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Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Music Good evening everyone, welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you could please find your seats and grab your songbooks. We're going to start off this evening with song number 12, Blessed Redeemer. Song number 12, Blessed Redeemer. Let's sing it out together, song number 12, Blessed Redeemer. Blessed Redeemer. Precious Redeemer. Seems now I see him on Calvary's tree. Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading. Blind and unheeding, dying for me. Song number 12 on the second. Father forgive them, thus did he pray. Eaten while his lifeblood flowed fast away. Praying for sinners while in such fold. No one but Jesus ever loved so. Blessed Redeemer. Precious Redeemer. Seems now I see him on Calvary's tree. Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading. Blind and unheeding, dying for me. Oh how I love him, Savior and friend. Ever fine end, through years unnumbered on heaven's shore. My tongue shall praise him forevermore. Blessed Redeemer. Precious Redeemer. Seems now I see him on Calvary's tree. Wounded and bleeding, for sinners pleading. Blind and unheeding, dying for me. Great singing. Let's open up in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this Wednesday evening service. Thank you for the sacrifice of your son Jesus Christ, for salvation and all the blessings in this life that we received from you. We pray that you bless this time of worship now. We love you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, for our next song, let's go to number 43. We are marching to Zion. Song 43, we're marching to Zion. Song 43, we're marching to Zion. Come we that love the Lord and let our joys be known. Join in a song with sweet accord. Join in a song with sweet accord. And thus surround the throne and thus surround the throne. We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Let those refused to sing who never knew are gone. But children of the heavenly king. But children of the heavenly king. May speak their joys abroad. May speak their joys abroad. We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets. Before we reach the heavenly fields. Before we reach the heavenly fields. Or walk the golden streets. Or walk the golden streets. We're marching to Zion, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Then let our songs abound and every tear be dry. We're marching through Emmanuel's ground. We're marching through Emmanuel's ground. To fairer worlds on high. To fairer worlds on high. We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion. We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God. Good singing and good evening. If you do not have a bulletin, you would like one. One of our ushers can come by and get you guys a bulletin. Welcome to Steadfast Baptist Church. We are doing our Bible memory passage, Psalm 59. Any of the children that can memorize that and quote it on our Wednesday services can get an ice cream after the service. Also on the inside, we have our service soul winning times and church stats. Please make sure you're submitting and turning in those stats to your soul winning captains and lieutenants. On the right, we have a list of several expecting ladies. Please be in prayer for them. We have a prayer list. Before I get to the prayer list this evening, I'm going to do the rest of the announcements. Upcoming events, August 15th through the 17th is our Mighty Men's Conference. Pastor Roger Jimenez from Verde Baptist Church is going to be coming out, preaching for us on that Friday evening. So I'll be there preaching on Thursday evening. Pastor Jimenez will be preaching on Friday. It's pretty much the typical schedule that we've always had, so that Thursday morning and then we'll be leaving Saturday morning. For several men maybe that work or you may not be able to participate 100%, you're still welcome to participate in whatever amount of the conference that you can. So if that means coming later in the day Thursday, just Thursday evening or Friday or just Friday evening, whatever. I think it's about, it's a little over an hour depending on exactly where you live from the DFW area. So some people have even just driven out just for the services and then driven back. So you're welcome to participate in as much as you would like. So I just don't want anybody that feels like they can't be a part of all of it to be discouraged and not participate. So if you can, participate in what you can. It is for men 18 and over, 16 and above, as long as they're accompanied with a guardian that's going to sign for them. They can also attend and it should be hot. Sometimes I label it prison camp. So there you go. All right. But it's honestly, it's a lot of fun and there's a lot of activities. It's a lot of free time to do whatever activities you like the most. And so I highly encourage you to participate if you can. Also, Dr. Stringer is going to be preaching for us September 8th, October 4th through the 6th. We are going to have our heritage of the Lord conference. And so this is geared towards the youth. And we've done this two years ago. We kind of alternated between our fire breathing Baptist fellowship. So we still are going to have a couple of guest preachers for us. Pastor Bruce, he is going to be coming out and he's going to be preaching that weekend as well as the Sunday morning. So even if you can't make the conference nights, you can still come and hear him on Sunday morning. And also Pastor Steven Anderson is going to be preaching for us on Friday evening. And so we've got a great conference lined up with lots of different things. We'll have our annual kids spelling bee and I'll try to get that information out there as soon as possible. But we should, it should be pretty similar to even last year's material. So if you can spell every word in the Bible, you're good. All right. Some of those names get a little interesting. On the back, church reminders and rules. Please children and even adults, no running in the church building. No children on the stage. Children should not be in our kitchen area unattended. Upset children or crying babies should be removed from the sanctuary until they have calmed down. Then they can return of course. There's two mother baby rooms. They should always be accompanied by their mother in those rooms at all times just for safety. Sundays we have a quiet time from two to four. And it's just a free option for people that want to stick around. They can hang out in our sanctuary area. But we do turn off half the lights and just kind of make it more conducive. Especially if you have a young toddler