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🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 🎵Music🎵 Second Chronicles, chapter number 13, as we always do, we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads. Second Chronicles 13, beginning in verse number 1. Second Chronicles 13, the Bible reads, Now in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam began Abijah to reign over Judah. He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah. And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. And Abijah set the battle in array with an army of valiant men of war, even four hundred thousand chosen men. Jeroboam also set the battle in array against him with eight hundred thousand chosen men, being mighty men of valor. And Abijah stood up upon Mount Zemirim, which is in Mount Ephraim, and said, Hear me, thou Jeroboam and all Israel. Achi not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and to his sons by a covenant of salt. Yet Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, is risen up and hath rebelled against his Lord. And there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon. When Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted and could not withstand them. And now ye think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hands of the sons of David, and ye be a great multitude. And there are with you golden calves which Jeroboam made you for gods. Have ye not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands, so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with the young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods. But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him. And the priests, which minister unto the Lord, are the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business. And they burn unto the Lord every morning and every evening, burnt sacrifices and sweet incense. The showbread also set they in order upon the pure table, and the candlestick of gold with the lamps thereof, to burn every evening. For we keep the charge of the Lord our God, but ye have forsaken him. And behold, God himself is with us for our captain and his priests in sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you. O children of Israel, fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for ye shall not prosper. But Jeroboam caused an ambushment to come about behind them, so they were before Judah, and the ambushment was behind them. And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind. And they cried unto the Lord, and the priests sounded with the trumpets. Then the men of Judah gave a shout. And as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. And the children of Israel fled before Judah, and God delivered them into their hand. And Abijah and his people slew them with a great slaughter. So there fell down slain of Israel five hundred thousand chosen men. Thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time, and the children of Judah prevailed, because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers. And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam and took cities from him, Bethel with the towns thereof, and Jashana with the towns thereof, and Ephraim with the towns thereof. Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah, and the Lord struck him and he died. But Abijah waxed mighty and married fourteen wives and begat twenty and two sons and sixteen daughters. And the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways and his sayings are written in the story of the prophet Edo. Dear Lord, thank you for faith. We're a Baptist church, Lord. I pray that you'd fill Pastor Anderson with your spirit. Give us all yours to hear the message. And Lord, I pray you'd help to increase our love for you and for one another and for the unsaved, Lord. In Jesus' name I pray, amen. Amen. Second Chronicles chapter number thirteen, we're getting now into the reign of Abijah. We talked about, of course, how King Solomon's kingdom had been divided. You had Jeroboam ruling over the wicked northern kingdom of the ten tribes. And then you have the two tribes down in Judah being ruled over by Rehoboam. And if you remember with Rehoboam, for the first three years he was doing well, serving God, and then he ended up forsaking the law of the Lord and all Judah with him. God sent Shishak, king of Egypt, to come and punish them. And then that was sort of a wake-up call for Rehoboam. And he kind of went back to serving God. But his heart was never really right with God. He was sort of just going through the motions of serving God. And so he reigned. Well, now his son Abijah is going to reign in his stead. And it says in verse one of chapter thirteen, in the eighteenth year of King Jeroboam, that's the northern king of Israel, began Abijah to reign over Judah. He reigned three years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was also Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah, and there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam. Now what's interesting here is that when Abijah goes to war with Jeroboam, he really talks a pretty good talk here about serving God. And I mean he seems like a great guy. He seems like he's really right with God and really spiritual and really cares about doing the right things. But the thing that jumped out at me right away when I'm first reading this is if this guy's such a godly king, if he's so righteous, if he's loving the Lord and following the Lord, why is he only reigning for three years? Because obviously there is that exception that proves the rule, but in general, typically when a king is doing right in the side of the Lord, God usually blesses him with a long reign. You know, you look at guys like Saul, David, Solomon, I mean they reigned for forty years apiece. And then other kings that do right in the side of the Lord reign for many decades. So when you're reading this in 2 Chronicles, you don't really see anything negative about Abijah, but there's also, notice, no explicit statement from the narrator saying this guy did that which was right in the side of the Lord. What you do get is a speech that he makes where he talks a really good talk, we just read it together, where he talks