with me before we just move on so quickly this song expresses so much that
I just don't want to rush through I love the second verse it says empty thou
fill me choice that we have to make a clean vessel in thy hand with no power
but as thou give us graciously with each command we know that the Lord will give
us grace if we allow that to come into our life with humility and that's the
choice that we have to make I pray that that's each and every one of our hearts
this morning let's lift up that second verse to him once again with all of your
heart as a prayer to the Lord this morning and it's amazing in it amazing
love just sing that fourth verse really lifted up no condemnation number 43
there are songbooks him number 43 we're marching to Zion great song to get
started for this midweek service sing it nice and loud there on the first to
serve you I pray that you would be with preaching later on this evening Phil
pastor Shelley with your Holy Spirit will help us to be attentive to the word
to pay attention to the Bible study this evening we pray all these things in your
son's name amen all right the next song is gonna be 355 355 what a friend we
have in Jesus all our sins and griefs to bear
in number 355 in there on the first I'm gonna set fast Baptist Church if you
didn't already get a bulletin and you would like one you can slip to her hand
nice and high whatever ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin we're on
Jude verse 23 for our Bible memory passage if you can memorize the entire
chapter you can receive his prize also anybody that's 18 and under that's been
able to memorize the verse of the week they can get an ice cream following the
service also we have our service times there right on the front inside we have
our church wide and regional soul winning times and our stats as we got a
full we got a full bulletin alright so I wasn't anticipating that but we also
have a list of expecting ladies several there to be in prayer for very exciting
also this Saturday is gonna be our soul winning marathon to Tyler Texas there
is a sign-up sheet on our welcome table please make sure to sign up if you are
meeting to just carpool with us that's gonna be right 7 a.m. so for you single
guys you might set your alarm for 630 or something like that all right we will be
meeting at the park listen there in the bulletin and we'll be having breakfast
for an hour and then we'll go out so winning for a couple hours we'll have
lunch of course everything's provided for it's free so if you'd like to come
out there with us we'd love for you to join us and then we pretty much just
through all the other upcoming events into the it's in here so I'm gonna go
through them real quick so winning seminar at the church October 4th is
probably going to be like a lunch and then shortly afterwards we'll get you
the exact time soon we have the NASA Bahamas missions trip October 6th of the
11th and it looks like it's going to be packed and a lot of fun pastor Bruce
from he is coming and preaching for us October 19th he'll be here for both
services we'd love for you to come and join us for both services on the 19th
fall swap is October 26 this is just simply if you have any items of value
that you don't need or you would like to just donate you can bring them to the
church and then those who just want free items they can check and look and see if
there's something they would like chili cook-off Texas chili cook-off emphasis
on Texas October 31st so if you'd like to just join us for a time of fellowship
and just hanging out it'll be a lot of fun there's gonna be a competition
though typically we have everybody bring their chilies by before 6 p.m. that way
we can at least start serving people for dinner and we can get the chilies
ready for the competition portion and it'll be just a lot of fun to just hang
out the FWBC missions trip I'm sorry missions conference so Faithful Word
Baptist Church one of our friends in Phoenix Arizona has a missions
conference and they're gonna it's gonna be November 5th to the 9th I'm gonna be
preaching there on that Thursday evening so I'm gonna be going out there and
preaching about our Bahamas trip specifically and so I'm excited to be
able to go out and visit they got a new building and so they're pretty excited
about their new property it's got some more seating it's bigger and so they're
excited about it a new mission field I think they're gonna copy us he says
they're gonna copy us and start having a Spanish service so it should be a lot of
fun over there also November 23rd I'm gonna be going to anchor Baptist Church
for their anniversary so that's their one-year anniversary I was invited to
go up there and preach for them so I'm gonna be preaching up there November
29th we're hosting our annual turkey bowls so if you'd like to play some
football with us you can the ladies Christmas party is December 5th
Christmas caroling is December 8th cookie bake-off says back off but it's
it's it's bake-off okay you don't have to back off the cookies all right it's
December 21st Christmas candlelight service the 24th and then a men's
preaching December 31st we got a lot of events there scheduled on the back is
our prayer list before I get there there's also another insert and it's a
congratulations to the aldermen's on the birth of their son Jihoo he was born on
the 23rd 10 35 p.m. 7 pounds 13 ounces and 20 inches long congratulations to
them and then we'll go through our prayer list as a church family on the
back please continue to pray for the Carlson's parents health also praying
for Miss Miller's friends mom cancer treatments continue to pray for the
Scotts for brother Horace miss grace and then also miss Olivia please pray for
brother Tony's health we're also praying for the Foley's dad for his
kidney disease continue to pray for the urbanics grandmother we're also praying
for a friend also we're praying for brother Gabe's mother who has an issue
with her foot continue to pray for Mrs. ginger's cousin who's diagnosed with
breast cancer please also pray for the major inges daughter and also friend who
has breast cancer continue to pray for brother Paul and his recovery which he's
been doing really great so continue to pray for him also pray for brother Illy
for his work if you pray for brother Goodwin his sister-in-law and also he's
just praying for a health request he messaged the group about a health
request and pray for him also if you continue to pray for Mrs. Lola and Phoebe
on the passing of their husband brother Kevin and then if you'd pray for brother
Roger for his work so a lot of prayer requests there we'll go ahead and say a
quick word of prayer as a church family thank you only father so much for our
church thank you for all the ladies who are expecting I pray that you'd please
bless their children please bless their pregnancy please help them with their
delivery thank you for those who have recently given birth I pray that you
just give them a smooth recovery and you just help their children to continue to
grow and to just do be healthy I pray that you'd also just help our church
family and friends that are struggling with cancer or kidney disease or foot
issues or other serious illnesses I pray that you'd please give them healing I
pray that you'd please give them peace I pray that you would just help them
during this time of difficulty I pray that any of our friends and family that
need to hear the gospel that you'd give us that opportunity you'd soften their
hearts I pray that you would bless our church family that needs help with their
job or their work or either any of their travel I pray that you'd also
please us help our upcoming conferences and events that they would go smoothly
that you keep us safe I pray that everything that we do in our church
would be to the honor and glory of your son and it's in his name we pray in
Jesus name amen so I have as far as announcements we're gonna go ahead and
seeing our psalm of the week it's psalm 150 it's in our special psalm hymns and
binder and if you don't have one you can use the King James Bible but in the
black binders we have psalm 150 sing it out nice and loud the offering plates
are going around would you please turn your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter
number two Deuteronomy chapter number two Deuteronomy chapter number two the
Bible reads then we turned and took our journey into the wilderness by the way
of the Red Sea as the Lord spake unto me and we compass Mount Seir many days
and the Lord spake unto me saying ye have compassed this mountain long enough
turn you northward and command thou the people saying ye are to pass through the
coast of your brethren the children of Esau which dwell in Seir and they shall
be afraid of you take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore meddle not with
them for I will not give you of their land no not so much as a footbreath
because I have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession you shall buy meat
of them for money that you may eat and you shall also buy water of them for
money that you may drink for the Lord thy God hath blessed thee and all the
works of thy hand he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness these 40
days the Lord thy God hath been with thee thou hast lacked nothing and when
we pass by from our brethren the children of Esau which dwelt in seer
through the way of the plain from Elath and from Ezion Gabor we turned and
passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab and the Lord said unto me distress
not the Moabites neither contend with them in battle for I will not give thee
their land for possession because I have given our into the children of Lot for a
possession the Imams dwelt there in in times past of people great and many and
tall as the Anakims which also were accounted giants of the Anakims but the
Moabites call them Imams the Horems also dwelt and seer before time but the
children of Esau succeeded them when they had destroyed them from before them
and dwelt in their stead as Israel did unto the land of his possession which
the Lord gave unto them. Now rise up said I and get you over the brook Zerad
and we went over the brook Zerad and the space in which we came from Kadesh
Barnea until we were come over the brook Zerad was 30 and 8 years until all the
generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host as the Lord
sweared unto them for indeed the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy
them from among the host until they were consumed so it came to pass when all the
men of war were consumed and dead from among the people that the Lord spake unto
me saying thou art to pass over through our the coast of Moab this day and
when thou cometh nigh over the against the children of Ammon distress them not
nor meddle with them for I will not give thee of the land of the children of
Ammon any possession because I have given it unto the children of Lot for
possession that also is accounted the land of giants giants dwelt there in an
old time and the Ammonites called them Zimumans a great a people great and many
and tall as the Anakims but the Lord destroyed them before them and they
succeeded them and dwelt in their stead and he did to the children of Esau which
dwelt in seer when he destroyed the Horems from before them and they
succeeded them and dwelt in their stead even unto this day and the Avams which
