["Pomp and Circumstance"]
Good evening, everybody. Welcome to our services tonight here at Faith Ward Baptist Church.
It's very good to see you all here on this Wednesday night.
Let's all take our seats, please, and take your songbooks. We'll begin with our singing this evening.
Let's go to hymn number 405 to begin, number 405.
The banner of the cross, hymn number 405. We'll begin on that first verse together.
There's a royal banner given for display, hymn number 405.
Let's sing it out nice and loud, all together, number 405.
There it is.
The royal banner given for display, to the soldiers of the field.
At the landside square we lift it up today, while the friends of ours we see.
Marching on, marching on.
The war cries out, everything but loss.
Round and round in pain, the poor land sing.
With the banner of the cross.
Of the Roman rage and gallant as the flow, let the stand by be displayed.
And believe its hold as soldiers of the law, for the truth be not displayed.
Marching on, marching on.
The war cries out, everything but loss.
And to round in pain, the poor land sing.
With the banner of the cross.
Of the land and sea, wherever land is open,
Let the royal studies close.
From the prison, men and mothers hope to know,
How the Lord shall claim his own.
Marching on, marching on.
The war cries out, everything but loss.
And to round in pain, the poor land sing.
With the banner of the cross.
When the glory does its wrong bearing,
It is a state made by faith.
Before our King, the force shall disappear,
And the cross of worlds shall sway.
Marching on, marching on.
The war cries out, everything but loss.
And to round in pain,
The poor land sing.
With the banner of the cross.
Amen. Great start to things now. Let's go ahead and bow our heads in our word of prayer.
Dear only Father, we thank you for the opportunity you've given us to gather here on this Wednesday night.
We pray, Lord, you please bless the song service, have us be attentive to it, and to edify each other.
And I pray you please clear our hearts with the preaching of your word. Feel passive with your spirit.
And we'll thank you for it all. In Jesus' name, Amen.
Let's go back to hymn number 136.
Hymn number 136, Master of the Tempest is Raging.
Hymn number 136.
Let's sing it out nice and loud in that beginning.
Number 136, Master of the Tempest is Raging.
Master of the Tempest is Raging.
The heavens are tossing high.
The sky is all showered with blackness.
The shelter of hell is high.
There is no love when we perish.
How can'st that lie asleep?
The world is unhappy, it's lengthy.
Our faith in the angry deep.
The winds and the waves shall obey.
We shall obey thy will.
Be ye still.
Rather the wrath of the storm doth seem.
For demons are never ever in need.
No water can swallow the ship with light.
The master of the ship and purpose cries.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
Be ye still.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
Be ye still.
As the weeping wish of spirit.
I am in my dream today.
The depths of my sound are of trouble.
All waken and save I pray.
The winds of sin in the big wind.
Sweet for my sinking soul.
The nourished I bearish dear master.
All they sin and take control.
The winds and the waves shall obey my will.
Be ye still.
Rather the wrath of the storm doth seem.
For demons are never ever in need.
No water can swallow the ship with light.
The master of the ship and purpose cries.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
Be ye still.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
Be ye still.
Master, the terror is over.
Let heaven and sea be rest.
The sun in the complex is nearer.
And heaven's within my breast.
Ring her, O blessed Redeemer.
Leave me alone no more.
Through the door I shall make the best of her.
And rest on the peaceful shore.
The winds and the waves shall obey my will.
Be ye still.
Rather the wrath of the storm doth seem.
For demons are never ever in need.
No water can swallow the ship with light.
The master of the ship and purpose cries.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
Be ye still.
They all shall sweetly obey thy will.
Be ye still.
All right, this time we'll go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside we have our service times.
Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
This week we're in Ezekiel chapter 31.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below,
as well as salvations and baptisms.
Congratulations to the noble family on the birth of baby Giovanni,
born on Thursday, March 10th.
Be sure to congratulate them.
We had a great soul winning marathon out in San Diego, California.
85 people showed up to go soul winning and had a total of 33 salvations.
And then there's another one coming up this Saturday in El Paso, Texas.
And so see brother Daniel Ryder up front here for more details about that.
And then there are going to be more soul winning marathons in the coming weeks thereafter.
I believe the next one after that is going to be in Henderson, Nevada.
So this Saturday is El Paso.
Next Saturday is in Henderson, Nevada.
And then the Saturday after that is going to be in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
So get those on your radar as well.
The weekly singing class has resumed.
That's every Sunday at 5 o'clock here at the church building.
And then the weekly preaching class is every Tuesday at 7 p.m.
And then keep praying for our ladies that are expecting.
And then also brother Matt Cassing's aunt, Vanessa, she comes here all the time.
And she's doing very bad.
She's in the hospital.
And so let's just pray for her right now together that she'll be healed,
that she'll recover from this.
Let's go ahead and bow our heads and pray.
Lord, we thank you so much that we can come to you in prayer during times of trouble.
And we just pray that you would just bless Vanessa, Lord, and heal her body and let your will be done.
Just give wisdom to whatever the doctors or nurses that are working with her.
And we just pray that you would see fit to cause her to recover, Lord.
But also just throughout this process, please just give her comfort and strengthen her and alleviate her suffering, Lord, during this hard time.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
All right, so that is about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing our, ah, we've got to count up the soul winning before we do that.
So going back to Monday, anything from Monday?
All right, got it?
All right, anything else from Monday?
How about Tuesday?
Okay.
Got it.
Okay, anything else from Tuesday?
And then how about today?
I know we had five in the church van today.
Anything else outside of the van today?
Anything outside of the van?
All right, very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning.
With that, let's sing our next song.
All right, take your song books and we'll turn to hymn number 75.
Number 75 on Jordan's stormy banks I stand.
Hymn number 75.
Let's sing it on that first verse, nice and loud.
Hymn number 75.
I am bound for a promised land.
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for a promised land.
All our Lord's work is set in place for eternal day.
There God the Son forever reigns and scatters right away.
I am bound for a promised land.
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for a promised land.
Now chilly is the poisonous breath in which the hill falls short.
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death are felt in fear no more.
I am bound for a promised land.
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for a promised land.
When shall I reach that happy place and be forever blessed?
When shall I see my Father's face and in his blood's embrace?
I am bound for a promised land.
Oh, who will come and go with me?
I am bound for a promised land.
And you're singing well this evening. Let's go up to hymn number 237.
237, the cleansing wave, hymn number 237.
This is a reference to Pastor Sermon on Sunday about the tide.
So let's sing it on that first verse, hymn number 237, the cleansing wave.
Oh, how I see the cleansing wave, God found him deep and wide.
Jesus, I'm reminded to sing, voice to his blue inside.
The cleansing stream I see, I see.
I'm fortunate, oh, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, it cleanses me.
I see the ill creation rise.
I hear the speaking word.
It speaks for the losing nature dies.
Seems deep and lives in flood.
The cleansing stream I see, I see.
