Thank you.
All right.
Thanks so much for coming this evening to Pure Words Baptist Church.
If you want to turn in your hymnals to song 162, we'll get started this evening.
One hundred and sixty-two, to God be the glory.
There in your hymnal, we'll turn to song one hundred and sixty-two, to God be the glory.
There on the first.
To God be the glory, great things he hath done,
so loved he the world that he gave us his son,
who yielded his life and atonement for sin,
and opened the life gate that all may go in.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice.
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done,
O perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
to every believer the promise of God,
the vilest offender who truly believes,
that moment from Jesus a pardon receives.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice.
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done,
great things he hath taught us, great things he hath done,
and great are rejoicing through Jesus the Son,
but purer and higher and greater will be our wonder, our transport,
when Jesus we see.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear his voice.
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice.
O come to the Father through Jesus the Son,
and give him the glory, great things he hath done.
Good singing. Let's start with a word of prayer this evening.
Thank you Heavenly Father for giving us this opportunity to be gathered,
to hear the word of God being preached, to sing songs unto your glory.
I pray that you would just fill us with your Holy Spirit this evening,
that we would be edified by the words of God,
that we would draw closer to you,
and I pray that you would just help all aspects of this service
to be in your honor and your glory in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen.
Let's go to our next song, 248.
248 in our hymnals.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Song 248.
Now I belong to Jesus, 248.
There on the first.
Jesus my Lord will love me forever,
from him no power of evil can sever.
He gave his life to ransom my soul,
now I belong to him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone,
but for eternity.
Once I was lost in sin's degradation,
Jesus came down to bring me salvation,
lifted me up from sorrow and shame.
Now I belong to him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone,
but for eternity.
Joy floods my soul for Jesus has saved me,
freed me from sin that long had enslaved me.
His precious blood he gave to redeem.
Now I belong to him.
Now I belong to Jesus.
Jesus belongs to me.
Not for the years of time alone,
but for eternity.
If you need a bulletin, I think there's still another one over there on the cabinet.
We have on the inside, we have our service and soul winning times.
Also, we have our stats. Is there any soul winning to report for the last few days?
Any additional soul winning?
All right, if you have that, you can always send it in too.
On the right, please continue to pray for Ms. Darnell, who's expecting in June.
We also have some other upcoming guest preachers.
Brother Chris Segura is coming back out here.
And praise the Lord, he was able on a moment's notice, kind of an emergency situation,
he was able to come out here.
There was like a storm that hit the Dallas-Fort Worth area last Wednesday night and Thursday.
And it was just like icy and snowy and all this stuff.
And I thought I was going to have to possibly even go to court on Friday.
And I was thinking, man, I just don't know about driving real late at night with ice and stuff.
So I asked Brother Segura if he'd come out here last Thursday.
And thanks so much for him coming out here.
And I really appreciate that.
He was in Mexico when I called him or texted him or whatever.
And he's like, yeah, I'll make it work.
And so that's a big blessing.
And we really appreciate Brother Segura coming out here and preaching for us.
And so when he comes back out here in February, I definitely thank him again.
And he preaches a lot in a very short amount of space because he's a fast talker.
That's what we like about him.
So March 6, Brother Dylan Oz, he's going to be coming down here and preaching for you guys.
And then March 20, Brother Ben Naim.
So a lot of guest preachers coming down and that's great.
Also some upcoming events.
February 26, there's going to be a soul winning marathon in Waco, Texas.
Who's thinking about going to this one?
Is anybody planning on coming to this thing?
Just so I have an idea about food and stuff.
It's going to be, I think it's going to be a great opportunity to go in that area.
I don't know what the weather is going to be like exactly.
But we're going to meet at a park for breakfast.
It's that Pecan Bottom Park.
And the address is like, it doesn't even have like a number or something like that.
But you can kind of look it up.
There's not a lot in Waco, but it's Pecan Bottom Park.
Just type in your GPS.
It'll pop up.
And we're going to meet there at 9 a.m.
We'll have breakfast for about an hour.
And we'll go out soul winning for a couple hours.
And we'll meet back for lunch at the same park.
And so that's the plan.
Obviously, Lord willing and weather permitting, but that is kind of the plan.
It's usually looking up historically, it's around like mid 60s as far as like the high during that time.
So I assume it'll probably be pretty decent weather.
So it should be pretty fine going out there.
Also, we have March 24th, 25th, and 26th.
There's a soul winning seminar at Steadfast.
It's up there in Hearst.
And I just wanted to put it in here in case you want to participate.
It's for all varying degrees of expertise in soul winning as well.
So it's not only for experienced or only for new soul winners.
It's really for everyone.
And kind of the goal is to help all categories.
Especially even people that have never been soul winning.
Or they just want to get better at soul winning.
It's going to be kind of a part workshop too.
So we're going to be able to do a little bit of instruction and have a dinner each night.
And then a breakfast on Saturday.
But have a part or a portion of the time devoted to people being able to practice giving the gospel.
Going through different conversations and stuff like that with other soul winners.
That way it's kind of more comfortable.
Gives them some more practical experience and opportunity for some feedback.
And it's just hopefully we can get people to just improve a little bit on our soul winning.
And we can always improve. We can always get better.
And so that's the goal.
If you've never been soul winning, it's really going to be a really great opportunity to just learn how to preach the gospel.
Learn how to present the gospel to people.
Get some boldness and get some confidence and learn some things.
So also April 2nd, we're going to go, it's kind of a pure sponsored event, but we're going to go to College Station again.
And so we've been there, I think it was in 2019 if I remember the year correctly.
It was a couple years ago.
And it really went really well.
It's not even that far from here. It's about an hour and a half.
So I'd encourage you, if you can make it to one of these marathons or even the soul winning seminar, that would be a great opportunity to do that.
That's pretty much all I have as far as announcements so far.
We'll go ahead and go to our third song, 409, 409.
I do want to, did we hand out the New Testament challenge prizes on Sunday?
Okay, alright, good.
Did anybody not get theirs?
If you didn't, you can see brother Nick or myself and we'll try to get that to you.
But hopefully everybody kind of already got that taken care of.
So thanks to all who participated.
409 in our hymnals, the fight is on.
409.
There on the beginning.
The fight is on, the trumpet sound is ringing out.
The cry to arms is heard afar and near.
The Lord of hosts is marching on to victory.
The triumph of the Christ will soon appear.
The fight is on, oh Christian soldier.
And face to face in stern array.
With armor gleaming and colors streaming.
The right and wrong engaged today.
The fight is on, but be not weary.
Be strong and in His might hold fast.
If God be for us, His banner o'er us.
We'll sing the victor's song at last.
The fight is on, a rousey soldier's brave and true.
Jehovah leads and victory will assure.
So buckle on, the armor God has given you.
And in His strength forever we'll endure.
The fight is on, oh Christian soldier.
And face to face in stern array.
With armor gleaming and colors streaming.
The right and wrong engaged today.
The fight is on, but be not weary.
Be strong and in His might hold fast.
If God be for us, His banner o'er us.
We'll sing the victor's song at last.
On the last, the fight is leading on to certain victory.
The bow of Bra misspans the eastern sky.
His glorious name in every land shall honored be.
The morn will break, the dawn of peace is nigh.
The fight is on, oh Christian soldier.
And face to face in stern array.
With armor gleaming and colors streaming.
The right and wrong engaged today.
The fight is on, but be not weary.
Be strong and in His might hold fast.
If God be for us, His banner o'er us.
We'll sing the victor's song at last.
Very good singing. At this time we'll turn to our Bibles of Habakkuk chapter 2.
Brother Sampson is going to read for us Habakkuk chapter number 2.
We'll read the entire chapter.
And we'll pass the offering.
Alright, alright we will.
Habakkuk chapter number 2.
As I said we'll read this entire chapter together as always.
And we'll start right here in Habakkuk chapter 2 verse number 1 where the Bible reads.
I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower.
And watch to see what He shall say unto me.
And what shall I answer when I am reproved?
The Lord answered me and said, Write a vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that heareth it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie.
Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
Behold, his soul which is lifted up is not upright in him, but it just shall live by faith.
Yea, also because he transgresses by wine, he is a proud man.
Neither keep it at home, for he enlarges his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied.
But gathereth up unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people.
Shall not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say,
Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his! How long! And to him that laden himself with thick clay!
Shall they not rise up suddenly that shall bite thee, and await that shall vex thee?
And thou shalt be for booties unto them, because thou hast foiled many nations.
All the remnant of the people shall spoil thee, because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land,
and of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house, that he may set his nest on high,
that he may be delivered from the power of evil.
Thou hast consulted shame to thy house by cutting off many people, and hast sinned against thy soul.
For the stone shall cry out from the wall, and the beam out of the timber shall anchor it.
Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and establishes its city by iniquity.
Behold, it is not of the Lord of hosts that the people shall labor in the very fire,
and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity.
For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.
Woe to him that giveth his neighbor drink, that he putteth thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also,
that thou mayst look on their nakedness.
Thou art filled with shame for glory, drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered.
The cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid because of men's blood,
and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.
