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open our eyes that we might behold, just the great wisdom and knowledge that you have. Help your servant Pastor Shelley preach in your spirit, and I just pray for everyone here in Jesus' name, amen. Amen. So we've been going through the book of Ezra, and we're in chapter two. In chapter one, we saw the proclamation of Cyrus, the proclamation of Cyrus for the Jews to return back to Jerusalem to build the house of God again. It really just kind of started out with the proclamation. Cyrus says, hey, I'm going to give you gold and silver. We're going to give you the treasures that were taken away from by Nebuchadnezzar. In chapter number two, it just continues with that thought and tells us who were the people that were going to go back. It says in verse number one, now these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity of those which had been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away unto Babylon, and came again unto Jerusalem and Judah, every one unto his city, which came with Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Sariah, Reoliah, Mordecai, Bilshen, Mizpah, Bigvai, Rehombana, the number of the men of the people of Israel. And then it gives us a huge list of names and how many people were in that particular family, how many of their sons there were. Now for sake of time, I'm not going to reread that again, just that whole section, but we see we get a bunch of names here. We see that these people were specifically the ones that were carried away into Babylon. Now when we go forward in this chapter a little bit, look at what it says in verse number 61. It says unto the children of the priests, the children of Habbaiya, the children of Kos, the children of Barzillai, which took a wife of the daughters of Barzillai the Gileadite, and was called after their name, these sought their register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found. Therefore were they as polluted put from the priesthood, and the Tershotha said unto them that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim. The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and three score. Beside their servants and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred thirty and seven, and there were among them two hundred singing men and singing women. So it kind of wraps up this chapter. It goes through a long list of people, it gives their family names, and it gives their number of people that was with them, and it gives us a total, it says there was four thousand two hundred, I'm sorry, four thousand, forty two thousand three hundred and sixty, I said that wrong the first time, forty two thousand three hundred and sixty people that were coming back into Jerusalem from the Babylonian captivity. So that's quite a grouping of people that are going, and one thing that you could point out here that's pretty interesting is the Bible even proves math, because if you're going through there, he gives you every single number of each one of these little families, and then he gives you the total, and hey, that's how math works, so you can even prove math from the Bible, look, you can prove all things from the Bible, okay, and it also gives just some other people, some of the servants, it just kind of gives us their numbers, but it said in verse number sixty two that there were some people that they could not reckon their genealogy, they could not prove that they were a Levite, they could not prove that they were of the priesthood, and that just signifies the importance of some of the genealogies captured in the Bible. Say, why would God give us this huge list of names and tell us all these people? Well, you have to understand that, especially back in those times, these documents were very important to prove certain lineages. Now why is it so important to prove these genealogies and have these lineages? Because only certain people were to serve God, according to the Old Covenant, according to the Old Testament, God had ordained it that the Levites specifically were the only ones that were supposed to serve him in the house of God. Additionally, every single tribe was supposed to be congregated only with their tribe, it's supposed to be the tribes of Judah or the tribe of Benjamin, so throughout the Old Testament these genealogies helped them keep their inheritance, stay within the regions of the land in which God had designated for them to be, and there's a lot of prophecy that comes from particular lineages, and it highlights throughout the Bible the lineage of Judah, because why? That's where the Jesus Christ came from, so we can trace throughout the Bible the genealogies will end up leading us to who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Now one thing I wanted to do with this chapter, because interestingly enough, as much as you loved reading this chapter, you know it's contained in another place in your Bible. Keep your finger and go to Nehemiah chapter number seven, Nehemiah chapter number seven, and look at what it says in verse number six, it says, these are the children of the province that went up out of the captivity of those that have been carried away, whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away, and came again to Jerusalem and to Judah, everyone unto a city. Who came was Zerubbabel, Jeshua, Nehemiah, Azariah, Rehamaiah, Nehemiah, Mordecai, Bilshen, Mizphereth, Bigvai, Nehem, Beinah, the number I say of the men of the people of Israel was this. And then it goes and it gives you like the same list as we already read in the book of Ezra. And again, you know, out of the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established. So it's obviously important that he gives us this list. And Nehemiah is reconciling, hey, these are the people that came out with them. If you skip forward to verse number 62, I'm sorry, not 62, but let's look at verse 63. It says, and of the priests, the children of Abia, the children of Kos, the children of Barzillai, which took one of the daughters of Bilzillai, the Giladite to wife, and was called after the name. He sought the register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but it was not found. Therefore were they as polluted put from the priesthood. And the church with us said unto them that they should not eat of the most holy things till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim. The whole congregation together was forty and two thousand three hundred and three score. So he gives us the exact same numbers. He's giving us the base of the same list. He's telling us, hey, these people were not allowed to be in the priesthood. Now, a couple things that I want to do this evening while we go through the sermon is I want to talk about the importance of that, but I also want to kind of set the tone of where we're at. Because we just read Nehemiah 7 and we just read Ezra chapter 2, and I think a lot of people have no idea where we are in the Bible or how these things kind of overlap. So I want to make that clear this evening. But one thing you can tell, why would God give us such detailed accounts of the genealogies? Well, one thing is he doesn't want the wrong person serving him. He's making it real clear, hey, if you can't reconcile yourself with this list of people, you're not going to be in the priesthood. You're going to be polluted. So what does that mean? It means that whatever God said in the Bible is important. He didn't just give it to us in vain. He didn't give us his commandments in vain. He didn't give us the genealogies in vain. He didn't give us any of the instructions in vain. We're supposed to follow them to a T. And the essence of Ezra and Nehemiah is this. Follow God's commandments to a T. You'll see this theme throughout the book of these two books so much. Why? Well, what happened to them 70 years before this? They