or infant that needs to take a nap. It's very understandable. Also you can use our mother baby room areas, but they are shared spaces for all. And we prefer, actually it's just a rule that the mothers would be with their children just for safety and protection. And then we have a fellowship room also that can be available for quieter activities such as reading. Or like an electronic device with headphones or something. So that's a free option. If you'd like to use it, you can. If not, just don't come here. All right. As far as our prayer list, we've been praying for the Naeems for their grandmother for vision and health and salvation. We've been praying for Ms. Carlson's mother, Ms. Rebecca. We've been praying for Ms. Faith, her friend Tamara. We've been praying for Brother Scott's nephew, Mark, for his heart. We've been praying for Ms. Garcia for her daughter, who is also expecting. That's exciting news. We've been praying for Brother Oz and for his work opportunities, which he's gotten some good news on that. But we just continue to pray. Also been praying for Brother Foley, for his fiancé's visa process. We've been praying for Brother Roger for his work. Also been praying for Brother Goodwin for his mother-in-law, her health as well. So a lot of prayer requests there for health and then some work stuff and some travel. So make sure you're praying for people throughout the week. We'll say a quick word of prayer now as our church. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for our church and this opportunity to be here. Thank you so much for all these expecting ladies. Please bless their pregnancies and bless these young children. Thank you so much for giving us a church that's so fruitful. I pray that you would also just bless our church family that's struggling with health. Please give them a full recovery. Please give them a speedy recovery. Please also help those that are temporary illnesses who also have a quick recovery and for them to be able to return to church. I pray that you would also help our church family that needs a blessing or favor with work or in travel or just in all the areas of life that you know better than we. And I pray that you would just continue to use our church to be a bright and shining light for the gospel. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. That's all I have as far as announcements. We'll go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 119. If you have your special handouts, that makes it a lot easier. Psalm 119. Alright, Psalm 119 in the white handouts there. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. I have sworn and I will perform in that I will keep thy righteous judgments. I am afflicted, very much quick in me, O Lord, according unto thy word. The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I erred not from thy precepts. Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Accept I beseech thee the freewill offerings of my mouth, O Lord, and teach me thy judgments. My soul is continually in my hand, yet do I not forget thy law. The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I erred not from thy precepts. Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever. Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. For they are the rejoicing of mine, hard I have inclined mine, hard to perform thy statutes away. Even unto thee and I hate vain thoughts, but thy law do I love. The wicked have laid a snare for me, yet I erred not from thy precepts. Thy testimonies have I taken as an heritage forever. My word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. The wicked have laid a snare for me, hard I have inclined mine, hard to perform thy statutes away. The wicked have laid a snare for me, hard I have inclined mine, hard to perform thy statutes away. Zechariah 11, the Bible reads, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Howl for a tree, for the cedar is fallen, because the mighty are spoiled. Howl, O you oaks of Bashan, for the forest of the vintage has come down. There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds, for their glory is spoiled, a voice of the roaring of young lions, for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. Thus saith the Lord my God, feed the flock of the slaughter, whose possessors slay them and hold themselves not guilty. And they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich, and their own shepherds pity them not. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord, but lo, I will deliver the men, everyone, into his neighbor's hand and into the hand of his king, and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. And I will feed the flock of the slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me the two staves, the one I called Beauty and the other I called Bands, and I fed the flock. Three shepherds also I cut off in one month, and my soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me. Then said I, I will not feed you, that that dieth, let it die. And that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off. And let the rest eat every one of the flesh of another. And I took my staff, even Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. And it was broken in that day, and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. And I said unto them, if ye think good, give me my price, and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said unto me, cast it unto the potter, a goodly price that I was priced out of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. Then I cut asunder mine other staff, even bands, that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. And the Lord said unto me, take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off. Neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still. But he shall eat the flesh of the fat and tear the claws in pieces. Woe to the idle shepherd that leaveth the flock. The sword shall be upon his arm and upon his right eye. His arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, Lord, thank you for this chapter of the Bible, Lord, and I just pray that you would be with Pastor Shelley and bless him and fill him with your Holy Spirit as he preaches the word of God unto us. And I just pray that you would give us soft hearts to hear your word, Lord, and apply it in our lives. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Zechariah chapter 11 kind of makes a little bit of a transition here from chapter number 10. Chapter 10, whenever I was kind of giving like a big picture from last week, it seemed like we were even maybe following a loose chronology of end times events. And I feel like when we get into chapter 11, it doesn't necessarily continue the story forward, but it kind of just like retells some of the same prophetic pictures that we've had. And it kind of just symbolizes a few different things that are happening. In the 70th week of Daniel, or that last seven years of tribulation, it has a few different verses that kind of allude to a few different things. But again, from a big picture, sometimes the Bible will do this where later chapters of a book will kind of be more of a recap or a summary or kind of giving big picture concepts. And it doesn't necessarily always just keep going chronologically. You have this with David's life even or the books of Samuel. Sometimes at the end, they just kind of tag on a few different stories that happen throughout, but it's not necessarily going through a perfect chronology. And so I believe here it's also kind of doing a similar thing from an end times perspective. Now, of course, in chapter 10, it brought up a lot of positive things, specifically about the Lord giving them rain and blessing them. But it was in the context of His people. His people are returning back to the land. They're coming back to Jerusalem. He's going to bless them. They're going to rebuild the temple. But for the surrounding nations and the surrounding area, there's not a good message. Now, this is interesting because if we think about why they're here, if we go back 70 plus years or so, Nebuchadnezzar came through and just basically destroyed all of this area. And we're not talking about Jerusalem. We're talking about all of the Middle East here and that whole region conquering all kinds of different areas, conquering Tyre, so basically conquering up Syria and Assyria and all that place, Damascus as we would call it, conquering all the way down into Egypt, so just conquering this whole region. But then God's allowing His people to come back and rebuild Jerusalem. Well, then you have this question, well, what about the other surrounding areas? But see, they don't have this message of hope where God's going to help rebuild them and it's going to be blessing and be good for them. They just have more destruction and more misery that's awaiting them. And that's what's being brought up here in chapter number 11. It's really difficult language. I'm just going to be honest with you. When I read chapters like this, like when I read Zechariah chapter 11, the first time especially after having not read it in a while, it's like this to me. It just seems like I'm just reading it and it's really dense and it's really difficult. So some of these chapters I feel like are made to be kind of studied slowly and just kind of like thinking about them and slowly unraveling them. Now hopefully I can make a little bit of sense about this chapter to you. And some of these words aren't always that familiar because it's hard. I'm a visual learner. I don't know about you guys, but it's hard for me when I just see these words and they're like kind of meaningless to me. But it says in verse 1, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Now Lebanon, if you're not familiar with the Middle East, which is not me, I don't really care about camels and desert or whatever, but it's essentially north. So this is the north part. It's not even really part of what would have been the nation of Israel. It's actually a little bit north of that. It's more where we think of Tyre and Sidon and those kind of areas. This is where Lebanon exists. This is where Solomon hired essentially to bring a bunch of that wood and that lumber down to build the house of the Lord from Hiram. But it wasn't, it's not part of the nation of Israel. It's like basically north of the nation of Israel. But it's bordering. It's basically a border of what would be the ideal version of the nation of Israel. It's up there and it's simply saying, Open thy doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour thy cedars. Why is Lebanon renowned? What is it known for? It's known for having really big giant trees. And what are really big giant trees, what are they useful for? Lumber and building materials, especially constructing large buildings. That's why it was so beneficial to building the house of the Lord is that you're getting really big, really tall, really straight pieces of lumber that can be used in construction specifically. But God is basically saying, You guys are going to be destroyed and your forests are going to be burned up. Your famous, well-renowned trees are going to be destroyed. Verse 2, How, fir tree, for the cedar is fallen, because the mighty are spoiled. How, O ye oaks of Bashan, for the forest of the vintage is come down. Now kind of a second place tree would be the fir tree. So you kind of have the cedar tree as being like the best, especially for lumber and all these different things. The fir is also, in many cases, a very big, large tree. You can make construction projects out of that. Bashan is kind of, if we think about Israel as a whole, and I haven't almost done it backwards for you all, but if you're thinking about the sea, the Mediterranean Sea over here, and you're kind of looking at Israel, and Lebanon's that coastal part, and it's where Tyre and Sidon are, then Bashan is just a little bit to the side. It's kind of going more inland towards Asia, towards China. That's Bashan. So the Bashan Forest is basically that whole area up there. From a map, if you're looking down, it's going to be to the east. So you're heading towards the east. That's Bashan. So it's basically, if you just think about it, we live in Texas, and we kind of have New Mexico to our west, and then we have Oklahoma to our north. So if you've ever seen a map of Texas and Oklahoma, they both have these little panhandles that kind of intersect and kind of run into each other. If you think about it, the panhandle is kind of where Lebanon is, and then the rest of Oklahoma is kind of where we're talking about Bashan. We're talking about Israel specifically, geographically located. So we're just talking about all these neighboring areas, like all the surrounding area of Israel. It's doomed. That's what God's saying. It's going to be destroyed. These forests are going to be spoiled and desecrated. Now, why? Why would these forests be burned? Is it because they didn't put out their cigarettes? Is it because they didn't have the forest ranger or something like that? Smokey the Bear? They didn't see the advertisement for Smokey the Bear or something like that? No. It's because when a nation will come into another nation and they win in a military battle or conquest, what they don't want to happen is they don't want all the kids to get pissed about the fact that they lost this war and rise up