I'm fortunate, oh, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, it cleanses me.
I rise to walk in gentle light above the world in sin.
If I meet God then God is right and Christ is golden King.
The cleansing stream I see, I see.
I'm fortunate, oh, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, it cleanses me.
The raising grace is left below to feel the blood of life.
And Jesus only, Jesus no, by Jesus crucified.
The cleansing stream I see, I see.
I'm fortunate, oh, it cleanses me.
Oh, praise the Lord, it cleanses me.
It cleanses me, it cleanses me.
Amen.
Good singing tonight.
All right, this time we'll quickly pass our offering plates around.
As the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to Ezekiel chapter 31.
Ezekiel chapter number 31, as we always do.
We'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with Brother Hester as he reads.
Ezekiel chapter 31, beginning in verse number 1.
Ezekiel chapter 31, the Bible reads.
And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the third month,
in the first day of the month, that the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude.
Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches,
and with a shadowing shroud and of an high stature,
and his top was among the thick boughs.
The waters made him great.
The deep set him up on high with her rivers, running round about his plants,
and sent out her little rivers into all the trees of the field.
Therefore, his height was exalted above all the trees in the field,
and his boughs were multiplied, and his branches became long
because of the multitude of waters when he shot forth.
All the fowls of heaven made their nests in his boughs,
and under his branches did all the beasts of the field bring forth their young,
and under his shadow dwelt all great nations.
Thus was he fair in his greatness in the length of his branches,
for his root was by great waters.
The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him.
The fir trees were not like his boughs,
and the chestnut trees were not like his branches,
nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.
I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches
so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him.
Therefore, thus saith the Lord God,
Because thou hast lifted up thyself in height,
and he hath shot up his top among the thick boughs,
and his heart is lifted up in his height,
I have therefore delivered him into the hand of the mighty one of the heathen.
He shall surely deal with him.
I have driven him out for his wickedness,
and, strangers, the terrible of the nations have cut him off and have left him.
Upon the mountains and in all the valleys his branches are fallen,
and his boughs are broken by all the rivers of the land,
and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow and have left him.
Upon his ruin shall all the fowls of heaven remain,
and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches.
To the end, that none of all the trees by the waters exalt themselves for their height,
neither shoot up their top among the thick boughs,
neither their trees stand up in their height all that drink water,
for they are all delivered unto death to the nether parts of the earth,
in the midst of the children of men with them that go down to the pit.
Thus saith the Lord God,
In the day when he went down to the grave I caused a mourning,
I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof,
and the great waters were staid, and I caused Lebanon to mourn for him,
and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall
when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit.
And all the trees of Eden, the choice and the best of Lebanon,
all that drink water shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
They also went down into hell with him unto them that be slain with the sword,
and they that were his arm that dwelt under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.
To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden?
Yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth.
Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword.
This is Pharaoh and all his multitude, saith the Lord God.
Thank you, God, for tonight and allowing us to hear your word,
and I pray that you would allow Pastor Anderson to teach what is your will,
and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Ezekiel chapter number 31 is a pretty interesting chapter here,
continuing the prophecies against Pharaoh, right?
So the last several chapters after we had talked about Tyre and Zidane,
now Ezekiel is pronouncing these judgments upon Egypt and Pharaoh,
and it says in verse number 1 of chapter 31,
It came to pass in the eleventh year in the third month, in the first day of the month,
that the word Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt and to his multitude.
Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
So he starts out with this question, this kind of rhetorical question,
like, wow, who is like you?
And what this type of a question would typically mean is there's nobody like you.
You know, it's a question that's often asked about God in the Bible,
like who is like unto you, O Lord?
And the implied answer is nobody.
Man, there is just nobody like you.
Who is like you?
But the funny thing here is that he just immediately answers the question.
So he's basically making a mockery of the king of Egypt
because he basically says, oh, man, who is like you in your greatness?
Oh, that's easy, the king of Assyria, just immediately giving an answer.
So instead of the typical rhetorical, oh, man, who is like you in your greatness
with an implied answer of nobody, it's like, oh, who is like you in your greatness?
Oh, the king of Assyria who got destroyed, who got judged, who God took out.
And so that's what he's doing here is he kind of sets up a certain expectation
in verse 2 with that question and then just kind of slams the door on Pharaoh,
like, nope, you're not special, you're not unique,
you're not so great that you can't be destroyed by God
because you're just exactly like Assyria.
It's the same exact thing.
And this is a theme that has come up over and over again in the Book of Ezekiel
of you're not special if other empires have gone down this same road
and faced the same fate, you're not going to be different.
If these other people were punished when they committed similar sins,
the same thing is going to happen to you.
So that's a theme in the Book of Ezekiel about how everyone is subject to the same rules
and if God has done it before, he'll do it again and so forth.
That's what we're seeing here with the comparison with Assyria.
Now, if you would flip over, you know, last couple of weeks,
I've been tying in a little bit of Bible prophecy stuff with what we see in Ezekiel.
So let's flip over to Revelation 17.
We're going to come back because there's a lot of great stuff here in Ezekiel 31.
But I just want to quickly touch on this in the Book of Revelation chapter 17
So this is kind of a complicated subject about Babylon and Revelation chapter 17.
But I just want to touch on one aspect of it while we're here, okay?
And keep in mind that when the Apostle John is writing the Book of Revelation,
the Roman Empire is in power, okay?
And if you remember from the Book of Daniel, you have these four great kingdoms
that are going to rule over the world.
So you've got Babylon represented by the head of gold in the statue in Daniel
and Nebuchadnezzar is the head of gold.
And the Babylonian Empire is then followed by the Persian Empire, which is the silver.
And it's not quite as cool as the Babylonian Empire, but it's like one step down.
And then after that, you have the Greek and then you have the Roman, right?
And so you have those four kingdoms in the Book of Daniel, okay?
Now in Revelation, you have talk about these kingdoms.
And if you would, look at verse number 9.
It says, And here is the mind which hath wisdom.
We're in Revelation 17, 9.
The seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth.
Now, there are a couple of different interpretations here that are valid
because obviously we know that Rome is historically known as the city of seven hills.
And when I was a kid just in school in my typical public school history book,
the chapter on Rome was called Rome, the city of seven hills.
So that's a big thing.
And obviously that makes sense because John is writing this during the Roman Empire
and Rome is the fourth kingdom in that succession that we talked about from Daniel,
Babylon, and then Persia, then Greece, then Rome,
meaning that Rome is sort of like the new Babylon.
And Revelation 17 is about Babylon.
And it's talking about this woman, mystery Babylon, who's riding the scarlet colored beast.
And it says the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth.
But beyond that, what we have to understand is that in the Bible, mountains often represent kingdoms, okay?
So a kingdom is frequently represented as a mountain.
Again, if we go back to the book of Daniel, Christ's millennial kingdom is a great mountain that fills the earth.
And so that's a common theme.
And so the woman, this mystery Babylon spirit, sits upon seven mountains.
