(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Man, 1 Chronicles, chapter number 6, we're dealing with the sons of Levi, it's one of the longer chapters, a lot of names listed here, because this is one of the most important genealogies because it has to do with who the priests are and who the Levites are. And that's a pretty important designation because that determines what they're going to do with their lives. I mean, they're going to spend their lives serving God and ministering about the tabernacle or the temple and if they're going to be performing the sacrifices and if they're in the line of Aaron, that's pretty important that they belong to that correct tribe and that correct family that God had ordained to do those things. Now, just a quick review since we've been out of this for a couple of weeks, all of these genealogies just have to do with the children of Israel. Chapter 1 brought us from Adam all the way to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Chapter 2 dealt with a generalization about the sons of Judah. Then chapter 3 had to do with David, King David and all his sons. Chapter 4, we go back and get more details on the tribe of Judah. Chapter 5, we dealt with the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh. And then chapter 6, we get into the specific sons of Levi. And then in the subsequent chapters, we'll get to the other tribes. We'll learn about the basic important descendants from each of those other tribes. So when it comes to the Levites, let's start out in verse number 1. It says, the sons of Levi, Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. So there are three sons of Levi and this is the basic breakdown of the three different types of Levites, the Kohathites, the Gershonites, and the Merariites. And as you study the Mosaic law, you'll find that they had different jobs. The Kohathites had certain jobs that they did. The Gershonites had other jobs. The Merariites had other jobs. Now Kohath is the one of whom comes Moses and Aaron, okay? So that's kind of the predominant branch of the family. And it says in verse number 2, and the sons of Kohath, Amram, Izar, and Hebron, and Uziel, and the children of Amram, Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam, the sons also of Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Now let me just, I gotta hurry because I have a lot to talk about here. Don't worry, we're not going to reread all the names that we read before the service. But I want to point out first of all though that these genealogies are not listing every single person. They're basically just showing us the branches of the family and who descends from who. But they're not giving us every single generation because if you notice, if we're going from Levi to Kohath to Amram and then all of a sudden we're at Moses, well that's probably not going to add up to 430 years in the land of Egypt, is it? And the Bible's pretty clear that they spent 430 years in Egypt and so it's not giving us every single name. Now who thinks 81 verses of names is enough for the sons of Levi and that it's okay that you know, God skipped those names? So God is sometimes skipping the names of people that are not important, not significant. We don't need to know the name of every single person who was just in slavery in Egypt during that time. The thing that's important to us is just to understand, okay, Moses and Aaron come from the Kohathite branch or the Kohath branch of Levi. That's what we need to know so God gives us that information. But there are names that are left out. When it says the son of in the Bible, that could be the grandson or the great grandson. When it says so and so begat so and so, that can again be a grandson or a great grandson. Just like Jesus is the son of David, even though David is not his dad, David is his ancestor a lot further back from that. So we see here that the sons of Aaron in verse number 3 are Nadab and Abihu, Eliezer and Ithamar. Now remember back in Leviticus chapter 10, Nadab and Abihu offered strange fire before the Lord which he commanded not and therefore God slew them. God gives just a very strict rundown in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy of how he is to be worshiped and exactly who does what and how they do it and this is the equipment you're going to use and this is the people that are going to do it. And God did not want them to just ignore that and just do their own freestyle worship of the Lord. And that's what they did. He gives them all these instructions. They just decide to light up some incense and just kind of worship the Lord in their own way. And what happened? God strikes him dead because he's sending a real strong message, look, let's not already in the first generation just forsake what I'm teaching you here and think you can just do it however you want. You know, God has a way that he wants things done and a lot of people think, well, as long as your heart's just in the right place and as long as you're worshiping the true God, you can worship him however you want, that's not really true. You know, God wants us to worship him in holiness and in truth and he wants us to worship him according to his word, to understand the word, to read the Bible and then with that knowledge to worship him in a way that pleases him, not like Cain who brought fruits and vegetables and was rejected, but like Abel who brought the sacrifice God wanted, the firstlings of the flock. He wanted the blood of the lamb. He didn't want Cain's offering. He didn't want Nadab and Abihu's incense. He wants us to obey him. The Bible says to obey him is better than sacrifice. So we need to obey. Nadab and Abihu did not obey, so God killed them. So that leaves us with Eleazar and Ithamar. These are the two main branches of the family when it comes to the priests because the priests in the Old Testament were the sons of Aaron specifically, okay, and we're going to talk more about that in a moment. But among the priests of the Old Testament, you have two branches of the family. You have those that come from Eleazar and those who come from Ithamar. Now at different times, those of Eleazar would be the high priest, other times those of Ithamar and during David's kingdom, you got one of each, both acting as high priests. You had two high priests at the same time. But then if you remember Eli, he did not raise his children right. So the high priest Eli, his sons were committing fornication. They were greedy. They were covetous. They were just sons of Belial, the Bible says. They were just wicked, reprobate children. And so God ended up cursing the house of Eli and saying that that family would no longer be priests. So then when Solomon gets on the throne, it ends up going to the other side of the family, goes back to the house of Eleazar away from those of Ithamar and you end up with Zadok being the priest going forward all the way up to the time of the New Testament. In fact, the sons of Zadok are the ones who were the priests all the