What profiteth the graven image that the Maker thereof hath graven?
The molten image, and the teacher of lies, that the Maker of his work trusted therein, to make dumb idols.
Woe unto him that said to the wood, Awake! to the dumb stone aright, it shall teak.
Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it.
But the Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him.
So we're in Habakkuk chapter number two and this is kind of a smaller book, there's only three chapters.
And the first two chapters kind of have a running theme and they kind of go hand in hand and it kind of continues the thought that we've had in the previous chapter.
And to kind of remind you of that, let's read a few verses here before we get into chapter number two.
But it says in verse number 13, if you look at chapter one,
Thou art of pure eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity.
Wherefore, lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth, the man that is more righteous than he,
and makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them.
They take up all of them with the angle, they catch them in their net, and gather them in their drag,
therefore they rejoice and are glad, therefore they sacrifice under the net and burn incense under their drag,
because by them their portion is fat, and their meat plenteous.
Shall they therefore empty their net and not spare continually to slay the nations?
Now, in Habakkuk chapter number one, in the tail end, the prophet is replying to God and he's very frustrated.
He had said in the very opening of Habakkuk chapter number one, judgment doth never go forth, and the law is slack.
And he's basically, he's perplexed by the reality that the world he's living in, it seems like people are getting away with murder.
And literally, murder, literally violence, literally all kinds of evil and just blasphemy against the Lord,
the worshiping of false gods, false religion, just, he's very perplexed at the fact that there's so much evil,
and it seems like there's no judgment, it seems like people aren't getting punished for the evils that they're doing,
all their theft, and all their lies, and all their deceit.
And the Lord says, no, no, no, no, their punishment's coming, no, it's going to happen, they're going to be punished.
And he kind of replies here at the end of chapter number one by saying, well, look, they keep killing all these people,
they keep just taking them as a fisher, just, you know, runs his net through the ocean and just fills it up with all kinds of fish,
and then he just goes back and just does it again, just keeps, you know, getting more and more people.
He's saying, isn't that what the wicked are going to do? The wicked just seem to constantly slay and constantly steal money,
and it's just like, when are they going to get done with that? I mean, when are they going to be finished, you know,
just basically taking all these people for advantage?
So in chapter number two, he's kind of continuing with this, you know, this line of thinking here.
He says in verse number one, I will stand upon my watch and set me upon the tower,
and will watch to see what he will say unto me and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
So he had said, you know, judgment's never happening, God's saying, no, the judgment is coming,
there's going to be this, you know, evil judgment that's going to happen on all these wicked people,
and he's saying, but I just, you know, it seems like they're just doing whatever they want, they just keep going.
He's like, okay, fine, I'll go sit up in the watchtower and I'll wait for this impending judgment,
and, you know, and I'll wait and see what God has to say about my latest response, and I'll wait for him to correct me, okay?
That's basically what he's saying. He's kind of jaded, you know, he's kind of just like, okay, God, sure, I'll just wait,
let's see what's going to happen or whatever, okay?
Verse number two, and the Lord answered me, and he's like, hey, I'll give you an answer,
and said, write the vision and make it plain upon tables that he may run that readeth it.
So when he's telling Habakkuk his response, he first wants to make it clear to him, look, this is not a private message,
this is not something that I just want to tell you, I want you to write down my message, I want you to put it on tables.
Now tables, we think of like a kitchen table or something where people sit at and eat.
Tables here, it's similar to the word tablet, and again, with a tablet, you're kind of thinking about an iPad or something like that.
But tablets in the past were just instruments upon which people would write upon.
It's basically like a stone tablet where people would engrave, and that's how they would basically communicate
or put an important message, they'd put it on a tablet.
Today, we have paper, we have pens, we have computers, we have the printing press, we have a lot of other inventions
that accomplish the same goal, but essentially what he's wanting him to do is he's wanting to write down the words of God,
and he also wants them to write them down in a manner in which people can understand it.
He wants it to be plain, and the reality is God wants his word to be known, he wants his word to be understood,
he wants people to be able to grasp the message so that they can actually do the actions that God wants them to perform.
He doesn't want to just always hide it from them, he wants to make it simple.
And when you think about the laws of God, they're really in their most simplistic form that they could possibly be.
Think about commandments like, thou should not kill.
I mean, how are you going to simplify that?
I mean, that's as simple as it can possibly be.
I mean, and still communicate the exact same message.
I mean, you've got to have the thou because you've got to address the person, right?
Shout not, meaning you're not supposed to do it, and then kill is the action that you're not supposed to do.
I mean, you can't really get any clearer than stuff like that.
Thou should not commit adultery, right?
Honor thy father and mother.
Thou should have no other gods before me.
I mean, this is plain language.
Whereas, if you've ever read the laws of America, you've ever read legal documents today, those things are confusing.
Those things have all kinds of caveats and use vague language, and they're almost purposely vague,
so as to try and protect them from any kind of liability or to give them the option of basically changing their mind later.
Whereas, the Word of God is not so.
The Word of God is written to be plainly understood, plainly identified.
God wants his commandments to be known so that they will be observed.
God doesn't want to just make up weird laws that we have no idea what's going on.
He makes them very plain on purpose.
Now, that's not to say that there aren't things in the Bible that are hard to be understood.
Obviously, there's plenty of things in the Bible that take a lot of study.
They take the Spirit of God to understand them.
But, in general, God wants the Word of God to be plain and to be easy understood,
and the problem that most people have is they just simply don't read it.
It's not that it's really hard and confusing.
It's just that they didn't read it.
Now, it's going to be very difficult to follow God's commandments when you're not reading it,
when you don't pay attention to the information, but he's saying,
look, the guy that does pay attention, right,
doesn't he say, make it plain up on tables that he may run, that what?
That readeth it.
So, the guy that reads the Word of God, the guy that studies the Bible,
the guy that actually cares about what the Lord said, he can now run in the right direction.
And notice that God wants us to have a haste about us.
God wants us to have zeal, excitement, and to do things with effort, with energy.
Running takes a lot of energy.
In fact, if you were just going a dead sprint, you pretty much can't even go more than 30 seconds.
I mean, most of you probably wouldn't be able to go 30 seconds.
I'm just being honest with you, okay?
Dead sprint?
I mean, even professional athletes, they have a hard time sprinting for about 10 seconds.
Even at about a 10-second mark, they're already starting to slow down
and start to lose their breath or whatever.
So, running is putting forth a lot of energy.
People that run in marathons, typically the greatest athletes of the world
are only running about two hours or two and a half hours
and they're about to die at the point in which they stop.
Some people even literally die because it's just so incredibly taxing to run.
But what does God want?
God wants us to put an effort in following his commandments and doing the will of God.
If it just says that he may walk, that readeth it.
It's just kind of like, take it, we'll do a little bit here and there, we'll put a little energy.
He doesn't say walk, he doesn't say jog, he says run.
Because we're supposed to run in the way of God's commandments.
We're supposed to take them seriously.
We're supposed to put a lot of effort and energy into following God's word.
God doesn't want his commandments to just be a lackadaisical, optional thing.
No, it's something that we're supposed to run.
We're supposed to have excitement.
We're supposed to have zeal.
It makes me think of Acts 8, whenever Philip the evangelist is going out
and he's preaching the gospel to people and the Holy Spirit comes upon him
and it says, hey, join thyself under this chariot.
And he runs.
He runs under the chariot and he preaches him the gospel.
He has a little bit of excitement about him.
He wants to do it and whenever the Lord tells him to do something, he's going to do with all his might.
That's how I drive.
I drive with all my might.
Some people might say it looks like running, but you know what?
Hey, I'm going to get there.
That's the whole goal.
And Habakkuk is a watchman.
The watchman is an important role in the Bible.
It's someone that's paying attention to the world.
He's paying attention to what's going on.
He's looking for potential issues or threats, evil, wickedness,
and he spots it to then warn the entire rest of the people.
You know, today we don't really have watchmen in a very common usage.
We do have them in certain positions.
But for us personally, we typically don't have a watchman.
What do we have?
You have a home security system, right?
Or it seems like you have a dog.
Man, everybody has a dog now, don't they?
And what's like the primary reason most people have a dog is simply just the bark
when there's someone, you know, in their vicinity, in the neighborhood.
It's kind of a protection.
It kind of alerts them.
And a lot of dogs, they themselves provide no protection whatsoever.
Chihuahuas, zero protection.
No one's life has ever been saved from the chihuahua fighting off the attacker, okay?
But there may have been someone's life who was saved because the chihuahua barked,
yip, yip, yip, yip, yip, or whatever.
And it basically sounds like an alarm.
You know, it's really annoying sounding.
And it basically alerted them to the threat that was impending, okay?
Unfortunately, dogs give a lot of false alarms, don't they?
That's one of the problems with dogs.
They just bark at everything.
And the point of a watchman, though, is to alert with danger,
to help people realize there's a threat, and to prepare themselves when they're sleeping.
You know, you would have the first watch of the night, the second watch.
Also, because it's really difficult to sleep during the day and work during the night,
what they would have is they would take shifts.
