord.
But again, it's a preference. It could go either way.
So obviously we're not following this idea of, you know, holy things, candlestick, table, showbread, Ark of the Covenant, tabernacle, courtyard.
We're not under that system. We don't have those things. There's nothing holy or sacred about this building.
It's not like this building is some kind of a sacred space or holy space.
It's not like Jerusalem is holy or, you know, Phoenix, Arizona, I believe is holier than Jerusalem.
I believe that Phoenix, Arizona is holier than Jerusalem. You want to go to the Holy Land? Come to Arizona. Okay.
Now, why? You know, well, the Bible, when it says the famous words, pray for the peace of Jerusalem in that Psalm, it says because of the house of the Lord, our God, will I seek that good?
Well, guess what? The house of God is not in Jerusalem, but there's a house of God in Phoenix.
There are houses of God all over America. America is a more holy land than Israel. America is a more godly place.
You say, well, America is pretty ungodly. Well, that's because you haven't been to Israel, okay?
And here's the thing. Yeah, America has way more saved Christians, way more King James Bibles floating around America than Israel.
A lot more people are praying to the Father in Jesus' name, amen, in the United States than in Israel where they're praying to themselves.
They're praying with themselves, like the guy, remember the guy who goes up to the temple, the Pharisee prayed thus with himself, right?
He's praying with himself. He's not praying to God. The Jews are praying with themselves because no man cometh unto the Father but by Jesus, and that includes no man, includes Jews.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me, Jesus said. You can't pray to the Father unless you're praying in the name of Jesus.
Your prayer won't get there. It's like you address the envelope to the wrong person. Jesus is the only mailman that's going to get that letter to the Father.
You got to go through him, okay? If you don't go through him, you know, your prayer doesn't get there. You don't get there. He doesn't hear you. He doesn't listen to you. You're not even talking to the right person.
There's only one God and guess what? That God consists of Father, Son and Holy Ghost. You don't believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. You don't have the right God. You have some other God.
You have a false God. It's not the God of the Bible. It's not the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And so, therefore, you know, we don't have a specific place or building or items that are holy but is anything sacred unto us?
I mean, to us, probably the most sacred thing that we would point to is the Word of God. But not the physical book, though. You know, I'm not superstitious about my Bible. I'm not scared to set it down on the ground or scared to put another book on top of it. You know, some people are superstitious like that. I get it. But, you know, I'm not superstitious about it. To me, this is just a physical object.
But the words in this book are sacred. And so, you know, how would I profane these words would be to mock them, to use them in a disrespectful way, to make fun of the Bible, to turn the Bible into a joke, turn the Gospel into a joke. Or how about tampering with the words of the Bible?
You know, these are the things that would be crossing a line of profaning and violating something sacred unto us. You know, despising God's holy things. How about just treating the Word of God like it's just another book?
You know, it's just another book. It doesn't matter what it says or just not reading it, not caring what it says, not wanting to hear what it says. You know, that's despising something holy because the Word of God is holy.
You know, there are certain things. And even though this building is not holy, I do believe that the church is a holy institution. The church is something sacred. So how about not behaving ourselves in the house of God?
The Bible says we should know how we ought to behave ourselves in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
So if we were to come to church and disrespect God's house by the way that we act and coming here and not paying attention, not singing or hearing the preaching, but rather just coming here and maybe just playing a video game or something on our phone
or just, you know, acting up, especially children, you know, just running around, tearing up the place instead of respecting the institution.
You know, respecting the people of God, respecting the Word of God, respecting God's house. These are the type of things that we would want to hold sacred and not defile.
The Bible says in verse 9, in thee are men that carry tails to shed blood. These would be people who are bearing false witness against their neighbor.
Carrying tails to shed blood would be people who would testify in court falsely to get other people convicted of crimes that would cause them to be killed.
You know, for example, we have the story of Naboth's vineyard where two false witnesses rise up and claim that they heard Naboth blaspheme God and the king and then Naboth gets executed because of their false witness.
Those are people that are carrying tails to shed blood. They're bearing false witness against their neighbor.
In thee they eat upon the mountains. There's absolutely nothing wrong with hiking into the mountains and having a picnic.
Okay, that's not what this is talking about. The false gods, the demons that they worship, they worship in the high places.
And the high places where they worship these false gods, they would perform animal sacrifice under the false gods.
And when you perform animal sacrifice, you eat the sacrifice. Just like when you sacrifice under the Lord in the Old Testament, you eat it.
Well, when they sacrifice to pagan deities, they also eat the food. And so the eating upon the mountains has to do with eating meat sacrificed unto idols in high places.
They've eaten upon the mountains. In the midst of thee, they commit lewdness.
