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>> Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.
Welcome to Faith Forward Baptist Church.
It's so nice to see you all here on this Wednesday evening.
Find your seats, please.
Grab a songbook.
Go to hymn number 29.
We'll get started this evening.
Hymn number 29, "At the Cross."
Hymn number 29.
Once you find your place, we'll start on that first verse together.
Hymn number 29, "Alas, and did my Savior bleed, and did my Sovereign die."
Hymn number 29.
Sing it out on that first now.
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>> We want to ask the Lord's blessing on the service.
If you would, bow your heads together with me.
Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you this evening,
and we thank you for the privilege that we have to be in church.
We thank you for the safety you've allowed us to have to be able to be here.
We ask the Lord your blessing upon us as we lift our voices to you
in praise and worship.
We just ask that you help us focus on the words of these hymns
as we sing them out to you, and that you would just meet with us this evening.
Help us to have open hearts and ears to receive the message tonight,
that you would feel pastor with your Holy Spirit,
and that he may preach with power and unction,
and that everything that's said and done would give the honor and glory back to you.
And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Back to hymn number 15.
Hymn number 15, "Lead Me to Calvary."
"Lead Me to Calvary," hymn number 15, we'll start on that first verse.
"King of my life, I crown thee now. Thine shall the glory be."
Number 15.
Let's sing our voice.
On that verse number 15, sing it out.
King of my life, I crown thee now. Thine shall the glory be.
Lest I forget thy born ground crown, lead me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thine agony,
lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary.
Show me the tomb where thou wast laid, tenderly morn and dwell.
Angels and robes of light array, guard in thee whilst thou slain.
Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thine agony,
lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary.
Let me like Mary through the gloom come with a gift to thee.
Show to me now the empty tomb, lead me to Calvary.
Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thine agony,
lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary.
May I be willing more to bear, daily my cross for thee. Even thy cup of grief to share, thou hast worn all for me.
Lest I forget Gethsemane, lest I forget thine agony,
lest I forget thy love for me, lead me to Calvary.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below as well as salvations and baptisms.
Baby shower already happened on Sunday. Thank you to everyone who participated in that.
Keep praying for the ladies that are expecting that they'll have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.
On the back we're taking portraits for our annual church yearbook and this is starting up this Sunday.
So you can get your picture taken any Sunday from September 15th through November 3rd.
The sign up is over here to my right.
They're asking that photos be taken of families that have small children before the service, everybody else afterwards.
So if you're a single, married couple, family, whatever your situation,
we want to make sure that everybody has a chance to get these beautiful portraits taken.
And we want to get everybody in the yearbook. So please participate in that.
Below that there's a trip to the Indian Reservation next weekend, Friday and Saturday trip.
Leaving Friday morning, coming back Saturday evening.
The details, the schedule and the sign up are over here to my right.
And that's also going to include a trip to Canyon de Chey.
Missions Conference is going to be here before we know it.
It seems like it's this far out thing in the future, but yet it's less than two months away now.
And so keep that on your radar.
Obviously you may not necessarily be able to come to every activity, but if you can, great.
If you end up just deciding to just have the time off and just do everything.
Or you can just come to the evening services or whatever you want to do.
But we will be having stuff going on from Wednesday night all the way through Sunday.
There will be services on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, morning and night.
And then like fun activities during the afternoon.
And then soul winning times.
So lots of stuff going on that week.
We'll release a more detailed schedule once we get closer to that.
And that's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days.
So going back to Monday.
Anything from Monday? Got it.
Okay.
Anything else from Monday? Got you.
What's that?
Oh, that's you guys took a missions trip.
To Vanuatu.
Very nice.
Did you want to come up and give a little testimony about that on the spot?
You look a little tied down there.
We're going to hear from him at the missions conference.
So they went out and did a missions trip in Vanuatu.
And it sounds like they had a total of 127 people saved on that trip.
So it sounds like it was super receptive. Great.
Who all was on that trip?
Rob Vigilano?
Oh, this Rob. Okay, cool.
All right, so Rob, Teresa, you. Nice.
Well, great work, guys.
And then anything from Monday?
How about Tuesday for soul winning?
All right.
And then today we had five for the church van.
Anything outside of the van today?
Anything else outside of the five?
All right, very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning.
And with that, let's sing our next song. Come lead us.
All right, you should find the insert in front of your hymnal with Psalm 126.
If you don't have an insert, you can raise your hand and you'll receive one.
We'll start on that first verse together.
When the Lord turned again, the captivity of Zion.
O Lord, as the streams in the south,
May the soul in tears shall we be joined.
Then said they among the heathen,
The Lord hath done great things for them,
The Lord hath done great things for us,
Whereof we are glad.
Then said they among the heathen,
The Lord hath done great things for them,
The Lord hath done great things for us,
Whereof we are glad.
Then said they among the heathen,
The Lord hath done great things for them,
The Lord hath done great things for us,
Whereof we are glad.
Then said they among the heathen,
The Lord hath done great things for them,
The Lord hath done great things for us,
Whereof we are glad.
All hail the power of Jesus' name!
Let angels trust in God,
Pray for the royal diadem, and crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, and crown Him, Lord of all.
We chose Him, seen of Israel's grace, He ransomed from the fall, He ransomed from the fall,
Hail Him who saves you by His grace, and crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, and crown Him, Lord of all.
Let every kindred, every tribe, On this terrestrial wall, on this terrestrial wall,
To Him all majesty astride, and crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, and crown Him, Lord of all.
O man with honor, sacred God, We at His feet may fall, We at His feet may fall,
We'll join the everlasting song, and crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, crown Him, and crown Him, Lord of all.
And as the plates go around, let's turn our Bibles to 2 Chronicles chapter number 19.
2 Chronicles chapter number 19, as we always do.
We'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Hester as he reads.
2 Chronicles 19.
2 Chronicles chapter 19, Bible reads.
Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem.
And Jehu, the son of Hanani the seer, went out to meet him, and said to King Jehoshaphat,
Shouldest thou help the ungodly, and love them that hate the Lord, therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord?
Nevertheless, there are good things found in thee, and that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land,
and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.
And Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem, and he went out again through the people from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim,
and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.
And he set judges in the land throughout all the fenced cities of Judah, city by city.
And he said to the judges, Take heed what ye do, for ye judge not for man, but for the Lord, who is with you in the judgment.