So in the Bible, you know, you have people that are in the first watch, second watch, third watch.
So they're just staying up for a few extra hours,
and then they have different shifts that they kind of take,
and someone's basically always keeping their eyes open.
But it's important that the guy that's the watchman during his shift is keeping his eyes open.
He's paying attention because at any moment, the enemy may strike.
And it would be a very grievous thing to be the watchman and not alert people
when it's your time to watch.
Now, how does that relate to you and me in a modern context?
Well, here's how it relates in a modern context,
is that there's a lot of people out here that don't realize that they could die at any moment and go to hell.
And they need someone to come up and alert them of the danger and the threat that they're in.
And whenever you don't warn people, God says He's going to hold their blood on your head.
Basically, their blood is in your hands because you didn't warn them.
You weren't a watchman unto them.
And so the point of a Christian is to be a watchman of the evils that are in this world,
to warn people of the threats of this world, and to help them to get saved.
Not only to help them to get saved, we even go beyond that.
We also warn them about the threats of sin in their life, the consequences of sin,
of lying and stealing and murder and adultery and how these things will destroy your life,
they'll destroy your mind, your family, your finances, just everything about you.
You know, sin is a very grievous thing.
The Bible says the way of transgressors is hard.
There's no watchman in our lives to warn us about the evils that are befalling us or nation or area.
Some people don't like the watchman, but you know what?
The someone that wants their city to be safe and wants to essentially be pleasing unto the Lord,
he's going to appreciate the guy that's giving him the warning messages, the warning signal.
But a city that has no watchman is a dangerous place to live
because at any moment someone could come and snatch you, take you away,
you could be destroyed by many different evils.
And so it's important to have this watchman, it's important to have the word of God,
and it's important for the word of God to be plain so that people can run that readeth it.
Another thing that's important when it comes to the word of God is that you have it in your own language.
You know, we have a King James Bible and praise God that someone translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew.
Because I guarantee virtually none of us know any Greek or Hebrew.
I mean, anybody here, katilaventhe lemikah?
Anybody? I don't think so.
And you know what, it's not easy. I've been trying to learn Greek and it's hard.
It's very difficult, it's a stammering tongue, it's a dark speech or whatever.
And that's just Greek. I think that Greek's probably easier than Hebrew.
I don't know, it just kind of depends on maybe your background and everything like that.
But I'm so glad that 54 scholars took the Greek manuscripts, took the original Hebrew,
and put it into the King James Bible so that you and I could run that readeth it.
Think about how difficult it would be to serve God in 2022 if the only option for reading the Bible was Greek or Hebrew.
Wouldn't that be kind of hard? Wouldn't that be a little bit difficult?
You'd have to learn a foreign language. I wouldn't want to have to do that.
And unfortunately, there are some people, there are some parts of the world that they don't even have a great translation
or they don't have easy access to the word of God and it hinders them in serving God.
I mean, if we were going to say what nations and what countries and what areas are people serving God the greatest,
it's where they have the word of God.
It's not like, oh, there's this one country where they don't have the Bible but they're really serving God well.
No, no, no, the places that don't have Bibles or it's illegal or they basically shame the word of God,
those are the darkest, most evil places to live on the planet, places like China.
And look, China's trying to take over the whole world, okay?
But just the microcosm, we don't even know what it's like. We're looking from the outside in.
I mean, it looks scary. It's illegal to have Bibles over there. They will literally punish people.
There's other countries where it's illegal to have the word of God, have a Bible, and these are spiritually dark areas,
places where the government will just kill its citizens and not care whatsoever.
They don't have religious liberty. They don't have religious freedom.
They don't have the benefits of a capitalistic society that America used to have before we became socialists.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but I mean, they don't have all these luxuries and freedoms that come with the word of God.
Because where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
Where there's the absence of the spirit of the Lord, there is enslavement.
There is bondage. And the countries that don't have a Bible are in bondage today.
North Korea. I mean, do you really want to live in North Korea today?
Do you really want to live in China? Do you really want to live in these areas where the Bible is just, you can't even find it?
There's a famine of God's word?
That's why in America, we need to make sure that we never let the Bible go slipping through our fingers.
We don't allow the word of God to disappear off of the planet because that will literally cause us to go into a great degradation.
A great just free fall into the pits of hell.
We need the word of God. We need it plain. We need to make it plain unto people so that they can run towards the Lord.
Let's keep reading in this chapter. We have a lot of stuff to cover here.
It says in verse 3,
For the vision is yet for an appointed time.
So now the Lord is going to give him kind of the answer.
We kind of had this set up. Here's what he's actually saying.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie, though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
Behold, his soul, which is lifted up, is not upright in him, but the just shall live by his faith.
Now, again, the Lord is telling Habakkuk.
He's saying, look, I told you the judgment's coming, but it is going to be a while.
He's saying it's going to basically take a long time to get there.
So you have to wait for it.
But then he kind of says, because it will surely come, it will not tarry.
I think what the Lord's trying to communicate is he's saying it's going to feel like forever, but then when it happens, it's going to feel like it just happened like that quick.
And the closest parallel to this is just your life.
When you're growing up, when you're a teenager, when you're a young adult, it feels like you becoming older is just so long.
It's like, how long am I going to be a teenager?
How long am I going to have my driver's permit?
When am I going to finally get my driver's license?
When am I going to finally get a car?
When am I going to finally move out?
When am I going to finally do these things?
When you finally get there, you're going to be like, wow, that was quick.
When you finally have kids, you're going to be like, that was quick.
When you finally have a lot of kids, you're like, wow, that was quick.
And some of you was really quick, okay?
And you know who I'm talking about.
You're going to have grandkids and you're going to be like, man.
And so our concept of time is really difficult for us because we only live in the present.
But sometimes the future just feels like this infinitely long time that we can't really reach towards.
But then when we actually get to a point in time when we were kind of long expecting it,
we end up realizing like, wow, that was a lot quicker than I really expected.
I'm here, you know?
And so I think that's what the Lord is kind of trying to communicate here is that, hey, it's a long time, okay?
It's going to feel like forever.
You've got to wait for it.
But when it comes, it's going to feel like it was just like, wow, that was quick.
You know, we weren't prepared for that.
It's kind of like thinking of the ark.
You know, the ark, it's like 100 years or something.
You know, when it started raining, it felt like it happened like that.
Whenever the door of the ark got shut, it was just like, oh, man, that happened already?
You know, I've only been warning you for 100 years.
You know, it's like, come on, wake up, buddy.
And the same is going to be with people that go to hell.
People, you know, they're like, oh, I'll die 50 years from now or whatever.
But when they're about to take that last breath, it's going to seem like it was just a vapor and they're going to be in hell.
They're going to lift up their eyes.
You know, we're never promised tomorrow.
That's why it's important to get saved today.
But as we read this story, he also says in verse 4, behold his soul.
Now, when he says his, you kind of have to read between the lines a little bit.
God's talking about a particular individual here.
And that individual we know from the rest of scripture is Nebuchadnezzar specifically.
He's bringing up Nebuchadnezzar.
He's already brought him up in chapter number 1.
He's the king of Babylon.
And Babylon and Chaldeans are kind of the same.
And the way I kind of liken this is, you know, just think about the fact that if I said I'm an American, I'm from the United States.
Right? That's the same thing.
Or if you said someone's from Britain or they're from the UK.
It's the same place that we're talking about.
We're talking about the Chaldeans.
We're talking about the Babylonians.
We're talking about Nebuchadnezzar specifically.
And it's saying that his soul, which is lifted up, is not a pride in him.
So he's a very prideful person.
And if there was one word to describe Nebuchadnezzar, it's pride.
He's the most prideful person to probably ever live up to this point.
And the goal of Nebuchadnezzar is to illustrate that he's going to be a type of the Antichrist that's coming.
And he's going to have world domination.
Nebuchadnezzar conquers all the other nations.
He sets up an image.
He wants everyone to worship the image in the book of Daniel.
And we see the rebellion of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which are tossed into the fiery furnace.
So we know that's coming.
And Nebuchadnezzar is so prideful that at some point, even after being warned of God,
like, you're going to brag about yourself, and then you're basically going to become completely debased.
He still does it.
He's just like, oh, look, I conquered all these nations and whatever.
And then he literally becomes like an animal, is what the Bible says.
But this is way before any of this happens.
Probably way before Nebuchadnezzar's even grandparents were born.
When this particular prophecy is being described about this individual.
So he's talking about Nebuchadnezzar.
What does he say about Nebuchadnezzar?
He's saying that this guy's soul, which is lifted up, is not a pride in him.
Basically, Nebuchadnezzar is not a saved person.
And I've taught this consistently in my ministry.
I've always believed it.
Here's another proof of the fact that Nebuchadnezzar is not saved.
Because what's the contrasting statement?
The contrasting statement is, but the just shall live by his faith.
Well, that's just talking about when he was not saved.
But wait a minute.
He's not even born yet.
Okay?
And if God were to describe someone before they were born,
he would not look at them as a particular state of their past.
He wouldn't look at saved people and talk about them as being unsaved at some point in their life.