dwelt in Hazarim even unto Aza the Kaftarim which came forth out of
Kaftor destroyed them and dwelt in their stead rise ye up take your journey and
pass over the river Arnon behold I have given into thine hand
Sihon the Amorite king of Heshbon and his land began to possess it and contend
with him in battle this day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of
thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven who shall hear report of
thee and shall tremble and be in anguish because of thee and I sent messengers
out of the wilderness of Kedemoth unto Sihon king of Heshbon with
words of peace saying let me pass through thy land I will go long by the
highway I will neither turn unto the right hand nor to the left thou shalt
sell me meat for money that I may eat and give me water for money that I may
drink only I will pass through on my feet as the children of Esau which
dwell in Seir and the Ammo bites which dwell in Ar did unto me until I pass
over Jordan into the land which the Lord our God giveth us but Sihon king of
Heshbon would not let us pass by him for the Lord thy God hardened his spirit
and made his heart obstinate that he might deliver him into thy hand as
appeareth this day and the Lord said unto me behold I have begun to give
Sihon and his land before thee began to possess and thou mayest inherit his
land then Sihon came out against us he and all his people to fight at Jehaz and
the Lord our God delivered him before us and we smote him and his sons and all
his people and we took all his cities at that time and utterly destroyed the men
and the women and the little ones of every city we left none to remain only
the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves and took spoil of the cities
which we took from Arora which is by the brink of the river Arnon and from the
city that is by the river even into Gilead there was not one city too strong
for us the Lord our God delivered all unto us only unto the land of the
children of Ammon thou camest not nor unto any place of the river Jabuch nor
unto the cities in the mountains nor into whatsoever the Lord our God
forbade us let us pray heavenly father thank you for this chapter of the Bible
Lord thank you for this church and thank you for our pastor pray that you bless
pastor Shelley film with your Holy Spirit to preach your word unto us and
help us to make applicable changes in our lives Lord and pay attention to
sermon praise in Jesus name amen amen so we're in Deuteronomy chapter 2 and
we're continuing to recap so Moses is giving a recap to the children of
Israel that have wandered in the wilderness for 40 years and they've
come upon the brink of the promised land and Moses just kind of trying to remind
this younger generation of what's happened why they are where they're at
chapter 1 we already covered a lot of their story and their journey from Mount
Sinai getting the Ten Commandments going up under the promised land spying
out the land having been afraid of entering the promised land and basically
saying no then God's like okay fine you're not gonna enter they change
their mind they kind of go up to battle and they get smitten before the Lord
because they the Lord had already said no and closed that door so we're kind of
just picking back up here after that particular battle and verse number one
here chapter 2 then we turned and took our journey into the wilderness by the
way of the Red Sea as the Lord spake unto me and we compassed Mount Seir many
days so just saying they they went back in the wilderness and they compass
Mount Seir which is one of their brethren in a sense kind of like a
distant brethren and they abode there for a very long time it says in verse 2
and the Lord spake unto me saying you have compassed this mountain long enough
turning you northward so it's just kind of like fast-forwarding a lot of stuff
they journey the wilderness for a long time Mount Seir is the possession though
of Esau so you understand there's Jacob and Esau in the book of Genesis and
Esau was that firstborn but he was rejected because he basically despised
his inheritance his inheritance was sold to his brother Jacob his younger brother
who ended up stealing the inheritance from him from his father Jacob ends up
becoming Israel and that's what we know as the children of Israel's the children
of Jacob literally but they're kind of distant cousins relatives are of Esau
and so Esau spent all this time in the wilderness and Mount Seir while the
children of Israel spent all this time in Egypt four hundred and something years in
Egypt they've come and they dwelt around them for a while and now they're headed
back northward to go back into the promised land says in verse number four
and command thou the people saying ye are to pass through the coast of your
brethren the children of Esau which dwell and seer and they shall be afraid
of you take ye good heed unto yourselves therefore metal not with them
for I will not give you of their land no not so much as a footbreath because I
have given Mount Seir unto Esau for a possession so here the text is clearly
outlying this God blessed Esau and allowed him to have a possession his
children are inheriting this particular portion of land and God does not want
to give that to the children of Israel he wants to give them the promised land
a couple things we can just learn from the text here a little bit God doesn't
seem to be really negative towards Esau you know in this particular passage
he's actually you know keeping these people in their possession he has some
favor towards them and he's saying don't meddle with these people so they're you
know in a sense they're not necessarily the same as the children of Israel God
has a special favor and a special blessing towards the children of Israel
but he's still the God of the entire earth and they're still his people in a
sense and they're still his servants in a sense even though they're not the
quote chosen people or something like that you know we could easily just have
this racist mentality that God despised everybody in the Old Testament unless
they were the children of Israel but that's just not true God still loved the
children of Esau God still loved everybody in the world and he still
wanted all of them to be saved it's just that in the Old Testament we kind of we
kind of are emphasizing and focusing in on the children of Israel and they're
the ones that are the the ones serving God they're the supposed to be the
priesthood as a nation to the rest of the world so they're kind of called out
they're special they're separated they have the unique blessings of God and
really this is to foreshadow what the New Testament is going to be like where
Christians the saved are supposed to be separated and they're unique amongst
those in the world that does not mean that God doesn't love other people in
the world but of course those who are saved you know they have a special
blessing they're the children of God and he wants other people to of course get
saved and become children of God and so this is just kind of you know some of
the symbolism that we have here you know if we take some application though from
this particular passage we could learn that you know God doesn't want us to
mess with people that are brethren even if they're not on the exact same page as
us and you know to me especially in light of a lot of recent events and
things that have happened you know I think that we have some Esau brethren
that are out there you know we have some people that you could kind of almost
make an application to this where they're not necessarily a Baptist but
they're saved because look there's plenty of people in this world that are
not Baptist and they're saved there's just the evangelicals or even you know
some of the denominations that are not super awful have saved people in the
mix of them in the midst of them we have to understand that you have to be
Baptist to be saved now look I'm Baptist for a reason I love being Baptist I have
the Baptist bias you know it but at the end of the day we have to recognize that
look there are other people that are saved that are not claiming to be
Baptist they don't go to a Baptist church but let's also be honest the
people that are not going to a Baptist church and are not like us they're also
not living in the promised land they're also not fighting the Lord's
battles and they also don't have the same blessing and the unique eye of God
watching them in their lives that doesn't mean that God doesn't love them
that doesn't mean that they don't have their place but at the end of the day
you know what is our attitude towards them well we should still respect them
and just not meddle with them that's what they're that's what God's opinion
say hey we're destroying all kinds of people we're destroying the Canaanites
and the Amorites in the future of course I understand
Sihon we're gonna destroy him you know when it comes to Esau don't meddle with
these people pay for everything be completely respectful towards them allow
them to have their little possession and look there's gonna be that that rare
church out there that Calvary Chapel or some Bible church or something where the
most of the people in the church are saved and they're doing their thing and
we wouldn't want to attack them or be mean or harsh or hurt them look do we
want them to get King James only yes we do we want them to become Baptist yeah
would we want them to be soul-winning yeah but at the end of the day we also
don't want to just treat them like some unsaved reprobate or you know like
Sihon the king of of Heshbon or whatever it's like we have to understand that
there's different categories of people and just because you're not the children
of Israel doesn't mean you're of the most reprobate evil horde of people
either you know Esau is just kind of like once removed you know and look I'm
not even saying like the old IFB because you know I still think the old IFB is in
the battle you know the old IFB is basically going to be the two tribes
that didn't go into the promised land you know they're still part of the
tribes they're just you know not wanting to go over all the way in it's but at
the end of the day like there's still people that are Esau too this is my
evangelicals it's easy right you got the E for Esau you got the E for the
evangelicals but you know look obviously Esau still reproducing within his own
little mountains here and you have to give this hey the evangelicals they're
still kind of at least sometimes getting their own kids saved and whatever they're
kind of doing their thing or something they're siphoning off a lot of the
weaker Christians from Baptist churches that couldn't really handle it or stick
with it you know the people that didn't want to go and battle the people that
didn't want to fight the people that didn't want the drama the people that
didn't want to follow God's law because think about it the children of Israel
represent the people that what want to follow God's law that want to actually
battle that actually want to fight that actually want rewards that actually want
to do something that actually want to be significant that actually want to serve
God the right way and look there's plenty of Christians that don't want to
fight that don't really want to serve God that don't really want to follow the
law that don't really want to do the right things but you know what they're