This is true in a couple of different ways.
Number one, it's true because she's seated at that time in Rome, which is the city of seven hills.
But more so, she is basically based in seven different kingdoms over history, over time.
So the seven mountains on which the woman sits, one of them is Babylon, one of them is Persia,
one of them is the Greeks, one of them is the Romans, different kingdoms that she sits upon.
Let's keep reading and you'll see that what I'm saying is true.
Because it says the seven heads are seven mountains on which the woman sitteth, verse 9.
Verse 10, and there are seven kings.
So as I said, the seven mountains represent seven kingdoms, and there are seven kings to go with those seven kingdoms.
And watch what it says here.
Five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come, and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
So we've got seven kings, seven kingdoms, five are over, five are fallen, one is, and the other is not yet come.
Okay, now let's stop and think about this for a moment.
If he is writing this in the first century A.D. during the Roman Empire, and he says, well five have already happened,
five are fallen, one of them is right now, and then the other is not yet come, then we would say that the sixth kingdom is Rome.
And then the one that's coming in the future would be the final Antichrist kingdom.
Okay, does everybody get that?
So that's six and seven.
Alright.
Well then that is five before it.
Well we said that Rome is the fourth in that succession, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome.
But if five are fallen, that's only three fallen, right?
Because that's Babylon, Persia, Greece, and then we're in Rome.
One is, and the other is not yet come.
So the question is, what are the other two that would precede Babylon?
And the answer to that question, biblically, is Egypt and Assyria.
Because Egypt and Assyria are the great powers before Babylon.
You know, the great world power before that is Egypt, and then it's Assyria.
Assyria falls to Babylon, Babylon falls to Persia, Persia falls to Greece, Rome, etc.
So basically, in these seven mountains, this Babylon spirit occupies.
It's Egypt, it's Assyria, it's then Babylon, etc.
So again, I don't want to go real deep on that.
I just want to kind of throw that out there and just plant that seed for you
and just kind of show you that and get you thinking about that.
So go back to Ezekiel chapter 31.
So the idea here is that Egypt and Assyria are analogous to one another.
Egypt and Assyria are both the same style of kingdom.
They're both these wicked powers that are imperial and so forth,
and they're prideful, and they rule over a great region,
and they think they're invincible.
It's the same way with all of these kingdoms in this succession.
And so God's saying, you're no different.
The Assyrian was the same way.
Now let me further prove that what I'm telling you is accurate, okay?
Go back to Ezekiel 31 now with that in mind.
It says in verse 3,
Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches
and with a shadowing shroud and of a high stature,
and his top was among the thick boughs.
Now stop and think about this.
If Assyria and the king of Assyria is pictured as this great tree
with all these branches and the fowl of the air lodged in the branches thereof,
it's going to say a little bit later, what does that remind you of?
Well, it probably reminds you of the book of Daniel about Nebuchadnezzar,
the king of Babylon.
So again, what I'm showing you is that Egypt and Assyria and Babylon are all connected.
So once we realize that, once we understand that just as Nebuchadnezzar
is this great tree that the branches are filled with the birds and whatever,
you know, just as Babylon leads into Persia, Greece, Rome,
if we want to know who those first two kings are
to kind of round out the list in Revelation 17,
it's pretty easy to see that it's Egypt and Assyria
because they're described the same way.
And you say, well, what about like Tyre and Sidon?
But see, Tyre had similarities with Babylon,
but Tyre is not an empire of the magnitude of Egypt and Assyria, right?
It's a powerful city-state as a thriving, successful city-state on the Mediterranean,
but it's not an empire of the magnitude of Egypt and Assyria,
which are kind of like the superpowers of their day.
Sort of like today, the United States is the superpower in this world.
We have just way more military power than the next several nations combined,
and we are the one superpower in this world right now.
We're like Babylon, okay?
And back then, these other countries filled that role.
So here's the bottom line. There's nothing new under the sun.
The same things that are going on now in the world
are the same types of things that were going on back then,
and nations come along and they think they're different,
they think they're special, they think they're exceptional,
and God is constantly telling them, you're not different, you're not special,
you're just like everybody else who got prideful and puffed up
and had to be destroyed by God because of their wickedness.
So the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches and with a shadowing shroud.
This is almost exactly the way Nebuchadnezzar is described in chapter 4 of the book of Daniel.
So it says in verse 4, the waters made him great.
The deep set him up on high with her rivers running round about his plants
and sent out her little rivers unto all the trees of the field.
Now what does this mean when it says the waters made him great?
Well again, if we were to go to Revelation 17 and we see the great whore,
Mystery Babylon, seven mountains on which the woman sitteth,
but it also talks about her being seated upon many waters.
And the waters upon which she is seated are peoples and nations and tongues.
And so these waters that made the king of Assyria great
are all of the nations that Assyria rules over,
all the groups of people that are tributaries or that are subservient to the king of Assyria.
Those are the waters that the tree is sort of sucking up.
So the tree is this empire that has its roots kind of reaching out into all these different geographic areas
and sort of sucking up resources, sucking up the water, sucking up the moisture.
And that's where the greatness comes from
because the tree cannot thrive without all that water.
And that's what the Bible is saying here.
So it sent out its tendrils to get all of this water.
It says therefore his height was exalted above all the trees of the field
and his bowels were multiplied and his branches became long
because of the multitude of waters when he shot forth.
So as the empire is absorbing more nations into it,
it extends its power, it extends its branches
because its roots are sucking up resources from the nations that are conquered.
Thus was he fair in his greatness in the length of his branches
for his root was by great waters. Verse 8.
The cedars in the garden of God could not hide him.
The fir trees were not like his bowels and the chestnut trees were not like his branches
nor any tree in the garden of God was like unto him in his beauty.
I have made him fair by the multitude of his branches
so that all the trees of Eden that were in the garden of God envied him.
This is kind of strange all of a sudden now that the Bible is bringing up
the trees of the garden of God or the trees of Eden.
And I think what this is probably saying is just that he is such a great tree
that he's even more, you know, powerful in his height and magnitude
than even the trees of the garden of Eden.
Just kind of using them as a picture of like a really great tree.
You know what I mean? Like if I just wanted to talk about the greatest trees
it would be the trees in the very garden of God itself.
You know, like this tree was so big and so mighty
that it even dwarfed the trees of the garden of God
or it even dwarfed the type of trees that are in the garden of Eden.
Just sort of using that as a comparison to just talk about how great they are.
Not necessarily talking about the literal garden of Eden here
because, you know, obviously the garden of Eden is not really round at this time
nor is the king of Assyria an actual literal tree.
He's a person. He's a human. He's got a kingdom.
It's just being compared to a tree.
This is all very symbolic and very metaphorical.
So sometimes the Bible will just use comparisons like this
to just say like, you know, even greater than the trees of the garden of God
would be like, man, if God had a garden and planted trees in it,
this tree is even bigger than those type of trees would be.