Because God knows us before the foundation of the world.
God looks at the saved as being saved their whole life.
Okay?
Because he's outside of time.
So if he's looking at someone, describing this person from the future,
and saying his soul is not right in him, talk about an unsaved person.
Okay?
And then he contrasts that with who?
With the saved.
But the just shall live by his faith.
And that's a real famous phrase that's repeated throughout the Bible.
We kind of see this repeated like in Romans chapter number one.
The just shall live by faith.
Okay?
And we understand that people are only just by faith.
There is not a just man upon the earth that doeth good and sinneth not, is what the Bible says.
And what that means is no one is perfect.
No one is righteous.
No one does good all the time.
Now some people will say, oh, good and bad people, or good people go to heaven, bad people go to hell.
Here's the problem.
There's no good people.
The Bible teaches that bad people that believe in Jesus go to heaven,
and bad people who don't believe in Jesus go to hell.
But there is no option of good people.
You know?
Good is only, the only person that's good is Jesus.
You know, that's why I even ask the question.
When the guy's like, hey, good master, he's like, why callest thou me good?
There's none good but God.
And then, you know, you have your Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons.
They'll be like, oh, well, then Jesus isn't God.
Oh, isn't Jesus not good?
And they're like, oh, well, he's good.
Well, then he's God.
Okay?
Because he was God manifest in the flesh, you know?
And Jesus even said about himself, I am the good shepherd.
So, we know that he knew what he was saying when he said that.
That he is God.
Okay?
That's another proof of the deity of God, of Jesus Christ,
the fact that he called himself the good shepherd.
That's him calling himself God because he made it clear
the only one that has that title of good is God.
Okay?
But additionally, when we look at this description of Nebuchadnezzar,
we know he's a very prideful man.
He's very wicked.
It says in verse number five,
Yea, also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man.
Neither keepeth at home, who in large desire as hell, and is as death,
and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations,
and heapeth unto him all people.
So, not all these take up a parable against him,
and a taunting proverb against him, and say,
Woe to him that increaseth that which is not his.
How long?
And him that laideth himself with thick clay.
So, what are some of the character attributes of Nebuchadnezzar?
Well, he's a drunkard.
He's someone that transgresses by wine, meaning he's a drunk,
he's an alcoholic, he's drinking lots of liquor, lots of alcohol,
lots of strong drink in the Bible as it's described,
and he's a very proud person, says he doesn't keep at home.
And, you know, this is an interesting thought to me,
is how people who drink alcohol, they don't drink at home.
Now, I'm not saying that they don't ever, but just generally speaking,
people, where do they like to drink alcohol?
They like to go out.
They like to go to the bar.
I mean, why is there literally thousands of bars in Houston?
It's not because people are drinking at home, my friend.
It's because people like to go out to drink, don't they?
Why is it that every restaurant has liquor and beer
and has all of these kinds of beverages available for people?
It's because they want to go out and drink.
They don't stay home.
An attribute of people that drink alcohol is often associated with them going out to drink.
It's not cool to drink at home.
They've got to go to the bar.
They've got to go to the restaurant.
They've got to go wherever to go get alcohol.
And the Bible is literally saying that.
He doesn't keep at home.
He's got to go out and do things or whatever, cause mischief.
Go go to Proverbs 23.
Let's see in the Bible a parallel here with alcohol
and how there's an association with going
when someone is going to drink alcohol, is going to drink liquor.
That's why it's good to just, you know, at night just be home.
You don't need to go out and cause mischief.
Nothing good is happening at night going out.
That's when all the wicked people come out.
All the wicked people come out, you know, they stumble out of their house, you know,
and they go and they do wicked things in the dark in the night
cause they want to hide all their mischief and all their wickedness.
Look at Proverbs 23.
Look at verse 30.
They that tarry long at the wine, they that go to seek mixed wine.
So notice what it's saying.
It's saying the people that drink alcohol are people that go to seek mixed wine.
It doesn't say that they're like staying.
They're going and they're seeking mixed wine,
meaning that they're making an effort to get drunk.
They're making an effort to drink alcohol.
And that's what a lot of people do today is they're going out seeking for something
and they end up finding alcohol.
They find a fake spirit, a wicked spirit, an evil spirit through the bottle.
It even says in a later portion of this verse, look what it says in verse 35.
They have stricken me, shalt thou say, and I was not sick.
They have beaten me and I felt it not.
When shall I awake?
I will seek it yet again.
Notice again the person's doing what?
He's seeking it again, implying what?
The people that are drinking, they have to go out and they want to drink.
And why is it that they're going out?
Well, because what's usually associated with alcohol is fornication, adultery.
People like to go to the bar.
Why are they going to the bar?
So they can see strange women.
I wonder if it says in the Bible, oh yeah, verse 33.
Thine eyes shall behold strange women.
You know where strange women are not?
In your house.
Because you already know the women that are in your house.
Why is it that people are going to the bar?
Because they want to meet strange women.
And when the Bible says strange, it's not saying that she looks weird, okay?
It's not saying that she's just, you know, like a four eyes, you know, or something.
Or she's got eight eyes or she's got a weird nose or something.
No, it's saying someone you don't know.
It's just saying, I just want to meet someone new.
And look, isn't that what a lot of people do?
I want to go to the bar and strike up a conversation with a stranger.
That's what the Bible is basically alluding to and suggesting.
That people will go out and they'll drink alcohol.
They're seeking this alcohol.
And they're just not content.
Because if you're content, you're not going to be going out and seeking all these thrills.
You're not going to be seeking different women or different partners or whatever.
You're just staying at home.
That's the essence of what the Bible's saying.
Nebuchadnezzar is not someone who's content.
So he's always doing what?
He's going out to get more and seeking more.
And he just is filled with all this pride because he has no contentment in his life.
Go if you would back to Habakkuk and look at verse five.
I want to do a little bit more study on this particular verse here.
But it's going to relate to some other verses here.
Look at verse number nine.
I'm skipping ahead, but just this thought.
Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness to his house.
So notice what was associated with Nebuchadnezzar.
He's full of covetousness.
What's the opposite of contentment is covetousness.
What is to covet?
Covet is to desire that which is not yours.
Now there's nothing wrong with wanting things.
We all desire things.
We're all going to have our wants and our needs.
We all have, you know, I want to eat food.
I'm hungry.
I haven't eaten dinner.
But there's nothing wrong with that.
But, you know, if you brought your dinner and I want your dinner.
That might be covetous.
Okay.
Because basically that's not really mine, that's yours.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a wife.
But there's something wrong with wanting someone else's wife.
There's nothing wrong with wanting a house.
There's something wrong with wanting your neighbor's house.
Nothing wrong with wanting a car.
There's something wrong with wanting your neighbor's car.
Nebuchadnezzar is the type of person.
is the type of person, he's not fine just
having a house and a wife and a car and food or whatever.
He wants your house.
He wants your wife.
He wants your goods.
That's a wicked person.
And you know what, our world, our society
is filled with people like this, filled
with companies and businessmen and countries and nations.
They're not satisfied with what they have.
Think about this.
There are entire nations today that
are not satisfied with their entire nation.
They want to conquer another nation.
Right?
I mean, isn't that the big news?
Russia is basically on the doorstep of Ukraine.
Why can't they be satisfied with all Russia?
Don't they have enough vodka or something?
I mean, don't they have enough snow?
Well, it's an evil covetousness that says,
you know what, I want their nation too.
I want their natural resources too.
I want their people too.
I want their money.
They're just not satisfied with what they have.
They have this inward desire to have world domination.
And it comes from a place of pride.
It comes from a place of covetousness instead
of just being content, just being content with the things
that God gave us.
You know, God's telling us in the book of 1 Timothy
that the love of money is the root of all evil.
And really, chasing money is just covetousness.
Chasing things that money can buy is really the same root.
If I want a car or a house or whatever,
I'm basically chasing that money.
And we have to realize that we need to be content
within ourselves, not be like this Nebuchadnezzar
who is just never satisfied.
Because when you have the covetous bug,
when you have the prideful bug, there is no limit.
There is no like, well, once I get to this point,
once I have 20 houses, then I'll be okay.
I mean, talk to your wife and see when she's gonna be
content with the number of shoes she has in the closet.
She's gonna want another pair.
She's gonna want another purse or whatever.
And look, there's nothing wrong with getting new clothes.
There's nothing wrong with getting a new outfit or whatever.
But we have to learn to just be content with what we have
in general and live a very content and a very humble life
and be careful with constantly desiring more
and wanting more.
It says in verse number five, it says,
he enlarges the desire as hell.
Now, when you're compared to hell,
I'm doubting your salvation.
Okay, he's saying he is like hell.
Now, what is hell like?
Hell here is being described in kind of a metaphoric sense.
I don't think that it's really necessarily
describing the location per se,
but it's more about what's happening in hell.
Because when someone dies without the Lord Jesus Christ
as their savior, they're going to hell, okay?
And what it's essentially describing is the fact
that hell is constantly getting larger in the sense
of the people that are going to hell, right?
If I said, hey, pure words is getting bigger,
I wouldn't be like, oh, did the building
just start expanding?