way into the New Testament. And if you remember, the priests in the New Testament are called the Sadducees. The sect of the Sadducees were the ones that were running things in the temple at the time of Christ and they were the high priests at the time of Christ. And the word Sadducee comes from the name Zadok, Sadducee, it actually is derived from that. Okay. So we see that. Let's jump down here to verse number 31. So we're going to skip over a lot of this, just a lot of the different names of the sons of Levi and the sons of Aaron and so forth. Okay. Let's jump down to verse 31. The Bible after listing a bunch of names says, and these are they whom David set over the service of song in the house of the Lord after that the ark had rest and they ministered before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of the congregation with singing until Solomon had built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem and then they waited on their office according to their order. Now the Bible is saying here there's a group of people of the Levites who served God in the capacity of singing. I mean these were full-time musicians that spent their time singing and praising God first in the tabernacle and then ultimately in the temple that was built. But before God's presence, before the ark of the covenant, they would sing. And of course when we read the book of Psalms we'll see the term, you know, the chief musician, to the chief musician on my stringed instruments or even the book of Habakkuk mentions that. So there were guys that were the chief singers, the chief musicians, the ones who led Israel's music program of worshiping the Lord through music and they're writing the Psalms and performing the Psalms and teaching the people the godly music. And the reason that I want to point that out is because of the fact that the Levites had a lot of jobs that had to do with the house of God. They had all manner of jobs to do with the house of God. But it was the sons of Aaron specifically who were the priests. So what I want to point out to you is that there are Levites and then there are priests, okay? The priests are the sons of Aaron, right? But a lot of the Levites are not priests. A lot of the Levites are just serving God in other ways. Some of them are musicians. Some of them are sweeping the floor. Some of them are, you know, setting up the tabernacle and taking it down. Some of them are doing maintenance on the buildings. Some of them are taking the animals out to a, you know, to a clean place and burning them. And some of them are just dealing with the instruments, the accoutrements. I mean, there's a lot that goes into running the temple in the Old Testament. So they had all kinds of workers doing all types of various tasks. So the Levites had a lot of different jobs. The priests did certain specific things that were only reserved for them. Look if you would at verse 47. I'll show you what I'm talking about. The sons of Malai, the son of Mushai, the son of Mararai, the son of Levi, their brethren also the Levites were appointed unto all manner of service of the tabernacle of the house of God. So it's saying that their brethren the Levites, they did all kinds of jobs. Just any job that needs to be done. Sort of like in a New Testament church, there are all types of jobs that need to be done. All kinds of tasks that get performed, not just preaching and not just music, right? But there are a lot of just menial tasks, what the Bible calls, you know, the waiting of tables and just different church activities, maintenance on the buildings, just whatever the case may be. And so the Levites had all manner of jobs and then the priests had special jobs. So it said their brethren the Levites, verse 48, were appointed unto all manner of service. They had all kinds of jobs. But verse 49 says, but Aaron and his sons offered upon the altar of the burnt offering and on the altar of incense and were appointed for all the work of the place most holy and to make an atonement for Israel according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded. So the Levites are doing everything else, all different types of jobs. Each of them has their certain specialty. And then the priests are specifically dealing with the burnt offerings, the incense, anything to do with the most holy things and the most holy place, right? And then it starts to list more of those names. And these are the sons of Aaron, Eleazar his son, Phinehas his son, Abishua his son, etc. Okay. Now look at verse 54. Now these are their dwelling places throughout their castles in their coasts of the sons of Aaron of the families of the Kohathites for theirs was the lot. Okay. So up to this point in the chapter, we've just been listing all these names of different branches of the family. These are the Kohathites, these are the Gershonites, these are the Mararites. And why does it matter which family they're of? The reason it matters is because they have different jobs based on which family they're of. These are the priests. These are the ones who take care of all the equipment. These are the ones who do this, that or the other. But now we get to verse 54, we talk about, okay, where do these people live? Okay. Where do the different families of the Levites live within Israel? Because remember, when Israel inherited the promised land, different tribes inherited different regions. And some people in the back of their Bible may have a map that shows the 12 tribes of Israel and where they're located and how they're laid out. And we talked about that a little bit two weeks ago when we were here about how Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh were on the other side of the river, you know, today's West Bank of Palestine. You know, there were people over there on that east side and then all the other tribes inherited on the west side of the Jordan River. Well here he talks about where the Levites lived. Now where did the Levites live? Where did they inherit? Well when you look at one of those maps that shows you who inherits what, you'll see that there's no inheritance for Levi. There's no section that's labeled Levi because the idea was to have the Levites actually spread out throughout the entire land of Israel. They're actually scattered throughout. So look at verse 54. It says, these are their dwelling places throughout their castles. Notice that word castles. We'll come back to that. In their coasts of the sons of Aaron, of the families of the Kohathites, for theirs was the lot. And they gave them Hebron in the land of Judah and the suburbs thereof round about it. But the fields of the city and the villages thereof, they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh. And what I want to point out here is that the Levites had cities or castles or walled cities, but they did not have what? They did not have the fields or the villages. Do you see that in verse 56? They didn't have the fields or the villages. Why? Because they did not have any inheritance among