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Now in 1 Kings chapter 12 we see a story of Rehoboam losing the kingdom and Jeroboam becomes king of the ten tribes. Rehoboam is only left with Judah and part of the tribe of Benjamin. And I want to talk about Jeroboam tonight, but let's go back to chapter 11 before I get into that. I want to show you the first time we see Jeroboam mentioned and where we're first introduced to Jeroboam in verse 26 of 1 Kings 11. The Bible reads, And this was because that he lifted up his hand against the king. And Jeroboam went out of Jerusalem. Then the prophet Ahijah the Shiloh and I found him in the way and he had clad himself with a new garment and they too were alone in the field. And Ahijah caught the new garment that was on him and rented in twelve pieces. And he said to Jeroboam, Take thee ten pieces, for thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will win the kingdom out of the hand of Solomon and will give ten tribes to thee, but he shall have one tribe for my servant's sake and for Jerusalem's sake, the city which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, because that they have forsaken me, and have worshipped Asherah the goddess of the Zidonians, Chemosh the god of the Moabites, and Milcom the god of the Chima-bamim, and have not walked in my ways to do that which is right in mine eyes, and to keep my statutes and my judgments as did David his father. Howbeit I will not take the whole kingdom out of his hand, but I will make him prince all the days of his life for David my servant's sake, whom I chose because he kept my commandments and my statutes. But I will take the kingdom out of his son's hand, and will give it unto thee even ten tribes, and unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light hallway before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there. And I will take thee, and thou shalt reign according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be king over Israel, and it shall be if thou wilt hearken unto me all that I command thee, and will walk in my ways, and do that is right in my sight, to keep my statutes and my commandments as David my servant did, that I will be with thee, and build thee as sure house as I build for David, and will give Israel unto thee. Now if we see this here, we see why Rehoboam lost the kingdom. It was because Solomon had turned away from God's commandments. Solomon was no longer walking in the ways of David his father. He started out as a great king. He was godly, righteous, filled with wisdom and knowledge and understanding. But when he became older, because he had multiplied so many wives unto himself, 700 wives and 300 concubines, those women began to turn away his heart, and they actually got him to worship other gods, and to build temples unto other gods, and to basically allow the people in the kingdom to start worshipping all these false gods. And he listed there that they're worshipping Asheroth and Chemosh and Milcom and all these false gods. Well God took away the kingdom from Rehoboam, and he's prophesied that he's going to give it unto Jeroboam, which is not of the house of David. He's an Ephrathite, and he's coming from the house of Joseph. But notice that he wants to give it to Jeroboam, because he's saying he wants Jeroboam to lead the children of Israel back to the right path, and to serve God again and worship God and to follow his commandments. And he's saying, the reason that I took the kingdom away from Rehoboam is because his father has brought in all this false religion, and that's going to continue with Rehoboam, and so I'm going to give Israel to you. And he says, if you walk in my ways, if you keep my commandments, these ten tribes will be yours, you will rule over all Israel as your heart desires, and I'm just going to leave that one tribe of Judah with the house of David, just because I promised that to David and for the sake of Jerusalem. So that's where this starts here with the prophecy unto Jeroboam that he's going to take over the kingdom. Now, we already read it in 1 Kings 12, I'm not going to read it again, so I'm just going to go ahead and just quickly give you an overview of what happened in chapter 12. Rehoboam comes to be basically anointed king, he's the son of Solomon, he's obviously the one who's going to become king, so all Israel goes to anointed king. Well, Jeroboam, who's been hiding out in Egypt from being persecuted by Solomon after this prophecy had been made, Solomon heard about that prophecy and he sought to kill Jeroboam, sort of like Saul tried to kill David when David was anointed king. So Jeroboam comes with the nation of Israel and he stirs everyone up to basically ask Rehoboam to make some changes to the kingdom and to lighten up the load that Solomon had put upon them. Of course, Solomon had been taxing them heavily and Solomon was also causing them to have to do a lot of projects where they would have to give up a few months out of the year where they go and do a bunch of work and cut down trees for him and so forth, kind of some of the things that would prophesy that would happen in 1 Samuel 8. And so Jeroboam stirs up the people to say to them, well, we want you to lighten up the burden a little bit of King Solomon's kingdom, we want you to make our load a little bit less heavy. So he says, well, I'll get back to you in 3 days. And he consults with the old men, the old men tell him, you know, you need to just kind of do what these people want right now, serve them, speak good words of them, be a servant to them, and then in the long run they'll serve you. But then the young men that were around him gave him the advice to just really just tighten things up even more and to be even harsher and more strict. And Jeroboam takes that advice, it backfires the whole nation of Israel except for the one tribe turns away from him and they make Jeroboam their king. Now, here's what I want to focus on tonight, what Jeroboam did once he became king. Now, keep in mind, Jeroboam's got a promise from God that as long as he does what's right and does not worship other gods, as long as he keeps God's commandments, that he will have a house like unto the house of David, his son and his son's son will inherit that kingdom, God will bless him, God will give him a prosperous kingdom, he'll be able to reign over the whole nation. But look what it says in 1 Kings 12 verse 26, And Jeroboam said in his heart, this is when he became king, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. If this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. Now, that makes a lot of sense. The tomb of Israel three times in the year had to go to Jerusalem at these appointed feast days. They had to go there to worship the Lord in Jerusalem. Now, keep in mind, now there's been a rift in the kingdom. There's now the northern kingdom of the ten tribes that follow Jeroboam, and then there's Judah and the heart of Benjamin that follows Rehoboam in the south. Well, the problem is that the place where they're commanded to worship the Lord three times a year is in that southern kingdom. So all the males in the northern kingdom are going to three times a year have to go down into Judah, into the southern kingdom, in order to worship the Lord. And Rehoboam is saying, wait a minute. If they go there three times a year, they're going to start to want to go back to that kingdom. You know, they're going to see the temple and the palace, and they're going to remember the way things used to be, and they're going to go back to following Rehoboam king of Judah. And they'll patch things up while they're down there. They might talk to people, and they're going to see old friends from the tribe of Judah, and there's going to be a reuniting that takes place, and he says, and they're going to kill me. Now, here's the truth. If the kingdom would have reverted back to Rehoboam king of Judah, yeah, they probably would have killed Jeroboam, because if you look historically in the nation of Israel in the past, and also beyond this in the future, the way things played out, whenever there was somebody who was almost made king, a competitor for becoming king, well, guess what? If he didn't become king, he's going to end up dying. He's going to end up being killed. I mean, it's pretty much, if you start trying to be king, if you don't make it, you're going to be dead, because whoever's the king doesn't want that competition around. And so, in the past, whenever, for example, remember, Adonijah tried to be king instead of Solomon. Well, Solomon ended up putting him to death. You know, he doesn't want that competition. And so, Jeroboam's not process here makes a lot of sense. It makes perfect sense. Obviously, if we're going to be at enmity with another nation, we can't have all of our people going there three