That's probably what's going on here.
You could also maybe think about the fact that geographically
the Assyrian empire is located physically in the region
where the garden of Eden was located in the past
because the garden of Eden, of course we know,
it has these four rivers associated with it
and the Tigris and Euphrates River are part of that
and that's that region of modern day Iraq, right,
which would be the region covered by the Assyrian empire.
So there could also be kind of just an association of,
hey, in that region of where Eden was,
this mega power rises up and rules over everything
and dwarfs everything else, dwarfs every other king
or ruler or city state in that region.
But the trees of the garden of Eden are not literal.
It's just a comparison that's being made.
Okay.
So it says, so that all the trees of Eden
that were in the garden of God envied him.
Obviously we know that trees don't actually have minds
where they actually get envious of one another, okay.
But again, it's just symbolic, it's just a metaphor.
It's just, it's not to be taken literally, okay.
So it says in verse 10, therefore thus saith the Lord God,
because thou hast lifted up thyself in height
and has shot up, and he hath shot up his top
among the thick boughs, and his heart has lifted up in his height.
I've therefore delivered him into the hand
of the mighty one of the heathen.
He shall surely deal with him.
I've driven him out for his wickedness.
And strangers, the terrible of the nations,
have cut him off and have left him upon the mountains
and in all the valleys.
His branches are fallen and his boughs are broken
by all the rivers of the land
and all the people of the earth are gone down from his shadow
and have left him.
So he's saying, look, Assyria used to be this great, powerful empire
and now all of those branches of that empire are broken,
everyone has bailed out, nobody is following them anymore,
and Egypt is going to be the same way.
They're going to suffer the same fate.
It says in verse 13, upon his ruin
shall all the fowls of the heaven remain
and all the beasts of the field shall be upon his branches.
So basically, even though the tree isn't there anymore
because it's been broken and it's not what it used to be,
the birds are still kind of used to hanging out there.
They used to hang out in the branches of the tree,
now they just kind of hang out on the ruin
of where the tree used to be.
Which obviously makes sense, like the Assyrian empire is gone,
but obviously all those people and cities, they still exist,
they're just no longer subservient,
they're no longer hooked into that tree that's no longer there.
It says in verse 14, to the end that none of all the trees by the waters
exalt themselves to their height,
neither shoot up their tops,
among the thick boughs,
neither their trees stand up in their height,
all that drink water, for they are all delivered unto death
to the nether parts of the earth,
in the midst of the children of men with them that go down to the pit.
He's saying, look, all of these kingdoms, all these emperors,
all of these men who think that they're God
and get so high and lofty and prideful and arrogant,
they should all look at Assyria and Egypt as a cautionary tale,
you know, don't go down that road.
Do not get arrogant, don't get prideful,
don't forget that God is in control of everything
and that anything that you have was given to you by God,
don't get too big for your britches.
And you know, we as the United States should be looking at this
and saying, hey, we shouldn't get too puffed up or arrogant,
we shouldn't be thinking that we're in trouble,
we shouldn't be thinking that we're arrogant,
we shouldn't be thinking that we're invincible
or that we're so much greater than everyone else
and that we need to rule the entire world
because nobody else knows how to rule themselves,
we need to rule them and we need to impose our way of life on them.
You know, that's an arrogant, prideful thought that the United States has
and it's no different than Assyria or Babylon or Persia,
go down the list.
And so he says, look, to the end, the whole point of this parable,
the whole point of looking at history
is so that you don't repeat the mistakes of the past.
So he's saying to the end that none of all the trees by the waters
exalt themselves for their height
and get arrogant and prideful and think that they're so great
and that they're invincible.
Why? Because they're all delivered unto death.
They will all die, every empire will come to an end,
every nation will come to an end,
and every human leader will physically die eventually.
The most powerful Caesars and Emperors and rulers throughout history,
they're all dead.
And typically they're in hell.
Now obviously some would have, could have been saved
and there could be some that were saved,
but typically the type of guys who run these type of empires
typically aren't saved and they typically go to hell when they die.
So what's there to be prideful and arrogant about
when your fate is to burn in hell for all of eternity?
It doesn't matter whether you caused your terror in the land of the living,
you are now the recipient of the worst kind of horrors and terror in hell.
And so anybody who's puffed up and high-minded in this earth
needs to remember that this life is just a vapor
that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
And whatever greatness anyone achieves in this life
is very temporary, it doesn't last,
and being puffed up about it and prideful is stupid
because there's nothing to be proud of,
you're doomed, is what he's saying here.
So he says they're all delivered unto death
to the nether parts of the earth.
Now what does nether mean?
Nether is just an old word for lower.
It's just an archaic word that means lower.
So if we talk about the nether world, we're talking about the underworld.
The nether parts of the earth, the lower parts of the earth.
Now why is that?
Because according to the Bible, hell is down.
So the Bible says they go down to the pit,
they're going to the nether parts of the earth,
and then later on in verse 16 it says,
I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall
when I cast him down to where?
To hell, it says in verse 16, with them that descend into the pit.
So these places are all the same place.
Lower parts of the earth, hell, bottomless pit.
Now this makes sense because we know that the earth is a globe,
the earth is a sphere in shape.
And so no matter where you are on the surface of the earth,
hell is down because hell is located in the heart of the earth, right?
The Bible says as Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly,
so shall the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
And the Bible talks about how Jesus descended into the lower parts of the earth,
it says in Ephesians chapter 4.
So if the Bible says in Ephesians 4 that Jesus descended,
after he died on the cross, he descended into the lower parts of the earth,
that's the same thing as the nether parts of the earth,
which is why it says in Acts 2 31,
this spake he of the resurrection of Christ that his soul was not left in hell,
neither did his flesh see corruption.
So his soul wasn't left in hell, his flesh didn't see corruption,
and he descended into the lower parts of the earth,
but then he ascended up to the right hand of the Father in heaven,
and that's where he is right now, seated at the Father's right hand in heaven.
But the Bible says before he ascended, he first descended, Ephesians chapter 4,
into the lower parts of the earth, the nether parts of the earth, the pit, hell.
So the Bible is very consistent on this subject that hell is down.
Hell is in the lower parts of the earth because of the fact that earth is a sphere with hell at its center.
Now obviously, hell is a spiritual place.
Hell is sort of on another plane.
If you want to get a little sci-fi with it, you could say it's kind of like in another dimension,
you know what I mean, because it's obviously not a natural place, a supernatural place,
because if it were a natural place,
any person or thing that went there would just immediately burn up from the incredible heat.
But of course we know that in hell their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,
and we know that people are consciously burning in hell.
Not only that, it's not a physical body descending down into hell.
When an unsafe person dies, their body stays here.
We bury it. We deal with it.
It's the soul that goes down to hell.
So again, this is a supernatural place,
but just because it's a supernatural place doesn't mean that it doesn't have a location that is a real location.