the land. But they had to have houses to live in, right? So they lived in the city. So the Levites didn't live in the villages. They didn't live out in the field. They didn't have a farm somewhere with a bunch of land and where they grew crops and so forth. They didn't have those things. They didn't inherit any land like that. They lived in the cities and in the suburbs and in the castles. The other people in the tribe, they had their villages, towns, and they had their fields because they had agriculture and livestock that was their livelihood. But the Levites didn't have that. So when Caleb inherits Hebron, that was the city that he wanted, I want that mountain, he gets that region, but he gave the actual city of Hebron to the Levites to be a city of refuge, in fact, and that was a place where Levites would live. Now let's explore this a little further here. Flip over if you would to Hebrews chapter 7 in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 7. Now while you're turning to Hebrews chapter 7, let me read you a couple of scriptures here from the Old Testament about the fact that the Levites don't have an inheritance. It says in Numbers 18, 23, but the Levites shall do the service of the tabernacle of the congregation and they shall bear their iniquity. It shall be a statute forever through your generations that among the children of Israel they have no inheritance, Numbers 18, 24. But the tithes of the children of Israel, tithes means the tenth part or one tenth, but the tithes of the children of Israel which they offer as an heave offering unto the Lord, I have given to the Levites to inherit. Therefore I have said unto them, among the children of Israel, they shall have no inheritance. The priests, the Levites, and the tribe of Levi, this is Deuteronomy 18, 1, shall have no part nor inheritance with Israel. They shall eat the offerings of the Lord made by fire and his inheritance. Joshua 18, 7, again, but the Levites have no part among you for the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad and Reuben and the half tribe of Manasseh have received their inheritance beyond Jordan on the east which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them. So we see here the Levites don't inherit any land. Their inheritance is what? The offerings of the children of Israel. They live off of the offerings. They live off of the things of the tabernacle that the children of Israel give. Now the tithe means the tenth, right? Well Israel has 12 tribes, but some tribes are bigger than others. And so if you look at how it breaks down, the Levites are roughly one tenth of the Israelites, roughly speaking, right? So it's about one tenth of the people that are in the tribe of Levi, and then it makes sense that if the rest of the nation of Israel is giving one tenth part to them, then they're basically getting enough to live on, right? Because they represent one tenth of the people, and they're getting one tenth of the income, so therefore it makes sense. It's a system that God put in place so that you could have one tribe of the children of Israel serving the Lord full time, and that one tribe that serves the Lord full time is basically supported by the rest of the nation through their tithes and offerings that they brought to the tabernacle. Does everybody understand that? Look what the Bible says in Hebrews chapter 7 verse 5. And verily they that are of the sons of Levi, who received the office of the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law. That is, of their brethren, though they come out of the loins of Abraham. That he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises. And without all contradiction the less is blessed of the better. And here men that die receive tithes, but there he receiveth them, of whom it is witness that he liveth. And as I may so say, Levi also who receiveth tithes paid tithes in Abraham, for he was yet in the loins of his father when Melchizedek met him. So what the Bible is saying here is that the tribe of Levi is the one who receives the tithes from the rest of their brethren, from the rest of the children of Israel. But it says that they also have paid tithes in a sense because Abraham paid to Melchizedek and Levi was in the loins of Abraham when Abraham paid the tithe to Melchizedek. Now go to Malachi chapter 2. Because what you need to understand is that the Levites not only did things like sacrifice animals and just run the tabernacle, run the temple, run the music, sing the songs, praise the Lord, basically running what was the Old Testament equivalent of what we would think of as church. And you say, well why do you say that's the Old Testament equivalent? Well because in the Old Testament, the tabernacle or the temple is called the house of God. And the New Testament, the Bible says the church is the house of God. So there's a parallel there between the Old Testament house of God and the New Testament house of God. And a lot of the same things are happening as far as singing, worshiping the Lord, preaching the Bible, etc. Just a lack of animal sacrifices obviously in the New Testament church because Jesus Christ the Lamb slain once for all. And so if you would look at Malachi chapter 2, you'll see that the priests have another job and the Levites have another job which is to teach people the Bible. They're supposed to be preaching the Word of God and not just getting people saved but just teaching people all of God's laws and statutes. Look what the Bible says in Malachi 2.1. And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If anybody's having trouble finding Malachi, it's just right before Matthew. If you will not hear and if you will not lay it to heart to give glory unto my name, saith the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Yeah, I've cursed them already because you did not lay it to heart. Behold, I will corrupt your seed and spread dung upon your faces, even the dung of your solemn feast and one shall take you away with it. Now you can see God's pretty angry here. He's basically saying your solemn feast, your church service, your revival meeting is dung. It's a bunch of dung and he says, you know, I'm going to take that dung and shove it in your face. Now, I mean, God's pretty angry here when he's talking about shoving dung in these people's faces. And when he looks at a church service that doesn't honor and glorify him, when he sees a preacher or a church that is in it for money or ego or fame or whatever just to be on TV and to drive a fancy car and to have a private jet, I mean, God says that's dung. I'm going to shove it in your face. I mean, God's angry about this. I don't think God is angrier about anything than when religion is corrupted. What made Jesus Christ the most angry when he was physically on this earth? It was when they turned his house, the house of God into what? A house of merchandise. That's when we see him at his most angry. And then Old Testament here gives us God at one of his most angry points and