["Pomp and Circumstance"]
If you'd find your seats and find a hymnal.
We're going to be on page 431.
I love to tell the story.
Could you play the first line?
["Pomp and Circumstance"]
I love to tell the story
Of unseen things above
Of Jesus and his glory
Of Jesus and his love
I love to tell the story
Because I noticed
True
It satisfies my longings
As nothing else can do
I love to tell the story
It will be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and his love
I love to tell the story
More wonderful it seems
Than all the golden fancies
Of all our golden dreams
I love to tell the story
It did so much for me
And that is just the reason
I tell it now to thee
I love to tell the story
It will be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and his love
I love to tell the story
Tis pleasant to repeat
What seems each time I tell it
More wonderfully sweet
I love to tell the story
For some have never heard
The message of salvation
From God's own holy word
I love to tell the story
It will be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and his love
I love to tell the story
For those who've never heard
Seems hunger and in thirsting
To hear it like the rest
And when in seams of glory
I sing a new, new song
Twill be the old, old story
That I have loved so long
I love to tell the story
It will be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
Of Jesus and his love
All right, Brother Joseph, will you pray for us?
All right, let's pray.
Dear God, thank you for this evening.
Thank you for having everybody here.
Thank you for allowing everybody to show up.
It's a blessing to see Brother Rick and Pastor here.
Father, I pray you just be with us, be with the singing, be with the preaching.
In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
All right, our next song is going to be 204.
204, turn your eyes upon Jesus.
piano plays softly
O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see
There's light for a look at the Savior
And life more abundant and free
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace
Through death into life everlasting
He passed and we follow him there
Over us in no more hath dominion
For more than conquerors we are
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace
His word shall not fail you he promised
Believe him and all will be well
Then go to a world that is dying
His perfect salvation to tell
Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in his wonderful face
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace
Alright, we've got some announcements.
Alright, good evening everybody. Welcome to Bible Believers Baptist Church.
We're going to take our bulletins and go through the announcements real quickly.
If anybody needs a bulletin just lift up your hand
and somebody will run. Everybody needs a bulletin.
Alright, the usher is going to bring you one. Just keep your hand up if you need one.
While he's handing those out. Anybody else?
Don't be shy. Alright, there you go.
Anybody else? Okay.
Alright, we have our verse of the week on the front page there.
And it's Psalm 118 verse 6. It says,
The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do unto me?
And on our inside page there we have the church schedule which is 10 30 a.m. for our Sunday morning service.
We have sowing in between the services. We have a 3 30 p.m. service on Sunday.
And then we have a Wednesday 4 p.m. sowing normally.
And then 6 p.m. service on Wednesdays which you're at right now.
And I just wanted to, I'm your pastor actually in case you didn't know that.
Pastor Thompson. And I drop in from time to time to preach to you and say hello.
So I just wanted to say I appreciate all the men for all the messages that they preach and stepping in.
And I just wanted to say I appreciate Brother Rick being here tonight.
Fresh off of open heart surgery where they literally saw in your rib cage down here and rip you open and work on your heart.
That was just like a week ago right? And here he is.
A week ago yesterday and here he is in church.
Y'all got no excuses.
But it is great to see Brother Rick really got me pumped up when he grabbed me on the shoulder and I saw that he was here.
So I'm glad to see everybody else here tonight.
And thank you for coming.
Of course we're family integrated.
There's no kids in here tonight but if there is there's a mother baby room.
If someone's acting like a kid we can take you up there too.
Anyway just kidding. But we have the preaching schedule on here.
The new preaching schedule is posted in the WhatsApp group.
Hopefully I think we got all the changes fixed.
If there ever needs to be any switches guys just make sure you're giving each other enough time because it is hard to write sermons.
It takes some time in case you guys know that by now right?
So when you're agonizing over those sermons that you're writing.
So it's a little harder than it seems.
But anyway so the new preaching schedule will be on the next bulletin.
But I think everybody knows who's preaching this Sunday.
So let's see we got salvation's ties and offerings on the page there you can see.
And missions conference coming up I don't know if anybody's planning on going to that.
And that's not a typo on December 15th Dr. Phil Stringer is still planning on coming to Vancouver for that weekend.
He's preaching two sermons. He's going to Egypt.
And so he's getting a chance to preach in Egypt.
He's going to preach about his experience preaching in Egypt.
That's of course in Vancouver not here he's not coming here.
Sorry. I don't think you can get into Yakima by playing in December.
I don't know if that's possible.
I think I did it last year but last year was kind of a mild winter so anyway.
Yeah so that's all I have for announcements.
Let's go ahead and sing another song and then we'll receive the offering after that.
And then we'll get right into the sermon after the Bible reading.
The Bible reading is Numbers chapter 17.
Okay let's see. Song 289.
Does Jesus care? Yes he does.
Does Jesus care when my heart is pained too deeply for mirth and song?
As the burdens press and the cares distress and the way grows weary and long.
Oh yes he cares. I know he cares. His heart is touched with my grief.
When the days are weary the long nights dreary I know my Savior cares.
Does Jesus care when my way is dark with a nameless dread and fear?
As the daylight fades into deep nightshades does he care enough to be near?
Oh yes he cares. I know he cares. His heart is touched with my grief.
When the days are weary the long nights dreary I know my Savior cares.
Does Jesus care when I've tried and failed to resist some temptation strong?
When for my deep grief I find no relief though my tears flow all the night long.
Oh yes he cares. I know he cares. His heart is touched with my grief.
When the days are weary the long nights dreary I know my Savior cares.
Does Jesus care when I've said goodbye to the dearest on earth to me?
And my sad heart aches till it nearly breaks. Is it aught to him does he see?
Oh yes he cares. I know he cares. His heart is touched with my grief.
When the days are weary the long nights dreary I know my Savior cares.
All right now we've got the offering.
All right let's pray for the offering. Dear Lord thank you for this day and I just pray you just be with us.
Bless this offering bless those who give and bless the giver or bless the gift and the giver and the father and all these things are praying in Jesus name. Amen.
All right turn in your Bibles to Numbers chapter number seven.
17. Numbers chapter number 17.
Yeah Numbers 17.
And the Lord spake unto Moses saying speak unto the children of Israel and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers and of all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods.
Write thou every man's name upon his rod and thou shall write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi for one rod shall be of the head of the house of their fathers and thou shall lay them up in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony where I will meet with you.
And it shall come to pass that the man's rod whom I shall choose shall blossom and I will make to cease for me the murmurings of the children of Israel whereby they murmur against you.
And Moses spake unto the children of Israel and every one of their princes gave them gave him a rod of peace for each each prince one according to their father's houses even twelve rods and the rod of Aaron was among their rods and Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness and it came to pass that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle witness and behold the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was butted and brought forth buds and
bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds and Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto all the children of Israel and they looked and took every man his rod and the Lord said unto Moses bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony to be kept for a token against the rebels.
And thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me and they die not and Moses did so as the Lord commanded him and so did he and the children of Israel spake unto Moses saying behold we die we perish we all perish whosoever cometh anything near unto the tabernacle of the Lord shall die shall we be consumed with dying.
All right let's pray.
Our dear Lord just be with the pastor and be with us be with all of us while we listen and preach and pray we will be edified and just fill in with your spirit and all these things I pray in Jesus name.
Amen.
All right.
Can you all hear me okay?
All right.
We're going to focus.
I'm actually going to go through the whole chapter but we're going to focus on first of all verse number one through five.
The title of my sermon tonight is Aaron's rod that budded Aaron's rod that budded.
Look down at verse number one the Bible says and the Lord spake unto Moses saying speak unto the children of Israel and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers of all their princes according to the house of their fathers twelve rods.
Write thou every man's name upon his rod and thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi for one rod shall be for the head of the house of their fathers and thou shalt lay them up in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony where I will meet with you.