a good talk about, yeah, that northern kingdom of Israel, they're worshiping idols, we're worshiping the true God down here. We got the priests, we got the Levites, but what he's really doing though is just using the Lord's religion for a political purpose because he wants to demoralize the enemy, he wants to rally people to his side. You say, well, how do you know that? Is it just because he only reigned for three years? Well, we're going to have to go over to Kings for this, so let's go over to the book of 1 Kings, chapter 14. And I talked about this a few weeks back, but what you have to understand is that the books of the kings and the books of the chronicles are very different from one another, okay? This is not redundant that the Bible has given us both, right? God has given us two different angles because they're very different, okay? First of all, the books of the kings, there's a lot more emphasis on the northern kingdom of Israel, whereas in the book of chronicles, you barely hear about the northern kingdom. It's pretty much devoted to the southern kingdom. Also, the books of the chronicles tend to sort of gloss over negative things and barely mention them and barely mention the sins of the kings and everything, whereas first and second kings are really giving you all of the gnarly stories and all of the bad things about these kings. Like, you barely even hear about Solomon's sins in chronicles, but they're totally documented over in the book of 1 Kings. So if we go over to 1 Kings, we see what the Bible has to say about Abijah, but before we get into Abijah, let's back up a little bit and look at what the Bible says about Rehoboam. Okay, so 1 Kings, chapter number 14, look at verse 21, it says, And Rehoboam the son of Solomon reigned in Judah. Rehoboam was forty and one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned seventeen years in Jerusalem, the city which the Lord did choose out of all the tribes of Israel to put his name there, and his mother's name was Naamanites, watch this, and Judah did evil in the sight of the Lord, and they provoked him to jealousy with their sins which they had committed above all that their fathers had done, for they also built them high places and images, right, we're talking about idols, statues, and groves on every high hill and under every green tree. Verse 24, And there were also Sodomites in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. So this gives you a view of the spiritual state of the kingdom under Rehoboam. Even though Rehoboam is going through the motions of serving God for a lot of his reign, 1 Kings is giving us a little more detail about what's going on spiritually in the nation. There's a lot of idolatry going on, they're worshiping false gods, and there are even Sodomites in the land that are doing according to all the abominations that the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. Now let me just stop and mention this, you know, it's a shame for a nation to even have Sodomites in the land, right, like that's not even something that we even want to tolerate or allow or even have present in our land. You know, this young generation is just being totally brainwashed that people are just born that way and that it's just normal, it's just a certain segment of the population that's just always going to be there. And look, when I started preaching, I remember when I started preaching, looking up the statistics on this, and it was like 2% of America or something that was a homo. Now you're seeing numbers like 8 or 10% of Americans now that are identifying as some kind of a pervert, some kind of a deviant, whether that's, you know, queer, lesbian, faggot, bisexual, whatever you want to call it, but they're identifying as some kind of a weirdo. And let me tell you, part of the reason why is because preachers have stopped preaching about this, they've just totally given up on this, and they're just rolling over and playing dead as these freaks just advance their agenda unchecked. And they're not reproducers, they're recruiters. And they recruit by molesting children, and that's what they're doing, and they're perverting the minds of children in elementary schools. I mean, children in elementary schools, they're getting so screwed with in their minds now that, you know, they're growing up confused, even if they're not even a reprobate, they're just so confused, I don't know, maybe I'm a homo or something, you know. Preachers. I mean, after all, I do prefer boys. Like, every 9-year-old prefers playing with other boys. I still remember my first day of fourth grade, and I walked into my first day of fourth grade, and our names were on our desk, it was assigned seating, and our names were on the desk. First day of fourth grade, and I found my name, and I'm like, okay, who am I sitting with, right? And I didn't know who any of the kids were. But I looked at my left, girl's name. To the right, a girl's name. In front of me, a girl. No! Behind me, a girl. But then I realized the whole class had been checkerboarded on purpose. Boy, girl, boy, girl, boy. Because then they know you're not going to talk as much. You're not going to goof off as much, because when you're 9 years old, you're not interested in girls. Okay? And so, therefore, you know, you did that same thing in high school, it's like, girl's name? Sweet. Sweet. Yes. Alright. Hello. You know? But when you're 9, that's not how you think. Because you're not normal kids who are growing up with a normal childhood, that's not even really on their mind yet. They're just a little kid, they're just playing, they're just having fun with their friends or whatever. It's not until they hit puberty where they get to that point when they're like 12 or whatever, where all those hormones start kicking in, and they start being super interested in the opposite gender. But now you have these people brainwashing kids, and saying, oh, I've always known this, even when I was 7, 8, 9. You know, if you're even thinking about that when you're 7, 8, 9, you probably got molested or looked at porno or something. That's not normal for kids. We need to keep kids innocent at that age. They're not old enough to even process that. And obviously, every 8-year-old, every 