And so I believe firmly that hell is actually literally located at the center of the earth,
in the lower parts of the earth, which makes it a bottomless pit,
because if you stop and think about it, there'd be no bottom because where do you go when you get to the center?
That's not really a bottom.
If you were to, let's say, drill through the earth from one side to the other,
when I was a kid, whenever we'd be digging a hole, our parents would tell us,
hey, if you dig far enough, you'll end up in China.
Who was told that as a kid when you're digging?
Keep digging and you'll end up in China.
So let's say we did that as a kid and we had the time and we dug all the way to China.
If you theoretically had drilled through it and then you jumped in the hole,
you're never going to hit bottom, are you?
Now I don't know exactly what would happen, but there's no bottom, I'll tell you that.
So this is why it makes sense that it's pictured as a bottomless pit.
It's fire, it's brimstone, it's incredibly hot.
And of course, that's how the earth is laid out.
Anybody who's ever been to elementary school knows that the earth consists of the crust,
which is just so thin of a layer that if you took an apple and you said,
okay, let's represent the skin of the apple as the crust, that would actually be too thick.
Like the skin of an apple would be too thick, it wouldn't be the scale.
The crust with respect to the size of the earth is much thinner than that.
We're talking about just a matter of what, 10 miles or something.
I mean it's different thicknesses in different places,
but then when you think about the earth itself with a diameter of what, 8,000 miles or something,
we're talking about something that is just a very thin layer.
Okay, well what's under the crust?
You have the mantle, which is already incredibly hot.
And then you get down to the core, and you've got the inner core, the outer core, extremely hot.
And so it makes sense that basically hell is located in the center of the earth.
But again, it's not like you could actually go down there and find it or something,
because again, it's on a spiritual plane, it's on another realm, if you will.
But that doesn't prevent it from actually being located there.
It's sort of like today, there are angels and demons and things operating in this earth
that we can't see with our eyes, but those things are still present, they're still happening.
Remember the story that we just looked at, where Elisha prays that his servant's eyes will be opened,
and then he sees that the whole hillsides fill with the fiery chariots and the angels.
They're there, but we don't see what's going on in that realm.
Just like we can't see the soul, we can't see the spirit.
These things are on another plane.
It's the same thing with hell. Hell is there at that location.
It's in the center of the earth, it's down, but it is on another plane.
It's in another realm.
And by the way, while I'm at this point right here,
let me just stop and just get something off my chest that bothers me, okay?
It's these idiotic teachings that say, like,
oh, well, here's the ancient Hebrew view of the world,
and it's like, it's a flat disc, the earth's a flat disc,
and here's the pillars holding it up, and then Sheol is underneath.
So you've got hell, and then the pillars, then the disc,
and then you've got the dome of the firmament, it's a glass dome, and all this junk.
What if I told you that the Old Testament doesn't contain any pictures?
So when these idiots come at you with that diagram,
well, here's the diagram of what the ancient Hebrews believed that the world was like.
Let me explain to you where they're deriving that diagram from.
Can I explain to you where they're getting it from?
They're getting it from the Bible, because they're idiots,
and they're reading the Bible like an idiot and drawing that stupid picture.
So basically, somebody who's too foolish to understand the Bible
gets a Bible, reads the same Bible you're reading,
and draws that picture, and then shows you that picture like that picture's authoritative,
like as if that picture was dug up and, oh, here's a picture Moses drew in 1500 BC.
But here's what's going on.
Moses didn't draw that picture in 1500 BC.
That picture was drawn 15 minutes ago, or 15 weeks ago, or 15 months ago, or 15 years ago,
but it wasn't drawn in 1500 BC.
It was drawn now by a scoffer, by someone who's making a mockery of the things of God,
someone who's making fun of the Bible, who's too stupid to understand the Bible,
who's too unspiritual to understand the Bible.
So they just draw a picture showing how dumb they are,
and then they're trying to make the Bible look dumb,
but they're really just making themselves look dumb.
Because if we actually read the Bible, we're reading the same Bible that the guy who drew that picture.
This is what's called circular logic.
I'm reading the Bible, and I'm like, well, here's what the Bible says,
and then they're like, well, no, no, no, here's a picture of what they believed.
But it's like, well, where did you get that picture?
Because let me explain something to you about ancient Hebrew literature.
Can I explain something to you about ancient Hebrew literature?
And when I say ancient, I'm talking about going back hundreds of years before Christ,
like going back 500 years before Christ, 600 years before Christ,
700 years before Christ, 1000 years before Christ,
going back even to the books of Moses and the Pentateuch,
and Moses would have lived around 1500 BC by our calendar.
We don't know exactly what year he lived, but Moses, obviously he didn't call it 1500 BC,
but that's basically around the time that he was there, around 1500 BC.
So what Hebrew books do we have?
What Hebrew literature do we have from that time that's 1000 years before Christ,
800 years before Christ, 600 years before Christ, 500 years before Christ, 400 years before Christ?
Guess what? It's all right here in your hand, all of it.
There's nothing else. There's literally nothing.
Everybody got that?
There is literally nothing.
Nothing else.
It's not like, well, we got the Bible and then here's some history books written in Hebrew.
Here's some science books written in Hebrew.
Here's some letters that a Hebrew soldier wrote home to his wife.
No, there's nothing like that.
The only ancient Hebrew literature that exists is the Bible.
Nothing else has survived.
I guarantee you that Hebrews were writing letters to each other and writing poems and stories,
and they probably wrote novels, and they probably wrote pornography and whatever,
but guess what? It doesn't exist.
It's all gone.
This is what we have, folks.
The Old Testament is it.
That's it.
Now, obviously, as you get close to the time of Christ, you get some other Hebrew literature that's being written much later.
Once you get close to the time of Christ, you get into the Dead Sea Scrolls.
There's some other things that are written in Hebrew there, and some of it's from the first century B.C.,
maybe even the second century B.C., but have fun finding older than that literature written in Hebrew.
It isn't there.
So where are you getting this picture?
Well, here's what the ancient Hebrews believed.
They're getting it from the Bible, and guess what?
That's not what the Bible says.
You want to draw a picture of what the Bible says?
Get your pencil ready.
You can draw your picture.
Here's what the Bible says.
God hangs the earth on nothing.
Why don't you draw a picture of that?
God hangs the earth on nothing.
How about the circle of the earth?
Let me explain something to the boneheads out there.
A disc is not a circle any more or less than a sphere is a circle.
So don't come at me with this thing of, like,
well, it didn't say the sphere of the earth.
It said the circle of the earth.
A sphere is a three-dimensional circle.
A circle in three dimensions is a sphere.
Now, they say, well, a circle is a disc.
No, a disc is a disc.
A circle is only two dimensions.
There's no such thing as a three-dimensional circle.
And if there were, it would be a sphere.
It would be a globe.
The definition of a circle is that all the points in the circle
are equidistant from the center.
Okay, now let's apply that to three dimensions.