It's like, no, more people are coming to the church, right?
Or if I said it's getting smaller, it's like,
oh, are the walls caving in?
No, no, it's saying the people decreased, right?
So when it's saying hell's enlarging,
I believe it's describing the fact
that there's just more people that are going to hell.
And it fits with our context
because we have all these people
that are just constantly being consumed
and killed by all these evil, wicked people.
And it's just like, all these people are being,
you're dying and going to hell.
And it's just a sad, horrible thing.
And when there's an abundance of wickedness,
guess what's happening?
A lot of people are going to hell.
Most people are going to hell.
It's a sad reality.
But that's just the consequence of not having the word
of God, people not preaching the word of God,
not having the watchman.
And these evil, when evil swipes through,
most of its victims are going to hell.
That's why it's important to get saved today.
And the Bible says now is the day of salvation.
And it doesn't say like, well, I'll think about it.
No, that's how you go to hell is when you just sit there
and you kind of think about it.
Now it says also it's as death and it cannot be satisfied.
So what is his attribute?
You cannot be satisfied.
Hopefully that's not you.
You don't want to be a type of person
that can't be satisfied.
You want to eat a meal and then be satisfied.
You want to have a wife and be satisfied.
You want to have a house, you want to have children,
you want to be satisfied with the things
that you already have, satisfied with your job,
satisfied with the things that God has already given you,
not being someone that can't be satisfied.
That's a dangerous position to be in.
And hell is like this in the sense that there's never
going to be a point in time where the last George Soros
or whatever, the last Hillary Clinton's going to die
and it's like, all right, hell's full.
All right, nobody, we're all going to heaven now.
We finally reached max capacity.
It's basically saying hell is never going to be satisfied.
And guess what, death is never going to be satisfied.
People are just going to keep dying and keep dying
and people are going to keep going to hell and keep going
and that's what this guy's like.
The Bible has other verses about this.
Go to Proverbs 27.
Go to Proverbs, chapter number 27.
That should honestly terrify every person,
the fact that hell is not satisfied.
Meaning what?
You could say like, oh, well, it just seems like,
you know, billions of people are going to hell.
Okay, well, trillions could go.
There's nothing stopping people from going to hell
except for the people that go out and preach the gospel.
And so when people stop preaching the gospel,
hell has no problem consuming them.
Hell is not like we're turning down guests.
Hell's not like releasing,
it's like they're not having COVID restrictions down there.
We're like, we're going to release some of these prisoners.
No, no, no, they're accepting all donations, all gifts.
Just every, yeah, all of them are coming in.
And that should terrify the world that we're living in,
every single person to know hell's never going to get
filled up, buddy.
You're just as likely to go there as the next guy.
Proverbs, chapter 27, look at verse 20.
The Bible says hell and destruction are never full.
So the eyes of man are never satisfied.
In the same way that men and our flesh and our lusts
are just technically never satisfied,
is like how hell is, and how death is, and how this guy is.
Now, I want you to not, you know, be concerned about
yourself, you're thinking like, man,
sometimes I kind of want more, you know, or whatever.
That's normal, because you have the flesh, okay?
Even if you're saved, you still have that flesh.
And look, the flesh ladies, the flesh men,
always want more shoes, okay?
They always want another purse, they always want
a bigger car, a nicer car.
I mean, in fact, every car that's nice, I like.
I don't have a problem with it.
It's like, hey, you want a Hummer?
Sure.
You know, you want a Corvette?
I'll take one.
Which color?
All of them, you know?
Maybe not pink, all right?
I mean, hey, Ford GT?
Sure, right?
Hey, you want a house in Hawaii?
No problem, right?
In the Bahamas, let's add it.
Actually, there's two really nice ones next to it.
I'll take both, you know?
I mean, in your flesh, in the lust of your man,
your old man, everything sounds great.
And here's the reality, you're never satisfied.
Solomon had a thousand women.
That's a guy that wasn't satisfied.
You know, there's some people even today
that brag about this.
I think it was, is it Magic Johnson?
I think that guy bragged about having
10,000 different partners.
Dude, the math on that is insane.
Like, there's only 365 days a year, okay?
So when you start dividing that by 10,000,
I mean, you're talking about 30 straight years
every night a different person.
Talk about satisfaction.
I mean, there's none.
I don't even think I'll, I don't even see how it's possible.
He claims it was like, because there is more than one a day,
I guess, I don't know.
But that's just ridiculous.
And you know, where was his stopping?
It wasn't like he got to 10,000,
he was like, all right, I'm good.
You know, I guarantee he felt zero satisfaction still.
Just not content with any of,
he just, you're never gonna get content.
That's why you have to have the Holy Spirit
come inside and make you the new man,
and you have the new man
where you can find contentment in Christ.
You can find contentment in the Lord.
You can find contentment in the fact
that you're gonna go to heaven
and that we're just passing through here.
All this is just trash.
All this is gonna be burned one day.
So there's no point in heaping up more trash unto myself.
You know, when I have trash in my house,
I get excited about garbage day and I can take it out.
I can get rid of it.
I'm not thinking like, you know what,
this trash bag is looking pretty good.
Wanna hang on to that one, you know?
No, I'm thinking like, get this out.
You know, my kids produce a lot of diapers.
I'm not thinking like, you know,
this diaper's kinda nice, you know?
No, I'm thinking like, get this thing away from me, okay?
And look, this whole world is trash.
This whole world is vanity.
This whole world will one day literally go to the inferno.
It's literally gonna be burned up.
So that helps me to say like, okay, I don't need it.
Okay, that really nice house,
it's gonna be destroyed anyway.
I mean, if you saw some kinda house
and they say, hey, tomorrow we're gonna bulldoze it.
Wanna own it?
You'd be like, well, okay, I don't want that, you know?
Then they say, hey, but there's another house.
You can't have it today, you can have it tomorrow,
but it's gonna be perfect forever.
It's like, why want that one?
It's like, that's the one in heaven.
We should lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven,
not on earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt,
you know, and thieves break through and steal.
You know, who wants that stuff?
Who wants the trash and the junk?
I'm not gonna go to the landfill tomorrow
and start looking for possessions, you know?
And if you do, you're kinda weird, all right?
Don't tell me, don't admit that.
But, you know, looking for possessions on this earth
is like walking through the landfill.
You just haven't realized it yet.
That's why it's important, you know.
This guy, Nebuchadnezzar,
is walking through the landfill, my friend.
Look at Isaiah chapter number five,
look at verse number 11.
The Bible says, whoa, unto them that rise up early
in the morning that they may follow strong drink,
that continue until night, until wine inflame them.
Notice what the goal of these people is.
To get drunk, and when do they start?
The morning.
When do they finish?
Well, when they basically pass out at night.
And then guess what happens?
Then they wake up in the morning and they do what?
Repeat.
And then they just get drunk and drunk and drunk.
And look, our society is so sick.
I mean, you can go to the brunch place
and get a what, a mimosa.
And then you can go to lunch and get a beer,
and then go to dinner and get a beer,
and then get some Jack Daniels at night,
and then wake up in the morning, where's my mimosa?
And look, many people live permanently drunk.
Many people live where they just drink all the time,
every single situation.
Why do you think that there's literally alcohol
at every restaurant, my friend?
Why do you think that they have alcohol for lunch?
It's because people drink 24-7 in this country.
They're getting drunk.
And what does the Bible say?
The Bible says, woe unto them.
It doesn't say like, oh, that's a good idea.
Why didn't I think of that?
It's saying, no, this is a horrible thing.
Verse 12, and the harp and the vial,
the tabret and pipe and wine are in their feasts,
but they regard not the work of the Lord,
neither consider the operation of his hands.
Therefore, my people are gone into captivity
because they have no knowledge,
and their honorable men are famished,
and their multitude dried up with thirst.
What is he describing?
He's describing a group of people that are just drunk.
They don't have the word of God.
They don't care about God.
They're not religious.
They don't even wanna know anything about the Lord.
You say, well, that doesn't seem fair.
Maybe God will let them into heaven.
Okay, well, let's see what the Bible says.
Verse 14, therefore, hell hath enlarged herself.
The nations that hate God, that reject the Bible,
that forget God, they're turned into hell.
The Bible says all the nations that forget God
are turned into hell.
And look, America is not gonna have some kind of excuse.
Like, well, I believe in Jesus
if he comes down and shows himself unto me.
Sorry, buddy, you're gonna go to hell.
Sorry, if you don't believe now,
if you don't believe Moses,
you're not gonna believe now.
You're not gonna believe in Jesus.
You wouldn't even believe he showed up anyways, my friend.
You'd be like the Jews that saw Jesus do the miracles
and he still didn't believe, okay?
Don't kid yourself.
Either believe now or you were never gonna believe.
But the reality is, even if an entire society,
an entire nation rejects the Lord,
it doesn't stop him from sending them to hell.
He will send them to hell.
And notice, hell hath enlarged herself,
and opened her mouth without measure,
and their glory and their multitude and their pomp,
and he that rejoices shall descend into it.