were in captivity. Why were they in captivity and being taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar? Because they rejected God's commandments because they weren't following God's commandments because they had polluted the sanctuary because they were defiled before the Lord. And so there's this huge theme in Ezra and Nehemiah that they have to do things right. They have to do things according to the law for God to bless them. Okay? So that's one major theme. But before we get there and I go through a little bit more detail, I want to kind of give you an idea of where we are in the Bible. And I did this last time, but just to give you an idea of where we are just in a big picture and then we'll kind of dial it in. You know, the Old Testament's kind of broken into five parts. You have the first part would be the book of Moses and it goes from Genesis to Deuteronomy. So you have Genesis and you have Deuteronomy and this is literally a timeline, okay? It just goes in chronological order. Then right after that you have Joshua, okay? So we have Joshua. And this section would just be known as like the history, the historical books. And pretty much caps off with the book of Esther. Now I'm going to put a little divide here just because. So we have Esther and this would be known as history. Now you have after Esther you have the book of Job. Now Job, it kind of kicks back on this timeline as far as where we are chronologically and it would be known as the poetry book. So you have Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. And they probably fall somewhere generally in this section. So this is your poetry section in caps, you know, capped off with Job and then Song of Solomon. We'll just put SOS, alright? You get that. And then the next section that we'd have under this would be the major prophets, okay? And the major prophets are going to start with Isaiah. And they're going to pretty much go all the way to Daniel, which Daniel's going to be kind of just pretty close to Esther, probably capped off a little bit before. So you can kind of get a visual. This is going to be your major prophets. And then you have what's known as the minor prophets. The minor prophets is Hosea, Joel, Amos, you have 12. And they're going to pretty much just start back over here and they're going to go a little bit further out. Hosea, and then you have Malachi. Now the reason why I'm doing this is I want everybody to kind of have an idea of where we are in the Bible and really helping you. Then you'd have what? The New Testament, where you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are the same timeline. Then you have the book of Acts, which extends it a little bit further. And that's pretty much the whole history of the New Testament is the gospels to Acts. And then you have the epistles are pretty much just written in this timeline. And then you have the book of Revelation. So from a timeline perspective, the Bible is chronological. So we have to understand it's generally chronological. It has overlapping, though. So whenever you're reading throughout your Bible, it's going to have certain sections that are overlapping. And this is just to kind of give you an idea. Ezra, the book that we're in, Ezra is pretty much right here. That's where Ezra is in kind of the timeline, the chronology of your Bible. And you're going to have some overlapping. You're going to have Daniel kind of right before the book of Ezra in a timeline perspective. And then you're going to have three minor prophet books that are going to kind of overlap or be in part of that timeframe. You're going to have Haggai, Zechariah, and then it's not exactly certain where Malachi fits in. It's most likely a little bit after that. But it fits in with the kind of the same thought process and has the same concepts and ideas. So from a high level perspective, this is kind of how the Bible follows a general chronology. So you can kind of get an idea of where you're at. Now let's kind of get an idea with the book of Ezra itself. Because what did we just read? We just read Cyrus making his proclamation. People are returning to the land. So I'm going to kind of draw a couple of different categories here. We're going to have the Bible and then we're going to have Ezra. And in Ezra chapter one and two, we have the proclamation of Cyrus to return to the land to build the Lord's house. And it says it's in Cyrus' first year. Now when you get to chapter number three, okay, we're kind of going to skip forward a little bit and just figuring out what the book of Ezra is about. But in chapter number three, they finally made it to Jerusalem. They've gathered together. They're in Jerusalem. All of these people that we just read about, they traveled there. And that's in Cyrus' seventh month of his reign. Now the one thing you have to understand about Cyrus is Cyrus has been king for a long time before his first year. The first year is denoting when he took over the Chaldeans, took over the Babylonians, and now he's king of basically the entire earth at this point, okay? So it's not saying the first year of him ever reigning. It's like the first year of his reign over everything. Then when we get into chapter number four, it's interesting because the Bible says they have a lot of adversaries. There's a lot of people that hate them. They're trying to stop them from building certain things. And the adversaries, according to the Bible, they are going to go from Cyrus all the way to Darius is what they say. And to kind of draw this, I kind of drew like this extra little line here. But in chapter four, you have adversaries and they go all the way to Darius. Now in chapter four, he's going to tell us that there's two kings that are in between there, which is kind of interesting. He says Ahasuerus and he says Artaxerxes. So he kind of mentions two other guys, Artaxerxes and Ahasuerus. Now Ahasuerus, the interesting thing about his name is you find his name in the book of Esther, okay? Now here's the thing about these Persian kings. These Persian kings just all named themselves the same name just every single like reign and dynasty. It's like Artaxerxes, one, two, three, four, five. It's really hard to know which Artaxerxes you're talking about. And additionally, if you're reading the book of Daniel, there's a guy named Darius, but it says he's Darius the Mede. Then when you're reading the book of Ezra, it'll say Darius the Persian. So there's a difference between Darius the Mede and Darius the Persian. And there's an Artaxerxes here. And when you go to secular history, I'm going to kind of put that up here in a minute, but secular histories, you know, they're just kind of guessing to some degree, they're looking at old documents, they have to trust these things. But by the reign of Darius, okay, when you're getting into Ezra chapter number six, you're finally now in the reign of Darius and in his first year, okay, he declares them to rebuild. So just giving you a high level of Ezra for a moment, okay? He makes the proclamation. In chapter number two, we have this big group of people returning, okay? They finally get there in chapter number three. In chapter four, they run into a lot of problems. People are trying to attack them, cause them to stop. They even write letters to Artaxerxes. And Artaxerxes has them cease building the temple, okay? But in chapter number six, in the reign of Darius, they write back into Darius and say, hey, go look through the scrolls and go find out that Cyrus had made this great proclamation and we're supposed to build it. And then Darius kind of helps them and they start getting back to work. Darius makes his degree that they're going to do the work of the Lord again. And then by the sixth year of Darius, they actually completed the house. And then in chapter number seven, let's go to chapter number seven for a