And it shall come to pass that the man's rod whom I shall choose shall blossom and I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel whereby they murmur against me.
Now of course this story takes place right after the rebellion of Korah if you've read the Bible at all or if you've actually read the book of Numbers there's a big chapter.
This is a small chapter this is only 13 verses but right before it you have a chapter of about 50 verses where you have this rebellion against Moses and against Aaron and against the priesthood.
So God has chosen the priesthood of the Levites and there's this rebellion by this man named Korah and he's a Levite also but see he is not happy with his station and he rises up.
And so a bunch of men with him to rise up and to try to take over the priesthood they want to be part of the priesthood.
They want to know what Moses is doing they want to know what Aaron is doing and that is not what God has chosen for them to do.
They're supposed to be the ones that you know pick up and do different things in the tabernacle and they're not happy with that.
They say we're all holy we all deserve to be able to do all the things and you know who said that Moses is the only one that can do these things.
And Aaron is the one that can do these things and God chose Moses and he chose Aaron and he made it very clear that he did.
And so we'll get into more about the rebellion a little bit in a little bit but God allows us to see and test who is chosen and who is who he's called in similar ways today like you saw in this chapter here.
So now I can't just bring a stick into the service and then all of a sudden flowers are going to start budding on this stick and you can see almonds growing out of it.
And then you're going to know hey I'm supposed to be the pastor of this church.
That's not how he's going to see it how we're going to know that it's happening.
You know he's obviously chose different ways to do that but he does allow us to see the fruit of a man of God and that's the way he shows us.
And so we can see the fruit of a man's ministry we can see the fruit the church is producing and that is the way that the Lord Jesus Christ has told us that we're supposed to examine a man of God's fruit and see whether that person is actually chosen by God to be doing these things.
Now and that would include a church or a ministry by another man of God.
So he's chosen to use the example of fruit and so this is what he's doing in this chapter also.
He says hey everybody have has a stick right.
It's so you know they call it a rod but it's like you know it's like a staff that you'd use to walk with or something.
Now this has been probably carved and formed and shaped or whatever.
Maybe it's just a piece of driftwood we don't really know it just says it's a rod.
But Moses used his to you know he would wave that stick and then you know things would happen like to the to the Egyptians and to Pharaoh.
And so it was something that you know it meant something.
And so what he's had them do in this chapter is all 12 tribes had their own rod and the heads of those tribes names were written on all of them.
And he's like hey we're going to I'm going to tell you right now what's going to happen and whoever's stick you know has these has the help show blossom.
Then that's people that that's the tribe that I've chosen to be my ministers to my people.
And so this is what's going on in the chapter there's this huge rebellion and you know the rebels have lost.
But the children of Israel have sided with the rebels to where God actually had to plague the people that were actually the children of Israel that didn't get killed.
That didn't get put down in the rebellion.
They're still siding with the bad guys which is a really weird I mean to me it's just really weird if you actually see someone drop down into hell.
You know the hell opens you know the earth opens up and they drop straight into hell.
It's the only time this has ever happened in the history of the Bible and it's never happened before and it's never happened since.
And they're just like you killed the people of the Lord.
Like the people that are called the children of Israel are blaming Moses and Aaron for the people of the Lord.
First of all if someone drops straight into hell how are they the people of the Lord.
Last time I checked the people of the Lord go to heaven they don't drop into hell.
But anyway I'm getting ahead of myself.
But you know Jesus has told us and we'll go to those verses later that you know you can inspect people's fruit and know whether they are of God or not.
But so number one tonight we'll look at verse number two again.
But number one tonight the rods in this in my sermon tonight represent different churches.
And I'm taking a little bit of liberty I'm spiritualizing some things here just so you know right off the bat.
But look at verse number two again it says speak unto the children of Israel and take of every one of them a rod according to the house of their fathers.
Of all their princes according to the house of their fathers of their fathers twelve rods.
Write thou every man's name upon his rod.
Because if you think about it in the story whose name is written on Levi's.
Levi is the progenitor of the children of you know because Aaron is the high priest right.
His name is written on that rod why because he's the high priest.
He's the leader of the priests.
His sons are the ones that are the priests underneath him.
But the high priest is the one that is in control and in charge of everything.
So Moses is the judge.
Moses is in charge of the whole nation.
But who's in charge of the religious things the things of the temple and all that it's Aaron.
So but today things are different in the New Testament obviously we don't have a Levitical priesthood.
That's been done away in Christ.
Who's the high priest now?
Jesus Christ is the high priest now.
We don't have a high priest now.
Now God uses different things.
We have the local New Testament church.
And then over the local New Testament church are the pastors.
But really who is over the local New Testament church in reality?
It's Jesus Christ.
I'm the pastor of this church but I'm the under shepherd.
Jesus Christ is the over shepherd.
And I'm supposed to go by what the Bible says and I preach the Bible.
And I you know anybody that preaches here is supposed to preach the Bible not their opinions.
And you know I take this and I say hey this is what God said.
And so if Jesus Christ is the over shepherd I'm getting what I preach from the over shepherd which is written in this book.
That's what we got to go by.
That's why we say that the Bible is our final authority.
Jesus Christ is the word of God.
This is the word of God.
So that's why we preach it.
So now look what it says again.
Again it says so I'm so I'm for this story for the sake of this story I'm kind of spiritualizing this where you're like well what right do you have to do this pastor?
Well look at Revelation chapter 1 and you'll see that God does this in the New Testament too.
Where he will take something and represent a church and he'll represent other things and he'll picture them as pastors.
He'll picture them as churches.
So I don't think it's like a huge leap for me to use this passage spiritually to teach what I'm teaching here tonight.
But Revelation chapter 1 verse 11 says saying I am Alpha and Omega the first and the last and what thou seest right in a book and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia.
unto Ephesus and Smyrna and into Pergamos and unto Thyatira and unto Sardis and unto Philadelphia and unto Laodicea.
So Jesus here if you have a red letter edition Bible you have Jesus talking about these seven churches.
Now skip down to verse number 20.
And you know I don't have time to go through the whole passage but what I'm trying to show you here look at verse 20 it says the mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand
and the seven golden candlesticks the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.
And the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.
So Jesus is telling us what the mystery is here.
You see because John sees this mysterious all these things and then Jesus is interpreting for him what these mean.
And he just got done saying these seven churches is what I'm writing to.
And then the seven candlesticks represent what?
The seven churches.
And those candlesticks are talking about like what you would see a menorah right in you know you've seen like the Jewish menorah.
That's the candlesticks that you would see in the temple.
That's what it's talking about.
So the Holy Spirit represents is represented by oil right.
And that oil you know you you put a torch to it and it's on fire.
And then you see in Acts chapter 2 where the Holy Spirit comes upon the church.
And it's like cloven tongues are on them and they're speaking with other tongues and all that.
But I'm just saying that to say this that God God uses you know these symbols to help us to understand what he's talking about.
But then you see the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches.
Now most people that I know interpret this these angels.
Angels simply means messenger.
It doesn't always mean an angelic being.
So John the Baptist is called the messenger in the book of Isaiah in the book in the New Testament.
He's the messenger that's talked about.
And so was John an angel or what because it's the same it's the same Greek word that's used to say what John the Baptist was.
Anyway I don't want to get too off into the weeds with that.
But I believe that when it's saying the seven stars are the angels of the seven churches that is talking about the pastors of the churches in these seven churches.
So you know God has specific ways that he you know he has specific churches that he has his eyes on even now today.
And some churches are better than other churches some churches.
But all of us in all churches have problems.
No church is perfect on this earth.
No matter what anybody says all pastors are not perfect.
No pastor is perfect.
No church is perfect.
But the point of me you know is that you know what God has his eyes on certain churches.