What's a three-dimensional circle?
It's a sphere.
It's a globe.
And so the point is that the Bible, when it says the circle of the earth,
it's a two-dimensional description of that shape, the globe, okay?
Now, what does the Bible teach?
That the earth hangs on nothing.
That's what the Bible teaches.
And when the Bible talks about the firmament,
it talks about fowl flying in the open firmament of heaven.
So it's not a dome or something solid.
Let me put it this way.
There's nothing firm about the firmament.
Just because it has firm in the name, don't let that confuse you.
The firmament is simply an expanse.
It is talking about the atmosphere of the earth.
That's why he called the firmament heaven.
The fowl are flying in the heavens.
The firmament is the sky.
That's what the firmament is.
The waters above the firmament are talking about moisture in the atmosphere.
The waters below the firmament are the waters that are actually on the earth in liquid form.
That's what's going on.
So the firmament is the expanse of the sky, the atmosphere.
The earth hangs on nothing.
The earth is round.
It's a circle of the earth.
And, in fact, the Bible, of course, teaches this.
Because if the Bible teaches that hell is in the heart of the earth,
well, it has to be a sphere in order to have a heart at its center where hell could be located.
If it were a flat disk, there's no heart there.
But, you know, I had somebody come at me with this the other day and tell me
– this was a Jewish guy that came at me with this –
that he said, you know, it's a flat disk.
It's on pillars.
There's Sheol underneath.
Snow globe over it.
This is what the ancient Hebrews believed.
And then around the edge of it is the river ocean and blah, blah, blah.
But that's from Greek mythology, the river ocean.
Okay.
But even the Greeks knew that the earth was a sphere.
Okay.
I mean, at least the smart ones did.
Obviously, there's always going to be flat earthers.
Even now there are.
So there you go.
So it's just who do you want to talk to?
But the point is that, you know, hell is in the heart of the earth.
It's biblical.
It's in the center of the earth.
The Bible does not contain junk science.
Okay.
The Bible – obviously, the Bible is not meant to be a science book necessarily.
And many things in the Bible are figurative, poetic, metaphorical.
But the Bible does not contain junk science or false teachings about the world that we live in
or about the universe or about the heavenly bodies.
It ends up being right all the time.
And you know what?
All of these scorners and scoffers who act like they're so smart and the Bible is so wrong,
you know, they're still trying to catch up with the Bible.
Because the Bible is ahead of its time.
The Bible is way ahead scientifically of the people who think they're so smart today
and that they know everything.
Because, you know, the Bible already understood germ theory in 1500 BC.
Because in the book of Leviticus, chapter 15, it says,
hey, if anybody's sick or they have an open wound or a running issue,
if they sit on the bed, you've got to wash the bed.
You've got to wash the sheets.
You've got to wash the chair.
You've got to wash it with running water.
Right?
But then we have to get, I mean, literally 200 years ago,
doctors are still washing their hands in standing water instead of running water.
And they don't understand how they're spreading germs.
You know, if you read about guys like Semmelweis
and how he discovered some of these things about germs and so forth,
you know, you read about how they're in a hospital
and you have doctors literally just like going from the morgue
doing autopsies on dead bodies and then just going straight in
and delivering a baby without washing their hands.
And then you wonder why the women are getting bed fever and these different things.
And then he figured out that if they wash their hands
with some kind of a chlorinated lime solution,
or he came up with a solution to wash their hands in that would kill germs,
and then all of a sudden just the deaths just went way down
and the sicknesses went way down.
Okay.
But here's the thing.
If they would have actually been reading the Bible all along,
they would have known that if they come into contact with a dead body
to bathe their flesh in water, change your clothes,
bathe your flesh in water, and still consider yourself unclean until evening.
Don't even go back the same day and be touching, you know, a newborn baby
and delivering a baby and coming into contact with the mother and the baby
with this putrefaction that came from these dead bodies and things.
And you have doctors that are being a veterinarian and a doctor at the same time.
They're dealing with animals, going straight to dealing with an open wound or something.
You know, the Bible was right.
The Bible knew this back in Leviticus 15.
Science had to catch up only in the last few hundred years.
Okay.
You know, the Bible said the life of the flesh is in the blood.
The blood is the life.
And, you know, even just a few hundred years ago, you know, you're draining people's blood.
You're draining people's blood to somehow make them get better.
Like George Washington even had his blood drained right before he died to help him get better.
It didn't work.
He died.
So there you go.
And, I mean, how long ago was that, right?
I mean, not that long ago.
George Washington.
So don't ever let anybody tell you that the Bible is not scientifically accurate.
You want to know what's not scientifically accurate?
Science.
Because, you know, if you think about it, science is constantly being updated and changing.
Because science is a work in progress.
I'm not down on science.
I like science.
I'm for science.
But science is a work in progress.
Science is constantly having to be updated and changed as new discoveries are being made.
And a lot of times really deep-seated scientific ideas just have to be discarded.
It's like, man, we've thought this for years.
We've even thought this for centuries.
But it turns out it's not the way it is.
Okay.
So don't sit there and tell me, well, you know, the Bible is inaccurate.
It's science that has arrived.
You know, guess what?
Stuff that we're learning in science class right now is later going to be disproven.
Now, I'm not saying not to learn it.
Because most of it's true.
And, you know, it still is helping you just learn how to think and learn about the scientific methods,
making you smarter in general.
But let's face it, it's not the gospel, is it?
It's not absolute truth.
It's not just everything is just fact.
It is a work in progress.
Well, here's the thing about the Bible.
The Bible is not a work in progress.
The Bible is done.
And the Bible never changes.
And wherever we're at on this scientific journey, we can always go to the Bible and it always turns out,
oh, you know what, the Bible was right.
But if you read other ancient literature, you'll find junk science.
You'll find junk science in ancient Egyptian literature and, you know, you'll find it in Babylonian literature.
You'll find it in Greek and Roman examples.
But, you know, when you read the Bible, there's no junk science in the Bible.
The Bible is right that the earth is hanging on nothing.
You know, the Bible talks about, you know, animals and, you know, it ends up being right about all that biology.
When it describes animals and how the ants work and how different creatures work and, you know, it's all true.
When it talks about the weather cycle and when it talks about the water cycle and, you know,
when it talked about it being super hot in the center of the earth, it turned out it was right about that.
So, I mean, you can go on and on, but I digress.
But I just want to say that anybody who says, well, this is what the ancient Hebrews believed,
there's no evidence for what the ancient Hebrews believed except in the Bible because the Bible, just get this one point, friend.
This is the only literature that has survived in the Hebrew language from that period.
There's nothing else.
That's why sometimes if you've ever, you know, learned any Hebrew or studied Hebrew,
you'll come across words that only occur one time in the whole Hebrew Bible and they're like, you know,
we're not really sure what this word means because it only occurs one time in the Hebrew Bible and there's no other literature to compare it to.
Like, think about it.
