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Amen. Amen. Ezekiel chapter 48, we're in the last chapter of the book, and as we go through this chapter, a lot of the things that we're going to see in this chapter I've already covered in previous sermons, and so I'm not going to belabor a lot of these points. We just read it all together. There's a lot of the dividing up of the land for the 12 tribes and talking about the different oblations for the prince and the part of the land that's going to be for the priests and for the Levites and so forth. So it's really just a continuation of what we talked about last week and what we talked about other weeks, and at the end, there's this thought at the very end where it says it was round about 18,000 measures, and the name of the city from that day shall be the Lord is there. The idea here is just that God is going to bring them back to the promised land. They're going to be back in Israel. They're going to be back in Jerusalem, and God is going to be with them once again because God has, in a sense, forsaken them at this point. He allowed them to be destroyed and scattered and sent into the Babylonian captivity, but he's going to bring them back. He's going to be present among them, dwell among them, bless them, and that's really been the whole theme of the book of Ezekiel. And so that's how the book ends. The Lord is going to be there, and he's blessing them. They're back in the land, and it's all going to be great, and it has this finality to it. That's why there's some of the same imagery used in this chapter as we see in Revelation 21 and 22 with the new heaven, the new earth, the new Jerusalem, where you've got the three gates on each side for the 12 tribes of Israel. Some of that same imagery is in this chapter, but I feel like I've already talked about all that stuff so many times over the past few weeks. So what I really want to do is just kind of focus in on this one verse tonight and talk about this final thought from verse 11. It says in verse number 11, it's talking about in verse 10 this oblation, this area of land that's going to be set aside for the priests, and it says in verse 11, It shall be for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok, which have kept my charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel went astray as the Levites went astray. So here's what's interesting in this verse, is that you have the larger group of Israel, and then within Israel you have a subcategory that's just the tribe of Levi, and then even amongst the Levites you have the priests, but then even amongst the priests you have the sons of Zadok. And it's interesting that as you go through Scripture, groups of people that are faithful to the Lord and serving the Lord, they always keep getting narrowed down as each group apostatizes. If you would, back up to chapter 44, if you would, in Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter number 44, the Bible reads in verse 9, Thus saith the Lord God, No stranger uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into my sanctuary of any stranger that is among the children of Israel. And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray away from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquities. And he goes on to explain how they're going to still be able to work in the house of the Lord and do a lot of the manual labor, but they're not going to be able to approach the holy things because they've lost that privilege. It says in verse 14, But I will make them keepers of the charge of the house for all the service thereof and for all that shall be done therein. But verse 15, the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God. And stop and think about this. If you go back even further, you have God choosing Abraham because humanity is messed up, right? They get off the ark, and they build the Tower of Babel, and the nations are pagan, and they're worshiping false gods and disobeying the Lord. So then God just picks Abraham. But then of Abraham's children, it's not all of Abraham's children that end up following the Lord and carrying that torch of the spiritual legacy that Abraham handed them, because it's not Ishmael, but it's in Isaac that his seed would be called, right? And then with Isaac, you've got Jacob and Esau. So you have a further branching off, right? Then you have Israel, which is Jacob, and you've got the 12 tribes of Israel that are serving the Lord, worshiping the Lord. But then you have the split into the two kingdoms, where you got the 10 tribes that go astray, and they never really have a godly king, and the majority of them are involved in false religion, pretty much throughout their whole history. And it's the southern kingdom that tends to be the more faithful kingdom. And we've got the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and Levi. And then you'd expect out of those three tribes, Judah, Benjamin, and Levi, you'd expect the most faithful to be Levi, right? I mean, because they're the ones who are in the house of God. They're there all the time. They're working there. They're supposed to be the ones preaching God's word, teaching the people, handling the music, doing all these spiritual activities all the time. You'd expect them to be standing up for the Lord. But when the kingdom of Judah went into captivity, the Levites had become apostate, which is part of why the nation went into captivity. Because if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness? If the spiritual leadership and spiritual teachers and the tribe that's supposed to be serving the Lord full time has also gone astray, then, of course, the nation's really going to be wicked. That's what happened to Judah. That's why the Babylonian captivity took place. But then, within the Levites, you have the priests. Well, here's the thing. By this time, not all of the sons of Aaron are still legitimate priests, because God has broken off a branch of the family and said, these priests are no longer legitimate. It's only the priests of the sons of Zadok, not just any son of Aaron, like it used to be. Now, it's just the sons of Zadok. So how did this split happen? Well, during David's reign, King David actually had two high priests at the same time. So he had Abiathar, and he had Zadok at the same time. And if you would, go back to 1 Kings, chapter number 1, and we're going to look at this. 1 Kings, chapter number 1. How did this split happen where now, all of a sudden, according to Ezekiel chapter 48, all of the priests are not qualified to serve in the temple anymore. It's only the sons of Zadok. The other ones are not. Well, because David actually had two priests, which it seems kind of strange. Why does he have two high priests representing these two different families? But I believe that God, in his wisdom, providentially allowed this situation where there were two high priests in order that one of them could be phased out. One of them could be deleted, and we could