And he does put men where he wants them to be put.
And he does bless men.
And he blesses ministries.
He blesses churches.
And today you know is just like this these churches here.
He sent these messages to these churches.
You think he's not watching churches today?
You think that there isn't blessed churches today?
There of course there are.
And there's evidence that they're blessed is that you know they might not have a stick that has flowers and blooming.
And you know they might not have a fruit tree inside their church that you can pick and eat the fruit of it right then.
But the picture is what?
That you see that their church is fruitful.
Their ministry is fruitful and that proves that they are of God.
God has chosen that church.
And God has chosen that man to lead that church.
It's very plainly obvious.
And it should be something that, that's what we should look at today when we're looking at churches that are good or bad.
See a lot of people like to criticize our church here.
People in this area criticize, I've heard people criticize this church.
I've heard of other pastors even criticizing this church.
But what are they criticizing exactly?
What do they have to criticize us about?
You know and what I would say is why don't you look at the fruit?
What are we doing that's so bad?
Oh we go and knock on people's doors and try to preach the gospel to them.
Oh it's so bad.
Like why don't you examine our rod and see whether there's things on there that are fruitful.
I think that our church is doing great.
Is our church perfect?
No but we're kind of a young vibrant church but we have a mixture of young and old.
We have you know and we have people that are zealous for the Lord here.
And are we perfect?
No we're not perfect but you can see the fruit.
People are getting saved as a result of this church being here.
But can they say the same thing about their church?
Because you know I've been to a lot of churches and they might have two or three hundred people in their churches.
But when I see their altar results on their bulletins they have like two or three people saved for the whole year.
Was that fruitful?
I mean we get that in a weekend sometimes.
So and look I'm not trying to be mean but I'm just saying why don't you look at the fruit.
Instead of just listening to rumors and listening to gossip and things like that.
Why don't you take a look at the fruit.
Look at Galatians chapter six.
Galatians chapter six.
So God you know he does still have men.
They're just not.
We don't have a priesthood anymore.
That priesthood has been changed into something else.
But I just want to say like so point number one is that the rod represents the different churches.
And so just like the candlestick would represent different churches.
And the stars represent the men that are in charge.
And which is really interesting because you don't have the model of that we would have here of a pastor led church.
But what do you see in Revelation chapter one?
The angels of the seven churches.
It's not the deacons that are in charge of the pastors that are the stars of the seven.
You know what I mean?
It's like it's not a congregationally led church.
It's the star represents the angel which is the pastor of the church.
The pastor leads the church.
Did Moses lead the congregation of the children of Israel?
Or was it the people that led the congregation of Israel?
It was Moses.
So there you go.
Anyway I had you turn to Galatians 6 15.
It says for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision but a new creature.
So what matters being saved?
The new man right?
That's what God's looking at in Christians today.
And it says and as many as walk according to this rule peace beyond them and mercy and upon the Israel of God.
What church is this being written to?
What's the name of this book again?
Galatians.
Is this a Jewish church that they're writing to?
Or a Gentile church?
It's a Gentile church.
Why is he saying they're the Israel of God then?
Well I would just tell you this.
It's because Israel in the New Testament is a spiritual nation made up of all believers.
In Matthew chapter 21 Jesus said the kingdom of God is going to be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
So you know people want to get all high and mighty about Israel the nation over there.
And what are they doing for God right now?
Killing Palestinians?
Is that what God's called us to do?
Is just to go and just nuke people off the face of the earth so they can build on the land that they have?
Oh what's their land?
Is it?
Because every time that I saw that people didn't believe in what the Lord was doing they came and kicked them off the land and God's the one that led those people to kick them off the land.
I don't know.
But one thing I do know is that God right here is saying that they are the Israel of God.
These Galatians.
So and then it just said the line above it it says circumcision or uncircumcision matters not it's a new creature.
Right?
And that new creature it's not talking about some creature some Halloween creature or something it's talking about the new man.
You know when you get saved you have the new man.
That's what it's talking about.
So look I can spiritualize things from the Old Testament into the New Testament just fine because all scripture is given by inspiration of God is profitable for our use.
Now number two.
Number one tonight was the rods represent different churches.
Number two the men are the pastors that lead these churches.
Verse number three back in our text we're going to keep coming back to Numbers chapter 17.
Numbers chapter 17 verse 3 says,
And thou shalt write Aaron's name upon the rod of Levi for one rod shall be for the head of the house of their fathers.
So again so if the rod represents the church the name of the man is going on the rod.
That's Aaron he's the head of that house.
Now of course in the New Testament Jesus Christ is the actual head of every church.
But you know he still has somebody that's an under shepherd and that would be the people that are leading the church.
Each church is a New Testament church it's independent of the other ones of course.
But Jesus is the head of every church right.
So in the New Testament Jesus Christ is the high priest now and forever.
But like I said before God has done away from with the Levitical system.
But has not gotten rid of all aspects of how he does things in the Old Testament.
So in the New Testament God uses full time or part time or sometimes you know a lot of times pastors are you know they still have to work outside.
And they're not fully supported by the church maybe because they're in a smaller area the church can't afford to pay them or whatever.
But they are able to be fully paid and supported by the church.
There's nothing wrong with that in the world that people attack that a lot.
And people say well pastors just greedy and they just want money for doing nothing.
It's like well I don't know what kind of what kind of church you go to.
But you know I would say that if your pastor just gets up and does a TED talk for 15 minutes every week.
And then he doesn't do anything else he's playing golf on the golf course and collecting a paycheck for full time for doing that.
Yeah I would agree with you that maybe that's a little fleecing of the flock.
But if your pastor is busy and he's preaching three or four sermons a week that are not the same ones.
You know when I preach in the morning I don't preach the same sermons I preach in the afternoon.
I preach two different sermons so it is a little different.
But in the New Testament turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 9.
1 Corinthians chapter 9 and a lot of people say well you know this whole thing where pastors are full time people are getting paid is just not biblical.
OK well let's look at 1 Corinthians 9.
Obviously talking about money isn't a very popular thing in church but people do get pretty crazy with stuff like this.
So if you read the whole chapter in the context of it he really explains it pretty thoroughly but I don't have time to do that tonight.
1 Corinthians 9 and 13 says,
Do you not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple?
It's talking about the priest currently working in the temple.
It says, And they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar.
Even so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the gospel should live of the gospel.
So what is Paul saying?
In the whole chapter if you read the whole chapter I would recommend that you do that later on.
He's saying don't we have me and Barnabas have the right to forebear working?
You know he's saying we could be full time if we want to but Paul chose not to do that.
He chose to be you know do his trade and work with his hands.
He didn't want people to say oh Paul is just a mooch and this and that but people still did help Paul out.
People still did take care of him.
I'm sure when he got older and more beat up maybe he did eventually go full time.
I don't know.
But he's just saying that God hath ordained this.
And further up even in the passage it says it talks about not you know muzzling the ox that treadeth out the corn.
Doth God take care for oxen?
And he's saying he wrote this for our sake no doubt.
He's not it's not that he cares so much about the ox.
The spiritual application is if a full time man of God is working and doing the work of the Lord,
that you shouldn't just say oh who cares you know he should just do this for free or whatever.
And that's the attitude of people these days.
It really is.
But I'm just saying that in the New Testament some of these things carry over you know the tithe and the offering.
People are like well where does it say you should tithe in the New Testament?
Where does it say you should stop?
It doesn't say you should stop.
But you know people say well you don't really have to.
Well I mean imagine just having to meet under a tree.
If it's snowing or raining or hot outside.
I mean how do you think the bills get paid at a church?
They don't get paid by you know osmosis.
They don't just get magically paid somehow.
It doesn't work like that.
That's what the tithes and offerings help to do is to keep the lights on.
You know keep the heaters on.