moment, okay? Ezra chapter number seven. Look at verse number one. Now after these things, that's a good important phrase. He's telling you after what? After they've completed the house, okay? After these things, in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Ilkiah, the son of Shalom, the son of Zadok, the son of Ahitub, the son of Amoriah, the son of Azariah, the son of Mariot, the son of Zaria, the son of Uzziah, the son of Buckeye, the son of Abishua, the son of Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the chief priest. This Ezra went up from Babylon and he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the Lord God of Israel had given and the king granted him all his requests according to the hand of the Lord his God upon him. Now why is it given such, he's like, the son of this guy, this guy. He's like saying, this Ezra. You know why? Because there's a lot of Ezras. There's a lot of everybody. Have you ever, if you go to this church, there's, you know, there's a lot of John's and Andrew's and Peter's and Paul, I mean, it's just throughout the Bible you have a lot of people with the same name. How many John's are in the New Testament? You got John the Baptist, you got, you got John the apostle, you got John Mark, okay. You got all these other, you got John the brother of Jesus, okay. So I mean, it's just like, who, what John are you talking about? Well, when you look at the list in chapter number two, okay, go back to chapter number two, you're going to see a repeating of certain people's names. And so I don't want you to get confused. I believe it might be when you compare with the other list, but it mentions Ezra in one of these, one of the chapters before. I think it might be when you compare it with Nehemiah. But the Ezra in that is not the same Ezra. So I want to make sure when reading the book of Ezra, you realize that Ezra is not introduced until chapter number seven. Chapter number seven is when Ezra is introduced and Ezra is specifically not even going to back, not even going to Jerusalem until the seventh year of Artaxerxes. So it's not even in the reign of Darius. It's in some reign of a guy named Artaxerxes. And there was a previous Artaxerxes somewhere in this lineage. So there was even another Artaxerxes, but Ezra is not going there. And I think that's important because whenever you're reading, you know, these, these books, it's called Ezra. And you're just thinking like, well, Ezra, it's all about Ezra. But think about the books of Moses. When are we introduced to Moses, the character, Exodus, I mean, you read 50 chapters of Genesis before you're even, you're introduced to Moses, the man. Okay. So even the book of Ezra, it contains a lot of history and a lot of understanding before we get to who Ezra is or what part he had to play in the book of Ezra specifically. So when you read this huge list of names, sometimes you check out, you don't really know who's there or what's going on or what's up, but I think when you kind of get a good picture in your mind of where these books kind of fit, it'll help you understanding who Ezra is and where it fits. Okay. Now I'm going to give you a little bit more timeline. Okay. We also have the books, I said Haggai and Zechariah. Now Haggai, go to chapter number one of Haggai. Now it's interesting in the book of Haggai because what happens, uh, in the beginning of Darius' reign, okay, is they're still not building the house of Lord. They're still being oppressed by their adversaries, but through the preaching or the prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah specifically, they motivate the children of Israel to pick up back where they were, where they left off and to continue doing the work of the Lord. It says in verse one, in the second year of Darius the king and the sixth month and the first day of the month came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet, unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtil, governor of Judah and to Joshua the son of Jezidek, the high priest saying, thus speak of the Lord of hosts saying, this people say the time has not come. The time that the Lord's house should be built. So he's saying, Hey, the people are saying we're not supposed to build. Now it gives you like months and days. It says that that was in the sixth month on the first day, but then 23 days later on the 24th day, he says in verse three, then came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet saying, is it time for you? Oh, you to dwell in your sealed houses and this house lie waste. Now therefore, thus say the Lord of hosts, consider your ways. You have so much and bring in little, you eat, but you have not enough. You drink, but you're not filled with drink. You clothed you, but there is none warm and he that earned wages, earned wages to put it into a bag with holes. Thus say the Lord of hosts, consider your ways, go up to the mountain and bring wood and build the house and I will take pleasure in it and I will be glorified, sayeth Lord. So just a few days later, Haggai prophesies again, he says, Hey, it's time for you to build the house. So we have the first reign of Darius, then we have the book of Haggai. Then in chapter number two, uh, basically he gives us another, uh, delineation or a timeline. He says in verse one in the seventh month and the one in 20th day of the month. So it's pretty much not even hardly any more times past three more months pass and we get the book of Haggai. So this is really specific in this timeline and what happens right here in the sixth year of Darius reign? Oh, they finished the house. So they went for a long time where it was just troubleless, troubleless, troubleless. Then all of a sudden they just kick it into high gear and just a few years they knock out because this is the second year of Darius that they have this prophesying of Haggai and in the second year they kick it into high gear and they get the house finished in the sixth year of Darius. Now I'll give you another timeline. Let's do Zechariah. You have, you would do Zechariah chapter number one. It's right there. I don't even have to turn. I think I had another marker. Zechariah chapter number one is in the second year as well and he tells them that the Lord is displeased with them. And also in the second year he has the visions of the red horse and a lot of other visions. It says in verse number one, in the eighth month in the second year of Darius came the word of the Lord unto Zechariah the son of Barakiah the son of Ito the prophet sang. So in verse number one we have the prophecy of Zechariah and again he's telling him he's displeased with them because they're still polluted. They're not sanctifying themselves. They're not doing the work of the Lord correctly. And in chapter number seven we get the final prophecy of Zechariah. It says and it came to pass in the fourth year of King Darius that the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah in the fourth day of the ninth month. So in the fourth year we have the final prophecies of Zechariah and they're all about Jesus. I mean if you read Zechariah 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, I mean it's just Jesus on every single chapter. They're so obvious. They're just saying hey we're going to pay 30 pieces of silver for you and you know they're going to look on me whom they pierced and I mean it's just like the most obvious pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ. And wouldn't that kind of make sense when we looked at our other timeline? I mean when you kind of go back, most of the prophesying that's going on in Isaiah and Jeremiah, that's when you're going to have the destruction of Babylon. I mean for 70 years they're just desolate, okay? So all this prophesying of doom and gloom and the day of the Lord and all this stuff that's going on, it's talking about this