what's he mad at? A corruption of the solemn assembly, a corruption of the solemn feast, a corruption of the worship of the Lord serving God. Who's he the maddest at? He's the maddest at the priests, at the Levites, right? Let's keep reading. It says in verse number four, ye shall know that I have sent this commandment unto you that my covenant might be with Levi, sayeth the Lord of hosts. My covenant was with him of life and peace and I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me and was afraid before my name. Now when we read this and it's talking about Levi specifically, what's probably meant by this is more the tribe itself, just kind of being grouped together as Levi. God will often do this. He'll talk about a whole tribe and just call it by that person's name. Like for example, when he says Ephraim has turned to idols, that was long after the literal person Ephraim had died centuries earlier, but he's looking at the tribe of Ephraim and saying, hey, Ephraim has turned himself to idols. And sometimes he would even refer to the whole northern kingdom of Israel as Ephraim, just like he referred to the southern kingdom of Israel as Judah. So when we see the name Levi here, it's possible that Levi the person didn't necessarily do the things that are being attributed to him here. It's probably saying that that's what that tribe did, okay? Because people like Moses did this, Aaron did this, the priests of the Levites that would come after. So he says the law of truth was in his mouth, verse 6, and iniquity was not found in his lips. He walked with me in peace and equity, and it turned many away from iniquity. For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But ye are departed out of the way, ye have caused many to stumble at the law, you've corrupted the covenant of Levi, sayeth the Lord of hosts. So what is it that the Levites are supposed to be doing? They're supposed to be a messenger of the Lord, bringing God's message and turning many people to righteousness. Look at verse 6 at the end there. They're supposed to do what? Turn many away from iniquity. They're supposed to get people to stop sinning, right? And to get people to know what is right and what is wrong. And they should seek the law at his mouth. He should be able to tell them, this is what the Bible says, this is what's right, this is what's wrong, here's what the Bible says, turn away from that iniquity, serve the Lord, do what's right. So they're supposed to be preaching the word of God, right? This makes sense because we see this in the New Testament, right? That pastors, preachers, evangelists, they're supposed to do what? Preach the Bible. Get people saved, get people baptized, and then teach them to observe all things that Christ commanded. That's our job, right? That's the Great Commission. So we see an Old Testament parallel in that, that the Levites and the priests were supposed to be doing that, right? They were supposed to be preaching all aspects of the word of God and getting people to do right. And getting people not to commit these iniquities. But it says here in verse 8 that they had done the opposite. He says you've departed out of the way, and look at this phrase, you've caused many to stumble at the law. So they're doing the exact opposite. Instead of getting people on board with the law, instead of people doing what's right as a result of hearing their preaching, they're actually turning people away, right? They're actually getting people to commit more sin, more iniquity, turning people away from the Lord. These are people like Eli's sons that we mentioned earlier. You know, when Eli's sons are supposed to be leading the way in the service of the Lord, they're committing fornication, but they're greedy of money, and they're greedy of the best food and the finer things, well, then what are they going to do? The Bible says they caused men to despise the offering of the Lord. It got to the point where when people go to church and they saw Eli's sons, they didn't want to go to church anymore, right? When they see all the sin and the filth and the corruption, they don't even want to go to church. And you know what? I'll tell you today, in 2018, when you have a pastor who elevates his children to high positions of authority in the church, where you have some 18-year-old son of the pastor, he's on the payroll making big bucks, and he's just, everything's handed to him, and he's fooling around, fornicating, I mean, it's just like, people are going to quit the church over that. I've seen a church torn apart over that when I was growing up. In fact, I've seen that twice, where nepotism, and nepotism is where favoritism is showed toward members of the family. And even though they don't have a spiritual bone in their body, they're just put in positions of authority, positions of preaching, positions of employment, just because they're the pastor's kids or some other staff member's kids or something, it's garbage. And when you see the leadership of a church committing awful sins like fornication and adultery, or being greedy of financial gain, and driving the fancy cars, and wining and dining in the Armani suits, you know what? That causes people to turn away from the Lord, and to turn away from church, and turn away from the things of God. It's a bad testimony. And you know what? We have far too much of that that goes on in churches today. Let me tell you something. When somebody is fornicating in the church, the Bible says that's a serious issue. In 1 Corinthians 5, he says, put away from among yourselves that wicked person. But how much more when that person is on staff? How much more when that's a deacon, or when that's a pastor, or when that's their Bible college president, or whatever, Christian school teacher, or whatever. But today, we live in a day where they have these bunch of perverts and predators that are on staff in churches, and they get caught, they get busted, and what do they do? They just sweep it under the rug. They just hide it. They won't talk about it. They won't address it openly. And everybody in the church has to wonder about it. And then they get up and rebuke people for gossiping. You know why so many people are gossiping about it? It's because you lied about it, and you won't tell everybody what happened. Just tell the truth. Maybe there wouldn't be so much gossip if you just got up and told the truth and said, hey, this guy's a fornicator. We threw him out of the church because he's a whoremonger. That's what happened. Hey, this staff member, this deacon, or whatever, turned out to be a pedophile. We called the FBI. We hope he rots in jail, and then rots in hell. Just deal with the problem. Fix it. But instead, what do we have today? Just, oh, well, you know, we don't want to ruin the reputation of the church. And then he victimizes like 30 more people because they don't want to bet. You know what? You want to give the church a worse reputation when you don't deal with it. You know, God forbid that some staff