Amen.
Ezekiel chapter 48, we're in the last chapter of the book, and as we go through this chapter,
a lot of the things that we're going to see in this chapter I've already covered
in previous sermons, and so I'm not going to belabor a lot of these points.
We just read it all together.
There's a lot of the dividing up of the land for the 12 tribes and talking about
the different oblations for the prince and the part of the land that's going to
be for the priests and for the Levites and so forth.
So it's really just a continuation of what we talked about last week and what we talked
about other weeks, and at the end, there's this thought at the very end where it says
it was round about 18,000 measures, and the name of the city from that day shall
be the Lord is there.
The idea here is just that God is going to bring them back to the promised land.
They're going to be back in Israel.
They're going to be back in Jerusalem, and God is going to be with them once again because
God has, in a sense, forsaken them at this point.
He allowed them to be destroyed and scattered and sent into the Babylonian captivity, but
he's going to bring them back.
He's going to be present among them, dwell among them, bless them, and that's really
been the whole theme of the book of Ezekiel.
And so that's how the book ends.
The Lord is going to be there, and he's blessing them.
They're back in the land, and it's all going to be great, and it has this finality to
it.
That's why there's some of the same imagery used in this chapter as we see in Revelation
21 and 22 with the new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem, where you've got
the three gates on each side for the 12 tribes of Israel.
Some of that same imagery is in this chapter, but I feel like I've already talked about
all that stuff so many times over the past few weeks.
So what I really want to do is just kind of focus in on this one verse tonight and
talk about this final thought from verse 11.
It says in verse number 11, it's talking about in verse 10 this oblation, this area
of land that's going to be set aside for the priests, and it says in verse 11,
It shall be for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok, which have kept
my charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel went astray as the Levites
went astray.
So here's what's interesting in this verse, is that you have the larger group
of Israel, and then within Israel you have a subcategory that's just the tribe of Levi,
and then even amongst the Levites you have the priests, but then even amongst the priests
you have the sons of Zadok.
And it's interesting that as you go through Scripture, groups of people that are faithful
to the Lord and serving the Lord, they always keep getting narrowed down as each group
apostatizes.
If you would, back up to chapter 44, if you would, in Ezekiel.
Ezekiel chapter number 44, the Bible reads in verse 9,
Thus saith the Lord God, No stranger uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh,
shall enter into my sanctuary of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.
And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went
astray away from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquities.
And he goes on to explain how they're going to still be able to work in the house of
the Lord and do a lot of the manual labor, but they're not going to be able to approach
the holy things because they've lost that privilege.
It says in verse 14, But I will make them keepers of the charge of the house for all
the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein.
But verse 15, the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge
of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near
to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the
fat and the blood, saith the Lord God.
And stop and think about this.
If you go back even further, you have God choosing Abraham because humanity is messed
up, right?
They get off the ark, and they build the Tower of Babel, and the nations are pagan,
and they're worshiping false gods and disobeying the Lord.
So then God just picks Abraham.
But then of Abraham's children, it's not all of Abraham's children that end up following
the Lord and carrying that torch of the spiritual legacy that Abraham handed them,
because it's not Ishmael, but it's in Isaac that his seed would be called, right?
And then with Isaac, you've got Jacob and Esau.
So you have a further branching off, right?
Then you have Israel, which is Jacob, and you've got the 12 tribes of Israel that
are serving the Lord, worshiping the Lord.
But then you have the split into the two kingdoms, where you got the 10 tribes that
go astray, and they never really have a godly king, and the majority of them are
involved in false religion, pretty much throughout their whole history.
And it's the southern kingdom that tends to be the more faithful kingdom.
And we've got the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and Levi.
And then you'd expect out of those three tribes, Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, you'd
expect the most faithful to be Levi, right?
I mean, because they're the ones who are in the house of God.
They're there all the time.
They're working there.
They're supposed to be the ones preaching God's word, teaching the people, handling
the music, doing all these spiritual activities all the time.
You'd expect them to be standing up for the Lord.
But when the kingdom of Judah went into captivity, the Levites had become
apostate, which is part of why the nation went into captivity.
Because if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness?
If the spiritual leadership and spiritual teachers and the tribe that's supposed
to be serving the Lord full time has also gone astray, then, of course, the
nation's really going to be wicked.
That's what happened to Judah.
That's why the Babylonian captivity took place.
But then, within the Levites, you have the priests.
Well, here's the thing.
By this time, not all of the sons of Aaron are still legitimate priests,
because God has broken off a branch of the family and said, these priests are
no longer legitimate.
It's only the priests of the sons of Zadok, not just any son of Aaron,
like it used to be.
Now, it's just the sons of Zadok.
So how did this split happen?
Well, during David's reign, King David actually had two high priests
at the same time.
So he had Abiathar, and he had Zadok at the same time.
And if you would, go back to 1 Kings, chapter number 1,
and we're going to look at this.
1 Kings, chapter number 1.
How did this split happen where now, all of a sudden,
according to Ezekiel chapter 48, all of the priests
are not qualified to serve in the temple anymore.
It's only the sons of Zadok.
The other ones are not.
Well, because David actually had two priests, which
it seems kind of strange.
Why does he have two high priests representing
these two different families?
But I believe that God, in his wisdom, providentially
allowed this situation where there were two high priests in order
that one of them could be phased out.
One of them could be deleted, and we could just end up with Zadok.
So what is it that Abiathar's family did wrong to get them
kicked out of the priesthood?
Well, if you remember, we've been talking the last couple of Sundays
about Absalom.
And in that Absalom rebellion, we didn't have time
to go into this, but Abiathar the priest and his son,
they were actually on David's side.
They were loyal to David along with Zadok.
They all backed up David.
They were all against Absalom.
They all did the right thing in that situation.
But what's interesting is that very shortly thereafter,
another situation arises where someone
tries to usurp the throne.