Hopefully get the furnace fixed, stuff like that you know.
You know so I mean that's just how it works.
And then to pay the pastor which you know I don't take a salary from this church at all.
So but I'm just saying there are things in the New Testament that are carried over from the Old Testament.
Look at 1 Timothy chapter 3.
And there and look there's the Bible specifically says in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17 it says while you're turning there.
It says obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they which must give account that they may do it with joy and not with grief for that is unprofitable for you.
So talking about people that have the rule over you.
Now as the pastor of the church I have rule over the house of God.
Over the things that take place in the house of God and in matters of spiritual things.
But I don't have the rule over what you watch at your house on television.
Or what clothes you wear at your house.
I don't come over for inspections.
Have I come over to anybody's house for an inspection lately?
No I haven't.
I don't have video cameras in your houses.
You know I don't rule your house.
I rule this house.
I don't I'm not the ruler of anybody else's home life.
I don't do anything with your finances.
You know this is not some kind of a cult like even though people like to claim it is.
The last time I checked if you're in a cult you give the cult all your money.
And I don't do that.
So I don't have some kind of speaker system in your house that says it's time to come to church or else.
You know that's what cults do.
So anyway you're in 1 Timothy chapter 3 and it says this is a true saying if a man desire the office of a bishop he desireth a good word.
It says a bishop then must be blameless the husband of one wife vigilant sober of good behavior given to hospitality apt to teach.
So there are things that a bishop or you know a bishop and a pastor and an elder are you know are the same thing basically.
So a bishop you know people generally in America call would say pastor.
OK that's generally what they would say but I would be considered a bishop also or shepherd or whatever you want to say.
Or an elder.
An elder just simply means you're an elder when it comes to knowledge.
You know when it's talking about a leader being an elder.
You know just like the you know what is it the Mormons they come and they have like a badge that says elder.
And they're like 19 years old wet behind the ears still.
But I mean if they had a really great knowledge of scripture they still could be considered an elder I suppose.
But in biblical qualifications an elder would have to be what the husband of one wife.
And having children plural right.
So but you know some I would say that some some of these are subjective and some of these are must.
See it says a bishop must be blameless the husband of one wife vigilant sober of good behavior given to hospitality apt to teach not given to wine.
No striker not greedy of filthy lucre but patient not a brawler not covetous.
Now I explain not a brawler.
Well what if what if somebody walked up and was trying to attack my family.
And you know I defended myself and I beat the crap out of the guy.
Would I be a brawler then and disqualified from being a pastor.
No because I'm defending my family.
You know but like well how many brawls do you have to get into Pastor Thompson before you're a brawler.
But I mean here's what I would say about that.
I used to get in fights when I was in middle school I got into quite a few fights and this this girl came up to me in between my seventh and eighth grade year and she said you sure do get in a lot of fights.
I was just thinking I was like oh man do I have that reputation.
And you know as a pastor later on because I've been in a fight since before well before I was saved.
You know I've been I've been in a fist fight or any kind of fight like that since you know since before I was saved.
And I would just say this if you have the reputation like that girl said you really sure do get in a lot of fights if someone walked up to me right now and said that.
Then I would probably have the reputation of being a brawler wouldn't I.
And so then that would probably disqualify me from being the pastor if that was true.
If I just was going around and you know every time you see me I'm just I have a black eye and like what happened pastor.
Well I just got another fight you know this guy just attacked my family and I just had to beat him up again.
You know it's just like well how many people are attacking your family Pastor Thompson is this really true.
Anyway so I mean it's like I said some things are subjective you know but some people will just like be ridiculous about some of this stuff.
But it says let's see how one the rules well his own house having his children's subjection with all gravity.
If a man if a man know not how to rule his own house how shall he take care of the Church of God.
So I mean it's basically saying like look you have to have if it's having his children that means how many children.
How many do you have to have before it could be considered children.
Yeah at least two right. So you got to have at least two children in subjection with all gravity is that say sinless.
Sinless children that are walk on water they can moonwalk backwards on water is that what it says.
No it just says they're in subjection what they do what you say right.
They're willing to submit to you and it says for if a man not know not how to rule his own house how shall he take care of the Church of God.
So just saying like if you couldn't even if you don't know how to run a household how can you run a church.
So these are you know the basic qualifications of taking on a church as being a pastor.
So and eventually like when it says let's say I was trying to look for one other thing here.
When it says that you're blameless and you know I have a good reputation of them without that are without.
Well how long do you have to have a good reputation from them that are without.
Because doesn't the Bible say doesn't Jesus say that you shall be hated of all nations for my name sake.
So because eventually that good reputation from them that are without is going to go away isn't it.
So eventually someone's going to say I hate that pastor if you're doing your job right people will hate you.
If you're a good Christian people will hate you.
And if nobody hates you or nobody has anything bad thing to say about you maybe you're not being a very good Christian.
And look I'm not saying that everybody should hate you in your whole life.
I'm just saying that like you know because obviously people should you know say hey that's a good Christian.
They have some good quality you know things about them or whatever.
I'm just saying that if nobody ever has anything to say about you because you're not salty.
Because the Bible says you know that we should be you know we should have salt in ourselves.
And salt stings sometimes doesn't it.
But salt also preserves and you know Jesus said if we have lost our savor then what good are we.
We're to be taken out and thrown in the dung hill to be trot under the foot of men.
So look at 1 Timothy chapter 3 I mean excuse me verse 2 Timothy chapter 4 excuse me.
But a couple more of those verses say not a novice lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.
Why can't a new believer be a pastor.
Well because they don't know what they're talking about.
And more as yeah moreover he must have a good port of them which are without lest he fall into the reproach and the snare of the devil.
If you have some glaring problem before you become a pastor that ever you know you were the biggest embezzler ever.
And then you become a pastor and it's like that guy went to prison for 20 years for being an embezzler.
It's like you don't have a good reputation for him without it's going to destroy your ministry right off the bat.
That's all I'm saying.
2 Timothy 4 1 says I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom.
Preach the word be instant in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
What is Paul charging Timothy to do.
What does every pastor have to do.
What's he saying here.
Preach the word.
That's part of the job of a pastor.
And look if a pastor is not willing to preach the word and get up and say what the Bible says no matter what season it is.
No matter if it's in season out of season reprove rebuke exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.
If a pastor is not willing to do that then he just needs to retire and have somebody come in that will.
That's what the Bible is saying.
Paul says I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ.
And the moment you get up and say I don't know if I can do this even though it's in the Bible then you need to step down.
And I'm not saying any names in specific I'm just saying that if that's compromising your heart as a pastor and you say I don't I can't preach that.
I can't preach against the sodomites because it might offend my my cousin or something.
Everybody's got a queer cousin.
I'm sure everybody has got a queer uncle.
Everybody you know some everybody's got some kind of queer in their family by now.
And if you're not going to get up and preach against you know whatever who cares what are they going to not invite you to their house for their birthday.
Okay that's a bonus.
But I mean the moment you get up and you have compromise in your heart you've already lost you're already you know you just shouldn't be preaching.
So verse 5 says but watch thou in all things endure afflictions do the work of an evangelist.
Look at this, this is really important.
Make full proof of thy ministry.
What's he saying?
You have to prove that you are the real deal.
And so what am I preaching about tonight?
Well the man of God does have to prove his ministry.
How do you do that?
By your fruits you are known.
That's how you prove it.
And what's he say?
This is a really important verse.
Watch thou in all things.
So we need to be alert, we need to be focused, we need to be in control of ourselves.
Watching and paying attention to what's going on.
Know the estates of thy flock.
Know what's going on.
Have your finger on the pulse of the church that you're pastoring.
And it says endure afflictions.
Why does it say that?
You know why it says that?
Because afflictions are going to come if you're doing your job as a pastor.
They're going to come.
