Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Take your hymnals now.
Go to hymn 174.
Hymn 174.
My Jesus, I love thee.
Hymn 174.
174.
My Jesus, I love thee.
I know that we're fine.
My Jesus, I love thee.
174.
Push that verse down.
My Jesus,
I love thee.
I know thou art mine.
For thee all the
fallings
of sin
I
retire.
My gracious
Redeemer,
my
Savior
art now.
In
ever
I love
thee.
My Jesus
is now.
I love
thee because
thou hast
first
loved me
and
purchased my
pardon
on Calvary
Street.
I love
thee for wearing
the
boards on
thy ground.
In ever
I love
thee.
My Jesus
is now.
I love
thee in
my heart.
You love me
again.
And
praise thee
as long as
thou lend
this sweet
prayer.
And say
when the
death
here rides
full on my
crown.
I love
thee.
My Jesus
is now.
In
vengeance of
glory
and endless
delight
I'll
ever
adore thee.
In
heaven so
I'll
sing with
my
blizzard
down on
my
crown.
In
ever
I love
thee.
My
Jesus
is now.
Let's turn our Bibles to
Ecclesiastes chapter 10.
Ecclesiastes chapter 10 as we always do.
We'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1.
Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads
Ecclesiastes
chapter 10 beginning in verse number 1.
Ecclesiastes chapter 10 the Bible reads
dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary
to send forth a stinking savor
so doth a little folly him that
is in reputation for wisdom and honor.
A wise man's heart is at his right hand
but a fool's heart at his left.
Yea also when he that is a fool walketh
by the way his wisdom faileth
him and he saith to everyone that he is a fool.
If the spirit of the ruler rise
up against thee leave not thy place
for yielding pacifieth great
offenses. There is an evil
which I have seen under the sun as an
error which proceedeth from the ruler.
Folly is set in great dignity and the
rich sit in low place. I've
seen servants upon horses and
princes walking as servants upon the earth.
He that digget the pit shall fall into it
and whoso breaketh an edge a serpent
shall bite him. Whoso removest
stones shall be hurt therewith and he
that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
If the iron be blunt
and you do not wet the edge then
must he put to more
strength but wisdom is profitable to
direct. Surely the serpent will
bite without enchantment and a babbler is
no better. The words of a wise man's
mouth are gracious but the lips of a fool
will swallow up himself.
The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness
and the end of his talk is mischievous madness.
A fool also is full of words.
A man cannot tell what shall be
and what shall be after him who can tell him.
The labor of the foolish warrieth
every one of them because he knoweth
not how to go to the city.
Woe to thee O land when thy king is a child
and thy princes eat in the morning.
Blessed art thou O land when thy king is the son
of nobles and thy princes eat in due
season for strength and not for
drunkenness. By much slothfulness
the building decayeth and through idleness
of the hands the house droppeth through.
A feast is made for laughter and wine
maketh merry but money answereth all
things. Curse not the king
no not in thy thought and curse not the
rich in thy bedchamber for a bird of
the air shall carry the voice and that
which hath wings shall tell the matter.
Dear heavenly father thank you for this opportunity
to gather here tonight. Thank you for another
year ahead of us Lord and please bless
Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit so you can preach the Lord boldly.
And please give us ears and hearts to be attentive
to the word in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. The title of my sermon this evening
is the vanity of rebellion.
The vanity of
rebellion. If you would flip over to Psalm 2
we'll come back to Ecclesiastes
chapter number 10.
But look if you would at Psalm 2.
Of course Psalm 2 is a very
famous passage. It's one of the most famous
Psalms because it is quoted repeatedly
in the New Testament.
It has some great prophecies
about the Lord Jesus Christ.
But it speaks about the vanity
of rebellion. What I mean by that
is just how useless
and how futile it is
to seek to rebel against
God. To rebel against Jesus
Christ. To rebel against
God given authority is a
fool's errand. You can't win.
You will lose.
And yet throughout
history man continues
to rebel against God and people
go through their whole lives rebelling
against God and it's a
big waste of their time because they're never going to win.
They can't win. They just end up destroying
themselves. Look what the Bible says
in chapter 2 verse 1
of Psalms there. It says,
Why do the heathen
rage and the people
imagine a vain thing?
And the idea behind this rhetorical question is
what's the point?
It's stupid. What do you think you're going
to accomplish raging
and getting angry at the God
of the universe? I mean think about how
foolish it is to get angry
at God or criticize God
or say that you don't like the way that
God is. That's the way
He is. What are you going to
do about it? I mean if you think about it
He's the creator. We're
the created being. Shall the thing
formed say to Him that formed
it? You know, Why hast thou made me thus?
Right? You can't answer against
God. Right? God is
the creator. He has
all power. He has all
knowledge and it's foolish for us to
rage against Him, get
angry at Him, question Him.
He's the boss.
It's funny to hear
so-called intellectuals like
Richard Dawkins say, Well
I don't know if God exists or not
but certainly the God of the Bible doesn't exist
because I don't like Him.
I'm paraphrasing there a little bit but
that's basically what he says. He says,
You know the God of the Bible is
misogynistic or racist
or whatever slanders he throws
at the God of the Bible. But here's the thing
even if God were all those things that would not
prevent Him from existing.
Just because you don't like God
doesn't mean He doesn't exist.
It just means that you and He have a difference of opinion.
I'm going to go with the creator
on this one and not
the little peon creation
who was created yesterday in the scheme
of things and will die tomorrow in the scheme of things.
The eternal God
is the one who's right.
And so, why do the heathen rage
and the people imagine
a vain thing, right? Thinking
that they can somehow get mad
and fight back against God.
We're going to show God. Here's the thing.
When you try to show God
in your life, you end up just shooting yourself
in the foot. You just end up hurting yourself.
You're not going to hurt God
or His kingdom. The Bible says
in verse 2, the kings of the earth set themselves
and the rulers take
counsel together against the Lord
and against His anointed.
And of course, part of this
was fulfilled in the book of
Acts when this is quoted by
the apostles. And of course,
if you remember even when Jesus was on trial
for His life, if you remember
Pontius Pilate and
King Herod, they had been enemies
in the past, but then they become
friends in their prosecution
of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And this is prophetic of the fact
that kings of this earth
will one day unite
and assemble against the
Lord Jesus Christ. So we saw a little
bit of that at Christ's first advent
with Herod and Pilate and
other people conspiring. And then
the apostles are preaching in the book of Acts
and you have rulers and kings
conspiring against them. But really
this is going to see its ultimate
fulfillment in the second
coming of Christ, right? When we read
about the end times in the book of Revelation,
you have the world
uniting in a
one world government, right?
A one world system. There's going to be a
one world currency where
everyone has the same monetary system
because you can't buy or sell without
the mark of the beast. So it's obviously a centralized
one world financial system.