All of the Hollywood celebrities and the musicians
and the athletes with all their gorgeously apparelled
outfits, all their pomp, you know,
all their red carpet outfits and everything,
just all going to hell.
They can sit there and just party up
and do whatever they want and forget the Lord
and pretend like he won't care.
He's not gonna pay attention.
You know what, they're all gonna be cast into hell.
It says, and the mean man shall be brought down
and the mighty man shall be humbled
and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled.
Notice the correlation to people that are getting drunk
and then hell enlarging itself.
That reminds me of a chapter in the Bible.
Oh yeah, Habaki chapter number two,
where Nebuchadnezzar loves alcohol, loves liquor,
and he's described as hell enlarging itself.
You know what, you wanna destroy
an entire group of people?
Alcohol.
That's how you'll do it.
You'll just completely destroy,
you're not just destroying yourself,
you're destroying everyone around you.
And look, the number of people that are gonna be in hell
is just a terrifying number.
It's as broad as the way which leadeth unto destruction
and many be there which go in their act.
You know, the vast majority of people that have been created
on this planet are going to hell.
And it's a sad thing because people aren't opening
their mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel
to get them saved.
We need people to be a watchman today to warn people
and to realize, you know, the harvest truly is plenteous
but the labors are few.
How many people are going out and preaching the gospel?
No, they're going and getting drunk.
And even Christians are doing the same.
Even saved, born again, children of God
are partying with the wicked, they're envious
of all the wealth and the riches that the people have now,
the temporary things that they have today.
They have an evil covetousness too.
Not realizing that they're going to suffer consequences
for that and they're just letting their entire world
around them go to hell.
Go back to Habakkuk chapter number two.
It's a sad reality.
You know what?
When I read Habakkuk, it just makes me feel like
he lived in 2022, you know, America.
I mean, this guy is just describing the world
that we live in, you know?
Because there's no new thing under the sun.
Because there's always been wicked people.
There's always been evil nations.
Judgment was always slack by mankind.
When did they follow God's commandment?
You know, when we kind of get towards the end
of the destruction of the children of Israel,
you know, he basically points out to them,
the Lord says like, hey, there was never a time
you followed the commandments.
There was never a time you guys were good.
You guys were always not following the commandments.
You killed all the prophets.
You know, there wasn't this one prophet
where everybody was just like,
all right, let's all listen to the prophet.
Where is that in the Bible?
It's like, you have Moses.
Oh, they didn't want to listen to him.
Don't go to the promised land.
You have Joshua.
You know what?
Some of the tribes didn't even want to go
into the promised land with him.
They just stayed out.
And then a lot of them didn't even conquer
all the land they were supposed to.
Then when you get away from Joshua,
it gets real dark real quick.
Then it just starts getting real bad
in the time of the judges.
I mean, it's just horrifying.
They're just worshiping false gods left and right.
And they have to have these judges lift them up.
Then they get wicked kings.
They have a few remnants here and there,
you know, like a David or a Hezekiah,
but even them, they have their downfalls.
They have their dark moments.
You have a Solomon, but Solomon gets really bad
at the end of his reign.
I mean, things aren't going well
at the end of Solomon's reign at all, okay?
Rehoboam doesn't inherit the same kingdom
that Solomon did.
In fact, he loses it.
He loses the majority of the king.
He retains two tribes of the 12.
And you have to realize that this world is broken.
This world is just filled with wicked, evil people
that are rebellious against God.
And you say, why?
Because God allowed man to have a choice.
And unfortunately, free will breeds contempt
and rebellion, apparently.
Most people, and in fact, we all rebelled.
The rebellion rate is 100%.
And it was only a remnant that was willing
to even accept the free gift of salvation on top of that.
But we need to be those light bearers
that are going out and preaching the gospel,
not being a Nebuchadnezzar
and basically helping the entire world go to hell.
How do you help people go to hell?
Drink alcohol.
Be filled with that spirit.
How do you save people?
Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Not being covetous, but rather being content
with the things that you already have.
Says in verse number seven,
"'Shall they not rise up suddenly
"'that shall bite thee and awake, that shall vex thee?
"'And thou shalt be for booties unto them?
"'Because thou hast spoiled many nations,
"'all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee.
"'Because of men's blood
"'and for the violence of the land of the city
"'and of all that dwell therein.
"'Woe to him that coveteth an evil covetousness
"'to his house, that he may set his nest on high,
"'that he may be delivered from the power of evil.
"'Thou has consulted shame to thy house
"'by cutting off many people and ascend against thy soul.
"'For the stone shall cry out of the wall
"'and the beam out of the timber shall answer it.
"'Woe to him that buildeth the town with blood
"'and stables the city by iniquity.'"
So hey, it sounds cool, Pastor.
Why don't we become like Nebuchadnezzar
and just take over the world?
Well, because even the literal stones, okay,
even the literal just two-by-fours in the building
will scream at you and be like,
"'Whoa, buddy, this is a dumb idea.
"'This is a bad idea to build on murder.'"
And anybody that, you know, these nations
that are gonna go to war and go through bloodshed
and take over another area, take over another country,
kill all kinds of different people, woe one of them.
That's not the way to establish.
Even though he conquers the entire world, guess what?
That whole world still rises up and rebels against them.
The Medes and the Persians are coming,
and Nebuchadnezzar has his day.
So it's not like, oh, well,
it seems like they get away with it.
No, no, no, no one gets away with it.
Zero people have ever gotten away with their wickedness.
Zero people have ever gotten away with their evil.
There's always consequences to their actions.
The only way to escape hell is through the death, burial,
and resurrection of Christ, through accepting his sacrifice.
But you still don't get away with your sin.
You know, I think that some people get a little confused
because we live in an era
where there's all this liberal Christianity.
You got people like Joel Osteen and T.D. Jakes
and Kenneth Copeland, all these like prosperity preachers.
And they kinda, they don't even preach the right gospel.
But when they talk about people that are saved,
they kinda act like it's just all roses
and your best life now and everything's great or whatever.
But here's the reality.
If you got a bunch of tattoos,
when you get saved,
your tattoos don't disappear off your body.
It's not like they soak back in and it's just like,
oh, now I'm back to normal.
You know, it's not like if you just gorge yourself on food
and we're like 500 pounds overweight and you get saved,
now all of a sudden you're just a bodybuilder.
It's not like, you know,
all the fornication that you committed in the past,
you know, if you commit fornication and get an STD
and get saved, you still have an STD.
Sorry.
Hey, if you got divorced and then you get saved,
you're still divorced.
Like, it's not like you don't suffer
the consequences of your actions.
That's why it's important to teach your children
to serve God.
People will be like, oh, y'all teach such a free salvation,
then what's the point of serving God?
So you don't live a horrible life.
Why would you want your kids raised in church
so they don't make all these mistakes
and have to suffer all the consequences?
You know, I'd rather my children get saved
as a little child and learn the right things of the Lord
and do right so they don't have to suffer
all the consequences of their actions, okay?
You have 100 children and you get saved,
you still have 100 children.
Like, there's no like reset button to your life.
Your life is still the life that you had.
What you do get, though, is the Holy Spirit
to help guide you to start making better decisions,
but you could still choose not to make them.
And unfortunately, let's be honest,
most Christians don't even start making better decisions.
They don't start going to church,
they don't start reading the Bible typically.
It's a lot of hard work, it's a lot of effort,
it's a lot of energy, and people just aren't,
you know, they aren't interested in running.
In fact, most people, we said, all right,
church, you know what we're gonna do?
We're gonna run around the building.
Who's with me?
It's like, no one's with you.
No one wants to just go running.
Why?
Because it's gonna hurt.
I mean, every time I run,
the only time I can run and I don't really notice it
is if I'm playing like a sport.
You know, if I'm playing like basketball
or football or something,
you kind of like trick yourself into running,
because you're like, you're running,
but you don't really notice it.
But if you're just like running to run,
it's just like every part of my body's screaming.
It's like, you know, it's like my knees,
they're like, ah, you know, my legs, your calf.
It's like parts of your body that you didn't even know
exist start hurting.
You're like, I didn't even know that part of my body
was there, but it's hurting all of a sudden.
I pulled something in my neck while running.
You know, it's like, what happened?
And look in the Christian life, you start going to church,
you're gonna find out you were doing stuff wrong,
you didn't even know what was wrong.
You're gonna read stuff in the Bible
and you're thinking like, wow, really?
Like, I'm not supposed to do that or say that
or think that or go here or do that.
He's like, what's going on here?
And you know, it's gonna be kind of like running.
But you know what, if you do a lot of running,
you'll be in a good shape, you'll be healthy.
There's benefits to the running, okay?
And there's benefits to following God's commandments.
Woe unto the people that are not following his commandments.
That's the clear message of the Bible.
He says in verse 13, behold, it is not of the Lord,
or is it not of the Lord of hosts,
that the people shall labor in the very fire
and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity,
for there shall be filled with the knowledge
of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Now, this is kind of a little break
in the sense that I believe it's kind of coming back
to Habakkuk's previous thoughts.
Because in verses number 11 and 12,
it's kind of talking about like the stones and the timber
like screaming out like woe unto the guy.