Let's say I'm reading the King James Bible and I run into a word that's used one time and I'm like, what does this word mean?
I can go look in the dictionary, right?
Go look that up and figure out what that means.
But here's the thing, where did the dictionary get that definition?
Well, it got it because there's all this other literature and that English word has been used.
Even though it's only used in the Bible once, it's used 50 times in other books.
So you have all these millions of books in English using words and so that's where the dictionary can get its definition of figuring out how words are used.
But with the Bible, there's nothing else.
It's just like, you just have to compare Bible with Bible and then you have to just basically think, okay, well, you know, maybe when they translated this into Greek and when they translated this into Latin and stuff, you know, they used to know what this word meant.
So we're going to trust that it still means that.
Or maybe you could look at other Semitic languages.
What is it in Arabic or what is it in Syriac or what is it in, you know, Aramaic or something?
But at the end of the day, folks, just get this one point.
There is no ancient Hebrew literature available from that early period when the Bible was written except the Bible.
This is all that has survived.
So don't tell me this is what they thought back then unless you have a chapter and verse on it.
And when you pull out your chapter and verse to tell me about your stupid flat disc and snow globe and pillars, I can easily debunk your foolhardy interpretation because actually when we read the Bible, we understand that the Bible is often speaking poetically.
Don't be like Nicodemus where everything's literal to you.
Oh, born again?
What, do I got to crawl up into my mom and be born again?
Come on, Nicodemus.
Art thou a master in Israel and ask such a stupid question?
I'm paraphrasing.
But basically, you know, you don't want to be like the woman at the well who thinks that the living water is like some kind of a special drink where she never gets thirsty anymore.
It's like the ultimate thirst quencher, OK?
Don't get overly literal with a poetic thing.
And people will get overly literal with this passage here.
I've actually had people with a straight face tell me that this passage is teaching that the Garden of Eden was moved to the center of the earth and that all the trees of Eden are growing down in the center of the earth right now like in the core, OK?
That's just ridiculous.
That's absurd.
It's ridiculous.
When the Bible talks about the trees, what is it really talking about?
The king of Assyria is a great tree.
The king of Babylon is a great tree.
Pharaoh is a great tree.
The trees are a picture of great leaders of empires, OK?
And that's all it is.
It's not a literal tree.
Now let's finish up this chapter with all that in mind quickly.
We've just got a couple more verses to go here.
It says, uh, nether parts of the earth are going to hell.
Verse 15, thus saith the Lord God, in the day when he went down to the grave, I caused a mourning.
I covered the deep for him, and I restrained the floods thereof, and the great waters were stayed.
And I caused Lebanon to mourn for him, and all the trees of the field fainted for him.
Now what does that mean?
All the trees of the field fainted for him.
We're not talking about literal trees.
Literal trees don't faint.
They don't just pass out.
They don't get enough carbon dioxide, you know, or whatever, and they just pass out.
Folks, when it says the trees fainted for him, what it's saying is other rulers, because trees represent what?
Kings, rulers.
Other trees, when they see the king of Assyria's downfall, or Pharaoh's downfall, they're thinking, I'm next.
They are fainting at heart.
They're like, oh, man, we're in trouble because he's more powerful than I am, and he just got smoked.
I'm next.
That's what they're thinking.
That's what it means is all the trees of the field fainted for him.
Okay.
Verse 16.
I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall.
So the other nations, the other kings, they're trembling, they're shaking, they're fainting, they're nervous.
When I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit, and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
Now, what does this mean?
All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water.
What is the drinking water referring to?
Again, remember, the water is people, nations, tongues, kindreds, and basically these other great trees, like great kings with great empires, who are basically sucking up resources from their colonies and from their tributaries.
It's funny how whenever a nation rules over another nation, the Bible calls that a tributary.
And isn't that what we also refer to with rivers?
We call that, when we're talking about the water cycle, we would refer to tributaries.
That's where that word comes from.
Okay.
It's the same idea.
And so that's what's going on.
These are tributaries feeding into the trunk of this empire, and it's this great man, this king, this Caesar, emperor, whatever you want, that's ruling.
So all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, these are referring to other great kings and leaders and men.
Now notice, it doesn't say that they're down in hell drinking water, which is how I've heard people try to twist this too.
There's no water in hell.
Just ask the rich man and Lazarus, okay, if there's any water there.
They're drinking water on the earth.
Then they go down to hell when they die.
Okay.
So get that right.
All the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, shall be comforted in the nether parts of the earth.
Now, again, this is where people misunderstand this because they think like, well, you know, hell is a place of comfort, it turns out.
It turns out hell's pretty comfortable.
Now, folks, no.
Just no.
You know, read the Bible in context.
Use some common sense.
Compare scripture with scripture.
What this is referring to here, when the Bible says comfort, it's not talking about, you know, you like the temperature in hell.
It's a little cooler than Phoenix.
It's 10 degrees cooler than Phoenix in hell, turns out.
Hell's hot.
Phoenix is a little hotter.
That's not what the Bible's saying.
What the Bible's saying here when it says that they're comforted, what it's saying is that they feel better when they see the king of Assyria suffering the same fate that they suffered.
Or when they see Pharaoh suffering the same fate that they suffered because misery loves company.
So they're like, oh, good, I'm not the only one.
He got smoked too.
He's burning in hell too.
That makes me feel a little better.
Again, remember, this is a little bit tongue in cheek.
Remember how the chapter started?
When it started out by saying like, oh, who is like you for your awesome greatness?
Oh, the king of Assyria and he's dead and he's trash.
It's like, oh, man, you guys are going to be, you know, it's going to really be a comfort to you when you see your buddy roasting in hell also.
This is not meant to be taken literally.
Okay.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
But it's like, oh, man, well, they're comforted because guess what?
They're not alone because you're coming too.
That's what he's prophesying against the king of Egypt and he's talking about the king of Assyria.
It says, verse 17, they all went down into hell with him, unto them that be slain with the sword and they that were his arm that dwelled under his shadow in the midst of the heathen.
Now we reprise the beginning, right?
So we started out at the beginning of chapter 31 with this question at the end of verse 2.
Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
Now let's look at the last verse of the chapter.
To whom art thou thus like in glory and in greatness among the trees of Eden?
Yet shalt thou be brought down with the trees of Eden unto the nether parts of the earth.
Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised with them that be slain by the sword.
This is Pharaoh and all his multitudes, saith the Lord God.
Now again, people will try to twist this passage and say like, no, what it is is that, you know, the Garden of Eden got relocated to the center of the earth and it's a comfortable paradise, water fest down there.
It's a water, it's a water park down there and it's a party down there.
But keep, but, but hold on a second.
Let's, let's stop and have a little reality check here.
Who are the people that are going to this place?
Are they good or bad people according to the actual chapter?
Where is, is the Bible talking about anybody good here?
Are any of these people good people?
Are they anybody worshiping the Lord?
Is anybody a servant of God, servant of the Lord?