You have a one world religion
where everyone is
worshipping the beast. And then you have a
one world government where
all the major rulers
of the world, the ten kings
agree together to give
all their power to the anti-Christ and so forth.
And so you have this uniting
of leaders and governments
against the Lord Jesus Christ in the
end times, right? The kings of the
earth set themselves and the rulers
take counsel together against the Lord
and against his anointed.
Anointed is quoted in the New Testament
as Christ because the word Christ
literally means anointed. So it
says against the Lord and against his Christ
in Acts chapter 4 when
this is quoted.
Now what are they saying as the rulers
of this earth unite together against
the Lord and against his Christ, what are they saying?
They're saying, verse 3, let us break
their bands asunder
and cast away their cords from us, right?
And what that really is
speaking to is the fact that humans
do not want to obey God's
rules. You know, the
bands and the cords that we're talking
about are restraints,
restrictions.
God has rules. This
is right. This is wrong.
Thou shalt do this. Thou
shalt not do this. And
mankind often hates
God's morality and rebels
against those rules that God has in
place because he wants to live a wicked life,
right? And so he lives
according to his own lusts and says, hey,
let's break their bands asunder
and cast away their cords from us.
And of course, this is also a vain
thing, right? Why is it a
vain thing? Because
if you cast away
the cords of God's word, if you break
free of the bands of God's
commandments, what you'll find
is just a new taskmaster,
just new bands, new
restraints, and new cords. What do I mean by that?
Well, Jesus said, he that
committeth sin is the servant of
sin, right? And
that Bible also teaches the same thing in
Romans 6. Keep your finger here
in Psalm 2, and let's go over to
Romans chapter 6.
Romans
6 talks about the fact that
you're either going to serve God
as his servant, you're
either going to be in servitude to him
and obey him,
or you're going to end up obeying
sin, right? It's going to
be one or the other. You're going to obey Christ, you're going to obey
sin, but you're going to obey somebody.
Look what the Bible says in verse 16
of Romans chapter 6. Know ye not
that to whom ye yield yourselves servants
to obey, his servants
you are to whom you obey,
whether of sin unto death,
or of obedience unto righteousness.
But God be thanked that you were the
servants of sin, but you have
obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine
which was delivered you, being then made
free from sin, you became
the servants of righteousness.
And then look at verse 20. It says, for when
you were the servants of sin,
you were free from righteousness. So like,
yeah, let's get free from righteousness.
Let's break their bands asunder.
Let's cast their cords from
us, right? God the Father and Jesus Christ,
the Lord and his anointed.
Let's just free ourselves
from, you know, Christianity
and religion and all these
rules and things like that. But
here's the thing about that. It's stupid because you're
just now free from
righteousness and you're a servant to sin.
And those of us that serve
righteousness, we are
free from the slavery
of sin and the bondage of sin.
Because let's face it,
everybody is gonna have
a master at the end of the day, right?
Because if you're not serving God,
ultimately you're serving Satan.
Or you're serving sin.
Or you are serving whatever addictions,
the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the
eyes. You see, one way or another,
you are gonna have constraints
put upon your life.
Okay? I mean, who in this world
is just living a life of total freedom?
You know, if
you wanted to imagine like a
pure freedom. Well, a homeless
person, right? Because, I mean, nobody's
telling them what to do. They have no rules.
They don't have to get up at a certain
time. They have no schedule whatsoever.
You know, they don't have to be
home at a certain time because they don't even have a home
to go to. So there's no, there's no
curfew, okay? Because they're just out.
They just, you know,
they just do, but here's the thing.
Is that really freedom
when you're just
relying on somebody
giving you money
by the side of the road, you're standing by the road
begging for money just so that somebody
would give you money so that you can then
take that money and feed your
addiction. And it's not like
you wake up and just decide, nah,
I'm not really in the mood for heroin today.
No. They are
compelled to go seek
heroin. Or, eh, you know what? I'm not really
in a drinking mood. Drinking's getting boring.
No, no, no. They must drink.
They must take drugs.
They must
inject whatever, okay? They
are enslaved to
drugs and or alcohol.
And we could go through whatever example
you want. And here's the thing. You say, well,
rich people, you know, rich people, they just have all this freedom.
They just do whatever they want. But you know
the Bible says that the abundance of the rich
will not suffer him to sleep.
They're stressed out.
They're worried about their riches
and they have to just constantly be checking
their investments and they're thinking about money all the time.
And look, if you actually know rich people
in real life and then
watch them as they get old
and as they begin to start stressing
about what's going to happen to my money
when I'm gone or who's
going to inherit my money and they just can't stop
talking about, you know, who's going to inherit
it and what they're going to do with the money
and all this stuff. You know, it's just
another kind of bondage.
Okay.
Christ actually offers
the life with the most freedom.
Right? Where the spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty. Following
the few rules of the Bible,
few and
good and helpful
and healthy rules, you just follow
these few rules that God has for you
and you end up living this
really expansive life.
You end up having a lot of options
of what you can do, good things
that you can do. It's sort of like in the Garden
of Eden. You can eat of all these
different trees of the garden. There's just one that you're
not supposed to eat, but you can eat of all these other
trees, right? You end up with
all these options, this really
expansive situation. Living
a life
of Christianity is a life
of liberty and freedom. You know,
way more than the guy who's a gambling addict,
drug addict, porno addict,
addicted to
fornication, adultery, drugs,
whatever.
He that serves
sin in that way is not
really free, is he?
And also, by the way,
when you are talking about
unsaved people, the Bible says that unsaved people
walk according to the
course of the prince of the power of the air.
Satan is ultimately
pulling their strings and manipulating them, even
if they don't know it. Behind the scenes,
he actually manipulates them and makes them do things
that they maybe don't even want to do.
And so, this is a
vain thought
to say, well, let's break their
bands asunder. Let's cast their courts from us.
It's vain for two reasons. Number one
is that if you break those bands,
you're just trading one set of bands for another.
And it's also
vain because you're not going to win
in your war against God, right?
He that sitteth in the heavens, verse 4,
shall laugh. The Lord
shall have them in derision, right?
This is just a joke to God
when the kings of the world are
one day going to unite against the Lord Jesus Christ.
He's not worried about it.
He knows
that it's futile and vain
what they're trying to do. It says in verse 5,
Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath,
and vex them
in his sore
displeasure.
Yet have I set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion.
So this is basically what
God is saying to them.
Because, you know, he speaks to them in his wrath.
He vexes them in his sore displeasure.
At the end of the day, you can huff and puff
and be angry and
unite and have your united nations
and your council on foreign relations
and all of your different, you know,
organizations to try to overthrow
Christianity and righteousness and
godliness. But at the end of the day, still
because another word for yet is still
nevertheless
yet I have set
my king
upon my holy hill of Zion, the Lord Jesus
Christ, and his kingdom
will stand forever.