member or some leader of the church is an adulterer or a predator or a fornicator or a pedophile. But you know what? If so, it needs to be called out, openly rebuked, cast them out. And you know what? It ought to be a public example. But instead, they want to sweep it out of the rug like the Roman Catholics or something. Isn't that what the Roman Catholics do? But they're, you know, all their pedophile priests, and they just move them from one parish to another and just keep moving them around, moving them around, and nobody calls it out for what it is. And then all the pope is is just one of these pedophiles gets promoted to that point. And even the last pope, Ratzinger, right? What was his fancy special name? Benedict. Pope Ratzinger was his real name. That guy was in Germany, and he was a priest in Germany before he became the pope. And what did he do? He covered up pedophilia that was happening in his parish. And in fact, one of the pedophiles that he covered for was somebody that my wife had actually met when she was a kid, because she lived in Germany. She lived in that part of the country, and she grew up Roman Catholic. And some of her friends had said something to her that this priest was a pervert, and this priest got away with it for another 20 years or something, because Ratzinger's covering for him and moving him around. And then when Ratzinger became the pope, it was a big scandal how Ratzinger had been part of this cover-up in Bavaria of this pedophile priest. You know, but is that what independent Baptists are going to do, too? Isn't it stinking believable that independent Baptists would do such a thing? But they do. And you know what? I'm just going to call it out by name tonight, because I don't have a lawyer. I don't have a legal department feeding me my lines. I didn't get off the phone with David Gibbs Jr., or the 3rd, or the 4th, or the 5th, or any of them. Because you know what? I don't care. Come sue me, you bunch of perverts and pedophiles. That North Valley Baptist Church in Santa Clara, California is filled with perverts. There I said it. And you know why I bring that up? Because in Arizona, a lot of the independent Baptists in Arizona and California, they're all looking to Dr. Jack Treiber and Dr. Paul Chappell as their two fundamental popes that they look to. And you know what? These fundamental popes, they're a lot like the Catholic popes. They like to cover up their scandals. And that North Valley Baptist Church and Golden State Baptist College is always churning out reprobates. Okay, why is it that the leadership of that place is constantly getting caught being a predator and a sodomite and everything else? I'll tell you why. It's because of the fact that they are wicked. That's why. Because they're wicked. Because you know what? Birds of a feather flock together. And when you're just constantly surrounding yourself by wicked people and constantly covering it up. And you know what? That music direct. And that's why we have the Sword of the Lord hymnal, by the way. Not that North Valley hymnal. I mean, even a lot of our good independent fundamental Baptist churches have the hymnal put out by that place, that North Valley Baptist Church hymnal. And you know, that hymnal was edited by a sodomite. But they covered it up and hid it. And then he got caught being a sodomite, so then they sent him down to West Coast with Paul Chappell. And then he's down there for a while. And then he gets busted down there. And now they sent him down to Lighthouse Baptist Church in Lemon Grove, California, where he's on staff right now. I'm telling you. They just moved these people around. And now the president of that Bible college at Golden State Baptist College has now been found out that he's a predator also. He's an abuser of children also. And you know what? They just try to sweep it under the rug. Thankfully, thank God, a pastor called him out on it. That was in their crowd. That was one of their friends that had the inside information. And he called it out. But you know what? These Bible colleges are just teeming with sodomites. There were sodomites at Hiles Anderson when I was there. And you know what? That Golden State Baptist College, everybody that I've ever talked to who went there said it was filled with sodomites. My sister went there for a semester. She showed me pictures of students on campus dressing in drag. She talked about how, oh, these kids got kicked out for dressing in drag. I know this guy's a sodomite. That guy's a sodomite. Brother Bruce Mejia told me the same thing. His friends who went there, you know, the girl dated a guy and he said, I'm a woman trapped in a man's body, you know, I'm gay, you know. And then the ones that are straight, they seem to only be able to wear colors like lavender and pink all the time. And you know what? I'm sick of this lavender pink independent fundamental Baptist kind of soft soap sermon type of a religion. Hey, we need some leadership in the independent fundamental Baptist movement that is not going to lie and cheat and steal so they can drive fancy cars and have a fancy palace of a building. You know what? You say, well, are we ever going to get a real church building? Nope. Are we ever going to get a real church building? Are we ever going to get a high steeple? Nope. Nope. We're going to meet in an office complex till Jesus comes. We're going to meet in a strip mall till Jesus comes. We're just going to keep getting a bigger office space. We're just going to, pretty soon we'll just rent out a big empty grocery store. Just keep renting out, why? Because we're not into it for filthy lucre and mammon. We're not into it for all our fancy clothes and our fancy buildings and our fancy schmancy this and that. No, no. We're in it for the truth and righteousness. And you know what? These bunch of Eli's and their wicked children are giving church a bad name and it's dung and somebody needs to shove that dung in these pastor's faces. Say, oh, why are you throwing that in his face? Because it's dung, that's why. It's dung when you have these faggoty dudes running your college and then you're surprised when you find out they're a predator. That Mike Zachary is a faggot that you could see him from a hundred miles away that he's a faggot. A feminine as hell. Your current Bible college president looks like a faggot, the guy that just got copying a predator, the guy that resigned this week. Oh, I don't know, we're just so shocked. Quit hanging around faggoty dudes. Quit having a bunch of queer, effeminate dudes on your staff and then they won't keep turning out to be pedophiles. You say, I don't like this guy, then go find somewhere else. But you know what, around here we're going to take the dung of these solemn feasts and shove it in their face. Because you know what, the Bible says we're supposed to be turning people away from iniquity, not harboring predators like the Roman Catholic Church, the mother of harlots. Now the Bible says in Malachi here, in chapter 2, that