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And Jeremiah chapter number 48 against Moab. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, woe unto Nebo for it is spoiled. Kiriatham is confounded and taken. Miscab is confounded and dismayed. And again, this section of the book of Jeremiah is against various locations. Last week, we saw the preaching against the Philistines. In chapter 48, we have the preaching against Moab. In the next chapter, it's the preaching against Ammon. After that, it's the preaching against Babylon. And this is a biblical style sermon when a preacher preaches against a certain nation or a certain country or a certain group of people. But today, people get really irritated by this kind of preaching. If somebody gets up and preaches a sermon against, you know, France, for example, or Japan or Iceland or places like that, they kind of flip out and say, oh, you hate those people. But honestly, when you preach the word of God to people and warn them about coming doom and destruction, that actually shows that you love them because you're actually giving them a warning. And either way, if the Bible commands us to preach this type of preaching and he gives us all these examples of this type of preaching, this is the kind of preaching that we ought to be doing. Even just the concept of preaching against something or someone is often foreign to people because they're so used to going to church and only hearing positive type sermons. But this kind of preaching is necessary even in 2017. We need this preaching at all times in human history because where sin is always abounding, there needs to be a preacher that'll cry aloud and spare not and lift up his voice like a trumpet and show God's people their sins. It's said two, there shall be no more praise of Moab and Heshbon. They have devised evil against it. Come and let us cut it off from being a nation. Also, thou shalt be cut down, oh madman. The sword shall pursue thee. A voice of crying shall be heard from Horenaam. Spoiling and great destruction, Moab is destroyed. Her little ones have caused the cry to be heard. For in the going up of Luth, continual weeping shall go up. For in the going down of Horenaam, the enemies have heard a cry of destruction. Flee, save your lives and be like the heat in the wilderness. And this goes on and on. This chapter has 47 verses in it of just doom and destruction all being prophesied toward this country of Moab, a nation that no longer exists, but at this time was a nation that had some power and they thought very highly of themselves and they didn't see this coming. But Jeremiah is warning them of the wrath of the Lord that's gonna come upon them. Now, what is the reason that God gives for being so angry at Moab? Why are they going to be destroyed? Why is this punishment coming? Well, look at verse number seven, because the same thing is brought up over and over again in this chapter. First of all, in chapter seven, it says, for because thou has trusted in thy works and in thy treasures, thou shalt also be taken and Chemosh shall go forth into captivity with his priests and his princes together. So the first reason given is that they trusted in their works and in their treasures. Jumped out, if you would, to verse 26. It says, making him drunken, why? For he magnified himself against the Lord. So the reason given in verse seven is that they trusted in their works and they trusted in their treasures. In verse 26, it says that they magnified themselves against the Lord. In verse 29, it says, we have heard the pride of Moab. He is exceeding proud. His loftiness and his arrogance and his pride and the haughtiness of his heart. I know his wrath, saith the Lord, but it shall not be so. His lies shall not affect it. And then look at verse 42, we'll see something repeated here. And Moab shall be destroyed from being a people because he had magnified himself against the Lord. So what do these all have in common? Verse seven, he trusted in his works and his treasures. Verse number 26, he magnified himself against the Lord. Verse number 29, he was filled with pride, loftiness, arrogance, and haughtiness. And verse 42 again says he magnified himself. So pride is the common denominator here. Now, what does it mean to magnify something? It means to make it look bigger than it really is. So when you magnify yourself, you're thinking of yourself more highly than you ought to think. You see yourself larger than life. That's how you look at yourself. You magnify yourself against the Lord, actually thinking that you're greater than the Lord. So the same person who is arrogant, proud, lofty, haughty, magnifying themselves, right, is the same person who trusts in their works and their treasures. Now think about the fact that the reason why most people are not going to heaven today is because they're trusting in their works to get them to heaven. That's the biggest reason. Evolution is not the biggest reason why people are going to hell today. You see, in this entire world, there are only about 500 million people who claim to be an atheist, about 500 million. And that's a pretty generous estimate. It's probably less than that. But at the most, there's about 500 million people who feel that way. But there are 2.3 billion people who claim to believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. But yet we know that most of those people are not going to heaven, why? Because they're trusting in their works. Because out of those 2.3 billion people that claim to believe that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, we know that about a billion of them are Roman Catholics and their whole religion is a works-based system of getting to heaven through the sacraments, trusting in their own deeds, their own works, their own merits to earn their way to heaven. And of course, many of the other so-called Christian denominations teach the same thing. And when you're going out soul-winding and knocking doors, the answer that you keep running into over and over and over again is that people think they're going to heaven because they live a good life, or they go to church, or they've been