Then in verse number 13, when it's saying behold,
he's basically kind of coming back to that previous thought
like of chapter one where it's saying
like all these people are being dragged in the net.
And he's saying, look, isn't it of the Lord
that we're supposed to kind of live
in this precarious situation?
We're kind of these fish in the sea
where there's these evil men dragging nets through
and capturing them.
And he's like, well, why would God want us to do that
so that the whole earth can be filled with his knowledge
and be filled with his glory, okay?
The world's just a dangerous place.
And God wants the word of God to go forth.
So in order for the word to go forth,
we have to be in that dangerous place.
That's why in chapters like John chapter number 17,
Jesus says that he doesn't want us
to be taken from the world, but to be kept from the evil.
Okay, so it's not that God wants us
to not be in this situation, be in this arena as it were,
but he wants us to fight.
He wants us to run.
He wants us to actually be here and get the word of God out
and preach the gospel and try to save people
and try to reach people with the word of God.
But you have to realize that it's,
I mean, we're in the very fire.
We're in the midst of it.
It's a real straddle, a struggle.
It's a real battle as it were.
And I believe that when we kind of get to verse 15,
it kind of changes again,
but you kind of think about the thoughts
of chapter one and two.
He's like, judgment's never happening.
God's like, it's coming.
And he's like, but they just seem to keep doing it.
And then he's like, I'll wait
and see what you have to say.
And he's like, no, it's coming.
And it'll feel like a while,
but then it won't feel like a while.
And then he's like, but this guy's coming
and he's wicked, he's prideful.
But look, woe unto that guy.
And everybody's gonna have a proverb against them.
They're gonna have taunting proverbs against them.
In fact, even the stones,
even just inanimate objects are like,
dude, don't do that.
Don't be so wicked.
Don't commit so much murder.
Don't think you're gonna get away
with just killing every single person on the planet
and subduing all of them,
turning them into your slave.
That's a horrible thing to do.
And then he's basically coming back to the realization,
but look, the Lord has ordained it
that we're gonna live in this situation
so that the entire earth can be filled with his glory,
can be filled with his knowledge.
And even Nebuchadnezzar himself gives glory unto the Lord
because in the book of Daniel,
when he's constantly shamed,
he ends up sending out letters to the entire world,
letting them know like, hey,
you can't say anything amiss
to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
No God can deliver after this sword.
He ends up getting debased for about seven years,
and then when he comes to,
he ends up sending more letters out saying like,
oh man, this is the God of gods.
This guy puts whoever he wants over the whole world,
even of the basis sort, and he's like, that's me.
Even people like Biden.
I mean, think about that.
Isn't that bizarre?
That literally the most incompetent person,
he doesn't even know where he's at.
He's like the leader of the free world.
How is that even possible?
It's because God is just allowing these wicked people
to come into power just to judge the earth,
and just basically just,
he's gonna end up destroying them in a mighty way
just to bring more glory unto him, and glory unto his word.
I think that, here's my thought, okay?
You read the Old Testament, you read the laws,
and you kinda think like, man, that'd be nice.
That sounds like a good society to live in.
And it's like, why do we have these laws?
No one has them.
No one actually falls, it would be nice
if a murderer actually was put to death.
It'd be nice if people who stole paid back sevenfold.
You know there's literally passages in the Bible
that say some theft, you have to pay back sevenfold?
I'd be thinking like, I'm not putting locks on anything.
I'm like, take it now.
I have no problem, it's like someone's looking
at all your stuff being like,
how'd you get all these goods?
It's like, people just keep stealing from me, you know?
And I just keep racking in all the goods.
I mean, you would be way less likely to steal
if you had to pay back double, quadruple,
five times that amount later.
You wouldn't wanna steal, okay?
I mean, all the different punishments,
all the different laws, but here's the reality.
They're in effect.
Even when mankind doesn't have those laws in effect,
they're still in effect and God is still judging people
according to those laws, whether you like it or not.
And if man fails to put the murderer to death,
God'll find some way to put him to death.
God'll find some way to punish him.
Hey, that guy steals, he doesn't end up maybe
paying you back, God'll take all that money
and ruin it from that guy and make him pay back
some other way.
Those laws are in effect.
Even Herod, you know, when John the Baptist
is on this earth, he rebukes Herod for having
Herodias, Philip's wife, because it's wrong.
And let me tell you something, Herod's not a Jew.
Herod didn't live when those laws were enforced,
because even John the Baptist knew,
hey, the law of God's still in effect, my friend.
The law of God, you know, when people stand
before God the Father in heaven
at the great white throne judgment,
what do you think he's gonna bring up?
He's gonna bring up the 10 commandments.
He's gonna bring up, thou shall not kill.
And he's gonna be like, hey, Hillary,
let's look all through your list here.
I mean, he's gonna go through all the list.
I mean, I wouldn't wanna be an abortion doctor.
Can you imagine, thou shall not kill?
And I mean, you know, maybe God's gonna read off their names.
I don't know how he's gonna do it.
That's gonna be a long list for some of those people.
These people that have got dragged countries into wars,
the people that dropped atomic bombs on people in Japan.
I mean, I wouldn't wanna stand in judgment.
Do you really wanna stand before God Almighty
on judgment day?
And he's like, you killed a million people.
And look, every soul's precious to him.
Every single person was precious to him.
People, the murderers, the rapists, the child molest.
I mean, look, God is gonna judge them.
They're getting woe unto them.
And you know, these people are going
into the lowest parts of hell.
The burn for all of eternity.
That's gonna be their punishment.
You know, woe unto Nebuchadnezzar.
You know, we live in this world to try and rescue
and save as many fishes as we can.
We're like, hey, don't go in the net, bro.
It's like, swim away.
You know, I found a cut.
I found a hole.
It's called Jesus Christ.
Swim right through it.
You know, it's right there.
Look at verse 15.
Woe unto them that giveth his neighbor drink,
that put as thy bottled him and makest him drunken also,
that thou mayest look on their nakedness.
Thou art filled with shame for glory.
Drink thou also and let thy force again be uncovered.
The cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee
and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
I could just, I mean, we could just sit here
and preach on this chapter forever,
but I've already talked about alcohol,
but this guy's just a pervert.
Notice that why are people giving people alcohol
so that they can look at their nakedness?
Remember, I said they're going out, right?
To meet what?
Strange people.
Meet stranger.
And then why are they, you know, buying drinks?
Why do guys buy drinks for girls?
So they can look on their nakedness.
It's not because they like them so much.
It's not because they're friendly to them.
It's because they want to take advantage of them.
And they're spending money on them.
And the weird thing about this verse
is it's saying a him and a his.
A him and a him.
And look, this happens in the world that we live in today
where literally these disgusting, filthy faggots
will try to get people drunk
so they can do weird things with them.
And you don't even know.
You don't even know if someone's like that
because they all hide and they all deceive.
And because our world is just filled
with so many metro, effeminate, queer-looking dudes,
it's hard to even realize who's a faggot anymore.
I just feel like most people are a faggot.
It's just like, dude, what are you wearing?
I mean, most guys today look like
a queer, effeminate sissy today.
And it used to be they would stand out like a sore thumb.
But of course, what'd they do?
They took over the fashion industry, didn't they?
They took over the runway
and they took over all the clothing designers
and all this stuff
and they make all the clothes look like what?
Faggoty clothing so that they can blend in more in society.
So that it's harder to spot these freaks and these queers.
You know what, we need men to start dressing like men
so they stick out again.
And be really afraid of a guy dressed up like a queer
offering you alcohol.
Stay away from that freak.
You say, oh, that would never happen.
Look, it happens all the time.
You know why people don't hear about it?
Because every guy on the planet,
if he ended up getting molested by a fag,
would tell no one.
I mean, talk about shame.
Talk about horrible, look, they talk about statistic.
Little boys are often molested all kinds of ways
by Boy Scouts of America, the Catholic Church,
all this kind of thing.
And it's just so embarrassing.
It's just so shameful they never tell anybody about it.
So a lot of these perverts get away with it for years,
for decades.
In fact, when I did a lot of research on this issue,
when a pedophile finally gets caught,
the average number of victims of a male pedophile
against little boys, 150 victims.
Why?
And I mean, that was them self-reporting.
That was them just saying like,
hey, this is how many victims I've had.
150 victims, why?
Because they're just allowed to just hurt and molest,
and it's just covered up, and they're just lost.
And look, they use alcohol,
especially on teenagers and stuff like that.
They try to get them hooked to drugs,
and they do stuff to them
when they don't even know what they're doing.
Him and Noah, I mean, it's just like, that's gross.
I mean, it's just disgusting
what he did unto his own father, okay?
And look, people are doing this kind of stuff,
I would not want to be in college in 2022 America,
and the things that people do to each other,
these fraternities and these guys that are getting drunk
and doing enough, they do all kinds of weird, sick stuff.
All time, you should stay as far away
from alcohol as humanly possible.
You should have nothing to do with it.
And look, I would never want,
like, I would rather just die.
