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. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . All right, brother, you know the drill. Come on. All right. This is cool hand Luke we're talking about here. He's not really doing a whole lot. I know not even to try with Luke. Luke, you're too cool for me, man. All right. So we'll sing happy birthday to Luke. And you all ready? Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday God bless you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you Happy birthday, brother. I just got a splinter up here. Messing with your pulpit, by the way. This is a man's pulpit. You get splinters. All right. Then we need to sing happy anniversary to the Racines. What day was your? You got married on the 26th? Well, I'm more proud to tell you, brother. All right. You guys all want to stand up or? Eh. No, no, no. All right, all right. We'll sing happy anniversary to the Racines, ready? Happy anniversary to you Happy anniversary to you Happy anniversary God bless you Happy anniversary to you Happy anniversary. How long have you all been married? Four years. Congratulations. All right. We'll sing song 41. We'll sing song 41, sweet, by and by. There's a land that is fairer than day And by faith we can see it afar For the Father waits over the way To prepare us a dwelling place there And sweet, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore And sweet, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore We shall sing on that beautiful shore The melodious songs of the blast And our spirit shall sorrow no more Not a sigh for the blessing of rest And sweet, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore And sweet, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore To our bountiful Father above We will offer our tribute of praise For the glorious gift of His love And the blessings that hollow our days In the sweet, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore In the sweet, by and by We shall meet on that beautiful shore All right, take your Bibles and turn to 2 Timothy 4. 2 Timothy 4, and we'll have brother Shane come up and read that for us. 2 Timothy 4, if you found your place, say amen. I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom. Preach the word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own lust shall they heap to themselves, teachers having itching ears. And they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned into fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make foolproof of thy ministry. For I am now ready to be offered and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing. Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me. For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this person, for Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica to Galatia, Titus, and Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me, take Mark and bring him with me, for he is profitable to me for the ministry. And Tychus have I sent to Ephesus, the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest bring with thee and the books, but especially the parchments. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil, the Lord reward him according to his works. Of whom be thou where also, for he hath greatly withstood our words. At the first answer no man withstood me, but all men forsook me. I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge. Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Salute Priscilla and Aquila, and the household of Onesiros, Erastus, abode at Corinth, but Trophimus have I left at Bilitim sick. Do thy diligence to come before winter. Ebulus greeted thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren. And the Lord Jesus Christ be with thy spirit. Grace be with you. Amen. Let us pray. Dear God, thank you to be gathered in your house this morning. I just pray that you fill our pastor with your spirit. Help us to be edified today. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So we're there in 2 Timothy chapter 4, and I want you to look down actually at verse 13. Verse 13. And so at the end of this chapter here we kind of see where he's just kind of talking about certain people. He's addressing certain people. And in this verse right here, it seems like a verse that can kind of be a throwaway verse. You're just kind of like, oh, okay. Well, you just kind of write to him about bring this, bring that when you come to see me. But it says in verse 13, the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee, and the books, but especially the parchments. Now, I'm going to get into what I believe that cloak represents. Now, I believe he actually had a cloak. I believe it was an actual garment that he had. But what does this represent spiritually speaking? Why is this written in here? I mean, nothing in the Bible is there incidentally, meaning this is that there's a reason for it. But the thing that you see there is that it says bring the books, but especially the parchments, meaning that bring my cloak and bring the books. I believe when he says especially the parchments, he's talking about the books. He's like, specifically the books, meaning if you're going to bring one of those things, one of those two things, bring the books, but bring my cloak as well. I'm going to get into what I believe this is talking about and just to show you exactly what I believe this is talking about, go to Isaiah 59, Isaiah 59, verse 17. Isaiah 59 and verse 17. Notice what it says. Isaiah 59, verse 17. It says, for he put on righteousness as a breastplate and a helmet of salvation upon his head, and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing and was clad with zeal as a cloak. So what I'm going to be getting into here is the cloak of zeal, the cloak of zeal. The cloak of zeal. Now, you saw some things in Isaiah 59 that were very similar or if not the same as what we see in Ephesians 6. Go to Ephesians 6, which is the whole armor of God. Now, Isaiah 59, I believe, is actually talking about the Lord Jesus being basically with all this armor on, but the one thing that you don't see mentioned in Ephesians chapter 6 is this cloak, this cloak of zeal. The one thing that you're going to see here is that it's not mentioned in this passage, although I believe that it's something that we should have. We should have this cloak of zeal, but I'll say this. You don't put the cloak on first. That's what we're getting to. You don't put a cloak on and that's it. Then you would probably be arrested and we would all be questioning you if you just came in here and the cloak and that was it. But that being said, as you put everything else on and the cloak covers over top of that. So that's the last thing you put on. And I'm not here to diminish the cloak because obviously I believe the cloak is important. Important enough for Paul to say, hey, I left that cloak with Karpis and Troas when you come. When thou comest, bring it with thee. So he's saying, I left it with Karpis, but I