baptized, or they've repented of all their sins, or whatever it is about their life or their deeds, they're trusting in their own works. Then you have 1.6 billion people who believe in Jesus, but not that he's the Son of God. They believe he's a prophet and they're called Muslims, right? So they say, well, we believe in Jesus, but he's not the Son of God. And they don't believe in his death, burial and resurrection but they claim to believe in Jesus as a prophet. But if you look at the religion of Islam, what is it that they're really trusting in? At the end of the day, they're trusting in their works. So if you combine those two groups of people, you have out of 7.4 billion people in the world, 3.9 billion of them, more than half of them, more than half of the people on this planet will tell you, I believe in Jesus. Now, 1.6 billion of them don't believe he's the Son of God, but they'll say, well, we believe in him. But at the end of the day, what are the vast majority of those people trusting in? They're trusting in their own works, they're trusting in their own deeds. And of course, you can talk to Hindus, they'll tell you, hey, I'm trying to be really good so that I can get good karma, get a better reincarnation and then eventually I can achieve salvation through lifetimes of reincarnation. Buddhists are going through the same process of doing good deeds and good works and trying to get good karma and everything else. So the bottom line is that this world today is going to hell because of pride. This world today is going to hell, not because of a science lesson. Most of the world today is going to hell because they've trusted in their own works for salvation. And their religion is a religion based on magnifying themselves and their deeds and that's their path to heaven. Instead of just trusting in the finished work of Jesus Christ, his death, burial and resurrection. And then even if we were to look at that segment that is damned by this falsely so-called science of the big bang and evolution, that's a prideful belief right there anyway. Denying the existence of God, being willfully ignorant of the creation, willfully ignorant of the things of God because they choose to magnify self as being the basically the smartest being in this universe is basically what they believe. If you think about it, because they think, hey, you know, we're the pinnacle of evolution right here. We weren't created, we're at the top. And so they magnify themselves as God in their own heart as well. And they've made a God out of their own understanding of science and so forth. So really, if you look at all these false religions of the world, pride is the key. Pride is the cornerstone of all of them. Whereas if you look at biblical Christianity, if you look at what it means to be saved, it's very humble because it's a meek attitude that says, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow. And we have no good thing in our flesh to glory up. Lord, nothing good have I whereby thy grace to claim. I'll wash my garments white in the blood of Calvary's lamb. Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe. That's humble, that's humility to say, I'm a sinner. I deserve to go to hell. But Jesus died on the cross for my sins. Jesus was buried and Jesus rose again. He gets all the glory for salvation. I don't receive any of the glory. So in this example, where we see all this doom and destruction toward Moab, we should stop and take note of the fact that the problem with Moab is his pride and his arrogance. And we see him trusting in his works and in his treasures. Now, I don't think that most people are trusting in their treasures to get them to heaven. People are trusting in their works to get them to heaven. That's extremely common. That's why there are so many verses that say, for by grace are you saved through faith and the not of yourselves, it's the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast or, but to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodliest faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also described the blessedness of the man unto God and puteth righteousness without works, saying, blessed are they whose sins are forgiven and whose sins are, or whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. But there are people who trust in their treasures, not to get them to heaven, because that'd be pretty weird to think, oh, I'm going to heaven because I have so much money. I've never gotten that answer also winning. I've got a lot of weird answers. Just in the last few weeks, I've heard people say, hey, I take really good care of dogs and that's why I'm going to heaven. I've heard that answer. Hey, I've rescued 12 cats. Therefore I'm on my way to heaven. I've heard that, you know, I'm a good person. I've done this. I've done, I've heard all types of boasting, but I've never had somebody say, well, let me show you my bank statement. And then you decide whether I'm going to heaven. Look at all this treasure. I mean, if nothing else, I could just bribe the guy at the door, you know, and get in. Nobody, I mean, you'd have to be a fool to think that. So I don't think that there are many people trusting in their treasure to get them to heaven. They might trust in donating a large portion of that treasure to some religion to get them into heaven. I mean, that's definitely pretty common, but when it comes to trusting in your treasure, this has a lot to do with just living your life on this earth. Instead of trusting in the Lord to meet your needs and to give us this day, our daily bread, instead of looking to the Lord as our source of all good things, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and coming down from the father of light with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Instead of looking to God as our provider, many people trust in their treasures instead. They trust in their own wealth. Now, what are the signs of someone who is trusting in their own treasures or trusting in their own wealth? First of all, when we see people laying up for themselves, treasures upon earth, and Jesus said, lay not up for yourselves, treasures upon earth