Wherefore now, let the fear of the Lord be upon you; take heed, and do it.
For there is no iniquity with the Lord our God, nor respect of persons, nor taking of gifts.
And over in Jerusalem did Jehoshaphat said of the Levites, and of the priests, and of the chief of the fathers of Israel,
for the judgment of the Lord, and for controversies when they returned to Jerusalem.
And he charged them, saying, Thus shall ye do in the fear of the Lord, faithfully and with a perfect heart.
And what cause soever shall come to you of your brethren that dwell in their cities,
between blood and blood, between law and commandment, statutes and judgments?
Ye shall even warn them that they trespass not against the Lord, and so wrath come upon you and upon your brethren.
This do, and ye shall not trespass.
And behold, Amariah the chief priest is over you in all matters of the Lord,
and Zebediah the son of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of Judah.
For all the king's matters, also the Levites, shall be officers before you.
Deal courageously, and the Lord shall be with the good.
Dear Father in heaven, we're grateful to be here this Wednesday night,
but we'll study and please bless Pastor Anderson and fill him with the Spirit,
and we'll be touched by his message, and we say in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
Amen.
Second Chronicles chapter number 19, we're continuing the story of Jehoshaphat,
and if you remember, Jehoshaphat is a great king, he's a godly man, he's a righteous man,
and if you remember, his father Asa had also been a righteous and godly king,
but then toward the end of his life, he ended up relying on some enemies of the Lord that he teamed up with.
Jehoshaphat seemed like he was doing things right and doing well for a long time,
but he just had this one downfall, is that he's just too nice.
And so Jehoshaphat, back in chapter 18, he ends up teaming up with Ahab,
who is the king of that northern kingdom, and the northern kingdom of Israel is super wicked,
and so God was not pleased with the fact that Jehoshaphat teamed up with Ahab.
And if you remember, Micaiah, the prophet, was that one righteous prophet in the northern kingdom of Israel.
Remember, just hundreds of prophets are supporting Ahab and telling Ahab what he wants to hear,
but then Jehoshaphat said, "Isn't there another prophet of the Lord that we can inquire of?"
But he could tell that those guys were bogus.
Micaiah came in, preached the truth, and of course Ahab ends up falling in battle and so forth.
And so it says in verse 1 of chapter 19, "Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem."
So Jehoshaphat had teamed up with the king of Israel.
They had gone to battle. The king of Israel is killed. Jehoshaphat comes home in peace.
But he never should have teamed up with them on that venture in the first place.
And so now a prophet is going to come and rebuke Jehoshaphat for what he did in chapter 18.
It says in verse number 2, "And Jehu, the son of Hanani, the seer, went out to meet him and said to king Jehoshaphat,
'Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?
Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.'"
And the person who hates the Lord here that he's talking about, he's talking about the northern kingdom of Israel, right?
He's talking about teaming up with the king of Israel.
He's saying, "Should you help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?"
The northern kingdom of Israel is super wicked, worshiping Satan.
They hate the Lord, and so he shouldn't have teamed up with them.
But look at verse 3. It says, "Nevertheless, there are good things found in thee,
that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land, and hast prepared thine heart to seek God.
And Jehoshaphat dwelt to Jerusalem, and he went out again through the people from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim,
and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers."
And so the good thing here is that even though Jehoshaphat had done wrong and made a mistake,
and he's being rebuked by the man of God, he doesn't get offended by that.
He actually seems to take it to heart, because the guy says,
"Look, this is what you're wrong about. This is what you've done right."
And Jehoshaphat seems to accept his message and focus on doing the right things,
and focus on continuing the good work that he'd already been doing.
A lot of people though, especially in this generation, you just can't tell them no.
And if you say anything negative about them, even if you connect it and say,
"Well, you know, you do have this good quality," people today just cannot take any criticism.
And we've already seen an example of that with Jehoshaphat's father Asa.
Because when the prophet came and corrected Asa, Asa got angry with him and threw him in prison,
instead of just accepting the correction.
Like when David had sinned with Bathsheba and killed Uriah,
remember when Nathan the prophet came to him, he accepted that correction.
He said, "I've sinned," and he was repentant. He was sorry.
That's how we should react when someone corrects us with the Word of God, okay?
Jehoshaphat did something wrong. The man of God came and corrected him.
And at least we don't see him in this passage, you know, killing him
or putting him in prison or something like that.
He continues serving God. He doesn't get offended.
He doesn't get out of church over it or something, because someone told him no.
So Jehoshaphat continues serving God.
But let's back up, and we really need to park it on verse 2 here,
because of the day that we're living in where everything is just love
and Christianity is all about love.
It's not about right and wrong. It's not about sin.
It's not about heaven and hell. It's just about love and inclusiveness, right?
Well, that's not what the Bible says, okay?
And we need to park it on a verse like 2 Chronicles chapter 19, verse 2,
in our day where everything is labeled as hateful and hate speech.
Well, guess what? Hate is biblical.
There's a time to love, and there's a time to hate.
That's what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter number 3.
These things have a time and a place. God both loves and hates.
God's people are supposed to both love and hate.
I mean, these are just normal human emotions that need to be in their proper context.
And by the way, every single person, even these ooey, gooey, sloppy, agappey,
just bleeding hard, wonderful little, perfect little people, guess what?
I guarantee you that there are people and things that they hate.
The difference is that they just lie about it,
because they're a holier-than-thou that just loves everybody.
But then you see their hateful actions, but they're just so loving, right?
Well, the Bible says, "Let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but in deed and in truth."
And so let's make sure our love is actually true,
and it actually comes through in our actions, not just talking this big talk about it.
Oh, I just love everybody.
I just love, you know, pedophiles, Adolf Hitler and the Pope and Charles Manson.
It's just like, that's just stupid. It doesn't even make sense.
"Jiu the son of Hineni," verse 2, "the seer went out to meet him and said to King Jehoshaphat,
'Shouldest thou help the ungodly and love them that hate the Lord?'"
This is a rhetorical question.
Should you do that? Should you help the ungodly?
Should you love them that hate the Lord?
But the answer to the question is found in the next statement.
Therefore, and the implication is, therefore because you did that,
because you helped the ungodly, because you love those that hate the Lord,
is wrath upon thee from before the Lord.
Now what does wrath mean? Wrath is intense anger.