need you to bring that with me or with you when you come. Now, in Ephesians chapter 6, we see the whole armor of God here. And I want you to see what you put on before you put the cloak on. And this sermon is about the cloak, but I wanted this to be very clear that when he asked for the cloak, he asked for books as well. And he said, especially the parkaments. Meaning that that's more important. That's going to take precedent. That's going to take priority. Over the cloak is the books, which I believe he's talking about the word of God. Now, in Ephesians chapter 6 and verse 10, it says, Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore, take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Why do we put on the whole armor of God? Well, we put it on because there's evil people and wickedness and spiritual wickedness in high places. Then we have to combat that. So, we're in a war, whether you like it or not, and we are chosen to be soldiers of the Lord, soldiers of Christ, if you will, enduring hardness. And if you're going to endure hardness, you need to have this equipment on. Now, this is a spiritual thing. We're not talking about flesh and blood. We're not talking about putting on an actual helmet. And I'm not talking about putting on a physical cloak. I'm talking about spiritual matters here. What's the first thing that it says to put on? Verse 14. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth. What's specifically the first thing you're supposed to put on? Basically, a belt of truth. You're putting on your pants. Or, obviously, ladies, this could be talking about you as well. You'd be putting on a skirt with a belt. But the idea here is that, you know what, you're being girt about with truth and having on the breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Up to this point, you're dealing with clothing and you're dealing with defensive type of equipment. It says even in the next verse, take the helmet of salvation. So a helmet, a shield, dealing with shoes, a belt. We're talking about all these different types of clothing. But then it says, in the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. So the word of God is obviously there in that whole armor of God. It's the sword. It's actually the one offensive type of piece of equipment that you have. That's what you're going to actually stab the enemy with, if you will. And what we see in Isaiah 59 is that the Lord Jesus is putting on the helmet of salvation. He's putting on all these garments. And that also shows you that when it's saying put on the helmet of salvation, it's not saying get saved. Like each day you've got to get that helmet of salvation on there so you can get saved. Well, did Jesus have to get saved in Isaiah 59 when he's talking about putting on the garments of vengeance and he's going to go basically pay for all our sins, essentially is what it gets into at the end of Isaiah 59. But it's talking about obviously in this world, physical salvation. The Bible says work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you both the will and the do of his good pleasure. And obviously in context it's talking about Paul saying, I know that this shall turn to my salvation. And he's talking about being in bonds and getting out of that. Now go to Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10. Romans chapter 10, I want to first show you that zeal can be put before knowledge. And zeal can be something that's not good. Meaning this is that there's a lot of zealous people out there that are zealous about the wrong things. When you think about false prophets, you think about false religions, they're zealous about those things but they're zealous about things that aren't truth, things that aren't right. How about this? There's people that are zealous about football and zealous about basketball, zealous about sports, zealous to the point where they'll just spend tons of money, tons of money, tons of time to invest into that. But is it profitable? Now it's not as bad as being a false prophet and spending your time propagating a false gospel obviously. But zeal is good if it's put in the right place. And notice what it says here. You don't want to have zeal without knowledge. In Romans chapter 10 and verse 1 it says, My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they might be saved. For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. For they, being ignorant of God's righteousness and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believe it. So it doesn't sound like the Jews are saved. Contrary to the Zionist belief and people out there are like, well, they don't need the gospel. According to John Hagee, they don't need the gospel. They're under the Old Testament. Well, if they're under the Old Testament, they're under the curse and they're all going to go to hell. So that's what the Old Testament is. The First Testament never saved anybody. The First Testament condemned. The law condemns. It doesn't save. If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. And so it was never by the law. It never will be by the law. And it's stating that here is that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge, meaning they're zealous. And Paul is a great example of this. Go to Galatians chapter 1. Paul was very zealous for the things of God but it wasn't according to knowledge. And Galatians chapter 1 and verse 11. And there are people out there that are zealous for the things of God but it's not according to knowledge. They're not saved. And if you get those people saved, they can put that zeal in the right place. That zeal can go in the right direction. And in Paul's case, he was going in the wrong direction with the zeal because it was not according to knowledge. In Galatians chapter 1 and verse 11, it says, But I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after man, for I neither received it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God and wasted it, and profited in the Jews' religion above many my equals in mine own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers. Now, he got done saying in Romans chapter 10 that they have a zeal of God but not according to knowledge. And he's saying, I was more zealous above all of them. Right? So, I mean, you can understand where his heart is when he's writing, you know, to those in Rome about his brethren according to the flesh because in chapter 9 he says, I wish I could be a curse from Christ for my brethren, you know, according to the flesh, that they might be saved. That's a strong statement. You want to be anathema, you want to be a curse from Christ so that all those people that are of the flesh, you know, physically speaking, that are of Israel would be saved. And so his heart's desire, and you can see why, because he was there. He was right there with them. Actually, he was above that in zeal because he was literally going out of his way, hailing people into prison and bringing them back to be judged, and on the road to