9-year-old, every 10-year-old boy would rather hang around with other boys, and every 7, 8, 9, 10-year-old girl probably wants to hang around with other girls. I mean, that's just normal, but we're being brainwashed, and all this weird perversion is being pushed where they're confusing children with this. Folks, a society that just allows this to go rampant, there's no end to how low that society can go, and that's what we're experiencing right now in America with just these massive numbers of perversion now. Why? Because the pastors aren't preaching about it, and then meanwhile, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, the entertainment industry, the music industry, the book industry is just pushing it so hard, and churches aren't pushing back. Well, this church is. And you say, I don't know, I'm a little offended by the way you talk about this. Well, why don't you just go hit the road, Jack? And don't you come back no more, because I really don't care if you're some fag-loving idiot. Go somewhere else. Deal with it. You know, the Word of God still says that it's an abomination, and the Bible says that they should be put to death. So I don't really care if you're offended by names that I call them. Sticks and stones may have broken their bones in Leviticus 20-13, but the names that I call them will never hurt them. But beloved, the Bible says here in 1 Kings 14-24, there were Sodomites in the land. Now, here's what a Sodomite is. Sodomites are people that resemble the people that were in Sodom and Gomorrah, because Sodom and Gomorrah are cities that were destroyed by God because of this very sin. They were men who, you know, went after other men. Now, your modern Bible versions, though, will change this, and they will not say Sodomites. So if you have one of these modern Bible versions, if you're a member of the Bible of the Month Club, and you have one of these NIV, ESV, New Living Translation-type Bibles, instead of saying... And I want you to just don't get emotional. Just reason with me for a moment, okay? They say in this verse, instead of Sodomites, here's what they say, male prostitute, or usually they'll say something like cult prostitute, or shrine prostitute, or male shrine prostitute, male cult prostitute, something along those lines. Now, let me just reason with you for a minute, okay? Let's stop and think about this for a minute, okay? The Bible says...because who's right? Is the King James right when it says Sodomite? Or are these modern versions with, you know, the newer, better scholarship, are they right? Well, let's just ask ourselves this question. Does the Bible ever, anywhere from Genesis to Revelation, does it ever talk about shrine prostitutes, or cult prostitutes, or male prostitutes? No, because if you actually read the Bible in books like Genesis, and Exodus, and Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, the law of God, they go into great detail about the sins that the Canaanites were involved in. And it says, look, this is the sins that the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and the Perizzites are involved in. And it goes into great detail, talking about all the sins, and all the perverted things, and all the wicked things. Answer me this. Why is there zero mention of this shrine prostitute, male cult prostitute, male prostitute? Because it's not real, that's why. Because it's not a thing. Now ask yourself this question. Is this a thing in America today? Like, are there just these prostitution cults in America, where you go to a religious place of worship, and male prostitutes are there at the religious place of worship? No, this is not a thing. Is this a thing in Europe today? I mean, if we were to go to Europe, and look at the churches and religions throughout Europe, would we find this? Would we find this in the Middle East today? If we traveled throughout the Middle East, would we find this? What if we went all through Africa, and just went through all the countries of Africa, one by one? Would we find a cult with shrine prostitutes, male shrine prostitutes? What about Asia? How about Asia? Are we going to find it there? Are we going to find it in Antarctica? Now let me just tell you something. It isn't a thing. It just isn't real. It isn't a thing. Now I'm sure that somewhere, there was some weird male shrine prostitute cult somewhere. I mean, there's also, you could also find a guy who ate an entire airplane piece by piece. You know, he just took it apart, and just swallowed every piece of that airplane, and swallowed an entire airplane. You know, we can go on Ripley's Believe It or Not, or whatever, and find whatever weird thing that's out there. And you know, you could find some, you know, versions of this in certain places, at certain times in history, but why does the Bible never talk about this? How come when we're reading through Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, we're going through the minor prophets, why is God not saying, man, you know, there's all this, you know, these darned shrine cult prostitutes? You know why? Because it's not a thing. It's not a thing in 2024. It wasn't a thing in Canaan. It's not a thing in the Mosaic law. It's just not a thing. But you got some egghead somewhere in some university who's like, well, you know, actually the word here, it's not really a sodomite, it's actually this thing that doesn't even exist anywhere on the planet. That we made up because we read it in some pervert story somewhere one time. We didn't read it in the Bible. Now what does the Bible actually say in front of you? Like, look, use some common sense here to decide, is the King James right? Or is the NIV right? Is the ESV right? Is the New Living Translation right? Because you don't speak Hebrew, so it's like, who do you trust? What do you do, right? Okay, well, how about this? Why don't you let the Bible interpret itself? It says there were also sodomites in the land, and they did according to all the abominations of the nations which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel. Now let me ask you this. Does the Bible explicitly describe in Genesis and in Leviticus, does it specifically describe men with men, men lying with men and women lying with