Intense anger from God is directed at you because you love those who hate the Lord.
Now a lot of people have this attitude that says,
"You know, I don't know about this whole love-hate thing.
So just to be safe, I'm just going to be safe and I'm just going to love everybody."
Well, you know what? This whole love-everybody mentality doesn't seem to be safe,
according to 2 Chronicles 19, if a guy is getting rebuked for loving people who specifically hate God.
So I have an idea, why don't we just play it safe by doing what the Bible says?
Here's the safe way to go, read the entire Bible and do everything that it says,
and not just pick and choose the parts that line up with our modern culture,
and then just kind of just be safe by just helping and loving and participating in everything.
No, my friend, you, when you team up with wicked people, when you support wicked people,
when you help wicked people, you become a partaker of their evil deeds.
That's what the Bible says.
In fact, even something as simple as just blessing them in the name of the Lord.
You know, what does the Bible say in 2 John?
It says, "Whosoever," I'll just quote it, "Whosoever transgresseth
and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God.
He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house,
neither bid him Godspeed, for he that bideth him Godspeed is partaker of his evil deeds."
So if there's some false prophet preaching a false Jesus, preaching another Christ,
like say for example, the Mormons or the Jehovah's Witnesses,
and you bring them into your home, if you bid them Godspeed,
if you, "Here, let me give you food, let me give you water, have a good day, God bless,"
you're a partaker of their evil deeds.
Because they're not bringing the doctrine of Christ.
They don't believe in the Father and the Son.
They believe a perverted, twisted theology, a perverted and twisted gospel
is not the gospel of Christ.
They have a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different spirit.
And if you support them, you are supporting wickedness,
and you're a partaker of their evil deeds.
You know, I got in trouble as a teenager one time,
because one time my dad got home and the Mormons were in our living room.
And I was sitting in the living room with two Mormon missionaries,
and I was like trying to straighten them out,
and I was rebuking them and trying to get them saved, and I was preaching to them.
But you know, it looked weird, my dad comes home and I'm sitting in the living room
with a couple of Mormon missionaries.
And he just immediately threw them out of the house.
And I said, "Well, Dad, you know, they weren't converting me to Mormonism, Dad."
I'm like, "I'm saved." You know what I mean?
I'm like, "These guys were here because I was preaching to them,
and I'm trying to straighten them out."
He said, "It doesn't matter, Stephen, if you are trying to straighten them out.
The Bible specifically says not to bring them into the house."
And he pulled out the Bible, and he turned to this passage,
and he showed me 2 John, and he said, "This is what the Bible says."
And I looked at that and said, "I'm sorry, Dad, you're right.
I should have not brought them into the house."
And I never brought them in the house again.
And I never bring them in the house now, you know,
because I took that correction, because that's what the Bible says, right?
And so we need to stop and think about the fact that these Biblical principles,
they go beyond just one statement in 2 John or one story in 2 John.
We're supposed to apply these principles to our lives in general.
The Bible does not describe every possible situation
or scenario you're going to get into in your life.
You're supposed to take 2 John 9-11 and understand the principle
and then apply it more generally.
You're supposed to take this story and apply it more generally and say,
"Okay, I shouldn't be teaming up with false prophets
or helping the ungodly or loving people who are haters of God."
And I think the perfect example of this is when Pastor Shelley was under attack
for preaching the truth about the sodomites.
He's preaching the Word of God.
He's preaching true doctrine about sodomites.
And he had a bunch of sodomites and freaks.
And I know that that's redundant since every sodomite is a freak.
But he had these bunch of weird perverts, you know, protesting his church,
and they're outside of his church harassing the church members
and yelling all these horrible things and whatever.
And the Nazarene church that was just right down the street
decided that they're going to help the ungodly and love those who hate the Lord.
And so the Nazarene pastor, first the Nazarene pastor gets up
and preaches a sermon against Pastor Shelley,
which is the biggest joke that I've ever heard in my life.
I listen to the sermon, and let me just save you some time.
This is basically what the sermon is.
Yeah, the Bible does say the stuff that Pastor Shelley's saying,
but can you believe it that he's preaching that?
Can you believe this guy?
I mean, that's pretty much his argument.
I mean, because obviously he's wrong, right?
I mean, can you believe it?
That's basically the sermon.
And then he literally reads the verses that say
that homos are worthy of the death penalty.
He reads the verses, and this is what he said.
Yeah, I remember struggling with these verses in Bible college,
and we were as a class kind of wrestling with these verses,
and he said, you know, there's just certain things
you're going to get to heaven and just ask God.
Like, why is this in the Bible?
What is it?
Like, he's acting like he's going to confront God someday.
Like, why did you put this verse in the Bible about killing homos?
Like, what is this?
And look, in the documentary film that many of you have probably seen,
The Sodomite Deception, put out by Pastor Shelley,
in The Sodomite Deception,
it plays clips from this pastor literally saying that.
And I wouldn't listen to the whole sermon in context.
It's even worse in context.
But the guy literally admits that that's what the Bible says,
but just of course we know that's not true, though.
I mean, of course, you know, we just need to --
we'll have to wait till we get to heaven.
And he said, you'll have to take it up with God.
I'm like, I'm not going to take it up with God when I get to heaven.
You know, I'm just going to be giving a high five to Moses for writing it.
I'm not taking anything up with anybody.
I'm going to say like, hey, Leviticus 20 13, am I right?
You know, it's going to be a high five with Moses.
There's no issue.
Why are you tripping about it, right?
It's a great verse.
Leviticus 20 13, there's no issue,
except for people who don't like what the Bible says.
And so that pastor, that Nazarene pastor,
is aiding and abetting the enemies of God,
people who literally hate the Lord.
What did he do?
He brought Subway sandwiches and waters.
While they're out there protesting a man of God for preaching the Bible,
they're openly perverted, open deviants, open haters of God.
He just came over and said,
we just want you to know that we down at so-and-so in the Nazarene Church
love you guys, and here's a water, here's a Subway sandwich,
literally helping the ungodly,
literally loving those who hate the Lord.
I mean, that's the most textbook example of this verse in action
that I've ever seen.
And it's wrath upon them from before the Lord.
Except the difference is there's no way God's going to say to that Nazarene pastor,
hey, but at least there are some good things found in you.
He's going to say, nope, you're just full of crap, period.