still saved because we believe salvation by faith don't we and if we believe
salvation by faith then there's gonna be some really crappy Christians in the
world you know what I mean there is tons of crappy Christians look there's tons
of terrible pastors there's tons of just bad people and frankly speaking for all
of a sudden come short of the glory of God I don't know if I you know need to
remind you of that even the children of Israel weren't that great but at the end
of the day they have been uniquely separated by God God's using them
they're the ones that are willing to keep that they say they want to keep the
law they say they want to go into the promised land they say they want to
fight the Lord's battles and they're the ones doing it whereas Esau you know
they're just kind of doing their thing they're just building their 401k playing
you know country club golf and just doing their thing they got their little
boat they like to have their little cabin on the mountain and go jet-skiing
not jet-skiing just go skiing right go skiing they invented the snowboard I
don't know I'm just I'm just making stuff up but it's like you know we can
understand like hey there's a part of humanity that all of us would like to
just kind of tap out sometimes you know just say hey I just want to stop
fighting and wandering around like I just want to go and live on the
mountains I just want to have my little farm I just want to you know just take
it take a break take it easy but at the end of the day that's not why we're here
we're not here to just live on Mount Sea here and do whatever but what should our
attitude be towards those that do that leave them alone don't meddle with them
don't fight with them don't contend with them don't trash them if you run into
these people pay for everything be very respectful treat them well and look I
that's how we should treat evangelicals when we run into people that are
Christian and are saved you know even though they don't have a King James
Bible even though they're not soul winning even though they go to some lame
church even though they they're Sunday morning they went to at the movies where
their pastor was riding around on a roller coaster literally you just say
well hey I'm glad that you're saved and I love you brother and you know whatever
you need I would help you I don't want to like harm you if you want to come
with us you know come on but if you're not you know just do your thing or
whatever right we should be respectful and we should understand that they're
not our enemy they're just not our enemy you know and again people just like
freak out they like lose their mind the last few weeks about Charlie Kirk and
you know I could sit here and I could pick Charlie Kirk or you know apart as
much as the next guy you don't think that I could sit here and nitpick his
life and whatever but at the end of the day Charlie Kirk just really wasn't my
enemy you know he just really wasn't somebody that I felt like is really a
attacking me or even necessarily harming the cause of Christ that much yeah did
he have some pretty bad takes on Zionism sure but at the end of the day you know
I'm sure Esau's got some bad views on on the scripture too I'm sure Esau's got
some problems too you know I'm just not gonna meddle with these people because
if they're ultimately you know not really causing a lot of problems then
why do I have to really harm those people like there's some really obvious
enemies out there and I think those are the people that we should be focusing in
on those are the people that we should be attacking those are the people and you
know the people that are evangelicals that aren't really causing a lot of
problems they're not actively preaching some false gospel or something you know
let's just not meddle with those people let's just not fight against them you
know and not really harm them and you know what from my perspective I feel
like this has been one of the greatest few weeks of Christianity that I've
ever experienced since being a pastor you know people are way more receptive
right now than they've been in a long time I keep running into people and
they're like yeah the last few weeks has been heavy I do want to hear what you
have to say yeah I am thinking about church now I am thinking about doing
something spiritual you know as a culture you know it's more socially
acceptable to hate faggots than ever before and you just have you had me at
hello with that I'm just telling you what you know because they're disgusting
they're predators they're dangerous and we've been saying this for obviously for
years and I know a lot of people silently agreed with us but now it's
like a little bit more acceptable to just be like hey they are dangerous hey
there is something wrong hey there is a problem out there and it's becoming
more and more of a reality you know a lot of our protesters that protested us
at one point now they're arrested now they're facing federal crimes and
charges and all kinds of stuff which is like praise God not that they did crimes
but just praise God that they're getting some justice praise God that he's gonna
bring some vengeance on them praise God that people are waking up to the
dangers and the evils that are out there and you know in some ways praise God
that there's more people taking heat because it used to be just a few of us
that were taking a lot of heat and now we're sharing the wealth you know now
it's not really wealth I get it but at the end of the day you know the
evangelicals weren't really my biggest problem you know there was a lot of
other people that were my biggest problem and at the end of the day we
should just not meddle with the Esau's of this world we should just say you know
what they're an Esau whatever now obviously you know we've even had some
of our our friends turn on us and backstab us and lie about us and whatever
and you look I think there's nothing wrong with defending yourself from an
immediate attack someone's attacking you someone's harming you you know God's not
saying hey allow Esau to just come and just stab you in the back or knife you
or hurt you or try to take your kids and do nothing he just saying look while
they're showing you respect you show them respect right there's a difference
between defending yourself from attacks and just leaving people alone and look
people that leave me alone I leave them alone you know the people that are
attacking us or attacking the gospel or preaching false doctrine yeah we're
gonna take them to task because they're enemies of God they're enemies of the
Lord or they need to be corrected but at the end of the day we should do our best
to be peacemakers as Christians blessed are the peacemakers we should always be
striving for peace we should be striving for love we should be striving to get
along with all men as much as life in you live peaceably among all men is what
the Bible says but it also says as much as possible doesn't say every time it
doesn't say every person yeah some people there is gonna be no peace but
for the vast majority of people we offer peace we want peace we're trying to have
peace with them and of course somebody like Esau we want to be peaceful towards
them we want to be kind to them we want to do good to them he says in verse 6 he
shall buy meat of them for money that you may eat and ye shall also buy water
of them for money that you may drink for the Lord thy God hath blessed thee in
all the works of thy hand he knoweth thy walking through this great wilderness
these 40 years the Lord thy God hath been with thee thus lacked nothing says
in verse 8 and when we pass by from our brethren the children of Esau which
dwelt in seer the way of the plane from Elath and from Isiah and Geber we turned
and passed by the way of the wilderness from us so saying hey when we went to see
our brethren Esau we we bought all our stuff we paid for our way and we didn't
we weren't a burden to them and you know this is just this is just good advice as
a person as a Christian is you shouldn't be a burden to other people you know you
should just pay your own you pay your own bills pay your own things and not
burden other people you know that's being a good guest that's being a good
host that's being not necessarily a host I'm saying it's being a good guest
being good visitor it's just being a good person is that you take care of
yourself and look people that take care of themselves are a pleasure to be
around and not only people that take care of themselves that take care of
themselves and others they're a pleasure to be around you know one of the things
about children that makes children difficult is they're a burden they're
not taking care of themselves they're not paying their own bills they're not
tying their own shoe they're not changing their own diaper they're not
feeding themselves they need help emotionally and so you have to take care
of them you take care of their burdens and that's what makes them children you
know you say hey what what constitute me becoming a man how about taking care of
yourself you know if mom's still wiping your tushy you're not a man if dad's
paying all your bills and and and dad's taking care of all your stuff you know
it's hard to say that you've really become a man at that point you know in
a sense becoming a man is taking care of yourself and not only taking care of
yourself being able to take care of others really separates you from the you
know from the boys in a sense that you can not only take care of yourself you
can take care of other people and you know God says hey I blessed you and I've
given you financial means therefore don't be a burden on Esau you pay your
own way you you take care of the stuff that you need to take care of and you be
willing to spend some money you know so many people don't want to spend a dime
serving God you know that's the wrong attitude you know some of us have to
realize God gave us money so that we could use it for the kingdom of God or
to bless other people or to buy the things that we need the way we buy stuff
is we work we work and then we buy stuff and that is how God ordained it God
wants us to work so that we can have the financial means to then you know bless
other people that's why working hard at your jobs important God wants us to work
hard at our jobs so that we can provide for ourselves and provide for our
families and provide for the house of God and provide for other people and you
know what that is the Christian mindset the Christian mindset is that I'm not
only gonna provide for myself I'm gonna make enough money to provide for others
the satanic communist aspect is that the government is just gonna give me money
whether I work or not you know that's a very selfish attitude is a selfish
economy it's a selfish way of governing and it does not work people are not
incentivized Christian nations are ones that have built the world you know
communism is just a parasite type government that is never going to work
very well it demoralizes the country it is not as effective it's not going to
run well a capitalistic society based on Christian principles will always thrive
the best and it will always do the best and that's why it's literally built the
world that's why America has become the superpower of the world is because of
hard work why did we become super successful and have a lot of blessings