men? Absolutely. So homosexuality is talked about in Genesis. It is talked about in Leviticus. It is mentioned in the law of God. And in fact, it's addressed throughout Scripture. It's mentioned in the book of Judges. It's mentioned in the book of Ezekiel. Look, all throughout Scripture, we have this issue being addressed because it's actually a thing. Now ask yourself this question. Is it a thing in America? Is it a thing in Europe? Is it a thing in Africa? Is it a thing in Asia? Hmm, I wonder what God's talking about. Something that doesn't even exist in the world that nobody even knows what it's about. And that's what we need in 2024. We need a Bible to make sure that we know how bad those darned male shrine cult prostitutes are. How is that going to help you in your Christian life? How is that going to help you in your Christian walk? How is that going to help someone in India or China or Timbuktu? It's not going to help anyone because it's not even real. But what if it says, hey, there were sodomites in the land. You know, we're like, yeah, I can relate. Yeah, I can see why that would be a problem. But no, these new Bibles, man, they're so relevant. They're so easy to understand. No, my friend, what they're doing is they're changing the Word of God to make it more politically correct. Taking out things that are deemed offensive to our culture. Well, this culture can go shove it as far as I'm concerned. OK, because this is the Bible says what it says. And the King James Bible is the word of God without error. You need to get a King James and don't read these modern versions. They're junk, man. The so-called scholarship that goes into them. They have a schoolboy level Greek schoolboy level Hebrew in many cases. They're not even fluent in these languages. OK. And they're just going by what some scholar who's so disconnected from reality says that he literally thinks that shrine cult prostitution is a big problem. It's just it just hasn't ever been a big problem. It's if it was a big problem, why is God never talking about it? It's funny how Romans one isn't about that. Romans one is talking about men burning with lust toward other men. Why? Because that's a thing. You know, Second Peter chapter two, Jude, they're talking about homos. Nobody's talking about these cult shrine prostitutes because they're not a thing. They weren't a thing then. They're not a thing now. And I'm sure you could find some historical source somewhere that it was a thing somewhere, sometime, but not in the Bible. So let's let the Bible define itself and not even in our current world. So it's questionable whether it was even really ever a thing. And by the way, there was this woman who opened up some kind of a prostitution cult in in Phoenix, not male prostitutes, but female prostitutes. And she was promptly arrested and put in prison. You know, but but but again, this is this is just like this is like some weird guy in Sweden that starts worshipping Thor or something like nobody really takes it seriously. It's not really a thing. OK. And so I was a little bit of a rabbit trail, but I have no regrets about it. So they you know, they took there were also sodomites in the land and they did, according to all the abominations of the nations, which the Lord cast out before the children of Israel, which are well documented in Leviticus. And that's what we should go by, not just make things up because somebody doesn't know Hebrew as well as they think they do. And again, if you look at the word for prostitute and the word for sodomite, they look similar. Guess what? That doesn't mean that they're the same thing. OK, because lots of languages have words that look similar. It's called a false friend. So it's a false cognate. It is not the same word. Not even close. It means something completely different. They just look the same. We have all kinds of, you know, no pun intended, but we have all kinds of homonyms, you know, in English as well. That's just the way language works. I'm not going to go off on a big language thing, but you get the idea. So, I mean, they're in a bad place. They got sodomites in the land. God's saying, look, this is why I kicked out those nations in the first place. Now Israel's doing the same thing, having all these sodomites in the land, idolatry, wickedness. And so this stuff's going on on Rehoboam's watch. Does everybody see that? Even though Rehoboam is outwardly serving the Lord, the Bible said, even in Chronicles, the book that's more positive about the kings of Judah, even in Chronicles it said, you know, Rehoboam did evil on the side of the Lord because his heart wasn't right with God. When we get to Abijah, Abijah talks a really good talk. OK? But then he only reigns for three years, and the Bible doesn't really say in Chronicles whether he did good or evil. But the fact that he only reigned for three years is sort of a clue, like, man, something might be wrong with this picture. So let's see what King says. Look at chapter 15, verse 1. In the 18th year of King Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, reigned Abijah over Judah. Three years reigned he in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Maacah, the daughter of Abishalem. And he walked, watch this, he walked in all the sins of his father which he had done before him, and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his God as the heart of David his father. So again, this guy's got a lot of personal sin in his life. He's walking in the sins of his father, and he's outwardly going through the motions of worshipping the Lord. He's at least facilitating the worship of the Lord for the people, just like Rehoboam was, but he's not doing it from the heart. And so he has a lot of sin in his life, and so consequently he ends up tolerating a lot of sodomites in the land. Now look, this guy's son is going to remove the sodomites out of the land. And then his grandson is going to remove the rest of the sodomites that they didn't get the first time. You know, the cult shrine prostitutes. What a bunch of baloney. I mean, where did they even come up with this stuff? Just making stuff up is what they're doing. It's a bunch of Jewish fables, a bunch of fairy tales about, you know, well, you