It's really surprising.
back to our services here at Faith Ward Baptist Church.
So good to see you all here this evening.
Find your seats now, grab a song, but go to hymn 185.
We'll get started this evening.
Hymn number 185, 185, my Savior's love.
Hymn number 185, let's lift our voices together.
Nice and strong, starting with that first verse, 185.
I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus in Nazareth.
I said
I want to ask Lord's blessing on the service,
so I've asked brother Fadlagon's loss,
say a few words, please.
Father in heaven, we thank you for our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ.
We also thank you, Lord, for 19 years,
a faithful word in the valley.
We ask you to continue blessing us
for many more years to come.
Please bless our voices as we lift them up to you in praise
and fill Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit.
It's in Jesus' name we pray.
Amen, back of page 184, 184.
I love the my Jesus in number 184 we'll lift up our voice on that first
and slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one on the inside.
We have our service time Sunday mornings
at 10 30s are preaching service.
Sunday nights at six Wednesday night.
Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study.
This week we will be in Second Chronicles, chapter 31.
Also, this Wednesday night is January 1st,
so make sure that you start the year off right
by being in church from day one of 2025.
It's going to be a great year,
and so I want you to be there in your place on Sunday night for that,
or Wednesday night I should say for that service.
You're already here on Sunday night,
but this doesn't count because it's 2024.
So if you can only come tonight or Wednesday,
go ahead and leave and come back Wednesday night
because that's for 2025, which is more important.
And then we've got a baby shower coming up
on Sunday, January 5th.
So that's just one week from today for Eileen Urban.
That's gonna be right here at two o'clock.
All ladies and teenage girls are invited to attend.
Please leave the kids at home
and just bring only the nurselings.
And please RSVP to Mrs. Chandler Avgulis,
food will be provided.
On the back, we also have donuts and coffee
before the service next Sunday morning
for the birthdays and anniversaries of January.
Keep praying for our expectant ladies.
We got a long list there of ladies who are expecting.
Pray that they'll have a safe and healthy
pregnancy and delivery.
And then a couple other upcoming events listed there at the bottom.
Pastor Aaron Thompson preaching on January 22, Wednesday night.
And so you won't want to miss that.
And that's about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days.
Going back to Thursday, which was the 26th, anything from Thursday, the 26th.
OK. All right.
And then how about Friday, anything from Friday?
Anything else from Friday? What about Saturday?
Okay.
Anything else from Saturday? Okay.
And then today, Sunday, I know there were four with the main group with Brother Scott.
So, outside of Brother Scott's group.
Okay.
Gotcha. Any other groups?
Oh, there we go. Is that a five?
Okay.
All right, very good.
Keep up the great work on soul winning with that.
Let's sing our next song.
Come lead us.
All right, you should find the insert in front of your hymnal
with the hymn entitled, Born to Die.
If you have an insert that has two songs on it,
we're only singing Born to Die.
But lift your hand up if you don't have an insert.
You can receive one.
I still need more time.
Take your hymnals now go to hymn 174 hymn number 174 my Jesus. I love the hymn number
as the plates go around, 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 one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads,
Ecclesiastes chapter 10, beginning in verse number one.
Ecclesiastes chapter 10, the Bible reads,
Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary
to send forth a stinking saver.
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.
Ye 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 pacifyeth great offenses.
There is an evil which I have seen under the sun, as an error which precedeth from the ruler.
Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.
I have seen servants upon horses, and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
He that dig at the pit shall fall into it, and who so breaketh an edge, a serpent shall bite him.
Who so removeeth stones shall be hurt therewith, and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby.
If the iron be blunt, and ye 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.
Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles, and thy princes eat and do season, for strength and not for drunkenness.
By much slothfulness the building decayeth, and through idleness of the hands the house dropeth through.
A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry, but money answereth all things.