just end up with Zadok. So what is it that Abiathar's family did wrong to get them kicked out of the priesthood? Well, if you remember, we've been talking the last couple of Sundays about Absalom. And in that Absalom rebellion, we didn't have time to go into this, but Abiathar the priest and his son, they were actually on David's side. They were loyal to David along with Zadok. They all backed up David. They were all against Absalom. They all did the right thing in that situation. But what's interesting is that very shortly thereafter, another situation arises where someone tries to usurp the throne. Because Absalom tried to usurp the throne, and Joab was on the right team, Zadok was on the right team, Abimelek was on the right team, Abiathar, or sorry, Ahimelek and Abiathar are on the right team. But what we see is that in 1 Kings chapter 1, when Adonijah tries to take the throne, a lot of these guys that were on the right team last time around have now gotten on the wrong side, and they're following Adonijah. Look what the Bible says in verse number 5 of 1 Kings chapter 1. Then Adonijah, the son of Hagath, exalted himself saying, I will be king. So he's not chosen by God. He's not anointed by the man of God. He's not ordained in the proper way by the spiritual leadership of the nation, Nathan the prophet or whoever is anointed man of God that communicates God's will. He just exalts himself. He just decides, I want to be king. Out of David's sons, I'm going to be it. And the Bible says he exalted himself. Well, the Bible says that if you exalt yourself, you're going to be abased. But whosoever humbleth himself shall be exalted. So this guy exalts himself to be king, and he prepared him chariots and horsemen and 50 men to run before him. And his father had not displeased him at any time in saying, why hast thou done so? He was also a very goodly man, and his mother bare him after Absalom. So kind of similar to Absalom, Absalom's a good looking guy. Adonijah's a good looking guy. He's got some charisma. He's got people to follow him. Dad didn't tell him no enough. And so it says in verse 7, he conferred with Joab the son of Zeruiah and with, notice, Abiathar the priest. This is one of the two factions of the priests. You got Zadok, you got Abiathar. Adonijah confers with Abiathar the priest, and they following Adonijah helped him. But Zadok the priest, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and Nathan the prophet, and Shimei, and Rei, and the mighty men which belonged to David were not with Adonijah. And so of course, the story goes on that Adonijah sets up his kingdom, but then Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet, they get involved, they talk to David. David ends up crowning Solomon king because Solomon was God's choice. God had chosen Solomon to be king. And so when this happens, Adonijah's pretty scared. The people that are following are pretty scared because their coup didn't work out. They were, you know, they're trying to put Adonijah on the throne. It was a flop, it was a failure. So now, they're seen as traitors. So look what it says in verse 41. And Adonijah and all the guests that were with him heard it as they had made an end of eating. And when Joab heard the sound of the trumpet, he said, wherefore is this noise of the city being in an uproar? And while he yet spake, notice who is a key player here. Behold, Jonathan the son of Abiathar the priest came. So notice, Abiathar and his son Jonathan are on the wrong side here. And Adonijah said unto him, come in, for thou art a valiant man, and bringest good tidings. So we see, of course, Adonijah flattering this guy. You're a valiant man. You know, you are such a courageous man. And I know you're bringing good news today. And of course, he's got really bad news. So Adonijah's full of baloney saying that. But just like Absalom, Adonijah is also a flatterer. Can you imagine the stupidity of making this verse your church's theme verse and putting it on the home page of your website? Come in, for thou art a valiant man. Next time, read the chapter and don't just do a Google search on the word valiant. Okay, anyway, that's another story. And so it says, and Jonathan answered and said to Adonijah, verily, our Lord King David hath made Solomon king. And the king hath sent with him Zadok the priest, and Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada, and the Carathites, and the Pelethites. And they've caused him to ride upon the king's mule. And Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet have anointed him king. See, he didn't make himself king, but he's anointed by Nathan and Zadok the priest. And they're come up from thence rejoicing so that the city rang again. This is the noise that you've heard. And also Solomon sitteth on the throne of the kingdom. So everybody gets out of there, everybody's scared, everybody flees, and Solomon becomes king. Now Solomon is a great picture in the Bible of Jesus Christ. Jesus is called the son of David. Solomon is the son of David. He's the Lord's anointed. Christ means literally anointed. And when you read these chapters at the beginning of 1 Kings or at the beginning of 2 Chronicles where Solomon's kingdom is being established, it is really picturing and foreshadowing the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. And there's a lot of similarities. And that would be a whole other sermon in and of itself just to compare the millennial reign of Christ with Solomon having his kingdom because Solomon's name means peace. And his kingdom is a time when Israel is pretty much at peace. David had fought a lot of wars, but during Solomon's reign, it's a time of peace and tranquility, prosperity, just as the millennial reign of Christ will be a time of peace on earth. And just as Jesus will rule with a rod of iron, Solomon rules with a rod of iron. He's no pushover, but it's a peaceful time. And so Solomon is sitting upon the throne of his kingdom. We're gonna come back to that. But look to chapter two, and let's just see how much of a bozo Adonijah is. Look at verse 13. And Adonijah, the son of Hagith, came to Bathsheba, the mother of Solomon, and she said, comest thou peaceably? And he said, peaceably. He said, moreover, I have somewhat to say unto thee. He had, no kidding, that's why you're here. Get to the point. And she said, say on. And he said, thou knowest that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel set their faces on me. You see what a bozo this guy is? Do you hear what he's saying? No, the kingdom wasn't yours. What are you talking about? Because you had 50 guys running through town saying that you're king and because you had a party? Because you barbecued meat? The king, well, I mean, you know that the kingdom was mine and that all Israel set their faces on me, that I should reign. Is that really true? It's true in his own mind because he's puffed up, he's full of himself, he's exalted himself, he's arrogant, and so he's acting like, well, you know, I