know, there's just this faggoty temple of male prostitutes. No, that just was never a thing, buddy. It only existed in your sick imagination. Anyway, the Bible says here that nevertheless, verse 4, for David's sake did the Lord his God give him a lamp in Jerusalem to set up his son after him and to establish Jerusalem. Jump down to verse 6. And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. So let's go back to Chronicles. That kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? You know, it helps you realize that even though Abijah talks a really good talk, yet in his personal life he's got serious problems and he's allowing a lot of weird stuff to go on in the country even though he's supposed to be in a position to rein those things in and keep those things in check. We'll give you a look at 2 Chronicles chapter number 13 where we were. And let's listen to Abijah's speech here. It says in verse 4, Abijah stood up upon Mount Zemerem which is in Mount Ephraim and said, Hear me, thou Jeroboam and all Israel. Ought ye not to know that the Lord God of Israel gave the kingdom over Israel to David forever, even to him and his sons by a covenant of salt? So this is a biblical truth that God did give the kingdom to David forever. But for Abijah, this is a politically convenient doctrine. The Bible is convenient for him right now, so he's getting up and saying, Hey, the Bible says that God chose David. God chose Jerusalem. You know, he's going to be king forever. And by the way, the only way for God to have fulfilled this promise of the sons of David always being king is that ultimately Jesus is the son of David and Jesus reigns eternally. He's ruling and reigning in our hearts right now, but he's actually going to physically literally reign upon this earth at the second coming of Christ. And so, you know, that's of course coming in the future. And so the Bible says here in verse number 6, Yet Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, the servant of Solomon, the son of David, is risen up and has rebelled against his Lord, and there are gathered unto him vain men, the children of Belial, and have strengthened themselves against Rehoboam, the son of Solomon, when Rehoboam was young and tenderhearted and could not withstand it. Everything that Abijah is saying here is correct. It is right. His heart's not necessarily right with God, but he is saying the right things here. This is true. And now you think to withstand the kingdom of the Lord in the hand of the sons of David, and ye be of great multitude, and there are with you golden calves, which Jeroboam made you for gods. Have ye not cast out the priests of the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, and have made you priests after the manner of the nations of other lands, so that whosoever cometh to consecrate himself with a young bullock and seven rams, the same may be a priest of them that are no gods? But as for us, the Lord is our God, and we have not forsaken him, and the priests which minister unto the Lord, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites wait upon their business. Now notice, this guy equates not forsaking the Lord with just going through ceremonies. His heart isn't there. What is he emphasizing when it comes to not forsaking the Lord? He's not emphasizing right living, godliness, personal piety. He's emphasizing, hey, we have this ritual going on, where the Levites and the priests are sacrificing animals to the Lord and going through this process. And again, obviously this is something that God did prescribe and that God did want, but you can see subtle things here that show that this guy's heart is not really where it needs to be. 1 Kings confirms that, but we see even hints of it here that he's more interested in the ritual than in the heart and in actually living a right life before God. They burn unto the Lord every morning and every evening, burnt sacrifices and sweet incense. The showbread also set they in order upon the pure table and the candlestick of gold and the lamps thereof to burn every evening. For we keep the charge of the Lord our God, but ye have forsaken him. Again, what's the difference here between him and David? David is a man who's praying to God, spending time communing with God, meditating in the word of God day and night. He loves the Lord with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. That's the difference. We need to be like David, loving the Lord, caring about the things of God from the heart, loving him, serving him in our personal lives when no one's looking, when no one's around, doing what's right versus just, hey, I go to church and punch my card every week and I'm there and I do what I'm supposed to do. I'm going through the motions. No, we need to do it from the heart like David. And behold, God himself is with us for our captain and his priests with sounding trumpets to cry alarm against you, O children of Israel. Fight ye not against the Lord God of your fathers, for you shall not prosper. It's a good speech. Everything he said is correct, but it's just not coming from the heart. But Jeroboam caused an ambush meant to come about behind them. So there were before Judah and the ambush meant was behind them. And when Judah looked back, behold, the battle was before and behind. And they cried on the Lord and the priest sounded with the trumpets. Then the men of Judah gave a shout. And as the men of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. Now, I want you to pay close attention. It's easy to just kind of read over this and not catch this. But notice what the Bible says in verse 15. Then the man of Judah gave a shout. And as the man of Judah shouted, it came to pass that God smote Jeroboam and all Israel before Abijah and Judah. Notice that it's when the children of Israel, the children of Judah, the people, not the king of Abijah, but the people themselves, when they cry out, God hears their cry and God brings them the victory. And then the Bible tells us in verse 18, thus the children of Israel were brought under at that time and the children of Judah prevailed. Watch this. Because they relied upon the Lord God of their fathers. And so what we see happening here is we see a king that's going through