And because, by the way, Nazarenes, newsflash, Nazarenes aren't saved.
Because they believe you can lose your salvation.
They don't believe in eternal salvation purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ.
By grace, through faith, they believe that you can walk away from your salvation.
I guess you can just walk away from your parents' DNA in your body too, right?
Because you know what?
When you get saved, you are a son of God.
You have been passed from death to life.
You have everlasting life.
You shall not come into condemnation.
You've been passed from death to life.
Jesus said, I've given them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
Neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
Right?
You are saved.
You are sealed by the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption.
You're a child of God.
You've been transformed.
You've been regenerated.
If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature.
Old things are passed away.
Behold, all things are becoming new.
Oh, just kidding, I walked away from it.
What is that?
Well, you can't lose it, but you can just lose it.
That's basically what they're saying.
No, I'm not saying you can lose it.
I'm just saying you can lose it.
That's what they're literally saying.
Because they're just like, well, I'm not saying you can lose it.
Because I remember trying to give the Gospel to Nazarenes so many times.
And they're like, well, you can't lose it, but you can walk away from it.
He's not going to take it away from you, but you can give it back.
Like, just stop and think about how dumb this is.
Who would just be like, hey, God, I changed my mind.
I want to go to hell.
Like, I got this free gift of salvation.
I'm going to heaven.
I'm on my way to heaven.
But no, I changed my mind.
I prefer hell.
No one would do that.
But this is what it is.
It's all just this weird semantic game that they're playing.
Here's what it really comes down to is like, well, he is sinning.
So that shows that he's giving it back or walking away.
It's not like somebody's literally like, OK, God, I did believe in you.
I was going to heaven.
But I changed my mind.
I'd prefer damnation.
What it really is is just, well, he got out of church and he's living in sin.
So he walked away.
He gave it back.
It's the exact same thing as any other person who's teaching that you can lose your salvation.
It's just another way of just spinning that.
But it's the same thing.
Like at the end of the day, salvation is by grace, through faith.
You have eternal life.
You're sealed by the Holy Ghost until the day of redemption.
He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
And so if you've been passed from death to life, cannot come into condemnation, you're a child of God.
There's nothing you can do to change that.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And then the fruit of that perverted doctrine is that the Nazarene pastor says, what?
Oh, we just love homos and we're going to side with homos against a Bible preacher who's preaching the Bible.
Admittedly, I have no answer to the Bible that he's preaching.
I can't debunk what he's saying from the Word of God.
But can you believe it?
So here's a Subway sandwich.
Here's a footlong.
Here's a bottle of water.
What is that?
It's garbage is what it is.
How do you know that homos hate the Lord?
Well, keep your finger there and go to Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one will tell us everything we need to know about sodomites.
The Bible says in Romans chapter one, verse 26, "For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature."
Verse 27 of Romans one, "And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another, men with men, working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meat.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient."
Which things?
Those men with men, gross things that no normal person would ever even dream of doing.
Now notice, at the end of verse 28, look at the punctuation.
The sentence is not over.
Same sentence, same thought, being filled.
That's not, that is not the start of a new sentence or a new thought.
This is a dependent clause that is pointing back to the same subject of they didn't like to retain God in their knowledge.
God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient.
Being filled with, who's being filled with?
Them, they, the men with men.
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity,
whispers, back fighters, haters of God.
Okay?
Men with men that have been given over to a reprobate mind are haters of God.
That's what the Bible says.
"So shouldest thou help the ungodly or love them that hate the Lord?"
No.
"And therefore is wrath upon thee from the Lord thy God."
Now look, this is not an isolated scripture.
Second Chronicles 19.2 is not alone.
Okay?
I found 22 verses that clearly, clearly talk about God hating people.
Okay?
And what's funny is that people will act like, oh, this is an obscure doctrine based on a couple verses or something.
I mean, look it up.
There are a multitude of verses about hating people in the Bible.
You know, if you want you can just ignore them, but they're there.
Okay?
And the thing about that is that a lot of doctrines that we would really stand firm on
and strongly believe in are based on less scripture than this doctrine.
I mean, this doctrine actually has a lot of scripture that talks about hate.
Okay?
Even just a simple concordance search of the word hate is going to bring up a bunch of verses for you that are relevant.
You also have to look up abhor, loathe, you know, and other synonyms for hate as well.
So if you would, well, we don't have to turn there, but we, you know,
hopefully we're pretty familiar with Psalm 139 from the song where we sing the psalm said to music
where it says, "Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?
And am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee?
If I hate them with a perfect hatred, I count them mine enemies."
Right?
So I hate them that hate thee.
I hate them with a perfect hatred.
Perfect in the Bible means complete.
It's saying I hate them with complete hatred.
Now a lot of people will say, "Oh, that's just David talking."
Folks, when the New Testament quotes the book of Psalms, it says,
"Well spake the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David the prophet."
Okay?
The Psalms, yeah, they're penned by David, some of them,
but they're inspired by the Holy Ghost.
It's the Holy Ghost speaking by the mouth of Isaiah the prophet.
The Holy Ghost is speaking by the mouth of David the prophet.
Otherwise, if you're just going to take Psalms and say, "Well, that's just David talking.
That's just David getting a little, getting a little wild there."
Okay, then I guess you could just, then you could just turn around and say,
"Oh, well, you know, when Paul said something we don't like,
like when he said that women should not teach
and that they should keep silent in the church, you know,
oh, that's just Paul.
It's just Paul talking.
Oh, this is Peter.
Well, darn that Luke, you know, over here."
It's just like, where does that end?
Where does that logic end?
It's the Word of God.
And the Bible says in Thessalonians,
he said, "When you received the Word of God, which you heard of us,
you received it not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God."
The Bible's the Word of God.
It doesn't matter if Paul's writing it down, Peter, David, whoever.
Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
And so God's Word is just that, is God's Word.
Human authors are penning it down, but they're inspired by God,
and the Bible is infallible and inerrant.
It is right all the time.
Here, though, we clearly have a prophet of God being sent by God,
rebuking him, saying, "Shouldest thou help the ungodly
and love them that hate the Lord?
Therefore is wrath upon thee from before the Lord."
That sounds to me like David's right in Psalm 139,
when he said, "I hate them that hate thee.
Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate thee?
And am not I grieved with them that rise up against thee?
I hate them with perfect hatred.
I count them mine enemies."