Because Absalom tried to usurp the throne,
and Joab was on the right team, Zadok was on the right team,
Abimelek was on the right team, Abiathar, or sorry,
Ahimelek and Abiathar are on the right team.
But what we see is that in 1 Kings chapter 1,
when Adonijah tries to take the throne,
a lot of these guys that were on the right team last time around
have now gotten on the wrong side, and they're following Adonijah.
Look what the Bible says in verse number 5 of 1 Kings
chapter 1.
Then Adonijah, the son of Hagath,
exalted himself saying, I will be king.
So he's not chosen by God.
He's not anointed by the man of God.
He's not ordained in the proper way
by the spiritual leadership of the nation, Nathan the prophet
or whoever is anointed man of God that
communicates God's will.
He just exalts himself.
He just decides, I want to be king.
Out of David's sons, I'm going to be it.
And the Bible says he exalted himself.
Well, the Bible says that if you exalt yourself,
you're going to be abased.
But whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted.
So this guy exalts himself to be king,
and he prepared him chariots and horsemen and 50 men
to run before him.
And his father had not displeased him at any time
in saying, why hast thou done so?
He was also a very goodly man, and his mother
bare him after Absalom.
So kind of similar to Absalom, Absalom's a good looking guy.
Adonijah's a good looking guy.
He's got some charisma.
He's got people to follow him.
Dad didn't tell him no enough.
And so it says in verse 7, he conferred with Joab
the son of Zeruiah and with, notice, Abiathar the priest.
This is one of the two factions of the priests.
You got Zadok, you got Abiathar.
Adonijah confers with Abiathar the priest,
and they following Adonijah helped him.
But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada,
and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Rei,
and the mighty men which belonged to David
were not with Adonijah.
And so of course, the story goes on
that Adonijah sets up his kingdom,
but then Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet,
they get involved, they talk to David.
David ends up crowning Solomon king
because Solomon was God's choice.
God had chosen Solomon to be king.
And so when this happens, Adonijah's pretty scared.
The people that are following are pretty scared
because their coup didn't work out.
They were, you know, they're trying to put Adonijah
on the throne.
It was a flop, it was a failure.
So now, they're seen as traitors.
So look what it says in verse 41.
And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him
heard it as they had made an end of eating.
And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet,
he said, wherefore is this noise
of the city being in an uproar?
And while he yet spake, notice who is a key player here.
Behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came.
So notice, Abiathar and his son Jonathan
are on the wrong side here.
And Adonijah said unto him, come in,
for thou art a valiant man, and bringest good tidings.
So we see, of course, Adonijah flattering this guy.
You're a valiant man.
You know, you are such a courageous man.
And I know you're bringing good news today.
And of course, he's got really bad news.
So Adonijah's full of baloney saying that.
But just like Absalom, Adonijah is also a flatterer.
Can you imagine the stupidity of making this verse
your church's theme verse and putting it
on the home page of your website?
Come in, for thou art a valiant man.
Next time, read the chapter
and don't just do a Google search on the word valiant.
Okay, anyway, that's another story.
And so it says, and Jonathan answered and said
to Adonijah, verily, our Lord King David
hath made Solomon king.
And the king hath sent with him Zadok the priest,
and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada,
and the Carathites, and the Pelethites.
And they've caused him to ride upon the king's mule.
And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet
have anointed him king.
See, he didn't make himself king,
but he's anointed by Nathan and Zadok the priest.
And they're come up from thence rejoicing
so that the city rang again.
This is the noise that you've heard.
And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom.
So everybody gets out of there, everybody's scared,
everybody flees, and Solomon becomes king.
Now Solomon is a great picture
in the Bible of Jesus Christ.
Jesus is called the son of David.
Solomon is the son of David.
He's the Lord's anointed.
Christ means literally anointed.
And when you read these chapters
at the beginning of 1 Kings
or at the beginning of 2 Chronicles
where Solomon's kingdom is being established,
it is really picturing and foreshadowing
the millennial reign of Jesus Christ.
And there's a lot of similarities.
And that would be a whole other sermon in and of itself
just to compare the millennial reign of Christ
with Solomon having his kingdom
because Solomon's name means peace.
And his kingdom is a time
when Israel is pretty much at peace.
David had fought a lot of wars,
but during Solomon's reign,
it's a time of peace and tranquility, prosperity,
just as the millennial reign of Christ
will be a time of peace on earth.
And just as Jesus will rule with a rod of iron,
Solomon rules with a rod of iron.
He's no pushover, but it's a peaceful time.
And so Solomon is sitting upon the throne of his kingdom.
We're gonna come back to that.
But look to chapter two,
and let's just see how much of a bozo Adonijah is.
Look at verse 13.
And Adonijah, the son of Hagith, came to Bathsheba,
the mother of Solomon, and she said,
comest thou peaceably?
And he said, peaceably.
He said, moreover, I have somewhat to say unto thee.
He had, no kidding, that's why you're here.
Get to the point.
And she said, say on.
And he said, thou knowest that the kingdom was mine,
and that all Israel set their faces on me.
You see what a bozo this guy is?
Do you hear what he's saying?
No, the kingdom wasn't yours.
What are you talking about?
Because you had 50 guys running through town
saying that you're king
and because you had a party?
Because you barbecued meat?
The king, well, I mean, you know that the kingdom
was mine and that all Israel set their faces on me,
that I should reign.
Is that really true?
It's true in his own mind because he's puffed up,
he's full of himself, he's exalted himself,
he's arrogant, and so he's acting like,
well, you know, I was this close to being the king,
which is a bunch of baloney.
And this is just an arrogant, prideful person
who's really lucky to be alive.
Okay, because Solomon told this guy,
if you mind your Ps and Qs, I will let you live.
But if you show yourself to be bogus,
you know, you're gonna die, sucka.
And this is the Stephen Anderson version.
I'm paraphrasing.