the Levites had totally failed at their job, right? They'd failed to preach the word of God, they'd failed to teach the laws of God, they'd failed to turn people to righteousness, in fact they were doing the exact opposite. They're actually turning people to iniquity, they're actually turning people toward sin and wickedness, right? They were doing the opposite of what God wanted. Now is it any coincidence that in the next chapter, think about this now, in Malachi chapter 3, it talks about how the people are not tithing, right? Because this is the famous passage in Malachi chapter 3 that we've all heard preached our whole lives, where he says in verse 8, will a man rob God, yet ye have robbed me, verse 8, but ye say wherein have we robbed thee in tithes and offerings? You're cursed with a curse, for you have robbed me, even this whole nation. Now let me ask you this, do you think it's a coincidence that they're robbing God in chapter 3 by not tithing? Do you think it's a coincidence that in chapter 2 we learn that the Levites and the priests are not doing their job of teaching the Bible and have actually turned people away from God? That's not a coincidence, is it? Chapter 2 explains that the Levites are not doing their job, and then chapter 3 explains people aren't tithing. You can see why people aren't tithing, because they don't want to give money to the wicked people that we read about in chapter 2. Now does that make it right? No. They were still supposed to be giving to the Lord. They were robbing God. They weren't robbing the Levites, but you can see how it got that way is what I'm pointing out. Now what's interesting is that the Levites are scattered throughout the whole land of Israel. Different branches of the families of the Levites are living in different regions of the country, right? In different tribes. So those Levites in that tribe are responsible for the spiritual well-being of that tribe. So if you're a Levite that's living in the tribe of Issachar, and let's say you've got a certain amount of Levites that are living there and they have their cities and suburbs in the area of Issachar, well you want Issachar to be right with God. You want God to bless Issachar, and plus, you know what, if Issachar turns away from the Lord and starts worshipping Baal, you're out of a job, right? I mean if you're not keeping people worshipping the Lord, you're not going to get paid. You're going to be out of a job. You're going to have to go do something else. See it's their job to keep their own area worshipping the Lord. So they're all spread out throughout the land, so the Levites that are with Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, you know, they're responsible for the spiritual well-being of that region, and they want to make sure to keep them straight. So if they start slacking, and if they get lazy and they're not doing the preaching, and if they become greedy or fornicators or adulterers or whatever, what's going to happen? That area is going to go downhill spiritually, and what's that going to do to them? They're not going to get to be a priest anymore. They're not going to be a servant of God anymore because everybody's going to start worshipping Baal and Dagon and everybody else, the false gods. Does everybody see what I'm saying? So therefore, they have to keep their region right with God, you know, in order to even be worthy of even having a job and even being a priest under the Lord or a Levite. Because when parts of the nation went bad, like for example when the northern kingdom goes bad, you know, now there's just a southern kingdom. Well pretty soon, you know, if all that's left is the southern kingdom, is that tithing even going to support a whole 12 tribes worth of Levites? No. It's not going to. So therefore, they dropped the ball. They failed. They don't get paid. Do you see what I'm saying? Now if you would, go to 1 Corinthians chapter 9. And see, we can apply this today too in the New Testament because we don't have Levites and priests, but in the New Testament, we still have people who serve the Lord full time. We still have people who teach and preach God's word or who work for the church in other capacities. We have pastors, evangelists, and other just menial workers of the church, deacons, etc. And the Bible compares them to the Levites. Look what the Bible says in 1 Corinthians chapter 9 verse 13. Do you not know that they which minister about holy things live of the things of the temple and they which wait at the altar are partakers with the altar? And so hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. So what is he saying there? He's saying, look, they which minister about the holy things, who are they? The Levites. Whether they be of Kohath, Gershon, or Mararai, they're ministering about the holy things and they live of the things of the temple. They live off the tides and offerings. Why? They don't have any fields. They don't have an inheritance. They don't have a secular job. They were supposed to live off that stuff and serve the Lord full time. Even so, meaning in the same way, hath the Lord ordained that they which preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel. Now think about this. The Bible says that the laborer is worthy of his reward and he said, don't muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. The laborer is worthy of his reward. But here's the key word, the laborer. And here's the key word, that treadeth out the corn. It doesn't say, hey, don't muzzle the ox that sits on its rear end. You got to be the laborer. Now here's the thing about that. You think about missionaries today with the current missions program in a lot of churches. They send out a missionary and he's fully paid. His paycheck is fully covered by the churches that are sending him. And oftentimes he'll just go over there and not succeed, not accomplish anything. You know, he's just kind of sitting around, sending home a prayer letter every couple of months. Hey, pray for this one guy that I witnessed to. But he's pretty much over there not making it happen, not getting the people saved, not reaching the people. Now should a missionary live of the Gospel? Amen. But he's got to live of the Gospel. So here's the thing. If a missionary goes to the mission field and he preaches the Gospel, what's going to happen when you preach the Gospel? People are going to get saved. And when he preaches the Gospel and he gets people saved and he baptizes people, then eventually people are going to join the church, right? And then eventually when the people come to church, then they're going to put in their tithes and offerings, right? And then eventually that's going to support his efforts. Okay, then it makes sense for him to get paid because he's preaching the Gospel and he's living of the Gospel, right? He's working for the Lord and he's getting paid. There's nothing wrong with full-time Christian servants getting paid. There's nothing wrong with a pastor or other church staff member