the motions. His heart's not right with God. We know that from 1 Kings. But he's going through the motions and as a result, the nation, they're following the Lord because he's telling them, hey, we're going to worship the Lord. God's on our side. And, you know, when you have that kind of leadership, people respond to it. And the people, I believe, are sincere. The people actually care about God. The people do love God. And so they call out to God. God hears them. God delivers them. And so here's what I want to say is that you're better off in a nation where at least the leaders are going through the motions of being Christian than just outwardly being just pagan, just openly atheistic, just openly against God. Now, look, I understand that throughout our history in America, you know, we could look at the personal lives of a lot of the presidents and a lot of the leaders that we have and find all kinds of problems, find all kinds of sins in their lives. You know, and we could say, hey, this guy wasn't actually saved. This guy didn't actually believe in Christ. This guy's just going through the motions. He's just saying that he is. But let me tell you something. You're infinitely better off in a nation where at least the leaders are saying that they're Christians and at least saying, hey, everybody, let's read the Bible. We're a Christian nation. Let's worship God. Let's go to church. You're infinitely better off than when they're just openly forsaking the Lord. Now, look, whatever they believe or don't believe in their heart is between them and God. But trust me, we'd rather be in a nation where at least there's a slogan of In God We Trust. At least there's a lip service to being Christian or Baptist or something than to be in just a pagan idolatrous nation. Because what do we see here? We see that in the nation where the culture is at least somewhat Christian, where it's a somewhat godly culture, where at least the king is giving lip service to that and saying, hey, as a nation, we're serving the Lord down here. We're serving God. We're following David's religion. We got the priests. We got the Levites. You know, in that nation, the people, many of them, are going to take it seriously and be for real. Look, I think in America today and really over the last few hundred years, even though you could say that the leaders were not necessarily always good Christians or even, you know, that very many of them were good Christians at all, you know, there have been a lot of great Christians in America just among the people of America. You know, if you went back to the founding of our nation in the 1700s, 1800s, I mean, this was a Christian nation. You know, whatever pagan things the government did or whatever, outwardly it was Christian and as a result, a lot of people are Christian. And look, to this day, we go out knocking doors and we run into people that are saved virtually every time we go soul winning. You know, there are like 50 million people in America today that identify as Baptist out of 340 million. I mean, that's a huge number, you know, and let alone other non-denom types and other, you know, people that are saved believing on the Lord Jesus Christ. That are not necessarily a Baptist, okay? But in general, this country has been predominantly Christian. Now, it's being de-Christianized as we speak and it's being radically changed over the decades of the 2000s here where it's getting more and more de-Christianized. But historically, this country has been very Christian and therefore has been very blessed by God. And you could point out that, oh, this president was a Freemason and, you know, Thomas Jefferson is a reprobate and he's ripping things out of the Bible and everything. Yeah, but that's not the point. He's still giving lip service to it. And the people, the average man, the common man is still thinking, hey, we're America, we're Christian, and a lot of people are taking it seriously. And you know what? We've all probably had at some point in our life, if we've been Christians for a long time, had a leader let us down. A pastor that we look to or a Christian leader that we look to, maybe a parent or a grandparent or an aunt or an uncle, a friend, a pastor, a Sunday school teacher, someone that we look to as a spiritual role model and they taught us the Word of God and they taught us things and then they let us down. And you'll see them forsake the very things that they taught you. But then you're staying with it. Think about that. It's like, hey, you taught me these truths from the Bible. If you forsake them, that doesn't mean I'm going to. Look, I've taught you a lot from the Bible. If I stopped doing the things that I've preached over the last 18 years of pastoring, you know, I hope that you'll keep doing them. If I quit, that doesn't mean that you quit because ultimately you're not following me, you're following Jesus. And so if I change, if I quit, if I turn into something else, then you know what, that shouldn't change the truths that I've preached to you directly from the Word of God over the last 18 years. Now, God forbid that I would ever let you down like that. But you know what, though? People are going to let you down in general and we've all been let down by people. And so here's the thing. Let's say a leader turns out to be phony. Let's say a role model turns out to be phony. You know, still, some of the things that that person taught, if they came directly from the Word of God, you know, we could still say, well, you know what, that was true. I mean, Abijah is a bozo, he doesn't love God. You know, what's Abijah really interested in? You know what Abijah's really interested in? The same thing that Rehoboam's interested in, marrying 14 wives. Right, that's what he's interested in, juggling his 14 wives. He's just, I mean, the guy's only reigned for three years and he's cycling through 14 wives. I mean, that's just excessive. That's just absurd. That's crazy. Right? That's what he cares about. He's caring about the things of this world. He's not thinking about the things of God. He's not a spiritual guy. But does that mean that what he's preaching isn't true? Ultimately, everything he preaches in this chapter is true. He's preaching it for