But the point is that this guy's already on thin ice
and he's talking this big talk to Bathsheba, right?
Howbeit the kingdom is turned about
and has become my brothers, for it was his from the Lord.
Now, at first, this might seem like
a nice spiritual godly thing to say,
but really, here's what he's actually saying.
You know, only God can oppose me.
Everybody loves me, I'm the best,
I would have all the power.
It literally took God to stand against me.
You kind of see what he's saying there?
Like, the only reason that Solomon is king
is just because God handed it to him.
Because otherwise, you know, everybody likes me better
and I was this close.
So this guy's a complete idiot, okay?
The stuff that he's saying is showing his arrogance,
his pride, his fake spirituality.
And if it's his from the Lord,
then why are you whining about it?
Like, why are you arguing
with the will of God or something?
Why are you like, well, I was this close?
But if it was God's will,
you know, shouldn't you just accept that
and quit talking about it?
But again, his fake spiritual statement
is really just saying, only God could have
caused me not to, you know, win this election,
as it were, okay?
And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not.
And she said unto him, say on.
And he said, speak I pray thee unto Solomon the king,
for he will not say thee nay,
that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife.
And Bathsheba said, well,
I will speak for the end of the king.
Now, this is a bizarre request
on a lot of different levels.
Now, who is Abishag the Shunammite?
Well, if you remember, at the very end of David's life,
he was very sick and he's in bed
and he just, he couldn't get warm.
And I don't know if you've ever been sick
where you just cannot get warm,
but I've had this before where I'm in bed
and I'm just stacking the blankets
and I'm under so many blankets and I always,
I always switch into King James English
and I say, I gat no heat, you know,
to quote where David gat no heat,
like a past tense of got.
But anyway, I've kind of felt that way,
but thankfully it was just a temporal illness,
but you know, he's this way chronically,
he's old, he's sick, he's freezing, he can't get warm.
And so some doctor comes in with a real bright idea
and says, hey, we just need to find
some young beautiful woman to lay down next to you,
to warm you up a little bit.
So basically they bring this woman,
but he ends up, he doesn't sleep with this woman.
She basically just like ministers unto him
and takes care of him and stuff like that,
but so it's not, she's not as concubine or anything,
but it's kind of like,
she's kind of brought in for that reason.
So it's kind of weird that Adonijah is like,
well, now that's who I want.
I want to be with Abishag, I want to marry Abishag.
Now, here's the thing about that.
You know, obviously the Bible tells us
that David did not actually sleep with her,
but we know that because God told us that.
I mean, you know, the perception could have been
that it was one of his concubines
since she was brought for that reason.
Maybe not everybody knows exactly what's going on
in David's bedroom or not going on in David's bedroom.
And so people could have this idea
that perhaps Abishag was his concubine.
And so this kind of reminds me of somebody else
that we've been talking about the last couple of weeks.
Is this, he's kind of quasi Poland and Absalom here
in a minute, you know,
and he's trying to make it sound all innocent,
but it's just weird.
And the thing that's weird about it
is that there's so many women out there.
Again, you're the king's son.
He's kind of pulling an Amnon too,
where he's getting obsessed with one person possibly.
Because there's either one of two things going on here.
Either number one, he wants to be
with Abishag the Shunammite
because he's trying to do some weird politicking
for becoming king after all,
which that's probably what's going on
based on the junk that he said in verse 15.
That he wants to, in the future,
do some jockeying and position himself
to get back in power
because he was this close after all,
and so getting with this woman is maybe like,
I don't know, getting him closer to that
in his warped, stupid mind, okay.
That's how Solomon interprets it,
and we know Solomon's a very wise man.
He interprets it that way, and he kills Adonijah.
Okay.
But let's say that, you know,
let's say Adonijah's just really just in love with
Abishag.
Again, this is foolish to just become infatuated
with someone that is off limits unto you, okay.
Don't get infatuated with someone who's off limits.
If you're a young man, don't get infatuated
with an unsaved girl.
Don't get infatuated as a young lady
with an unsaved man, okay.
And you say, well, it's just true love,
and I just can't control it.
Yeah, you can.
And when we see these obsessions and infatuations
in the Bible, they're not real
because remember Amnon is infatuated with Tamar,
and the Bible says, oh, he loved Tamar so much,
and he's just sick to his stomach
because he loves Tamar so much,
but then he turns around and hates her,
wants nothing to do with her.
And of course, most of us are probably familiar
with the famous play by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
Right?
Virtually everybody in here growing up in America
has probably studied that in school
or read that in some capacity.
I'm sure everybody in here is pretty familiar
with Romeo and Juliet, right?
But even if you just vaguely remember the story,
maybe it's been a while.
Let me refresh your memory
that at the beginning of the play,
Romeo is obsessed with a totally different chick.
You remember that?
Who does not remember that part?
Yeah, it's not in the movie.
So it's like, you know, the majority,
who does remember that?
Who remembers that?
Okay, literally, there's like less than 10 people
who remember that part,
but who knows who Romeo and Juliet is at all?
Everybody.
Less than 10 people.
More than half of them are my relatives
that know who that chick is.
Her name is Rosalyn.
Starting to ring a little bit of a bell, right?
Rosalyn.
You know, Romeo's into Rosalyn.
Oh, he's got to have Rosalyn.
And guess what?
Rosalyn's off limits too,
because it's these warring families
and she's off limits.
So he's just so obsessed with Rosalyn,
and he's just got to have Rosalyn
until he sees Juliet,
and then forget Rosalyn.
Nuts to Rosalyn.
So what I'm saying is these teenage obsessions,
these teenage infatuations,
this young love,
you say, oh, it's true love.
I've never felt this way.
I've never experienced this.
But guess what?
Rosalyn becomes Juliet pretty fast.
So don't be deceived into thinking
that your infatuation is true love.
Hey, if somebody's off limits,
they're off limits.