or deacon or evangelist getting paid. In fact, not only is there nothing wrong with it, it's what God has ordained. But if they're not reaching anybody, if they're not getting people saved, if they're not getting people in church, if there aren't people there to support them, they can't be paid. How can they be paid? See when you start a church in the United States, I mean it's either sink or swim, right? I mean if I start a church, which actually I did start a church. You're sitting in it. So 13 years ago, when I came to Phoenix, Arizona and started a church here, there wasn't anybody there. I mean it was me and my wife and my three kids and a couple visitors, you know, and that's how we started. And so at first, there were just a handful of people and so I'm out working my secular job. I can't live of the Gospel. I mean there's only two people coming to church besides my family or whatever, right? But then as I knock doors, one people to Christ, baptize people and preach the Word of God and turn people away from iniquity and preach the Word of God, then what happens? The church grows. Then there's a large group of the faithful. Then eventually it got to a point where I'm able to stop doing the secular job, serve the Lord full time and live of the Gospel. And we have many employees at our church that are full time at this time now because of the fact that there are people in our church, right? I mean there are several hundred people in our church and then there are tens of thousands of people who listen to the sermons online every week. So because there are several hundred people in the church and there are tens of thousands of people who listen to the sermons online, well then what? Then basically there's money coming in and then that money provides for the needs of the church. And the workers can be paid and the buildings can be taken care of and the work can go forward. There's gas in the tank and food on our plates and we can go out and win souls and we can disciple people and we can have a whole program, right? So this is God's plan. It works. And you know what we've never done? We've never had to stand up and beg for money like a lot of these phony preachers are with their coverups. Don't get me back on that. With all their scandals that they cover up and lie about and just lie through their teeth about, sweep under the rug and then just, you know, move on. Well, you know, those guys are begging for money all the time with a big thermometer. We gotta raise this money. Who will give a thousand? Who will give two thousand? Who will? Yeah, I see that. God bless you. I see that checkbook. I mean that hand. I see that dollar sign. So they're basically just, you know, auctioneering and raising money. You know why? Because they're not following God's plan. If you follow God's plan, there is enough money for the church to not be in debt and begging for money and going bankrupt and at the end of their rope and we gotta raise more money. We need a building fund and this fund and that fund. Look, our church has never had a fundraiser. Never. In 13 years, no fundraiser. And guess what? We've never run out of money. We've always been able to pay the bills. Why? Here's why. Because God's system works. God's people give their tithe. They don't have to dig deep and sacrifice and hold paycheck Sunday and all this stuff. You know, now look, if people give an extra free will offering, God's gonna bless that and that's great. Amen. Praise the Lord for that. And it'll go toward people being saved. You can be guaranteed that around here but it's not necessary for us to function. That's why we don't have to talk about money all the time and have all these money preaching series and thermometers and make a big deal out of it. It's not a big deal around here. It's not something we talk much about because of the fact that God's system just works and there's just enough money because God's people just tithe and we preach the gospel and we live of the gospel. We do the work and the work causes the money to come in. It's sort of like where Peter needed money to pay his taxes and Jesus needed money to pay his taxes and Jesus sent Peter to go fishing and he said if you open the fish's mouth that first cometh up, you'll find the money. So he throws in a line, he catches a fish, he opens the fish's mouth, there's a coin in it and he takes that coin and pays both for him and Jesus the taxes. Good to God our taxes could be paid with one coin. Maybe one ounce of fine gold, that'll get us for a couple months. But the point is that it's symbolic. If you do the fishing, the money will be there. You do the soul winning, instead of being focused so much on the fundraiser, focus on the soul winning and then the money will be in the fish's mouth. They that preach the gospel can live of the gospel at that point. That's God's plan. Now look, was God's plan in the Old Testament a good plan? Did it work? Yeah. It worked. Why? Because you got a tenth of the people approximately and everybody else is given a tenth. There you go. It's covered. It makes sense. It's going to work. It worked out great. The Levites stopped preaching. And then what happened after the Levites stopped preaching? There stopped being anybody to pay the tithe because they're too busy worshiping Dagon, worshiping Baal, going after other gods, not following the laws of God. And then God has to curse them for not tithing, but they're not tithing because the preacher wasn't preaching and the Levite was not turning people to righteousness. So you see how this all fell apart in the Old Testament and you can see how it could fall apart in the New Testament. So what I'm saying is that we shouldn't pour money into ministries that aren't growing and into churches that are not seeing anybody saved. That's the moral of the story. So if we got some missionary somewhere and his church is not growing, people aren't being saved, people aren't being reached, it's not happening, right? Are we just going to keep dumping money into that for the rest of our lives? Because that's what a lot of missions programs do. They'll just keep sending that guy, you know, five grand a month, six grand a month or whatever, even though there's no results. I mean, you know what that would be like? That would be like if all the Levites in Issachar and Zebulun stopped preaching the word of God, stopped reaching people, started preaching lies and lining their bank accounts and committing fornication. And so Issachar and Zebulun, let's say, I'm just picking some random tribes. Let's say they all get into worshiping the gods of the Philistines and the gods of Syria and the gods of Arpad and they're worshiping false gods, right? So now all of a sudden they're like, hey guys, we need some financial support up here because we're not getting any tithing up here, man. There's no tithing up here. Nobody's even worshiping Jehovah anymore. And then it'd be like if Jerusalem is taking all their tithe money and just shipping it up to these