And then he said, "Search me, O God, and know my thoughts.
Try me and know my heart.
See if there be any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the path everlasting."
Hopefully I'm quoting that right.
I'm kind of just freestyling here.
But it pretty much says that.
The point is, the verses before that are really famous,
and the verses after that are really famous, right?
Because the part about him forming and fashioning us
in our mother's womb in Psalm 139 is a super popular passage.
Also, the last two verses are super popular.
There are songs based on it.
Search me, O God, and know my heart today.
Right?
So it's amazing how Christianity grabs onto one part of Psalm 139,
grabs onto another part of Psalm 139,
and then the part right in the middle between those two things,
they don't touch it with a 10-foot pole.
Why is that?
It's because of the fact that in many cases,
they're more interested in what our society likes,
what they think, what they condone,
than what the Word of God actually says, you know?
And frankly, I'm not interested in what our society thinks
about the Bible or theology.
All I care is what the Bible says.
I want to read the whole Bible
and base my worldview on the entire Bible.
That's my worldview.
That's what I believe.
And I'm not interested in trying to synthesize that
with whatever is popular right now
as far as what Christianity is supposed to be like
to a bunch of long-haired idiots.
And I'm talking about long-haired dudes, of course.
We want the women to have long hair.
But a bunch of hippies that want to have a hippie Jesus.
Long-haired hippie Jesus,
peace-love-dope Jesus,
and I'm not interested.
So, there is some anger on Joshua
because he made a mistake.
But, God says,
but you do have a lot of good things going for you.
And Joshua proceeds for the rest of the chapter
to continue doing good things.
Look, just because someone preaches against your sin,
just because someone calls it out
something about your life that's wicked,
it doesn't mean that they hate you
or that they're throwing you in the trash.
You know, you need to just learn to accept correction.
And it doesn't mean that you're just a horrible person
because you're wrong on some things.
You need to just acknowledge that you're wrong on some things.
And grow and learn from that
because it's the Word of God that's correcting you.
Don't kill the messenger.
I mean, is it really Jehu's fault?
Jehu is sent by God.
Jehu's just the messenger, right?
He's not the one to get bad at.
So, verse 3 says,
"Nevertheless, there are good things found in the end
"that thou hast taken away the groves out of the land
"and hast prepared thine heart to seek God."
The groves were a way that people would worship false gods,
a place that they would traditionally worship false gods,
and God did not want them worshiping him in the groves
because he didn't want them to pattern their worship of the Lord
after pagan, heathen worship
that had already existed in that geographic area.
And so because they had done the groves and the high places,
God said, "I don't want you to do groves in high places.
"I want you to worship me in a unique way that's based on Scripture,
"not patterning your worship after the worship
"that is already in the place that's indigenous."
You know, you'll hear a lot about religious syncretism
or hybrid religions where something like Roman Catholicism
will show up and kind of mix with Native American groups
or something like that and produce like a syncretic religion.
And they'll have these type of feasts or holidays
that are mixtures of things from before the Spaniards got there
and then Catholic elements brought it,
like, for example, the Day of the Dead or something.
Right? I mean, do you really think that God wants us
celebrating the Day of the Dead and doing all this weird
pagan skull death mumbo jumbo?
But that stuff actually predates the Spanish conquest.
Right? Those are like indigenous practices
of these weird idolatrous pagan death cults.
And then Roman Catholicism shows up and sort of,
like, they make a hybrid thing.
And that's what God doesn't want.
You know, God wants someone who gets saved
out of a false religion to totally ditch that false religion
and not try to mix it in.
So if you used to be a Hindu and then you become a Christian,
like, you don't bring in elements of Hinduism and say,
hey, let's incorporate these into Christianity.
Let's incorporate Buddhism.
You know, let's incorporate Islam or something like that.
No, you need to just come over to Christianity
and leave all that stuff behind.
Just get rid of it.
And so that's what we see going on here in verse 3.
That's one of the things that Jehoshaphat did right,
was getting rid of that stuff.
Jehoshaphat dwelt at Jerusalem
and he went out again through the people
from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim
and brought them back unto the Lord God of their fathers.
So I mean, Jehoshaphat is proactively evangelizing
the countryside and getting people
to turn back to the Lord God.
So he's not just a good king, he's a great king
because he's very evangelical
about getting people back to the Lord,
even personally.
He lives at Jerusalem, but he's literally leaving Jerusalem
and going on an evangelistic mission
throughout his country, turning people to the Lord God.
He's a great man of God, but guess what?
Even a great man of God can make a mistake
and be too nice and too soft
and get God mad at him
and get in trouble for that, which is what happened.
Now what does this mean from Beersheba to Mount Ephraim?
Well, you'll often read scripture
and it'll say from Dan even to Beersheba.
Dan is the northern extremity of both Israel and Judah, right?
So it's the northern extremity of the northern kingdom, Dan.
Beersheba is the southern extremity, right,
of the southern kingdom,
and so obviously Jehoshaphat's domain
does not reach all the way to Dan.
He has only power over the southern kingdom,
and if you remember, Jehoshaphat also,
and Asa and Jehoshaphat had made some inroads
into the northern kingdom,
to kind of push the border up a little bit
to even include Mount Ephraim
as being part of his domain.
So he has some control over
even some stuff spilling up into Ephraim.
So the idea here is that every area
over which he has any authority,
he's evangelizing.
You know, all the way from not Dan to Beersheba,
but from Mount Ephraim to Beersheba,
because that's his domain.
Verse 5, "He set judges in the land
"throughout all the fenced cities of Judah,
"city by city."
And of course, he's following the Bible, right?
Because the Bible sets up a system of judges
to govern them.
Before they had a king, they only had judges.
But even after they have a king,
they're still supposed to have these judges
as another component of government.
You know, it's found in Exodus
and Deuteronomy and so forth.
And so he set up these judges,
and he said to the judges in verse 6,
"Take heed what you do,
"for you judge not for man,
"who is with you in the judgment.
"Wherefore now, let the fear of the Lord
"be upon you.
"Take heed and do it,
"for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God,
"nor respect of persons,
"nor taking of gifts."
He's saying, look, don't be one of these
crooked judges who's taking bribes,
he's receiving gifts,
and he's perverting judgment,
he's respecting persons,
and you know, he's saying,
why? Because you should be afraid
of God punishing you
if you pervert judgment.