the wrong reasons. He's preaching it for a political reason. His heart's not really in it. And I'm not even necessarily saying that Abijah's not saved. Maybe Abijah is saved, but he doesn't, his heart's not right with God. You know, he could just be super carnal, super backslid, and whatever, like Rehoboam, you know. It doesn't mean that he's necessarily unsaved, but his heart's definitely not right with God. He's definitely not doing right in the sight of the Lord, with his works, with his actions. And so, at the end of the day, everything that he preached is right. So here's what we don't want to make the mistake, is that, oh, I got burned in this church, and so therefore I'm no longer a Christian, or I'm just not going to go to church anymore. Now obviously, anyone who's actually saved is never going to say, like, oh, I don't believe in Jesus anymore. They're just proving that they were never saved in the first place. But you will run into people who are like, oh, I'm saved, I believe in Jesus, but I, you know, I don't go to church anymore because I had this bad experience over here at church, so I'm done with church. You know what? You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Just because you had a bad experience with church doesn't mean you have the right to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. God commands us to assemble together so much more as we see the day approaching. We could all make an excuse for not going to church by saying, oh, I had this bad experience, I went to this church, and the pastor embezzled money. You know, you hear about all kinds of things like that, and I've seen some things like that in my life where the pastor has embezzled money and gambled with it, or done worse things with it, or whatever. And obviously it's super wicked. Obviously the guy's a phony. Obviously the guy should not be in the pulpit ever again. But at the same time, does that mean that everything that he preached is null and void? No. Unfortunately, a lot of people, even who preach the right message, don't have the life to back it up. And it's a tragedy, it's a shame, but at the end of the day, what they said is still right. And you know what? Here's the thing. You could still serve God and do great things for God in a nation where the fake Christian leader or the pastor is fake or whatever. Obviously that's a bad situation. It's not ideal. But you know what it's better than? Being in the northern kingdom and bowing down to a golden cow. You're bowing down to a statue of a cow over here. Or you go to the Christian church and it turns out some people let you down. But here's the thing. There's always people that are real, that are sincere. And I think that God's listening to those real people, those sincere people. They're listening to Abijah's sermon and they're taking it seriously. And they're calling out to the Lord from the heart saying, God, help us. We're about to get defeated here by the Israelites. We need your help. And God says, I'm here to help you. I'm going to give you the victory. And so they end up winning the victory. Even though they're outnumbered, they have 400,000 troops. Israel has 800,000. You know, they still end up defeating Israel. Even though, tactically, Jeroboam's tactic is superior and he gets them in the old pincher attack where they have the battle before and behind, because God is on their side, they still end up winning and they still end up defeating 300,000 enemy troops. You know, they end up having a great victory. And then not only that, it says in verse number 19, And Abijah pursued after Jeroboam and took cities from him, Bethel with the towns thereof, and Jeshena with the towns thereof, and Ephraim with the towns thereof. Neither did Jeroboam recover strength again in the days of Abijah, and the Lord struck him and he died. But Abijah waxed mighty, married fourteen wives, and begat twenty and two sons and sixteen daughters. And the rest of the acts of Abijah and his ways and his sayings are written in the story of the prophet Ito. So what I see here is I see a leader who's saying the right things, but his heart's not right with God. But I think that the people, though, they actually did rely on God, the Bible. They really did trust in the Lord, the Bible says, and so God blessed them with the victory. And so you know what? God actually does them a favor by getting rid of Abijah, because Abijah's the wrong leader. So because the people take Abijah's message seriously, even though Abijah's not a good guy, they take Abijah's message seriously. They rely on God. They have faith. They're used by God to do something great. So then what does God do? God rewards them by removing Abijah, because three years is not the norm. That's pretty short of a rate. Removing Abijah and giving them someone better. Because who do they get in verse number one of chapter fourteen? Asa. And Asa, he gets rid of the Sodomites. And again, what is a Sodomite? A Sodomite is a homo. That is what a Sodomite is. Don't let anyone try to tell you some other stupid definition of this. It's a homo. It's a homo, plus nothing, minus nothing. That's all it is. That's what it is. That's what it means. People try to come up with all these other weird definitions. They're trying to confuse you, because they're trying to pervert our land. Don't buy it for one second. Don't listen to these so-called fake scholars, and these eggheads that are so disconnected from reality, it's like they don't even check what they're studying with the real world. You know, that's what happens when you get sometimes too academic, or too scholarly. And I'm all for learning. I'm all for scholarship. But, you know, when you get so scholarly that you literally lose touch on the real world, like you forget that real life is out there happening, and that the things that you're describing don't even exist in the real world, you know, you went a little too far there, buddy. Asa's going to get rid of them. Asa's going to clean up this town. And then his son Jehoshaphat's going to clean it up even more. That's God rewarding the people for trusting Christ. So here's the thing. You know, let me give you another example from the Bible. I was just reading this today in my Bible. The