Don't destroy yourself.
Okay, Amnon is obsessed with the woman
that's off limits named Tabor.
He died and he ruined her life.
Okay?
Adonijah is wanting this woman that's off limits.
Is it because it's true love
or is it just because he's foolishly
trying to take the kingdom?
Either way, he dies.
And spoiler alert,
Romeo dies.
And Juliet dies.
Everybody dies.
Okay, so don't,
and they're like teenagers.
They're literally like, what, 15 and 13 or something.
Maybe I'm a little off on that,
but that's a ballpark of what we're talking.
15, 13, they're committing suicide
in the story Romeo and Juliet.
He's committing suicide over some chick.
He wanted someone totally different
at the beginning of the play.
Literally the same day.
The whole story takes place over what,
like a couple days?
It's like less than a week
is the whole epic saga is over in a flash.
Okay?
So whether you're reading the Bible or Shakespeare,
my friend, get a brain in your head
and don't become obsessed with someone
that is off limits onto you.
Someone that's married is off limits.
Someone that's not saved, off limits.
Your parents veto someone and say,
hey, I don't want you to marry this person.
Do not do it.
It's bad news.
Hey, listen to your parents
and don't just get obsessed
with the one that you can't have.
It's foolish.
Don't do it.
And so this guy seals his own fate by doing this
and Solomon ends up killing him,
executing him and so forth.
So then he turns to the people
that were following Adonijah.
Look at verse 26.
This is where it becomes relevant
to what we're talking about here.
First Kings chapter two, verse 26.
And unto Abiathar the priest said the king,
get thee to Anathoth unto thine own fields
for thou are worthy of death.
So Solomon's coming down pretty hard on this guy,
is he not?
But I will not at this time put thee to death.
See, there's an implicit threat there
of don't be an Adonijah.
Don't pull anything squirrely or you're next.
I will not at this time put thee to death
because thou barest the ark of the Lord God
before David my father
and because thou hast been afflicted
and all wherein my father was afflicted.
He's saying, you know, you were loyal
to my father in the past, but you weren't loyal to me.
And you followed Adonijah, this flattering bozo,
this evil, conniving, arrogant fool.
So Solomon thrust out Abiathar
from being priest unto the Lord
that he might fulfill the word of the Lord
which he spake concerning the house of Eli and Shiloh.
So this also goes back to Eli's sins.
There was always that prophecy
that part of the priestly family was gonna be cut off.
But specifically, why these guys get cut off
when they did is for following Adonijah
and going after Adonijah.
Even though they were loyal in the Absalom rebellion,
they were not loyal in the Adonijah rebellion.
Now, what am I getting at in this sermon?
A few things that we can learn from this,
from what we see in Ezekiel
and when we go back and research the story
that Ezekiel is referring to
is that just because people were faithful in the past
does not mean that they're going to be faithful
in the future.
Just because people did the right thing in the past
doesn't mean they're gonna do the right thing
in the future.
You know, people could be faithful
and could go through battles with the church
and be loyal to the church.
It doesn't mean they're not gonna turn on
the church later.
You know, people could be faithful to the Lord
and serving the Lord.
It doesn't mean they're not gonna get backslidden later
or quit on God later or rebel against the Lord later.
Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
There are gonna be people who are serving God
10 years from now, 20 years from now,
30 years from now, 40 years from now,
but it's not gonna be everybody.
A lot of people are gonna fall out.
And the thing about serving God
is that you serve alongside people
and there's a constant attrition, okay,
where people are falling away.
Just like in Israel, people are constantly falling away.
That's why you constantly have a need
to reach new people
because of the fact that people
are constantly falling away.
You know, if you think about how a church works,
and a lot of people don't necessarily understand
this mathematically,
but here's the thing about a church, okay?
And I'm gonna bring a little math into this,
but basically there's a certain number of people
coming into the church at a certain rate, right?
So we're out knocking doors, we're soul winning,
we're putting stuff on YouTube,
we're putting our message out there,
we're preaching from the housetops,
and so as we get our message out, we reach people
and people are coming into the church at a certain rate
as we're reaching people, right?
Make sense?
Also, babies are being born to families
and so that provides a little bit of growth as well.
But anyway, the church is growing
at a certain rate per year.
But then there's an attrition rate as well, right?
There's a certain rate of people
that are gonna leave every year.
And not always for a bad reason.
Some people are gonna get backslidden
and just quit going to church in general.
Some people will switch to another church in the area,
they just, you know, decide that they wanna go
somewhere else and they go to another Bible believing
church in the area.
Or some people could, you know,
just move to another area.
Maybe they just, they don't even live
in Phoenix anymore, okay?
You know, the Rodriguez family, they just moved away.
They love the church, they've been great members here,
but they just ended up moving to another city.
And so that's attrition that's happening, right?
Just people that leave.
So here's the thing, in order for the church to grow,
you have to be bringing in more people
than are leaving.
Does that make sense?
Because there are gonna be people leaving no matter what.
People are leaving.
People die, people move away, people get backslidden,
people get disgruntled and upset at the church,
people just switch to another church
because they just like another church better.
Whatever reason, people are going to leave.
It's a fact and you can't avoid it.
I've been pastoring for 16 years,
there's constantly people leaving,
constantly people leaving.
Every church is like that.
No one is just gonna have a church
where just everybody stays forever.
But here's the thing about that is that
if you think about the math,
do you think that you're gonna lose more people
when you're big or when you're small?
I mean, if the church is running 50,
do you think we're gonna have a higher attrition
when we're running 50 or running 300?
Obviously when you're running 300,
you're gonna be losing more people
because you have more people to lose.
There are gonna be more people dying,
more people moving away,
more people switching churches, whatever.
The bigger you get,
the rate at which people leave is going to increase.
Okay, so here's the thing.
In order to be growing,
the rate that people are coming in
has to be greater than the rate that people are leaving.