Now what is lewdness? You know, lewd, maybe it's not a word that we use all the time, but it's often used in a legal context.
You know, people would go to court and perhaps be charged with lewdness. Like there would be ordinances against lewdness.
So what is it? This is talking about inappropriate behavior. The type of things that would fall under lewdness would be anything perverted.
You know, getting naked in public or groping someone in public or, you know, molluscs. Just anything that's like inappropriate in that way.
Okay. That would be considered lewdness.
And then he goes on to say, in thee have they discovered their father's nakedness. In thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution.
So what are we talking about here? In thee, they've discovered their father's nakedness.
You know, this is not only a reference to just someone who actually violated their own dad in a perverted way, but it could also be one who even violated their father's wife or their mother, whether or not that's the same person.
Because discovering, the Bible says that, you know, discovering the nakedness of your father's wife, whether she's your mother or not, is discovering your father's nakedness in that sense.
So this could be also another way of referring to that because it's a super big sin for, you know, for someone to sleep with a woman with whom their father has been.
Like that's what Absalom did. You remember when Absalom went up on top of the house and set up the tent and took his father's concubines and did that.
And you say, Pastor Anderson, you know, why would you bring up these sordid things?
But here's the thing, you know, I'm only bringing it up because it's in the word of God.
And you might think to yourself, well that's super weird. No one would do that.
But yet when these commandments are given, the Bible is careful to tell us in Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 that the Canaanites did all those things.
These were common practices among the Canaanites. And so as our country gets worse and worse, and as our country gets weirder and weirder, you're going to stop wondering why some of these things are in the Bible.
Because I guarantee you that people 100 years ago, they wondered why the Bible mentioned homos so many times.
They're like, God, please, no, I don't want to hear about it. But in 2022, we're like, yes, thank you for saying this, God.
I mean, we're thankful for every reference to sodomites in the Bible in 2022 because we need that ammo.
We need as much ammo as possible. We're like underlining every verse about sodomites.
We've got them memorized. We've got them bookmarked. I guarantee you, somebody living in the 1940s probably didn't have Leviticus 20, 13 underlined.
They're probably not underlining Romans 1 until they accidentally tear a hole in the page because they're underlining it so many times.
You know, we are entering the next phase of degeneracy in America with all the sodomites and the transvestites.
But let me just tell you some bad news tonight. We're not in the final stage yet.
You might think, how could it possibly get any weirder? You know, that's what I thought like 15 years ago.
And then the transvestites started coming out. You know, we thought the homos were bad. Now we got the trannies everywhere.
And that's like another level of puke. You know what I mean? Because at least the homos, we could just kind of like ignore them and pretend like they're normal when we run into them in public because they're not in drag.
But now we've got dudes in drag where it's like your eyeballs get defiled just from seeing them and your peripheral vision is just like puke, gag, bleh.
But let me tell you something. What's coming 15 years in the future, 30 years in the future? So don't ever get this attitude of, well, I just don't think God really needed to bring that up.
Well, sadly, some of us in our lifetime might see why God brought some of these things up when they start becoming commonplace in the United States of America, unfortunately.
Because there's nothing new under the sun. And this is why, you know, if we were smart in this country, we would nip this thing in the bud with the sodomites and not let this go.
Because first of all, even in and of itself, it's too much. It's horrific. But also, it's leading to even weirder stuff, even crazier stuff.
It's a bobsled to hell, my friend. And we're all on it as a nation. And so if we were smart, you know, pastors all over America would be ripping some serious face.
But alas, there's so few of us that when we do it, we get all this heat, we get on the news. I mean, why should little old me be on the news, right?
Why should little old Pastor Jimenez, Pastor Shelley, Pastor me, you know, Pastor Burz, why would we be on the news? We're not necessarily pastoring the largest churches in America or anything.
Not even the largest independent Baptist church in America. I mean, you know, we're running, you know, a few hundred people.
Pastor Jimenez is running well over 200. You know, we're running over 300.
But yet, you know, they're independent Baptist churches running 1000, 2000, 3000. I'm talking independent fundamental King James that are running several thousand, not several hundred, several thousand.
Wouldn't shouldn't they be in the news? You know why they're not? Because they're not ripping on the homos.
They're preaching a message that is just barely acceptable to both God's people and acceptable to the world.
They're kind of just, they're kind of just like doing this tightrope of like, and it is a tightrope act for them.
They're just like, you know, they're, they're trying to not, you know, offend people.
And it's, you know, and they're, they're like real careful because here's the thing, if they go too soft on the homos, the church members are going to get mad.
Why are you such a wimp? Why don't you preach against these people? Why don't you preach the truth?