Damascus, obviously, that changed. Go to Philippians chapter 3. Philippians chapter 3, he states the same thing, dealing with zeal. So zeal is not always a good thing, but it can be a great thing if you put it in the right place. If you have this cloak of zeal and you have it according to knowledge, then it can be a great asset to that whole armor of God. And Philippians chapter 3 and verse 4 says, Though I might also have confidence in the flesh, if any other man thinketh that he hath wherever he might trust in the flesh, I more circumcise the eighth day of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin in Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church. Touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, but what things were gained to me, those I counted lost for Christ. And he goes on to say that he may win Christ and be found in him not having his own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is of the faith of Christ. And he goes on to talk about how it's by faith and all that. But the idea that I want you to see here is that when he's talking about zeal, he was zealous, more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers than those of his own country. And concerning zeal, he persecuted the church. So he was using, zealously, he was persecuting the church. And what did Jesus liken that to? Go to Acts chapter 9, Acts chapter 9, because Galatians 1 is hitting on the fact that he's stating that the gospel was not received, he didn't receive the gospel by man because I believe that he received it by Jesus himself on the road to Damascus. And you could disagree or agree with that, but either way, I believe that's what the context is of Galatians 1 here and the fact that he's talking about when he was persecuting the church and he was, basically that's what he was going to do. He was going to Damascus to persecute the church. And Acts chapter 9 in verse 4, it says, and he felt, and this is obviously after the light shone around about him, and this is where Jesus is going to appear to him. It says in verse 4, And he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. Notice this, it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. So someone that has zeal without knowledge is literally kicking against the pricks. That's what I equate being, you know, having all the zeal without knowledge. Now there's unsaved people that have zeal without knowledge, and obviously Paul was an example of that, but you could also have saved people that have a lot of zeal without knowledge as well. Meaning this is that there's a lot of people, even that have been saved for a long time, but maybe they just don't read the Bible. But remember when Paul said, he said, bring my cloak and the books, but especially the parchments. He's like, that's priority. So we need to have priority on knowledge, truth, and then add in that zeal. You don't want to put off the zeal. I'm not saying like, oh, that's the zeal. You just need to have knowledge. Well, if you don't have any zeal, then you're not going to do anything for God. And what good is a bunch of knowledge if you don't do anything with it? Because we can have all the knowledge in the world, understand all mysteries, but if we don't go out and actually win people to Christ, what good is it? If we don't make a difference and we don't have compassion and of some having compassion, making a difference, and others saved with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh, what good is all the doctrine that we know? What good is everything that we have as far as truth and knowledge if we don't actually preach it upon the housetops, if we don't actually go out into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature? That takes zeal, though. And you know what? So zeal needs to be there. But that's the cloak over everything else. Now, when I got saved anyway, I didn't know everything. Shocker. When you get saved, you're a babe in Christ. So when I got saved, I remember having a lot of zeal. I remember having zeal before I got saved, but it wasn't according to knowledge, meaning that I had zeal. I wanted to know God. You had love for God, right? You just didn't know what you needed to believe in order to be saved, right? Once I got saved, there was this zeal that was there, but I had very little knowledge. I had enough knowledge to be saved and know what it took to get to heaven. But when it comes to most of the stuff in the Bible, I was ignorant of those things in the Bible. And when you get saved, what you really need to do is just dig in and read. Give attendance to reading and hear preaching. The Word of God is manifested through preaching, and just hear the Word preached, read the Bible avidly to get as much knowledge as you can to go with that zeal that's there. Now, there are a lot of people that get saved, and there's just not a lot of zeal there. I'm not saying that when you get saved you're going to have zeal. But I do see people that get saved, and then there's just the zeal that is there right from the start, and you don't want to quench it. You want them to use that zeal, but you want them to know, hey, you know what, I need to get some knowledge as I'm going with the zeal. I don't want to just ride the zeal out with no knowledge. And so, zeal is a great thing to have. Go to Titus 2. Actually, God wants us to be zealous. Go to Titus 2 and verse 11. Obviously, the most important thing is that we get saved. Someone gets saved, and if they don't have zeal for God after that, and they don't do anything for God after that, at least they're going to heaven. But how great is it to see zeal after someone gets saved, someone that gets excited about the things of God and realizes, hey, you know what, I love the Lord. I love for what He did for me. I know that it doesn't matter if I do anything after that, but I want to because I love Him, and I want to do what He wants me to do. That type of zeal, that type of desire that you could have. And you know what, we should always be praying for zeal. Especially as we go into the new year, we want to have to have zeal because I believe our church has a lot of knowledge. And I joke about the Bible trivia stuff, but listen, even those that lost that Bible trivia still had a lot of knowledge. This is not the cupcake version of Bible trivia that we were playing. This is high-end stuff that's like, okay, we're talking about kings, and we're talking about how many sons someone had and all these different things. And you know what, that's great that we have a church that's full of knowledge, but you know what we don't want to have is a church full of knowledge and no zeal. We want to have zeal because if you want to beat, I think it was 370 salvations. Was that the total for the whole year? 370 salvations. If we want to beat that next year, which every single year we beat our record as far as salvations, if you want to beat 370 this year, you're not going to do it without zeal. And we shouldn't be looking back and saying, wow, look at all the people. We won thousands. And even if you look in your past as far as people that you won to the Lord, we won all these people to Christ. You know what, that's good enough. We've done more than most. Yeah, it's a fact that you've done more than most, and this church has done more than most, but that's not what we're supposed to do. We're not supposed to just stop and just sit on our past glories. Well, you know what, I have a lot of goods. I'm just going to build bigger barns that I can put all my goods in and then eat and drink and be married. Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee. And if you want God to bless this church, then you better have zeal. You better have that candlestick there, and that candlestick is by keeping that first love. And by keeping that first love or even getting back to that first love is by doing the first works. But that isn't going to really happen unless you have zeal because you know I need to do this. You can understand this needs to be done. This is true. These are facts. But doing it, that takes more than just knowing it. You need to have some zeal. You need to have some desire. And in Titus 2 here, in verse 11, it says, For the grace of God that bringeth salvation at the pure to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And by the way, it says, The grace of God that bringeth salvation at the pure to all men, not some Calvinists, not just the elect. It's to all men. But it also, not the fact that we just get saved, but that same grace where we get saved teaches us also that we should live soberly, that we should live righteously, that we should live godly in this present world. And that takes walking in the Spirit, putting on the flesh. That takes starving the flesh and feeding the Spirit. Keep reading there. It says, Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. So what he wants is a people. He's obviously saving us from hell, but he wants to purify those people to be zealous of good works. And it also says, These things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee. You know, when it comes to having that type of boldness, that zeal and boldness a lot of times go hand in hand. If you have a lot of zeal, that'll make you be very bold at the same time. And the Bible talks about them praying for boldness. And I believe just as much as we should pray for boldness, we should pray for zeal. Now, go to Psalm 69, Psalm 69. Zeal is an emotion, okay? We're a Baptist church here, but that doesn't mean we don't have emotion, okay? We're not some Pentecostal church. I don't have a chandelier to hang from anyway, but even if I did, I wouldn't be hanging from it, and I wouldn't run around like a lunatic for no reason. But that does not mean we lack emotion. We have real emotion. And when we get excited about something, we're actually excited about something. We're not just putting on a pretense or a show. So don't think that emotion's bad, because emotion's good. And even loving the Lord is not just keeping the commandments, right? Obviously, if you love me, keep my commandments, it's not just a robotic thing. The same thing if you love your spouse, hopefully it's not robotic. Be like, well, the Bible told me to, so that's why I got to do it. Do you love me? Well, the Bible says so. I mean, isn't that good enough for you? Said I had to. Well, have fun with that marriage, you know? So obviously, there should be emotion. There should be, you know, the Bible talks about in Song of Solomon that her bowels were moved for her husband, okay? And that's talking about like butterflies in the stomach, okay? So unless you're thinking about something else. But the thing is that it's talking about like that feeling of emotion, okay? Bowels, mercies, and all that is talking about emotion, because you can feel emotion in your stomach. And the idea there is that, you know what, we should have emotion when it comes to love and when it comes to the love of God. But go to Psalm 69 and verse 9. It says, For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. Now, obviously, this is something prophesying about what Jesus was going to say when he threw all the people out of the temple that were selling and buying and all that stuff, right? And they were making a house of merchandise. He says that the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up. But I want you to notice that it says the zeal hath eaten me up. He's eaten up inside with zeal because they're buying and selling and using the house of God for a house of merchandise and a den of thieves. And that zeal was eating him up inside. That's an emotion. If you don't think that Jesus was angry or had emotion, I mean, he wasn't robotic in there when he took a whip and threw over tables and whipped people out of the temple. There was emotion there. Jesus looked around people in anger before, and that's not wrong. The Bible says, Be any angry and sin not. It says you can be angry with your brother just not without a cause. Now, it's wrong to hate your brother, but I can be angry at my brother if there's a cause. Now, go to Psalm 119, Psalm 119 and verse 139. Psalm 119 verse 139. I want you to see that zeal is an emotion. It's something that you can't fake it. You can try. And I feel like the Pentecostals and all these emotionalistic type of churches try to just copy it, but it's a real emotion, to be zealous for the things of God, to have zeal. And 139, it says, Psalm 119, 139, it says, My zeal hath consumed me because mine enemies have forgotten thy words. So notice how when it's talking about zeal, it's talking about it's eating you up. It's consuming you. That's real. That's a real emotion where it's eating you up inside when you think of people preaching a false gospel, when you think of the enemies that, as it says here, it says, forgotten thy words. And when they're desecrating the house of God, whatever the case may be, it's eating you up inside. And that is zeal. Now, go to Jeremiah chapter 20. It doesn't say zeal here, but I'm going to say that this is zeal, okay? And we need to have this type of zeal. And I don't want it to be said about our church and be like, well, you know, Mountain Baptist Church, when they started, they had a lot of zeal. They had a lot of zeal for the things of God, but, man, it's just kind of softened up a little bit. You know what? I hope that we increase in knowledge over years. It would be ridiculous to think, well, you know, when we first started, we know just as much as we knew then, no more, no less. No, we should be increasing in knowledge. You know, I as a pastor should be increasing in knowledge. I believe I know more than I did when I started the church, okay? And I want to know more the next year, the next year, the next year, but what I don't want to do is trade in that for zeal. I don't want to leave off knowledge, but I don't want to just be like, all right, you know what? It's all about knowledge. It's all about understanding of the