was this close to being the king, which is a bunch of baloney. And this is just an arrogant, prideful person who's really lucky to be alive. Okay, because Solomon told this guy, if you mind your Ps and Qs, I will let you live. But if you show yourself to be bogus, you know, you're gonna die, sucka. And this is the Stephen Anderson version. I'm paraphrasing. But the point is that this guy's already on thin ice and he's talking this big talk to Bathsheba, right? Howbeit the kingdom is turned about and has become my brothers, for it was his from the Lord. Now, at first, this might seem like a nice spiritual godly thing to say, but really, here's what he's actually saying. You know, only God can oppose me. Everybody loves me, I'm the best, I would have all the power. It literally took God to stand against me. You kind of see what he's saying there? Like, the only reason that Solomon is king is just because God handed it to him. Because otherwise, you know, everybody likes me better and I was this close. So this guy's a complete idiot, okay? The stuff that he's saying is showing his arrogance, his pride, his fake spirituality. And if it's his from the Lord, then why are you whining about it? Like, why are you arguing with the will of God or something? Why are you like, well, I was this close? But if it was God's will, you know, shouldn't you just accept that and quit talking about it? But again, his fake spiritual statement is really just saying, only God could have caused me not to, you know, win this election, as it were, okay? And now I ask one petition of thee, deny me not. And she said unto him, say on. And he said, speak I pray thee unto Solomon the king, for he will not say thee nay, that he give me Abishag the Shunammite to wife. And Bathsheba said, well, I will speak for the end of the king. Now, this is a bizarre request on a lot of different levels. Now, who is Abishag the Shunammite? Well, if you remember, at the very end of David's life, he was very sick and he's in bed and he just, he couldn't get warm. And I don't know if you've ever been sick where you just cannot get warm, but I've had this before where I'm in bed and I'm just stacking the blankets and I'm under so many blankets and I always, I always switch into King James English and I say, I gat no heat, you know, to quote where David gat no heat, like a past tense of got. But anyway, I've kind of felt that way, but thankfully it was just a temporal illness, but you know, he's this way chronically, he's old, he's sick, he's freezing, he can't get warm. And so some doctor comes in with a real bright idea and says, hey, we just need to find some young beautiful woman to lay down next to you, to warm you up a little bit. So basically they bring this woman, but he ends up, he doesn't sleep with this woman. She basically just like ministers unto him and takes care of him and stuff like that, but so it's not, she's not as concubine or anything, but it's kind of like, she's kind of brought in for that reason. So it's kind of weird that Adonijah is like, well, now that's who I want. I want to be with Abishag, I want to marry Abishag. Now, here's the thing about that. You know, obviously the Bible tells us that David did not actually sleep with her, but we know that because God told us that. I mean, you know, the perception could have been that it was one of his concubines since she was brought for that reason. Maybe not everybody knows exactly what's going on in David's bedroom or not going on in David's bedroom. And so people could have this idea that perhaps Abishag was his concubine. And so this kind of reminds me of somebody else that we've been talking about the last couple of weeks. Is this, he's kind of quasi Poland and Absalom here in a minute, you know, and he's trying to make it sound all innocent, but it's just weird. And the thing that's weird about it is that there's so many women out there. Again, you're the king's son. He's kind of pulling an Amnon too, where he's getting obsessed with one person possibly. Because there's either one of two things going on here. Either number one, he wants to be with Abishag the Shunammite because he's trying to do some weird politicking for becoming king after all, which that's probably what's going on based on the junk that he said in verse 15. That he wants to, in the future, do some jockeying and position himself to get back in power because he was this close after all, and so getting with this woman is maybe like, I don't know, getting him closer to that in his warped, stupid mind, okay. That's how Solomon interprets it, and we know Solomon's a very wise man. He interprets it that way, and he kills Adonijah. Okay. But let's say that, you know, let's say Adonijah's just really just in love with Abishag. Again, this is foolish to just become infatuated with someone that is off limits unto you, okay. Don't get infatuated with someone who's off limits. If you're a young man, don't get infatuated with an unsaved girl. Don't get infatuated as a young lady with an unsaved man, okay. And you say, well, it's just true love, and I just can't control it. Yeah, you can. And when we see these obsessions and infatuations in the Bible, they're not real because remember Amnon is infatuated with Tamar, and the Bible says, oh, he loved Tamar so much, and he's just sick to his stomach because he loves Tamar so much, but then he turns around and hates her, wants nothing to do with her. And of course, most of us are probably familiar with the famous play by Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet. Right? Virtually everybody in here growing up in America has probably studied that in school or read that in some capacity. I'm sure everybody in here is pretty familiar with Romeo and Juliet, right? But even if you just vaguely remember the story, maybe it's been a while. Let me refresh your memory that at the beginning of the play, Romeo is obsessed with a totally different chick. You remember that? Who does not remember that part? Yeah, it's not in the movie. So it's like, you know, the majority, who does remember that? Who remembers that? Okay, literally, there's like less than 10 people who remember that part, but who knows who Romeo and Juliet is at all? Everybody. Less than 10 people. More than half of them are my relatives that know who that chick is. Her name is Rosalyn. Starting to ring a little bit of a bell, right? Rosalyn. You know, Romeo's into Rosalyn. Oh, he's got to have Rosalyn. And guess what? Rosalyn's off limits too, because it's these warring families and she's off limits. So he's just so obsessed with Rosalyn, and he's just got to have Rosalyn until he sees Juliet, and then forget Rosalyn. Nuts to Rosalyn. So what I'm saying is these teenage obsessions, these teenage infatuations, this young love, you say, oh, it's true love. I've never felt this way. I've never experienced this. But guess what? Rosalyn becomes Juliet pretty fast. So don't be deceived into thinking that your infatuation is true love. Hey, if somebody's off limits, they're off limits. Don't destroy yourself. Okay, Amnon is obsessed with the woman that's off limits named Tabor. He died and he ruined her life. Okay? Adonijah is wanting this woman that's off limits. Is it because it's true love or is it just because he's foolishly trying to take the kingdom? Either way, he dies. And spoiler alert, Romeo dies. And Juliet dies. Everybody dies. Okay, so don't, and they're like teenagers. They're literally like, what, 15 and 13 or something. Maybe I'm a little off on that, but that's a ballpark of what we're talking. 