church at Sardis. They had a name that they lived, but they were dead. Okay? So here's a church that outwardly seems like they're doing right, but it's a dead church. But then, here's what the Bible says. Thou hast a few names, even in Sardis, which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. So God said, look, even though Sardis Baptist is a messed up church, there are a few people at Sardis that are great people. And God's blessing them. You know, other churches, he says, you know, the rest of you in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan as they speak, I'll put upon you none other burden, but that which you have already, hold fast till I come. So he's saying, look, Thyatira is a messed up church with problems, but, you know, some of you guys are doing great. Keep it up. Sardis is messed up. Some of you guys are doing great. Keep it up. Do not ever use as an excuse failures of leadership for why you're not serving God. Because even if your leaders are bozos, even if they're lame, even if they're fake, even if they're hypocrites, even if their heart's not in it, you are still responsible to follow the word of God. You know, even Jesus said of the Pharisees, he said, well, you know, whatever they tell you to do, you should do it, but don't do after their works, for they say and do not. You know, and so don't ever get this attitude that says, oh, well, my church is lame, so that's why I'm just not into it. You know, if I went to faithful word, you know, I'd be right there, man. I'd be fired up. I'd be on the front lines, but it's just, I just don't have a good church in my area. But you know what? Even if you just have Sardis in your area, you just have Thyatira in your area, you go there, and you'll be the best Christian you can be. You know, and if the pastor's a hypocrite, shame on him, and that's between him and God. God's going to deal with him, but at the end of the day, if what he's saying is from the Bible, it's from the Bible. You know, and if your parents are hypocrites, well, then your parents are hypocrites. That's between them and God, but you know what? If what they're telling you is from the word of God, you can't just use it as an excuse, oh, well, my parents, blah, blah, blah, so I'm just going to go out and just be worldly. That's not going to fly with God. God's not going to be like, well, I see your point. I see where you're coming from. And on the flip side of that, if you end up doing what's right, and God looks down and sees you doing what's right, you know what he'll do? Give you a better leader. He'll give you a better leader. You know, you're going to the church that you have, and it's not the best church, but you're doing the best you can within that church, then you know what? Maybe God will give you a better church. Maybe God will give you a better pastor. You know, or maybe God will change the heart of your pastor or your leader or work in his life and make him better, make your parents better, whatever. But at the end of the day, you've got to have that personal walk with God where you don't stand or fall on someone else. You know, and that's why I'm saying it's infinitely better to be in a country where at least the government is pretending to be Christian than one where they're openly pagan. And it's infinitely better to be in a lame church where the leadership is going through the motions and they're not zealous about winning souls and they just don't really care that much and they just kind of phone it in. You're infinitely better out there than no church at all. You're better off in the southern kingdom of Judah than you are in the northern kingdom of Judah, even when the southern kingdom, you know, has a leader that's just bogus. And so don't ever make those kind of excuses for not serving God. Serve God, do the best you can with what you got. God's going to reward you with a better situation. He's going to reward you with a better leader. Let's borrow this other word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this great passage, Lord, and the example of Abijah. Lord, help us not to be a guy like Abijah that just thinks that Christianity is just about going through the motions, checking a box, going to church, you know, check it off, show up at this event, check it off. Lord, help us to actually have our heart in it. Help us to actually love you and be passionate about the Word of God and the things of God. And Lord, if there's anybody here who's been brainwashed and corrupted by our sick, deviant, sexually perverted society, I pray that they would get right with you, Lord, and get that wickedness out of their heart and that disgusting, you know, filth away from them, Lord, and not get upset at a Baptist preacher for telling them the truth. Rather, I pray that they would have a healthy anger toward sin and not toward the messenger of your Word, Lord. Please, God, help us to continue to reach this area with the gospel and keep winning souls. And Lord, if the leaders in our life ever let us down, Lord, help us personally to keep on going no matter what. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's take our hymnals. Let's go to hymn number three. Hymn number three, Jesus Paid It All. Hymn number three. We'll sing it out on that first verse. Number three, I hear the Savior say, Thy strength and need is small. Hymn number three, I hear the Savior say, Thy strength in me is small, Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in me thine all in all. Jesus paid it all, all to him my own, Saved and let the princess sing, He washed it white as snow, For now indeed I find, Thy power and might alone, Can change the leper's claws, And help the heart of stone. Jesus paid it all, all to him my own, Saved and let the princess sing, He washed it white as snow, For now indeed I find, Whereby thy grace to claim, I'll wash my godless wine, In the blood of Calvary's land. Jesus paid it all, all to him my own, Saved and let the princess sing, He washed it white as snow, And then before the throne, I stand in complete, Jesus died, my soul to save, My lips shall still repeat. Jesus paid it all, all to him my own, Saved and let the princess sing, He washed it white as snow. Thank you for watching!