Now in the beginning, that's very easy to do
because the rate at which people are leaving is very low
because if you only have 30 people,
there's a slim chance
that any of them are necessarily leaving.
When you have 300 people, of course people are leaving.
So the bottom line is that the attrition rate
goes up the bigger you get.
And eventually, you're gonna get to a point
where basically the rate at which people are coming in
equals the rate at which people are going out
and you're gonna kind of level off at a certain size.
And in order to maintain that size,
you have to be reaching people
because if you stop reaching people,
if you stop knocking the doors,
you stop preaching from the housetops,
you stop bringing in new blood,
the attrition's not gonna stop.
The attrition never stops.
So therefore, when you get big,
even in order to just maintain the same size,
you have to be constantly reaching people.
This is why you have a lot
of independent fundamental Baptist churches
with a gigantic auditorium and a tiny congregation.
You say, what happened here?
What happened?
Did they have some huge church split, some blow up?
Not usually.
It usually doesn't necessarily happen with a bang.
It's more just like a whimper.
It's more like a groan.
What happens is that basically the church got big
and they just stopped reaching people.
They're not soul winning.
They're not getting their message out.
They're not preaching as hard or as loud as they used to.
And then what happens is people still are leaving,
leaving, leaving, leaving,
but they're not replacing
at the rate that they're losing.
And then the church gets smaller and smaller
and smaller and smaller
because it's not even necessarily
that they had a big split or a mass exodus.
It's that you have to be growing
or you're going to shrink
because if you're not bringing new people in,
you are going to be losing people.
And so you can't maintain a church like that.
Like a church that's not actively bringing
in new blood is dying.
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
Because it's just a fact
that people are going to apostatize.
People are going to quit.
People are going to leave.
People are going to die.
People are going to get disgruntled.
That's just what happens.
And it's the minority that stays for a really long time.
If you went to a church
that's been around for 50, 60 years,
it's going to be a very small number
of people who've been there for 50 years
or 40 years or something.
And if we said,
how many people have been here for one year,
tons of people would raise their hand.
But as we went back three years, five years, 10 years,
it would be less and less people.
And if we got back 15 years ago,
it'd be very few people that are still here
from 15 years ago.
It'd just be like a handful of people.
Most of my kids weren't even here 15 years ago.
And so this is the way it works with every incident.
There's always going to be people leaving the group
and obviously leaving our church doesn't necessarily mean
that people are leaving the faith
or leaving the service of God,
as long as they're switching to another good church.
But a lot of people too are just quitting on God
and just quitting on soul winning,
just quitting on going to church,
getting backslidden, whatever.
So throughout the history of Israel, it's the same way.
You have people constantly turning away from the Lord,
following worldly nations that are surrounding them
and idolatry and whatever.
And so they constantly have to have spiritual revival
in order to keep things right
because people are constantly leaving the group.
I mean, even when Jesus is preaching,
there's constantly people leaving.
Jesus preaches a hard sermon
and then a bunch of people don't follow him anymore.
And then Jesus is like,
hey, are you guys leaving too or what?
Because so many people are leaving
in John chapter six, for example.
And so there's this constant departing
and leaving a righteous group.
And so you have to be reaching new people
and bringing new people.
So when we think about the history
of the nation of Israel,
we talked about these different points
where people are forsaking the Lord,
whether it's Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and Esau,
10 tribes of the North, two tribes of the South.
And then even amongst the Southern kingdom,
you've got major apostasy happening.
And when they go to Babylon, only a remnant comes back.
There keeps being a remnant,
but it seems like most people
in the long run end up leaving.
It's the 10 tribes that leave and the two that stay.
It's most of the children of Israel
who go to Babylon and never come back.
It's only a smaller remnant that returns.
And what's interesting is that when we get to this point
where Ezekiel is saying,
hey, the priests, the sons of Zadok,
these are the right guys.
These are the guys that are still legit priests,
nobody else.
These other guys can sweep the floor
and make coffee and whatever,
but Zadok, that's who's gonna be the actual high priest
and it's gonna be his descendants
that are gonna be serving.
And remember, Zadok sided with Solomon,
whereas Himelech, Abiathar, Jonathan,
that side of the family sided with Adonijah.
Well, if you think about it,
Adonijah kind of pictures the Antichrist.
If you think about Solomon being that picture
of the millennial reign of Christ,
before Christ's second coming,
when he comes and sets up his earthly kingdom,
isn't there an imposter who lifts himself up first
and declares himself to be above all
that is called God or that is worshiped
so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God,
showing himself that he is God.
Talk about exalting yourself.
And so that's what Adonijah pictures.
And so if you think about it,
if Solomon pictures Jesus,
then Zadok is basically representative
of the side that sides with Jesus.
And then this other side could be like a picture
of Christ rejecting Jews,
because the Bible says, who is a liar,
but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ,
he's Antichrist that denyeth the Father and the Son.
So this could represent like Jews
that are of that Antichrist spirit
that rejected the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming.
And then Zadok represents the ones
who embraced the Lord Jesus Christ.
But here's what's funny about that.
That's symbolic, that works
for an Old Testament illustration.
But what's interesting is that by the time Jesus
comes on the scene, are the sons of Zadok still righteous?
Are the high priest and the priests of the temple
and that faction, are they still serving God?
Are they still righteous?
Are they still on the Lord's side?
Well, of course, the answer is no.
Because of course, in the New Testament,
the high priest, the priests,
they are of the sect of the Sadducees.
That's who is controlling the temple.
When Jesus shows up on this earth at his first advent,
the Sadducees are the priesthood.
Why?
Because they are the sons of Zadok.
In fact, the word Sadducee is derived
from the word Zadok.
So we look at Zadok in English,
it's a Z, a D, and a K, right?
And understanding that Hebrew has no vowels.
It has 22 letters of the alphabet
and they're all consonants, okay?