I will declare the decree
this is, of course,
Christ speaking. I will declare the decree
the Lord has said unto me
thou art my son
this day have I
begotten thee. Right?
Now, this is an important verse and of
course it's one that's butchered in the modern
Bible versions that
are not changing this
verse because of anything in the Hebrew
underlying this
but rather they want to make it easier
to understand, quote unquote
Right? This is their mantra
is that, oh, the King James is too hard to
understand. You know, you need something easier
to understand.
And so what they end up doing is they end up
taking away this word begat
and replacing it with
became the father
of or was the father of. Now,
you know, on the surface you might think
like, well, hey, that's kind of the same thing.
What's the big deal?
So, for example, in Matthew
chapter one where you have, you know,
Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac
begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judas
and his brethren. What does begat mean?
In that context it's talking about
siring a child.
Right? Fathering a child.
So, in the modern verses it's just like Abraham
was the father of Isaac.
Was the father of and so forth.
The problem here is that
in versions like the NIV
modern versions, they will change this to
thou art my son
today I've become your father.
Now, here's the problem with that
is that that makes it sound like
God was not his father before that.
Does everybody see the problem?
And you see, this verse
is actually quoted in
Acts chapter 13
about the resurrection of Jesus.
So, it says,
God raised Jesus from the dead
as it is written in the second
Psalm, thou art my son
this day have I begotten thee.
So, this would imply that
Jesus is not the son of
God until he raises from
the dead because in
the NIV it's saying
today I became your father, I became
your dad today.
As if Jesus were adopted or something.
You know, and that, you know,
he existed not with God
as his father and then, you know,
today, it's just stupid, right?
It doesn't make any sense. And you say,
well, I don't think people who use the NIV believe that.
I don't think people who use the NIV believe that either.
So, why does their stupid Bible say that then?
If it doesn't make any sense, they don't believe it,
I don't believe it, you don't believe it, nobody believes it,
then why'd they write that in their Bible?
Okay.
Because it's just this kind of sloppy
junk that's in these
modern versions that hasn't been thought
through in the name of making it
easier to understand. Well, look,
I'm not willing to sacrifice
accuracy
to make something easier to understand.
I'd rather have something that I can
at least take it to the bank that it's accurate
and maybe it's hard
to understand sometimes, I have to put it in a little work,
maybe reach for a dictionary
or something, maybe have
somebody help me or explain it to me, rather
than just have a book filled with error
and sloppy statements that I don't really know
if that's what it really means or not.
I don't really know if that's what the underlying Hebrew
even says, or if that's what even the
Greek even said, or if they're just trying to
dumb it down for me and just spoon feed
me, you know,
Abraham Dada
of Isaac.
Like that's all we can understand or something.
Abraham.
Let's just make it even easier, let's just make it even shorter
Abraham
de Papa Isaac.
Isaac de Papa
Jacob.
You know, I mean, it's just stupid
my friend. I'd rather have something that's maybe
written at a higher level
but at least it's conveying
the truth accurately,
clearly, we can actually
analyze it, preach about it, think about
it, base our doctrine on it.
Then to get this stupid
statement, today I became your
father.
Right? That's not biblical.
That's wrong.
Now what does it actually mean when he says,
thou art my son, this day have I begotten
thee. Well, the word
begat has to do with
causing
something to come into existence,
to bring something into existence.
Okay? In the sense that
if you sire a child,
right, you are now generating
a child.
You know, as a man you're providing the seed,
the woman provides the egg, and a new
life is generated.
Okay? Well, here's the
thing, Jesus Christ is called
the first begotten from
the dead. Now, how can
he be the first begotten from the dead?
Because Jesus said
that he was, he
said, I'm he that liveth and was dead
and behold I am alive forevermore
amen and have the keys of hell and of death.
So here's the thing, the Bible
will often use this term about someone
who's dead, he is not.
And then when someone's alive, he is.
And so the idea here
is that Jesus Christ
was dead for
three days and three nights, right? He died on the cross.
He was dead. He said in Revelation
chapter one, I was
dead. Right? So
it wasn't a show or a
facade or he was just kind of going through the motions
of being dead. I mean, Jesus was dead for
three days and three nights.
And the thing about that is
that when Jesus was dead,
he was resurrected by
God the father. And that
is referred to in scripture
as Jesus being begotten
by God the father
because of the fact that he
is being generated
or brought back to life
as it were, right? So he's
the first begotten from the dead. And then
we, when we're
unsaved,
are dead in our trespasses and sins.
And then
God comes along and resurrects our spirit.
And you know what the Bible calls that also?
That calls us being begotten
again. Begotten again,
right? So in the process
of resurrecting us,
basically, God is
begetting us. That's another
way of saying that. That's just, you know, and
here's the thing. If you compare scripture with scripture,
you know, this all adds
up in the King James. And you can kind of
figure this out. Look up all the verses about
begetting. Look up all these verses about the resurrection.
And you can actually form a coherent
doctrine here
comparing the resurrection of Christ
and our own salvation
and so forth.
Whereas the thing of like, well, today I became
your father. That really just implies
that he wasn't his father before that, which is
heresy because Jesus Christ
has always been the son of God
and always will be the son of God. He never
became the son of God.
He was the son of God in eternity
past. He will be the son of God
in eternity future. He is the same yesterday, today
and forever. Even in the Old Testament
he's called the son of God, even
before he was born, let alone
when he died and was buried and rose again.
And so he says,
I will declare the decree
the Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son this day
have I begotten thee. He's talking about Jesus
Christ being resurrected
from the dead. Ask
of me and I shall give thee the heathen
for thine inheritance and the uttermost
parts of the earth for thy possession.
So ultimately Jesus Christ is going to
rule and reign on this
earth and it's going to be the entire planet
including the uttermost
parts of the earth, meaning the most remote
regions. He's going to be ruling over
Greenland, you know, whether
it gets bought by the United States or not.
He's going to be ruling over all
of the far flung islands
and kingdoms of this world. He's going to
rule over the uttermost part of the earth.
And look what it says in
verse 9, it says,
thou shalt break them with a rod of iron
thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel.
Now look, when Jesus Christ comes to rule
and reign, he's not messing around.
I mean, he
is not going to just have
a free for all on the
thousand year millennial reign.
Things are going to go his way.
I mean, when Christ is reigning on this earth
it's going to be his way or the
highway. There's going to be no
free for all
anarchy, just anything goes,
every man doing what's right in his own eyes.
No, he is going
to be firmly in power
and he is going to enforce
his rule.
And these kings of the earth
that rage against him,
they will be crushed, right?
He will break them with a rod of iron.
He will dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel.