where moth and rust is corrupt and where thieves break through and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor dust rust is corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And Jesus often told people to sell what they had when they had great possessions and sell what you have and give it to the poor and take up your cross and follow me. So Jesus warned many times, the Bible warns many times about laying up treasures upon this earth because then your heart will be on those things and you'll begin to trust in your treasures. And when people have a lot of treasures, they don't wanna let go of that. And so they wanna hang on to that. And so what happens is they don't wanna take any chances for the Lord that could risk their treasure. For example, I heard about a guy who, well, I didn't hear about the guy flat out told me, he was nervous. He went to a Bible believing church that was going through persecution. And he said, oh, you know, I was named in some lawsuit. You know, he's being sued by some, the church was being sued by sodomites. And he told me, oh, you know, I'm named on this lawsuit. So I might have to switch churches as a, you know, cause I don't wanna lose my house. It's like, what? No, you stand with the man of God, you stay with church, you stand and be counted and you put everything on the altar you don't just sit there. Oh, I might just have to switch churches and lay low and go down the street to some sissy church down the street that never gets persecuted. Cause I gotta guard all my wealth or I gotta guard my house. You know what? I'm ready to sacrifice my house. I'm ready to sacrifice my vehicle. I'm ready to sacrifice anything because I'm gonna lose everything eventually anyway. We brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out. And so there's nothing wrong with having a house to live in, a vehicle to drive, food to eat, but we don't wanna just lay up treasures and silver and gold and giant bank accounts because you'll develop a covetous attitude where you'll just want more and where you'll begin to trust in those things. I mean, think about it. If you're quitting a church because you're just so worried about your finances, well then that shows you're more concerned about hanging out at that treasure than about doing what's right in the side of the Lord. Because the Lord can destroy your finances whenever he wants to. This is what people need to understand. See, if a church comes under fire and the man of God is standing up against the forces of evil and God sees you run away with your tail between your legs like a coward, well then what could happen is God might look down from heaven and become displeased with you and cause you to lose everything. Because God could just snap his fingers and cause you to lose everything. You say, well you don't know my portfolio. Look at Job's portfolio. I guarantee you that nobody who's ever been inside of this building has ever had a portfolio like that. I mean, look what Job owned. He owned tens of thousands of beasts. And think about all the manpower. Think about the organization just to organize and feed and water and care for that many cows. I mean, he's running a huge business. He's got huge wealth, huge riches. He talks about him being one of the greatest of all the men in the East, referring to his financial status. You know, not just the fact that he was a righteous and an upright man, but that also he was great in the side of the world even because he had great wealth. But God was able to wipe it out in an instant. And he could do the same thing to anyone. He could bring some crazy medical bills into our life that would exceed all the deductibles and exceed all the insurance maximums. He could bring who knows what kind of financial crash or banking crash or stock market crash or real estate crash. You know, God can take you down whenever he wants to. And God can lift you up whenever he wants to. And the Bible says, humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he'll lift you up. But when you start getting filled with pride and what's a sign of being filled with pride? Trusting in your treasures. Why? Because you think, oh, I'm my own provider. God's not my provider. God doesn't feed and clothe and take care of me on a daily basis. It's me and my mind and my wisdom and my smarts. And so I got to make a decision here. God's work is gonna have to go on the back burner so that I can protect my investment. I mean, that's just ridiculous. Some frivolous, and here's the thing, some frivolous lawsuit from the sodomites, it'd be laughed out of any courtroom anyway this lawsuit, but it's just, people are just scared of their own shadow because they get all attached to their money and everything like that. Oh, my name's listed on the lawsuit. You know what? It's an honor to have your name listed on that lawsuit. That's what I told the guy, the guy who complained to me about it. I said, well, you know, that's a badge of honor to be listed on that lawsuit. You know, we ought to rejoice in persecution, rejoice in afflictions. Well, that's easy to say because you don't own anything. Exactly. That's why it's easy for me to say that. And you know what? Maybe you should own less and then it'd be a little easier for you to say that. And you know what? If you can own things and still say that, then great. But if you can't, maybe it's time to start thinning out your life a little bit and not having so much. If you have so much wealth that it hinders you from standing for the Lord, or it hinders you from getting involved in the work of God, or it hinders you from taking any kind of a risk, any kind of a leap of faith, any kind of a water-walking faith of getting out of the boat as Peter did and walking on the water with Jesus. You know, if it's holding you back from serving God, maybe it's time to just cut some of that stuff loose because you know, you can't take it with you anyway. And so we need to be careful that we don't begin to trust in our works and in our treasures. Now we should go out and work hard and earn money, to pay our bills and have money for ourselves and to help other people. But at the end