And so it's not written with vowels.
So we have the Z, the D, and the K.
Well, when that comes over into the Greek language
hundreds of years later,
and we have this term Sadducee,
basically the Z has become an S,
the D is still a D,
the K is represented in English.
You know, we represent the Greek letter kappa
with a C typically,
even though it's more like our letter K.
So Z, D, K, S, D, C,
these are the operative consonants.
So Sadducees are the sons of Zadok.
And it's kind of a double meaning
because the name Zadok means righteous.
So the Sadducees are the righteous ones
and they're the sons of Zadok
and they're the ones that are running the temple
and they're the high priest and his faction
when Jesus comes on the scene.
Well, let me ask you this.
What did the Sadducees believe according to scripture?
Well, the Bible teaches that the Sadducees at this point,
when Jesus is on the scene,
they don't believe that there's any afterlife whatsoever.
They don't believe in any kind of resurrection.
They don't believe in afterlife.
The Sadducees believe that when you die, that's it.
That basically what's on this earth is all that matters.
That's all there is, just this lifetime, you know.
And this is what most Jews believe today.
They don't believe in heaven and hell.
They just believe that, you know, okay, follow God's word
so you can have a good life right now
and it's all gonna happen in this lifetime
and when you die, that's it, it's over.
That's what the Sadducees believed.
Okay, that's not even close to the truth
or what the Bible teaches.
And not only that, they denied the existence of angels.
They don't believe that there's any such thing as a spirit.
They don't believe in the spirit.
They don't believe in angels.
They don't believe in heaven and hell.
They don't believe in resurrection.
They are basically like United Methodists or something.
You know, where they're, you know, United Methodists
where they're like denying the virgin birth,
denying the bodily resurrection of Christ
and basically they're just believing a religion
of a social gospel of do good,
make the world a better place, blah, blah, blah.
They don't believe in the supernatural elements, okay?
And they just, the only thing they believe
is that God's kind of up there in heaven
and we're gonna burn these sacrifices to him
and kind of make him happy and he'll bless us, whatever.
But I mean, they're very far from being righteous,
very far from worshiping the Lord properly, okay?
And so, you know, another split has happened, right?
Because it's like, okay, it's just the sons of Zadok
that are the righteous priests.
But guess what?
We give them time and they're not gonna be righteous
either because every man-made institution,
every group of people, every church, Bible, college,
whatever, you know, over time these things
tend to decay and degenerate and die
and there has to constantly be a new movement
and there has to be new life and new blood coming in
and so we need to understand that.
The preachers that we looked to in the past
or the churches that we looked to in the past,
they may not necessarily be what they once were
because yeah, okay, they sided with David
when it came to Absalom, but now when it comes
to Adonijah, they're on the wrong side.
So the righteous churches, the faithful churches
of yesterday are not guaranteed to be
the righteous and faithful churches of tomorrow.
You know, I'm pretty disappointed
in the independent fundamental Baptist movement
because I would have expected
the independent fundamental Baptist movement
to be just burning up the streets
with a ton of soul winning
and just leading a mass soul winning movement
across America right now, but and of course,
there are some, you know, red hot soul winning churches
among the old IFB, but in general,
they tend to be scaling back on soul winning.
And guess what, because of what I explained earlier,
they're slowly dying in many cases
where the churches are slowly getting smaller and smaller
because they're not bringing in new blood,
they're not reaching people.
Also, I would expect the independent fundamental Baptist
to be preaching hard on sin
and standing up to the sodomites
and things that are actually happening
right now in our world,
the battles that we're facing in America,
but who's on the front line fighting against the sodomites
in the United States of America in 2022?
It's not the old IFB.
I never see them in the news
getting lambasted by the wicked of this world
for preaching hard against the sodomites.
They don't, it's crickets coming from them,
but yet constantly we see in the news,
not even just myself or Pastor Jimenez,
but you know, Pastor Jimenez preached
at the Red Hot Preaching Office,
he was listing off all those news articles
about all those other pastors,
you know, whether it's Pastor Aaron Thompson,
Pastor Joe Jones, Pastor Dave Berzins,
Pastor Jonathan Shelley, Pastor Bruce Mejia,
but I bet it's just a coincidence,
I bet it's just a coincidence
that all of these guys have sermons
that are picked up by the media
and they're attacked in the media
and they just all happen to be part of a new movement,
the new IFB.
Isn't it interesting that they're not in the old IFB?
And again, I'm not saying that there aren't exceptions.
Hopefully you could probably dig out an article
of some old IFB guy that's raising hell
about the sodomites, but let me say this though,
you know, the vast majority of the time it's not
because the old IFB has gone soft,
they've dropped the ball, they've gotten watered down,
they've backed down on that issue,
they've backed down on a lot of other issues,
they're not preaching as hard as they once were,
they're not doing as much sowing as they once were,
it's really disappointing, but it's not surprising.
It's not surprising because this happens
in every institution, that you have a group
that is serving God, let's say they're the sons
of Zadok and they're on the right side,
they're on the Lord's side,
if you give them enough time though,
they're gonna decay and die.
You constantly have to have new leadership rising up
and calling us back to the Lord and pushing a reset button
and starting something new in every generation.
I mean, you'd think that we would never need
to start new churches again
because there are so many hundreds of Baptist churches
in Phoenix already, you'd think that the young guys
could basically just come up
and take over the existing churches
and it would just go from generation to generation
that way, but here's the thing, no,
because by the time the young guys are growing up
and they've been trained and they're not a novice
and they're qualified to preach and pastor,
by that time, the old churches have become
so watered down and liberal, they can't handle
the young preacher coming in and being
the zealous young guy that's calling them
to reevaluate some things and to restore the old paths
and he wants to re-dig some old wells
and he wants to push a reset button.
He doesn't want to just wind the church down
and help all these old people go to the grave peacefully.
He's trying to actually do a work for God in 2022.