people so that they can just keep sitting on their rear ends and not teaching the word of God, but yet living the same lifestyle and being in full time Christian service up there. You see what I'm saying? So basically the people who should get paid for ministry are people who are doing work in a ministry that works. And that's what we saw in the Old Testament system. And then we see the New Testament is parallel with that, is similar to that concept. So what we learn from that is that, hey, if we want to have enough money, which, and again, this isn't a problem that we've ever had. Why? Because it's been a hardcore soul winning church from day one. So we've always had enough money. Never had to worry about it. Look, if we want to have enough money, what's the secret? You know what? The secret is work. Because God says that if you work, your labor's not in vain in the Lord. God said if you seek first the kingdom of God, all these things will be added unto you. So if our church seeks first the kingdom of God, he'll provide our carnal needs. If the church seeks after the kingdom of God, we'll be able to pay for the building and to keep the lights on and to pay the staff and everything like that. Why? Because we're doing the work and God rewards work. But if we're going to slack on the job, not win people to Christ, scale back the soul winning, start preaching soft, start preaching lies, what are we going to end up with? A worldly church. And what's a worldly church going to do? They're not going to tithe. They're going to want to keep their money for their worldly stuff. They'll throw in a $10 bill when the plate goes by. But they're not going to be tithing. Why? Because they're too worldly. They're too carnal. They're too into their boat. But you know who taught them to be into their boat and who taught them to be into their RV and their summer home and their winter home? The pastor did. Because he's got a summer home and he's got a winter home and he's got the boat and the RV. You know who taught them to want to wear Armani suits and to have the Duni and Burke purse? Who taught them that is the pastor. And then he's like, we need money up here. We can't pay the bills. You taught them to be carnal like you. That's why there's no money. And because you wasted the money building some palace that God never told you to build. Gold plating was for the Old Testament temple, buddy. You don't plate the New Testament with gold, the church. So we see that this chapter about the Levites dealt with two main things. It started out up through the first 50 or so verses, just giving us the names. Who are these people? And there were a lot of names, right? And it was not, as I pointed out at the beginning, it was not a complete list. There were a lot of names that are left out. He's just giving you the main families, the main branches, the most important people. They have different jobs, different functions. There were people in the church who were not preachers, but yet they were a full-time staff member in the Old Testament because they did other jobs, other functions, other duties. But you know what? Whether you're a priest or whether you're just a basic Levite, you better be turning people onto righteousness. You better be preaching the gospel. You better be soul winning and you better be standing up for what's right. You better not be on a fornicating, adulterating, greedy, covetous, stumbling block to this world out there. And then we saw in the second part of the chapter, he talked about where they lived and where did they live? They didn't have fields. They didn't have villages. They had cities and suburbs. Why? Because all they needed was a place to live. They didn't need farmland because they were supposed to be serving God with their time and with their life. They were supposed to be preaching the world. I mean, imagine if all the Levites would have obeyed God. You know what would have happened if all the Levites would have obeyed God? If all the priests would have actually been spiritual and actually doing what they're going to do? Look, they only have to reach 10 people each. How hard is it to get 10 people to understand the gospel, to understand the laws of God, to understand what's required? How hard is that to be a leader of 10? I have more people than that in my family practically, right? I'm already leaving 11. So the point is that you know what they would have ended up doing is there would have been a ton of people that would have said, hey, let's just quit preaching to each other here. Let's go preach to the Philistines for a while. Let's go preach to Syria for a while. Let's go into Mesopotamia and preach for a while. Let's go to India and preach for a while. There were plenty of workers to get God's work done, and there are plenty of Christians right now to evangelize the whole world 10 times over, but we've got to do the work. We've got to do the work. God's system in the Old Testament was a good system, but it failed because man failed. The New Testament system is a better system. The Bible calls it the better testament. Why is the New Testament the better testament? Because it's not hereditary. One of the flaws in the Old Testament, not in God's design, but in man's carrying out of God's design is that people who are born into a hereditary line of preachers or servants of God, they often take it for granted. They end up being slackers and wicked. In the New Testament, it's better because the people who preach and teach and get ordained or work for the church full time are chosen based on their merits instead of just being hereditary, not just, oh, you're the son of the pastor, let us just have a coronation for you instead of an ordination. We see that the New Testament system is better, but both systems can work. The Old Testament system could have worked. It didn't. It's over. That ship has already sailed. Sorry, Kohane, but in the New Testament, this system can work. It is working. We got to keep working in order for the system to keep working. Father, we thank you so much for this great teaching from 1 Chronicles, Lord, because even though 1 Chronicles is a heavy book, there are great teachings in there, great doctrines that we need, Lord. I just pray that every person who's here would take this thought and understand it. Lord, even those that are laymen in the church that are not a spiritual Levite, they still, Lord, even laymen still need to understand the concept that even at their job, they have to work hard in order for that paycheck to be there. The same thing applies for your servants, Lord. I just pray that churches all over America would clean house on the filth and the adultery and the fornication and throw out the perverts, Lord. I just pray that we would have a revival of honesty and holiness in the leadership of churches, Lord, and a revival of getting back to your financial system so that we don't have to have all these circus gimmicks to raise money. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.