Moses was a great man of God.
The meekest man on the face of the whole earth.
And he still had a rebellion on his hands.
More than he could handle.
He fell on his face before God.
And said, you know, God you're going to have to deal with this.
He didn't even want to deal with it.
But why does it say endure afflictions?
Because the afflictions are going to come my friend.
That's why.
And afflictions are what?
They're persecutions.
So if you're a pastor that's doing your job.
If you're a man of God that's doing your job.
Afflictions are going to come and you have to be able to endure them.
And you know what?
It's not fun.
It's not fun for people to just sit there and lie about you.
And lie about you.
And more lies.
I mean these lies have a life of their own sometimes.
Where you're walking to the bank with brother Rick and we're taking all the money out of the bank.
On some blog spot.
You remember that?
The last time we saw was me and brother Rick were walking to the bank to clean out the bank.
Not even in reality whatsoever.
I mean these women that were coming to this church literally filled out a fake judgment paperwork.
A fake paperwork saying that he couldn't come to this building.
And the only reason I even knew it is because there was no stamp from the judge on it.
This is how weird people will get.
Accusing people of all kinds of crazy stuff.
And look man.
I mean I've been accused of all kinds of things.
But it's afflictions that we have to endure.
Are they going to lie about us?
Yes.
Are people going to believe it sometimes?
Yeah they are unfortunately.
No matter what you say to them, people will still just believe it.
And sometimes it's not even worth mentioning because it's just like at some point.
What's the point of defending yourself?
Because if you defend everything that people accuse you of, you're going to be doing a lot of defending.
The more you defend, the more they ask questions.
So it's just like pointless sometimes.
But it says do the work of an evangelist.
Why does it say that?
What's an evangelist do?
They evangelize.
They get people saved.
So if you're a pastor and you're not doing the work of an evangelist, then you're not doing your job as a pastor.
What was Paul?
Paul went around starting churches, getting people saved, rinse and repeat.
Why does he have all these letters to all these different places?
Because he started churches in all those places.
Because he was an apostle.
He wasn't just an apostle though, he got sent out of Antioch.
Why was he sent out of Antioch if Jesus already made him an apostle?
You know why?
Because he was under the authority of the local church in Antioch.
And the Holy Ghost says separate unto me Saul and Barnabas for the ministry.
And then they laid hands on him.
For what purpose?
He was already an apostle.
Because he was probably their evangelist to go out and start all these churches.
So he did these three missionary journeys and he got sent out.
So to do the work of an evangelist.
So why does he tell Timothy to do this?
Because he has to do the work of an evangelist.
It says make full proof of thy ministry.
How do you prove it?
Well, you prove it by your fruit.
Because can we, look, in the New Testament is there examples of people dropping into hell when they went against the pastor?
Have you ever heard of this happening?
Thank you.
Have you ever heard of this happening?
Has anybody ever heard of hell opening up and people dropping in when they went against the pastor?
No?
You don't see that anymore do you?
A lot of times you'll see pastors getting afflicted, pastors having all these things happen to them.
But you won't see, you'll see Christians getting killed.
You'll see Christians going through a lot of things.
But you don't see them, you don't see peoples, you know, these rebels getting destroyed and dealt with by God.
Not really.
Because that's just not how the New Testament works.
But how do we know?
How do we check?
How do we check the full proof of the ministry?
Well, we check it by how Jesus tells us to.
Who's ever heard the saying, the proof is in the pudding?
You know that goes back at least to the 14th century.
I looked it up last night because I was like, where does that come from?
And it says JT is right that everything himself showeth in the tasting.
This is like some quote and it looks like it's from like Middle English.
Himself is spelled H-Y-M-S-E-L-F.
Everything himself showeth in the tasting.
And then William Camden stated in 1605 in Remains of a Greater Work concerning Britain as all the proof of a pudding is in the eating.
So in England, you might not know this because maybe you've never been there before.
But in England, everything after dinner is called pudding.
Who knew that? Anybody?
OK, one person knew that, maybe because you heard me preach that.
But everything is pudding.
Who's ever been to the south and you ask for a Coke and they say, what kind of Coke do you want?
Anybody? Well, that's what they do in the south.
If you ask for a Coke in the south, they say, what kind of Coke do you want?
Do you want Coke Sprite?
Because they think a Coke is just a soft drink.
But here, what do you want to drink?
We got Mountain Dew, Dr. Pepper, Root Beer.
But down there, would you like a Coke?
What kind of Coke would you like?
So in England, pudding is anything that you have after supper.
So it doesn't even have to be sweet.
What is pudding to us?
Chocolate pudding, vanilla pudding, butterscotch.
So when I hear the proof is in the pudding, I instantly think of, mmm, pudding sounds good, right?
But pudding is just like any kind of dessert.
So there's a thing called Yorkshire pudding, and it's not sweet.
It's kind of like a muffin or something, isn't it, hun?
Isn't it like a muffin?
You bake it into a little muffin pan, but it has some kind of filling, but it's not sweet.
But it's called Yorkshire pudding.
But when I heard Yorkshire pudding the first time, oh, we're going to make you some Yorkshire pudding,
I'm thinking, oh, cool, I've never had that kind of pudding before.
But what are we going to have for pudding?
And it's just like, you know, it's not pudding that we would think of.
Anyway, the reason why I'm saying that to you is because how do you know, how do you prove your ministry?
Well, the proof is in the pudding.
The proof is in the tasting, and it's basically what it's saying.
Like, when someone makes something, it can look really good, can't it?
Like when someone cooks something for you, they're like, oh, yeah, that looks really good.
And then you taste it, and it's like, mmm, that's really good.
You know, it's like, it looks fantastic.
But then when you taste it, it's like, hold on, I'm going to, you know, you're just like dumping it in a cat's bowl or whatever.
But, you know, when you taste it, you know that it's good, right?
Look at number 17-4, number 17-4.
Let's go back to our text here.
It says,
And thou shalt lay them up in the tabernacle of the congregation before the testimony.
There I will meet with you, which is basically what we would call inside the church building, right?
And it shall come to pass that when the man's rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom.
They're going to see the fruit.
Where are they going to see the fruit?
On the rod.
Whose rod is it going to be on?
Well, it's going to tell us.
Of course we know, you read the story already.
It's going to be Aaron's rod, right?
So, number one, the rod represents the different churches.
Number two, the men are the pastors that lead these churches, you know, which would be Aaron or whatever.
And then number three, the fruit will show you who the Lord has chosen.
Verse five, in our text it says,
And it shall come to pass that the man's rod, whom I shall choose, shall blossom.
Skip down to verse eight, it says,
And it came to pass that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness,
and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded,
and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded gardens.
So, how do we know that he chose him?
Well, because his rod brought forth fruit, didn't it?
And let's turn to, let's see, go to Genesis chapter 26.
While you're turning there, I'm going to read a couple passages, just a couple verses from Genesis 17.
I've got to hurry up here.
But Genesis 17 says,
Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram,
but thy name shall be Abraham,
for a father of many nations have I made thee,
and I will make thee exceeding fruitful,
and I will make nations of thee,
and kings shall come out of thee.
How do we know that Abraham was the chosen of God while he was on the earth?
Well, God told him multiple different times when he met with him,
and here specifically says,
I'm renaming you to Abraham because you're going to be a father of many nations.
You're going to be exceeding fruitful,
and kings are going to come out of you,
and really the Lord Jesus Christ was the seed that came forth out of Abraham.
Now, you know, the next son that was blessed
and was the fruitful man upon the earth that the Lord had chosen was his son Isaac.
There's a really interesting passage in Genesis chapter 26 here,
and it kind of parallels what we're talking about here.