Bible, and I'm just going to leave off zeal. No, zeal needs to be there as well. Notice what it says in Jeremiah 20, verse 9. It says, then I said, I will not make mention of him. This is Jeremiah talking about how he's not going to talk about God anymore because it's just causing him all kinds of problems. He's just getting persecuted. It says, then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name, but his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. That's the type of prophet you need to be. Jeremiah is literally like, I'm basically saying, no, I'm not going to do it anymore, but I just could not handle it. It was like a fire in my bones to hold it in, and that's what it feels like sometimes. I mean, does it not feel that way when you hear somebody just preaching a false gospel, and you're just like, ah! You just want to let the true word of God out and just put them in their place because you know that they're sending people to hell with that false gospel. And Jeremiah is basically saying, I'm getting persecuted. I mean, Jeremiah was put into a dungeon, and they had to pull him out of the mire of the dungeon, and all this stuff is happening to him, and he's basically stating to you, you know what? I'm just going to stop talking about it. I'm going to stop saying anything about it. He's basically just like, I'm going to step back, get out of the limelight of just talking about the word of God and saying what God's going to do to this nation, but he's just like, I tried. I tried doing that, but the word of God was in him like a fire burning in his bones. Now, that's an emotion. That's a feeling, okay? Now, this is different than the burning in your bosom that the Mormons have. Ah, this is burning in my bosom. Now, here's the thing. Emotion is good, and having that burning in your bones is good, but it better be according to knowledge because you could have that burning desire and that type of zeal, but if it's not according to knowledge, you're going to go to hell when it comes to the gospel, and you could be a Christian and obviously have eternal life and go into heaven and have all the zeal, but if it's not according to knowledge, you're headed for destruction. You're headed for basically judgment if it's against the Bible, obviously, then you need to make sure. You want to have zeal, but you want to make sure that you're in the bounds of what's right, having the discerning between good and evil and knowing what direction you're going because you don't want to be kicking against the pricks. You don't want to be having judgment waiting for you because you had all the zeal, but you didn't have knowledge to go with it, okay? Go to Numbers chapter 25. Numbers chapter 25, I want to show you a case here where a man had great zeal for God and how God not only rewarded him, but also saved the congregation or saved the people from further judgment just because of one man's zeal, okay? And I want you to see here that you say, well, you know, this world's going to hell and hell in a handbasket. What is our church among so many, right? What is our church? It's such a small church here in West Virginia. I mean, what does this matter? What are we doing? I want to show you what one man's zeal does when it comes to being zealous for the commandments of God. Notice what it says in verse 5 here. So Numbers chapter 25 and verse 5, it says, And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-Peor. So here's the commandment that's going forth. Now, obviously, the commandment's coming from God. Moses is giving it to the judges of Israel and saying, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baal-Peor. Okay, so that's a false god, by the way. And verse 6, it says, And behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Now, the reason I believe they were weeping is because there's actually 24,000 people that have died because they didn't actually do what they were supposed to be doing, which we'll get to here in a few verses. But this Midianitish woman, I believe, is basically a worshiper of Baal-Peor, and this Israelite was basically just bringing them in front of the whole congregation like it's nothing, and no one was doing anything about it until, in verse 7, it says, And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation and took a javelin in his hand, and he went after the man of Israel into the tent and thrust both of them through. And the man of Israel and the woman threw her belly, so the plague was stayed from the children of Israel, and those that died in the plague were 24,000. So 24,000 people died because they were worshipping, they were joined unto Baal-Peor, a false god. The commandment goes forth to basically slay anybody that is joined unto that. This guy just flipping comes in into the congregation like it's nothing, and who stands up? Phinehas. Phinehas stands up. Now obviously this is a commandment of that government to put these people to death, so I'm not saying something comes in and you're like, I worship Baal-Peor, and we take a javelin and just stick them through. Obviously that's not what we're going to do, but this shows you, though, you have a commandment, someone's clearly breaking that commandment, what do you do? This could go into church discipline, right? I mean, think about it. If someone was just flippantly committing a sin that's in 1 Corinthians 5, and then I just basically stood by and just was like, hands are tied, well, then don't expect the blessings of God in our church when you just let leaven like that come in. Or I let sodomites come in. I mean, everybody would leave at that point, rightfully so. Everybody would just be like, I'm out of here. But at the same time, you know what, I'm not going to let filth into this church, I'm not going to let leaven into this church if I can help it, and you know what, Phinehas stayed a plague, but notice it keeps reading there, it says in verse 10, it says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Phinehas the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, had turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy. Wherefore, say, Behold, I give unto him my covenant of peace, and he shall have it in his seed after him, even the covenant of an everlasting priesthood, because he was zealous for his God, and made an atonement for the children of Israel. Now the name of the Israelite that was slain with the Midianite-ish woman was Zimrai, the son of Salu, a prince of the chief house among the Simeonites. And the name of the Midianite-ish woman that was slain was caused by the daughter of Zer, he was head over a people and of a chief house in Midian. Notice how Phinehas didn't give a rip about their status. But he obeyed the commandment of the Lord. And he had zeal to obey that commandment, and that zeal not only saved his own country, but gave him a blessing, or basically the priesthood was going to go through his line from that day forward, because there was other sons of Aaron, but it went through