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Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Take your hymnals now. Go to hymn 174. Hymn 174. My Jesus, I love thee. Hymn 174. 174. My Jesus, I love thee. I know that we're fine. My Jesus, I love thee. 174. Push that verse down. My Jesus, I love thee. I love thee. I know thou art mine. For thee all the fallings of sin I retire. My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art now. In ever I love thee. My Jesus is now. I love thee because thou hast first loved me and purchased my pardon on Calvary Street. I love thee for wearing the boards on thy ground. In ever I love thee. My Jesus is now. I love thee in my heart. You love me again. And praise thee as long as thou lend this sweet prayer. And say when the death here rides full on my crown. I love thee. My Jesus is now. In vengeance of glory and endless delight I'll ever adore thee. In heaven so I'll sing with my blizzard down on my crown. In ever I love thee. My Jesus is now. Let's turn our Bibles to Ecclesiastes chapter 10. Ecclesiastes chapter 10 as we always do. We'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1. Follow along silently with brother Dan as he reads Ecclesiastes chapter 10 beginning in verse number 1. Ecclesiastes chapter 10 the Bible reads dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savor so doth a little folly him that is in reputation for wisdom and honor. A wise man's heart is at his right hand but a fool's heart at his left. Yea also when he that is a fool walketh by the way his wisdom faileth him and he saith to everyone that he is a fool. If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee leave not thy place for yielding pacifieth great offenses. There is an evil which I have seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler. Folly is set in great dignity and the rich sit in low place. I've seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants upon the earth. He that digget the pit shall fall into it and whoso breaketh an edge a serpent shall bite him. Whoso removest stones shall be hurt therewith and he that cleaveth wood shall be endangered thereby. If the iron be blunt and you do not wet the edge then must he put to more strength but wisdom is profitable to direct. Surely the serpent will bite without enchantment and a babbler is no better. The words of a wise man's mouth are gracious but the lips of a fool will swallow up himself. The beginning of the words of his mouth is foolishness and the end of his talk is mischievous madness. A fool also is full of words. A man cannot tell what shall be and what shall be after him who can tell him. The labor of the foolish warrieth every one of them because he knoweth not how to go to the city. Woe to thee O land when thy king is a child and thy princes eat in the morning. Blessed art thou O land when thy king is the son of nobles and thy princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness. By much slothfulness the building decayeth and through idleness of the hands the house droppeth through. A feast is made for laughter and wine maketh merry but money answereth all things. Curse not the king no not in thy thought and curse not the rich in thy bedchamber for a bird of the air shall carry the voice and that which hath wings shall tell the matter. Dear heavenly father thank you for this opportunity to gather here tonight. Thank you for another year ahead of us Lord and please bless Pastor Anderson with the Holy Spirit so you can preach the Lord boldly. And please give us ears and hearts to be attentive to the word in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this evening is the vanity of rebellion. The vanity of rebellion. If you would flip over to Psalm 2 we'll come back to Ecclesiastes chapter number 10. But look if you would at Psalm 2. Of course Psalm 2 is a very famous passage. It's one of the most famous Psalms because it is quoted repeatedly in the New Testament. It has some great prophecies about the Lord Jesus Christ. But it speaks about the vanity of rebellion. What I mean by that is just how useless and how futile it is to seek to rebel against God. To rebel against Jesus Christ. To rebel against God given authority is a fool's errand. You can't win. You will lose. And yet throughout history man continues to rebel against God and people go through their whole lives rebelling against God and it's a big waste of their time because they're never going to win. They can't win. They just end up destroying themselves. Look what the Bible says in chapter 2 verse 1 of Psalms there. It says, Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing? And the idea behind this rhetorical question is what's the point? It's stupid. What do you think you're going to accomplish raging and getting angry at the God of the universe? I mean think about how foolish it is to get angry at God or criticize God or say that you don't like the way that God is. That's the way He is. What are you going to do about it? I mean if you think about it He's the creator. We're the created being. Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it? You know, Why hast thou made me thus? Right? You can't answer against God. Right? God is the creator. He has all power. He has all knowledge and it's foolish for us to rage against Him, get angry at Him, question Him. He's the boss. It's funny to hear so-called intellectuals like Richard Dawkins say, Well I don't know if God exists or not but certainly the God of the Bible doesn't exist because I don't like Him. I'm paraphrasing there a little bit but that's basically what he says. He says, You know the God of the Bible is misogynistic or racist or whatever slanders he throws at the God of the Bible. But here's the thing even if God were all those things that would not prevent Him from existing. Just because you don't like God doesn't mean He doesn't exist. It just means that you and He have a difference of opinion. I'm going to go with the creator on this one and not the little peon creation who was created yesterday in the scheme of things and will die tomorrow in the scheme of things. The eternal God is the one who's right. And so, why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing, right? Thinking that they can somehow get mad and fight back against God. We're going to show God. Here's the thing. When you try to show God in your life, you end up just shooting yourself in the foot. You just end up hurting yourself. You're not going to hurt God or His kingdom. The Bible says in verse 2, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His anointed. And of course, part of this was fulfilled in the book of Acts when this is quoted by the apostles. And of course, if you remember even when Jesus was on trial for His life, if you remember Pontius Pilate and King Herod, they had been enemies in the past, but then they become friends in their prosecution of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is prophetic of the fact that kings of this earth will one day unite and assemble against the Lord Jesus Christ. So we saw a little bit of that at Christ's first advent with Herod and Pilate and other people conspiring. And then the apostles are preaching in the book of Acts and you have rulers and kings conspiring against them. But really this is going to see its ultimate fulfillment in the second coming of Christ, right? When we read about the end times in the book of Revelation, you have the world uniting in a one world government, right? A one world system. There's going to be a one world currency where everyone has the same monetary system because you can't buy or sell without the mark of the beast. So it's obviously a centralized one world financial system. You have a one world religion where everyone is worshipping the beast. And then you have a one world government where all the major rulers of the world, the ten kings agree together to give all their power to the anti-Christ and so forth. And so you have this uniting of leaders and governments against the Lord Jesus Christ in the end times, right? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed. Anointed is quoted in the New Testament as Christ because the word Christ literally means anointed. So it says against the Lord and against his Christ in Acts chapter 4 when this is quoted. Now what are they saying as the rulers of this earth unite together against the Lord and against his Christ, what are they saying? They're saying, verse 3, let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us, right? And what that really is speaking to is the fact that humans do not want to obey God's rules. You know, the bands and the cords that we're talking about are restraints, restrictions. God has rules. This is right. This is wrong. Thou shalt do this. Thou shalt not do this. And mankind often hates God's morality and rebels against those rules that God has in place because he wants to live a wicked life, right? And so he lives according to his own lusts and says, hey, let's break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us. And of course, this is also a vain thing, right? Why is it a vain thing? Because if you cast away the cords of God's word, if you break free of the bands of God's commandments, what you'll find is just a new taskmaster, just new bands, new restraints, and new cords. What do I mean by that? Well, Jesus said, he that committeth sin is the servant of sin, right? And that Bible also teaches the same thing in Romans 6. Keep your finger here in Psalm 2, and let's go over to Romans chapter 6. Romans 6 talks about the fact that you're either going to serve God as his servant, you're either going to be in servitude to him and obey him, or you're going to end up obeying sin, right? It's going to be one or the other. You're going to obey Christ, you're going to obey sin, but you're going to obey somebody. Look what the Bible says in verse 16 of Romans chapter 6. 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. But God be thanked that you were the servants of sin, but you have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you, being then made free from sin, you became the servants of righteousness. And then look at verse 20. It says, for when you were the servants of sin, you were free from righteousness. So like, yeah, let's get free from righteousness. Let's break their bands asunder. Let's cast their cords from us, right? God the Father and Jesus Christ, the Lord and his anointed. Let's just free ourselves from, you know, Christianity and religion and all these rules and things like that. But here's the thing about that. It's stupid because you're just now free from righteousness and you're a servant to sin. And those of us that serve righteousness, we are free from the slavery of sin and the bondage of sin. Because let's face it, everybody is gonna have a master at the end of the day, right? Because if you're not serving God, ultimately you're serving Satan. Or you're serving sin. Or you are serving whatever addictions, the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes. You see, one way or another, you are gonna have constraints put upon your life. Okay? I mean, who in this world is just living a life of total freedom? You know, if you wanted to imagine like a pure freedom. Well, a homeless person, right? Because, I mean, nobody's telling them what to do. They have no rules. They don't have to get up at a certain time. They have no schedule whatsoever. You know, they don't have to be home at a certain time because they don't even have a home to go to. So there's no, there's no curfew, okay? Because they're just out. They just, you know, they just do, but here's the thing. Is that really freedom when you're just relying on somebody giving you money by the side of the road, you're standing by the road begging for money just so that somebody would give you money so that you can then take that money and feed your addiction. And it's not like you wake up and just decide, nah, I'm not really in the mood for heroin today. No. They are compelled to go seek heroin. Or, eh, you know what? I'm not really in a drinking mood. Drinking's getting boring. No, no, no. They must drink. They must take drugs. They must inject whatever, okay? They are enslaved to drugs and or alcohol. And we could go through whatever example you want. And here's the thing. You say, well, rich people, you know, rich people, they just have all this freedom. They just do whatever they want. But you know the Bible says that the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. They're stressed out. They're worried about their riches and they have to just constantly be checking their investments and they're thinking about money all the time. And look, if you actually know rich people in real life and then watch them as they get old and as they begin to start stressing about what's going to happen to my money when I'm gone or who's going to inherit my money and they just can't stop talking about, you know, who's going to inherit it and what they're going to do with the money and all this stuff. You know, it's just another kind of bondage. Okay. Christ actually offers the life with the most freedom. Right? Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. Following the few rules of the Bible, few and good and helpful and healthy rules, you just follow these few rules that God has for you and you end up living this really expansive life. You end up having a lot of options of what you can do, good things that you can do. It's sort of like in the Garden of Eden. You can eat of all these different trees of the garden. There's just one that you're not supposed to eat, but you can eat of all these other trees, right? You end up with all these options, this really expansive situation. Living a life of Christianity is a life of liberty and freedom. You know, way more than the guy who's a gambling addict, drug addict, porno addict, addicted to fornication, adultery, drugs, whatever. He that serves sin in that way is not really free, is he? And also, by the way, when you are talking about unsaved people, the Bible says that unsaved people walk according to the course of the prince of the power of the air. Satan is ultimately pulling their strings and manipulating them, even if they don't know it. Behind the scenes, he actually manipulates them and makes them do things that they maybe don't even want to do. And so, this is a vain thought to say, well, let's break their bands asunder. Let's cast their courts from us. It's vain for two reasons. Number one is that if you break those bands, you're just trading one set of bands for another. And it's also vain because you're not going to win in your war against God, right? He that sitteth in the heavens, verse 4, shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision, right? This is just a joke to God when the kings of the world are one day going to unite against the Lord Jesus Christ. He's not worried about it. He knows that it's futile and vain what they're trying to do. It says in verse 5, Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. So this is basically what God is saying to them. Because, you know, he speaks to them in his wrath. He vexes them in his sore displeasure. At the end of the day, you can huff and puff and be angry and unite and have your united nations and your council on foreign relations and all of your different, you know, organizations to try to overthrow Christianity and righteousness and godliness. But at the end of the day, still because another word for yet is still nevertheless yet I have set my king upon my holy hill of Zion, the