of the day, we need to always remember every single day that it's God who gives us power to get wealth. It's God who gave us our brains and God can take away your mind. Look what he did to Nebuchadnezzar. You say, well, I'm so smart. I'll always find a way to fix it. Even if I lost everything, I can get it all back. Oh really? What about when God messes with your brain? Like he did in Nebuchadnezzar. And you know, we've all had days where we were kind of in a brain fog, right? Have you been there? Well, what if God just sent that fog daily? Think about it. I mean, times when you can't think straight, you're confounded in your mind. God many times said that he'll curse disobedient people with confounding them, sending confusion upon them, right? And so God is the one who holds our very breath in his hand. He gives us the power to get wealth. He gives us the power and the strength to work, to think, to succeed. He gets all glory for everything we do. Every day we should thank God for our food. When we eat our food, thank, and not just as a ritual. Yeah, Jesus, thank you, brother, Jesus, amen. Well, you know, actually we need to think in our heart. Thank you, Lord, for this meal. Thank you for providing it. Well, I provided that myself. You arrogant fool, God provided that for you. Don't be like Moab and say, oh, you magnify yourself. Like, no, no, no, God fed us, God clothed us, God took care. The house that we live in is provided by God, right? The job that you have, God gave you a job. Everything comes from him. Praise God from whom all blessings flow. So the Bible talks about that a lot in this chapter, the pride and arrogance of Moab, trusting in his works. That's a salvation application for sure. Trusting in his treasure. Thinking that because he had wealth and prosperity, nothing bad's ever gonna happen. Well, it did happen. Look at verse eight. And the spoiler shall come upon every city. The spoiler is the one who would rob. Basically one way of saying this in 2017 would be the looter, right? You know, we think of looters. That's what the spoilers are. So when there's chaos, when there's a battle going on, when people are being killed, the looters would come. The spoilers would come and just start stealing everything. They're the ones who just are walking out of the store with a bunch of VCRs or whatever, you know, during the riots back when VCRs existed. What was that big riot? The Rodney King riot was one of them. There were a bunch of riots, you know, and yes, they were VCRs back then. And you know, people are walking out with a TV and stuff. You remember that on the news? They would show all that stuff. So that's the spoilers, the looters. The spoiler shall come upon every city and no city shall escape and the valley also shall perish. And the plane shall be destroyed as the Lord had spoken. Give wings on the Moab that it may flee and get away for the cities thereof shall be desolate without any to dwell. And so he's saying the only hope for people is if they can just get out of there, if they can just escape. Verse 10, cursed be he that do with the work of the Lord, deceitfully and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. Moab had been at ease from his youth and he had set it on his legs. Now this is an interesting verse because notice how verse 10, it's kind of just stuck in there all by itself. It doesn't really fit the context. Like basically if you read verses seven, eight, nine, 11, 12, 13, it flows, right? But verse 10 kind of stands alone. It's kind of just a thought that's interjected in the middle here because it's not really talking about Moab in a sense. Now I understand that it is loosely referring to the judgment of Moab, but it kind of stands alone and it's kind of a profound thought. So I wanna stop and look at it here. Cursed be he that do with the work of the Lord deceitfully and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. Now, obviously if we were to take a primary application here of this verse, because this verse is stuck between verses nine and 11 that have to do with Moab being judged by an invading army, the person who's doing the work of the Lord in this case would be these people that God's using to destroy Moab, these troops that are being used. That's the literal sword that would be kept back from blood, right? And the person who basically puts on the uniform and goes to battle, but they don't actually do any fighting with it. They don't actually stab anybody with that sword. They just kind of go in the battle. Maybe they're just there for the spoils. Maybe they're just doing the looting, but they're doing the work of the Lord deceitfully keeping back their sword from blood. But I think a more profound understanding of this would be to look at it from a spiritual standpoint, not just a physical battle. I mean, stuff like this isn't in the Bible just about a physical battle thousands of years ago. Let's face it, Moab doesn't exist. We don't know any Moabites. These people are long gone. They got what was coming to them 2,500 years ago. So we could take a spiritual application of this because in the New Testament, we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but we do wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places. And we have a sword, which is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. So this is the weapon. This is the sword of the Spirit, the word of God. And we're not fighting a physical battle, but we're fighting a spiritual battle. And in that sense, we are doing the work of the Lord, right? So how would we apply this verse in the New Testament 2017? How would we apply this verse to our lives? Because I think this is a profound verse that we should apply to our lives. And it's a verse that I've thought of many times in my life. Many times I've just taken this verse just out of context, just all by itself, and just gotten a profound spiritual truth from this verse as a standalone thought. Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord deceitfully, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. So what does it mean to do the work of the Lord deceitfully? Well, if we think about the immediate context here, it's talking about going to the battle, taking the spoils of the battle, putting on the uniform, getting paid, but not doing the fighting, keeping back your sword from blood. So to me, I would say that the guy who does the work of the Lord deceitfully and keeps back his sword from blood, if we were to take a spiritual standpoint, would be the guy who basically gets up and masquerades as a preacher of God's word. He takes the sword in his hand. He goes to the battle. He looks the part, he's dressed the part, but he keeps back his sword from blood. What does that mean? He doesn't want to do any fighting. And you say, well, is there anybody like that? Yeah, like 99% of pastors? It's this attitude that says, let's get along with everybody. And today, because we were so far gone with this philosophy in the US, it's to the point now where when you get up and say, ah, these preachers want to get along with everybody, a lot of people just think you're crazy. Like, well, of course we should try to get along with everybody. What? We don't get along with everybody? No, no, no, we wrestle. We wrestle, not against flesh and blood, but we wrestle against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness in our place. We need to wrestle, we need to fight. Timothy was told, fight the good fight. Fight the good fight. The Bible says, thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, no man that warreth entangleth himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who have chosen him to be a soldier. Listen to that martial language there in the book of 2 Timothy, in the book of 1 Timothy, where Paul's telling Timothy over and over again to fight. And he said, you have been called to be a soldier. Why does he call a preacher a soldier? Why does he call a pastor a soldier? Why does he say, war a good warfare? This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, with the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by them mightest war a good warfare. Timothy, war a good warfare. Timothy, fight the good fight. Timothy, be a good soldier of Jesus Christ, endure hardness. Why did he say all that stuff if we're supposed to get along with everybody? Can somebody explain that to me? You say, well, no, it's just a battle within. I don't have demons inside of me. I mean, I don't have principalities and powers and rules of darkness in this world in my heart. Greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. I don't have any demons in me. You don't have any demons in you if you're a saved Christian. What we have inside us is the Holy Spirit. And yes, there is a battle between the Holy Spirit and between the new man on one side and then the old man trying to quench the spirit and battling against our new renewed spirit. Yes, there's a battle inside, but that's not the battle that Timothy is being warned about and that's not the battle that Ephesians is talking about. The battle that Ephesians and Corinthians and the books of Timothy is talking about is an external battle. It's casting down imaginations and every thought that lifted itself up against God. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, they're spiritual. And we wrestle against principalities and powers. We wrestle against the rulers of the darkness of this world. And so we are to preach against sin. We're to preach against Moab. We're to preach against the rulers of the darkness of this world. And we're to do battle with them, not to just try to get along with everybody. See, I'm not gonna get along with the false teachers and false prophets of our town. If I get along with them, that's wicked. The Bible says, don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. We can have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness. We should rather approve them. And we can't have fellowship light with darkness, Christ with Belial, the temple of God with us. I mean, look, there's a synagogue in Tempe called Temple Emmanuel, right? And it's over on McClintock Road on the other side of Tempe, the Jewish synagogue that rejects the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't believe in Jesus. They reject him. And the rabbi over there is a sodomite. He was down here. He came and, he came to our church on a Sunday morning and stood out there and stood in front of a news camera and said, oh, I'm the rabbi from down at Temple Emmanuel. And he said, I felt like I had to be here as a queer man. He didn't use that word. He used some other word. But he said, as a faggot, I felt like I needed to be here on this day. He stood out there and talked, now look, I'm supposed to have some interfaith breakfast with that guy? Get along with that guy? I can't get along. I don't have anything that I can fellowship with that guy about. And that goes for the United Methodist. And that goes for the Catholic priest. And that goes for all the phony preachers and name it, claim it, prosperity, health and wealth, TV evangelists. We're not called to just get along with everybody and be nice to everybody. We're called to fight, to fight the spiritual battle. Why? Because there are people that are not saved and they're being deceived and lied to and we need to shine the light of the glorious gospel. And that is not done by preaching positive only. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Oh, just preach Christ. Well, here's a good example of that. We have a video that we uploaded to YouTube where Paul Wittenberger, he filmed me giving the gospel to a classroom of students at ASU, right? And it's on YouTube as the Bible way to heaven. And it's been viewed on there, praise the Lord, you know, hundreds of thousands of times. And you know, it's at the end of after the tribulation. And a lot of people have seen that. A lot of people have said that they got saved watching that video. Thank God for that, right? Praise the Lord. But you know, I took that video, I took that video and got it translated into just all manner of languages, over like a hundred languages, okay. And I even, not only did I just get it subtitled, but actually I got it actually dubbed into 12 or 13 of the most major languages of India. You know, cause India has a lot of languages, 22 main languages in fact. But I took like the 12 or 13 most popular languages over there, you know, and I got it dubbed into Hindi and Bengali and Punjabi and Tamil and Telugu and all, you know, all these different languages. And you put it out there, you put it out there and you try to promote it, given out, we gave out, you know, thousands of DVDs with it on there. And you know what? It didn't seem to accomplish hardly anything. It just didn't, it's like, it just didn't seem like it broke through. Just didn't seem like it did much. But then you put out a video ripping on their false religion, the truth about Hinduism, and you get 65,000 viewers in six days on YouTube. And now, and you get contacted by tons of Indians and tons of Hindus. And I preached a hard sermon called the truth about Hinduism. And it's like, you go where I'm ripping on Hinduism and saying it's demonic. And I've had lots of people contact me and say, I got saved as a result of that sermon, that hard preaching. But I didn't have anybody contact me and say that they got saved as a result of that, of that positive message. That loving kind gospel presentation in 13 languages. Hey, you know, here we're coming to you and your language trying to help you out. So the point is, yeah, you're going to reach some people with the positive preaching, but you know, the negative preaching, it wakes people up because the fear of the Lord's the beginning of pretty much everything. Fear of the Lord's the beginning of knowledge, fear of the Lord's the beginning of wisdom, fear of the Lord's the beginning of understanding. You know, why is it that the negative video ripping on Hinduism seemed to bring more people to Christ and seem to get more people to listen to the gospel and actually hear that message? Well, because you know, you've got to preach hard. You know, if I'd never heard about hell, I don't, I'm not sure how interested I would have been in getting saved as a young boy. You know, it's the fear of the Lord that causes men to depart from evil. It's the fear of the Lord that's the beginning of our walk with God. That's where everything begins when we understand God's holiness, God's wrath and so forth. But there are a lot of preachers who want to do the work of the Lord deceitfully. They're there for the spoil. They're there to get paid. But when it comes to a fight, they shy away from a fight. They shy away from the fight. You know, for example, just on Sunday, I preached a sermon against that blasphemous, wicked book, The Shack. And I did the sermon on Sunday morning. I did the sermon on Sunday night. And I ripped on, you know, that wickedness. And then, you know, somebody contacted me and said, you know, your preaching's a joke. I'm gonna go back to listening to Ravi Zacharias. So I was like, okay, let's see what is it that Ravi Zacharias said about The Shack. So I just went on YouTube and just typed in, Ravi Zacharias, The Shack. And this is what he, he gets up and says like, I mean, it was like, I mean, maybe the guy should run for political office, because he's so good at talking out of both sides of his mouth. Maybe, I mean, he probably has a good career ahead of him in politics. But he gets up there and says, you know, when it comes to The Shack, you know, it's not my kind of book. You know, it's just not for me. But you know, but the author's a great guy. And I've heard that a lot of people have come to Christ through this book, and I think that's great. But it's just not really my style. You know, it wasn't really written for people like me. I don't really care for it. But it's helping a lot of people. But here's what's kind of, sort of, a little bit doctrinally wrong with God being a fat black woman, you know? And then Ravi Zacharias can also go to the Mormon church, and he'll go and preach to a congregation of thousands of Mormons and get all this applause and just, oh, it's so wonderful. Oh, we like, you know, if I went and preached to the Mormons, I wouldn't get that round of applause. And it's not because I don't love them. It's not because I wouldn't be speaking the truth in love, but it's because I'd be speaking the truth. And it's because I'd take the sword out of its sheath. I wouldn't go there and refuse to fight. I wouldn't go there and want to get along with the Mormons and then just try to have it both ways on the shack. Well, because then people can hear what they want. So then the people who love the shack, they can say, well, Ravi just said it's not for him. But he said that a lot of people are being helped and coming to Christ, so if I like it, that's fine. But then the people who hate it is like, yeah, he really pointed out the bad stuff about the book. But he did it in such a kind and gracious way. You know, I like his attitude. I like his spirit. But this is a deceitful work of the Lord. Instead of just getting up and saying, it's blasphemy, it's idolatry, it's wicked, it's wrong. They do it deceitfully. There are so many religious leaders who try to talk out of both sides of their mouth because they just want to get along with everybody because they just want to get paid. And people don't see through it. It's mind-blowing because to me, I can just see right through it what they're trying to do, having it both ways. They don't want to fight. They don't want any conflict. They don't want any persecution. They want to make everybody happy, everybody like them. They don't want a war of good warfare. They want a peace of good peace in, you know what I mean? That's all, it's like, no, we need to do both. We need to, yes, preach positive sermons. Yes, preach the gospel. Yes, preach the love of Christ. But when there's a battle that needs to be fought, we shouldn't be shy to take out the sword and start chopping some heads off with this thing. You know, and start cutting through the false doctrine and cutting through the lies and not be the trumpet that gives an uncertain sound. And then nobody prepares themselves for the battle because they don't even know what the instructions are. They don't even know who the enemy is. They're not even