Phinehas after that. And so he had a blessing, he was given a blessing for doing it, but if he just saved his country, that would have been enough, wouldn't it? So what can the zeal of one man do? Well, Phinehas saved the whole country from a plague. So something to think about, go to Galatians chapter 4, this is where our memory verse is at. Being zealously affected, because if you have one man that's zealous, that can affect everybody. If you have one zealous preacher, for example, that can provoke others to be zealous. If you have one zealous person in the congregation, listen, your zeal could provoke me to have zeal. Listen, I hope it's not always the case that I'm always the one that has to provoke everybody to zeal. And actually, I know it's not the case, because I know that there's been cases where your zeal has provoked me. And in a good provocation, meaning that it's not a bad thing, it's a good thing. But notice what it says, being zealously affected, it can be bad, but it can also be good. Galatians chapter 4 and verse 17, they zealously affect you, but not well. Yea, they would exclude you that ye might affect them. So he's talking to Galatians here because he's talking about false prophets in there saying that you have to be circumcised to be saved. Well, they're zealous about it, but they're zealously affecting them in a bad way. It's not good, because they're zealously affecting them to basically get away from grace and going into works, salvation. But, it says in verse 18, but it is good to be zealously affected always in a good thing and not only when I am present with you. And that last portion there, obviously it's good to be zealously affected in a good thing, but it says not only when I'm present with you. Meaning this is that, you know what, you should be zealously affected even when I'm not there, the one doing it. Okay, meaning this is that, let's say we had a guest preacher come in that everybody liked and you know what, it just got you on fire. And that happens, right? We've had guest preachers and it just kind of gets you pumped up, it gets you kind of on fire a little bit. And one, it's just kind of a different preacher and they kind of hit you at a different perspective, whatever the case may be, right? But, you don't want to just be like, well, that was our kick of zeal for the year, wait until next year until we get our next one. Okay, so, but also what if it's like, well, it's only when we're at church that I'm just like feeling that zeal. Well, I would say this, you need to be zealously affected even when I'm not with you, even when other people aren't with you. Because you may say that about someone else in the church and be like, well, you know what, when I'm around, you know, like brother Richie, right? Like let's say I'm picking people random, okay, but if I said brother Matt, you know, brother Matt's just like, you know what, when I'm around brother Richie, he just, his zeal provokes me. Well, you know, that's good, but at the same time, you know, you need to have zeal even when he's not present with you, okay? Same other way around because brother Richie can be like, you know what, when I'm with brother Matt, you know what, I just feel, I feel zealous, I feel like doing the great things for God, but you obviously need to have that when you're by yourself, okay? And that's what I believe he's stating is that it shouldn't just be based off one person, it shouldn't just be based off Paul and that's why you're zealously affected. You know, you need to be zealously affected even when they're not present with you, okay? And this is where I believe you should be praying for zeal, praying for boldness, and asking God to give that to you, okay? There's times where I'm more zealous than others, okay? There's times where I'm more bold than others. There's times where I just don't feel boldness, just feel weak, you know, feel weak and fragile. You know, I'm just like, you know, there's times where I just feel like, you know what, what am I even doing, you know? Who am I to be doing this? Who am I for anybody to listen to me? Why am I doing this? Whatever the case may be. And then other days I'm just like, bring it! Come at me, bro! You know, like, there's, it's just like you have these different days where you're just, the world is trying to push you down and you're just like, you're nothing, you're nothing. You know what, you're an idiot, you don't know anything, you're not intelligent. Then other days you're just like, you're the idiots, let's go. Let's go at it. Let's go, let's go fight. And you're going to have these times, so don't think that it's just going to always be this high zeal moment, or this high boldness moment, or this high faith moment. This is how it goes. Okay? It's like a sine curve. No, I'm just kidding. Cosine, no. One person got it. Two people, no. Anyway, it's going to be up and down. It's going to be valleys, it's going to be peaks of zeal, boldness, and all that. The idea here is when you have a lot of those in the same building, when I'm down here, someone's up here. Hopefully not every single one of us is down here and we're just like ho-hum and it's just like Eeyore Baptist Church. Okay? And just woe is me. Woe is me Baptist Church. Now, obviously there's going to be people that are up here, there's going to be people down here on the zeal level, and what's that zeal level here going to do? It's going to provoke the others that are down here. It's going to affect the others down here. Go to 2 Corinthians 9. You know what? Sometimes I just need to borrow your cloak. Sometimes you need to borrow my cloak. Sometimes we're all just cloaked. We got our cloaks. We're ready to go. But you know what? I believe Karpus was borrowing. I'm just looking at it like Karpus was borrowing Paul's cloak. He left it with Karpus. Karpus was using it and Paul's like I need my cloak. And Timothy, bring it with you when you come. And again, I believe it's a real cloak. But spiritually speaking, I believe there's an aspect there that hey, you know what? Karpus was using my cloak but I need that cloak now. I need that cloak back. And we can pull off each other and let each other borrow our cloaks every once in a while because we're all human and we still have the flesh. So in 2 Corinthians 9, it says in verse 1, For as touching the ministering to the saints, it is superfluous for me to write to you. Now what that means is basically it's not needed. It's like over and beyond. I don't really need the right to send to you because why? Verse 2, For I know the forwardness of your mind, for which I boast of you to them of Macedonia, that Achaia was ready a year ago, and your zeal hath provoked very many. So he's basically saying it's not really needed for me to write this unto you because your zeal is already, I mean a year ago they were ready in Achaia, because your zeal has provoked so many people. And so we need to have that type of zeal that will provoke others to zeal. And even if we