Lord Jesus Christ, and his kingdom will stand forever. I will declare the decree this is, of course, Christ speaking. I will declare the decree the Lord has said unto me thou art my son this day have I begotten thee. Right? Now, this is an important verse and of course it's one that's butchered in the modern Bible versions that are not changing this verse because of anything in the Hebrew underlying this but rather they want to make it easier to understand, quote unquote Right? This is their mantra is that, oh, the King James is too hard to understand. You know, you need something easier to understand. And so what they end up doing is they end up taking away this word begat and replacing it with became the father of or was the father of. Now, you know, on the surface you might think like, well, hey, that's kind of the same thing. What's the big deal? So, for example, in Matthew chapter one where you have, you know, Abraham begat Isaac, Isaac begat Jacob, Jacob begat Judas and his brethren. What does begat mean? In that context it's talking about siring a child. Right? Fathering a child. So, in the modern verses it's just like Abraham was the father of Isaac. Was the father of and so forth. The problem here is that in versions like the NIV modern versions, they will change this to thou art my son today I've become your father. Now, here's the problem with that is that that makes it sound like God was not his father before that. Does everybody see the problem? And you see, this verse is actually quoted in Acts chapter 13 about the resurrection of Jesus. So, it says, God raised Jesus from the dead as it is written in the second Psalm, thou art my son this day have I begotten thee. So, this would imply that Jesus is not the son of God until he raises from the dead because in the NIV it's saying today I became your father, I became your dad today. As if Jesus were adopted or something. You know, and that, you know, he existed not with God as his father and then, you know, today, it's just stupid, right? It doesn't make any sense. And you say, well, I don't think people who use the NIV believe that. I don't think people who use the NIV believe that either. So, why does their stupid Bible say that then? If it doesn't make any sense, they don't believe it, I don't believe it, you don't believe it, nobody believes it, then why'd they write that in their Bible? Okay. Because it's just this kind of sloppy junk that's in these modern versions that hasn't been thought through in the name of making it easier to understand. Well, look, I'm not willing to sacrifice accuracy to make something easier to understand. I'd rather have something that I can at least take it to the bank that it's accurate and maybe it's hard to understand sometimes, I have to put it in a little work, maybe reach for a dictionary or something, maybe have somebody help me or explain it to me, rather than just have a book filled with error and sloppy statements that I don't really know if that's what it really means or not. I don't really know if that's what the underlying Hebrew even says, or if that's what even the Greek even said, or if they're just trying to dumb it down for me and just spoon feed me, you know, Abraham Dada of Isaac. Like that's all we can understand or something. Abraham. Let's just make it even easier, let's just make it even shorter Abraham de Papa Isaac. Isaac de Papa Jacob. You know, I mean, it's just stupid my friend. I'd rather have something that's maybe written at a higher level but at least it's conveying the truth accurately, clearly, we can actually analyze it, preach about it, think about it, base our doctrine on it. Then to get this stupid statement, today I became your father. Right? That's not biblical. That's wrong. Now what does it actually mean when he says, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Well, the word begat has to do with causing something to come into existence, to bring something into existence. Okay? In the sense that if you sire a child, right, you are now generating a child. You know, as a man you're providing the seed, the woman provides the egg, and a new life is generated. Okay? Well, here's the thing, Jesus Christ is called the first begotten from the dead. Now, how can he be the first begotten from the dead? Because Jesus said that he was, he said, I'm he that liveth and was dead and behold I am alive forevermore amen and have the keys of hell and of death. So here's the thing, the Bible will often use this term about someone who's dead, he is not. And then when someone's alive, he is. And so the idea here is that Jesus Christ was dead for three days and three nights, right? He died on the cross. He was dead. He said in Revelation chapter one, I was dead. Right? So it wasn't a show or a facade or he was just kind of going through the motions of being dead. I mean, Jesus was dead for three days and three nights. And the thing about that is that when Jesus was dead, he was resurrected by God the father. And that is referred to in scripture as Jesus being begotten by God the father because of the fact that he is being generated or brought back to life as it were, right? So he's the first begotten from the dead. And then we, when we're unsaved, are dead in our trespasses and sins. And then God comes along and resurrects our spirit. And you know what the Bible calls that also? That calls us being begotten again. Begotten again, right? So in the process of resurrecting us, basically, God is begetting us. That's another way of saying that. That's just, you know, and here's the thing. If you compare scripture with scripture, you know, this all adds up in the King James. And you can kind of figure this out. Look up all the verses about begetting. Look up all these verses about the resurrection. And you can actually form a coherent doctrine here comparing the resurrection of Christ and our own salvation and so forth. Whereas the thing of like, well, today I became your father. That really just implies that he wasn't his father before that, which is heresy because Jesus Christ has always been the son of God and always will be the son of God. He never became the son of God. He was the son of God in eternity past. He will be the son of God in eternity future. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. Even in the Old Testament he's called the son of God, even before he was born, let alone when he died and was buried and rose again. And so he says, I will declare the decree the Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son this day have I begotten thee. He's talking about Jesus Christ being resurrected from the dead. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. So ultimately Jesus Christ is going to rule and reign on this earth and it's going to be the entire planet including the uttermost parts of the earth, meaning the most remote regions. He's going to be ruling over Greenland, you know, whether it gets bought by the United States or not. He's going to be ruling over all of the far flung islands and kingdoms of this world. He's going to rule over the uttermost part of the earth. And look what it says in verse 9, it says, thou shalt break them with a rod of iron thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now look, when Jesus Christ comes to rule and reign, he's not messing around. I mean, he is not going to just have a free for all on the thousand year millennial reign. Things are going to go his way. I mean, when Christ is reigning on this earth it's going to be his way or the highway. There's going to be no free for all anarchy, just anything goes, every man doing what's right in his own eyes. No, he is going to be firmly in power and he is going to enforce his rule. And these kings of the earth that rage against him, they will be crushed, right? He will break