times a year and hanging around. Then, there's going to be a reuniting that takes place, and that's not going to work. And also, his thinking made sense that, hey, I'm going to get killed if I don't play my cards right. But what doesn't make sense about it is that God had promised him that he's not going to die. God had promised him that he's got this kingdom in the bag and that they will follow him and that his kingdom will continue to him and to his children after him if he would just believe God. And this is why the Bible says, Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. And all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy path. A lot of times, we'll have things all worked out in our mind and say, well, if I do this, I'm going to get fired from my job. Or if I do this, my wife's going to leave me and forsake me. Or if I do this, I'm going to be a failure financially, or I'm going to be a failure otherwise. Well, if I do this, if I preach this sermon, everybody's going to leave my church, and I'm going to be preaching to nobody. There'll be nobody in the church. If I really preach on a certain subject what needs to be preached, then I'm going to lose some of my faithful church members here and my friends here that come to church. That is all man's logic. That's all man's logic that says, well, if I do this, then this is going to happen. Well, no. The Bible says that God's going to bless us when we do what's right. God says that we're going to be better off by obeying his commandments and by stepping out in faith. And so instead of leaning on our own understanding and looking at human situations, we should understand that God can do anything. God can step in. And even if they would have gone down there three times a year, if God wanted Jeroboam to be king of those ten tribes, he would have remained king over those ten tribes no matter what happened. If he would have just followed God. Now you think he would have had faith in what God told him. Who's the one who told him he was going to be king in the first place? God. Ahijah the prophet. The same one who told him that if he did right, he would remain king. You see, before Ahijah the prophet came along, he had no aspirations that we can see in the Bible of being king. He was just a mighty man of valor. He was just a very industrious young man. He was just serving the king. It was only when a prophet came to him and told him, you're going to be king. God has chosen you to be king over the ten tribes. That's what even put that idea into his mind as far as we see in scripture. And that's the same person who told him how he was going to remain king. By serving God, by obeying the Bible, by doing what's right. And so we need to have faith in the promises of God and stand on those instead of having faith on what we see as the situation around us and doing what we think is right in our own eyes. We should follow what God has said. So that was the first mistake he made. He had no faith in God's word. He knew that if he did what was right, he could have the kingdom according to God's word. But instead, he leaned upon his own understanding. So look at verse 28. That was in verse 27. He kind of explains his thought process. It says he said in his heart, this is what's going to happen. Look at verse 28. It says, Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy God, so Israel was brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. So number one, he did not have faith in God. But number two, he took counsel over God's word. Now a lot of people will talk about, you know, you need to get the right counsel. You need to get some godly counsel, brother. You know, that's something that you hear a lot about getting counsel. And a lot of pastors will have counseling where people will line up after church and get counseling, get advice. And you know, there's nothing wrong necessarily with getting advice from someone or asking someone a question. But a lot of times this becomes a crutch for people where people lean on that counsel instead of leaning on God's word. And many times they'll go to a pastor or another quote-unquote counselor looking for the answer to their problems when really the answer to their problems is found in God's word. And God's name, according to Isaiah 9-6, is counselor. It says his name should be called Wonderful Counselor, the mighty God, the Prince of Peace, the everlasting Father. And so God ought to be our main counselor. But you can go to a pastor and sometimes you can get your pastor to sign off on stuff that you want to do that isn't right. How many husbands who have wanted to divorce their wives or how many wives who wanted to divorce their husband went to a pastor and had their pastor put his blessing on that divorce? But let me tell you something. God does not bless divorce. God does not recommend divorce and counsel us to get a divorce. And how many pastors across America, how many millions of... And I can tell you name after name of people I've known personally and pastors of churches that I've been in that were constantly, constantly giving people bad advice. But that bad advice could have been easily proven bad by the Scriptures, by knowing the Bible. So instead of going to get counsel, why don't you get in the Bible and read it and study it and know it and then you can have the Holy Spirit be your counselor and have God be your counselor. Now look, is there a time to maybe ask someone else an opinion? Sure, but go to God first. And that opinion better line up with the Bible and that counselor better show you in the Bible instead of just giving you their wisdom of being in the ministry for, I've been in the ministry for this many years. And the pastor that I'm thinking of said, I've been in the ministry for X amount of years and he said, I've never counseled anybody to get a divorce. Yet I watched about 10 couples get divorced in his church in the time that I observed. And people are constantly getting divorced, constantly getting divorced. He never counseled anybody, but he would counsel him to separate. He counseled him to get a legal separation or to leave their husband and to separate. Because oh, he's bringing sin into the home because he smokes pot or because he drinks or because he looked at a dirty magazine. You've got to get out of that situation. It's not what the Bible says. Now that makes sense to me. Just like Jeroboam's thought process made a lot of sense. Yeah, it makes sense. You've got to get your kids out of a bad situation. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, let not the wife depart from her husband. The Bible says that till death is when we should part as husband and wife. And there are pastors all over, and you say, well, I don't like this preacher right now. You won't have any trouble finding a church that won't preach this. You'll have a very easy time going and finding a church that will preach to you that as soon as your husband throws a raw hot dog at you, it's time for you to get a divorce. That's abuse. And I use that example because I knew there was a situation, a guy that I knew in Colorado, where this guy threw, no, no, no, she threw a raw hot dog at him. I mean, it wasn't even him throwing it at her. I mean, she threw a raw hot dog at him, and the police were called. Listen to me. She spent the night in jail and had to take anger management because she threw a raw hot dog, and get this, the raw hot dog didn't even hit him. You know, but she was throwing stuff, you know, and your husband hits you with a pillow, you know, and it's abuse. You know, but this is the world we live in today. And let me explain something to you. If you're looking for an excuse to get a divorce, it's not hard to find one, is it? I mean, if you, let me see, didn't you ever hit me, well, there was that time with the raw hot dog. You know, well, there was that time with the pillow, you know, there was that time when he kind of bumped me with his shoulder and said, get out of the way. You know, it's just like, this is what people are going to do. They're going to find excuses, and they're going to go to some counselor and say, well, you know, my husband's smoking pot, you know, and oh, oh, you know, we, you know, that's illegal. That's the law. Look, I'm against smoking pot, okay? And if I throw a hot dog, I'm going to cook it for him. I'm saying, look, I'm against smoking pot. I've never smoked pot in my life, okay? I'm against drinking beer. I've never even drunk a beer in my life. But let me tell you something. I don't care if your husband drinks beer and smokes pot and throws hot dogs. You're married to him, and you made that vow. And the Bible says that we ought to keep that vow unto God. And he says, do not depart from your husband. Do not depart from your wife. The Lord God of Israel hateth putting away. He hated