Curse not the king, know not my 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 word boldly and please give us ears and hearts to be attentive to the word.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Man, 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
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
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 where
What are you gonna 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 is that 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 you know, whatever slanders he throws at the God of the Bible
But here's the thing even if the 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 fight.
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
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
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 market of the beast.
So it's obviously a centralized one world financial system. You have a one world religion
where everyone is worshiping the beast. And then you have a one world government where
major rulers of the world, the 10 kings, agree together to give all their power to the Antichrist
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
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,
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 chords 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 of thunder
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 committed sin is the servant of sin, right?
And the Bible also teaches the same thing in Romans 6.
Keep your finger here in Psalm 2,
and let's go over to Romans 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 at the Bible says in verse 16 of Romans 6, No ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves
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 to you,
being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness.
And then look at verse 20, it says,
You were free from righteousness.
So like, yeah, let's get free from righteousness.
Let's break their bands of thunder.
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 going to 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 going to 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. 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 it, 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
I'm not really in the mood for heroin today
No, they are compelled to go seek heroin or you know what?
I'm not really in a drinking mood drinking is getting boring. 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 gonna happen to my money
When I'm gone or who's gonna inherit my money and they just can't stop talking about you know
Who's gonna inherit it and what they're gonna do with the money and that you know 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,
you know, addicted to fornication, adultery, drugs, whatever.
Okay, the 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.
You know, 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 four, 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
He knows that it's futile and vain what they're trying to do 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 swordest pleasure.
At the end of the day, you can huff and puff and be angry and unite and have your united
nations and your counsel on foreign relations and all of your different, you know, organizations
to try to overthrow Christianity and righteousness and godliness.
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.
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 a
big deal
So, for example, in Matthew chapter 1, 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, Isaac was the father of and so forth.
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 me.
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,
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, like that's all we can understand or something.
Abraham, but let's just make it even easier.
Let's just make it even shorter and so on.
Abraham, the papa, Isaac.
Isaac, the 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 begot 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'm
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 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.
unsaved, are dead and 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 and eternity passed. 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 in Rose again and
so he says I
Will declare the decree the Lord had said to me thou art my son this day if I've gotten thee
Stuck my 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 nine.
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 raining 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.
Now 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.
You know, 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
Rise up against thee, leave not thy place, for yielding pacifyeth 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 pacifyeth
great offenses.
What's another word for yielding?
Submitting.
yielding, right? So, like, if I'm driving, 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 that 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 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 went into the Caribbean? Come on. What is this? What are 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, brada. 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.
It's like the old saying, you can't fight city hall.
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, 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
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. You 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 rise up against thee leave not that place for yielding pacified great offenses
There's an evil which I have seen under the sun
as an error which proceeded from the ruler.
Folly is said 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 said 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 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, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat
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.
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 the Olay and win thy king as 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.
Look what the Bible says, you might have missed it.
It says in verse number five, 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? 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.
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, right? 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 how you know 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
Okay, 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 reigning 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 2.
And you know, while you're turning to Psalm 2, let me give you another good scripture
on this from Ecclesiastes, chapter 8 verse 11, it says, because sentence against an
evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of man is fully setting
Don't miss this because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily
Therefore the heart of the sons of men 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, in 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 our 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 but you know a lot of times these things they've set 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 gonna die 25 years from now.
That's not really that scary.
As like, you're gonna die tomorrow.
I mean, what's scarier to you?
25 years, oh man, I'll worry about that later.
And by the way, it's so funny this garbage of, oh, if death pills, it 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
Oh, 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 re-offend.
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 the other way.
And the people who say, oh, spanking doesn't work.
Well, you know what?
Maybe you didn't spank them hard enough.
How about that?
Because you know what the Bible says?
He that spareth his rod, hated his son.
But he that loveth him, chasteth 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.
What if I said, hey, hey, 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, hated the sun, 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 shalt deliver his soul from hell.
And he that spareth his rod, hated 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, 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
Don't spare the rod. Okay, what's the Bible saying? The Bible is 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 past her instant. Well, you know what?