them with a rod of iron. He will dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now go if you would to Ecclesiastes chapter number 10. We're going to come back to Psalm 2. But go over to Ecclesiastes chapter 10. Ecclesiastes chapter 10 is a pretty interesting chapter. It deals with a few different subjects, kind of goes back and forth between a few different subjects. But one of the subjects that it does deal with repeatedly and kind of comes back to a few times is this idea of rebellion. Rebelling against authority and speaking against authority and so forth. And ultimately, remember, the source of authority is God, right? God is the ultimate authority and then he gives authority to human rulers. He gives authority to parents over their children. He gives authority to husbands over their wives. He gives authority to bosses over their employees. All power ultimately emanates from God. He is the one who ordains authority. And so, look what the Bible says in chapter 10 verse 4. It says, If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place for yielding passifieth great offenses. Now what does the Bible say? The Bible is saying here that we should not try to fight against authority or rebel against authority. When authority gets mad at you, right? When the spirit of the ruler rises up against you, leave not your place for yielding passifieth great offenses. What's another word for yielding? Submitting. Yielding, right? So, let's say I'm driving down the road and I come to a sign that says, yield. Okay, what is that saying? That's saying, hey, let the other person go. You wait. The other person actually has precedence and you need to wait and let the other people go. And then when they're done going, now you can go. That's what yielding means. Right? So like sometimes the yellow light will represent yielding. You know, there'll be like a flashing yellow light. You know, you have to wait. If it's clear, you can go. But if the other road is going, you've got to sit and wait. When you're in the Caribbean, it's funny because a lot of the signs don't say yield. Who knows what they say? Who's been sold when into the Caribbean? Come on. What do the signs say? Does anybody know? I've seen like 50 of these. You guys need to be more observant. Give way. Give way. Okay, so all the signs that say, they don't say yield, they say give way, brother. Okay? Give way. And so, again, what's the thought here? The idea here is yielding pacifies great offenses, meaning that let's say you have offended the ruler and the ruler is angry at you and you submit if you yield, well then that will typically pacify the ruler. You know, it's like the old saying, you can't fight city hall. Right? What you want to do is submit to authority when the ruler's mad at you, make him happy. Calm him down. Pacify him by yielding to him by submitting to his authority. And here's the thing, you know, when Christ is laying down the law, that's what the smart people and the smart rulers will realize, hey, this is God Almighty here. I need to just get on his program. If he's mad at me, I better figure out how to make him happy. You say, oh, you know, I feel like God's got it in for me. Well then, you know what? You better straighten up and fly right so that he doesn't have it in for you anymore. Because you don't want to go through life with God having it in for you. Oh, I just feel like my parents have it in for me. Well, you know what? Straighten up and fly right. Because yielding pacifies great offenses. Figure out a way to where you make your parents not be mad at you anymore. Because I guarantee you your parents aren't mad at you for being so helpful and being so pleasant and being so obedient. That doesn't make them mad. They're probably mad at you because you're disobeying, you're breaking rules, you're being a pain in the neck, you have a bad attitude or whatever. And so if the spirit of the ruler rides up against thee, leave not thy place for yielding pacifies great offenses. There's an evil which I have seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler. Folly is set in great dignity and the rich sit in low place. I've seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants upon the earth. And what the author of Ecclesiastes is describing here is a backward situation. Right? A backward situation where folly is set in great dignity and the rich are sitting in a low place servants are riding on horses and princes are going on foot. Right? It's like everything's backwards. Everything's flipped over. Authority has been turned on its head. Right? The power structure of society has been overthrown and flipped over. There's a similar thought in verse 16. Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child and thy princes eat in the morning. Right? And again, this is not normal. Right? You don't expect the king to be a child. Right? You'd expect him to be like a wise ruler who's able to, you know, be effective and powerful. Not a kid. Right? You know, when women and children rule over you as in Isaiah chapter 3, this is not the normal situation. This isn't what you want. This isn't the blessing of God. It's backwards. Blessed art thou, O land, when thy king is the son of nobles and thy princes eat in due season for strength and not for drunkenness. Now, what does this mean when it says thy princes eat in the morning? This is just another way of saying that they're children. Okay? Because here anybody who has kids knows this. They wake up really hungry every morning. Now, when I wake up in the morning, I'm not that hungry. You know, and I have kind of a voracious appetite. I really struggle with the sin of gluttony because I just want to just eat and eat and eat and I just don't know when to stop eating. I'm just confessing my faults to you. I eat way too much food. Okay? But here's the thing. In the morning, I cannot eat for a while. Like, I can go all the way to lunchtime without eating. But once I take my first bite of food, then it's on and I just can't stop. And then I just eat, eat, eat, eat, you know. So sometimes I try to push that back as late in the day as I can because in the morning I'm kind of just ambivalent about food. I'm just kind of like, eh, whatever. But every morning when we wake up, you know, we hear one of our toddler's first words, which is a word that he knows very well, which is the word cereal. Okay? So, you know, sometimes at 0 dark 30 you got this little toddler banging on your door. And in fact, he banged on my door this morning and I said, who is it? And he said, cereal. Okay? So he did not even identify himself. He didn't say I'm Ollie, good morning, you know. And sometimes I'll say, who's at the door? He'll say, Ollie, if it's later in the day. But if it's in the morning, it's like, my name is cereal. Okay? And so, you know, kids eat in the morning. Right? They wake up and they just want to eat right away. And so, you know, woe unto thee, O land, when thy king is a child. Right? You don't want children to be in charge. You don't want children running things. You want seasoned veterans running things. Okay? You don't want this backward thing where the people who should be in charge are not in charge. And you got princes walking on the earth. You got the servants riding on horses. Everything's backwards. Right? This is not right. But here's what I want you to see. Look what the Bible says. You might have missed it. It says in verse number 5, there's an evil which I've seen under the sun and it's what we all just described but here's the key phrase that I don't want you to miss. There's an evil which I've seen under the sun as an error which proceedeth from the ruler. Don't miss that. So this kind of backward kids are in charge and, you know, servants are riding the horses, princes are walking on the