time. Now that they've been restored, now that they're coming back to land, what's the next big event? It's the cross. I mean you know that's a bad cross, right? Let me give you a little better cross. All right? It's when Christ is going to be born and it's going to be the cross, so you see a lot more preaching. In the book of Malachi you have the picture of John the Baptist coming, the voice of one crying in the wilderness. So the Bible is making a lot of sense when you kind of put these things in order and you're putting the prophecies in the correct order, they're kind of making sense to you. Also the book of Nehemiah. Where is Nehemiah in our list? Because we saw it in chapter number seven. I want you to go, if you would, to Nehemiah chapter number two, Nehemiah chapter number two. And we're kind of flipping around. I think that this is just good foundation for us to lay, so when we go through the rest of this book we'll really understand it. But in Nehemiah chapter number two, we're going to see when he comes into the picture. Says in verse one, and it came to pass in the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes the king. So when is Nehemiah in all of this? Well he's down here in the twentieth year of Artaxerxes, we have Nehemiah, okay. Now in Nehemiah chapter seven, okay, we had read what happened up here. What we have to understand is when you're reading Nehemiah chapter number seven, he's just recalling the past. And he's saying, hey, in this time frame, who do we have? We had Zerubbabel as the governor, and we had Jeshua as the high priest. Then whenever we kind of get to the book of Nehemiah, Nehemiah's the governor, and Ezra is the high priest at that time. So it's a new transition of leadership that's going through the book. So Zerubbabel is your governor, and Jeshua is your priest throughout this time and the prophesying. Then you have other prophets like Haggai and Zechariah that are there as assistants. But then at the time of Ezra, he's going to be prophesying for a little while. Then Nehemiah shows up, he's the governor, and he's going to help them build the wall, okay. They build the house in this period of time, but then they end up building the wall with Nehemiah. And Nehemiah just kind of encompasses, they overlap because when you read the latter books of Nehemiah, you see Ezra's preaching and he's talking there, which would make sense because Nehemiah is the governor from the 20th to the 32nd year of Artaxerxes. And Ezra showed up in the seventh year, I believe, is that the seventh year or the sixth year? What did I have in my notes? He comes in the seventh year, yeah, the seventh year of Artaxerxes is when he came. So just about 13 years later, Nehemiah shows up and then he's there for the next 12 years. So that's just kind of giving you a high level picture of the book of Ezra and kind of where we're going. Now, let's go back to Ezra chapter number two, okay. I just wanted to take a few minutes just to kind of explain some of those things. But we saw in verse number 62, these sought the register among those that were reckoned by genealogy, but they were not found. Therefore, they were as polluted put from the priesthood. Now this is extremely important. What is it to pollute something? Pollution is something that's defiled, it's corrupt, it's dirty, it's poisoned, there's something contaminated about it. Now it says as polluted. What does it mean by as polluted? Well they could have actually been a Levite. So if they were a Levite, there'd be nothing wrong with them doing the job of a Levite. But because we can't prove whether they're a Levite or not, or whether they're in the correct lineage, we're just going to consider you all as polluted. Because if you're not a Levite, you are considered polluted. Go to Numbers chapter 18. Numbers chapter 18 in your Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers. And we're going to see the Bible talking about this. The things of God are supposed to be holy, they're supposed to be sanctified, they're supposed to be separate. And the Lord Jesus Christ takes it very serious, all the commandments that he has. There's not a commandment in the Bible where God's just like, eh, whatever, you know, kinda, you know. That's not a big deal. No, all of them are important unto him. And sometimes when we read the Bible we realize that God's just long suffering and gracious, so it takes him a long time to punish people for their sin. But be sure that sin will find you out, is what the Bible says. It says in Numbers chapter 18, verse 1, So he's saying, hey, Aaron, you guys are going to bear the iniquity of the priesthood. Whatever problems are going on in the priesthood, I'm going to hold you guys personally responsible. Look at verse number 4. The tabernacle and a stranger shall not come nigh unto you. He says in verse 5, Now we learned a couple things. God says that a stranger, he's not allowed to come anywhere near the things of God. That's a stranger. A stranger here is an Ammonite, is a Moabite, is a Canaanite, is a Jebusite. Any of these heathens are not allowed to enter into the sanctuary of the Lord. They're not to perform the services of the Lord. And in the New Testament we don't really have these divisions of the heathen and the Jews. We're all one in Christ Jesus. There's only the delineation in the New Testament is the saved and the unsaved. But it still applies that the unsaved shouldn't be the ones leading the church service, shouldn't be the ones in charge of anything that has to do with God. It's the saved that are supposed to do the service of the Lord. It's the saved that come to church. It's the saved we're supposed to preach to. That's what we do with the work of the Lord. Look, I don't gear my sermons to the unsaved. The unsaved would have checked out so long ago in this sermon. But all of you are just so intrigued and so interested, you know, that Spirit of God inside you. So, but I also like the fact that in verse number six he says that the Levites are a gift. Notice that. The preachers are a gift, are a gift unto the people. And their gift is to help them serve the Lord and do the performance of the Lord. They weren't even going to get an inheritance saying, hey, we're going to inherit the coolest place ever, a land flowing with milk and honey. We're going to dwell in cities that are amazing and awesome. You don't get any of it. You just get to serve. They were a gift unto the people and their job and their occupation was to do the service of the Lord and they're going to bear the iniquity of the house and so it's their job to be very careful not to make sure any strangers come into the house of the Lord. And this is an important thing. You might think, I don't really care about this. This is very important in understanding the book of Ezra. Why? Because Ezra is a scribe. Because Ezra is a priest and if he's reading the law, he's written Numbers 18 many times. He's writing it all the time. He's constantly writing, hey, don't let any strangers in. Don't let any strangers in. Don't let any strangers in. So then when you actually get to the latter parts of the chapter, whenever they're having to deal with the strangers, you'll see why they're so angry. Nehemiah is literally plucking the hair off of people. He's so angry about the polluting of the sanctuary. You're like, I didn't understand that. Well, when I sit here and drill you, you know, when we drilled the Old Testament in our minds about, hey, strangers aren't allowed in the sanctuary. No, strangers. Don't let them in the sanctuary. Then all of a sudden when you see the stranger in the sanctuary, you can see why these guys are so angry. I mean, they're very angry. Nehemiah is throwing people out. He's screaming. He's like, I'm going to put hands on you. You say, why was he doing that? Because strangers were not allowed to be coming into