15, 13, they're committing suicide in the story Romeo and Juliet. He's committing suicide over some chick. He wanted someone totally different at the beginning of the play. Literally the same day. The whole story takes place over what, like a couple days? It's like less than a week is the whole epic saga is over in a flash. Okay? So whether you're reading the Bible or Shakespeare, my friend, get a brain in your head and don't become obsessed with someone that is off limits onto you. Someone that's married is off limits. Someone that's not saved, off limits. Your parents veto someone and say, hey, I don't want you to marry this person. Do not do it. It's bad news. Hey, listen to your parents and don't just get obsessed with the one that you can't have. It's foolish. Don't do it. And so this guy seals his own fate by doing this and Solomon ends up killing him, executing him and so forth. So then he turns to the people that were following Adonijah. Look at verse 26. This is where it becomes relevant to what we're talking about here. First Kings chapter two, verse 26. And unto Abiathar the priest said the king, get thee to Anathoth unto thine own fields for thou are worthy of death. So Solomon's coming down pretty hard on this guy, is he not? But I will not at this time put thee to death. See, there's an implicit threat there of don't be an Adonijah. Don't pull anything squirrely or you're next. I will not at this time put thee to death because thou barest the ark of the Lord God before David my father and because thou hast been afflicted and all wherein my father was afflicted. He's saying, you know, you were loyal to my father in the past, but you weren't loyal to me. And you followed Adonijah, this flattering bozo, this evil, conniving, arrogant fool. So Solomon thrust out Abiathar from being priest unto the Lord that he might fulfill the word of the Lord which he spake concerning the house of Eli and Shiloh. So this also goes back to Eli's sins. There was always that prophecy that part of the priestly family was gonna be cut off. But specifically, why these guys get cut off when they did is for following Adonijah and going after Adonijah. Even though they were loyal in the Absalom rebellion, they were not loyal in the Adonijah rebellion. Now, what am I getting at in this sermon? A few things that we can learn from this, from what we see in Ezekiel and when we go back and research the story that Ezekiel is referring to is that just because people were faithful in the past does not mean that they're going to be faithful in the future. Just because people did the right thing in the past doesn't mean they're gonna do the right thing in the future. You know, people could be faithful and could go through battles with the church and be loyal to the church. It doesn't mean they're not gonna turn on the church later. You know, people could be faithful to the Lord and serving the Lord. It doesn't mean they're not gonna get backslidden later or quit on God later or rebel against the Lord later. Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. There are gonna be people who are serving God 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, 40 years from now, but it's not gonna be everybody. A lot of people are gonna fall out. And the thing about serving God is that you serve alongside people and there's a constant attrition, okay, where people are falling away. Just like in Israel, people are constantly falling away. That's why you constantly have a need to reach new people because of the fact that people are constantly falling away. You know, if you think about how a church works, and a lot of people don't necessarily understand this mathematically, but here's the thing about a church, okay? And I'm gonna bring a little math into this, but basically there's a certain number of people coming into the church at a certain rate, right? So we're out knocking doors, we're soul winning, we're putting stuff on YouTube, we're putting our message out there, we're preaching from the housetops, and so as we get our message out, we reach people and people are coming into the church at a certain rate as we're reaching people, right? Make sense? Also, babies are being born to families and so that provides a little bit of growth as well. But anyway, the church is growing at a certain rate per year. But then there's an attrition rate as well, right? There's a certain rate of people that are gonna leave every year. And not always for a bad reason. Some people are gonna get backslidden and just quit going to church in general. Some people will switch to another church in the area, they just, you know, decide that they wanna go somewhere else and they go to another Bible believing church in the area. Or some people could, you know, just move to another area. Maybe they just, they don't even live in Phoenix anymore, okay? You know, the Rodriguez family, they just moved away. They love the church, they've been great members here, but they just ended up moving to another city. And so that's attrition that's happening, right? Just people that leave. So here's the thing, in order for the church to grow, you have to be bringing in more people than are leaving. Does that make sense? Because there are gonna be people leaving no matter what. People are leaving. People die, people move away, people get backslidden, people get disgruntled and upset at the church, people just switch to another church because they just like another church better. Whatever reason, people are going to leave. It's a fact and you can't avoid it. I've been pastoring for 16 years, there's constantly people leaving, constantly people leaving. Every church is like that. No one is just gonna have a church where just everybody stays forever. But here's the thing about that is that if you think about the math, do you think that you're gonna lose more people when you're big or when you're small? I mean, if the church is running 50, do you think we're gonna have a higher attrition when we're running 50 or running 300? Obviously when you're running 300, you're gonna be losing more people because you have more people to lose. There are gonna be more people dying, more people moving away, more people switching churches, whatever. The bigger you get, the rate at which people leave is going to increase. Okay, so here's the thing. In order to be growing, the rate that people are coming in has to be