earth. Everything's flipped over. Authorities turned on its head. It's an error that proceeds from who? Who's the one who's allowing this to happen? The ruler. You see, it is the ruler's job to maintain order and discipline in a system. Right? I mean, look, don't you expect the leadership of Tempe or the leadership of the state of Arizona to basically deal with criminals and keep the peace around here? I mean, if they're not going to do that, what are they even good for? Am I right? You know, the Bible says in Romans 13 that God has ordained human government for the punishment of evil doers and he's ordained human government to make sure that people get punished for things like stealing or murder or whatever and here's the thing. If there were just chaos in the streets and just murder and rape and pillage and all of this robbery going on, you know, who would we blame? We'd say, hey, this is a failed state. We would say the city of Tempe is failing. The city of Phoenix is failing. Maricopa County is failing. Arizona is failing. Why? Because we expect the ruler to maintain order and to have laws. Arizona needs laws. Phoenix needs laws. Tempe needs laws and these laws need to be enforced because laws that are not enforced are no laws at all. I mean, what good is a law that's not enforced? Laws that aren't enforced don't really mean anything. They're kind of just a joke and so it's a ruler's job to have rules and enforce them and to make sure that the inmates don't begin to run the institution. And look, this world contains some failed states, doesn't it? There are some places that we would point to as a banana republic or a failed state or third world countries where many times organized crime syndicates have more power than the government. That's backwards. It should be that the criminals are scared of the government and the government's reining in the criminals. That's what we want. But many times in a failed state, the government is actually answering to the crime syndicate. This is, of course, shameful. This is poor leadership, a bad government, bad ruler. Good ruler reigns things in. And then every once in a while you'll have a good ruler come along and clean house. And he'll clean up the streets, arrest all the gang members, arrest all the organized criminals, throw them in jail, or better yet, these violent gang members should be executed. You know, a bunch of murdering monsters, okay, they should be killed. And many times, you know, leaders will rise up that will be tough on crime and deal with those things and make the streets safe again for decent people to live a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty, okay. And so what I want you to take from Ecclesiastes chapter 10 is this idea of children ruling and folly being set in great dignity and princes are walking and servants are on the horses and everything's backward everything, it's an error that proceeds from the ruler. It's the ruler's job to make sure that this doesn't happen. Okay, it's the ruler's job to make sure that authority is maintained. So let's go back, if you would, to Psalm chapter 2. And, you know, while you're turning to Psalm chapter 2, let me give you another good scripture on this from Ecclesiastes chapter 8 verse 10 says, or verse 11, it says, because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of man is fully set in them to do evil. Don't miss this. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of man is fully set in them to do evil. You see, in order to have order and keep wickedness at bay and keep society functioning well and to keep wickedness from prevailing, you know, you have to punish crime and it has to be punished speedily. Okay. And this is why also in our own constitution and our bill of rights one of the things that we're supposed to be guaranteed is a speedy trial. Which in the state of Arizona that is defined as a trial that is finished in six months. Right? So it should be from the time you get arrested to the time the trial is totally done and there's a verdict is supposed to be a period of only six months. Okay. And that's, I mean, to me that's already kind of a long time. But that's plenty of time to get all your witnesses and testimony and defense and prosecution. But, you know, a lot of times these things just end up dragging on for years because they don't care what the constitution says and they'll just let things drag on for years and it's years later that things are happening. And then you'll get somebody convicted and they get put on death row and then they're just on death row for the next 15 years. 20 years. 25 years. Right? There's no speedy execution of justice. And then they say the death penalty doesn't work. Well, maybe the death penalty would work if it happened sometime in this lifetime. You know, it's like, it's like, you're going to die 25 years from now. That's not really that scary. As like, you're going to die tomorrow. I mean, what's scarier to you? 25 years. They're like, oh man, I'll worry about that later. I've got plenty of time to worry about that. Okay. And by the way, it's so funny this garbage of, oh, death penalty doesn't work. Then why did God institute? Is God stupid? Is that what you think? Because I think you're stupid and I think God is right. You know, and oh, spanking your kids doesn't work. I guess God was stupid when he told us to spank our kids then, huh? No, I think you're stupid and I think God's right. I think the psychologists are stupid. I think the so-called experts are stupid because there's no wisdom or counsel or understanding or knowledge that goes against the Lord. Right? God is right about everything all the time. And the rest of the world is just trying to catch up to him, if anything. And so maybe the reason why execution isn't working, quote unquote, is maybe because you're dragging out over 20 years and God never told you to do that. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you're just not deploying it the way that God intended. And by the way, how can you say the death penalty doesn't work? 100% of people who receive the death penalty do not reoffend. They're all reformed. They never kill anyone again. They never rape anyone again. They never molest anyone again. 100% success rate. Not a single exception to that rule. But it also would work as a deterrent if it were executed speedily. And if it were more prevalent. And so, you know, we need to do things God's way. And then the people say, oh, spanking doesn't work. Well, you know what? Maybe he didn't spank them hard enough. How about that? Because you know what the Bible says? He that spareth his rod hateth his son, but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes. And here's what's funny is that a lot of times when people hear this thing of he that spareth his rod, they think it means not spanking your children at all. Is that really what spare means, though? If I said spare no expense, you know, I'm not saying, well, be sure you spend something. What am I saying? I'm saying, hey, be liberal. Okay? What if I said, hey, hey, don't spare, you know, when you're don't spare the sugar in my coffee or something. I'm not saying put a tiny bit of sugar in my coffee. I'm not saying I don't want to drink it black. I'm saying put a lot of sugar in the coffee. And you know what? When the Bible says he that spareth his rod hateth his son, you know, you could spank your children and still be sparing the rod if you only spank sparingly. Hello, is anybody home? Because you're doing it sparingly. Because, you know, oh, well, you know, I only just believe in spanking kids as a last resort, you know, once every blue moon you give them this little spanking that doesn't hurt and doesn't leave a mark and doesn't, you know, and then, you know, that's what the Bible means. Really? Because the Bible says thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell. And he that spareth his rod hateth his son. That's what the Bible actually says. And you know what? It doesn't matter what this world says. That's what the Bible says. And so, we got a lot of preachers today that are preaching to spare the rod. They're saying, oh, I believe in spanking. A word that I can't find in my Bible, by the way. Spanking. Zero hits. No pun intended. Search the word spanking and you'll get zero hits in the Bible. Can't find the word spank. Can't find the word spanking. Found the word beat. Found the word scourge. Don't spare the rod. Okay, what's the Bible saying? The Bible's saying that you have to give your kids a serious spanking and a serious amount of spankings. Okay? To deliver their soul from hell. Or you can just buy into this world's little namby-pamby parenting or whatever. Hey, go ahead. And you say, well, you're one to talk pastor Anderson. Well, you know what? I'm right because the Bible's right. It doesn't matter what other people can rise up and criticize me. And by the way, let me just say this. I don't give a rat's whatever what my kids think about my parenting. Because last time I checked I ride on the horse and they walk on the earth. Last time I checked I'm in charge and I'm the judge and they are the ones who need to listen and learn. And not tell me how to do my job. This is going to tell me how to do my job. And not a bunch of ungrateful brats who don't like the fact that they got a whipping. And so here's the thing. Yeah. It works. But it has to be done right. You know? You can't sit there and bare... You know what it's like? It'd be like you went to the gym and just barely put any weight on the barbell and you're just going... And then you're just like, I didn't build any muscle. It didn't work. Bench press doesn't work. Squats don't work. And you're just... It's like, no man. It's because you didn't put enough weight on the bar. You're not working hard enough. You're not pushing it hard enough. That's why it didn't work. And so when the Lord Jesus Christ returns, he is going to execute judgment on the wicked. And when you have an institution where the power structure is backwards, it is an error that proceeds from the ruler. At the end of the day, the United States of America is a feminist place now because men have allowed it to become a feminist place. Husbands have allowed their wives to take over. It's an error that proceeds from the ruler. You know what I mean? Because at the end of the day, it's the husband's job to rule his house. You know, to rule his house. But now, of course, we have preachers teaching hey, kids rebel, nothing you can do about it. Wife rebels, nothing you can do about it. You just, just love them. Just love them. You know, it's funny, Jesus isn't going to come on a rainbow like the Care Bears or something and just sprinkle a bunch of fufu dust on everybody. He's going to come with a rod of iron and he's going to break them in pieces. Because he's going to make sure that things get enforced. Okay. And I'm sorry to confuse you with the Bible, but this is what the Bible clearly teaches. Go back to Psalm 2, it says, thou shalt break them with a rod of iron, thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Be wise now therefore, ye kings. Be instructed ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. Look, the only answer to the Lord Jesus Christ, his reign, his authority, the only answer is, get on his program. Get on his program. Serve him with fear and rejoice with trembling. And not only must you serve the Lord Jesus Christ, you must serve him and like it. Because the Bible says, kiss the son lest he be angry. He comes with a rod of iron, he's ready to crush all opposition, and he says, give me a kiss right here. I mean, this is the Bible, folks. The Lord Jesus Christ is Lord of all. He is God Almighty, and resistance against him is futile. Rebellion is totally futile. If you rebel against the Lord, you are shooting yourself in the foot, you are only hurting yourself. Kiss the son lest he be angry and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled, but a little, I mean, you don't even want to make the Lord Jesus Christ a little bit mad when he is ruling and reigning on this earth. Now, this is not always the image of Christ that is portrayed, because of the fact that when Jesus Christ came to this earth the first time, he came as a lowly servant, he came as a humble servant, he's washing the disciples' feet, he's going through life, serving others, and setting an example, and that's great. Amen. That's an important aspect of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. But what we have to understand is that Jesus Christ came to this earth as the lamb of God, but he's not returning as the lamb necessarily in that regard. He's coming more like the lion of the tribe of Judah. He's coming back as the king of the jungle with a roar. Okay. And we have to understand that God is not this overly simplistic character, but that God is complex. Yes, God is love, but God also is holy and has wrath. Yes, God came to this earth and took upon himself the form of a servant, and now, Jesus has been highly exalted, and every knee is going to bow, and every tongue is going to confess that he's Lord. And he is coming back, and he's taken no prisoners. People that will not submit to Christ's reign when he returns, they're not going to prison. They're just going to die. It's that simple. And they're not going to the good place either. It says, His wrath is kindled, but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Don't even make him a little bit mad. And look, again, what did the Bible say in Ecclesiastes chapter 10? It said, look, if the spirit of the ruler rise up against you, yielding pacifies great offenses. You know, just like the Lord Jesus Christ, when his wrath is kindled, you don't want to get on his bad side. You want to kiss the son, lest he be angry. You want to serve him with fear and rejoice with trembling. And again, the practical application of this is that you must submit to the earthly authorities that God has placed in your life. And it doesn't matter how stupid and backward our society becomes, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. My kids are not going to be asked whether they want to go to church. They will go to church. OK? My family who lives in my house is under my authority. They are going to do right. They are going to serve God. They are going to come to church. They're going to read their Bibles. They're not going to bring abominable, wicked, sinful things into my house. My daughters are not going to dress in a way that I don't approve of. Right? My sons are not going to engage in behaviors that I don't approve of. As long as they're living in my house, they're going to follow my rules. OK? And if I allowed my house to become a free-for-all, where people just do whatever, then that would be an error proceeding from the ruler. God has ordained me to rule my home and I must rule my home. And that means ensuring that my wife is in subjection and that my children are in subjection with all gravity. And making sure that they are living for God. Because that is who is under my authority. They're going to live for God. Right? But this whole idea is foreign today. Because we live in a rebellious, accursed generation that rises up and spits in the face of their parents, spits in the face of God Almighty, spits in the face of all righteous authority, spits in the pastor's face, spits in the churches, doesn't respect the church, doesn't respect the pastor, doesn't respect God-given authority. At the end of the day, though, any rebellion against God is futile. Any rebellion against God's institutions is futile. You rebelling against your