being told. And so don't ever be one of these deceitful workers that wants to be the positive only Christian. It's so hypocritical and beware of these guys who are the political preachers. And by that, I mean that they're like a politician where they want to please everybody just to get the votes, just to get paid. So that's a pretty powerful verse. Cursed be he that do with the work of the Lord deceitfully and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood. I don't know about you, I don't want to be cursed. I don't want to be cursed of the Lord. I don't want God to look down and say, why are you keeping your sword back from blood, Pastor Anderson? What's going on? You're going to take that thing out of its sheath? Are you actually going to take that thing to the hottest part of the battle and start fighting? Or are you just going to be resting? And as it says in verse 11, Moab had been at ease from his youth and he settled on his lees. And it's not been emptied from vessel to vessel. Neither has he gone into captivity. Therefore, his taste remained in him and his scent has not changed. Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I'll send unto him wanderers that shall cause him to wander and shall empty his vessels and break their bottles. And Moab shall be ashamed of Chemosh as the house of Israel was ashamed of Bethel, their competence. How say ye? We're mighty and strong men for the war. Moab is spoiled and gone up out of her cities and his chosen young men are gone down to the slaughter, saith the king whose name is the Lord of hosts. The calamity of Moab is near to come and his affliction hasteth fast. All ye that are about him bemoan him and all ye that know his name say, how is the strong staff broken and the beautiful rod? Thou daughter that dost inhabit Dibon, come down from my glory and sit and thirst for the spoiler of Moab shall come upon thee and he shall destroy thy strongholds. Oh, inhabitant of a rower, stand by the way in a spy. Ask him that fleeth and her that escapeth and say, what is done? Moab's confounded for it is broken down. Howl and cry, tell ye it in Arnon that Moab is spoiled. And judgments come upon the plain country, upon Holon. And then he lists a whole bunch of cities there. The horn of Moab, verse 25, is cut off and his arm is broken, saith the Lord, making him drunken, for he magnified himself against the Lord. Moab also shall wallow in his vomit and he shall also be in derision. But this isn't the kind of preaching that you often hear, is it? See, the man of God, the deceitful worker who keeps back his sword from blood, he'll never use the word vomit in his sermon. He won't talk about some drunk wallowing in his own vomit. But this kind of hard preaching is what Jesus did, what the apostles did, what the old time prophets did. And it's the kind of preaching that works, hard preaching. And it's always correct, whether in season or out of season, whether popular or unpopular, it's the right preaching. You magnify yourself against the Lord, you become lifted up with pride, God will take you down a notch. You magnify yourself against the Lord, you're heading for destruction. Pride goeth before destruction and in haughty spirit before the fall. So we don't want to get too prideful and arrogant in our lives. Number one, if you're not saved, that's the worst kind of pride, where you actually think you're good enough to go to heaven instead of relying on Jesus. Number two, we don't want pride in our lives where we think that our treasures are our safety net, our safety cushion. We need to look at the Lord as our safety net and rely on Him. But then thirdly, we don't want to become filled with pride and think that we are smarter or wiser than the Lord, where we think that we have a better style of preaching than what He shows us in the Bible. He shows us a certain style of preaching. He shows us a certain style of ministry. He shows us examples of men of God and says, take my brother and the prophets who have spoken in the name of the Lord as an example of suffering affliction and of patience. Follow Job. Follow Isaiah. Follow Jeremiah. Follow Ezekiel. Follow Peter, James, and John. Follow these examples I've given you in the Bible. Follow this model. After this manner, therefore, pray ye. Preach like this. Pray like this. Live like this. Be like this. But then people get lifted up in pride and say, well, I have a better idea. I'm going to get along with everybody. And I can accomplish more for God when I hang out with the Jewish rabbi and the Catholic priest and when I kind of am OK with the shack, or I'm kind of OK with Hinduism a little bit. What did Joel Osteen say about the Hindus? Well, they love God. I don't know. I mean, they love God so much. Yeah, I know he's got four arms and is carrying a severed head, but I mean, they love God so much. That attitude that says, well, I'm only going to preach positive, or certain parts of the Bible, it's too rough. That's a prideful attitude that says, I know more than God. I'm going to reinvent the wheel instead of falling in the footsteps of men of God that came before in the word of God. So pride today is the reason why God was angry with Moab and pride is still the reason for the doom of this world. It's the biggest problem in the whole world. It's the biggest issue. It's bigger than anything else you could bring, any false religion or evolution itself or anything. Pride is the biggest problem when people aren't willing to just submit themselves to the teachings and the methods and the knowledge of this book right here, The Word of God, the Bible. And so we need to not trust in our works, and we need to not trust in our treasure, and we need to not lean on our own understanding when it comes to how to do the work of the Lord. We need to be ready to bathe our sword in blood when necessary. Now, obviously, we should try to get along. We should try to be nice to people. But there are times when the fight is going to come to us, and we need to be ready to fight and not be deceitful. Because the key word that you say, well, how do I know? How do I know when to fight? The key is that the guy who keeps