because people worked hard why do we have the infrastructure and the roads
and the hospitals and the military and all the different things that we have
because people worked really hard to get it and you know what why do people have
nice churches because people worked really hard to build them you know and
this church right now if you're enjoying it it's because a lot of people worked
really hard to even get it to this point and you know what to get to the next
level it's gonna take a lot of people working really hard to get our church
to the next level and beyond and when you see a lot of churches that are
really big and have a lot of people a lot of people worked really hard to get
it to what it is at that point okay so we shouldn't take things for granted and
we shouldn't take that God's also probably blessing those people you should
realize that it's ultimately coming from God but you know what God uses those who
work hard show me the guy in the Bible that's lazy that God used greatly
doesn't exist in fact I would argue that the people that God's using in the
Bible are the hardest workers on the planet I mean Joseph arguably the
hardest-working guy on the planet Jacob this guy is working night and day you
know he's working in the frost I mean this guy is super hard-working in fact
he can lift the well lid by himself when it takes multiple wind to do it by
themselves so this guy is like the he's a workhorse worthy of like two or three
average men two or three average men is how much Jacob is by himself that's how
much of a hard worker he is and you know what Christian men that dedicate
themselves to the Word of God and working hard God is gonna bless greatly
the reason why many people are not blessed is because they just don't work
hard God gave you strength and a mind to use for his honor and for his glory and
you know what Christianity is never gonna thrive through laziness that's why
it's so frustrating people say oh I don't want to go to a smaller church
because they're gonna put you to work what religion do you want because the
religion of laziness will never benefit you will never help you you know you
should want to go to a church where you are challenged to work hard to read the
Bible to grow to become a better version of yourself when you're not being
challenged I mean think about it if I just go to the gym and I'm just lifting
five pound dumbbells I'll never be in good shape it's easy or if I just don't
go to the gym I'll never be in shape no one just doesn't go to the gym and just
is like super muscular super and fit super in shape I mean if you want to be
in good shape you have to actually put some work in and some serious work and
it has to be regular and steadfast you have to do it continually and you can't
even just do it all in one day you have to be dedicated you have to do it
regularly that is how you're gonna be in good shape and when it comes to you know
the things of God we need to be able to provide for ourselves so that we can do
these kind of journeys this is the do-it-yourself missions where they're
going through towns and they're paying their own way and then they're just
showing up in the promised land you know God gave them the money to buy
their way to the promised land you know sometimes you have to spend money in
order to get to the promised land or get the rewards of God you know what
whatever money they're spending is nothing in comparison what they're gonna
inherit you know some people think like oh if I spend a little money or if I'm
giving money to God or something like I'm gonna be in the poorhouse no by not
giving money and not spending it you're gonna be in the poorhouse called the
wilderness by actually being willing to spend the money and doing it God's way
you end up going into the greatest blessings imaginable and so sometimes
you have to realize you know it takes a little bit of money to serve God but
he'll bless you greatly when you do says in verse 9 and the Lord said to me
distress not the Moabites neither contend with them in battle for I will
not give thee of their land for possession because I've given are under
the children of Lot for a possession here's another thing that's incredible
is not only the children of Esau have been given possession even Lot and Lot
is just not a good guy in the Bible that just goes to show how much grace and
faith is all that's necessary for salvation or to be right with God
because why in the world would God want to give a possession under Lot I mean
what did Lot ever do that was good I mean in fact if you understand where
these children came from not a good situation at all you know a horrible
situation an awful situation you know which should also show that God is not
approving of abortion because you know every time they want to bring up the
exceptions to abortion rape incest and life of the mother you know it's like
what about Lot and his daughters but you know what God still had him now again we
understand these nations were pretty bad but you have Ruth the Moabitist and hey
you know what she was pretty great so there can still be some good that comes
of evil we never want to just doom a whole group of people or act like there
could never be any good from them even the Moabites have Ruth and and she does
a great thing for the Lord. Now it says in verse 10 the Emems dwelt there in
times past of people great and many and tall as the Anakims which also were
accounted giants as the Anakims but the Moabites called them Emems. The Horems
also dwelt and seer before time the children of Esau seduced them when they
had destroyed them from before them and dwelt in their stead as Israel did into
the land of his possession which the Lord gave unto them now rise up said I
and get you over the book Zerad and we went over the book
Brooke Zerad. So again the the children of Esau, Mount Zer, mettle with them not
you know mettle not with them. Then he talks about the children of Lot, the
Moabites, he says don't contend with them in battle. Again just emphasizing the
point that he made that there's just some battles that we just shouldn't get
involved in. You know it's just it's just not worth our effort not worth our
energy. There's enough battles to be had. There's more fighting than you could
ever accomplish in a lifetime. Why fight with people that we just shouldn't be
fighting with? And you know at the end of the day it's just it's just weird when
people they just dedicate their lives to just fighting other Christians and other
Baptists and just other people that are saved. Like it just makes no sense. Now
if you're an unsaved false prophet devil it makes perfect sense that you would
just be obsessed with Christians and fight them and attack them and slander
them endlessly. But if you're saved it makes no sense to just obsess about
other Christians and other churches and other brethren that you don't like how
they're serving God or whatever. You know it's weird. It's weird. It's like a
creepy ex-girlfriend or something and you know that's just a bad attitude. You
know if you don't like other Christians leave them alone. Don't contend with
them. Metal knot with them. You know just move on with your life. Go find some
Christians you can serve with. Right? Go to a church you can be excited about. And
look you should spend most of your time supporting your church not attacking
other churches. It's weird. Now again we get it like hey we're gonna always bring
up you know false religion and you know Catholicism is a false religion.
Mormons are false prophets. We get that. You know what wouldn't it be a weird if
just every sermon I got up is just only about Mormonism or something. If I'm
just up here and it's just every sermon is about Joseph Smith and every sermon
about Mormons or just pick anybody. What if it was just only about TD Jakes? You
know I'm just gonna pick only on TD Jakes or something like that. Just every
sermon is just TD Jakes this, TD Jakes that. You would start to think like hey is there
anything else in the Bible? Is there anybody else you can bring up? Like even
if you could say this is a for sure bad person it would be weird to just hyper
focus on and obsess about one person for your whole life. It's weird. Move on. And
look, people that can't move on are weird. People do this in relationships too. Look
if someone breaks up with you, move on. Don't sit here and obsess with them and
stalk them and text them and make a shrine to them or something like that.
Like move on with your life. If someone doesn't like you, move on. Just let it go.
You know, don't spend your whole life obsessing with people that don't like
you or you don't like. Spend your life obsessing about things you do
like. You know, I want to spend my time obsessing about my wife because I like
her. I want to spend my life obsessing about the King James Bible because I
love it and about Christianity and about soul winning. You know, those are the
things that we should spend our time thinking about, not just constantly
wondering, you know, about seer and fighting Lot and well the Moabites are
bad. Yeah, they are bad. I mean, they sacrifice their children under false gods
at one point in their history. They're obviously not serving God the right way
but I'm not gonna just sit here and obsess my whole life on the children of
Lot. I'm not gonna spend my whole life obsessing about Esau. You know what? I'm
gonna focus on what I can do that's right, that's good, that's positive. You
know, we should be positive people focusing on the good things that we can
do in our lives. Not just only the negative, only the bad. And look, we're
gonna spend a lot of our lives fighting. Let's make sure those fights are
against the people that really deserve it. Like, I only have so much energy to
give. I only have so much to put on the battlefield. You know, I might as well get
the worst of the worst out there. And it's not Lot, it's not Esau, it's not these
other people. You know, I need to be focusing in on the real enemies of God
and the ones that God told me to earnestly contend with. Did he say
contend with Lot? No, don't contend with him. But there are people that I should
earnestly contend with, people preaching a false gospel, and of course we could
make a lot of spiritual applications from that. Look at verse 14. "And in the
space in which we came from Kadesh Barnea until we were come over to the
Zerad was thirty and eight years until all the generation of the men of war
were wasted out from among the host as the Lord swear unto them." Verse 15, "For
indeed the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them from among the host
until they were consumed." So again, we're fast forwarding this timeline. You know,
we basically had in chapter one, they cross the Red Sea, then they go down to
Mount Sinai, or Mount Horeb as it's described in Deuteronomy. They get the
Ten Commandments. They go up under Kadesh Barnea. They are told to go into the
Promised Land. They send the spies. The spies give them a bad report, 10 out of
12. They change their mind. They say, "We don't want to do it." Then when God says,
"Fine, you're gonna die in the wilderness," they're like, "Okay, now we'll do it," and
they lose. They lose that battle, so they're forced to go into the wilderness.
They spend 38 years in the wilderness. Why? Just so they can die. I mean, they're
just spending 38 years because they didn't want to be in the Promised Land.