The old church doesn't want him.
So you have to start a new Baptist church
and then you know what happens?
The old church, it literally gets down
to seven old people, six old people, three old people.
When I first started Faith Forward Baptist Church,
when we were still meeting in my house,
this old man showed up to a service
and he said, you know, he's part of this independent,
fundamentalist Baptist church that's been slowly
winding down for years and years and years.
It's down to three senior citizens.
He's one of the three senior citizens that are alive.
And he said, we just sold the church building
for $700,000 and that was more back then
than it is now.
Now that'd be like saying $1.5 million
as far as in the real estate, maybe even more than that
because things have changed so much with inflation
and real estate values.
So, you know, he's saying we got the $700,000
and so we're kind of just looking for a place
to park this 700 grand.
You know, and I guess he expected me to be like that,
that meme of the black dude in the yellow suit
behind the tree who's kind of like going like this.
But I was just thinking like, I don't need 700 grand.
I need 700 grand like I need another hole in my head.
And so basically, you know, I just preached a hard sermon
against the preacher of rapture.
And the whole time I was preaching,
the guy looked like someone had just died.
Like the guy looked like he was gonna start crying.
He was so disappointed.
He was just, he just was horrified
and he couldn't get out of there fast enough
with his 700 grand.
But it's like, here's this old guy
doesn't wanna learn anything new
because you know what?
Anybody who was in that sermon,
I proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt
that the preacher of rapture was false.
I had Bible verse upon Bible verse upon Bible verse,
but he doesn't wanna learn anything new, you know?
And I guarantee you,
if he would have showed up on another week,
it would have been similar
because I would have been ripping on something else
that would have been,
oh, this is too extreme or whatever.
You know, it would have been the reprobate doctrine
and he's like, oh, whatever, who knows?
But the point is, that guy's not alone.
There are tons of churches like that
where the giant building worth a million dollars,
two million dollars, three million dollars
with 15 old people just kind of winding it down
and you know, they don't want a young guy to come in
and preach anything unless it's gonna be
exactly what they had 60 years ago.
Well, sorry, but no young preacher wants to do that
because that young preacher's got his own walk with God,
he's got the Bible, he's got the Holy Spirit,
he's not trying to replicate the errors
of the past generation
because every generation has errors.
I have errors, we all have errors
and after I'm gone, someone else will come along
and they will hopefully take all the good
and everything that I've done right
and then they will actually maybe be a little better
or correct some things or fix some,
but they're not gonna be a carbon copy
of Stephen Anderson in the year 2075,
just a carbon copy, but there'll be some,
there's gonna be some old person in 2075 saying,
well, Stephen Anderson, well, now, you know,
it's gonna be like, shut up.
Because you know what, Stephen Anderson's not God.
Okay, now look, there are gonna be,
look, I do believe that this church
is a soul-winning powerhouse
and that the vast majority of what I preach
is right on with the Bible, that's why I preach it,
but it doesn't mean that it's perfect
and it doesn't mean that the next person
who comes after me isn't gonna take what I've taught
and just water it down a little bit
and then the next guy waters it down a little bit,
yeah, you let a few hundred years go by
and you're the Sadducees now.
And it's gonna be like, Faithful Word Baptist Church,
300-year anniversary and it's gonna have like
a rainbow pride flag outside or something, you know?
300-year anniversary of Faithful Word
and it's gonna be the new, revised,
modified legacy ESV being preached behind the pulpit.
I mean, it wouldn't shock me,
300 years is a long time, my friend.
And so I hope Faithful Word lasts all the way
until Jesus comes, it's gonna be over my dead body
that that type of wickedness,
whatever he be allowed in, this kind of compromise
and wrong Bible versions and going soft on sin
and soft on the Sodomites and so forth,
but after I'm gone, who knows what's gonna happen
after I'm gone?
As Solomon said, the one who comes after me,
who knows whether he'll be wise
or whether he'll be a fool, you know?
And that's why at the end of the day,
you have to be loyal to the Word of God
and the Holy Spirit, not to a particular institution.
Yet today, the sons of Zadok are God's men.
But are they gonna be God's men
when Jesus walks the earth a few hundred years later?
No.
Hey, in the past, Abimelech and his family
were a great family to be following
and you'd do well to look to them
for spiritual counsel and advice,
but is that who you look to in Ezekiel 48?
Nope, it's only the sons of Zadok.
And so what we need to understand
is that there's a continual departing from the faith
all the time, there's a continual attrition
from Bible-believing churches,
there's a continual turning away from the truth,
watering down of the truth,
there's a continual decay of man-made institutions
unless they're constantly making the effort
to keep it fresh.
Think about even fast food restaurants.
Some fast food restaurants, they successfully rebrand
and they stay relevant and they keep rebranding,
they keep updating their artwork
and they keep coming up with new menu items
and they stay relevant, don't they?
Other fast food restaurants,
they've got that same logo from the 70s,
they've got the same menu from the 70s
and it just gets worse and worse and worse
and you look at the building,
it just looks like, I don't wanna eat there.
It doesn't look fresh
and then the building's so not fresh,
you wonder if the food's gonna be fresh
because you have to constantly be reinventing
and renewing and rebranding and so forth
in our personal lives.
We have to keep on reading our Bible.
We can't just be like, all right, I read my Bible,
I'm living my spiritual life
and just let's put it on autopilot.
No, we need to be constantly praying
and reading our Bibles and seeking the Lord
and growing and learning and here's the thing,
just as I said, if the church isn't growing,
you can't even maintain attendance.
You can't even maintain several hundred people
unless you're constantly adding people.
How about this?
If you're not learning, you're getting dumber
because there's an attrition of facts.
I mean, we're forgetting things every day.
We're forgetting stuff about the Bible.
We're forgetting stuff that we've learned.
If you're not constantly learning, you're forgetting.