Now go if you would to Ecclesiastes
chapter number 10. We're going to come back
to Psalm 2. But go over to Ecclesiastes
chapter 10.
Ecclesiastes chapter 10
is a pretty interesting chapter. It deals with
a few different subjects, kind of goes
back and forth between
a few different subjects. But one
of the subjects that it does
deal with repeatedly and kind of comes back to
a few times is
this idea of rebellion.
Rebelling against authority
and speaking against
authority and so forth.
And ultimately, remember, the source
of authority is God, right? God is the
ultimate authority and then he gives authority
to human rulers.
He gives authority to parents over their children.
He gives authority to husbands over their wives.
He gives authority to bosses over their employees.
All power ultimately
emanates from God.
He is the one who
ordains authority.
And so, look what the Bible says
in chapter 10 verse 4. It says,
If the spirit of the ruler
rise up against thee,
leave not thy place
for yielding passifieth
great offenses.
Now what does the Bible say? The Bible is saying here
that we should not try to
fight against authority or rebel against authority.
When authority gets mad at you,
right? When the spirit of the ruler
rises up against you,
leave not your place for
yielding passifieth
great offenses.
What's another word for yielding?
Submitting.
Yielding, right? So, let's say I'm driving
down the road and
I come to a sign that says,
yield. Okay, what is that
saying? That's saying, hey, let the other
person go. You wait.
The other person actually
has precedence and you need
to wait and let the other people go.
And then when they're done going, now
you can go. That's what yielding means.
Right? So like
sometimes the yellow light will represent
yielding. You know, there'll be like a flashing yellow
light. You know, you have to wait.
If it's clear, you can go.
But if the other
road is going, you've got to sit and wait.
When you're in the Caribbean,
it's funny because a lot of the signs don't say
yield. Who knows what they say?
Who's been sold when
into the Caribbean? Come on.
What do the signs say? Does anybody know?
I've seen like 50 of these.
You guys need to be more observant. Give
way. Give way.
Okay, so all the signs that say, they don't
say yield, they say give way, brother.
Okay? Give way.
And so,
again, what's the thought here?
The idea here is yielding pacifies
great offenses, meaning that
let's say you have offended
the ruler and the ruler
is angry at you and you
submit if you yield,
well then that will typically pacify
the ruler.
You know, it's like the old saying,
you can't fight city hall.
Right? What you want to do is
submit to authority
when the ruler's mad at you,
make him happy.
Calm him down. Pacify
him by yielding to him
by submitting to his authority.
And here's the thing, you know, when Christ
is laying down the law,
that's what the smart
people and the smart rulers will realize,
hey, this is God Almighty here.
I need to just
get on his program.
If he's mad at me,
I better figure out how to make him happy.
You say, oh, you know, I feel like
God's got it in for me. Well then, you know what?
You better straighten up and fly right so that
he doesn't have it in for you anymore.
Because you don't want to go through life
with God having it in for you. Oh, I just
feel like my parents have it in for me.
Well, you know what? Straighten up and fly right.
Because yielding pacifies great offenses.
Figure out a way
to where you make your parents not be mad at you
anymore. Because I guarantee you
your parents aren't mad at you for being
so helpful and
being so pleasant
and being so obedient. That doesn't
make them mad. They're probably
mad at you because you're disobeying, you're breaking
rules, you're being a pain in the neck,
you have a bad attitude or whatever.
And so if the spirit of the ruler rides up against
thee, leave not thy place for yielding
pacifies great offenses.
There's an evil which I have
seen under the sun
as an error which proceedeth from the ruler.
Folly is set in great dignity
and the rich sit in low place.
I've seen servants upon horses
and princes
walking as servants upon the earth. And what
the author of Ecclesiastes is
describing here is a backward situation.
Right? A backward situation
where folly is set in
great dignity
and the rich are sitting in a low place
servants are riding on horses
and princes
are going on foot. Right? It's like everything's
backwards. Everything's flipped over.
Authority has been turned on its head.
Right? The power structure
of society has been
overthrown and
flipped over.
There's a similar thought in verse 16.
Woe to thee, O land, when thy
king is a child
and thy princes eat in the morning.
Right? And again,
this is not normal.
Right? You don't expect the king to be a child.
Right? You'd expect him to be like
a wise ruler
who's able to, you know, be
effective and powerful. Not a kid.
Right? You know, when
women and children rule over you
as in Isaiah chapter 3,
this is not the normal
situation. This isn't what you want. This isn't the blessing
of God. It's backwards.
Blessed art thou, O land,
when thy king is the son of nobles
and thy princes eat in due season
for strength and not for
drunkenness. Now, what does this
mean when it says thy princes eat in the
morning? This is just another way of saying
that they're children. Okay? Because here
anybody who has kids knows this. They wake
up really hungry every morning.
Now, when I wake up in the morning,
I'm not that hungry.
You know, and I have kind of a voracious appetite.
I really struggle with the sin of gluttony
because I just want to just eat
and eat and eat and I just don't
know when to stop eating. I'm just confessing my
faults to you. I eat way too much
food. Okay? But
here's the thing.
In the morning, I cannot
eat for a while. Like, I can go all the way
to lunchtime without eating. But once I take my first
bite of food, then it's on and I just
can't stop. And then I just eat,
eat, eat, eat, you know. So sometimes
I try to push that back as late in the day as I can
because in the morning I'm kind of just
ambivalent about food. I'm just kind of like, eh, whatever.
But every morning when we wake up,
you know, we hear
one of our toddler's first words,
which is a
word that he knows very well, which is the word
cereal. Okay? So, you know,
sometimes at 0 dark 30
you got this little toddler banging on your door.
And in fact, he banged on my
door this morning
and I said, who is it?
And he said, cereal.
Okay? So he did not
even identify himself. He didn't say
I'm Ollie,
good morning, you know.
And sometimes I'll say, who's
at the door? He'll say, Ollie, if it's
later in the day. But if it's in the morning,
it's like, my name is cereal.
Okay? And so,
you know, kids eat in the morning.
Right? They wake up and they
just want to eat right away.
And so, you know, woe unto
thee, O land, when thy king is a child. Right?
You don't want children to be in charge.
You don't want children running
things. You want
seasoned veterans running things.
Okay? You don't
want this backward thing
where the people who should be in charge
are not in charge. And you got
princes walking on the earth. You got the servants
riding on horses. Everything's
backwards. Right? This is not
right. But here's
what I want you to see.
Look what the Bible says. You might have missed it.
It says in verse number 5,
there's an evil which I've seen under the sun
and it's what we all just described
but here's the key phrase
that I don't want you to miss. There's
an evil which I've seen under the sun
as an error
which proceedeth from the ruler.
Don't miss that.
So this kind of backward
kids are in charge
and, you know, servants
are riding the horses, princes are walking on the
earth. Everything's flipped over.