divorce, the Bible says in Malachi chapter number 3. And so, but it's really easy to find counselors that will give you all kinds of excuses. I talked to somebody who was a Roman Catholic, and you know, the Roman Catholic Church does not allow divorce and remarriage, unless, there's a real big unless, like unless alcohol abuse is involved. Have you ever known a Catholic that didn't drink wine? Cause every Catholic I've ever known did a lot of drinking. OK. Saying, oh, if alcohol's involved, or abuse, you know, or whatever. And a lot of times, you know, just while we're on the subject of marriage, I've heard pastors say this. You know, well, well, he's already left you emotionally. You know, so you have the right to get a divorce. Or, you know, or they'll say something like, well, you know, I know he hasn't committed adultery, but he committed adultery in his heart because of that magazine. Look, that's ridiculous. That's garbage. There's probably not a man in the world who's never thought a bad thought in his whole married life. And that would just give everyone an excuse to be like, this is the nonsense, and by the way, adultery's not even grounds for divorce. Read the Bible. Fornication, that's a totally different term, and I'm not going to go into it. Read Deuteronomy 22 and 24. Instead of showing that stuff proved unto God, Deuteronomy 22 and 24 will explain to you what divorce really is supposed to be according to the Bible. And there's no grounds. I mean, there's no grounds for me to ever divorce my wife. Did you hear me? None. And there's no grounds for my wife to ever divorce me. None. That's what marriage is supposed to be biblically. But try getting that from a counselor. Even in a Baptist church, you're not going to get that. I mean, in this church, you will. But in most churches, you're not. But let alone going to a worldly counselor, going to the Council of the Ungodly, going to Dr. Phil and going to Oprah Winfrey and going on one of those TV shows, they're not going to give you that kind of advice. Your friends at work that aren't saved aren't going to give you that advice. And you go, oh, what do I do? Well, you know, oh, let me call my buddy and see what I can do. Get in the Bible and see what you're supposed to do. You know, and get God's word. And here, Jeroboam's mistake was that he was always just wanting to go get counsel instead of just doing what he already knew he was supposed to do, what the Bible said. And counsel goes against the Bible often. You go with the Bible. You don't go... And a lot of people think this. I've heard this. Well, I'm just going to do what the pastor told me to do, and God will hold him responsible. No. God's going to hold you responsible at the end of the day. And I mean, you know, I think God probably will hold a pastor responsible who gives unscriptural advice, who gives bad advice, and who tells women to leave their husband and tells husbands to leave their wives. Yeah, God's going to judge that pastor, and God's going to chase him and chastise him for giving bad advice. But you know what? You're still going to be held accountable, too. God's going to chastise, you know, husbands who give bad leadership to their wife, or parents who are a bad example to their children, and he's going to judge pastors who mislead their flock, but he's really going to hold the individual accountable at the end of the day. Every man shall bear his own burden. And so don't hide behind counsel and say, well, I was just doing what the pastor told me to do. I just did what, you know, what the counselor said. No, do what the Bible said. And you know, you will be able to hide behind that, my friend. If your life falls apart and you become a failure and everything goes wrong and you say, God, I just did what the Bible said, you know, God will accept that. But he's not going to accept, I did what Pastor Anderson said, and my life is a failure. You know, he'd say, well, you know, didn't Pastor Anderson give you a Bible to tell you to read it? You know, go with that. And so watch out for counsel. Counsel can be good if it's biblical, but I would be aware of counsel and just read your Bible and let God be your number one counselor. So that was the first mistake in verse 28. It says, Whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and said unto them, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. Now, this is the devil's lie here. Look what he says. It's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. Basically what he's saying is this is too hard. God is asking too much of you here. This is too difficult for you to make that trip three times a year and travel all the way down there. Let's make it a little bit easier for you. The devil's lie is that, you know, serving God needs to be easy. Doing the right thing should be the easy way. And if you're doing something that's hard, well, you know, you're on the wrong path. Well, that's not true. God asks us to do things that are hard many times. God often has us do something that's difficult. Now, here's what I think is funny. People talk about what we preach of salvation because we preach that salvation is just by believing on Jesus Christ, not a work-sustaining man should boast. And people will criticize that and they'll call it easy believism. Now, we believe in easy salvation, don't we? But we believe that living the Christian life is hard, and we want to work hard for God, and we want to study hard in the Bible, and we want to live a life, we want to endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. But here's what I've noticed. The people who believe in easy salvation, they believe that the Christian life is hard, and they want to work hard, and they want to endure hardness. And then I've noticed a lot of the people who try to make the salvation so hard, they're the ones that are for the easy Christian living. It's kind of backwards. You know, they make salvation so hard. You have to jump through all these hoops and get baptized, repent of your sins, live a good life. But then when it comes to what are God's laws and what are God's rules and what does God require of us, they set the bar really low, and they make it really easy. No, living for God is hard. And you know, these people were asked to make a trip every year, and they didn't have cars, they didn't have trains, they didn't have airplanes. I mean, they had to make a trip and go down there and it was work to get down there and it took time and it took money and it took effort and it took energy to go to the house of God three times a year. And they had to do that trip. And Jeroboam says it's too hard. No. If God told you to do it, you just endure the hardness and do it. Now look, God asks us to do things that are hard and sometimes people think it's hard even to make the trip to church. You know, and maybe you do live a ways off. Now some of the people in this chapter lived close. I mean, if you look at the way the tribes were laid out, some of them lived pretty close to Jerusalem. This wasn't a big trip for them. The tribe of Judah, it's right there. The tribe of Benjamin, it's right there. Some of the other further tribes, you know, they had to make the trip from Dan, you know, or whatever. And they had to travel all the way down and it's the same way with church today. Some people live close to our church. Other people live further away. And a lot of people who live further away might start to get an attitude of, well, this is just way too hard to get here. You know, it's just too long of a trip. But you know what, I say it's worth the effort to get here. That's what I mean. I think it was worth the effort then and I think it's worth the effort now to serve God. Now, you say, well, do we have to come to faith? Well, no. You know, if there's a great church where you're growing and thriving and soul winning and being challenged that's closer to your house, then by all means, go there. But you know what, I don't think you're going to find it in this area. I think that this is the church. I mean, hey, if I thought there was a better church in this area, I'd go there next week. I'm serious. I mean, if I thought there was a better church, I'd close the doors and join up with it. Let's do it. You know, I'm telling you, I believe that this is the church that's doing the most soul winning and accomplishing the most in this area right now. Hey, maybe you disagree with me. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm dead wrong. But the question is, is Faithful Word Baptist Church the place where you're growing the most spiritually and doing the most for God? Now, if the answer to that is no, then go to the place that's going to feed you the most and work you the most and challenge you the most. But I'm telling you, it's worth maybe driving a few more miles and a few more minutes to go to the place where the Spirit of God is present there. And I thank God. And hey, I'm not saying that our church is the only church. I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you, go to the best church. And it doesn't matter how long it takes to get there. Just get there. Especially if you have children. Get them in the church where they're going to hear the right preaching. And I'll tell you right now, I thank God that when I was a child, when I was growing up, sometimes my parents, they drove that 30 minute drive, that 40 minute drive to get us to church because they wanted to get us to the best possible church. Their goal and their desire was to bring their family to the best possible church they could find. It wasn't always convenient. It wasn't always easy. But they made that effort because they knew that being in the house of God was so important that they would spend the money in gas. They would spend it. And I understand it's a sacrifice, but God demands sacrifice of his people. He always has and he always will. And so get here. Get to church. And you know, the gas prices go up and then many times people are less faithful to church. But yet there are other areas that we could cut and we could get there. And I understand times when I'm not saying it's easy. I know it's hard. I'm not trying to downplay. But God wants us to do the hard thing and he always has and he always will. And so I thank God that my parents would take us to church. And I mean sometimes we'd go to church that was a ways off and sometimes we would just go to church on Sunday morning and we'd just stay in that part of town the whole afternoon because we didn't want to make that trip twice. And we would hang around in that side of town. You know, because that was their priority was to get us in the right church. And I thank God that I heard a lot of the right preaching and learned a lot of good things because they were keeping us in the right churches to the best of their ability. And so the devil will try to tell you it's too hard. That church you go to is way too strict. Now, there's nothing strict about our church. We don't have rules. We don't impose anything. We don't go to anybody and say, you know, have you fulfilled your soul-wielding quota? You know, wait a minute. Are you following the rules here? We don't have rules. We just preach the Bible. But it's God that asks a lot of us sometimes. And, you know, our church does try to motivate people from the pulpit. You know, not personally confronting people or something weird like that. But just biblically, God asks more of us. And so we want to challenge you to do more. I want to challenge myself to do more. But see, people will sometimes try to tell you just like the cherubims of your life will come to you and try to tell you like, well, you know, three times a week, you're nuts. You know, at our church, we go Sunday morning. And it's like two minutes away, and there's a free continental breakfast. You know, the service lasts 45 minutes. It's mainly music. You know, you get a 10-minute sermon. And the 10-minute sermon is actually relevant to your life. You know what I mean? Like, it actually, you can actually connect with it today. You know, you're not learning about regal poem and cherub poem and, you know, the son of Nebat. You know, what does that have to do with the struggles that you're struggling with right now if it's not relevant? No, look, we need to bring, you know, or they'll tell you this, the King James version is too hard to read. It's too much for the Israel to read the King James. You know, here's your golden calf version to read. This will be a little easier for you to understand. You know, it's like those little golden books, you know, the beginner book. You know, who knows what I'm talking about? Those little books have little gold. You know, golden, you know, the golden, instead of golden calf, it's like the golden book Bible version. It's mainly pictures. You know, it just really breaks you down. It makes it a little easier. If the King James is too hard to read, then why don't you learn the English language and learn how to read it? Why are you too lazy to, you're too busy texting these meaningless little utterances of, you know, just too work, what up, LOL, you know. R-O-T, whatever. What is it? R-O-F-L-L-O-L. You know, it's like, okay, I'm not saying I'm against that, but I'm telling you this. We're not doing the text version. You know, the texting version of the Bible. You know, break it down, all these stuff. And so young people today, they talk in such a dumbed down language that basically they're confronted with the Bible. It's too hard. No, you're just too dumb. Honestly. I'm not kidding. You can't understand the Bible because you're too dumb. And instead of saying, I want a Bible that's dumber for me, why don't you stop being dumb and learn something? Why don't you study and learn and read and quit being a dummy and get intelligent enough to understand the Bible? And I know the school system made you dumb, but you can't blame them. God commands us, God commands us to learn and read and study to show ourselves and prove them to God. And isn't it funny that it's the liberals who always accuse us of being ignorant? But then they need some dumb person Bible. And then it's us ignorant people who can understand the one with the big words in it. You know, the one that's not a scratch and sniff version, the one that actually is white paper and black ink and no pictures. You know, we cannot, you know, us dumb fundamentalists can understand it just fine, but these intelligent theologians, you know, need basically the dummy version. You know, the Bible for dummies. I'm surprised they haven't come out with it. They probably have. You go to the Christian bookstore, probably be a big yellow book that says the Bible for dummies. And I'm thinking about mailing it to every pastor in this area that doesn't preach the King James Version. You know, I bought a book for you. I love you. Here you go. And so, we ought not to have this attitude. It's too hard to read the Bible. It's too hard for me to get myself to church. So, but it's too hard. It's too hard, you know, these rules, and then, you know, God's got too many rules. No, the Bible says this is the love of God that we keep as commandments, but his commandments are not grievous. His commandments are grievous. He said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall have rest unto your souls. Ye shall have rest unto your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. God doesn't put anything on us that's too hard. He'll not tempt us above that we're able. Okay, he will not put anything on us that we can't handle, but he will challenge us. He does want us to work hard. He doesn't want us to be lazy. He doesn't want us to go soft. He wants us to do the hard thing, and doing the hard thing sometimes involves going a little further to church. It might involve preaching the Gospel even when you're not comfortable doing that. You know, let me put it this way. This Saturday, what's the easy thing this Saturday? To not come and preach the sermon, right? At the preaching class. What's the hard thing? You know, writing that sermon and coming down. And if you're not interested in doing that, that's fine. But what I'm saying is, sometimes you've got to step out of your comfort zone of what's easy and do something that you're not used to, that you find hard, because it's just something that you need to do. You know, and sometimes giving the Gospel to someone that you love isn't easy, but you need to do it. Sometimes it's hard to get to church, but you've got to get there. Sometimes it's hard to read the Bible, but you've got to do it. Sometimes it's hard to do, you know, what your job asks you to do, and you just have to do it anyway, because it's your job, and you've got to get that paycheck. And so we've got to do the hard thing. And so this is the devil's lie. Oh, it's too hard for you. Let me give you another different religion that's a little bit easier. It reminds me of my uncle who said that he wanted to convert to being a seven-day Adventist so that he could ride dirt bikes on Sunday. You know, because the amateur dirt bike races were on Saturday, and the professional races were on Sunday, and he wanted to give the pros. He said, I need to just become a seven-day Adventist, and then I can go to church on Saturday, and then I can be a professional motocross racer on Sunday. You know, that's the mentality here of just, you know, well, this is too hard. I'm going to do what fits me, what fits my schedule. I'm going to go to... I like being off on Sunday, so I'm just going to convert to being a seven-day Adventist or whatever. And so let's look at verse 28 here. He says, it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem. It's too far to that church. You know, let's go to this liberal church that's right down the street. Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he's looking at two golden calves. Now let me ask you this. Did Jeroboam invent these two golden calves? Is this a new thing that he came up with? No, because do you remember where these golden calves came from in the first place? It was when Moses was up in the mount getting the Ten Commandments, and he left Aaron in charge, and the people came to Aaron, and they told Aaron, you need to make us gods, because we don't know what happened to Moses. We need a new god. Okay, so he said, okay, you know, and he basically gets all their earrings and all their jewelry. He melts them down, and he forms them into these two golden calves, and he says to them, these be thy gods, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt. So look, this is a phrase. Aaron, look, you can give people to believe anything, can't you? Hey, look, a cow. This is God. I mean, there are people in India today that think cows are God. I mean, there are people in India who will not eat cows, because they think that that's the sacred, you know, you've heard the expression, the sacred cow. That's real. I mean, they really think it's a sacred cow. I mean, have you ever been around cows? I just can't see myself, where's your favorite thing? I mean, it's just, you look into their eyes, and there's just nothing there. You know, it's rude. There's nothing there. But you know what? I don't even think that these people really believe, I don't think those people really believe that those cows are God. I think they just like the part about getting naked and getting drunk and partying and dancing, because that's what they did. You remember that? In Exodus chapter 33? It wasn't that they just really believed that that cow defeated the Egyptians and sent all the flags. It was that this cow is telling me to strip my clothes off and get drunk and party and dance and all these different things. And so that's what they liked. Hey, you know, if this cow is going to tell me to do what I want to do and fulfill my lust, then I might as well just go with it. And so, you know, Jeroboam is basically just pulling out the same thing and just saying the same thing and the same catch. And what I want to point out with that is that there's nothing new under the sun. False religion is always just a retread and a repackaging of the same heresies that have always been around, the same false doctrine. It's just a rehash of it. It's just a repeat of the same thing. David invented this, and today's false religion, even when they're coming out with new doctrines and new religions, it's really nothing new. It's really all the same stuff over and over again. I mean, how many different ways can you repackage work salvation? You know, start at the Tower of Babel, you know, where they're going to build their way to heaven. And all throughout the Old Testament, we see work salvation. We see it in the New Testament with the Pharisees and the Sadducees and so forth. And it's always repackaged in a different way. You know, there's Catholicism, but then there's all these children of Catholicism that basically believe a lot of the same doctrines. It's just repackaged for a new generation. And you know, they all believe somehow that you can lose your salvation, you know, if you don't follow their religion. It's a work-based salvation. And really, almost all false religion, you can pretty much boil it down to that. They believe you can lose your salvation one way or the other. Or they believe in some kind of a work salvation. You know, whether it's the Nazarenes who tell you, well, you can't lose your salvation, but you can walk out of your salvation. You know, it's like, what? So it's just a different wording of the same thing. But you can't lose it. You can just walk out on it. And when you stop going to church and start going back and backsliding and going back in his tent, well, that means you walked out of it, you know. Or some people have said this. Well, you can't lose your salvation, but you can give it back to God. What kind of a person would say, oh, God, I changed my mind. I want to go to hell. Can you take this back? Like, he'll never take it away from you. But if you want to willingly return it to him, who would just say, well, no, I changed my mind. Hell sounds better. No. But what it is is that's just opening the door. When they say, well, he won't take it from you, but you can give it back, it's almost like, well, you're showing by your actions that you're giving it back because you quit church. So it's all just a different repackaging of the same thing, lose your salvation. And then they call, they have the doctrine of Calvinism and Arminianism. And Arminianism says, well, you can lose your salvation and you got to work your way to heaven. And then Calvinism, and look, I'll tell you right now, Calvinists believe that you can lose your salvation. They lie and say they don't. They say, we believe in eternal security. But as soon as you quit church, you never really were saved in the first place. Now when you're back in church doing what's right and following God, you're one of the elect, you're one of the chosen ones. You've been saved since the foundation of the world and you'll always be saved. And God chose you and you're eternally secure, but then next week when you get drunk and quit church, you were never saved in the first place. Because until you persevere to the end, you're not really, it's not really known. There's only two independent fundamental Baptist churches in Tempe and the other one left Tempe. So we are the only independent fundamental Baptist church in Tempe. But the other independent fundamental Baptist church in Tempe, I'm not going to name any names, but it was the only other independent fundamental Baptist church in Tempe except ours. And it starts with a T and ends in Rye City on their statement of faith. On their statement of faith. On their statement of faith. It said right on it. It said that the only ones who are truly saved is those who endure to the end. That's what it said on their statement of faith. Only those who endure to the end are truly saved. Well, hold on a second. That means that you can never really know for sure that you're going to heaven until you've endured to the end. Because they look at people literally, and I've seen it my whole, I've seen this doctrine creep in even among independent fundamental Baptists where somebody will believe on Jesus Christ. They're clearly saved. They clearly understand the Bible. They're clearly living for God. They're clearly winning souls to Christ. They're faithful to church for 20 years. And then they'll quit church and get backslidden, and those people will literally say, that person was never saved in the beginning. And you look at it and you say, of course they were saved. I mean, this guy was a believer. He was faithful to church. He loved God. He just fell into sin. I mean, it can happen to the best of us. That's why we need to take heed lest we fall. Because if we start to slip and keep slipping and keep slipping, that's where all of us are eventually going to end up unless we just nibble in the bud now and stay right on track and don't turn to the right hand or the left. But they'll look at somebody who's been clearly saved for 20 or 30 years and say, oh, that person never really was saved. It's just their way of that person losing their salvation. They just package it up a little different. Well, you're saying you're going to heaven. Oh, not anymore. But you never were in the first place. The last 20 years has all been a lot. Even though during that time we all would have said you were saved and known you were saved. So it's really just a repackaging of the same thing. Now, you say, well, what is eternal security? Well, let me give you the true definition of eternal security. Are you ready for this? It's not Arminian and it's not Calvinist. It's Baptist. It's biblical. Here's the true definition of eternal security. You get saved. You start living for God and doing what's right. You backslide and you quit church and you go back into sin and you die and go to heaven. That's eternal security to believe. And if you don't believe that in that scenario right there, you don't believe in eternal security to believe it. Because eternal security to believe it says that even if you backslide and go into sin, you will not lose your salvation. You will still be in heaven. The Calvinist doesn't believe that. He believes that, you know, you never were saved in the first place. And the Arminian doesn't believe it because he believes you lost it. Now, look, obviously we ought to all endure to the end and stay with it. But the reality is not everyone will. But it doesn't make