If we're not constantly making the effort
to be a red hot soul winning church,
to be preaching hard on sin,
then it's gonna slowly decay.
It's gonna slowly fade.
You know the Bible says by much idleness of the hands,
the house droppeth through.
Anybody who owns a home knows
if you don't maintain the home, it goes to pot.
You have to constantly fix things
and repair things and renovate things
and things need to be redone from time to time.
You can't necessarily have that same bathroom
from the 40s or 50s or 60s.
It needs an update from time to time.
Well, guess what?
Churches need an update.
Preaching needs an update.
The preaching from the 80s and 90s isn't gonna cut it.
We need the preaching of today,
what the Holy Spirit is saying today,
God's word applied to the situation today.
We're in a different situation today.
We need the preaching of today
to address the issues of today.
And so, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed
lest he fall.
And I'll bring up the advice that my dad gave me
as a kid, half in jest, but half seriously.
He said, son, never go to the first Baptist church
in a town because it's had time to become liberal.
And of course, he was kinda joking.
And yeah, I'm sure that there are some great churches
that are called first Baptist church,
but let's face it, by and large,
the first Baptist church is gonna be one
of the most liberal Baptist churches in the town.
Why?
Because it's had time to decay and become liberal.
Some of the best restaurants
that you'll ever eat at are brand new.
They just came out this year, last year.
Why?
Because they're still excited.
They still care.
They still are idealistic about it.
They're started by vision.
You know, the kind of people who start a restaurant
are a visionary.
They take a chance.
They step out and they're passionate
about food and cooking, right?
The type of guy who founds a Baptist church
is a visionary, right?
He wants to start something.
He wants to found a church.
The guy who takes over, hopefully he's a visionary as well
that can successfully take the church to the next level.
But often the guy who takes over is not a visionary.
The guy who takes over that fast food chain
that was once a great chain,
the guy who takes over often just says,
hey, maybe we can cut some corners and make more money.
Maybe we can make the shareholders happier
by using this low quality ingredient
and cutting corners here.
We can save money over here.
And at restaurants that used to be good,
they're not that good anymore.
And then you got to find a new restaurant.
You know, I know this is hard to believe,
but I believe that someday Chipotle
will be a crummy place to eat.
Right now, the cloudy pillar is still there.
You know what I mean?
Right now, Chipotle still rules.
And every once in a while,
they have to kind of reinvent like the new queso.
And you know, when the queso at Chipotle first came out,
it wasn't that good.
I was a little disappointed with it.
But you know what?
It's been improving.
And now it's got little spices floating around in it.
It's got red and green things floating around in it
last time I was there.
It was good.
Okay, that's a new menu item and they spice up.
And you know, I always found the most boring meat
at Chipotle to be the chicken.
You know, I go for the barbacoa or the carnitas,
but I always found the chicken to be pretty boring.
I don't know, does anybody else feel the same way
that the chicken burrito is just a little bland,
a little boring?
But now they came out with a new chicken,
the Pollo Asado.
And you know what?
It's actually way better than the old,
tired, boring chicken.
But you know what?
Yeah, there's Zadok today, my friend.
But who's to say that 10, 15, 20 years from now,
they're not gonna be sold out
and it's gonna be partially hydrogenated soybean oil
and it's gonna be a bunch of substandard ingredients.
It's gonna be a bunch of lame food.
It's gonna go downhill.
It's not gonna be the same as it once was.
These restaurants tend to fall off.
In fact, I'll be shocked if as an old man,
Chipotle is still good.
Maybe it will.
Maybe it will defy expectations.
But in general, things tend to decay
unless effort is made to keep them on track.
And so what I take from this passage
in Ezekiel 44 and Ezekiel 48
that's saying, hey, hey, hey,
it's not all the priests.
It's just Zadok and his crew.
Shows me that you know what?
There's constantly the majority that ends up going astray
and it's like, okay, now you gotta get on this side.
And here's what's so funny is that when Christ came,
the Sadducees are already on the wrong side.
Now it's like, okay, you gotta be following Jesus.
If you're not following Jesus,
you're showing that you're an apostate.
And that's why it's silly to think
that the Jews are still God's chosen people
if they don't believe in Jesus.
That's like trying to say,
well, come on, Abiothar's the son of Aaron, isn't he?
Well, yeah.
Well, God's never gonna break his promise to Aaron.
God's never gonna turn away from the Levites
and the sons of Aaron.
Yeah, yeah, you're right.
He's always gonna have that Levitical priesthood going.
Oh, but guess what?
It's just the sons of Zadok though.
That's how he's keeping his promise to Aaron
through the sons of Zadok.
But these other sons of Aaron are no bueno, okay?
Well, guess what?
Now, how is God keeping his promises to Israel
and his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
It's through the saved Israelites.
Because when Jesus came,
didn't a bunch of the Jews get saved?
So they're God's chosen people.
So that's how God keeps his promise
through the righteous remnant, just like with Zadok.
It's exact same scenario,
but people just, they don't get it all of a sudden,
when in reality, the cutoff with Christ
should be the easiest one to get.
If you're not in Christ, you are out.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord,
and we thank you for our church, Lord,
and thank you for 16 years, Lord,
of soul winning and heart preaching
and all the things that we've been able to accomplish, Lord.
I pray that our church would be able
to accomplish much, much more
in the decades or even centuries from now, Lord,
if you tarry your coming,
that we would still be here as a church,
not us physically, but our descendants, Lord.
But we know that even if this church dies
and all of our French churches eventually die,
that 100 years from now, if you have not returned,
we know that the gospel will still be going forth
through some group of spirit-filled Christians, Lord.
And so we're thankful for your spirit
and power among us now, Lord.
Help us to continue the work
that you've given us to do, Lord,
and at least for our lifetimes, Lord,
to help us not to fall away
and help us constantly to be reaching new people, Lord,
so that we can maintain what we've got here
or even grow larger.
And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.