Authorities turned on its head.
It's an error that
proceeds from who? Who's
the one who's allowing this to happen? The ruler.
You see,
it is the ruler's job
to maintain order
and discipline in a system.
Right? I mean, look,
don't you expect the
leadership of Tempe
or the leadership of the state of Arizona
to basically deal
with criminals and keep
the peace around here? I mean, if they're
not going to do that, what are they even good for?
Am I right?
You know, the Bible says in Romans 13
that God has ordained human government
for the punishment of evil
doers and he's ordained
human government
to make sure that people get punished
for things like stealing or
murder or whatever
and here's the thing. If there were
just chaos in the streets
and just murder and
rape and pillage and all
of this robbery going on,
you know, who would we blame? We'd say,
hey, this is a failed state.
We would say the city
of Tempe is failing. The city of Phoenix
is failing. Maricopa County
is failing. Arizona is failing.
Why? Because we expect the ruler
to maintain
order
and to have laws.
Arizona needs laws.
Phoenix needs laws. Tempe
needs laws and these laws
need to be enforced because laws
that are not enforced are no
laws at all.
I mean, what good is a law
that's not enforced?
Laws that aren't enforced
don't really mean anything.
They're kind of just a joke and so
it's a ruler's job to have
rules and enforce them
and to make sure
that the inmates
don't begin to run the institution.
And look,
this world contains some failed states,
doesn't it? There are some
places that we would point to
as a banana republic or
a failed state or third
world countries where
many times organized
crime syndicates
have more power than the government.
That's backwards.
It should be that the
criminals are
scared of the government and the government's
reining in the criminals. That's what we want.
But many times in a failed
state, the government is actually
answering to the crime syndicate.
This is, of course, shameful.
This is poor leadership,
a bad government, bad ruler.
Good ruler
reigns things in. And then every once in a while
you'll have a good ruler come along
and clean house.
And he'll clean up the streets,
arrest all the gang members,
arrest all the organized criminals,
throw them in jail, or better yet,
these violent gang members
should be executed. You know, a bunch
of murdering monsters,
okay, they should be killed.
And many times,
you know, leaders will rise
up that will be tough on crime
and deal with those things and make the
streets safe again for
decent people to live
a quiet and peaceable life in all
godliness and honesty, okay.
And so what I want you to take
from Ecclesiastes chapter 10
is this idea of children ruling
and
folly being set in great dignity
and princes
are walking and servants are on the
horses and everything's backward
everything, it's an error that proceeds
from the ruler. It's the
ruler's job to make sure that this doesn't happen.
Okay, it's the ruler's job to make sure
that authority is
maintained. So let's go back, if you
would, to Psalm chapter 2.
And, you know, while you're
turning to Psalm chapter 2, let me give you another
good scripture on this from Ecclesiastes
chapter 8 verse 10 says, or
verse 11, it says, because sentence
against an evil work
is not executed speedily,
therefore
the heart of the sons of man is
fully set in them to do evil.
Don't miss this. Because sentence
against an evil work is not executed
speedily, therefore
the heart of the sons of man is fully
set in them to do evil.
You see, in order to have
order and keep
wickedness at bay and keep
society functioning well
and to keep wickedness from prevailing,
you know, you have to punish
crime and it has to be punished
speedily. Okay.
And this is why also in our
own constitution and our bill of rights
one of the things that we're supposed to
be guaranteed is a speedy trial.
Which in the state of Arizona
that is defined as a trial that
is finished in six months.
Right? So it should be from the
time you get arrested to the time the
trial is totally done and there's a verdict
is supposed to be a period
of only six months. Okay.
And that's, I mean, to me that's already kind of a long
time. But that's
plenty of time
to get all your witnesses and testimony
and defense and prosecution. But, you
know, a lot of times these things just end up dragging on
for years because they don't care what the constitution says
and they'll just let things drag on
for years and it's years later that
things are happening. And then you'll get
somebody convicted
and they get put on death row and then they're just
on death row for the next 15 years.
20 years. 25 years. Right? There's
no speedy
execution of justice. And then they say
the death penalty doesn't work.
Well, maybe the death penalty would work
if it happened sometime in this lifetime.
You know, it's like, it's
like, you're going to die 25 years
from now. That's not really that scary.
As like,
you're going to die tomorrow.
I mean, what's scarier to you?
25 years. They're like, oh man,
I'll worry about that later.
I've got plenty of time to worry about that.
Okay. And
by the way, it's so funny this
garbage of, oh, death penalty
doesn't work. Then why did God institute?
Is God stupid? Is that what you think?
Because I think you're stupid and I think God is
right. You know, and
oh, spanking your kids doesn't work.
I guess God was stupid when he told us to spank our
kids then, huh? No, I think you're stupid
and I think God's right. I think
the psychologists are stupid. I think
the so-called experts are stupid because
there's no wisdom or counsel
or understanding or knowledge
that goes against the Lord.
Right? God is right
about everything all the time.
And the rest of the world is just trying to catch
up to him, if anything.
And so maybe
the reason why
execution
isn't working, quote
unquote, is
maybe because you're dragging out over 20 years
and God never told you to do that.
Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you're
just not deploying it the way that
God intended.
And by the way, how can you say the death penalty doesn't
work? 100% of people
who receive the death penalty do not reoffend.
They're
all reformed. They
never kill anyone again. They never rape
anyone again. They never molest anyone again.
100% success rate.
Not a single
exception to that rule.
But it also would work as a
deterrent if it were executed
speedily.
And if it were more prevalent.
And so, you know, we
need to do things God's way. And then the people
say, oh, spanking doesn't work. Well, you know
what? Maybe he didn't spank them hard enough.
How about that? Because you know what the Bible says?
He that spareth his rod
hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth
him betimes. And here's what's funny is that
a lot of times when people hear this thing of
he that spareth his rod,
they think it means not spanking your children at
all. Is that really what
spare means, though?
If I said
spare no expense,
you know, I'm not saying, well, be sure
you spend something.
What am I saying?
I'm saying, hey, be liberal.
Okay? What if I
said, hey, hey, don't
spare, you know, when you're
don't spare the sugar
in my coffee or something.
I'm not saying put a tiny bit of sugar in my
coffee. I'm not saying I don't want to drink it black.
I'm saying put a lot of sugar in the coffee.
And you know what? When the Bible says he that
spareth his rod
hateth his son, you know, you could spank your
children and still be sparing the rod
if you only spank sparingly.
Hello, is anybody home?
Because you're doing
it sparingly.
Because, you know, oh, well, you know, I
only just believe in spanking kids
as a last resort,
you know, once every blue moon
you give them this little spanking
that doesn't hurt and doesn't leave a
mark and doesn't, you know, and then, you know,
that's what the Bible means. Really?