And then if they go too far, the other way, they're going to make the world angry. You know, we, we're not doing this tightrope act.
You know, it makes it a lot easier to prepare my sermons because I don't have to, I don't have to sit there and like, what am I going to, you know, I'm just like, I mean, I could, I could write my sermon with a crayon.
You know, I just take a big piece of paper and a crayon and write my sermon. I don't, I don't have to be that fine tuned with my sermon because I'm just trying to just be right there on that razor edge.
I'm just kind of like, ah, stone them with stones.
You know, who cares? Because I couldn't give a rip what some unsaved heathen atheist or agnostic thinks about my preaching.
I care what one person thinks about my preaching and that is the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's who I care what he thinks about my preaching. And you know, maybe I care a little bit what you care, what you think about my preaching because you're actually a saved Christian with the Holy Spirit who is my brother in Christ that I love.
So I care what you think a little bit. I care what he thinks a lot. I don't give a rip what anybody else thinks because that's already enough people to please.
You know, I want God to like my sermon. I want to like the sermon. I hope you like the sermon, but that's not, that's not essential.
He has to like it. I want you to like it, but if you don't like it, I'm still going to preach it, but I want you to like it.
He's got to like it. Nuts to them. I don't have any more. There's no more caring to go around. I don't have enough rips to give.
You know, I've already given them all of them. I don't have one for them. I'm done. Okay.
So, you know, it's kind of a weird thing. Discovered their father's nakedness. What in the world? Hey, that goes all the way back to, you know, Noah's Ark for crying out loud.
So it's out there. It's in Leviticus 18. It's in Leviticus 20. Absalom, you know, down the list. Okay.
In thee have they humbled her that was set apart for pollution. Again, violating God's laws of clean and unclean, violating the word of God.
One hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife. Another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law.
And again, you're like, what in the world? Well, that, that one's for Mohammed because Mohammed did that.
And there's a whole chapter in the Quran about it, a surah in the, in the Quran about how Mohammed is a special revelation about how he gets to have sex with his daughter-in-law.
You know, it's a special revelation from God. So, yeah, that, that's enough about that really.
That, I mean, that's, that's pretty much everything you need to know about that stupid religion. Amen.
Ludely defiled his daughter-in-law. Another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter. I mean, incest, enough said.
In thee have they taken gifts to shed blood. Thou hast taken usury and increase. So this is, you know, predatory lending and, and charging interest and, and ripping people off.
Thou is greedily gained of thy neighbors by extortion. What's extortion? Extortion is when you are basically threatening people with violence or harming them in some way if they don't pay you off.
Like people have to pay you off so that you don't hurt them. Or, you know, well, I just hate for something bad to happen to you.
You know, I'm not saying it's going to be me, but you know, something bad might happen if you don't pay up. That's extortion.
And has forgotten me, saith the Lord God. So, you know, when you look at a list like this, this is a great list of things to avoid in your life if you don't want God to be angry because this is the kind of stuff that makes God mad.
So if we took a positive approach to this, and don't worry, I'm not going to finish the whole chapter. This is going to roll into like a Sunday sermon. 22B is going to roll into something else.
But you're like doing the math. You're like, okay, there's 31 verses. We've done 12. 12 divided by 31. You're like, whoa, we're going to be here a long time.
But, you know, another way to look at this chapter, we see what makes God mad. Another way to look at this chapter would be like, okay, well, how can I make God happy by doing the opposite of these things?
You know, I'm not going to shed innocent blood. I'm not going to have any idols. Those are pretty easy, right? Just don't kill anyone and don't bow down to a Buddha statue or something.
So, I mean, hey, piece of cake, right? We're doing great already. But, you know, also, how about honoring our parents, loving our parents, respecting our parents, treating them with dignity, respect, honoring them, obeying them, especially in the case of children.
But even as adults, you know, even though my parents don't command me like they did when I was a child, you know, I still, it's very important to me to treat my parents with respect.
Even as an adult, living on my own, you know, I make a point to treat my parents with respect. And it's important for everyone to do that.
And don't come whining to me about everything that's wrong with your parents, okay? Why don't you just figure out a way to do this?
Instead of trying to figure out a loophole to not do it, why don't you figure out a way that you can fulfill this command?
You know, unless your dad is like Bruce Jenner or something, you need to figure out a way to do this, okay? Anything short of that, figure it out.
Whether your parents are saved or unsaved, figure out a way to treat them with honor and dignity and respect to fulfill this command.
You know, how about this? Treat foreigners well, right? Help them, you know, if you speak a couple languages, translate something for them, help them find what they need, help them figure out how to live in America.