them unsaved. It doesn't mean that they were not saved in the first place. Because being saved is a matter of believing on Jesus Christ. Enduring to the end is a matter of taking up the cross daily and denying self and following him. Those are two very different things. One's easy, one's hard. And so the devil always just repackages the old lies. You know, he used to have people worshipping statues of golden calves. But he had them worshipping also Athena. You know, these Roman and Greek gods and goddesses, right? What's the difference between Athena statue and a Mother Mary statue? It's the same statue. It's just labeled different. I mean, you'll see a mother holding a baby in her arms. It might be Athena. It might be Mary. And the devil just basically retreaded and repackaged paganism of worshipping of statues and, you know, lighting candles and bowing down to a statue and baking cakes under the queen of heaven. As it says in Jeremiah, hundreds and hundreds of years before there ever was a Mary on this earth, they were baking cakes to the queen of heaven centuries before Christ in the book of Jeremiah. Well, the devil's still using that. I mean, I've seen a church called Queen of Heaven Catholic Church. And they're still gathering little cakes, their little unleavened wafer that they do to the queen of heaven. There is nothing new under the sun, and the devil's false religions are just a retread and a repackaging of old religion. He just took that old golden calf religion and just whips it out again, and he's still using it today with the Hindus in India. You know, he's got them worshipping cows. But he says in verse number 29, he set the one in Bethel and the other putting in Dan. So he says, why did he make two golden calves? Well, he puts one in one city and one in another, because remember, his whole selling point on this is, hey, it's closer to your house. You know, that's the big thing that he's using. So it's like, I better have two of them, because otherwise they might look at the distance and say, well, it's not really that much closer. What's going on here? So he puts one all the way up at the top of Dan. He puts the other in Bethel. And this thing became a sin, for the people went to worship before the one, even at the Dan. And he made a house of high places and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not the sons of Levi. Another thing I want to point out in verse 31 is this. The priests and prophets and preachers of false religion are the lowest possible people. Now look, it says here, he made the priests for his new false religion. He's not going to find righteous, godly people and tell them, hey, guys, we're making up a new religion. You know what I mean? We're making up a false religion. We're going to worship a couple of cows. Are you in or what? Do you want to be a priest or what? Any righteous or godly or successful person is going to say, no, thanks. I'll pass. But the lowest of the people, they have no scruples. They don't care what's right. They just are in it for the money. They're just in it for, oh, the economy's tough anyway. And I was having trouble getting a job anyway. You mean I could be a preacher? You know, and get a paycheck? And I didn't have to work that many hours? I don't have to actually read the Bible and study it. I can just get sermons out of a book or download them off the internet. It's not like I really have to spend the time studying the Bible and soul winning. I don't need to do that because most religions and denominations don't have the kind of soul winning. So this is going to be a great job. People are going to look up to me. They're going to call me father and reverend and rabbi. They're going to look up to me and think I'm cool. They're going to come to me for advice. I can just control their lives like pawns on a chess board. I can tell them what to do and where to go and who to be. I can have a nice office and have a plaque with my name on it, put some letters behind my name. Sure. And it attracts scum. Now look, being a pastor or being a man of God is a great calling. The Bible says this is a true sin. If a man desired the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work. But what about being a false pastor? I mean, what should motivate me as a pastor? What should motivate you if you want to become a pastor someday? Wanting to preach the truth. You know, wanting to serve God and to love God. Okay, what would motivate someone to preach a religion that is false, that is a lie? Only the love of money, the lust for people lifting them up and worshiping them and power and money and fame and prestige. That's what could motivate them. And you know, that's what a low life is motivated by, the lowest of the people. And God can reiterate this in I Kings 13-33. That was in chapter 12. God emphasized this again in verse 33 of the next chapter. After this thing, Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people. So he needs a second batch of priests. He says, all right, let's find the lowest people we can find. The lowest of the people, priests of the high places. Whosoever would, basically just anybody who's willing to do the job. Anybody who wants to do it. Whosoever would. He consecrated him and he became one of the priests of the high places. And you know, this is really the system today whereby people become pastors. Because literally today, in order to be a pastor, you only have to do one thing. Can I tell you how to become a pastor? Yeah. All right. Now I'm just kidding. This is how you become a pastor. You say, anybody? Anybody. Go to Bible college for four years, take their little dumbed down education. Bible college is so dumbed down. It's not even funny. It is so dumbed down. I went to Bible college. I mean, it was so easy. I'm talking about the classes now. I mean, they give you a test and it's like, who built the ark? I mean, it wasn't that dumb, but it was pretty dumb. It wasn't very hard to pass the test, I'll tell you right now. I mean, the biggest thing for me was just, you know, I had a big charm. I made this elaborate charm of how many absences were allowed in each class. I just made sure that I was always missing the maximum number of classes without losing credit for the class. I mean, that was the hardest part for me, was just keeping that track of that charm. But honestly, you go into class and it's dumbed down. It's not that hard. I mean, literally, you don't have to be that smart to get a Bible college degree. I don't think you really have to be that smart to get any four-year degree. But that's just me. Because it seems like no child left behind. You know what I mean? They're going to walk you through it, okay? And you can disagree with me. I've been to Bible college and I went to a Bible college that was considered hard. And it wasn't that hard. I mean, it was hard. Some of the other stuff they made you do was hard. But the education was not hard. I mean, the education was pretty dumbed down, pretty simple. And you can even pick an easier Bible college than that. And all you've got to do is go to that college, get a four-year degree, and you're qualified, man. And there are all kinds of churches all over America that don't have a pastor, and they're ready to hire you if you have that degree in your hand from a Bible college. So it's not that hard to become a pastor. It's pretty much whosoever will can do it. But does that mean that God wants you to be a pastor? Does that mean that you fit God's qualifications? And God's qualifications don't mention a college degree. And I'm proud of it. I'm proud to proclaim, I don't have a Bible college degree. And I'm not trying to hide that today. I love Brother Roger Jimenez, my good friend in California who started a church. I love how it says on our pastor page on his church website, Pastor Jimenez does not, and it's like black and bold, and he does not have a college degree. You know, which basically means that he actually still preaches the truth and hasn't been watered down and ruined by Bible college. And so, you know, it's not even one of the qualifications, but to most churches it's the only qualification. Get through that degree. Or, you know, hey, if you really want to get the kush job, you know, hit Fuller Seminary, you know, and put in a couple years over there or another Bible seminary. Then you can get the master's degree, like Masters of the Universe, and you can be the next level of, or even the doctor. Cracks me up when pastors call themselves doctor. You know what I mean? I feel like, you know, he's going to take my pulse or pull out a stethoscope or something. Doctor? Really? You know, why do you have to give yourself these lofty titles? Rabbi, Father, Reverend, Doctor. How about this title? Brother. Amen. How's that? I like that. Brother. How about Brother? Or Pastor? Not some fancy