the house of the Lord. And just think about it. The entire city of Jerusalem has been destroyed for 70 years. And you're coming back. Well, let's just do it lightly, you know. Let's just try it out again. No, these guys are like, we're going to do it right this time. I'm not about to just get kicked out again. I'm going to make sure that we're doing things correct. We're following God's commandments. Okay. Look at verse number 30. Verse number 30. The Bible says, therefore thou shalt say unto them, when ye have heed the best thereof from it, then it shall be counted unto the Levites as the increase of the threshing floor, and as the increase of the winepress. And ye shall eat it in every place ye in your households, for it is your reward for your service in the tabernacle of the congregation. And ye shall bear no sin by reason of it, when ye have heaved from it the best of it, neither shall ye pollute the holy things of the children of Israel, lest ye die. God says, hey, if you pollute the house of God, you're going to die. Remember Nadab and Abihu just offering strange fire before the Lord? They died. They walked into the tabernacle. They walked into the congregation. And look, God doesn't take it lightly when the service is just being polluted. When you're bringing in the world, when you're defiling yourself, when you're unclean and unholy, God will judge you. God is going to bring down the hammer. God is not going to just let people just desecrate his house and desecrate the things of God. God loves the sheep. God cares for the sheep. If he's got some hireling in there over a whole bunch of sheep, he's going to want to purge that guy, get him out, throw him out, throw Tobiah out, throw the stranger out. You know, whenever you identify a stranger behind the pulpit, you know what you should do? Throw him out, lest you die. I mean, how would God feel about me if I see an Ammonite standing behind the pulpit? Preaching under my authority. He might just kill me. And then, you know, if I throw the Ammonite out, everybody freaks out. What are you doing? Look, I'm not going to let somebody come in here and desecrate and pollute the house of God. This is supposed to be holy. This is supposed to be, you know, sacred place. This is a place where we come and worship the Lord. We're not going to let some tranny faggot just come in here and desecrate our site and our service. We're not going to let people come in that are fornicators and adulterers and extortioners just coming in and polluting. Railers destroy a church. You know, they go around and they start talking gossip on this family and this family and this family and they get everybody kind of intertwined in that and then all of a sudden this family is mad at that family and this family and like, I'm just sick of all the rumors and the gossip and it's just one person. It's one person with a match just walking around just lighting everybody on fire. And that can destroy a church. That's why you want to throw those people out. That's why you want to deal with it very severely. Look, we should love the church. We should embrace the church and when somebody's polluting it or defiling it, we should all of one accord want to purge that out, get rid of it, protect the church, make sure it's going well. Look, I don't want to die. I'm not interested in dying when it's something that's in my control, it's something in my power, something that I can make sure that it's not going to happen. Go back to 2 Chronicles where Ezra is, go back to 2 Chronicles chapter 36. Here's another way people are polluting the house of God. They're literally having a, well, let's just have Halloween at church service. Everybody dresses up like a witch and comes to church. That's not welcome in the house of God. We're not going to pollute the things of God with familiar spirits and necromancers and doctrines of devils. Look, we're going to abstain from all appearance of evil. When we come here tomorrow, we're not going to dress up like the devil. We're not going to dress up like the world, we're going to dress like godly Christians. Dress like a godly Christian and show up and we're going to have an alternative. We're going to sanctify ourselves, we're going to separate ourselves from the world, we're going to come out from among them and be separate, sayeth the Lord. I'm not even going to decorate my house. I'll put a sign that says, I don't worship the devil. Maybe I should put that on my front door. Go to church, go to the chili cook-off, have some chili. No beans, alright? I'll put that on the door too. But look at verse number 14 in chapter 36. It says, Moreover, all the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen and polluted the house of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. In 2 Chronicles chapter 36, he's just giving us a quick overview of history. He's saying, hey, you know why I destroyed this place? You know why I desecrated it? Because the priests were polluting the sanctuary. The priests were not making sure the things of God were going well. They're not taking it holy. They're not preaching the word of God. They're preaching lies. They're deceiving people. And God says, hey, I'm going to destroy you because of this. So whenever they're coming back to reinstitute the house of God, it sounds like it's pretty serious to make sure they're not polluting things. They're making sure everything is clean and righteous and done according to the law perfect. They say, hey, these guys could be the Levites. Well, if we can't prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt, they're polluted. And that's how you should take God's commandments. You should take God's commandments. Well, if I don't know 100% certain, then I'm not going to do it. Everything should be done in faith. And we should take everything the Bible says to the letter. Whatever the Bible says, every single commandment, following it perfectly. Now, go if you went to Romans chapter number 13, Romans chapter number 13. You know what that really proves when you do that? It proves that you have respect unto authority, right? Because they're not trying to say, well, I think that it's okay for me to be a priest. Even though I can't prove it, I really just feel like I should anyway, shouldn't I? But whenever you say, well, if I can't find my genealogy in the Bible, then I'm not going to be a priest. Why? Because you're saying this is the final authority, not me. Not somebody else. And today, unfortunately, people hate authority. People reject authority in their life. They don't want to submit themselves to any kind of authority. But what did the children of Israel do? When they came back, they said, let's read the genealogy scroll. Name's not there. It's going to be kind of like the great white throne judgment. When your name's not found written in the Lamb's book, you're going to be cast in the lake of fire for all of eternity. Look, you're either on the roll or you're not. There's not an in between. There's not a smudge. And they're like, is that Jake, Joshua, Jimmy? Jimmy? I'll just come on in anyways. Nope. God knows if your name's on that list and if you're not, you're not getting in. You sneak in with another garment, he's like, how'd you get in here? Throw him in the fire. You better be on that list. Now, obviously, when it comes to the qualifications of a pastor in the New Testament, it should be the same, shouldn't it? But that would be respecting authority. Look at verse number one. Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers, for there is no power but of God. The powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid. For he beareth not the sword in vain. For he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath but also for conscience' sake. For for this cause pay ye tribute also, for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues, tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor. O no man anything but to love one another, for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. So we see an important doctrine here in the book of Romans chapter number 13. Also, I believe reiterated here in Ezra chapter number 2, what? They add respect unto what God's word said, and if they couldn't get it to work, they're not going to do it. They're going to say, this is our final authority. And the Bible says that God has given us authority in this world. God has appointed the elders, or not elders, but just all the powers that be. God has appointed every single authority structure. And we're supposed to obey the power. Now obviously there's a hierarchy, okay? Who's the ultimate power, the ultimate authority? God. So we ought to say, you know what my final authority is? The Bible. So whatever this says, I'm going to do it to the letter of the law. I don't care. Whatever it says, that's what I'm doing. Then whenever a power authority is over me beyond that, that has rules that don't contradict what I just have here, I'm going to follow all of those as well. So what would be that? The U.S. Constitution, right? Then you have, you know, federal government, then you have state government, then you have local government, then you have the institution that God gave you, the family. Your father, your mother, these people you need to obey, and God has put authority in our lives for us to obey. No one is above all authority. That person's God. God is the only one that doesn't have authority. We all have authorities in our life that we're supposed to be subject unto and to be responsible for. Go if you would to, let's go backwards in this list. Go to 1 Corinthians chapter number 11, 1 Corinthians chapter number 11. But so many people, they want to resist authorities that God has given them in their life. This is an ungodly attribute, and oftentimes it points to people that are very wicked. Wicked people hate authority. They're very rebellious in their heart. The devil himself is the king of pride. He is a rebellious, you know, demonic spirit. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, look at verse number 3, but I'd have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God. So even Christ himself has an authority, God. God the father is above the son, and 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we see the Bible tells us the son will subject himself unto the father, and God will be all in all. But above every man is who? Christ. So you say, oh, I wish I was in charge. Well, you sound like the devil now. Wives. You're supposed to submit yourself unto your husband, all right? Go to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. You see, the husband, the man, he's subject to Christ. So that means whatever the Bible says, he's supposed to do, period. This is your handbook for life, men. You say, hey, how am I supposed to act, this book? Not just, well, it's genealogy, I don't get it. Well, do you subject yourself to the Bible like they did with the genealogy, saying, hey, if I'm not on that list, I'm not doing it. Hey, if God says thou shalt not, I'm not going to do it. I must be in accordance to all of his commandments. Ephesians chapter number 5 gives us the authority structure for women. Look at verse number 22. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands as unto the Lord. So we have God. Then we have Christ. Then we have the husband. Then we have whom? The wife. Then we have in chapter 6 verse 1, children, obey your parents and the Lord. Everybody's above you. What about my brother? Well, y'all are equal, okay? You say, I'm older, I'm stronger, I'm bigger. Nope. You're just subject unto mom and dad. And notice parents. Yes, you're still subject unto your mom just as much as your dad. Whatever mom and dad say, you say, yes, sir, and yes, ma'am, that's what God ordained. That's what God commands you to do. It's not my opinion. It's how God feels. And he'll reward you with a long life if you do it. Now, it's interesting because God had ordained Cyrus to do what? To rebuild the temple, to have the children go back. So look, God put that power in place for people to be subject unto him to accomplish his will. God puts people in certain positions of power to accomplish his will. Even Nebuchadnezzar was his servant. Now, Nebuchadnezzar wasn't doing good things. Nebuchadnezzar was destroying the world and just massacring all kinds of heathen nations, but it was his vehicle of punishment. And even the devil, the devil is the god of this world. Now, the devil doesn't do anything good, but God uses him to what? Destroy wicked people. He uses the devil to accomplish his will. All the powers that be are ordained of God. Go over to 2 Peter chapter 2. Now, that doesn't mean that they're a good leader. That doesn't mean they're a good authority, but you know what? You're still supposed to be subject to the higher power structure. So if there's an authority in your life that tells you to do something that's not contradicting the Bible, then you're supposed to do it. Now, the devil, he's always contradicting God, so you never have to do anything he says, right? And you'd like to think that Hillary Clinton's the devil too, so, you know, pretty much you don't have to follow anything he says. But here's the thing, you can't just lump the entire United States government into this category and say, whites want to resist everything that the government says and does, because the Bible already told us we had to pay tribute, doesn't it? Wicked people, they'll say, I don't want to pay taxes. Well, we're not, okay, let me rephrase that. I'm not going to pay taxes, okay? We all say we don't want to pay taxes, all right? I said, taxes is theft, okay? And the taxes that we have to pay are egregious, okay? And they get more and more every single, you know, month. But people that go around saying, we shouldn't pay taxes, they're a tax protester. That's an ungodly spirit. That's a wicked spirit. Trying to get people in trouble, pulling them off the things of God, trying to usurp the authority that's already been put in place. Hey, God put that power there to be. If they tax me 99%, I have to pay it. You think I want to? I don't want to pay 0.001% tax. They take my money and use it for wicked things, abortion and all kinds of other filth and, you know, debauchery. Well, do you think Christ would be okay with you giving money to the U.S. government when they do these things? Well, you know what, Christ paid taxes to the Roman government. And let me tell you what, the Roman government wants a bunch of saints. They weren't going around accomplishing, you know, the perfect will of God either, my friend. They're doing plenty of wicked stuff. We're still supposed to pay what is, you know, what was right. Whatever is supposed to be paid, we're supposed to pay it. I don't like it any more than you do. But at the end of the day, I'm not against government. Now I'm against our government. You know what? I love government. You know, one day there's going to be a government called the Lord Jesus Christ and he's going to rule and reign with a rod of iron and it's going to be wonderful. He's going to be a counselor, the prince of peace, the everlasting father is what the Bible says. He's going to be the government and it's going to be a great government. The government's going to be upon his shoulder. I'm not against government. I'm against the United States government. I'm against wicked governments, okay. So we can't just throw out the baby with the bathwater and say all government's wrong and wicked. We shouldn't even have government. Well, that's a bad idea. How are we going to live that way? You're just going to be Wild Wild West? Just whoever has the biggest gun, you know, makes the rules? Who goes around in rapes and pillages? I mean, anarchy is insanity. I don't want anarchy. I just want a righteous government. I want a government that loves people. But wicked false prophets, they hate all authority and all government. Look at verse 10. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 10. But chiefly them that walk after the flesh and the lust of uncleanness and despise government, presumptuous are they, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities. You know, an attribute of a reprobate is someone that just despises all authority. Now what does this look like? Well, there will be these bozos, these idiots, these morons, they'll say, hey, the Catholic Church is unsaved and the Methodist Church is unsaved and all the Southern Baptists, they're unsaved and the old IFB, they're bad and the new IFB is a cult. You should just listen to my YouTube channel. It's like, what authority is good? They're all bad. There will be all these bozos, all these morons, they're against everyone. You're the one in the cult, my friend, a cult of one, trying to elevate yourself and puffing yourself up. Why would I want to listen to somebody that's against everything when God is the one that ordained the powers that be? Now look, obviously those that are preaching the truth is a remnant, is a smaller faction, but when you're the only one that has the right answers, you're wrong. You're in the cult. You're the one that has a problem. When nobody will fellowship with you. When no other church is like you. Let me give you some examples, all right? How about Tyler Baker? Who's Tyler Baker? He was a former deacon of Fayetteboard Baptist Church. He goes out and starts his little cult after his daddy ordains him, and look, no one has the Trinity view that he has. No one. How does that work? Everybody's wrong. But that just sounds too bad, so they say, oh, everybody agrees with me, except for, you know, Pastor Anderson. You know, only Pastor Anderson is the only one that doesn't agree with me, and the new IV cult or whatever. Look, everyone believes in the Trinity. You're the one that doesn't believe in the Trinity. You're the one that's rejecting these things. They despise all dignities. They have no respect for any authorities in their life, so they have to make themselves a final authority. What authority is over Tyler Baker? We would assume the Bible, but that's obviously not, because he rejects that. What other person could he look to that's going to help guide him or give him any kind of counsel or anything? Nothing. And then there's some people, they'll even reject that. They don't go to any church. They say every church is bad. This is a bad philosophy, the philosophy that says that every church is bad. Or they get in these areas, they live in like a city of multi-million people, you know, a huge area, and they say there's no good church to go to. It's like that's just because you despise authority. That's because you despise all dignities that exist. Look, we as God's people ought not just be against everybody and always, you know, think everybody's bad, everybody's wrong. Look, there are many people that are wrong. There are many things that are bad. But if you just think you're on an island by yourself and you're the right person, you're wrong. None of us is just on a wing by ourself. Look, there's even, you know, the prophets have this mentality. Elijah, he's like, you know, I'm the only one left, or whatever. And God's like, no, there's 7,000 men that have not bowed the knee to Baal. Don't go start your little cult somewhere. Don't go off into YouTube land and just make videos. Well, every church is bad. You know, you're bad. If you think every church on the planet is bad, you're bad. You're a bad person. And look, when someone gets on YouTube and they're not a pastor and they don't go to church, off, unsubscribe, I don't care what you have to say. Why would you ever want to listen to one of these bozos, one of these freaks? You know what really happened? They got kicked out of church for being a loser, and so they say the church is bad. They say, oh, you know, look, you're polluted. Get out of here. Nobody wants you. Nobody wants people to come in and infect the church and to tear up the church so bad people have to get thrown out every once in a while. But then people will go harking to the bad people and they'll wonder, oh, what do they think? Who cares what you think? Go over to Proverbs chapter 29, Proverbs chapter 29. Jude, I'll read for you, it says in verse number 8, Jude chapter 1 verse 8, likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Look, they despise dominion. They don't like anybody to be in charge. It kind of reminds me of Adam Fanon. You know, he doesn't even believe in a pastor-led church. He claims to believe in like a congregation-led church, yet at the end of the day, we all know who's in charge there. We all know whose name is on every single legal document. We all know who decided to start that church and plant that church and tell everybody when it's okay to ordain him. That's not self-ordination. Look, that's so stupid. It's self-ordination, my friend. I don't care what you say. People say, oh, you falsely accused Adam Fanon for saying they self-ordained. The congregation ordained him. Okay, well, I could go online to the United Methodist Church and pay 50 bucks and they'll ordain me as a pastor. That's not self-ordination, though, because the United Methodists, they ordain me. You're an idiot if you believe that. Look, if I go around shopping opinions, hey, will you ordain me? No. Will you ordain me? No. No. No. No. No. Yes. Okay. That's called self-ordination, my friend. It's so obvious. And this guy despises all dominion. He doesn't want anybody to be in charge. He doesn't like someone coming in and telling him what to do. He likes it when his pastor's just, you know, on meth or something and just doing hookers and not thinking about anything. What kind of authority is that? He didn't have any authority. But then when somebody actually comes in there and tells him anything to do, it's like, oh, I freak out, you know. He can't handle it. He can't handle the Word of God either. Whenever I was talking to him about the ordination, I said, hey, you know, the Bible says having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly. And he said this, it sounds like you're really hung up on that one word. I said, what word? Riotous. And I said, yeah, every word of God is pure. Man doth not live by bread alone but by every word of God. What if I took out of the qualifications the husband of one wife? What if I dropped one, the husband of a wife? So now divorced people can get, you know, be a pastor, right? I mean, can we just pick and choose which qualifications we like? What if I drop man, you know, or the husband? What if I just say, you know, has a spouse? Can women now be a pastor? I mean, well, you're just hung up on that one word. Yeah! Because I like all of God's commandments. I'm not going to pollute the sanctuary. And if I can't find you among the registry, get out! I mean, that's what the Bible's teaching. Why would the priest want to get up and just say, hey, let's just pollute it, let's just have fun. That's how you got destroyed the first time, by not taking heed unto every single one of God's commandments. Hey, if you're not on that list, don't do it. Don't try to go somewhere where you shouldn't. Just say, accept being polluted. Just accept whatever position that you're in. Just accept wherever you find yourself. You say, hey, I made a mistake in the past and now I'm polluted. Okay, just be where you're at. Be content with whatever position and status that you're in. Don't try to go somewhere that you shouldn't be. Proverbs chapter 29, what does the Bible say in verse number 2? Proverbs 29 verse 2, when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice. But when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn. Obviously a bad government, I'm not going to be for. We shouldn't just get against all government, all authority, all rule, all dignities, all dominion. No. We need to accept those things. We need to rebuke wicked government, wicked dominion, wicked authority. And say, hey, this is our final authority. This is what we should be doing. When the American government continually demoralizes our country, gets rid of all morality, all righteousness, all godliness, we should continually rebuke that. Saying, hey, bring back the death penalty for the pedophile. Bring back the death penalty for the rapist. Bring back the death penalty for the murderer. Bring back the death penalty for the faggot and for the dyke. Put them both to death. Hey, bring back the death penalty for the stubborn and rebellious child. There I said it. I like all of them. Okay? You say, what Old Testament law are you picking and choosing? All of them. Every single one. I'm not going to be partial in the law. We're not supposed to do anything by partiality. We're supposed to embrace it, like it, love it. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 4, we're going to finish here, in 1 Timothy. Look, there's a lot of bozos today ruining church. Like Kanye West. You're polluted, my friend. You can't run church. Look, the Pentecostals, they just went crazy. The Pentecostals, they just think you have a heartbeat ordained as a pastor. You know, anybody that gets real excited, oh, God called me to be a pastor, pastor, you know. Just anything and everything that looks like a pastor, ordain it. And just send it out and just start churches everywhere. You look at Pentecostal church plants, it's usually from a church split. It's usually, hey, we're a little bit too Pentecostal than the pastor, so we have to have a church split and then they become another denomination. And then they get so weird that they're rolling on the ground and barking like a dog. That's where it leads to. Just a full demonic possession. You look at the Pentecostals, then they start believing in oneness, okay. Another division, okay. I mean, the Pentecostals churches just split and split and split and split and then they were like, well, this isn't going to make us any money. Non-denominationalism, oh, oh, we're not going to split over doctrine. Just come on it. Bring your tithe book, okay. Just bring your checkbook and bring everything. Look, we're supposed to follow God's commandments and come out from among them and be separate. Not see if Kanye West can do a ditty for us on stage with the lights. He's polluted. Get out. You're not even saved. You're never going to be saved. The guy that mocks Jesus Christ, that writes his own Bible virtually, whether that's through proxy or not, I don't care. You think if someone wrote a Bible and put my name on it, I wouldn't go, I'd buy all the copies and burn them myself for fear that God would kill me. I mean, no, that's not allowed, okay. This guy brings a mock Jesus on stage and like blasphemes him. Every song is blasphemy to Jesus Christ. This guy's a reprobate, my friend. His salvation testimony is God's going to bless you with money. It's like, what? Listen, like Kanye West's salvation testimony, God just blesses me and I could just feel his blessing on my life and I got saved. It's like, what is that? It's not even as good as Joel Osteen. It's just ridiculous. I guess everybody's saved that's in Hollywood then. Oh God, just bless them then. They're all unsaved virtually. I had to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 4. Look, don't go to a bozo church. You say, where do I go to church? Wherever the Bible tells you to go to church. Well, I can't find a good church. Well, you're not reading your Bible. Or just move. I mean, look, the children of Israel often had to travel to go to church and they had to travel way worse than you. I mean, they're traveling days to go to church. They're not traveling in a nice car. They don't have air conditioning. They can't listen to, you know, good hymns or preaching on the way. They don't have the fellowship that we do. They don't have a car seat for their little baby. They have to ride on a horse. Try breastfeeding on a horse. I don't even know what that's like, you know. Try doing all the things that they had to do. And they're still going to church. They're still serving the Lord. They're having to take their sacrifices with them, the animals, the cows. I mean, you can just take your little debit card with you, okay, everywhere. You know, pretty soon you can get a mark in your hand. Don't get that, all right? Real convenient. Look at 1 Timothy 4, verse 11. These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth, but be thou an example of the believers in word and conversation and charity and spirit and faith and purity, till I come, give attendance to reading, to congregation, to doctrine, neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery, meditate upon these things. Give thyself wholly to them, that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this thou shalt go save thyself and them that hear thee. How does the young preacher save the congregation? By taking heed unto all the commandments. How did the Levites continue to get the blessing of God? By taking heed unto all the commandments. Not polluting the house of God. Not saying, hey, let's just bring in the cool music now. Let's just bring in the most popular Bible. Let's just get the message on tablets. Let's just hand out Kindles to everybody and let's just get the message. It sounds so cool. It's fresh. It's trendy. Let's just do a 10-minute sermon. Let's never touch Ezra. I've been to non-denominational churches for decades. I never heard a sermon on Ezra, okay? That doesn't bring in the crowd. We've got to bring in the lights and the cool-looking stuff. Look, I'm not going to pollute the sanctuary. I'm not trying to see how cool and trendy we can get. I'm trying to see how biblical we can get. I'm trying to see how close we can get to God's commandments. He says in verse 21, chapter 5, verse 21, I charge thee before God and the Lord Jesus Christ and the elect angels that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality. Lay hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's sins, keep thyself pure. The Bible makes it clear that we're supposed to take heed unto all his commandments, all his statutes. When I read Ezra chapter number 2, it might not seem like the most exciting chapter, but one thing that comes across really clear, they care what God said. They care about the commandments. They want to make sure that they're doing it right this time. Sometimes churches, they come and go. Churches can be destroyed. Churches can fall away. You can have all kinds of weird apostasy. You can have areas that used to be Christian and they're no longer Christian. In this nation, it seems like our nation is falling away from Christianity headlong. It's not like it used to be. We have to rebuild a lot of things. We have to lay the foundations again. We have to build the house of the Lord again. Whenever we do that, we want to make sure that we're doing it as biblical as possible. We don't want to bring people in that are polluted. We don't want to put people in the wrong position. We don't want to do things out of order. We want to make sure we're doing everything exactly like the Bible says. And the people that don't care about the Bible find another church. I'm not interested. I'm not interested in messing around. We're not playing church. We're not trying church. This is church. This is the New Testament. We're living and breathing. We are the body of Christ and we're going to do the best that we possibly can to be the best body for Christ. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your Word.