parents is one of the stupidest things that you could possibly do because you are angering God Almighty and you are not going to win in that battle. You are going to lose. OK? And all you're going to do is, I'm going to show, I'm going to show Mom and Dad, I'm going to paint my hair green and get a weird piercing and get a weird, you're just making yourself look like an idiot. Amen? I'm going to show my parents, I'm going to go, you know, get knocked up or I'm going to go, look, you're destroying your own life. OK? And you're incurring the wrath of God Almighty. Rebellion against the Lord is futile. You can rage, you can get mad at the Lord, you can get mad at your parents, and look, here's the thing, sometimes authority figures can have rules that we don't like or do things that we don't like, raging against them is stupid and worthless. Getting mad at your husband, getting mad at your parents, getting mad at the boss at work, and look, you go to work and just get mad at the boss because he has a policy you don't like, you're not going to succeed at work. You know, this is good practical advice, even for the workplace. You know, you men, when you go to your job, you better obey the boss and you better like it. OK? And otherwise, if you can't do that, you really should just find a different job. But guess what? You can't find different parents and you can't find a different husband. You got to stay with the same husband, you got to stay with the same parents. Right? That's who God has given you. You know, when it comes to a job, sometimes you can switch. You can change it up. But at the end of the day, though, you had better go to work and kiss the boss lest he be angry. OK? And not have this attitude of rebellion against the boss. And you know what? It makes me sick when people are rebellious against their workplace. It's foolish, it's ungodly, it's wicked, and you know, this whole labor union mentality and you know, rising up against, it's garbage, it's not biblical. The Bible doesn't teach that. That the employees, you know, run things and democracy and all this stuff. That's not what the Bible says. The Bible says, servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, even if your master is froward. You still be obedient to your master. And the problem is that our culture is sometimes glorifying rebellion, even all the way down to little kids cartoons and Hollywood movies. You know, everything is just about breaking free of authority, rebelling against our parents, you know, rebelling against the system and all this kind of stuff. And it isn't right. It's part of our culture. But at the end of the day, when we go to the Bible, the Bible tells us to follow authority. OK? And we've all had authority figures in our lives. We all have situations where we need to submit to other people. And you know who hates submitting to other people? Prideful people. You know why the teenager mouths off to their parent and then when their parent corrects them, they just just refuse to apologize or refuse to make things right? It's because they're prideful. And you know what? God hates the proud look. Proud look is an abomination to the Lord. And it's just pride that doesn't want to take correction. And look, today on workplaces, how many times do you see someone get corrected and it's like people just can't take it? They freak out. And that, to me, that is the biggest deal breaker with an employee. If I have an employee I can't correct, I don't care how good they are, they're out. They're gone. That would be, I mean look, if someone worked here, and I've run a secular business as well, but if someone worked here at Faith Forward Baptist Church and I went to correct this person and they couldn't take the correction, I would dismiss them immediately. I don't care how good they were. That is a deal breaker. And we live in like a whole generation of people where you have to handle them with kid gloves. You can never tell them that they made a mistake or something. You have to be like, well good job, but maybe you could just do this a little bit better, you know? And you have to like sugar coat it, right? Who knows what I'm talking about? It's like, you have to like handle people with kid gloves instead of just like, no, you did it wrong, do it again. Fix it. Don't do that again. Fix this. Get this right. You know, it should just be, yes sir! Right away sir! And you just fix it and get it done. I remember, I had a boss, he would yell at me all the time, and you know, from my perspective I didn't think he was always right. Sometimes I felt like I was being treated unfairly and that he was yelling at me about stuff that I was you know, totally right about. But he's yelling at me about it, but you know what? My response was, hey, I'm sorry, what can I do to fix this? Right? Let me know what I can do to fix this because I want to make this right. I'm sorry. Let me get it right. You want to know why I did that? Is because I was making good money. And I was like, this is a sweet gig. And so this guy can yell at me and cuss me all he wants as long as the money's green, he can call me whatever he wants. He can yell at me whenever he wants and I'm gonna just say, yes sir, and just take it. But you know what? Here's an even better reason is because God has commanded us to submit to authority. God has commanded us that a soft answer turns away wrath. God has commanded us that yielding pacifies great offenses and that if the ruler's spirit rises up against us we should not leave our place. We need to stay in our proper roles and figure out a way to get along with our bosses in this world. And you know what? If you fail to get along with your boss at this job, you're probably not gonna get along with the boss at the next job either. And if you rebel against your husband and divorce your husband, you're probably not gonna get along with the next husband either. Or you're just gonna finally figure out, oh wait, now that I'm on the third one I better submit and do what I'm told. I better chill out. And by the way, daughters who rebel against their parents? You think they're gonna submit to their husbands? I doubt it. Right? Because the same girl that's gonna rebel against her parents is also gonna rebel against her husband. Right? And here's the thing. You know, I've tried to tell so many people this is that, you know, the problems that you're going through right now in life are gonna be repeated over and over again. You know, so like whatever difficult person you're dealing with at your job, you're gonna deal with more people like that later. You don't just deal with one difficult person when you're 15 and then never again. No. You spend your whole life dealing with difficult people. And you learn how to deal with people. Right? And it's like, if you don't learn the lesson, you're just gonna keep on failing. And so, you know, when you're a teenager, learn how to make your parents happy. Then, when you're married, right, you'll be able to make your husband happy someday. You'll know how to make peace with him. Right? And look, let's face it, living in a family is not always easy because when you live with someone closely, you can get on each other's nerves. Even some of those people that aren't related who are just roommates or something, they end up getting on each other's nerves just from living in the same house and, you know, being in close quarters like that. You know, there are gonna be struggles. You've got to learn how to get along with people and how to get through conflict because you're gonna continue dealing with those same situations for the rest of your life. And so, the Bible's clear, I'm gonna close with that, but the Bible's clear in Psalm chapter 2 that rebellion is futile. Whether that's rebellion against God or whether that's rebellion