Look at Genesis 26 12, it says,
Then Isaac sowed in the land and received in the same year a hundredfold,
and the Lord blessed him, and the man waxed great
and went forward and grew until he became very great,
for he had possession of flocks and possession of herds
and great store of servants, and the Philistines envied him.
Why did they envy him?
Because he was so fruitful in the land and so blessed that you couldn't just not notice it.
He was so blessed of the Lord,
and, you know, notice that it said he received, he just sowed in the land.
He's growing stuff, right?
He's just casting seed and, you know, he received in hundredfold.
What does that remind you of?
It should remind you of the New Testament, right?
But, you know, these Philistines envied him.
That means that they were, you know, they had like a hatred towards him because of how fruitful he was.
And it says,
So it seems like they had a problem with Abraham too, didn't they?
And didn't the Philistines mess with Abraham too?
Yeah?
There's always someone going to hate on men of God that are doing great things, that are being fruitful and being blessed.
The Philistines are always going to come against us.
The Philistines are always going to try to stop the wells.
The Philistines are always going to try to come against men of God that are doing great works for him.
But this also shows us that it's going to be very obvious who God is blessing and who God is doing great works through.
Is it not?
Isn't this a picture of it?
Look at Matthew chapter 13.
And what it said about Isaac sowing the land and receiving in hundredfold is a very good parallel to soul winning
and what Jesus taught about going out and sowing the seed of the Word of God.
Look at Matthew chapter 13 verse 3.
It says,
Just like Isaac, right?
And when he sowed some seeds fell by the wayside and the fowls came up and devoured them.
Some fell by the stony places where they had not much earth and forthwith they sprung up because they had no deepness of earth.
And when the sun was up they were scorched and because they had no root they withered away.
And some fell among thorns and the thorns sprung up and choked them.
But others fell into good ground and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold and some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
Who hath ears to hear? Let him hear.
So what's he saying? Some people are going to get saved and those people that get saved, they're going to bring forth a hundredfold.
Well what does that mean?
That they're going to be fruitful, they're going to bring forth other souls, they're going to bring forth other fruit,
some hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
You know and fruit comes every season. Right now is apple season, right? Am I right about that? Anybody know?
Is it kind of apple season? Yeah?
So every year apples are a big thing at this time of year. They're pretty good.
But you know that you can count on those to come every year.
But you know that's kind of what it's talking about.
In a season of our life, you know, depending on how much seed you sow, that's how much you're going to reap back.
So a person that goes out and goes sowing, hey sometimes you're going to bring forth a hundredfold,
sometimes you're going to bring back sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
You know, depending on how much time and effort you're willing to put in, you're going to be fruitful in that way.
But I'm just saying that the fruit is the works that you put in and the souls that you're getting saved.
That's what it's talking about here. The fruit is the people that are getting saved.
People say, well the fruit of the Spirit is talking about the good things that we do.
No, that's the fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit is not us. The Spirit is in us.
And the fruit of the Spirit is something we get to enjoy because the Holy Spirit is in us.
Now, but I mean, this is the heart of the matter right here though.
Let's turn to Matthew 7 verse 15. This really just culminates everything I'm trying to teach you tonight.
Matthew 7 verse 15 says, because this is what Jesus told us to look for.
Are they good? Because look, there's been a lot of this lately.
Is this a good tree or is this a bad tree?
And we're being forced to judge these things.
How do we judge things? Because a lot of people will just say, well this is how we judge it.
But how does Jesus tell us to judge things?
Look at Matthew 7 verse 15. It says, beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep's clothing,
but inwardly they are ravaging wolves.
So are there people that are fakes and phonies that will pretend they'll look like us, they'll talk like us, they'll act like us,
but inside they're ravaging wolves.
The Bible says that they're false prophets.
He says to beware of those people.
And then how do we identify them? It says, ye shall know them by their fruits.
What kind of fruits are they bringing forth?
Do men gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles?
Do grapes have thorns in them?
Do figs have thistles in them? Do you know what thistles are?
Those things that get stuck on your socks or you hit them when you walk by and they get in your leg
or you have to put mud on them or whatever to get them off?
Yeah, those are things that spike you, things that hurt you.
So it says, even so, every good tree bringeth forth good fruit,
but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit.
A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.
Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
So it's making a clear distinction for us.
What is a good tree? Well, someone that brings forth good fruit.
A good tree brings, you know, what is the fruit?
The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, right?
And when the soul is wise.
So when it's talking about trees and reproducing.
So as a Christian, someone got us saved.
Jesus saves us. I'm not saying that he doesn't.
But someone had to tell us about Jesus, didn't they?
And that person was saved.
And that person had to be saved in order to get you saved.
Isn't that what it's saying?
Because a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit,
neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
Look what it says in verse 19.
Every tree that bringeth forth good fruit is hewn down
and cast into the fire whereby, wherefore, excuse me, by their fruits ye shall know them.
So when a good tree preaches the gospel and that person gets saved,
that person is saved and they're a good tree.
They're good fruit.
So judging a man's ministry, judging what kind of church somebody has,
how do you judge those things?
What kind of gospel are they preaching?
Are they preaching a works-based salvation?
Well, then it's a bad tree.
Because the Pharisees would go and compass sea and land to bring forth one proselyte
and make him twofold more the child of hell than they are themselves.
They're literally going and sailing across the ocean or whatever
to tell someone a false gospel and then they're worse than that person was.
But this is what Jehovah's Witnesses do.
This is what Mormons do.
They're preaching a false gospel.
That's why you should never let a Mormon even step foot into your house ever
because the Bible says you're partaker of their evil deeds.
Neither wish them God's speed.
When you say God's speed, you are just saying God bless you, you false prophet.
And so, look, we don't want to be part of their evil deeds.
So they are a corrupt tree.
A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit.
So how do you judge the tree?
The tree is the prophet.
The tree is the man of God or the wicked false prophet, right?
How do we judge it?
Well, what are they preaching?
What are they producing?
If the church is filled with people that aren't saved, is that guy saved?
Probably not.
If the church is producing a bunch of saved people,
the church is getting people saved on a weekly basis
and they're preaching the right message, they're preaching the right truth,
then that is probably a good tree, isn't it?
It's really not that hard to discern.
This is what, I mean, because, look, if Korah steps up into our church next week
and tries to turn all of our people aside,
hell is not going to open up and that person is going to drop to the bottomless pit
right in front of our eyes.
We're going to have to use our thinking caps
and look at what the Bible says and say,
this guy is preaching some false stuff.
He needs to get thrown out of here.
We can't have somebody like that in our church.
And then people are like, how could you get rid of the man?
You've killed the people of the Lord.
What are you talking about?
That person is an evil tree.
Look, we need unity in our church.
We can't have people that are preaching weird stuff here,
trying to grab people and pull them to the side
and teaching them false doctrine.
We can't have that.
So how do you know they're a good tree?
What did Jesus say?
By their fruits you shall know them.
That's what we go by.
Look at Numbers chapter 17, verse number 5.
Numbers 17, verse number 5.
You've got to hurry up here.
It says, and it shall come to pass that the man's rod whom I shall choose shall blossom.
Is that what happened?
Yes, it was.
That's how we know that he chose Aaron.
He chose Aaron.
It says, and it came to pass that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness.
Verse 8.
And behold, the rod of Aaron of the house of Levi was budded and brought forth buds
and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds.
Our flower blossoms are bad.
Good.
And women like that a lot, right?
That was probably to appease the women.
I don't know.
But our bloom blossoms on a stick that's not planted in the ground
and used for a walking stick that's a dead piece of wood.
Is that like a miracle?
Of course it is.
And everybody probably likes almonds.
They're by the Dead Sea.
They could crush a little sea salt on those things and be a good little snack.
That's good fruit, isn't it?
I mean, it's not maybe classified as fruit necessarily.
Fruit and nuts.
But it's still good fruit.
It's something you could eat.