Like I'm saying, I've thought about this,
and I'm like, if I was in prison,
and Bubba comes up, I'm just like, one of us is dying.
Life's just not worth it to me to even live, okay?
But then people literally drink alcohol
to where it happens, they didn't even know what happened.
They get taken advantage of.
And you know what, women do this.
Women will just go and they'll just drink
and hang out with strange dudes or whatever,
and horrible things happen to them every single week,
every single day of the year.
And look, it's all through the vice of alcohol.
Whoa!
You know what, the Bible's warning
about the guy that did it,
saying, whoa, one of the guys that did it.
I'm just terrified of being the victim.
Whoa, one of the guys that actually did it, though,
and what God's gonna do unto him.
Says in verse 17, for the violence of Lebanon
shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts
which made them afraid because of men's blood,
and for the violence of the land of the city
and of all that dwell therein.
What profit of the graven image
that the Maker thereof hath graven it?
The molten image and a teacher of lies
that maketh of his work trusted therein
to make dumb idols.
Whoa, on him that saith to the wood,
awake, to the dumb stone arise, it shall teach.
Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver,
and there is no breath at all in the midst of it,
but the Lord is in his holy temple.
Let all the earth keep silence before it.
Now, I just wanna have a few thoughts on this.
Go to Jeremiah chapter two, this last place of your turn.
In this, it talks about dumb idols.
Dumb here is not stupid.
That's kinda what I think of when I hear the word dumb.
Dumb is the other definition, meaning they don't speak.
So sometimes you used to refer to people
that can't speak as being dumb or deaf.
Deaf is you can't hear.
Dumb or mute, as I usually refer to it,
means that they can't speak.
It's saying a rock doesn't speak.
And yet, there's countries even today
that literally have graven images of stone
that they'll decorate with gold, silver, or whatever.
They'll paint it, and they literally think it's a god.
They'll bow down to it, they'll worship it.
People that live in India,
they have a certain festival or a certain holiday
where they will prepare all this food,
and they basically present it to this little idol to eat,
but it doesn't eat it.
And so imagine having Thanksgiving dinner.
Your mom just makes all the food, all the spread,
all the pies, or whatever,
and then you just set it on the table next to a rock
and don't get to eat it.
It's like, oh, man.
You know, I like the Lord,
because you know what the Lord would do?
You would slay the sheep, you would slay the cow,
you would roasts it with fire, and then you would eat it.
Like, praise God, I get to eat steak and worshiping him.
I get to eat the literal lamb of, you know, the rack of lamb.
What is the Indian god?
We just make all this food, we're starving.
We're literally a nation that's starving to death,
and we make all this food, and we don't even get to eat it.
It's like, what, the world?
I mean, I can't remember exactly,
I think it's like Hinduism is what it's related to,
but you can look it up.
It's bizarre, and I've met people that do this,
and I even met one, she's like a practicing Hindu,
and she would just admit to me, she's like,
it's kind of sad.
She's like, it's kind of sad,
because it's like, I just really want to eat the food,
because it looks so good, but it's just what we do.
I'm just thinking like, man, what a torturous holiday
to make all this good, what a waste
to make all this good food.
But you know what, that's the world we live in,
where people will worship rocks,
people will worship wood carving, images.
Makes me think of evolution,
because they literally worship the universe in a sense,
and they think that somehow they can speak to us.
It's like, oh, it's gonna speak to us.
That's what certain disciplines of science, like geology,
they're like, oh, the rocks are talking to us.
They're telling us the history of the world.
It's like, no, you idiot, here's the history of the world.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
The dirt isn't gonna tell you anything.
The dirt's not gonna tell you,
oh, it's 4.5 billion years old is how old the earth is.
You don't know.
That's so stupid, it's so foolish.
You know what, that's literally what people think.
It makes me think of this passage in Jeremiah,
and again, thinking about the lines of evolution,
but it says in Jeremiah chapter number two,
look at verse 26.
It says, as the thief is ashamed when he is found,
so is the house of Israel ashamed,
they their kings, their princes, and their priests,
and their prophets, saying to a stock,
thou art my father, and to a stone,
thou has brought me forth.
Can you imagine if your kid brings a rock into the house,
and he's like, grandpa.
I mean, that's literally what it's saying.
They literally look at a rock
and think that it's somehow brought them forth,
and that is what evolution teaches.
Evolution literally teaches.
You know, the macroevolution from the Big Bang theory,
they believe that literally it just rained on the rocks,
and then the rocks turned into primordial soup,
and then that soup was like the first living organisms
were derived, and then they turned into us eventually.
So it's like they literally look at the rock
and it's like, you have brought me forth.
How stupid.
That is the most brilliant minds of the day.
The Richard Dawkins, the Stephen Hawkings,
the Mikoyakaku or whatever,
I don't know how you say his name.
Sounds like crap to me.
I mean, you know, all these smart scientists of the day,
they look, oh, you're so ignorant.
You believe that God created the world?
It's actually the rocks.
That's real scientific.
Yeah, oh, can you show me that in an experiment?
Oh, you can't?
I guess it's not science then, is it?
But that's the world we live in.
We live in a world that's full of bloodshed,
violence, wine, alcohol, the dumbest theories
are looking at a literal rock
and thinking that it brought you forth.
Worshipping rocks, worshiping stones,
worshiping graven images.
The Catholic Church, they worship graven images, my friend.
I mean, we live in this bizarre world.
We're in the very fire.
Manage is very vanity.
But you know what?
God has appointed us to be watchmen,
to preach the gospel, to be the lighthouse,
to warn men, and to try and save as many as we can,
pulling them out of the fire,
hating even the garment spotted by the flesh,
earnestly contending for the faith.
We're supposed to fight the good fight.
We have to realize that this is a real struggle,
a real battle, and there's no point in us
just becoming drunk like the rest of the world
and going to do wickedly like the rest of the world
and saying, nuts, go to hell.
I mean, that's what you say when you don't wanna worship God,
when you don't wanna preach the gospel,
when you don't wanna read the Bible.
You're just saying like, that's fine, go to hell.
I don't even care.
You have no love in you.
All these Christians wanna talk about love.
And they'll look at a church like us and say,
you guys are so hateful.
And it's like, okay, riddle me this then.
When's the last time you preached the gospel
to a single person?
Oops, oh, you never have?
And then you're gonna lecture me about how loving you are?
You're gonna lecture me about how hateful our church is?
And it's like, yeah, but you say that alcohol is a sin.
Yeah, because nothing good's ever come from it.
No benefit has ever come from all this wickedness
and all this evil in our nation.
And you know what?
There's millions more of y'all than us.
Why is the world going to hell in a handbasket
when there's a million of y'all
having your stupid false doctrine?
I mean, why is it?
I mean, we've never had a point in our country
where we've had churches as big as Joel Osteen's church.
So if they're the solution,
then why is our world just getting so much worse?
I'll tell you why.
Because he's a false prophet.
Because he's wicked as hell.
Because we have so much evil in this nation
and so much wickedness and nobody wants to take a stand.
Here's the question, where's the watchman?
Where's the men that are willing to stand up
and not be dressed like a faggoty queer,
put the alcohol away, put the lies away,
put on the new man, put on the Lord Jesus Christ,
get your graven images and burn them,
have nothing to do with them,
and say, as for me and my house, we'll serve the Lord.
Let's close in prayer.
Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for the word of God,
for making it plain unto us that we could run
when we read it, that we wouldn't be confused
as to how to serve the Lord,
but rather we'd be filled with zeal,
we'd be filled with the Holy Spirit
and know that we should take the commandments
of God seriously.
That judgment is not slacked.
It's just by your long suffering and mercy and your grace
that you allow people to constantly violate thy word,
violate the commandments,
all in an effort to get them saved.
But we know they can only be saved
if someone would have the boldness to just open their mouth
to make known the mystery of the gospel.
I pray that you would just tug at our heartstrings,
that you would awaken something in our new men
that would just allow us to say,
we need to preach the gospel.
Our job on this earth is so important.
Hell is just constantly enlarging itself,
and we need to take hell to task today.
We need to go out there and make a difference today
and start pulling people out of the fire.
I pray that you would just bring revival in our church,
bring revival in this nation,
that people would have a zeal to preach the gospel.
They would take life seriously.
They would get the sin out of their life.
They wouldn't care about the vanities of this world.
They would realize it's all trash,
and we're just a passing through.
And I pray that we would just have the courage
and the stamina to just be steadfast as we run this race.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Go to our last song.
Let's do,
Psalm 67.
It's in the separate handout, these little white handouts.
Psalm 67.
Or if you just have a Bible, you just flip to Psalm 67.
Got a built-in song book there.
Psalm 67, there on the first.
God be merciful unto us and bless us,
and cause his face to shine upon us,
that thy way may be known upon earth,
thy saving health among all nations.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
O let the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for thou shall judge the people righteously and govern
the nations upon earth, the nations upon earth see law.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
O let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
Then shall the earth yield her increase,
and God, even our own God, shall bless us.
God shall bless us in all the ends
of the earth shall fear him.
Let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee.
O let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
God bless, you are dismissed.
Thank you.