Then fine, spend 38 years in the nursing home until you die. I mean, you didn't
want to be in the Promised Land? Then spend your 38 years in the nursing home
boomers until you just die. Wouldn't that be a sad message? That you didn't want to
go to a good church and serve God, so then you're just gonna spend a whole
bunch of time on earth accomplishing nothing, just waiting for death so that
God can just move on from you and God can allocate his resources and his effort
and energy into your children who didn't make that bad decision. Look, the
decisions you make in life are important and we shouldn't spend our whole lives
just doing nothing. You know, God didn't create us to just sit around and watch
TV for 40 or 50 years and then die, but you know the people that decided that
that's what they're gonna do, God will say, "Okay, fine. That's what you want. I'll
give it to you." You could just spend the rest of your life just in the wilderness,
not accomplishing anything, and I'm just gonna wait until you all die because God
has more time on his hands than we could ever think of. He can wait. He's long
suffering. Unto him, according to the Bible, a thousand years is like one day.
So what's 38 years? I mean, it's nothing. He's like, "Fine, I'm good." He's patient.
The Lord is patient. He's like, "You don't want to serve me? I'll wait for another
group of people that want to serve me." That's why it's important that when you
get your opportunity to serve God, you do it because otherwise he'll just say, "Hey,
I'll just put you in the wilderness, let you die, and I'll kill all of you." So he
consumed all of them. Verse 16, "So it came to pass when all the men of war were
consumed and dead from among the people that the Lord spake unto me, saying, Thou art
to pass over through R, the coast of Moab, this day. And when thou comest nigh over
against the children of Ammon, distress them not, nor meddle with them, for I will not
give thee of the land of the children of Ammon any possession, because I have given it unto
the children of Lot for a possession." So again, we have the same thing. The children
of Lot, he had two groups of children because of his two daughters. So it's the Ammonites
and the Moabites, and God basically blessed both of those groups of people for Lot's sake.
He also blessed the group of the nation of Esau for Esau's sake. So again, that shows
how God's pretty merciful and pretty long-suffering that he would be even kind and merciful unto
these people that didn't really serve him, weren't really the special chosen people of
God, because God reigns on the just and on the unjust. And God is long-suffering and
merciful unto people that really are on plan D and E and F of their life sometimes even.
You have to understand, hey, God's saying again, not the right battle. This is a really
important point that we're hammering through this chapter. Wrong battle, Esau. Wrong battle,
Moabites. Wrong battle, Ammonites. Because there's a lot of wrong battles in this world.
There's a lot of battles you can get entangled in that are just the wrong battle, not the
fight that you want to get into. You know, and even if we took it to an unsaved context,
we could. You know, we're not supposed to wrestle with flesh and blood, according to
the New Testament. You know, even if they're just unsaved, as long as they're not like
a false prophet and causing us problems, we shouldn't really be battling them and fighting
them. You know, we're fighting a spiritual battle out there. And you know, the people
that are not causing us problems, we shouldn't waste our effort and energy on them. We should
just not meddle with them, not contend with them. You know, we should contend with the
spiritual darkness that's in high places. We should contend with the false prophets.
And obviously we're earnestly trying to get people saved, but at the end of the day, we
want to be peacemakers. We want to go around and we want to be wise. We want to be harmless
as doves and wise as serpents. And there's a lot of battles that you can get involved
that are just the wrong battle. You know, a lot of people want to get into a racist
battle these days. Wrong battle. You know, who cares about race? I don't care. You know,
I mean like I'm part Greek and part Native American and part European. What am I? Who
am I supposed to belong to? Am I supposed to be like pro like I'm the Greek people,
you know? Or am I supposed to be like, "Oh!" You know, I need to reclaim the land for,
you know, my Native ancestors or something like that. Or am I supposed to be like channeling
my colonial, you know, roots or something like that and start colonizing people or something?
You know, like what am I supposed to do? No, I'm supposed to forget about that because
it's meaningless. And look, this quote race, what would I even be? What race am I? Oh,
you're white. These are oversimplifications of reality. White, black, Hispanic, this
is oversimplications. It's the wrong battle. It's the wrong fight. God's house is supposed
to be a house for all nations, for all people. You know what? People want to just oversimplify
things and try to get into the wrong battles, the wrong fights. Well, we're Ammonites. Well,
we're Moabites. No, well, we're the Edomites. No, we're the children of Israel and they
want to have all these minor little fights and battles and skirmishes over something
that's meaningless. Meaningless. Meaningless fights. It's meaningless battles. And you
know, America, the problem with America is not too many races in America. It's too many
religions in America. That's the problem. Okay. It's not a race issue. It's a religion
issue. And of course, there's spiritual wickedness in high places. That's another issue. Of course,
the synagogue of Satan is the main problem that we have in America, Jews. Not the ethnicity,
the religion. Let's keep reading here. It says in verse number 20, "That also was accounted
a land of giants. Giants dwelt there in old time, and the Ammonites called them Zamzumims,
people great and many and tall, as the Anakims. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and
they succeeded them and dwelt in their stead, as He did to the children of Esau, which dwelt
in Seir, when He destroyed the Horems from before them, and they succeeded them and dwelt
in their stead even unto this day, and the Avams, which dwelt in Hazarim, even unto Asa,
and the Kaftorems, which came forth out of Kaftor, destroyed them and dwelt in their
stead. So, another thing that's interesting is you'll notice that every one of these areas,
we talk about the Edomites, we talk about the Ammonites, or the Moabites, they all were
previously inhabited by giants. But the Bible says that God destroyed the giants and replaced
them with these other people. Meaning that physical superiority is not going to necessarily
win the battle. It's whether God's on your side or not. And God's already shown, hey,
there was giants here, destroyed them. Giants here, destroyed them. Giants here, destroyed
them. You're going to go into the land of giants, you're going to destroy them. Because
it's not about being giants, it's not about being physically stronger or having a better
genetics. It's simply, hey, if God's on your side, you will win the battle. And they should
learn from their brethren here, hey, if they defeated the giants, God will also deliver
the giants into our hand and allow us to win these same battles. And we shouldn't be afraid
of giants in this world because it's not about size or their power or their strength. If
God be for us, who can be against us? You know, what would be more intimidating to go
to a physical battle against a literal giant? I mean, that would be very terrifying. You
know what? There's giants so-called today and people are afraid. They're cowards. They
don't want to fight them. They don't want to do anything. And you know what? That's
the wrong attitude. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and
of a sound mind. And we should be willing to fight the giants of our day, the zoom-ims
or whatever. The za-zoo-mims and the e-mims and the av-mims and the whatever, the kaftor-mims.
All of those sounds like they're their LGBTQ, you know, Q or whatever or something, "m"s.
It's just like, hey, don't care about that. God can defeat them. God can destroy them.
Verse 24, "Rise ye up, take your journey, and pass over the river Arnon. The old I
have given into thine hand, Sion the Amorite, king of Heshbon and his land, begin to possess
it and contend with him in battle." Now, this is a shift. Before, it's metal not, contend
not, contend not. Now, all of a sudden, he's like, "Contend with this guy, though. Fight
this guy, though. Hey, this guy, we want to destroy him." Now, he gives them this admonition,
but then this was as interesting as we keep going. Verse 25, "This day will I begin to
put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole
heaven. Who shall hear a report of thee and shall tremble and be in anguish because of
thee? And I sent messengers under the wilderness of Ketemoth unto Sion king of Heshbon with
words of peace, saying, Let me pass through thy land. I will go along by the highway.
I will neither turn under the right hand nor to the left. Thou shalt sell me meat for money
that I may eat, and give me water for money that I may drink. Only I will pass through
on my feet, as the children of Esau, which dwell in Seir, and the Mobites, which dwell
in Ar, did unto me, until I shall pass over Jordan into the land which the LORD our God
giveth us. But Sion king of Heshbon would not let us pass by him, for the LORD thy God
hardened his spirit, and made his heart obstinate, that he might deliver him into thy hand, as
appeareth this day. And the LORD said unto me, Behold, I have begun to give Sion, and
his land before thee, begin to possess, that thou mayest inherit his land. Then Sion came
out against us, he and all his people to fight at Jehaz. And the LORD our God delivered him
before us, and we smote him and his sons and all his people. And we took all our cities
at that time, and utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones of every
city. We left none to remain, only the cattle we took for a prey unto ourselves. And the
spoil of the cities which we took, from Aror, which is by the brink of the river of Arnon,
and from the city that is by the river, even unto Gilead, there was not one city too strong
for us. The LORD our God delivered all unto us, only unto the land of the children of
Ammon. Thou camest not, nor unto any place of the river Jabak, nor unto the cities of
the mountains, nor unto whatsoever the LORD our God, for bad us. So they are told, don't
go to Edom, don't go to the Moabites, don't go to the Ammonites, but Sion the king of
Peshbon, hey, we want to slaughter them, we want to destroy them, you're going to take
all of their possession, you're going to take all of their land. And not only that, you're
going to kill all the people. And I think it would be easy to read this chapter and
kind of get a little bit perturbed by one of the later verses. Notice what it said in
verse 34 again. It says, "And we utterly destroyed the men and the women and the little ones
of every city." This is what you would call, and this is not a pleasant word, this is a
triggering word for liberals, genocide. This is what you would call a genocide. Now what
is a genocide? It's basically the complete eradication of a group of people. And that
group of people is typically based on either an ethnicity, a religion, or a geography.