greater than the rate that people are leaving. Now in the beginning, that's very easy to do because the rate at which people are leaving is very low because if you only have 30 people, there's a slim chance that any of them are necessarily leaving. When you have 300 people, of course people are leaving. So the bottom line is that the attrition rate goes up the bigger you get. And eventually, you're gonna get to a point where basically the rate at which people are coming in equals the rate at which people are going out and you're gonna kind of level off at a certain size. And in order to maintain that size, you have to be reaching people because if you stop reaching people, if you stop knocking the doors, you stop preaching from the housetops, you stop bringing in new blood, the attrition's not gonna stop. The attrition never stops. So therefore, when you get big, even in order to just maintain the same size, you have to be constantly reaching people. This is why you have a lot of independent fundamental Baptist churches with a gigantic auditorium and a tiny congregation. You say, what happened here? What happened? Did they have some huge church split, some blow up? Not usually. It usually doesn't necessarily happen with a bang. It's more just like a whimper. It's more like a groan. What happens is that basically the church got big and they just stopped reaching people. They're not soul winning. They're not getting their message out. They're not preaching as hard or as loud as they used to. And then what happens is people still are leaving, leaving, leaving, leaving, but they're not replacing at the rate that they're losing. And then the church gets smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller because it's not even necessarily that they had a big split or a mass exodus. It's that you have to be growing or you're going to shrink because if you're not bringing new people in, you are going to be losing people. And so you can't maintain a church like that. Like a church that's not actively bringing in new blood is dying. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Because it's just a fact that people are going to apostatize. People are going to quit. People are going to leave. People are going to die. People are going to get disgruntled. That's just what happens. And it's the minority that stays for a really long time. If you went to a church that's been around for 50, 60 years, it's going to be a very small number of people who've been there for 50 years or 40 years or something. And if we said, how many people have been here for one year, tons of people would raise their hand. But as we went back three years, five years, 10 years, it would be less and less people. And if we got back 15 years ago, it'd be very few people that are still here from 15 years ago. It'd just be like a handful of people. Most of my kids weren't even here 15 years ago. And so this is the way it works with every incident. There's always going to be people leaving the group and obviously leaving our church doesn't necessarily mean that people are leaving the faith or leaving the service of God, as long as they're switching to another good church. But a lot of people too are just quitting on God and just quitting on soul winning, just quitting on going to church, getting backslidden, whatever. So throughout the history of Israel, it's the same way. You have people constantly turning away from the Lord, following worldly nations that are surrounding them and idolatry and whatever. And so they constantly have to have spiritual revival in order to keep things right because people are constantly leaving the group. I mean, even when Jesus is preaching, there's constantly people leaving. Jesus preaches a hard sermon and then a bunch of people don't follow him anymore. And then Jesus is like, hey, are you guys leaving too or what? Because so many people are leaving in John chapter six, for example. And so there's this constant departing and leaving a righteous group. And so you have to be reaching new people and bringing new people. So when we think about the history of the nation of Israel, we talked about these different points where people are forsaking the Lord, whether it's Ishmael, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, 10 tribes of the North, two tribes of the South. And then even amongst the Southern kingdom, you've got major apostasy happening. And when they go to Babylon, only a remnant comes back. There keeps being a remnant, but it seems like most people in the long run end up leaving. It's the 10 tribes that leave and the two that stay. It's most of the children of Israel who go to Babylon and never come back. It's only a smaller remnant that returns. And what's interesting is that when we get to this point where Ezekiel is saying, hey, the priests, the sons of Zadok, these are the right guys. These are the guys that are still legit priests, nobody else. These other guys can sweep the floor and make coffee and whatever, but Zadok, that's who's gonna be the actual high priest and it's gonna be his descendants that are gonna be serving. And remember, Zadok sided with Solomon, whereas Himelech, Abiathar, Jonathan, that side of the family sided with Adonijah. Well, if you think about it, Adonijah kind of pictures the Antichrist. If you think about Solomon being that picture of the millennial reign of Christ, before Christ's second coming, when he comes and sets up his earthly kingdom, isn't there an imposter who lifts himself up first and declares himself to be above all that is called God or that is worshiped so that he as God, sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. Talk about exalting yourself. And so that's what Adonijah pictures. And so if you think about it, if Solomon pictures Jesus, then Zadok is basically representative of the side that sides with Jesus. And then this other side could be like a picture of Christ rejecting Jews, because the Bible says, who is a liar, but he that denyeth that Jesus is the Christ, he's Antichrist that denyeth the Father and the Son. So this could represent like Jews that are of that Antichrist spirit that rejected the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming. And then Zadok represents the ones who embraced the Lord Jesus Christ. But here's what's funny about that. That's symbolic, that works for an Old Testament illustration. But what's interesting is that by the time Jesus comes on the scene, are the sons of Zadok still righteous? Are the high priest and the priests of the temple and that faction, are they still serving God? Are they still righteous? Are they still on the Lord's side? Well, of course, the answer is no. Because of course, in the New Testament, the high priest, the priests, they are of the sect of the Sadducees. That's who is controlling the temple. When Jesus shows up on this earth at his first advent, the Sadducees are the priesthood. Why? Because they are the sons of Zadok. In fact, the word Sadducee is derived from the