Because the Bible says thou shalt beat him with the rod
and shall deliver his soul from hell.
And he that spareth his rod
hateth his son. That's what the Bible actually says.
And you know what? It doesn't matter
what this world says. That's what the Bible
says. And so, we
got a lot of preachers today that are preaching
to spare the rod. They're saying,
oh, I believe in spanking.
A word that I can't find in my Bible, by the way.
Spanking.
Zero hits. No pun intended.
Search the word spanking
and you'll get zero hits in the Bible.
Can't find the word spank.
Can't find the word spanking. Found the word
beat. Found the word
scourge.
Don't spare the rod.
Okay, what's the Bible saying? The Bible's
saying that you have to
give your kids a serious
spanking and a serious amount of spankings.
Okay? To deliver their
soul from hell. Or
you can just buy into this world's
little namby-pamby
parenting or whatever.
Hey, go ahead. And you say, well, you're one to
talk pastor Anderson. Well, you know what? I'm right
because the Bible's right.
It doesn't matter what other
people can rise up and criticize me.
And by the way, let me just say this.
I don't give a rat's whatever
what my kids think about my parenting.
Because last time I checked
I ride on the horse and they walk on the earth.
Last time I checked
I'm in charge and
I'm the judge and they
are the ones who need to listen and learn.
And not tell me how to do my
job.
This is going to tell me how to do my job.
And not a bunch
of ungrateful brats
who don't like the fact that they got a whipping.
And so here's the thing. Yeah.
It works. But
it has to be done right.
You know? You can't sit there
and bare... You know what it's
like? It'd be like you went to the gym
and just barely put any weight on the barbell
and you're just going...
And then you're just like, I didn't build any muscle.
It didn't work. Bench press doesn't work.
Squats don't work.
And you're just...
It's like, no man. It's because
you didn't put enough weight on the bar.
You're not working hard enough.
You're not pushing it hard enough. That's why it didn't work.
And so when the Lord Jesus
Christ returns, he
is going to execute judgment on the wicked.
And when you have
an institution
where the power structure is
backwards, it is an error that proceeds
from the ruler.
At the end of the day,
the United States of America
is a feminist place now
because men have allowed it to
become a feminist place.
Husbands have allowed their wives to take over.
It's an error that proceeds from the ruler.
You know what I mean? Because
at the end of the day, it's
the husband's job to rule his house.
You know, to rule his house.
But now, of course, we have preachers teaching
hey,
kids rebel,
nothing you can do about it.
Wife rebels,
nothing you can do about it.
You just, just love them.
Just love them. You know, it's funny,
Jesus isn't going to come on a
rainbow like the Care Bears or something
and just
sprinkle a bunch of fufu dust
on everybody. He's going to come with a rod of
iron and he's going to break them in pieces.
Because he's going to make sure
that things get enforced.
Okay.
And I'm sorry to confuse
you with the Bible, but this is what
the Bible clearly teaches. Go back to Psalm
2, it says, thou shalt break them with a rod
of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces
like a potter's vessel. Be wise
now therefore, ye kings. Be instructed
ye judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear
and rejoice
with trembling. Look,
the only answer
to the Lord Jesus Christ,
his reign,
his authority,
the only answer is,
get on his program.
Get on his program.
Serve him with fear
and rejoice with
trembling. And not only
must you serve the Lord Jesus
Christ, you must serve him
and like it.
Because the Bible says, kiss the son
lest he be angry.
He comes with a rod of iron,
he's ready to crush all
opposition, and he says, give
me a kiss right here.
I mean, this is
the Bible, folks.
The Lord Jesus
Christ is
Lord of all. He is God
Almighty,
and resistance against him is futile.
Rebellion is totally futile.
If you rebel against the
Lord, you are shooting yourself
in the foot, you are only hurting yourself.
Kiss the son
lest he be angry and you perish from the way
when his wrath is kindled, but a little,
I mean, you don't even want to make the Lord Jesus
Christ a little bit mad
when he is ruling and reigning on this earth.
Now, this is
not always the image of Christ that is
portrayed, because of the fact that when Jesus
Christ came to this earth the first time,
he came as a lowly servant,
he came as a humble servant,
he's washing the disciples' feet,
he's going through life,
serving others,
and setting an example,
and that's great. Amen.
That's an important aspect of who the Lord Jesus
Christ is.
But what we have to understand is that Jesus
Christ came to this earth as the lamb of God,
but he's not returning as the lamb
necessarily in that regard.
He's coming more like the lion of the tribe
of Judah.
He's coming back as the king of the jungle
with a roar.
Okay.
And we have to understand that God
is not this overly simplistic
character, but that God is
complex. Yes, God is love,
but God also is holy and has
wrath. Yes, God
came to this earth and took
upon himself the form of a servant,
and now, Jesus has been highly
exalted, and every knee is
going to bow, and every tongue is going to confess
that he's Lord. And he is
coming back, and he's taken no prisoners.
People that
will not submit to Christ's
reign when he returns, they're not going to prison.
They're just going to die.
It's that simple.
And they're not going to the good place either.
It says,
His wrath is kindled, but a little.
Blessed are all they that put their trust
in him. Don't even make him a little bit mad.
And look, again, what did the Bible say in
Ecclesiastes chapter 10?
It said, look, if the
spirit of the ruler rise up against
you,
yielding pacifies
great offenses.
You know, just like the Lord Jesus
Christ, when his wrath is kindled,
you don't want to get
on his bad side. You want to
kiss the son, lest he be
angry. You want to serve
him with fear and rejoice with trembling.
And again, the practical
application of this is that you
must submit to the
earthly authorities that God has placed
in your life.
And it doesn't matter how stupid and
backward our society becomes,
as for me and my house, we will serve
the Lord.
My kids are not going to be asked
whether they want to go to church.
They will go to church.
OK?
My family
who lives in my house is under my
authority. They are going to do
right. They are going to serve God.
They are going to come to church.
They're going to read their Bibles.
They're not going to bring abominable,
wicked, sinful things into my
house. My
daughters are not going to dress in a way that
I don't approve of.
Right? My sons are not going to
engage in behaviors that I don't approve of.
As long as they're living in my house, they're
going to follow my rules.
OK? And if I
allowed my house to become a free-for-all,
where people just do whatever,
then that would be an error proceeding
from the ruler.
God has ordained me
to rule my home and I
must rule my home.
And that means ensuring that my wife is in
subjection and that my children are in subjection
with all gravity. And
making sure that they are
living for God. Because
that is who is under my authority.
They're going to live for God. Right?
But this whole idea is foreign today.
Because we live in a rebellious,
accursed generation
that rises up
and spits in the face of their parents,
spits in the face of God Almighty,
spits in the face of
all righteous authority, spits
in the pastor's face, spits in the
churches, doesn't respect the church,
doesn't respect the pastor, doesn't respect
God-given authority.