He's saying, look, the judgment belongs to God,
and so you need to be fair
and impartial and make right judgments
because of the fact that
God is the ultimate judge,
and you know what? You should fear God.
You see, you might think that you can
get away with things on this earth
and do wicked things
and slander
and bear false witness
or pass a false judgment
or whatever, but at the end of the day,
God is watching,
and we should be in the fear of the Lord
all the day long.
And today that's not necessarily
a popular thing to preach anyway
or either sometimes, and people try to say,
well, fear doesn't really mean fear.
That's funny because the Bible says
fear and trembling,
because people are trying to say,
okay, well, if fear is just respect,
then why does it say fear and trembling?
You're going to start shaking
because you're so respectful?
No, I'm pretty sure fear
includes respect,
but it also means fear like,
hey, I'm afraid
that if I screw up,
God is going to come down on me like a ton of bricks.
And look, obviously,
as we grow and progress
in our Christian life,
we move from fear toward love.
That's what 1 John talks about, right?
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning
of instruction,
but we move away from fear
toward love. Why?
There's no fear in love. Perfect love casts without fear.
Why? Because here's the thing.
If I'm just loving God
with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength,
and loving my neighbor as myself,
I'm not in fear of God punishing me
because I'm doing right.
And eventually, we get to a point
where we're doing right not just
because we're afraid, but because we want
to do right because of love for God.
That's a better reason, right?
I mean, look, I can either
abstain from fornication
because I'm scared God's going to kill me
if I commit fornication, or
I can abstain from fornication because I love the Lord.
And I know
that God has commanded me not to commit fornication,
and Jesus said, "If you love me,
keep my commandments." What is
the superior motivation? What is the
best thing? The best
motivation is
to be doing the right things because you love
God, and you're not even thinking about the
punishments because you're just doing the right things out of
love. Punishment
is not on your mind because you're focused on
just loving God and doing the right things because
you want to. But here's what's funny.
You've got a bunch of baby Christians
whose lives are filled
with sin
who are not mature in the Lord at all,
don't know the Bible, are not
living for God, and then they just want
to talk about, "Oh, there's no fear in love
and man, it's just all love and blah blah blah."
It's like, dude, you don't love God.
This is the love of God that you keep His commandments.
Okay, here's the thing.
If you're living a
sinful life, you're in the fear of God stage.
Don't even talk to me
how, "Oh, I'm done with fear, man.
I've moved on to the love stage."
Nah, you really haven't.
Because that
is a high
level of Christianity. So
really, if someone's living a really
godly life
and serving God, then I would
expect their life to be more about love
and for them not necessarily
to be trembling and dwelling on the fear
of God as much.
But for some watered down,
backslidden,
sinful
Christian to be just
"Oh, I don't need the fear of God, man.
I'm just..." It's like, no, you need the
fear of God.
And you're proving that by the fact
that you are brazenly
breaking God's commandments. That shows
that you have not
graduated from that fear of God stage.
Now look, if you want
to just do the right things because you love God,
then we don't have to talk about fear
so much.
But when you're living a super sinful, worldly,
ungodly life, you need the
fear of God. You need a swift
kick in the pants. You need
somebody to tell you
that it is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God.
You need somebody to tell you that our
God is a consuming fire.
You need somebody to tell you that
wrath is upon you from before the Lord
our God. And don't just say,
"Oh, man, you're just trying to scare
people with that." You better know I am.
Yeah, I'm trying to scare people
because the fear of the Lord
makes men depart from evil, that's why.
And you know what? Even in my
own personal life, the
fear of the Lord plays a role.
Right? Obviously,
I love the Lord
and I serve God because I love Him. But fear
still plays a role.
And it ought to.
But let me tell you this, when I was
much younger, if I went
back to my immature days,
back when I was a teenager,
it was like way more
about the fear of God than the love of God.
When I had all these temptations
to commit fornication and so forth,
when you're a teenager and the temptation
is strong, you know, you have these
strong desires and you're
surrounded by temptation, and you know
what? I was scared to
death to commit fornication because
I truly believed
that someone who had been taught so much
Bible and had grown up in
church and been given so many privileges
and was so blessed and
so many benefits of my Christian home,
I was just scared. I was like, man, if I commit
fornication, God's just going to literally kill me.
That's why I believed.
I'm like, man, God is going to punish
me so bad, so I didn't
commit fornication because I was scared to commit fornication.
Now, if somebody would have just
not preached all that fear
and preached about
23,000 people dying in one day
because of fornication, if I would have been in
some milk toast, watered down church that just
said, "Oh, just, you know,
save yourself for marriage because, you know,
give that gift to your spouse," and all that stuff.
Like, here's the thing, that's all true.
And now I understand that that is all true.
But, you know, as a
15-year-old, that probably wouldn't have meant that
much to me.
But God killing me,
that kind of resonated with me.
And here's the thing, you need
both.
You need both. I do think it's smart to say,
hey, you know, this is something you
should reserve for marriage because you're going to have a better
marriage, you know, reserve that for your
spouse, give that gift to your spouse
of being a virgin on your wedding. That's all good stuff.
Amen!
Or saying,
hey, this is, you know, this is,
you know, if you love Christ,
do what Christ says because you love
Him. But you know what, it's also pretty healthy
to say, you know, let's turn to 1 Corinthians
chapter 10 and find out
how we shouldn't commit fornication
like they did because God killed
23,000 people in one day
over fornication. So,
you know, be afraid.
Be very afraid.
Folks, that's, you know what,
when I was a teenager, fear
of the Lord
is what kept me on
the right path as a young,
dumb teenager. It was the
fear of God. Okay.
Then I grew into more
of a, of a, of a
thing of, well, I'm going to do what's right because I love
God. Then, because see, fear is
only going to take you so far. Right?
Fear's not going to get you all the way to
a mature Christianity.
Here's why, because fear
is only going to get you to kind of do the minimum.
To just kind of avoid getting
your butt kicked by God. Right?
Fear is just kind of like, get you out
of the woods, keep the wolf away
from the door, and just kind of do
a minimum to just not be
one of those 23,000.
If you're really going to be
maximum for Jesus Christ, if
you're really going to do great works for God
and go beyond the
minimum and really do extra
and really get serious about serving God,
only love can propel you
into those higher levels of service for God.