word Zadok. So we look at Zadok in English, it's a Z, a D, and a K, right? And understanding that Hebrew has no vowels. It has 22 letters of the alphabet and they're all consonants, okay? And so it's not written with vowels. So we have the Z, the D, and the K. Well, when that comes over into the Greek language hundreds of years later, and we have this term Sadducee, basically the Z has become an S, the D is still a D, the K is represented in English. You know, we represent the Greek letter kappa with a C typically, even though it's more like our letter K. So Z, D, K, S, D, C, these are the operative consonants. So Sadducees are the sons of Zadok. And it's kind of a double meaning because the name Zadok means righteous. So the Sadducees are the righteous ones and they're the sons of Zadok and they're the ones that are running the temple and they're the high priest and his faction when Jesus comes on the scene. Well, let me ask you this. What did the Sadducees believe according to scripture? Well, the Bible teaches that the Sadducees at this point, when Jesus is on the scene, they don't believe that there's any afterlife whatsoever. They don't believe in any kind of resurrection. They don't believe in afterlife. The Sadducees believe that when you die, that's it. That basically what's on this earth is all that matters. That's all there is, just this lifetime, you know. And this is what most Jews believe today. They don't believe in heaven and hell. They just believe that, you know, okay, follow God's word so you can have a good life right now and it's all gonna happen in this lifetime and when you die, that's it, it's over. That's what the Sadducees believed. Okay, that's not even close to the truth or what the Bible teaches. And not only that, they denied the existence of angels. They don't believe that there's any such thing as a spirit. They don't believe in the spirit. They don't believe in angels. They don't believe in heaven and hell. They don't believe in resurrection. They are basically like United Methodists or something. You know, where they're, you know, United Methodists where they're like denying the virgin birth, denying the bodily resurrection of Christ and basically they're just believing a religion of a social gospel of do good, make the world a better place, blah, blah, blah. They don't believe in the supernatural elements, okay? And they just, the only thing they believe is that God's kind of up there in heaven and we're gonna burn these sacrifices to him and kind of make him happy and he'll bless us, whatever. But I mean, they're very far from being righteous, very far from worshiping the Lord properly, okay? And so, you know, another split has happened, right? Because it's like, okay, it's just the sons of Zadok that are the righteous priests. But guess what? We give them time and they're not gonna be righteous either because every man-made institution, every group of people, every church, Bible, college, whatever, you know, over time these things tend to decay and degenerate and die and there has to constantly be a new movement and there has to be new life and new blood coming in and so we need to understand that. The preachers that we looked to in the past or the churches that we looked to in the past, they may not necessarily be what they once were because yeah, okay, they sided with David when it came to Absalom, but now when it comes to Adonijah, they're on the wrong side. So the righteous churches, the faithful churches of yesterday are not guaranteed to be the righteous and faithful churches of tomorrow. You know, I'm pretty disappointed in the independent fundamental Baptist movement because I would have expected the independent fundamental Baptist movement to be just burning up the streets with a ton of soul winning and just leading a mass soul winning movement across America right now, but and of course, there are some, you know, red hot soul winning churches among the old IFB, but in general, they tend to be scaling back on soul winning. And guess what, because of what I explained earlier, they're slowly dying in many cases where the churches are slowly getting smaller and smaller because they're not bringing in new blood, they're not reaching people. Also, I would expect the independent fundamental Baptist to be preaching hard on sin and standing up to the sodomites and things that are actually happening right now in our world, the battles that we're facing in America, but who's on the front line fighting against the sodomites in the United States of America in 2022? It's not the old IFB. I never see them in the news getting lambasted by the wicked of this world for preaching hard against the sodomites. They don't, it's crickets coming from them, but yet constantly we see in the news, not even just myself or Pastor Jimenez, but you know, Pastor Jimenez preached at the Red Hot Preaching Office, he was listing off all those news articles about all those other pastors, you know, whether it's Pastor Aaron Thompson, Pastor Joe Jones, Pastor Dave Berzins, Pastor Jonathan Shelley, Pastor Bruce Mejia, but I bet it's just a coincidence, I bet it's just a coincidence that all of these guys have sermons that are picked up by the media and they're attacked in the media and they just all happen to be part of a new movement, the new IFB. Isn't it interesting that they're not in the old IFB? And again, I'm not saying that there aren't exceptions. Hopefully you could probably dig out an article of some old IFB guy that's raising hell about the sodomites, but let me say this though, you know, the vast majority of the time it's not because the old IFB has gone soft, they've dropped the ball, they've gotten watered down, they've backed down on that issue, they've backed down on a lot of other issues, they're not preaching as hard as they once were, they're not doing as much sowing as they once were, it's really disappointing, but it's not surprising. It's not surprising because this happens in every institution, that you have a group that is serving God, let's say they're the sons of Zadok and they're on the right side, they're on the Lord's side, if you give them enough time though, they're gonna decay and die. You constantly have to have new leadership rising up and calling us back to the Lord and pushing a reset button and starting something new in every generation. I mean, you'd think that we would never need to start new churches again because there are so many hundreds of Baptist churches in Phoenix already, you'd think that the young guys could basically just come up and take over the existing churches and it would just go from generation to generation that way, but here's the thing, no, because by the time the young guys are growing up and they've been trained and they're not a novice and they're qualified to preach and pastor, by that time, the old churches have become so watered down and liberal, they can't handle the young preacher coming in and being the zealous young guy that's calling them