It's not poison.
It doesn't have thorns and thistles on it.
So do you see the picture there?
The picture there is good fruit blossoming on the stick.
You know that he's a good tree.
You know that he's the man that God chose.
That's what he said.
He said it's going to come to pass that the stick of the blonde I've chosen
is going to blossom and it's going to bring forth this fruit.
So when people are doubting your pastor or other pastors that you know or love
and, you know, that you're getting great teaching from
and all of a sudden they're saying,
hey, this person's bad.
This person's doing wickedness.
This person's evil.
You know, look at this, this and this.
And it's just like, well, listen to what the Bible says.
That's what you should do.
Listen to what the Bible says.
And, you know, when you know for a fact that they're preaching spirit-filled sermons,
you know for a fact you see their fruit,
then, you know, and then the people that are saying,
those people are bad and they don't get people saved
and their preaching is not spirit-filled
and they're just a bunch of haters and they're a bunch of losers.
It's like how are you judging that good tree
when you don't even have any fruit of your own or limited fruit or questionable fruit?
It's like, you know, when you go to the store and you're like,
I don't know if that's really ripe.
How do you test the melons again?
You can't really tell.
The grapes are a little bit squishy.
I don't know.
I like the grapes hard, you know.
I don't know.
But not so hard that they're not, you know.
Anyway, you know what I'm saying.
So, look.
When a church, when a pastor is leading a movement filled with just spirit-filled preachers
and souls are getting saved all around the world,
missions are being done all around the world.
I mean, you know, when I go down to Tempe
and they're just like all over the walls
or just all these sign-ups to go on to all these missions trips,
just tens of thousands of people in the bulletin getting saved,
I'm just like, and then I just know
that some of the people that are going against him right now
are just not even coming close to doing anything that he's doing.
It's just like, what am I going to go with?
I'm going to go with Aaron's rod that butted.
That's what I'm going to go with.
So, I mean, unless there's some of the reason why I shouldn't,
I'm going to stick with what God shows me in the Scriptures.
How am I going to judge these things?
Am I going to go with the church that's just running a man down with no evidence
or am I going to go with, you know, what I've seen and what I know
for the last however many years I've been around?
And, look, I've seen it.
I've seen it proved over and over again.
So, like, I don't know.
I don't know what to tell people that are doubters,
but, like, I just know that our church,
Sugar Foundation Baptist Church and this church here,
you know, we have soul winners that go out every single week
getting people saved, and that is our main mission.
And, you know, preaching the Bible.
And that is a fruit that you can't gainsay.
You just can't gainsay that because there's nothing that's going on in our church that's wicked.
What are you going to say?
They still win too much?
Ooh, so bad.
And here's what people need to do is they need to just start paying attention to their own churches
and clean up their own backyard and stop knocking on the neighbor's door.
And, you know, I just don't understand how they have this much taught people
of these other pastors that are just every sermon's about some situation
that's been going on for, like, two months now.
It's just like, hey, why don't you just let these churches get on with their lives?
Why are you doing 25 podcasts about somebody else's church
and trying to say how independent you are?
It's just bizarre.
I mean, why is it, you know, usually we're fighting the Philistines.
Why are God's people eating their own?
Why is this such a big deal right now to where everybody is just trying to destroy God's people
and get them out of churches?
It's the weirdest thing I've ever seen.
In Song of Solomon it says, they made me keep the keeper of the vineyards,
but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
And that's what I see a lot of, people just not keeping their own vineyards.
I wonder just how sick of this their own church members are
that they can't even just stay out of their own, you know, somebody else's business.
You know, maybe they're neglecting their own vineyard, need to just tend to their own vineyard.
These guys talking about how independent they are,
they're up in another church's business so much that they just can't even focus on their own.
I mean, it's bizarre.
Last point, I'll make it quick.
Go to Numbers chapter 17 verse 5.
But how do we know if a man of God is true?
Well, Aaron's rod-butted, that's how we know.
Look at the fruit.
Look at what God's doing in that church and in that man's ministry.
That's what Jesus said, right?
It's pretty obvious.
And then when you see a bunch of do-nothings,
they're doing nothing, that haven't done nothing,
and they're talking about what they might do in the future or something,
but they haven't done anything yet.
And you're in Podunk Hall or a town of 2,000 people,
or a town of 15,000 people,
and like I-what do you-you don't even do door-to-door soul winning?
And you're going to sit there and talk about a church that's done,
just turned the world upside down?
I just don't get that.
It's called envy.
It's called covetousness.
Numbers chapter 17 verse 5 says,
And it shall come to pass that the man's rod whom I shall choose shall blossom,
and I will make to cease from me the murmurings of the children of Israel,
whereby they murmur against you.
Now, it says-it says that I will make them to cease from me,
the murmurings of the children of Israel, where they murmur against you.
So, what was the other purpose of this?
To show who God chose, and to shut their mouths
of the people that are murmuring against them.
And murmuring is just like where you're kind of just, you know,
talking behind the backs, but not really saying things really clearly,
but there's just like an undertone of bad talking.
But it also is complaining.
You know, the people complained against Moses.
The people complained against Aaron.
And they just flat out said, you know, they were going to kill Moses and Aaron
after this big thing happened with Korah.
And really what I kind of see right now is true men of God being attacked
by supposed other true men of God.
And maybe it's just time to ask if those men are truly men of God.
Because really what I see is either they're Saul's or they're reprobates.
I mean, that's all I can kind of figure.
Because that's really the only choice that we have.
But, you know, we see Saul work with, what, reprobates.
He worked with reprobates to take down David,
to take down the Lord's priest, Doeg the Edomite.
He went to the Witch of Endor.
And we saw David work with Philistines for a short time.
And he was a godly man.
But, you know, he was never allowed to attack Saul.
And he never did touch Saul.
And God just took Saul down.
And that's how that went.
But, you know, my question would be,
is that why are saved men and women of God attacking saved men right now
who clearly have budding rods and obvious fruit?
Why is that happening?
The Philistines are sitting there laughing at us right now.
They don't even have to do anything.
And the Philistines, in case you didn't know,
are the people, the wicked people, that hate our guts,
that would love Christianity to be destroyed.
They don't even have to do anything.
When Christians are fighting publicly,
it's a mock, it's just, they just have to sit back and laugh.
They don't even have to say anything.
It's a mockery, the treachery and the nonsense that's going on.
And when I see people that I love laughing at comments
that reprobates are making and people that are just the enemies of God,
it just makes me sick.
It makes me sad.
Look at verse 6.
It says, Moses spake unto the children of Israel,
and every one of the princes gave him a rod of peace for each prince one.
According to the father's houses, even twelve rods,
the rod of Aaron was among the rods,
and Moses laid up the rods before the Lord in the tabernacle of witness,
and it came to pass that on the morrow Aaron, or excuse me,
Moses went unto the tabernacle of witness,
and behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded,
and brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds,
and Moses brought out all the rods from before the Lord unto the children of Israel,
and looked and took every man his rod,
and the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony,
to be kept for a token against the rebels,
and thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me that they die not.
So I want you to go just back a chapter real quick to Numbers chapter 16 verse 3.
The Bible says in Numbers 16 3, so the point is that this is a token against the rebels also,
the bad people, the ones that God killed,
and against these ones that are murmuring that they die not, right?
So the story here, and I know we don't have time to go through the whole thing,
but it's 50 chapters, or 50 verses, it says,
And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron,
and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy,
every one of them, and the Lord is among them.
Wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the Lord.
This is Korah saying this to Moses.
So this is really the accusation, you're lifting yourself up too high,
Moses, you think you're better than everybody,
and now go down to verse 29,
And Moses says, If these men die the common death of all men,
or if they be visited after the visitation of all men, then the Lord hath not sent me.