Because
fear has nothing to do with that because it's
not like God is demanding that you do
all this extra. God has
some, some serious things that you need
to abstain from. Fear will at least
get you out of the, you know, it's sort of like on
Duolingo, you got the demotion zone
and the promotion zone.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
A lot of people, alright.
You know, it's like, you know, fear will kind of
keep you out of the demotion zone
of the Christian life.
But to get into the promotion
zone or to get into the top three,
right, where you're actually getting the gold
or the silver or the bronze, you know,
that's going to take love to get
you up there.
So, of course, we're
moving from fear toward love, but the fear of the Lord
is the start.
And guess what? When people are super worldly
and backslidden, I can already tell you what they need.
They need the fear of God.
The wickedness of the wicked
is what shows us that they have no fear of God.
When they just brazenly
do wicked things. That
is a demonstration of their lack of fear for God.
And I'm
sorry, but fear does actually mean fear,
believe it or not. And if you go back
to the Greek, it means fear. And if you go back to the Hebrew,
it means fear. And if you read it
in Spanish, it's fear, okay?
So,
the Bible says here,
"Let the fear of the Lord..."
So, first of all,
let's look at verse 7,
"Wherefore now let the fear of the Lord be upon you?
Take heed and do it,
for there is no iniquity with the Lord our God,
nor respect of persons, nor taking
of gifts.
Moreover, in Jerusalem,
did Jehoshaphat set of the Levites
and of the priests and of the chief of the fathers of Israel
for the judgment of the Lord
and for controversies
when they returned to Jerusalem.
And he charged them saying,
"Thus shall you do," watch this,
"in the fear of the Lord." Isn't it interesting
that for the second time
he's bringing up the fear of the Lord?
Why? Because he wants
these judges to be
fearful of becoming
a crook.
And to stay honest,
knowing that God will punish if they don't.
He says, "Thus shall you do
in the fear of the Lord, faithfully
and with a perfect heart, and what cause
soever shall come to you of your brethren
that dwell in their cities, between
blood and blood, between law and commandments,
statutes and judgments. You shall even warn
them that they trespass not
against the Lord, and so
wrath come upon you and upon your brethren.
This do, and ye
shall not trespass." So, notice
two things what he's saying here. He says, first of all,
you guys need to fear the Lord
as judges, not
to take bribes, not to pervert
judgment, not to respect persons.
You should be scared to do that
as judges. But then, number two,
when people come to you
and they have a controversy,
blood and blood, you know,
maybe relatives having a controversy,
or, you know, controversy
in business or whatever, when people come to you,
you need to teach them
that they need to have the fear of God.
So, not only do the judges
need to have the fear of God, but he says,
"You shall warn them," look, partway through
verse 10, "that they trespass
not against the Lord."
He said, look, you come in here
bearing false witness against
your neighbor, you are
trespassing not just against your
neighbor, you're trespassing against
God. God
is the one that said, "Thou
shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor."
If you come in here,
into the courtroom, you're
not going to be found in contempt of court,
you're going to be found in contempt of God.
Because God is the one who said,
"Thou shall not bear false witness."
And if you come in and bear false witness, you're in
contempt of God. You are
actually trespassing
not just against your neighbor, you might be
okay with that, no, you're trespassing against God.
You're disobedient to God.
Warn them that they
don't do it, that they don't trespass against
the Lord. Why? Because the
result will be that wrath will come upon them
and upon their brethren.
Right? If you sit there and trespass
against the Lord your God, you go into
court and start lying and whatever,
judges are being crooks or the
people coming into court, the plaintiff
or the defendant or whatever,
they're lying, witnesses on the witness
stand are lying and bearing false
witness, God is saying, you are
going to bring down
wrath from God
upon you and upon your brethren.
And this is why
the wrath of God comes upon the children
of disobedience, you know, this kind of junk
of sinning
not just against God directly, but
sinning against other people.
When you sin against other people,
this also incurs the wrath of
God. And of course, Israel throughout
their history would frequently
experience the wrath of God.
When they would get involved in sin,
God would judge them.
And why is Jehoshaphat
going around evangelizing people
to actually believe in the Lord, number one,
because that's the first thing is that they just
believe in the Lord and
not be worshipping Baal or these other
gods. So he goes around and he's
turning them back to the Lord God of their fathers.
Number one, he's trying to just get them to first base
of at least believing in the Lord.
But then he's saying,
we got to follow the commandments of God
because we don't want the wrath
of God to come upon the nation. What, look,
he's the king. He
wants his kingdom to last.
And he knows if I want my country
to be blessed, people better
be right with God. And look, if we want
America to be blessed, it's not
enough just to get people saved.
And we're, we're all for
getting people saved. We try to get as many people
saved as we can. I mean, just this
afternoon, we were all out there,
what, 16 of us out there
soul winning this afternoon in
Mesa and got five people saved, right? So
we're getting people out of hell. We just got five
people out of hell this afternoon out soul winning.
Okay? Hey, that's great.
But that's not the only
thing we need to do in order
for God to bless America.
We also need to teach people
the statutes and the judgments and the
commandments and to have the fear of God.
Because what's the great commission?
Teach all nations.
Baptizing them in the name of the Father,
the Son, the Holy Ghost, and teaching them
to observe all
things whatsoever I've commanded you.
Not just getting them saved,
but then teaching them the entire
Bible. All of
Christ's commandments. So we're
teaching people also, don't lie,
don't steal, don't kill, don't
commit adultery, don't do all these
things, don't covet, et cetera.
And so he says
in verse 11, he says at the end of verse
10, "This do and ye shall not trespass."
Verse 11, "And behold, Amariah the chief
priest is over you in all matters
of the Lord, and Zebediah the son
of Ishmael, the ruler of the house of
Judah, for all the king's matters.
Also the Levites shall be officers
before you."
And then look at these last statements
here. "Deal courageously."
Who's he talking to?
The judges, right?
"Deal
courageously, and the Lord
shall be with
the good."
Look, if you do what's right,
if you're on the right side,
if God is with you,
no one can be against you, right?
If God is on your
side, if God be for us, who can be against
us?
And so he says, "Don't fear
man," because what did he
tell him twice? "Fear the Lord,
fear the Lord." But now he's saying
"be courageous," which in many
ways courageous is the opposite of fearful,
right? Like, if you're fearful,
it's like a lack of courage, or if you're
courageous, it's a lack of fear. So here's the idea.