This is what you would call a literal genocide. And it's being ordained by God. He's saying,
take out this entire group of people. Now, this is kind of a difficult subject, so I
wanted to spend a few minutes on this subject, okay? Because, you know, from the Bible, like
a lot of the Bible is just really positive, a lot of it's pretty simple, a lot of it just
makes a lot of sense right away. I would say this is probably one of the most difficult
things in the Bible to understand, to reconcile, or to kind of feel at peace with, okay? Just
why would God allow, you know, the children of Israel to just completely genocide an entire
group of people? And so I'm going to do my best to kind of talk about that. But I want
to take note of a few things that we read through here that are really important. Notice
what it had said in verse 26, "And I sent messengers out of the wilderness of Ketemoth
and Ascian king of Heshbon with words of peace." Did they actually say, "Hey, we're going to
just kill you all. We're going to just destroy all of you." No. He said, "Hey, we're going
to walk through you peaceably. We're going to buy bread of you. We're going to buy water
of you. We're going to treat you with respect. We're going to do good unto you." But they
wouldn't allow them to, and they fought them and they attacked them unprovoked. They unprovoked,
attacked them and tried to destroy them. And then in response, the children of Israel basically
respond and defend themselves and slaughter all of them. But they were dedicating themselves
to the destruction of the children of Israel. They're fighting them. They won't let them
pass. They're putting them into a difficult spot. And in order to serve God, they have
to go through them in order to serve God, in order to accomplish God's mission. So they're
between a rock and a hard place in a sense. Also, it's not safe for them to just dwell
in the wilderness forever. They can't live there. This is not sustainable. God, by miracles,
is allowing them to live in the wilderness. There is not enough food. There's not enough
water. God is just opening up rocks and allowing water to just gush out by miracles. God is
giving them manna from heaven. God is just bringing quail out of nowhere just so they
can have food by literal miracles. The sandals of their feet are not being destroyed by literal
miracles. I mean, they're getting bit by serpents and they're just raising up a stick and they're
just being miraculously healed. You know, why do you think there's so many hospitals
that show that serpent on the stick as their little symbol? It's the picture, that story
in the Bible of a healing, of a miracle that had happened in the Old Testament where the
children could just look and live. They can't live in the wilderness though. They can't
be sustained without literal miracles, okay? And so they're between a rock and a hard place.
They have to pass through. They have to get through, and these people will not let them.
These people are attacking them. These people are, you know, preventing them from being
able to survive in their situation. So in order to defend themselves, you know, they
have to do what they have to do. I think that helps give us a little of context here. It's
not like the children of Israel are just showing up and just like destroying and wiping out
all these people for literally no reason. They actually offered them peace, and they
offered them money, and they offered them water, and as a result they are refusing.
Now if we think about this particular situation, obviously it still is a little bit gruesome,
I would say. Little ones, women, things like that, dying. But I want to go to some different
passages and just talk about this subject again. Go to Exodus chapter 32, go to Exodus
chapter 32, because I want you to understand that God is just in doing whatever He wants,
number one. And if you've gotten past Genesis 6, you would realize that God flooded the
entire world and killed every single woman, little one, and baby except for Noah and his
family. He's already done that. And we already read that story and we were like, wow, that
was crazy. I mean, that was like intense. But if God is willing to kill everyone in
the entire planet, including not only them, all the animals that are land dwelling, all
the land dwelling beasts that are breathing oxygen, you know, essentially for life, they
all drowned and died too. Every little dog and every little cat and every little Bambi,
all of them died too. So, you know, if you don't like this story, you know, the flood
is way worse. So if you can accept the flood, then this story should actually be really
easy to accept, if you really think about it and the concept of like how many casualties
there are. God is also not a respecter of persons. This nation is being destroyed for
rejecting God's word for pardoning itself against God. If the children of Israel do
the exact same thing, God will do the exact same thing to them. I'll prove that in Exodus
chapter 32, look at verse number nine. "And the Lord said to Moses, 'I have seen this
people and behold it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore let me alone that my wrath may
wax hot against them and that I may consume them and I'll make of thee a greater nation.'"
You know when they were just having this wild party with Aaron and worshiping this golden
calf while Moses is getting the Ten Commandments and they come back, God's like, "Hey, let's
just kill all of them and I'll just start over with you." That would be another genocide
if you realized. That would have been another flood moment. He was willing to do that to
the children of Israel. Why? Because they're stiff-necked, because they rebelled, because
they are not doing what God said. Think about this. When Adam and Eve are in the garden,
he said, "In the day that thou eat thereof, thou shalt surely die." You know, it's by
God's long-suffering mercy and grace that they didn't physically die the exact moment
they ate that apple. You know, we're not guaranteed 80 years or 90 years. There's nothing in the
Bible that says God is supposed to allow you to live 80 years or 90 years. In fact, the
people in the Old Testament lived to be 800 years, 900 years. Think about it. In context
of that, we don't get hardly nearly as much life as those people, yet are we sitting here
and being mad at God that someone dies at 80 years old? But think about it. If you lived
in the Old Testament, when everybody's living to be 800, 900 years, I mean, they're living
like 100, 100 years, wouldn't you be like, "Man, this seems unfair that this guy died
at 80." Wouldn't it be easy to have that thought? If everybody's living to be 800 and someone
died at 80, we would all think like, "Well, that seemed a little unfair that they died
at that age." But wait a minute, God didn't say you're promised 800 years. God didn't
say you're promised 80 years. God didn't say you're promised eight minutes. So you
know what? God can do whatever He wants, whenever He wants. And I think that we sometimes have
the wrong viewpoint on life and God and thinking what's "fair" because there's no such thing
as fair. God gets to do whatever He wants and we're His creation and He can put us
in this world as short as He wants and as long as He wants. It's totally up to Him.
And the way we should look at it is this, every day we get is a blessing. Not that if
I lose a day, you know, I've been wronged or I've been harmed by God or something bad
has happened to me. In fact, I saw this video, I don't even know who did it, I don't think
it was a Christian, I just thought it was really funny. It wasn't funny, it was just
a really unique video. But this guy was interviewing people out on the street and he walked up
to this guy and he said, "Hey, I have a proposal. If I could give you $10 billion right now,
$10 billion, but you die in the morning, would you take it?" And the guy said, "No." And
he said, "So that means that each day you live is worth $10 billion or more to you.
You should have that mentality." And it was kind of crazy to think about, like how we
don't really make that connection, but it's like every day is more precious to us than
just infinite money. Infinite money is not as valuable as just having another day, having
another. You know, we should look at our lives as a blessing, not like, "Oh man, you know,
everything's so unfair." Because, you know, we keep accusing God of everything being unfair,
we don't even understand what fair is. How is it fair that we get to sin against God
every single day of our lives and He still allows us to live? How is that fair? How is
it fair that we constantly have bad thoughts and bad actions and are lazy and rebellious
and stiff-necked and hard-hearted and that God still tolerates us and puts up with us?
How is that fair? We have the wrong mentality and then we look at stories like this and
we think, "Oh, God's not righteous or God's not fair." You know what? No, we're wrong.
We have the wrong mindset and the wrong attitude and the wrong viewpoint towards God. Go to
Job 2 if you want to go to Job chapter 2. In Numbers 31, there's another story where
they kill all the little ones, all the males, and all the non-virgins. In 1 Samuel 15, they
kill all the sucklings. In the flood, God killed everyone but Noah and his family. In
Egypt, God killed all the firstborn. Many of them were probably little ones and many
of them were little babies that He killed in Egypt. Not only that, Achan and his family.