Is anybody saved?
These are talking about unsaved, super wicked heathen.
And it doesn't make any sense that they're going to a water park, that they're going to a comfort place, that they're going to a paradise.
They're going to hell.
Have you read the rest of the Bible?
Because the rest of the Bible tells you that hell is a place of fire and torment and punishment and torture and whatever.
That's where they're going.
This can't be describing a good place because everybody who's going there is a wicked person being rebuked by God for being so arrogant and being like Satan and being so puffed up that they think that they're God and they think they're invincible and they're going to die like men and they're going to burn in hell.
That's what the chapter is actually saying.
He's using these illustrations about trees and waters and everything, but they are just that.
They're illustrations.
The tree is not a literal tree.
The water is not literal water.
The water are peoples and nations and tongues and kindreds.
The trees are kings.
The branches are tributary kingdoms and so forth.
And so he says, yet, you're so great, but yet, in spite of how cool you are, you will be brought down to the nether parts of the earth.
Thou shalt lie in the midst of the uncircumcised.
And again, remember, circumcision is a picture of God's covenant with Israel.
Israel are the people that are worshiping the true God.
The God of Israel is the true God.
The uncircumcised are worshiping false gods of the Philistines and the Amorites and the Assyrians and the Egyptians.
They're worshiping all these pagan false gods.
They're uncircumcised heathens and they are in hell and you're going to go to hell with the rest of them.
That's what the chapter is saying.
And it says, you know, these other people are lying in hell and he says, this is Pharaoh and all his multitudes say to the Lord God.
So he's basically saying, like, if we could go to hell and see the people that are there in hell and look at those people from the past, the ones from Assyria,
we could basically point at those people and say, this is your future, Pharaoh.
This is Pharaoh.
This is Pharaoh's army.
You're just like them.
There's no difference.
OK.
And basically, you know, we could do we could literally go down to hell and find the host of Assyria and the king of Assyria and the king of Egypt.
And we could say like, you know, this is this is our leadership in America.
This is Joe Biden, sayeth the Lord.
You know, right.
I mean, this is the host of unsaved, heathen, ungodly, you know, Christ rejecting America.
And obviously, much of America accepts Christ.
You know, we we have probably more saved Christians here in America than probably any other nation in the world per capita.
I mean, we go out soul winning and we run into people that are saved all the time.
But there's there are really two Americas.
You know, Brother Hiles preached a famous sermon back in the day called Will the Real America Please Stand Up?
And he talked about how, on the one hand, there's all this great soul winning and revival going on and all these great things happening.
And then on the other hand, there's all this wickedness and degeneracy and the nation's going down the toilet.
But then on the other hand, you have God's people over here doing great works and winning souls, you know.
And so obviously, when I when I say this, I'm not condemning all Americans or all of America, but I'm saying the people who are running our country worship Satan.
You know, let me just say that right now.
The people who are running our country worship Satan.
And it's not like, oh, the Republicans are good and the Democrats are bad.
You know, you talk about that faggot Lindsey Graham, who isn't he the head of the Republicans in this?
I don't know. I don't listen to politics.
Is he the top Senate Republican who's into it?
Who's out there? Who's who listens to all the talk radio?
Isn't Lindsey Graham the guy?
OK.
He's a faggot.
He's wicked.
He's evil. And, you know, whenever that pedophile Barney Franks, whenever he got exposed for being a pedophile and a faggot, you know what he said?
He said they were trying to get him kicked out of the Senate.
And you know what he said?
He said, you guys better back off me and leave me alone or I'll expose all the Republicans that are fags.
And then all of a sudden it just went away and Barney Franks just continued to serve in the Senate for decades even though he was running a literal house of prostitution out of his own home.
And in fact, senators even got up on the floor of the Senate and said, this man is running a house of prostitution out of his own home.
This man is a pedophile.
This man is a sodomite.
But isn't it funny how he just continued to just be in the Senate?
Why? Because basically he said, I'll blow the whistle on everybody else. You guys better back off me and leave me alone or I'll start exposing the Republicans.
And remember that Republican guy that was that Idaho guy?
I don't know. Who cares?
Anyway, some Idaho Republican guy that was being whatever.
The point is, our government is run by some super wicked people.
99 percent of them are horrible, rotten people and 99 percent of them, this is where they're going to the nether parts of the earth.
They're going straight to hell.
OK, so don't get all excited about our government and and get all into these politicians.
And you just think that that Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell are so cool and you just love Donald Trump.
Hey, I've got an issue. When Donald Trump dies, he's going to go to hell.
When Barack Obama dies of brain cancer, when my prayer finally gets answered, he's going to hell.
OK, whenever Joe Biden dies, he's going to go to hell.
The vast majority of the Senate, the vast majority of the Congress, they're going to hell.
This is America and its host.
This is Syria and its host. This is Pharaoh and its host.
Folks, the point is, nobody's exempt from the word of God and its pronouncements without Jesus Christ as our savior.
You know, we would never make it to heaven.
The only reason we're going to have it's not because we're better than other people.
We're sinners. I mean, we sin every day.
You know, the thought of foolishness is sin.
I'm sure that I come short of the glory of God every single day of my life.
But I'm going straight to heaven when I die because I have believed on the name of the only begotten son of God.
That's why I'm going to heaven when I die.
That's why I know that I have eternal life is because I believe in Jesus.
That's it. Done.
But without Jesus, everybody's going to the nether parts of the earth, to the lowest hell.
It doesn't matter how cool they were, how powerful they were on this earth.
They're all getting smoked.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord.
It's a difficult chapter, Lord.
And I hope that, Lord, people got something out of it and were able to hang with the sermon tonight, Lord.
I just pray that you would just help us to really take these things to heart and realize, you know, America is not special.
You know, our leaders worship Satan.
They're they're they're queers and weirdos in many cases, Lord.
And I just pray that you would please just help us as Christians to love you and focus on spiritual things, Lord,
and to just be thankful every day that we're not going to hell like all these wicked people are going, Lord.
And, Lord, help us to tell as many people about Jesus as we can so that they can also go to heaven because of the free gift of eternal life.
In Jesus name, we pray. Amen.
Amen. Let's go to hymn number 185 in your song books.
Hymn number 185, My Savior's Love.
Hymn number 185. It begins, I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene.
Hymn number 185. Let's sing it on that first verse. 185.
I stand on faith in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene.
In wonder, how He could love me, a sinner could never grieve.
How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be.
How marvelous, how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me.
For me, He was in the garden, He braved on the field that night.
He had no tears for His own grace, but sent God's blood for mine.
How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be.
How marvelous, how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me.
He took my sins and my sorrows, He made them His very own.
He bore the burden to Calvary and suffered to die alone.
How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be.
How marvelous, how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me.
And with full wisdom and glory, His face I last shall see.
He'll be my joy through the ages to see God's love for me.
How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be.
How marvelous, how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me.
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