have, let's say we have visitors that come in but they're coming from so long they're never going to, they're just not going to come back, you know, or whatever the case may be. You know what? Our zeal hopefully provokes them and then we'll go back to their church and maybe their zeal will provoke them. And you can always hope that that zeal will provoke others to be zealous as well for the things of God. And go to 2 Kings chapter 10, 2 Kings chapter 10, another story here dealing with zeal and provoking people to do great things for God. This is a story of Jehu. Jehu was king over Israel but he wasn't king over Israel because of like lineage. God made him king over Israel. You remember this when the prophet came to anoint him and his friends, you know, he came in and they said you're going to be king over Israel and anointed him. And they came out and they said what did he want? And it's like well you know the manner of him and they're like it is false. What did he say? Like they're just like, because, and he's like well he said you're going to be king, I'm going to be king of Israel. It's like well, you know, they're like yes. But it's automatically like it's false, don't worry about it. And they're like, they find out it was something good. And they're like oh okay, well in that case. Anyway, so Jehu ends up destroying the whole house of Ahab and he just basically cleans house. And this is where Jezebel, he has Jezebel thrown from off, you know, and her blood sprinkles on the wall and dogs eat her and all that stuff. That's where this happens, okay. Happy New Year. So in verse 15 here, it says, and when he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab, the son of Rekab, coming to meet him. And he saluted him and said to him, is thine heart right as my heart is with thy heart? And I'll say that ten times fast. He's basically saying is your heart right as mine is, you know, essentially? You know, like my heart's right. Is your heart right? Are we on the same wavelength? You know, do we believe the same thing? Are we going the same direction? Right, and that's important to know because you want to know that hey, we're going the same direction, right. Can two walk together except to be agreed? So obviously he's basically like are you on the same side here? You going with me? And it says, and Jehonadab answered, it is. Okay, so he first checks that out. He'll be like alright, we're on the same wavelength, our heart is right. It says, if it be, give me thine hand, and he gave him his hand and he took him up to him into the chariot and he said, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. So they made him ride in his chariot. And when he came to Samaria, he slew all that remained of the Ahab and Samaria until he had destroyed him according to the saying of the Lord which he spake to Elijah. So, you know, he's in a battle. He's already fighting and he finds another person. He says, is thine heart right as my heart is with thine heart? He's like, are we on the same wavelength here? Then come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. I mean, remember when he's driving furiously and the messengers are like, is it peace? And he says, what is thou to do with peace? And he goes on about Jezebel and they just literally get behind him and start following him. That's what you call a leader and that's what you call zeal provoking others. And notice how he pulls him up into the chariot with him and says, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. And that's the type of effectual zeal that we want to have. Go to Acts 1. There's actually a person, there's actually a disciple that's known for his zeal. He's actually named for his zeal. And Acts 1 and verse 13 gives us a list of the disciples here. Obviously, it's going to be missing Judas in Acts 1 because he killed himself and he was the traitor. And verse 13 it says, and when they were come in, they went up into an upper room where abode both Peter and James and John and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon Zelotes and Judas the brother of James. Though that Judas is not Judas Iscariot, obviously. So there's 11 there. Simon Zelotes. Simon Zelotes is not like his father's name. Go to Luke chapter 6. Luke chapter 6 and verse 15. Luke chapter 6 gives a list of the disciples here, but I want you to see, Simon's also called Simon the Canaanite, which shows you that he became a Jew, but he was not of nationality of Israel, which you can do. Obviously, the Bible teaches that in the Old Testament, that if you want to become an Israelite, all you have to do is pick whatever tribe you want. So pick whatever tribe you want, and obviously you've got to keep their customary laws and all that stuff to be a part of the nation, but you know what? Anybody can do it. But in verse 15 it says, Matthew Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes. Zelotes, that word literally means like a zealot, if you will, like someone that's a zealot. So he's literally like Simon the zealous, you know, like the person that's zealous. So Simon the Canaanite was known for his zeal. So much that he's called Simon Zelotes. He's literally given as his surname. Think of what Simon Peter, Peter it says is given to him as a surname, basically surname Peter. You know, our surname, my surname is like Robinson, right? But I'm given that because that's like a lineage type of name that's given there. I wasn't given that for like what I do or attributes of myself, but Peter was given to Simon because of certain attributes. Even the sons of Zebedee were called the Boanerges, which means the son of thunder. So they were given these surnames, if you will, based off who they were, you know, what they did and things like that. And Simon was known for his zeal. And I want our church to be known for its zeal. I want everyone in here to be known for their zeal. I want to be known for their zeal. I don't want to be like, well, you know, Pastor Robinson knows a lot about the Bible, but he's just, you know, he's just dull. He's just kind of like, ugh, you know, he doesn't want to do anything. He's just not excited about anything. You know, he just kind of goes through the motions. It's like that idea of like, you know, well, I go soul wanting, but it's out of duty. It's not willingly. You know, it's just trudging through, trudging through another sermon, trudging through another soul wanting outing, trudging through whatever, right? Now I was trudging through our New Year's Eve party, okay? But there was reasons for that, okay? So if you saw me there, please give me a pass on that one. I was trying, but that had nothing to do with your company. That had nothing to do with like being excited about the new year or anything like that. That was just straight up being tired. But that being said is that you want, hopefully you want a pastor, and I think all of you would agree with this. You don't want a pastor that is just like monotone. You don't want a pastor that's just