And so the Lord, of course, it says,
But if the Lord make a new thing, and the earth open up her mouth,
and swallow them up with all that appertainteth unto them,
and they go down quick into the pit,
then he shall understand that these men have provoked the Lord.
And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words,
that the ground clave asunder, that was under them.
And the earth opened her mouth and swallowed them up,
and their houses and all the men that appertained unto Korah and all their goods,
they and all that appertained to them,
went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them,
and they perished from among the congregation.
And all Israel that went round about them fled at the cry of them,
for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.
And there came out a fire from the Lord and consumed the 250 men that offered incense.
Verse 41, But on the morrow all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses
and against Aaron, saying, You have killed the people of the Lord.
See, they're blaming Aaron and Moses for this.
And this is what's messed up about the whole thing.
It's like they saw them all die.
They saw them all go to hell.
God showed clearly whose side he was on,
and yet you still have people, you know, when God clearly chooses whose side he's on,
then you have these people that are like, You killed the people of the Lord.
What are you talking about?
Are you insane?
But then, like, then I see things that are going on today.
I'm like, well, it makes sense to me,
how people could just be so stupid and blind in their judgment about things.
And they're just like, You killed the people of the Lord.
It says, And it came to pass, when the congregation was gathered against Moses and against Aaron,
that they looked toward the tabernacle of the congregation, and behold, the cloud covered it,
and the glory of the Lord appeared.
And Moses and Aaron came before the tabernacle of the congregation,
and the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Get you up among this congregation, that I may consume them as in a moment.
And they fell upon their faces.
And Moses and Aaron, Moses said unto Aaron,
Take up a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar,
and put on incense, and go quickly into the congregation to make an atonement for them,
for there is wrath gone out from the Lord, the plague is begun.
And Aaron took as Moses commanded, and ran to the midst of the congregation,
and behold, the plague was begun among the people,
and he put on incense, and made an atonement for the people,
and he stood between the dead and the living, and the plague was stayed.
Now they that died of the plague were fourteen thousand and seven hundred beside them that died of the matter of Korah.
So see, the rebels are destroyed, and you know, because of how the children of Israel,
the people that are supposed to be saved here, because of the way they responded,
then God just started plaguing all of them, and they killed like over fourteen thousand people.
And then Aaron goes down there, and you know, he plays the part of the intercessor,
and makes an atonement for them, and stands before the dead and the living,
because they're too stupid to save their own selves.
Because they can't judge correctly on who's on the right side,
they're just on the wrong side.
And still, the guys, you know, it's a good thing that God chose the right people,
because most people probably wouldn't have made this choice to help them.
They didn't deserve the help, but see, deserve really doesn't have anything to do with it sometimes.
You know, we don't deserve to be saved either, right?
It says, and Aaron returned unto Moses, under the door of the tabernacle of the congregation the plague was stayed.
So here's the thing, let's look at the last two verses, and we'll be done here.
But God proved by destroying Korah and the rebels whose side he was on.
God also proves, and I believe in the New Testament, more importantly through fruit,
this is what Jesus Christ emphasizes in the New Testament.
We're not going to have a Korah moment in the New Testament.
Yeah, sometimes people are going to get destroyed, sometimes people are going to die of some weird circumstances or whatever,
but that's not going to be the norm that we see in the New Testament.
We're not going to see hell opened up and people dropping into it.
But what we're going to see is we're going to see persecution and it's going to look like we're losing a lot.
Even in the tribulation, the devil is going to be seeming to beat us.
He's going to overcome the saints.
So it's going to look like the, excuse me, it's going to look like the good guys are losing a lot.
And that's why people will be like, see, they're wicked.
See, look what's happening to them. They're getting beaten.
See what's happening to them? It's because they're bad.
But that's not why it seems like we're losing.
We're losing because that's just kind of how God has set things up in the end times.
It says, if the sign, and then like, okay, we're in verse 11, it says,
And Moses did so as the Lord commanded him, so did he.
And the children of Israel spake unto Moses, saying, Behold, we die, we perish, we all perish.
And why are they saying that?
And it just was like, that's kind of a weird way to end the chapter, right?
I thought there was one more verse in there. Was there one more verse there?
Let me see here.
Whosoever cometh, whosoever cometh anything near the tabernacle of the Lord shall die, shall we be consumed with dying.
And it's like, you know, God's purpose of having these rods bud and all this stuff happen was so that the rebels would stop.
You know, the rebels would be clear token that the rebels were wrong.
And then it would shut the mouths of the people that were murmuring.
And stop them from doing it.
You know what? I see a lot of people murmuring right now.
I see a lot of people complaining. I see a lot of people bashing, you know, people of God.
But, you know, you might not see a plague break out or whatever.
But what you might see, you might not even see it at all.
But you know what? God will still hold people accountable for the things that they say against the people of the Lord.
Against the people that God has called.
Against the people that, you know, are these fruit trees that God has set up.
These people that God has anointed and it's very clear that he's using.
Just like he did with Moses and Aaron.
But you just might not see it.
You might not see directly what happens.
But, you know, I've been around a while and I've seen how things work out for people sometimes.
And like they might not even notice it in their life.
But it's just like, well, I remember seeing what you said about so-and-so.
And then you're like wondering why your life's going wrong right now.
You wonder why, you know, there's all these travesties in your life.
And look, I don't like to just guess things.
But, you know, sometimes it's pretty easy to see that, you know, this is...
God will take retribution over the things that you say with your mouth.
And you shouldn't just flippantly say things about people when you don't know what you're talking about.
And, you know, especially when you're talking about a saved person.
You're talking about a saved man of God.
You're talking about saved Christians and you're just trashing them in public.
Boy, you better just be careful.
Look, I'm not just talking about any person.
I'm just talking about Christians in general.
Who are you to judge another man's servant?
And if you just think it's okay to just run around and bash other Christians publicly and to say all kinds of filthy things about them.
You know, God is not okay with that.
He's not okay with it.
And He will shut your mouth.
I'm not saying I will.
I'm not saying anybody I know will.
But God will shut your mouth.
Whether that's tomorrow or next week or next year.
He will shut your mouth for you.
So we ought to be careful about that.
But, you know, the main thing I really want to teach you about tonight, though, is when you see Aaron's rod budding.
You know that Jesus told us to look for the fruit.
And so when you're just, you're like, I don't know.
You know, I don't know about this.
Look for the fruit and then you'll know.
Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for the Bible and for the clear instructions that we get in the word of God.
Lord, thank you so much for showing us what to look for when we're looking at what a church should be like and what a man of God should be like.
Lord, that we should inspect the fruit.
People always say these things about being fruit inspectors.
Lord, I pray that you would help us to discern and someone actually is bringing forth good fruit.
And help us to discern those that are corrupt trees and wicked trees.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
If you'd open up your hymnalts, page 261.
Trust and obey.
That's what we need to do to Jesus.
Trust and obey.
When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word, what a glory he sheds on our way.
While we do his good will, he abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Not a shadow can rise, not a cloud in the skies, but his smile will quickly drive away.
Not a doubt nor a fear, not a sigh nor a tear, can abide while we trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Not a burden we bear, not a sorrow we share, but our toil he richly repay.
Not a grief nor a loss, not a frown nor a cross, but is blessed if we trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
But we never can prove the delights of his love until all on the altar we lay.
For the favor he shows and the joy he bestows, for them who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Then in fellowship suite we will sit at his feet, or we'll walk by his side in the way.
What he says we will do, where he sends we will go.
Never fear, only trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.
Father, thank you for this day.
Thank you for allowing us to come to church.
And thank you for the great preaching, Lord.
Help us to apply to our hearts now and to not wait.
To not put it off, but to meditate on the verses that we heard, the great teaching, and make application.
And keep us safe as we go our separate ways, and bless our fellowship.
In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
.