At the end of the day, though,
any rebellion against God
is futile. Any rebellion
against God's institutions is futile.
You rebelling against your parents
is one of the stupidest things that you could possibly
do because you are angering God
Almighty and you are not going
to win in that battle.
You are going to lose.
OK? And all you're going to do is,
I'm going to show, I'm going to show Mom and
Dad, I'm going to paint my hair
green and get a weird piercing
and get a weird, you're just making yourself look like
an idiot.
Amen?
I'm going to show
my parents, I'm going to go, you know, get
knocked up or I'm going to go,
look, you're destroying your own life.
OK?
And you're incurring
the wrath of God Almighty.
Rebellion against
the Lord is futile. You can rage,
you can get mad
at the Lord, you can get mad
at your parents, and look, here's the thing,
sometimes authority figures
can have rules that we don't like
or do things that we don't like,
raging against them is stupid
and worthless.
Getting mad at your husband,
getting mad at your parents, getting mad at the boss
at work, and look, you go to work
and just get mad at the
boss because he has a policy
you don't like, you're not going to succeed
at work.
You know, this is good practical advice, even
for the workplace.
You know, you men, when you go
to your job, you better
obey the boss and you better like it.
OK?
And otherwise, if you can't do that,
you really should just find a different job.
But guess what? You can't find
different parents and you can't find a different husband.
You got to stay with the same
husband, you got to stay with the same parents.
Right? That's who God has given you.
You know, when it comes to a job, sometimes you can switch.
You can change it up.
But at the end of the day, though,
you had better go to
work and kiss the boss
lest he be angry.
OK?
And not have this attitude
of rebellion against the boss. And you know what?
It makes me sick when people
are rebellious against their workplace.
It's
foolish, it's ungodly,
it's wicked, and you know, this whole
labor union mentality and
you know, rising up against, it's garbage,
it's not biblical.
The Bible doesn't teach that.
That the employees, you know, run things
and democracy and all this stuff.
That's not what the Bible says.
The Bible says, servants, be obedient to them
that are your masters according to the flesh, even
if your master is froward.
You still be obedient
to your master.
And the
problem is that our culture is sometimes
glorifying rebellion, even all the way down
to little kids cartoons
and Hollywood movies.
You know, everything is just about
breaking free of authority,
rebelling against our parents,
you know, rebelling against the system
and all this kind of stuff. And it isn't right.
It's part of our culture.
But at the end of the day, when we go to the Bible,
the Bible tells us to follow authority.
OK? And we've all had authority
figures in our lives. We all
have situations where we need to submit to other people.
And you know who hates submitting to other people?
Prideful people.
You know why the teenager mouths
off to their parent and then when their parent
corrects them, they just
just refuse to apologize
or refuse to make things right?
It's because they're prideful.
And you know what? God hates
the proud look. Proud look is an abomination
to the Lord. And it's just
pride that doesn't
want to take correction. And look,
today on workplaces,
how many times do you see someone get corrected
and it's like people
just can't take it? They freak
out. And that, to
me, that is the biggest deal breaker with an employee.
If I have an employee
I can't correct, I don't care how good they are,
they're out. They're gone.
That would be, I mean look, if
someone worked here, and I've run a
secular business as well, but if someone worked here
at Faith Forward Baptist Church and I went to correct
this person and they couldn't take the correction,
I would dismiss them immediately. I don't
care how good they were.
That is a deal breaker.
And we live in like a whole
generation of people where you
have to handle them with kid gloves.
You can never tell them that they made a mistake
or something. You have to be like, well good
job, but maybe you could just do this
a little bit better, you know?
And you have to like sugar coat it, right?
Who knows what I'm talking about? It's like, you have to like
handle people with kid gloves instead of just
like, no, you did it wrong, do it
again. Fix it. Don't do that again.
Fix this. Get this right.
You know, it should just be, yes sir!
Right away sir!
And you just fix it and get it done.
I remember, I had a boss,
he would yell at me all the time,
and you know, from my perspective
I didn't think he was always right.
Sometimes I felt like I was being treated
unfairly and that he was yelling at me about stuff
that I was
you know, totally
right about.
But he's yelling at me about it, but you know what?
My response was, hey, I'm sorry, what can I do
to fix this?
Right? Let me know what I can do to fix this
because I want to make this right. I'm sorry.
Let me get it right.
You want to know why I did that?
Is because
I was making good money.
And I was like,
this is a sweet gig.
And so this guy
can yell at me and cuss me all he wants
as long as the money's green,
he can call me whatever he wants.
He can yell at me whenever he wants
and I'm gonna just say, yes sir, and just take it.
But you know what? Here's an even better reason
is because God has commanded us to submit to authority.
God has commanded us
that a soft answer turns away wrath.
God has commanded us
that yielding pacifies
great offenses and that if the
ruler's spirit rises up against us
we should not leave our place.
We need to stay
in our proper roles
and figure out
a way to get along
with our bosses in this world.
And you know what? If you
fail to get along with your boss at this job,
you're probably not gonna get along with the boss at the next job either.
And if
you rebel against your husband
and divorce your husband, you're probably not gonna get along
with the next husband either.
Or you're just gonna finally figure out,
oh wait, now that I'm on the third one
I better submit and do what I'm told.
I better chill out.
And by the way,
daughters who rebel
against their parents?
You think they're gonna submit to their husbands?
I doubt it.
Right? Because the same girl
that's gonna rebel against her parents
is also gonna rebel against her husband.
Right? And here's the thing.
You know, I've tried to tell so many people this
is that, you know, the problems
that you're going through right now in life
are gonna be repeated over and over again.
You know, so like
whatever difficult person
you're dealing with at your job, you're gonna deal
with more people like that later.
You don't just deal with one difficult person
when you're 15 and then never again.
No. You spend your whole life
dealing with difficult people.
And you learn
how to deal with people.
Right? And it's like, if you don't
learn the lesson, you're just gonna
keep on
failing. And so, you know,
when you're a teenager, learn
how to make your parents happy.
Then, when you're married,
right, you'll be able to make your husband
happy someday. You'll know how to
make peace with him. Right?
And look, let's face it, living
in a family is not always easy because
when you live with someone closely, you can
get on each other's nerves.
Even some of those people that aren't related
who are just roommates or something, they end up getting on
each other's nerves just from living in the same house
and, you know, being in
close quarters like that. You know, there are gonna be
struggles. You've got to learn how to get
along with people
and how to get through conflict
because you're
gonna continue dealing with
those same situations for the rest of your life.
And so, the Bible's
clear, I'm gonna close with that, but the Bible's
clear in Psalm chapter 2
that rebellion is futile.