to reevaluate some things and to restore the old paths and he wants to re-dig some old wells and he wants to push a reset button. He doesn't want to just wind the church down and help all these old people go to the grave peacefully. He's trying to actually do a work for God in 2022. The old church doesn't want him. So you have to start a new Baptist church and then you know what happens? The old church, it literally gets down to seven old people, six old people, three old people. When I first started Faith Forward Baptist Church, when we were still meeting in my house, this old man showed up to a service and he said, you know, he's part of this independent, fundamentalist Baptist church that's been slowly winding down for years and years and years. It's down to three senior citizens. He's one of the three senior citizens that are alive. And he said, we just sold the church building for $700,000 and that was more back then than it is now. Now that'd be like saying $1.5 million as far as in the real estate, maybe even more than that because things have changed so much with inflation and real estate values. So, you know, he's saying we got the $700,000 and so we're kind of just looking for a place to park this 700 grand. You know, and I guess he expected me to be like that, that meme of the black dude in the yellow suit behind the tree who's kind of like going like this. But I was just thinking like, I don't need 700 grand. I need 700 grand like I need another hole in my head. And so basically, you know, I just preached a hard sermon against the preacher of rapture. And the whole time I was preaching, the guy looked like someone had just died. Like the guy looked like he was gonna start crying. He was so disappointed. He was just, he just was horrified and he couldn't get out of there fast enough with his 700 grand. But it's like, here's this old guy doesn't wanna learn anything new because you know what? Anybody who was in that sermon, I proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt that the preacher of rapture was false. I had Bible verse upon Bible verse upon Bible verse, but he doesn't wanna learn anything new, you know? And I guarantee you, if he would have showed up on another week, it would have been similar because I would have been ripping on something else that would have been, oh, this is too extreme or whatever. You know, it would have been the reprobate doctrine and he's like, oh, whatever, who knows? But the point is, that guy's not alone. There are tons of churches like that where the giant building worth a million dollars, two million dollars, three million dollars with 15 old people just kind of winding it down and you know, they don't want a young guy to come in and preach anything unless it's gonna be exactly what they had 60 years ago. Well, sorry, but no young preacher wants to do that because that young preacher's got his own walk with God, he's got the Bible, he's got the Holy Spirit, he's not trying to replicate the errors of the past generation because every generation has errors. I have errors, we all have errors and after I'm gone, someone else will come along and they will hopefully take all the good and everything that I've done right and then they will actually maybe be a little better or correct some things or fix some, but they're not gonna be a carbon copy of Stephen Anderson in the year 2075, just a carbon copy, but there'll be some, there's gonna be some old person in 2075 saying, well, Stephen Anderson, well, now, you know, it's gonna be like, shut up. Because you know what, Stephen Anderson's not God. Okay, now look, there are gonna be, look, I do believe that this church is a soul-winning powerhouse and that the vast majority of what I preach is right on with the Bible, that's why I preach it, but it doesn't mean that it's perfect and it doesn't mean that the next person who comes after me isn't gonna take what I've taught and just water it down a little bit and then the next guy waters it down a little bit, yeah, you let a few hundred years go by and you're the Sadducees now. And it's gonna be like, Faithful Word Baptist Church, 300-year anniversary and it's gonna have like a rainbow pride flag outside or something, you know? 300-year anniversary of Faithful Word and it's gonna be the new, revised, modified legacy ESV being preached behind the pulpit. I mean, it wouldn't shock me, 300 years is a long time, my friend. And so I hope Faithful Word lasts all the way until Jesus comes, it's gonna be over my dead body that that type of wickedness, whatever he be allowed in, this kind of compromise and wrong Bible versions and going soft on sin and soft on the Sodomites and so forth, but after I'm gone, who knows what's gonna happen after I'm gone? As Solomon said, the one who comes after me, who knows whether he'll be wise or whether he'll be a fool, you know? And that's why at the end of the day, you have to be loyal to the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, not to a particular institution. Yet today, the sons of Zadok are God's men. But are they gonna be God's men when Jesus walks the earth a few hundred years later? No. Hey, in the past, Abimelech and his family were a great family to be following and you'd do well to look to them for spiritual counsel and advice, but is that who you look to in Ezekiel 48? Nope, it's only the sons of Zadok. And so what we need to understand is that there's a continual departing from the faith all the time, there's a continual attrition from Bible-believing churches, there's a continual turning away from the truth, watering down of the truth, there's a continual decay of man-made institutions unless they're constantly making the effort to keep it fresh. Think about even fast food restaurants. Some fast food restaurants, they successfully rebrand and they stay relevant and they keep rebranding, they keep updating their artwork and they keep coming up with new menu items and they stay relevant, don't they? Other fast food restaurants, they've got that same logo from the 70s, they've got the same menu from the 70s and it just gets worse and worse and worse and you look at the building, it just looks like, I don't wanna eat there. It doesn't look fresh and then the building's so not fresh, you wonder if the food's gonna be fresh because you have to constantly be reinventing and renewing and rebranding and so forth in our personal lives. We have to keep on reading our Bible. We can't just be like, all right, I read my Bible, I'm living my spiritual life and just let's put it on autopilot. No, we need to be constantly praying and reading our Bibles and seeking the Lord and growing and learning and here's the thing, just as I said, if the church isn't growing, you can't even maintain attendance. You can't even maintain several hundred people unless you're constantly adding people. How about this? If you're not learning, you're getting dumber because there's an attrition of facts. I mean, we're forgetting things every day. We're