a great army and then come and retaliate and destroy them later. So you know what they do is they destroy all their natural resources and make it a barren wasteland so that no one can come back on their heels and fight them. So you'll see often, and it's described even with Nebuchadnezzar, that it's a lush forest or a lush garden ahead of them and then it's a wasteland, a barren desolate land behind them because they want to take all those natural resources. They don't want these trees to end up becoming bulwarks or catapults or just all kinds of different devices used against them in military later to build fortresses or houses or whatever. So they're just going to literally destroy all the natural resources of these areas when these armies march through. Not only that, they'll cut down the trees and use those resources for themselves selfishly as well, right? They'll gather a lot of lumber, use that for themselves. We talked about in a previous chapter how Alexander the Great, he used all this roughage to build what was called a mole to build a man bridge out into that aisle of Tyre to try and get to that city. So they're obviously chopping down forests and cutting all this debris and they don't care because it's not their home and they're just destroying it. And that's just to kind of help remind you of the fact that in warfare things are ugly. War is an ugly, ugly, ugly beast and it's often told by the victors only. But what you have to understand is that the people that don't win the war, it is horrific the things that go down there. They always love to talk about the quote Holocaust that happened. But something that a lot of people don't know about and I even recently had done a lot of research and studied myself is after World War II and essentially that whole area was bombed by the allies repeatedly and destroyed and the Germans lost, well what happened do you think in Germany after that? You know everybody likes to glorify the 1950s? But think about this. Would you like to live in the 1950s in Germany? Would you like to live in the 1950s in Eastern Europe? Would you like to live in the 1950s in Communist Russia? Would you like to live in the 1950s in China? I mean it's like oh I'd love to be back in the 1950s America. Yeah well for everybody else it was a train wreck literally. And what happened is, and this is a little bit of a history lesson for a second, but if you think about Russia a little bit prior to, about 20 years prior to there was a Bolshevik revolution a bunch of Jews took over the entire government and slaughtered approximately 60 million Russians. Now these were the good guys that we teamed up with because they're so good. Well after the Germans lost the war all of those Jewish Russian soldiers marched into all of Eastern Europe and they slaughtered approximately 12 million Germans. Now who were these 12 million Germans? Women, children, and old men carving swastikas in their bodies and doing all kinds of horrible atrocities I don't even want to mention. I've already mentioned more than I want to. Destroying them and desecrating them. All the women were just taken advantage of beyond your wildest imaginations. Just eliminating every single German person. Kind of like a genocide. It's really interesting how from history's perspective we're always so worried about this quote Jewish genocide that happened but we literally ignore the fact that many more Germans were literally genocided after World War II than even the claimed numbers of the Jews. And that's why because the victors tell the stories. It wasn't just the Russian troops. Many American troops had a three day feast of the spoils of war. And you know a lot of people talk about PTSD. I wonder if the PTSD is from all the atrocities that they committed after war. Not just the killing random Nazi soldiers. They could probably go to bed sleeping like a baby after that. It's probably all the things they did to the women and the children and all the other stuff that they did in those areas that they have a hard time sleeping at night when they come back from all the war crimes that they literally committed. But yeah, oh well we won the war and we destroyed all of the world and slaughtered and killed millions and millions of people. But we come back to America and there's two to one girls for every guy so we're living our best life in the 1950's. And if you want to glorify that and act like that was somehow amazing. Well yeah, if I literally walk around this room and I steal all of your wallets I'm going to have a great day. Like if I just take all of y'all's cash and I literally take all of your cars and I sell all of y'all's assets then I'm going to have a pretty good day. Wow, hey I'm doing pretty good today, you know. And then some people want to be like, I want to go back to that time. Well you know what brought 1950's America? Literally slaughtering every single other nation and destroying them and reaping the spoils of war. That's why it was so good. But if you weren't in America you weren't going to think like, let's go back to 1950's. You know you could go back to 1950's China where they had the great leap forward where communists literally took over the means of production and agriculture and almost every farmer committed suicide and they literally starved so many people they killed about 50 to 60 million of their own citizens through starvation alone in the great leap forward. Or you could be, hey read the bridge at Andow. You could go to the eastern part of Europe where they were under communist rule of the Russians as well where they were constantly killing people, putting them in gulags. I mean we love to try and talk about how it's so important not to forget the 6 million Jews that were killed in the Holocaust. What about the 60 million people in Russia? Many of which were just Christians. Now they're albeit orthodox so I don't even know if they were saved necessarily. They shouldn't have been orthodox. But you know, it doesn't mean they deserve to be slaughtered. How about all the Chinese farmers? Did they deserve, and all the Chinese people, did they deserve to be slaughtered? I mean some people just don't realize how bad communism is and war is. And sometimes people are thinking like, oh yeah, war, it's so good. War is horrible. And the killing is honestly the best part about war. There's so many other things about war that are unimaginable that you don't even want to go down that road. And what God is spelling for these areas is just utter doom and destruction and evil that is just, you don't even want to know about. And of course, you know, God can still protect His people in the midst of these things. They're fleeing