boring. You don't want a pastor that doesn't get excited about anything. I'm sure you don't want a pastor that just yells all the time, right? I'm just yelling at the top of my lungs all the time and just that's it. So, but, you know, I'm sure, hopefully, and at least I do, I like preachers that get excited about things every once in a while. You know why? Because that shows me they actually care. They actually care about what they're talking about. You know what? I preach a sermon. A lot of times I'll have a subject and I'll be like, oh, you know, I need to preach on that. I just won't preach on it until I get excited about it because I can't stand trying to preach a sermon I'm not excited about. And so now sometimes when you get around the holidays I have to get excited about it because I don't want to be that preacher and be like, you know what, it's Christmas, but you know what, I'm not going to be that guy. I'm going to preach on hell, you know. And, you know, I obviously, I like to preach about things like Christmas and Easter and, you know, like around the holidays, okay. So if I'm cliché for doing that, whatever. But I can get excited about it. But, you know what, I like to be excited about what I'm preaching about because if I'm not you can tell. You can tell whether I'm just like up here just going through the motions. And, you know, when we go through expository preaching I try to, it's kind of hard because it's not topical necessarily, but I try to find something in that passage that's really exciting to get excited about. You know, I'm not going to get excited about every little detail, right. Tithing guys, we're in Malachi, excited about this subject, you know. So you better start tithing. It's hard to get excited about preaching on tithing just to be honest with you. I think I preached one sermon on it. I probably should eventually. Does anyone have questions about it? If not, I'll wait until another year. But honestly there's certain things in the Bible you're just like, I just, unless there's a big question or someone has an issue with it, I just can't get that excited about it because it's just not that exciting, you know. And you say, well, you should get excited about it. Okay, I'll try. But that being said, go back to the verse in 2 Timothy, just end with this in verse 13 there. And again, this will show you too that every verse in the Bible is important. And even those verses where it's kind of like these salutations. Because I could preach a sermon on Demas hath forsaken me having loved this present world. You could preach a whole sermon on that. You could preach on, you know, I left Trophimus and Miletum sick and preach a sermon on that. You could preach sermons on just these simple phrases that are going down the line. But this one always kind of stuck out to me a little bit because he says, the cloak that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring with thee in the books, but especially the parchments. It just brings out that we're talking about bring my zeal with you and bring the books, bring the scriptures, but especially the scriptures. If I was to pick between someone having a lot of zeal and having knowledge, I'm going to pick someone having knowledge, right. I don't want to have someone that is like wrong on the gospel and like spewing out like falsehoods, okay. But he's making a point to bring his cloak, okay. This is important to bring that cloak. And you know what, we need to be, we need to have that whole armor of God. We need to have that sword of the Spirit. We need to be girt about with truth. But why don't we go ahead and just put on that cloak while we're done with it, right. I mean it's pretty much like adding on the cape to the armor, if you will. And it may seem like it's not needed, but that cloak is giving you that desire. It's not the most tangible type of thing, right, that's going to win the battle. But in the end, zeal may be the difference between losing and winning. Think about Eleazar, the son of Dodo, where it says that he fought with David and he fought until his hand was weary and his hand claved to the sword. So the point is that he just fought so hard and would not give up. You know what that is? That's zeal. You can have the sword and you can have all the knowledge you want, but if you don't have zeal, you may give up. You know what keeps me going is zeal. You know what keeps me going? Love for God. If it was just about knowing things about the Bible, I wouldn't be here right now. You wouldn't be here right now. The reason you keep going is because you love God, you desire to make Him happy, you desire to glorify Him, you desire to see people snatched from hell, and desire, you have the zeal to see people saved, and we don't want to lose that. So for 2022, let's keep that cloak on. And if you're cloaking, you can borrow mine. You can borrow someone else's. And you know what, there may be some days where I just need to borrow someone else's cloak myself. And so let's just keep the zeal going. You know, in 2022, let's have more zeal this year than we had last year. And we don't want to leave off knowledge, but at the same time, let's have zeal this year. And let's pray. And, dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. Thank you for this passage, and thank you for these scriptures on having cloak, being clad with zeal as a cloak, and how Paul wanted his cloak that he left at Troas with Carpus. And the Lord just prayed you'd help us to have zeal. We pray that you give us boldness, give us faith, give us zeal. Help us to have a desire to do great things for you, to do good works, to see many souls saved this year. We thank you for another year that we can go into and serve you at Mountain Baptist Church, and just pray that you would be with us as we go out soul winning today and throughout the rest of the week. And Lord, we love you and pray also in Jesus Christ's name. Amen. So Brother Abe will come and sing one more song, and that will be dismissed. All right, take your song books and turn to song, song number 56. Song number 56 in your song books. We'll sing When We All Get to Heaven. If you would stand, we'll sing song number 56. Sing the wondrous love of Jesus, sing his mercy and his grace. In the mansions bright and blessed, he'll prepare for us a place. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. While we walk the pilgrim pathway, clouds will overspread the sky. But when traveling days are over, not a shadow, not a sigh. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. Let us then be true and faithful, trusting, serving every day. Just one glimpse of him in glory will the toils of life repay. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. Onward to the prize before us, soon his beauty will behold. Soon the pearly gates will open, we shall tread the streets of gold. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be. When we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout the victory. R-U are dismissed.