his sword from blood is the guy who's doing the work of the Lord deceitfully. So here's basically the moral of the story. If you always just tell the truth and be honest and just preach honestly and do the work of the Lord honestly and just be open with what you believe, then you're not doing the work of the Lord deceitfully. You're not a deceiver. You're open. You're honest. What's the opposite of deception? Honesty, truthfulness, being open, making it manifest. And if you're making it manifest, being open and honest and truthful, guess what? Your sword's going to end up making contact with some enemies. Because how can you preach the whole Bible? How can you preach the whole word of God? And how can you follow the example of Elijah calling out the prophets of Baal and the Baal worship, following the example of the Apostle Paul, calling out Hymenaeus, Alexander, Philetus, Hermogenes, and the false teachers of his day, and follow the example of John and his calling out of false apostles and false teachers, and follow the example of Jesus preaching hard against the Pharisees and hard against the Sadducees. How can you openly, honestly, and truthfully do that work without your sword ever piercing any of the foes? Your sword will pierce the foe if you do that. You will get in a fight. You will have enemies. All the will of God being Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. The fight will come to you. So we don't need to go looking for a fight or causing a fight. But we do need to preach hard on sin. If preaching hard against the Hindus brings a fight, bring it on. And in fact, it'll just cause Hindus to hear the gospel. If preaching hard against the Sodomites brings on a fight, and it brings in protesters, and it brings in a lawsuit, bring it on. Somebody said to me, somebody sent me a message and said, hey, you know, I noticed you took down the video Burn That Way After All from YouTube. Is it because the guy threatened to sue you? And I said, well, first of all, I didn't take it. I was removed from YouTube because YouTube removed it and said it was deceptive and misleading. Because anything against homos is deceptive and misleading, apparently, whatever that means. So it wasn't even taken down for hate speech, which is usually what they like to label it with. This time it was taken down for deceptive and misleading content, both my Jeremiah 39 sermon and the little documentary film Burn That Way After All. That's why you got to get those DVDs, right? This stuff's disappearing off the internet. But I wrote back and I said, I said, I would love for that guy to sue me. Like, that would be the best news I heard all day. If I got a lawsuit in the mail from that guy, trying to sue me to take away my coat, I'll say, here, have my cloak also. I mean, look, somebody tried to sue us about New World Order Bible versions. Boy, did we have fun with them. Bring it on. We got nothing to lose, folks. This world's not our home. We're just passing through. I love lawsuits. I mean, bring them on. Come on, come on, sue us. Who cares? Oh, you, OK, you lose, you all, OK, I don't have any money. That's what I'm going to say when I'm sued. I'm just waiting for that day. It's going to feel good to say that. I'm serious, friend. We glory in persecution. We rejoice. We rejoice in being kind of worthy to suffer shame, for Christ's sake. Everybody's afraid of a lawsuit. Who cares? Come on. I mean, remember that chapter? Remember that chapter? You read Fox's Book of Martyrs. Remember that chapter about all the lawsuits? You remember that? Where all the martyrs were crying about all the law? Oh, yeah, that's right. That's not in Fox's Book of Martyrs. Fox's Book of Martyrs is actually about people getting beaten and killed, right? And thrown in prison. There's no chapter on lawsuit. Oh, this guy got sued and lost his manor home, his summer home. He lost his RV. I don't remember reading about that in Hebrews 11. They were stoned. They were sawn asunder. They wandered and bounded, sheepskins and goatskins being destitute, afflicted, tormented. They lost their RV. They lost the boat. They lost the winter home. Is that what it said? Christians are so soft today. And they want a Christianity that costs them nothing. They want a religion that costs them nothing, when the basis of Christianity is sacrifice, right? But they don't want to make a sacrifice. The Old Testament has a lot of sacrifices. And in the New Testament, the Bible tells us that we should offer to God sacrifices of thanksgiving, sacrifices of obedience. Spiritual. He said, we all love that verse about how we're the chosen people. We're the royal priesthood, right? We're the chosen generation to offer up spiritual sacrifices. OK, well, if you're excited about being the chosen people, get excited about making some sacrifices. And what's a sacrifice? When you give up something. But people today, it's like they just want to have it all, right? They want to have all the treasure, all the comfort, easy life, easy living, smooth life, smooth church. Everything's cool. And, and, and I'm right with God. And I'm earning rewards in heaven. And I'm Christian servant number one. No, you're not. You're doing the work of the Lord deceitfully. When was the last time you were in a fight? You've kept back your sword from blood. It's prideful to think that you're better than Jesus. You're better than the apostles. You're better than the prophets. And that you can just cruise through life with zero sacrifice and still be a great Christian. Wrong. You can't have it all, friend. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you for this great chapter, Lord, condemning Moab and warning of the destruction of Moab. Lord, help us to take the lessons from the bad example of Moab not to be filled with pride, not to get lifted up and arrogant, not to magnify ourselves, Lord. But help us to magnify you and magnify your word. And help us not to be deceitful workers that want to be at ease and living in comfort and never willing to make a sacrifice, Lord. Help us to lean on your word and not lean on our own understanding and our own pride. And in Jesus' name, we pray.