Be a blessing to them, give them the gospel, show them the love of Christ, be friendly to them, don't treat them like they're, you know, they don't belong here or something.
Because you know what? They're here. Here they are. So what are we going to do? You know, and you mistreating one Muslim isn't really going to stop whatever's happening on a large scale.
But you may win somebody to Christ. So, you know, do what you can. You know, treat the fatherless and the widow well, help people out, have proper respect for the things of God, keep things sacred, you know, God's word, his house.
Treat the things of God with respect. Don't take God's name in vain. Don't bear false witness against your neighbor, you know. Don't spread lies about people.
If you're a police officer, don't plant evidence on people and say, well, you know, I know they're guilty, so I'm going to go ahead and plant evidence or something.
Don't do that. Don't commit lewd acts that, you know, we don't want to talk about a second time. Don't do anything perverted. You know, remain a virgin until your wedding day. That goes for both male and female.
Right? You stay pure until you're married and then once you're married, no adultery. You stay faithful to that one person. You know, this is how you're going to receive the blessing of God in your life.
And you know what? Don't be a usurer. Don't be greedy and charging people interest. You know, if somebody has to borrow something from you, first of all, never loan something to someone that you're not ready to kiss goodbye because you may never get it back.
You should never loan someone something that you can't afford to lose. So if I have $1,000 and I'm going to loan somebody $1,000 and without this $1,000, I'm sunk. I'm not going to loan out that $1,000. Everybody understand? Unless I'm ready to kiss it goodbye.
If I loan something to someone, the first thing I do is go buy another one. Okay?
But if I loan someone money, the last thing I'm going to do is charge interest. I don't care what the situation is. I will never charge interest to anyone for any reason if I loan them money.
You know, let the bank do that. Let the Jews do that. That's not for us as Christians. You know, if my brother or my sister or my friend needs to borrow $100, I'm not going to say, well, I'll give you $100, but you're going to pay me back $105.
Folks, that is a wicked practice. No, no, it's America. It's capitalism. No, it's wickedness. Okay? You know what? I would rather take that extra $5 and light it on fire than to risk displeasing the Lord.
Extortion, obviously. And then what was the last thing at the end of verse 12? They forgot me. How about this? Don't forget God. That's the last way to be blessed by God. Don't forget God.
Don't forget God. I encourage you every single day when you wake up in the morning, the first thing that I do before I pray, before I read my Bible, before I do anything, before I use the restroom, before I get out of bed, before I eat or drink, the first thing I do is I acknowledge the Lord.
Boom. I just want to get God in my thoughts. First thing, I acknowledge God. I acknowledge Him, then I pray, then I read my Bible, but don't forget God.
And I honestly remember feeling guilty as a teenager sometimes because I would have this thought as a teenager. I would think to myself, you know what? I have not even thought about God for like two, three days.
God did not even enter my mind all day yesterday. Not only did I not read my Bible, not only did I not pray, God never even entered my mind. I was just thinking about school or thinking about video games, thinking about my friends, playing outside, whatever, and God didn't even enter my mind.
I watched TV, listened to music, but God didn't even enter my mind for days on end. And I felt guilty about that because I knew that in all our ways we should acknowledge Him.
And we should think about God every day. Let's have God in all our thoughts. Just every single day is just this is another day in my life that is granted to me by God. I'm here for the glory of God. I exist because of God, for God.
That's going to be the first thought in our mind when we wake up in the morning. And I'll be honest with you, I'm a human being. Every once in a while I'll wake up in the morning and my first thought will be something unrelated to God.
Whatever you're dreaming about, you wake up and you think about something else, but then I'm just like I get a couple minutes into that, I start doing something, and then it's just like stop. Acknowledge God.
We've got to catch ourselves and start our day mindful of the Lord. Don't forget the Lord. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter. Lord, thank you for warning us about these things. Some of these things don't really apply to us because they're so weird that we weren't even going to do that anyway.
But Lord, many of these sins are sins that we could be tempted by or that we could fall into. Lord, help us to strive for holiness in our lives. Help us to strive to keep you in all of our thoughts and to do the things that are relevant to us.
Make sure that we honor our parents. Make sure that we're honest, that we love other people, that we don't just despise people because they're a different race or different ethnicity or foreigner.
Lord, help us to love our neighbor as ourself. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen. Take your song books, please, and go to hymn number 147. 147, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, number 147 begins,
What a fellowship and what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms, number 147. On this first verse together.
What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms, what a blessed gift, what a peaceful month, leaning on the everlasting arms,
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all of odds, leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Oh, how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh, how bright the path goes from day to day, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all of odds, leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms? I have blessed a peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all of odds, leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Amen. Great singing tonight, you are dismissed.