out and coming to Jerusalem. But what's going to happen for the next few hundred years in this area is the Greek army with Alexander the Great is going to literally march through all these areas. March through Lebanon, march through Bashan, march through all of these areas. And it's going to become a complete wasteland, destruction. Alexander the Great himself is an open sodomite. And what you don't realize sometimes is that a lot of the leaders of these militaries and these commanders are the worst reprobates you could ever imagine. And what they do in these times, because there's no real law, it's anarchy, it's just all kinds of pillaging and just death and destruction. You know, God is a wrathful God. And you know, when you just reject God and you don't care, horrible things can happen, horrible wars can happen. That's why it's important to take these things seriously. You know, think about the king of Nineveh literally took it seriously when he said, hey, you guys are going to be destroyed. I mean, they're putting sackcloth on the animals. And just think about how lackadaisical America is, just sitting here, just doing whatever it wants, just partying, killing babies through abortion, just living in all kinds of fornication and adultery and don't care what the Bible says. Their pastor will literally be caught being a pedophile and then they'll still go to that church. They'll still go to Gateway. I'm just like, at what point do you have to think like maybe I've been duped by a wolf? At what point do you have to wake up and be like, maybe this isn't the right church to go to when a pedophile built it literally? You should do some soul searching at that kind of point in your life, especially when everybody's getting up saying, I have a special word from God about how wonderful this person is. And then it's like, I don't feel like you're hearing from God. Seems like you may be hearing from a different voice. That's the devil. And I'm just trying to give you a sense of these things because these verses are really easy to just read and just be like, oh, they got destroyed, whatever. All their natural resources just completely destroyed, wiped out, just whatever. But you know what? This happened to real people. It's happened to real people throughout history and we don't want to be necessarily in all the details of this stuff because it'll mess you up. But you know what messes you up more? Actually going through this and the horrible crimes that they committed. Some of the people that have told their testimonies about this, they're pretty much all the youngest children because the teenagers were killed. But the youngest children had to literally watch their brothers and sisters and mom and their elderly grandparents or whatever be slaughtered in front of their eyes, horribly tortured and all kinds of brutal things. And you could never convince these people that there isn't a time to hate. Because they're sitting there like, I hate these people. These people are evil. They're sadistic. They're called communists, folks. Communists are evil as hell. Bernie Sanders is a wicked evil person. Oh, he's just so nice. He's a kind little Jew. There's no such thing as this kind little innocent Jew that's advocating communism. They're advocating the complete destruction of women and children and murder and rape like you've never seen it before. That's what they advocate for. We should never be kind to a communist. Ever. They're wicked. They're satanic. They're demonic. Communism is from the pit of hell. And I'm telling you what, our country is getting to a point where a lot of kids are so stupid, they are advocating for communism. France is advocating for communism with a lot of the youth in that country. It's crazy. And again, you read books about this, literally a population will bring in communism, and then they're like, whoa, what the heck did we just bring in? And they're just slaughtered with the rest of them because no one wins in communism, everyone loses. And when you turn away from God, he brings the worst in. And we use these terms lightly, like communism. What does that even mean? It's pretty much the same thing every time. It's just a dictator that rules by fear and power. If we read throughout the Bible, that's all these people are. Every single time, just evil dictators. Pharaoh, it's communism, folks. I mean, it's the same thing over and over. We use that word. We don't know what it means. It's just a dictator. You own nothing. You're a slave. If you step out of line, you're tortured or killed. It's that simple. That's what communism really is. It's not this utopia where we all share natural resources and have fun. It's where your natural resources are destroyed and your family is destroyed, your life and your soul is destroyed, all right? This is a pleasant chapter so far, right? Verse 3. There is a voice of the howling of the shepherds, for their glory is spoiled. A voice of the roaring of young lions, for the pride of Jordan is spoiled. So we talked about a little bit. Again, you're thinking about this picture of the Middle East. You have the Mediterranean Sea. You have Israel right up against it. Up in the north, you have Lebanon, which is that Tyre and Sidon. Then you have Bashan. And then basically the whole side that's the landlocked side, on the other side of the Dead Sea, that's Jordan. So you basically have Jordan to the east of Israel. So he's saying, like, all of this north and this east, like, all of the area surrounding you, it's destroyed, all of its glory, all of its beauty, it's spoiled. He talks about their shepherds. That could mean a few different things, and I think it probably means all of them generally, but shepherds could be what we think of as literally a shepherd, just the ones that raise cattle and raise livestock that they're destroyed. Also, shepherd can refer to just leaders in general. The leaders of these areas, they're crying and howling because they're being destroyed. And then it can also refer to spiritual leaders who are in charge of different things. I think it's mostly, in this context, it's talking about the leaders politically and the leaders of their area. Many times it's even one and the same, that the leaders politically are kind of the leaders religiously as well, especially in these areas and these regions, and they're not even Christian anyways, but their shepherds are just weeping, wailing because they're obviously being destroyed, and the young lions is often also similar language when we talk about the leaders, their strongest military, their greatest warriors, because a lion, when we think about a young lion, what I don't want you to be confused, I always get