forgetting stuff about the Bible. We're forgetting stuff that we've learned. If you're not constantly learning, you're forgetting. If we're not constantly making the effort to be a red hot soul winning church, to be preaching hard on sin, then it's gonna slowly decay. It's gonna slowly fade. You know the Bible says by much idleness of the hands, the house droppeth through. Anybody who owns a home knows if you don't maintain the home, it goes to pot. You have to constantly fix things and repair things and renovate things and things need to be redone from time to time. You can't necessarily have that same bathroom from the 40s or 50s or 60s. It needs an update from time to time. Well, guess what? Churches need an update. Preaching needs an update. The preaching from the 80s and 90s isn't gonna cut it. We need the preaching of today, what the Holy Spirit is saying today, God's word applied to the situation today. We're in a different situation today. We need the preaching of today to address the issues of today. And so, let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. And I'll bring up the advice that my dad gave me as a kid, half in jest, but half seriously. He said, son, never go to the first Baptist church in a town because it's had time to become liberal. And of course, he was kinda joking. And yeah, I'm sure that there are some great churches that are called first Baptist church, but let's face it, by and large, the first Baptist church is gonna be one of the most liberal Baptist churches in the town. Why? Because it's had time to decay and become liberal. Some of the best restaurants that you'll ever eat at are brand new. They just came out this year, last year. Why? Because they're still excited. They still care. They still are idealistic about it. They're started by vision. You know, the kind of people who start a restaurant are a visionary. They take a chance. They step out and they're passionate about food and cooking, right? The type of guy who founds a Baptist church is a visionary, right? He wants to start something. He wants to found a church. The guy who takes over, hopefully he's a visionary as well that can successfully take the church to the next level. But often the guy who takes over is not a visionary. The guy who takes over that fast food chain that was once a great chain, the guy who takes over often just says, hey, maybe we can cut some corners and make more money. Maybe we can make the shareholders happier by using this low quality ingredient and cutting corners here. We can save money over here. And at restaurants that used to be good, they're not that good anymore. And then you got to find a new restaurant. You know, I know this is hard to believe, but I believe that someday Chipotle will be a crummy place to eat. Right now, the cloudy pillar is still there. You know what I mean? Right now, Chipotle still rules. And every once in a while, they have to kind of reinvent like the new queso. And you know, when the queso at Chipotle first came out, it wasn't that good. I was a little disappointed with it. But you know what? It's been improving. And now it's got little spices floating around in it. It's got red and green things floating around in it last time I was there. It was good. Okay, that's a new menu item and they spice up. And you know, I always found the most boring meat at Chipotle to be the chicken. You know, I go for the barbacoa or the carnitas, but I always found the chicken to be pretty boring. I don't know, does anybody else feel the same way that the chicken burrito is just a little bland, a little boring? But now they came out with a new chicken, the Pollo Asado. And you know what? It's actually way better than the old, tired, boring chicken. But you know what? Yeah, there's Zadok today, my friend. But who's to say that 10, 15, 20 years from now, they're not gonna be sold out and it's gonna be partially hydrogenated soybean oil and it's gonna be a bunch of substandard ingredients. It's gonna be a bunch of lame food. It's gonna go downhill. It's not gonna be the same as it once was. These restaurants tend to fall off. In fact, I'll be shocked if as an old man, Chipotle is still good. Maybe it will. Maybe it will defy expectations. But in general, things tend to decay unless effort is made to keep them on track. And so what I take from this passage in Ezekiel 44 and Ezekiel 48 that's saying, hey, hey, hey, it's not all the priests. It's just Zadok and his crew. Shows me that you know what? There's constantly the majority that ends up going astray and it's like, okay, now you gotta get on this side. And here's what's so funny is that when Christ came, the Sadducees are already on the wrong side. Now it's like, okay, you gotta be following Jesus. If you're not following Jesus, you're showing that you're an apostate. And that's why it's silly to think that the Jews are still God's chosen people if they don't believe in Jesus. That's like trying to say, well, come on, Abiothar's the son of Aaron, isn't he? Well, yeah. Well, God's never gonna break his promise to Aaron. God's never gonna turn away from the Levites and the sons of Aaron. Yeah, yeah, you're right. He's always gonna have that Levitical priesthood going. Oh, but guess what? It's just the sons of Zadok though. That's how he's keeping his promise to Aaron through the sons of Zadok. But these other sons of Aaron are no bueno, okay? Well, guess what? Now, how is God keeping his promises to Israel and his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? It's through the saved Israelites. Because when Jesus came, didn't a bunch of the Jews get saved? So they're God's chosen people. So that's how God keeps his promise through the righteous remnant, just like with Zadok. It's exact same scenario, but people just, they don't get it all of a sudden, when in reality, the cutoff with Christ should be the easiest one to get. If you're not in Christ, you are out. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord, and we thank you for our church, Lord, and thank you for 16 years, Lord, of soul winning and heart preaching and all the things that we've been able to accomplish, Lord. I pray that our church would be able to accomplish much, much more in the decades or even centuries from now, Lord, if you tarry your coming, that we would still be here as a church, not us physically, but our descendants, Lord. But we know that even if this church dies and all of our French churches eventually die, that 100 years from now, if you have not returned, we know that the gospel will still be going forth through some group of spirit-filled Christians, Lord. And so we're thankful for your spirit and power among us now, Lord. Help us to continue the work that you've given us to do, Lord, and at least for our lifetimes, Lord, to help us not to fall away and help us constantly to be reaching new people, Lord, so that we can maintain what we've got here or even grow larger. And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.