title. But anyway, look at 2 Peter chapter 2. Because the Bible says that the lowest of the people is who became priests of this false religion. That Jeroboam invented. He said he made the lowest pretty much just anybody who wanted to. Just whosoever would. He'll consecrate him to be a priest. Whoever's willing to, you know, pay the money and sit in the boarding classes and, you know, put on the dress and the stove top hat at the end of it and get the piece of paper, pretty much you're in. You are a priest of the high places. But in 2 Peter chapter 2, God explains to us what false prophets really are. Because a lot of times we look at false teachers and false prophets. And what do I mean by false prophets? I'm talking about pastors who preach heresy, pastors who preach false doctrine. I'm talking about Catholic priests. I'm talking about, you know, pastors who preach a false salvation. And, you know, there are some... I'll say this. There are some who do it ignorantly out of unbelief. Like the Apostle Paul was one like that. He was a practitioner of a false religion. He was not maliciously trying to do wrong. He was just misguided and he said, I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly and unbelief. There are people like that. But the Bible teaches us that most false teachers are basically purposely perverting the truth. They're purposely perverting what's right. Look what it says in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 1. But there were false prophets also among the people. Even as there shall be false teachers among you who privily shall bring in damnable heresies. Now, privily means secretly evil or without people knowing it, but they know what they're doing. Even denying the Lord that bought them and bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with fated words make merchandise of you whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not and their damnation slumbereth not. So God is very angry at these people. He's going to punish them. Let's just jump down for the sake of time. Let's jump down to verse number 12. This is what God has to say about these false teachers and false prophets who are basically knowingly, not in ignorance, but they're knowingly preaching what's false. The guys in Jeroboam's day, they knew it was false. He says in verse 12, He says, natural brood beasts. Brute means stupid or foolish, beasts or animals. He says, made to be taken and destroyed speak evil of the things that they understand not and shall utterly perish in their own corruption and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness as they that count it pleasure to riot in the daytime. Spots they are in blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. So they're deceiving people. They know what they're doing. Have an eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, beguiling or tricking, He's saying, unstable souls, unharmed, they have exercised with covetous practices, cursed children. Do these people sound like the lowest of the people or what? These people sound like the most wicked people imaginable. I mean, their eyes are full of adultery. They can't cease from sin. They're covetous. They're deceivers. They're liars. They're perverting the true gospel of Christ. He says, which have forsaken the right way, verse 15, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. So why are they in it? For the wages. They're in it for the paycheck. That's why they're doing this. Can you imagine preaching a lie that will actually damn people to hell for all eternity so that you can make more money? Can you imagine what type of person would say, well, I'm going to preach these lies and basically just let people be damned when they hear this false doctrine because I want to profit from it. I want to make more money from it. That's a pretty wicked person. That's a pretty ungodly person. And by the way, it's a pretty sorry preacher who won't preach on hell. I'm talking about a saved preacher. These guys are unsaved. Let me just step away from this for a second and say this. It's a pretty sorry preacher who is saved, who doesn't believe the Bible, who won't preach on hell because he doesn't want to offend people. And he's really responsible for not warning people about hell. And a lot of people are going to go to hell because they didn't get a warning. Or he won't go soul winning. People go to hell. He won't tell others to go soul winning. They're going to go to hell now. He won't preach on hell. People will go to hell. He won't make the gospel clear. He won't take a stand on issues of salvation and of doctrine because he's trying to be popular. Why? Because he wants more money or more fame or more popularity. How could you sacrifice people's souls for your own financial gain? How do you do it? How do you say, well, I want to be more successful in love and I want more money so I'm willing to trim the message and if a few extra people go to hell, well, so be it. How do you do that? I mean, that's pretty bad, isn't it? But these people are unsaved. These people don't even believe the Bible. These people are just wicked deceivers who are not saved and they are just out to deceive for financial profit. It says in verse 16, But was rebuked for his iniquity, the dumbass speaking with man's voice, for bad the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest, to whom the mist of darkness is reserved forever. For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lust of the flesh, through much wantonness those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. Now look, didn't they use an allure through the lust of the flesh in Exodus with the golden calves? That's how they got people signed on to the religion, with a big party, with drinking, with news and so forth. And that's the same thing with Jeroboam. While they promised them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption, for of whom a man is overcome of the same as he brought in bondage. We talked about this false teaching, I think last week or the week before, where they talk about Christian liberty, free in Christ, we're not under the law, meaning that God's laws don't matter. Do what you want. As long as you don't think it's wrong, it's not wrong. And they promised them liberty, Christian liberty, but they themselves are the servants of corruption, because know ye not that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey, whether of sin unto death or of obedience unto righteousness. You're either going to be a servant of God or a servant of sin. They promised them liberty, but they're really bringing them into bondage of sin when they tell them, you know, no rules. That fundamental Baptist church is too hard for you, O Israel, too hard with the King James, too hard telling you not to fornicate. It's too hard the way they tell you never to drink. It's too hard that they preach against every single TV show. It's too hard the way they preach against every movie. It's too hard the way they tell you not to smoke pot. It's too hard the way that they tell you to dress like a lady and be modest and clean and dignified and decent. It's too hard that they tell you young men not to be effeminate and queer with their clothing. It's just too hard down there. And they tell them, be free. Do what you want to do. They're just bringing you into the bondage of sin. And so we see here, and we don't need to go on, but in 2 Peter chapter 2, we saw very clearly that truly the lowest of the people are the false prophets of this world. The false prophets of this world are covetous, adulterous, lying, deceiving, false prophets, false teachers. God is angry. Their damnation lingered not. Their judgment is coming. But let's hurry up and finish the sermon here with Jeroboam. One other thing I want to point out. Look at verses 32 and 33 of chapter, back in 1 Kings, chapter number 12 where we were. 1 Kings chapter number 12, I want to show you one last thing about Jeroboam's false religion. Remember, it's always based on the lie that the true religion is a little too hard for you. And then he also used this retreading and refurbishing of old false religion. Just repackage it for a new generation. He made false prophets. They were the worst scum of the earth. Low lives. But not only that, notice, false religion is always based loosely or somewhat upon the true religion. Because the devil knows that if he's going to get you sucked into false religion, it has to match as closely as possible to the truth, or you're not going to fall for it. For example, if someone were to give you a counterfeit bill, they're not going to pull out a piece of monopoly money and say, Hey, can I get change for this 20? No. What color is the 20 in monopoly? Green. Does anybody know? Green. Yeah, see what I mean? It's green. So you slide that green 20. Can I get change