confused by this, maybe it's just you, I think of a lion cub Who's seen The Lion King? Okay, I've seen The Lion King. You are so wicked. No, I'm just kidding. Elton John, doesn't he make the soundtrack, whatever? Oh, man, what a faggot. All right. Well, in Lion King, when I hear young lion, I always think of this like little lion cub that's, you know, weak and defenseless, and he watches his dad die. Sorry, I spoiled the movie. And essentially, that's not a young lion. That's like a baby lion. That's like a cub. When we're talking about young lions, we're talking about when he grows up. So what a young lion would be in our context would be a man that's like 25 to 35. He's basically in the prime of life, meaning this guy is ferocious, this guy is someone to be messed with. So saying like the most ferocious men, the strongest men, the leaders of their society, what's going to happen to them is a voice of the roaring of the young lions. For the pride of Joran is spoiled. You know, it's just this whole area is destroyed. It's death. You could look at this two ways. You could look at this as their young lions be destroyed, or it could be literally that's just the young lions of the Greek empire that's coming through and just ripping through the flock and just destroying them. But it says here in verse number four, thus say the Lord my God, feed the flock of the slaughter. You know, at first glance, it's hard to discern what it's saying. Like who is this flock of slaughter and what are we feeding them? Like what does that even mean? But as we read a little bit more in this, it makes sense. It also brings up verse seven. Look at this. And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves, the one I called beauty and the other I called bands, and I fed the flock. So we get a little bit more information there. Also verse five, it says whose possessors slay them. So who's the them? The them is the flock of the slaughter. Okay. So God says he's going to feed the flock of the slaughter. They're poor, poor people of the flock. And specifically it says whose possessors slay them. So they're being slain and hold themselves not guilty. And they that sell them say, Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich, and their own shepherds pity them not. So I think when you read the context, it becomes pretty clear who we're talking about is the flock of slaughter is God's people. This is the children of Israel that are genuinely those who love God. And it's kind of, you know, a tongue in cheek a little bit here. The apostle Paul brings up, we are lambs slaughtered all the day long. We're like basically kind of this flock of slaughter in a sense. And it's just talking about the martyrdom and the destruction of God's people here. Okay. Now in some cases this persecution may not be a direct result of them just serving God and loving God so much. Could be just genuinely because they also were really wicked and they're still being slaughtered. But generally this is God's flock. What is the feed the flock of the slaughter is God is going to provide for this flock that is being slaughtered, essentially is what he's trying to say. That he's going to provide the nourishment. He's going to take care of his people even though what's been happening to them. Well, verse 5, whose possessors slay them? Who's the possessors? The people in Lebanon, the people in Bashan, the people in Jordan. Because the children of Israel had been spread in a great diaspora or a great spreading all over the entire world. And when we say world, it's that immediate part of the world because back then people aren't going over to North America. Okay. But at least the people in the Middle East aren't. But those individuals have been spread in all these different regions. While they were living there, what was happening to them? Well, they were being slain. Not only that, when they would be slain, it says, and hold themselves not guilty. That's like the Russians coming into Germany slaughtering 12 million Germans and then not holding themselves guilty saying it was warranted. Killing a 15-year-old boy because he was automatically drafted into the Hitler Youth just because he was part of the German nation and speaks German, well, you know what? That's not legitimate. That's not righteous. In fact, you're not even supposed to put the children to death for the sins of the father anyways. So even if you could prove that his father was Hitler, you're not allowed to kill Hitler's son just because his father is Hitler. Now, if he's done crimes worthy of death, put the person to death. You know, that's not what was happening. And, you know, here in this particular situation, these people are being slain not for anything legitimate. It's not like criminals being punished in a foreign land. It's just they're foreigners and they're just slaughtering them because they're foreigners. They're just killing them, hanging them, destroying them. And they say, look at this, and they that sell them. So they're literally slaves. They're being sold, human trafficked. And it says this, blessed be the Lord for I am rich. This looks crazy. They're killing God's people and they're selling them as slaves and then they're saying that God is blessing them by making them rich from the selling and the slavery of those people. That is crazy. And it says their own shepherds pity them not, meaning the leaders of God's people, they don't even feel bad that God's people are being destroyed. Now, I believe that that verse is, we could talk about it all night, but that verse will explain to you my view on Jews in general, especially modern day Jews, that the Jewish elite are shepherds who do not pity their flock. And they use Jews as a shield to hide from the atrocities that they commit. And they always act like, oh, Jews are being treated poorly or you just hate all Jews. And it's like, most people don't just hate all Jews. It's just they hate the Jews that are doing really bad things. And they just use this shield and act like, oh, no. But, you know, they would sell out their own Jewish brother tomorrow if it made them a buck. They wouldn't care if they literally went to a concentration camp or were slaughtered by a Nazi or whatever. They don't even care at all. They would love for Jews to be killed as long as they get a buck and they get by. Their name is called George Soros, okay, who is a Jew who sold out other Jews to the Nazi party during World War II so that he could become rich. And he's like the richest person in the world who survived. He doesn't care that a bunch of Jews were killed. He doesn't feel bad. He doesn't have PTSD. He doesn't have trouble sleeping at night because