against your human authority, it is vain. There's a vanity of rebellion. You can't win. You only end up hurting yourself. You're not gonna be blessed by God. Do not be a rebel. Submit to your earthly authority. And, if you are in authority, it is your job to make sure that you keep order and enforce authority. Okay? You must enforce the authority that you wield and not just throw up your hands and say whatever. I mean, think about it. I'm the pastor of the church and here's the thing. My authority as the pastor is way different than like an authority of a boss at work or authority of a husband over his wife or a parent over their child. My authority as the pastor is a lot different because I'm not to be a lord over God's heritage, but I'm to be an example to the flock and so I don't wield the kind of heavy-handed authority in the church that maybe parents would yield or something like that. Right? Because, obviously, I'm not your parent. You're not my child. You're here as a volunteer and, you know, we're here as a team. We're working together. But, at the same time, although I don't have that kind of serious authority over you that, say, your husband or parent would have over you, here's the thing. As the pastor of the church, though, I do have authority when it comes to the way the church operates. You know, I'm overseeing the church. So, I'm not running your personal life or coming to your home or anything, but I am running the church. Right? I have a certain authority here. Now, here's the thing. What if I'm the pastor of the church, right, and a bunch of people are just using the NIV in the church and people are out soul-winning with the NIV and people in the pew are reading from the NIV, right? What do you think about that? Do you think that I'm doing my job well? You know, or what about if, basically, let's say I tell the music people and say, hey, you know, we're not going to have this kind of music or we're not going to sing this song. What if I said, hey, we're not going to sing this song because it's doctrinally incorrect. Don't sing it. And then they just sing it anyway. And we're just singing a song that teaches repent of your sins salvation. And I just go, I told them not to sing it, but here we are. And then we just keep singing it and we got the NIV and we just, you know, I mean, I guess I could sit and think of more examples, but the point is, you know, don't you expect me as the pastor of the church to actually make sure that things go the way that they're supposed to go? And actually enforce some things? Or what if I said, well, you know, I told this guy that he was thrown out as a drunkard, but he just keeps coming so, I don't know, I mean, we told him he was thrown out, but he keeps coming. Wouldn't you expect us to enforce that? Because here's the thing, if we threw somebody out of the church for being a drunkard and they kept coming, you know what we would do? Well, what do you think we would do? If you walk through the door, what do you think we'd do? We'd pick him up and drag him out the door. That's what we would do. Right? And you know what? Look, if somebody came up here and started singing, you know, some heretical song that we'd banned or something, you know, I'm going to get up and stop the service and say, no. You know, if some guest preacher came in and started preaching works-based salvation and preaching heresy, I would just, I wouldn't just go, what can you do? You know, we'd get that cane and pull him off the stage. You know, like with the hook, you know, whoop. Yeah, get this bozo out. You know, and here's the thing. In fact, that video clip is one of the things that I'm probably the most famous for. Is when that weird, crazy person comes and tries to take over the service, wants me to read a Catholic prayer off a piece of paper, told people in the parking lot he's Michael the Archangel, okay, comes up and says, oh, I just want to have this prayer read. We don't read prayers here. We pray from the heart to God. We don't read a prayer. We're not Catholic. He walked up behind me, holds up, he's going with this prayer read. I look, it was a bunch of weird mumbo-jumbo. I'm in the middle of preaching an important sermon. This bozo wants to come up and take over the service with some unbiblical prayer after he's telling people he's Michael the Archangel because he has drug-induced psychosis of the religious grandeur delusion variety. And what did we do? He said, drag this bozo out of here. I'm running the service. But here's the thing. Oh, how could you? I guess I'm just supposed to just let anybody take over. Right? Just anybody just comes and preaches. Women can preach behind the pulpit. And heretics can preach behind the pulpit. First time visitors can come up and take over the service. Right? Now, wouldn't you expect me as the leader to actually make sure that things go a certain way? Isn't that my job? Okay. Well, guess what? That's your job, Dad. In the home. That's your job, City of Phoenix. Right? Enforce things. We don't want to live in a failed state. We want crimes to be punished. Okay. Well, guess what? You're going to have to punish things in your house and we're going to have to sometimes as a church enforce things and draw the line at certain things. And say, no. And we're not going to let it happen. We're going to put a stop to it. This is part of the burden of being a leader. Okay? And leadership is not just saying, hey, this is how it's going to be and I hope you love me enough to do it. No, because sometimes the hardest part about leadership is like having to tell people no, having to put your foot down, having to discipline, having to actually enforce things. That's kind of the difficult part about leadership. You know, and so the Lord God is supreme, but he has also ordained a lot of other human authority and rebellion against authority is vanity. Let's borrow our word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word and we thank you for the fact that Christ is coming someday and we're all excited and looking forward to his reign because we will definitely kiss the sun and we are thrilled to be under his leadership. Lord God, please just help us as we navigate this sinful world, Lord, help us to submit to the authorities in our lives, help us to yield to those that are over us and Lord God, help us who are in authority to make sure that we enforce that authority and not have a failed leadership that enforces nothing and in Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Amen. Amen. All right, ladies and gentlemen, take your hymnals, please. Go to Hymn 149, hymn number 149, Trusting Jesus. Hymn 149. We'll sing this out together, starting with that verse. 149, simply trusting every day. 149. Lift your voice together now. Simply trusting every day. Trusting in the Holy Way. Even when my faith is small. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the moments fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him whatever we call. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Why we've got this Spirit shine. Isn't this the heart of mine? While we leave, I dare not fall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the moments fly. Trusting as the nights go by. Trusting Him whatever we call. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Singing if my faith is clear. Praying Him the path we fall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the moments fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him whatever we call. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting Him how life shall pass. Trusting Him to earth be past. Will we live the cask of fall. Trusting Jesus, that is all. Trusting as the moments fly. Trusting as the days go by. Trusting Him whatever we call. Trusting Jesus, Jesus, that is all. Thank you.