Achan took the Babylonian garment. Now this has not happened in the story yet, timeline,
it's in the future. But if you're just looking in the Bible's lens, Achan takes the Babylonian
garment, hides it amongst his stuff, and the Bible says it took him, all his stuff, and
his whole family, and they just killed all of them. Everybody in the whole family just
dies. Now Job, he's according to the Bible, the most righteous guy to ever live at the
time that he's alive. He is the top of Christianity. He's the upright man, he eschews evil, he
fears God. God's talking to the devil at one point, and he's just like, "Have you considered
my servant Job?" This is the epitome of Christians alive. This is the best guy that's alive at
this time. Arguably one of the greatest guys to ever live. And even Job has to go through
great suffering. He loses his whole family in a day. Like not his whole family, his wife
is still there, but all of his children, all of his children, just ten children just gone
like that. We don't know, like, I don't know what to think about that. Were all of his
kids perfectly innocent? Were they bad? I don't know. It doesn't really matter. They're
taken. And you have to understand that in this world, really good people are going to
die unexpectedly, and really bad people are going to die unexpectedly. It's not necessarily
just a perfect pattern. Generally, it's true that those that are wicked and evil are going
to die and not live out half their days. And generally, those that are righteous and serving
God are going to live the longer lives and be more prosperous. But, there's always exceptions
on both sides. Always exceptions and we don't know. This is an interesting thing that Job
said in verse number 10, talking to his wife, "But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one
of the foolish women speaketh, What shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall
we not receive evil? And all this did not Job sin with his lips." You know, it's really
easy for us to accept the good that God has for us. But how many of us are willing to
accept evil? And you say, "What does this mean to receive evil?" This is what I believe
receive evil means. That you're not going to change your course of action because something
bad happens to you in your life. You're not going to change, you're not going to change
directions because of something bad happening in your life. What is the direction that the
devil is trying to get Job to change on? Cursing God. He's trying to get him to curse God. That's
their whole challenge. But he's never cursed God before. And what does the devil say? Well,
the reason why Job's never cursed God, he's never had a reason to curse God. He's got
tons of money, he's got an awesome family, he's got everything going for him, he's really
popular, he's really successful. I mean, why would he curse God? He's got no reason to
curse God. But he says, "Hey, let's start taking stuff away from him. Then he'll curse
God. Let's take his money and see if he'd curse God. Let's see if we'd take his kids
if he would curse God. Let's see if we'd take, you know, his status if he'd curse God." And
he doesn't. And then the devil's like, "Fine. If I touch his body, if I get his health,
then he'll curse God." Nope. He gets the worst health, imaginable, worst pain imaginable,
intense suffering. And what does the wife say? "Why don't you just curse God and die?"
You know what he's thinking? "I'm not going to change my actions based on what God has
given me. God's given me evil, then I'm going to receive the evil and I'm not going to change
my course of action. I'm not going to curse God. I'm just not going to go against God.
I'm going to be willing to receive evil in my life." But you know how many Christians
are willing to receive evil in their life? They want the "blessed" life. They want the
Joel Osteen. I want, you know, only good. You know what? We should also be willing to
receive evil in our life.
You know, good typically doesn't make you good. Good makes you spoiled. Good makes you
prideful. Good makes you rotten. It's like eating sugar. It makes your teeth have cavities,
right?
What does evil often do? Evil often makes you a better person if you receive it. Evil
can give you character. It can give you patience. It can give you empathy. Often, you know,
our hearts are so filled with junk that we don't have room for God. Evil can come and
literally shatter your heart into pieces to where now you have lots of room for God. We
We have to understand that sometimes God is bringing us things in our lives so that we'll
receive them so that good can come out of it.
We can build character, we can build integrity, we can show our faith, we can show our strength.
And you know, we're reading this story about evil people being destroyed and I think it's
hard for some people to accept these things, but we can relate to this a little bit that
even when children die, even when little kids die, even when women die, even when people
that weren't directly in the battle die, you know, that's life.
life and if we think about the actual story, go over to Psalm 137, I want to go to another
place here, go to another story. What we should really be learning though from this example
of Sion the king of Heshbon is that the decisions that we make, especially as husbands, especially
as fathers, especially as leaders, is that there is consequences to our sin that do not
only affect us. As a decision maker, as a husband, as a pastor, as a leader, at any
capacity as a Christian, my sin will affect other people. And the Bible says, "One sin
or destroy is much good." If these fathers, if Sion the king of Heshbon had said, "No
problem, we'll let you pass through. Here's our food, here's our water, buy it of us,"
they would have been financially successful, they would have been prosperous, and none
of their children would have died. None of their women would have died. Who really killed
those women and children? Was it the children of Israel or was it the king of Heshbon? And
his heart at heart against God. And we have to understand in a lot of ways that sin kind
of rolls upwards in a sense. And a lot of times it's the consequences of other people's
actions that are rolling downhill. If we think about it, why is Sion the king of Heshbon
in the situation he's in? Well, why are all of us in the situation we're in? You know
why all of us are in the situation we're in? Because our parents Adam and Eve sinned in
the garden. You know if Adam and Eve had never sinned, none of their children would have
died. But because of their sin, sin was brought into the world. And because sin is brought
upon the world, we're all going to die. And I'm going to give you a really sad reality.
We all die. You know, we can sit here and be like, "Oh, it's sad that babies die." Everyone
dies. And death is just sad. It doesn't matter. Look, if a 99-year-old person dies, it's sad.
If a 9-day-old baby dies, it's sad. If a 9-month-old baby in the womb dies, it's sad. Death is
an enemy, is what the Bible says. And death is a result of sin. For the wages of sin
is death. There will be death. You know, people think like, "Oh, I can't worship the God of
the Bible because he's, quote, genocidal." Let me tell you something about God. He's
not only genocidal. He's going to kill everyone. One will die. Death is going to pass upon
all men. The only hope is, you know, in a sense, is being raptured, okay? But let's
be honest, that is the vast minority of humanity. The rest of humanity will die, period. And
you can get mad about that, but you know the reason why we're going to die? Because you
sinned, and because I sinned, and because Adam and Eve sinned, and for all of sin it
comes short of the glory of God. And as a result of that, there's consequences. Now,
in some cases, you know, little babies dying, they didn't sin, but you know what? They're
dying as a consequence of parents' sin. In a sense, because of Adam and Eve, at the very
minimum, at the very minimum, at least because of Adam and Eve, death came into the world
and sin by death, and death by sin, and because of that, well, babies are going to die now.
If Adam had never eaten off of that tree, we wouldn't have babies dying. We wouldn't
have little infants dying. We wouldn't have cancer. We wouldn't have everything. But you
know what? God allowed free will to exist, and there's consequences to our actions. That's
why the actions of every person are so, so important. We need to be careful with the
decisions that we make, because the decisions that we make will affect other people. And
God will bring judgment. And if you're a wicked nation, God will destroy you. Now, we haven't
gotten to them yet, but the children of Israel are going to inherit the promised land, and
He's going to wipe out those nations, too. They don't even offer them this, like, peace
agreement, okay? But you say, "Why is God doing that?" Well, because they're all worthy
of death. I mean, you read in Leviticus chapter number 20, they're giving their children a
sacrifice in the Moloch. They're just a barbarous, evil, wicked, satanic group of people, and
so God is going to use a wicked nation to destroy them. And you know, throughout history,
many nations and groups of people have been genocided, in a sense. Think about it. We're
reading about the Kaftorams. There's no Kaftor person alive anymore. There's no Zamzumems.
There's no Emems. There's no any of these people anymore. They were completely eradicated
and destroyed as a result of just being so super wicked and evil. And, you know, even
Babylon. Babylon's no longer a nation. There's not Babylonian people anymore. They were genocided
too. Now, that's why we read this story, Psalm 137, look at verse 8. "O daughter of Babylon,
who art thou," I'm sorry, "who art to be destroyed? Happy shall he be that rewardeth
thee as thou served us. Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against
the stones." Now this is one of those verses that liberals would love to just cherry pick
and they just say like, "Oh, look, why would you want to believe in the Bible because it's
showing like God wanting to kill babies or something." Okay, let's get the context for
half a second. The context is not just God just killing babies because he thinks it's fun or
something. Number one, this is the Babylonians getting destroyed by the Medo-Persian empire.
The Medo-Persian empire is going to come in and they're going to destroy and take over
the Babylonians and that army, this evil wicked army is going to kill their children and be happy
about it. Now what would be an example of this today? You know an example of this today is Israel
genociding people in Palestine and Gaza Strip and they're happy about it. I mean we can't even
we can't even sit here and say that Jews aren't even happy about what they're doing. They get
excited. They think it's cool. Now look I'm not pro-genocide. I think in the New Testament it's
off limits. I don't think nations should be genociding other nations. I think we should
be preaching the gospel to all nations. And we saw the gospel in my overview to Acts where they
were able to get the gospel to everyone and change the world without killing anyone. You know we
should be a group of people that are for peace. We have to understand that God will often use
wicked nations to judge other wicked nations and he may even genocide them when they're you know
just way out of whack. What would be groups like this? I don't know. How about the Aztecs? How
about the Mayans? How about groups that were extremely barbarous? They were going on to
temples. They were just ripping people's hearts out, worshiping you know Satan literally. Then
it's like hey you have the Catholics come through and just wipe you out because literally the
Catholics came and just destroyed a lot of the barbarous people and a lot of the indigenous
people in South America. Now again does that make the Catholics good? No they're just the instrument
that God used to destroy those people. And you know look Muslims are not good people as far as
their religion. People that worship the God of Allah, that is a false religion. They are wicked,
they are evil, they are not of God. And you know what? If they don't repent God could use anybody
to wipe them out and destroy them and cause evil to come upon them. That's why you should always
be right with God. And look America is not special. If we decide to turn away from God and we start
worshiping water goo goo or whatever they said, or we start worshiping some false God, or we become
whoever, God could cause us to get wiped out by somebody, to get completely replaced by somebody,
or completely just genocided by a whole other group of people. We have to make sure that God
is on our side. Otherwise we could have this same fate. And instead of being so worried about other
people, you should be worried about yourself and your own children and the decisions that you're
making. Because God can and will destroy people at his own discretion. And he is just in doing so.