Whether that's rebellion against God
or whether that's rebellion against
your human authority, it
is vain. There's a vanity
of rebellion. You can't win.
You only end up hurting yourself.
You're not gonna be blessed by God.
Do not be a rebel.
Submit to
your earthly authority.
And, if you are in authority,
it is your job
to make sure that you keep
order and enforce authority.
Okay? You must
enforce the authority
that you wield and not
just throw up your hands and say whatever. I mean, think about it.
I'm the pastor of the church and here's the thing.
My authority as the pastor is
way different than
like an authority of a
boss at work or
authority of
a husband over his wife or a parent
over their child. My authority as the
pastor is a lot different because I'm not
to be a lord over God's
heritage, but I'm to be an example to the flock
and so I don't
wield the kind of heavy-handed
authority in the church
that maybe parents would
yield or something like that. Right?
Because, obviously, I'm not your parent.
You're not my child.
You're here as a volunteer
and, you know, we're here
as a team. We're working together.
But, at the same time,
although I don't have that kind of
serious authority over you that, say,
your husband or parent
would have over you, here's the thing.
As the pastor of the church, though, I do
have authority when it comes to the way the church
operates. You know, I'm overseeing
the church. So, I'm not running your
personal life or coming to your home or anything,
but I am running the church.
Right? I have a certain authority here.
Now, here's the thing.
What if I'm the pastor of the church,
right, and a bunch of people
are just using the NIV
in the church and people are out
soul-winning with the NIV
and people in the pew are reading from the NIV,
right?
What do you think about that?
Do you think that I'm doing my job well?
You know, or what about
if, basically,
let's say I tell
the music people and say,
hey, you know,
we're not going to have this kind of music
or we're not going to sing this song.
What if I said, hey, we're not going to sing this song
because it's doctrinally incorrect. Don't sing it.
And then they just sing it anyway.
And we're just singing a song
that teaches repent of your sins
salvation.
And I just go,
I told them not to sing it,
but here we are. And then we just keep singing it
and we got the NIV
and we just, you know,
I mean, I guess I could sit and think
of more examples, but the point is,
you know, don't you expect me
as the pastor of the church
to actually
make sure that things go the way that
they're supposed to go?
And actually enforce
some things? Or what if I said, well,
you know, I told this guy that he was thrown out
as a drunkard, but he just keeps coming
so,
I don't know, I mean, we told him he was thrown out, but he keeps coming.
Wouldn't you expect us to enforce that?
Because here's the thing, if we threw somebody
out of the church for being a drunkard and they kept coming, you know what we would do?
Well, what do you think we would do?
If you walk through the door, what do you think we'd do?
We'd pick him up
and drag him out the door. That's what we would do.
Right? And you know what?
Look, if somebody came up here
and started singing, you know,
some heretical song that we'd
banned or something, you know, I'm going to get up
and stop the service and say, no.
You know, if some guest preacher
came in and started preaching works-based
salvation and preaching heresy,
I would just, I wouldn't just go,
what can you do?
You know, we'd get
that cane and pull him off the stage.
You know, like with the hook, you know, whoop.
Yeah, get this bozo out.
You know, and here's the thing.
In fact, that video clip is one of the things
that I'm probably the most famous for.
Is when that weird,
crazy person comes and tries to take over
the service, wants me to read a Catholic prayer
off a piece of paper, told people
in the parking lot he's Michael the Archangel,
okay, comes up and
says, oh, I just want to have this prayer read.
We don't read prayers
here. We pray
from the heart to God. We don't read a
prayer. We're not Catholic.
He walked up behind me, holds up, he's
going with this prayer read. I look, it was a bunch of
weird mumbo-jumbo. I'm
in the middle of preaching an important sermon.
This bozo wants
to come up and take over the service with
some unbiblical prayer
after he's telling people he's Michael the Archangel
because he has drug-induced psychosis
of the religious grandeur delusion variety.
And what did we do?
He said, drag this bozo
out of here.
I'm running the service.
But here's the thing.
Oh, how could you? I guess I'm just supposed to just let
anybody take over.
Right? Just anybody just
comes and preaches. Women can preach
behind the pulpit. And
heretics can preach behind the pulpit. First time
visitors can come up and take over the service.
Right? Now, wouldn't you expect
me as the leader
to actually make sure
that things go a certain way? Isn't that
my job?
Okay. Well, guess what? That's your
job, Dad.
In the home.
That's your job, City of Phoenix.
Right? Enforce things.
We don't want
to live in a failed state.
We want crimes to be punished.
Okay. Well, guess what?
You're going to have to punish things in your house
and we're going to have to sometimes
as a church enforce things
and draw the line at certain things.
And say, no.
And we're not going to let it happen.
We're going to put a stop to it.
This is part of the burden
of being a leader. Okay?
And leadership is not just saying,
hey, this is how it's going to be
and I hope you love me enough to do it.
No, because
sometimes the hardest part about leadership is
like having to tell people no, having to put
your foot down, having to discipline,
having to actually enforce
things. That's kind of the difficult part about leadership.
You know,
and so the Lord God
is supreme,
but he has also ordained a lot of other human authority
and rebellion against authority
is vanity. Let's borrow our word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word
and we thank you for the fact
that Christ is coming someday and we're
all excited and looking forward to his
reign because we will definitely
kiss the sun and we
are thrilled
to be under his leadership.
Lord God, please
just help us as we navigate this sinful
world, Lord, help us to submit
to the authorities in our lives,
help us to yield
to those that are over us
and Lord God, help us
who are in authority
to make sure that we enforce
that authority and not
have a failed leadership that
enforces nothing and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.
Amen.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, take your hymnals, please.
Go to Hymn 149,
hymn number 149,
Trusting Jesus.
Hymn 149.
We'll sing this out
together, starting with that verse.
149, simply trusting
every day.
149.
Lift your voice together now.
Simply trusting
every
day.
Trusting
in the
Holy Way.
Even
when my faith
is small.
Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Trusting
as the
moments fly.
Trusting
as the
days go by.
Trusting
Him
whatever
we call.
Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Why we've got
this Spirit
shine.
Isn't this
the heart
of mine?
While we
leave, I
dare not
fall.
Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Trusting
as the
moments fly.
Trusting
as the
nights go by.
Trusting
Him whatever
we call.
Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Singing
if my
faith is
clear.
Praying
Him the
path we
fall.
Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Trusting
as the
moments fly.
Trusting
as the
days go by.
Trusting
Him
whatever
we call.
Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Trusting
Him how
life shall
pass. Trusting
Him
to earth be
past.
Will we live
the
cask of
fall. Trusting
Jesus, that
is all.
Trusting
as the
moments fly.
Trusting
as the
days go by.
Trusting
Him
whatever
we call.
Trusting
Jesus,
that
is all.
Thank you.