I'm right because the Bible is right
And 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.
and not a bunch of ungrateful brats who don't like the fact that they got a whippin'.
And so here's the thing. Yeah, it works, but it has to be done right.
You know you can't sit there and and bear if 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 I didn't build any muscle. It didn't work bench press doesn't work
Squats don't work, you know, 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.
Okay, 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. Why for bells? 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 with you 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, O ye kings.
Be instructed ye judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.
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 sun 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 so forth.
And that's great.
Amen.
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,
you know, came to this earth and took upon himself the form of a servant, but now Jesus
has been highly exalted and every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to
People that will not submit to Christ's reign when he returns. They're not going to prison. They're just gonna die
It's that simple and they're not going to the good place either
Says serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling kiss the Sun
Lest he be angry and you perish from the way when 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, right, yielding pacifies great offenses.
You know, just like the Lord Jesus Christ, when His wrath is kindled, you don't want
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 in 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
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
Okay, 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
It God as 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…
A cursive 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 church, doesn't respect the church, doesn't respect the pastor, doesn't
respect God-given authority.
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.
Okay, and all you're gonna do is search.
Oh, I'm gonna show, I'm gonna show mom and dad.
I'm gonna pay my hair green and get a weird piercing
and get a weird, you're just making yourself
look like an idiot.
Amen?
I'm gonna show my parents I'm gonna go you know get knocked up or I'm gonna go do it look
You're destroying your own life
Okay, 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 gonna 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
Okay, 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. We 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.
Okay, 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 again, 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.
Okay, and we've all had authority figures in our lives.
We all have situations where we need to submit to other people.
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, eh, eh, and 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.
and it's 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's that would be I mean look if someone worked here if 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-biker
and we live in like a whole generation of people
where you have to handle them with kid gloves,
you could 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 and yell at me whenever he wants and I'm gonna just say yes, sir
And just take 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 rulers spirit rises up against us
We should not leave our place. We need to stay in our proper roles
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 going to
get along with the boss of the next job either and if you rebel against your
husband and divorce your husband you're probably not going to 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 you know I better chill
Daughters who rebel against their parents you think they're going to submit to their husbands? I doubt it
Right because the same girl that's going to rebel against her parents is also going to 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 going to be repeated over and over again
You know, so like whatever difficult person you're dealing with at your job, you're going to 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 going to keep on failing.
And so, when you're a teenager, learn how to make your parents happy, then when you're
married, 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 eyes people that aren't related or just roommates or something they end up getting on each other's nerves just from living in the
Same house and and and and you know being in close quarters like that
You know they're 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 is clear, I'm going to close with that, but the Bible is clear in Psalm
chapter 2 that rebellion is futile.
Whether that's rebellion against God or whether that's a 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 going to be blessed by God.
Do not be a rebel.
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 like I'm the pastor of the church and here's the thing.
My authority as a 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 a 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?
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? What do you think about that? Do you think that I'm doing my job? Well
Or what about if basically, let's say, I tell the music people and say,
hey, 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, and 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 because he's 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 there's a 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 walked through the door? What do you think we do?
We pick them up and drag them out the door. That's what we would do
Right and you know what it look if somebody came up here and start singing
You know some heretical song that we had banned or something
You know I'm gonna 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 do I wouldn't just go
What can you do you know we'd get that cane and pull them off the stage
You know like with the hook, you know, whoop
Yeah, get this bozo out
You know and 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 a hand, it holds up, he's going to have this prayer read.
I look at it, 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 we do you 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
You 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 gonna have to punish things in your house and
We're gonna have to sometimes as a church enforce things and draw the line at certain things and
Say no, and it's we're not gonna let it happen. We're gonna 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 gonna 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 know having to put your foot down
Having to discipline having to actually enforce things. That's 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 bards and have a 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 Son,
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.
Go to hymn 149, hymn number 149, trusting Jesus, hymn number 149.
That is all.