Fear God, fear
God, and be courageous
in the face of man.
Right?
Courageous is talking about
in the face of man. When it comes
to God, we should have fear and trembling.
When it comes to our fellow man,
we need to be courageous and do the right thing no matter
what. What gives us the
boldness to stand for what's right?
What gives us the boldness to stand
up for the word of God to do
the right, even in situations where it might
get us into trouble or cause us problems
to do the right thing?
We do the right thing courageously
because we know that God will be
with the good.
The Lord shall be with the good. You know,
there's a scoreboard in heaven
and it always reads the right
score.
You know, even if down here on earth
people are cheating, and
lying, and deceiving,
you know what? Who cares?
Because you know what? There's a scoreboard
in heaven and it always reads
the correct score.
God knows what's going on.
God knows the truth. And you know what?
He will be with the good.
What's the implication? He's not going to be with
the evil.
He's not going to be with the liars
and the deceivers
and the people who are not fearing the Lord.
He's not going to be on their side.
And here's the thing about that.
Let's just kind of tie the whole chapter together now.
Because we kind of, we worked through the whole chapter.
We started out talking about
helping the ungodly and loving those
that hate the Lord. Right?
Don't do it.
Then we kind of worked down through the chapter
and saw Jehoshaphat
evangelizing
his area and also
setting up judges
that would judge the people righteously
in the fear of God.
And then he ultimately ends up with this
statement, "Deal courageously and the Lord
shall be with the good." Okay?
So here's the thing. The Lord's going to be with
the good. The Lord is not
with the wicked.
And so that's why we don't
want to help the ungodly and love those
that hate the Lord. We don't want to get
teamed up with and yoked up
with people who are under the wrath
of God. Right?
We want to be doing right,
doing good, and be under
God's blessing.
And what we don't want to do is
hitch our wagon
to some evil reprobate
or hook up with some evil
pervert or whatever, and
basically team up with them, yok up
with them, work with them in any way.
We don't want to help the ungodly.
We don't want to love those that hate the Lord.
We want to just courageously stand on our own
two feet and do what's
right. And if God's with us, that's
all we need. You know?
Me plus God makes a majority.
Right? Because if God's
for us, no one can be against us.
And so this is what
we need to focus on, is making sure
that we're doing right. And if we're doing
right, let the heathen rage,
let the people imagine a vain thing.
If you're doing right, God's
going to be with the good. Have the courage
to live your life,
doing what's right, and
let God deal with the wicked people.
He'll deal with them. You know?
And when you see
wicked people, ungodly people,
don't fret, don't worry about it, because
you know what? They're going to get what's coming to them.
Maybe it's today, maybe it's tomorrow.
With God, a day is like a thousand years.
It doesn't really matter when. It doesn't matter
if it's today or five years from now.
They're going to get what's coming to them.
Believe it. But don't
help them.
Don't participate
in the wicked deeds of the evil.
And this is the downfall,
if you remember, of Asa
leaning on the wicked. We need to stand
on our own two feet, deal
courageously, and I guarantee you
these judges, sometimes they had to make decisions
that might make someone mad in the community
who's a powerful person. Because if they're being
told, "Don't respect persons
in judgment," some
rich, powerful guy comes in
to the courthouse, and he's wrong.
The judge has to rule
against that guy, and he might be making a
powerful enemy.
But he's got to deal courageously and
say, "Look, right is right,
wrong is wrong. Even if this
guy is some big crime boss and
he has all this power, I've got to convict
this guy. I've got to rule against this
guy. Like, I'm not going to fear this
guy because the Lord's going to be with the good.
I'm going to justify
the innocent. I'm
going to condemn the wicked,
and I'm not going to care what people think about it."
And that, look, do you think
that there's ever been
a judge murdered
because he pronounced
judgment on some horrible criminal?
You think so?
Absolutely, right? I mean, I don't know.
I'm not as into crime
or whatever, but I guarantee you, like,
if you looked it up,
you'd find judges who were murdered
because they put away some crime boss
or something. Or I guarantee
you that there have been prosecutors
and district attorneys
and witnesses and people
who went to court, told
the truth, did what was right,
and got murdered. Am I
right? And so this could cause
people to
lie or to
make rulings that are not right.
That's why God's saying you've got to deal
courageously and do what's right
and trust that God's going to be with you
because God can protect you from
that, okay?
You say, "Well, you know, God didn't protect
those people." But here's the thing. God's not
necessarily going to protect everyone, but God's going to protect
His children. God's going to protect
those who love Him. And in the
rare, in the super rare event
that a righteous, godly
person does just
end up getting smoked or whatever,
then you know what? At that point, God has
a reason for it. You know, like
Stephen getting stoned or something.
The rare exception
where a man of God ends up
getting martyred and doesn't get protection,
it seems like. But you know what?
God used that stony of Stephen probably
to inspire the Apostle Paul.
It's definitely inspired literally
hundreds of millions of readers of
the New Testament.
It's inspiring us today, the story of Stephen.
You know, that's why Stephen
is even a popular name
because of that inspirational story
in Acts 6 and 7. So the idea here is
that, you know, in the rare event that
God does allow you to die
or be harmed,
it's for His glory. You got to just
trust Him. But 99%
of the time, God ends up delivering
the righteous anyway.
And if you get martyred, well, even so,
amen.
Do what's right. Deal courageously.
God will be with the good.
Let's pray our hands and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this
great chapter, Lord.
Thank you for the great
example of
Jehoshaphat, Lord. Please help
us not to follow His bad example of
teaming up with the wicked or
being a big softie who is too nice
to God haters.
But also, Lord, let us
please follow His example
of the good things that He did,
the evangelism and the preaching that He did,
and His right decisions,
Lord. Help us to always
apply these Bible stories to our own
lives and live our lives
in such a way that you would be honored and glorified.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Matt, take your psalm books, go to
hymn 131, if you need the words,
"Christ is all I need,"
131. We'll sing this
and be dismissed, number 131.
Christ is all
I need. Christ is
all I need.
All
I need.
All I need.
Christ is all
I need. Christ is
all I need.
All
I need.
All I need.
Christ is all
I need. Christ is
all I need.
All I need.
Christ is all
I need. Christ is
He loves me so, He's alright with me.
May good things like yours rest.
He loves me so, He's alright with me.