I am not guaranteed another second in this life. God would be totally just in killing me
as soon as he wants to. You know, and we can sit here and get mad about it and think like,
"That doesn't make sense. That's not fair." But you know what? God is just in taking us to heaven
whenever he wants. In fact, he's merciful taking me to heaven because I don't deserve heaven. I
deserve hell. And every day I get, I should take soberly and seriously and say, "You know what?
This is a blessing that I get. Another day to serve God. Another day to do something for him."
And you know, we could get all mad about, quote, genocide and all these things. But you know what?
I love the God of the Bible and I don't think that he's bad or evil for taking these people out.
And look, these people were evil. They're wicked. They were going to destroy others.
We don't know what other diseases they may have had. They could have had all kinds of STDs.
They could have had all kinds of genetic issues. They could have had destruction in their heart
and wanted to destroy other people. You know, by God genociding them,
he may have been preserving other people's lives. There could have been total carnal
rationality why he even did these things. Even if that didn't exist though, I still agree with what
God did and it was still right and he's still just. God is just no matter what he does and what we
should do is we should take responsibility for our actions. Instead of getting mad at God for
what happened, why don't you get mad at Sihon the king of Eshpon? Instead of getting mad at what God
did to the Egyptians, why don't you get mad at Pharaoh for what he did? Instead of getting mad
about the flood, why don't you get mad at all the men whose hearts were thinking only evil continually
is what the Bible says. Why don't you get mad at them? Instead of getting mad at God for causing
death to come in the world, why don't you get mad at Adam for sinning and bringing death into the world?
Because it's again not God's fault that he set up this system and said, "Hey, I'm going to give you
free will, but there's consequences to your free will." It's not God's fault when we suffer the
consequences of our decision-making. Hey, you know what? Parents can make decisions. This is sad.
Parents can make decisions that harm their children in what seems to be an unfair way.
I mean, how many parents, you know, make a decision, they get drunk and drive in a car,
and they crash their family and kill kids in their family? Parents that make decisions
to abort their children, literally. Parents that make decisions to hurt and harm their kids
psychologically and their development. I mean, there's all kinds of unfair things happening.
Parents that are neglectful and don't watch their children and their children get ran over in the
street. Parents that just make bad decisions about where to take them to school and they get
molested. They take them to bad churches and they hear a false gospel. Look, bad things are happening
all over the planet and we need to take responsibility for our actions and we need to
say, "Hey, you know what? I need to make good decisions for my children because the decisions
I make are going to affect them." You know, we have to be careful and not blaming God for Him giving
us free will. We need to take personal responsibility and realize there's consequences to the decisions
we make and sometimes we can doom our own family when we're not careful, when we're not doing right.
In fact, I'll be honest with you, probably the number one reason why I'm standing right here
right now is based on one thought. And this one thought was the fact that me and my wife had
gotten pregnant with Clayton and I said, "If I go down the trajectory I'm going, I'm worried that
my son will be like me and make decisions that I made." And I said, "I don't want that because I
haven't made a lot of good decisions in my life and I want him to be better than me." And so I
was seeking how to be more godly and be a better person so that my son had a chance to follow in a
better, a better pathway. And you know what? Some of us need to make some sacrifices for our
children. You know, maybe you don't need church, but your kids need church. Maybe you don't need
to memorize the verse, but your kids need to memorize the verse. Maybe, you know, you don't
need money, but your kids need to make some money and provide for them. Maybe you don't need to
learn how to read again, but your kids need to learn how to read, or tithers you, or someone to
help them. You know, I don't need now to learn how much college is a terrible decision for me,
but maybe my kids need to learn about how some of the decisions that I made were a bad decision for
me. You know, and I got a lot of vaccines, but my kids don't need a lot of vaccines.
Hey, they can vicariously live through my bad decisions and not have to do them. I can teach
them and train them and try to help them to have a better opportunity and a better life, but you
know, at the end of the day, they still have their own free will too. And you know what? You kids are
not guaranteed to be like your parents. You have to make the decisions to be like your parents and
walk down the path that they have. We all have to take personal responsibility for our actions,
and we have to realize that God gave us a ton of free will. We're not Calvinists here,
not all going to just work out the way God wants it. God has a path for us, but have you read,
have you been reading the story? It's about how they keep not doing what God wants them to do.
The whole reason they're where they're at is because they didn't do what God wanted them to
do. And now they're suffering the consequences of it. The children of Israel, these people,
you know, the vast majority of this world is not doing what God wants them to do. God's not willing
that any should perish, but that all should come under repentance. And you know what? The vast
majority of people are going to die and go to hell. As bad as you think it is for a baby to die,
it's way worse to be suffering in hell for eternity. And that's the God of the Bible too.
Instead of getting mad about the God of the Bible, why don't you get mad at sin and mad
at the bad decisions that we make and actually start trying to serve God better. And you know
what? We should also realize that we're really screwed up and we need to pray for a lot of
mercy too. Because I'm not good enough to make all the right decisions. Even now. And we need
God's mercy, we need His grace, and we need His wisdom, we need His prompting, we need His leading.
And we should make sure that we're fighting the right battles. Because when we're not fighting
the right battles and God's not on our side, it's going to get messed up quick. We want to be
fighting the right battles and we want to be on God's side because God can take out whoever He
wants whenever He wants. And we should fear God. You know, it's a fearful thing to fall in the hands
of the living God, as the Bible says. You know, I hope that when you read a story where He's killing
women and children, that you wake up and realize life is serious and God is serious. He's not
someone to mess with. And you know what? If God slay me, I will still trust in Him. If He takes
stuff away from me, I'll still trust Him. But you know what? I don't want Him to take them away from
me because I made a stupid decision that I could have avoided. I don't want Him to, you know, curse
me and plague me and start fighting against me Himself. I want Him to be for me. And you know
what? We should take our Christianity very seriously. We have a big, big task ahead of us.
Just like the promised land was a big task for them. Soul winning and the missions. I mean, we
only got like five flags up here. There's 195 countries in this world and Israel's gonna be
tough. I'm telling you what. I'm just kidding. Who will go? I'm just kidding. Oh man. We have a big
task ahead of us. We have a lot of work to do. And you know, the last thing we want to do is just
start making dumb decisions that are ruining us, ruining our family. You know, we should take our
lives very seriously and very soberly. And you know, don't get discouraged by the atheists out
there. Oh God's genocidal. You know what? These leftists would love for all of us to die. They're
not more righteous than God. They're not more loving than God. God is the one that's the most
righteous and the most loving. He is love. And don't get discouraged by these kind of stories.
Just realize, hey, everything we give is actually a blessing. God's not wrong in taking anything
away. He's not taking anything away. Everything He's doing is giving and being more long suffering
and being more merciful. Let's close in prayer. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for what you
have given us and and the grace that we've been given through salvation that we can go to heaven
when we don't deserve it. Also just every breath that we get to take every day that we get to live.
I pray that we'd look at it as a blessing. I pray that when evil happens, when bad things happen,
that we're willing to receive it. That when difficulty and struggles happen in this world
that we wouldn't sit here and blame you and get mad at you. I pray that we take personal
responsibility for our decision making and for our actions. I pray that you'd help us to be more
sober and serious about our lives. I pray that you would help us to navigate our families and our
loved ones and our children correctly and with wisdom and discretion. And I pray that you would
give us just so much grace and so much mercy that even when we screw up and when we don't make the
right decisions that you wouldn't take it out on our families. But I pray that you would just please
continue to bless us, that we'd have the right attitude. I pray that you'd bless the work that
we're doing so we get more people saved and we just thank you for all you give us. In Jesus name
we pray. Amen. Amen. For our last song we're going to go to song number 405. Song number 405,
The Banner of the Cross. Song 405, The Banner of the Cross. Sing it out on the first.