for a 20? Yeah, that's not going to get you very far. If you look at the... Who's ever seen counterfeit money before? Real counterfeit money. Real counterfeit. I got one. Well, yeah. Okay, it's all counterfeit. That's probably what Brother Davis is going to say. It's all fiat, Federal Reserve note. But anyway, I've seen counterfeit bills, and they look pretty real. It's pretty amazing. The ones that I've seen looked pretty real, and I was pretty impressed by them. But you know as well as I that the best counterfeit bill is the one that most closely matches the real thing. If you'd say this is a good counterfeit, it would look the most like it, but it's just as fake as that monopoly money. It has just as little value as that monopoly money. That's what an effective counterfeit is. Now, it's the same thing with religion. You know, the devil's not just going to come to you and say, hey, you know, let's worship Satan. Come with me. You know, faithful words all too far from your house. There's a Satan church. It's not going to come to you like that. He's not going to come to you with horns and a pitchfork. The devil himself, the Bible says, has transformed into an angel of light, and he ministers as ministers of light. And so notice that the devil patterns his false religion after the true religion. Look what it says in verses 32 and 33. It says, And Jeroboam ordained a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah, and he offered upon the altar. So he basically, he's doing burnt offerings, just like the true religion, and he even has the same feast and the same holidays as the true religion. They're still offering a burnt sacrifice. They're still talking about coming out of Egypt. There's a lot of similarities here. And he says, hey, the eighth month of the fifteenth day, you were celebrating this holiday. Well, hey, let's just change it a little bit and celebrate. Hey, you know, you guys celebrate Easter? Hey, we celebrate Easter too. You celebrate Christmas too? And this is how the Mormons will try to come to you. The Mormons always will try to tell you, oh, we believe the same thing as you. Who's ever had a Mormon tell you, we believe the same thing as you, I believe? Was it you that was with me, brother Dave, or I don't know, or maybe it was you, brother Gary? We were out soul-winding recently, and this Mormon's telling us, I believe, or it was you, huh? Yeah, it was me and you. This Mormon's telling us, we believe the same thing as you. That was what, a couple days ago or something. You know, we believe the same thing as you believe. They don't. They believe that there's other gods on other planets. That's not the same thing. And look, I think that Mormonism's even weirder than this cow religion. I mean, it's similar. I mean, they believe in other gods on other planets, and you can become your own god. I mean, worshipping a couple golden cows is weird, but wearing a special, you know, underwear that your church issues you, that's weird too. And that's what the Mormons believe in. Holy underwear to keep the evil spirits away, that's weird. But to come to you with the same thing, oh, you know, we pretty much believe like you believe. We're the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you know? And hey, Art, you know, one of us is running for president now, you know? So we're not that weird of a cult anymore, you know? We stopped having multiple wives a few years ago, you know? What's the deal? Let it go. I know our founder, you know, was married to a 13-year-old when he was 30 or 40. Let it go. But see, the devil always tries to make false religion match up as much as he can with the truth, because that's what a good counterfeiter's going to do. You know, he's going to have a false Bible version. Yeah, it'll match up a lot of the time, except in a few key places where it'll diverge from the truth. You know, you can find similarities between Mormonism and Christianity. You can find similarities between Catholicism and Christianity. You can find similarities between the Jehovah's Witnesses and Christianity. You can find similarities between Islam and Christianity. I mean, I have muscles when I'm on someone to tell me, we believe in Jesus. We believe in the teachings of Jesus. But then when you show them what Jesus said, they say, well, I don't believe that. But Jesus is one of their major prophets of their religion. He's the one who came right before Mohammed in their succession of prophets. You know, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, and they're expecting somebody else to come someday. We know who that is. It's the Antichrist. But they believe that somebody else is still coming. And so look at Galatians 1. This is the last place we'll turn. Galatians chapter 1. So false religion will try to imitate or be closely patterned after the true religions of the world. I've heard people try to disprove Christianity by saying, you know, Christianity is just similar to all the other religions in the world. And that proves that Christianity is false. But hold on. That's because these other religions in the world are counterfeits of the true religion of the Bible. You know, well, this other religion has a flood story. Every religion in the world has a flood story. Well, here's an idea. Maybe that's because the flood really happened. So they all have that story. You know, and they all have all these similarities. And somebody brought up this movie, Sitegeist. It's like a documentary disproving Christianity. And pretty much it's showing up. Look at all these religions that have all these similarities with Christianity. That's because all these religions were made by the same person, Satan, who is trying to pattern them after Christianity. Because he always takes what belongs to God and perverts it. And, yeah, some of them were before the time of Christ. Look, the Word of God's been preached since the beginning of the world. And the devil knows it, and the devil can copy it and pattern it and abuse it. But look at Galatians 1. It says this, verse 6. I marvel that you're so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel. So somebody came in and preached us a false gospel, another gospel. But look what he says. Which is not another. So he says it's another gospel, but it's not another. But there be some which, there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. So what he's saying is, this other gospel, it is another gospel, but it's not another in the sense of just a totally different, you know, just a totally separate gospel. What that other gospel is, it's the true gospel perverted. It's the true gospel twisted. So God calls it another gospel when somebody takes the gospel of Christ and just changes it a little bit. You know, not coming up with necessarily their own religion from scratch. You know, Joseph Smith didn't just come up with his own religion from scratch. He took the gospel of Jesus Christ and perverted it, twisted it, corrupted it, added to it, took away. And that's where false religion comes from. And so with that, I'll close. But Jeroboam could have been a great man. He was chosen by God. He was an industrious young man. He had a lot going for him. But because he did not have faith in God, because he took the wrong counsel, he ended up leading a whole nation astray. And basically he followed the devil's playbook for false religion. You know, pull out all the old false religions of the past, make it look like the real thing, polish it up, make it look like Christianity, tell people it's going to be easier, allure through the lusts of the flesh, and get people that are enough of a low life to preach lies for financial gain. And it wasn't hard for him to find people who would preach lies in order to make money. There are all kinds of liars in this world who are paid to lie. On TV, on the radio, psychic fortune tellers, preachers, pastors, priests, prophets. You know, there are plenty of people who are willing to lie for money. And so let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, please just help us not to be deceived, dear God, like the children of Israel were deceived. They were let astray by all these things, dear God. And we have all these same things today. People telling us it's too hard to do the right thing. People trying to show us another gospel. People trying to get us to fall for all these deceptions and tricks. Dear God, help us to not be like the children of Israel who were fooled by these things. Help us to know what we believe and why we believe and to stand strong on what we believe. And help us also not to make the mistake that Jeroboam made, but help us to have faith in your word and to know that if we do right, you'll be blessed. And if we do wrong, we'll be cursed, not to lean on our own understanding. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.