the guy doesn't have a conscience. He doesn't have a conscience. He's a reprobate. And many of the shepherds, rulers of this world are reprobates. They do not feel anything when people are slaughtered. Women and children can be slaughtered and it means nothing to them. They're like Doeg the Edomite that's just like, let me sick them. And as soon as he's given the okay by King Saul, he'll kill the priests, and not just the priests, their wives and their children too, their entire family. What kind of sicko-fant, what kind of psychopath slaughters women and children indiscriminately that are God's people? Like that is insane. But that is how bad some people are in this world. And what's more insane is how good people won't believe in the death penalty for anyone. It's like these sickos exist in our society and they exist in the world and it's a shame that people won't put them to death. It's a shame that Christians don't understand the death penalty at all. And again, study history please. But the Bolshevik Revolution specifically, Nicholas II had actually caught a large number of Jewish communists from being traitors and treasonous and trying to overthrow the government. And he didn't put them to death. And they got a light sentencing and then they came back the second time with way more troops, knowing what they needed to do, and they executed of course him, his entire family, women and children. I mean think about this. You don't kill the guy caught literally overthrowing your government, the Jewish communists. But then what? You didn't kill him. But you know what he does? He kills you and your wife and your teenagers and your little girl and your infant and all your servants and everyone because you wouldn't put evil down. He's going to slaughter every single person. And you know what? That's happening in our country and our world today that because we won't put wicked and evil people to death, boy they are chomping at the bit to do their destruction. And it's because we won't put the reprobates of our society to death that so many people are being killed all the time. Being killed by the cartel, being killed by drugs, being killed by fake wars, by buildings blowing up and falling down and controlled demolition events. And then causing us a war to go into the Middle East and just slaughter all kinds of our youth and our best men for nothing. Why? Because sickos and freakos in the government, they feel nothing just slaughtering the youth of our nation and other nations just so they can get an extra buck, just so they can get an extra dollar. And you know what? That is the same as this story right now that we're reading about how these disgusting shepherds, these false shepherds, they don't care about human life, they don't care about women and children, and they just want to make another buck and they'll kill anybody to do it. And because good Christian men have forgotten how evil our world is, they've just decided everybody's good and we've just got to be so gracious that they just literally just open up the door to wolves. Open up the door to the wolves in our society. You know, just as much as the gospel is the most important doctrine, hey, the reprobate doctrine is still important too. And the death penalty is still important. And these things keep everything in balance. And when you get off on one, you kind of get off on all of it usually. And it's really important. You know, another aspect of this that's kind of sad is when you look at it from a spiritual perspective and how many false prophets today and fake preachers today are the exact same way where they don't care about the flock at all. And they literally don't even care that children are being destroyed. You know, I saw another news article coming out saying that Gateway had paid off some other child abuse scandals or something that had happened with other people, not their main pastor, Robert Morris. But I'm like, why? Why is a church paying money to hide the fact that children were abused? You know, is it to keep children from coming to the building? Maybe they should be warned that it's not a safe place, that y'all aren't safe. And you know, to me, it's not that big a deal to have a big church that every once in a while there's a predator because it's probably inevitable. But what's bad is to cover it up because when you cover it up, you keep the flock ignorant of the fact that bad people exist and that bad people are creeping into flocks. You know, if it happens, call them out and make a big deal about it to try and warn everybody like, hey, these people can even be amongst us and they're wicked and they're evil and we don't want to cover this stuff up. We want to expose those people and alert the congregation to the real danger that exists in our society so that people aren't just allowing these criminals and freakos to come into your house and hurt your children. The young lady that has come out against Robert Morris and said that he had taken advantage of her in a more recent article said there was two other ministers that had stayed at their house that did the same thing. Now, it wasn't to the same extremity, but I'm thinking, like, who are these men that this dad is bringing into this house? You know, here's a good reason not to go to these non-denominational fun centers, all the weirdos and pedos and freaks that are going through their doors. And you know what? You be extremely careful about the people that you allow in your home. Please, you can't be too careful. You will never offend me, okay? But, you know, it would just make my heart hurt if I knew somebody and something bad happened to them, you know? And woe to the person that did it. Woe unto them. Because I know God will revenge, but I might too, all right? So there you go. Oh, man. Keep your finger here. Go to John chapter number 10. If you're a pedophile, kill yourself. That's my advice. Get a big millstone tied around your neck and jump in the sea. I think that's the best for everybody, including you, because Jesus said it was better for you. That's what Jesus said. I don't like that kind of preaching. Well, you don't like Jesus. Jesus was gracious, not unto pedophiles. When did you see Jesus ministering to you? When did you see Jesus ministering to a pedophile or being nice to a pedophile? When do you remember the redeeming story of the pedophile? Oh, there's this guy that was just a pedophile for about ten years of his life. Then he started serving the God of Israel. That didn't happen. The pedophiles were in Canaan, and they got slaughtered. God just slaughtered all of them and destroyed all of them. No grace, no mercy, just death. That's what they deserve. Now, John chapter 10, look at what it says in verse 7. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door by me. If any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture. The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy. I am come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep, but he that is an hireling and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep and fleeth, and the wolf catchers them and scattereth the sheep. The hiring fleeth because he is an hireling and careth not for the sheep. Notice here some parallels of the passage that we read. What is a hireling? It's someone that got hired. Why does someone want to get hired? For money. Many of the preachers in this area are preaching for one reason, money. They don't care about the flock, and if they see the wolf coming, what does a wolf look like? You know, it looks like this, LGBTQ. That's what a wolf looks like, okay? In fact, when they dress up, they look like demon wolves, literally. They even call themselves furries. They say that they're dogs. I'm not calling them dogs. They call themselves dogs. They put themselves on collars and prance themselves around and bark like literal dogs. That's the wolf. It's not that hard. And then literally the pastor, instead of saying, you're a wolf, stay out of my church, they flee when they come to the door. They just let them come in. Why? Because he's a hireling. And he just lets predators enter into his church, like Andy Stanley, the fag-loving idiot that he is. And you know what? There's all these pastors out there. They care about one thing, and it's money. And it's just like Zechariah, where they said, oh, blessed be the Lord God. I am rich. And he doesn't even pity the flock when it gets destroyed. And think about these megachurches. I'm not against big churches, but just think about it logistically. These guys don't know anybody in that room. They don't know anyone. Now, if you were to detest me on every single one of your kids' names, I'm sorry, I might fail a little bit, but I could just guess something in the Bible might be right. But at the end of the day, I know you guys, and that's important. It's important for the pastor to know his flock and think about them and care about them and have a little bit of feeling. Pastor Hiles pastored a big church with a lot of people, and I'm not against that. But you know what? Pastor Hiles would stand after a sermon in front of his pulpit for three hours straight just talking to people, just so a lot of people could still get that relationship and have... He cared for his flock. He actually thought about them. You know, these megachurch pastors, they go down in like, you know, fancy elevators and smoke screens and whatever. Like, you don't even know where they're at. I never saw the pastor. They've got security. They're going their own special secret ways. They just pop up for a 20-minute nuked over, warmed over, leftover garbage story that they've been telling their whole life. They don't even care about these people. So little Susie, she gets molested by one of the child workers. Oh, whatever. Do we have insurance? Do we get it covered? Just call the lawyer, whatever. You know, blessed be God. I'm rich. That's how modern-day American churches today, and it's sick, and it's gross, and it's disgusting, and it's their approach to the Lord Jesus Christ. And you know what? It's causing so many people that are actually conservative and actually not a brain-dead idiot to think like, well, I guess I got to try, you know, the Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church or something because this Protestantism is garbage. Okay, yeah. Just because those churches exist doesn't make every Protestant or every single evangelical or every single Baptist a bad person. Yes, there are some bad Baptists out there. There's some queer-bait Baptists. There's some Southern bastard Baptists out there, okay? Yeah, I get that. You know what? That doesn't make Baptists bad. It doesn't make evangelicals bad. You know what is bad? The Orthodox Church was just sending people to hell, and the Catholic Church was just sending people to hell, even if they are more conservative. And look, the Pope is one of the faggotiest people on the planet anyways. Why would you ever want to be Catholic? It's gross. It's a pedophile religion. If you don't like pedophiles, you should never be Catholic, okay? That's the last religion that you should join. That or Islam. They're both a bunch of pedophiles, and so is Judaism. I guess they're all pedophiles. I don't know. If you don't love the Lord, you become a pedophile, basically, if you're in the leader in one of these groups, okay? That's why people are like, oh, Christians are so bad. No, it's just because fake Christians are so bad. Fake Christians are the worst people on the planet. Your average guy that doesn't go to church is much more normal than these fake, liberal, Pentecostal, tongue-talking, demon-filled weirdos that is going around there just like, Blessed be the Lord, I'm rich. Blessed be Robert Morris, look how much money he has. Oh, you know, I've been praying a lot more, and God's just giving me so much more money. That's not how it works. That's ridiculous. You know, this is the kind of Christianity in the world that we live in, and you know what? God doesn't pity when he just brings in the slaughter to all these people, to these shepherds, these fake shepherds. Look what he says in verse 6. Zechariah 11, verse 6. For I will no more pity the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord. But lo, I will deliver the men into every one, into his neighbor's hand, and into the hand of his king, and they shall smite the land, and out of their hand I will not deliver them. Just saying, you guys in Lebanon and in Bashan and in Jordan and all these surrounding areas, you just kept slaughtering my people, and you didn't care, and you just thought you were getting rich, and you kept saying blessed be the Lord. Well, your blessing is Alexander the Great, who's going to literally march through here and just rape and pillage and destroy all of you. And you know what? America's going to get that kind of punishment someday. America is going to get one of the worst punishments ever in the history of humanity, if not the worst, because of all the wickedness and all the evil. Now, the only thing preserving it, funny enough, is us saved people that are still here. Because if we all left, you're doomed, America. You may not like me, but you need me, and you need other Christians, and you need other saved people, because we're the only reason you're still breathing air right now. You'd be under the Iron Curtain of Communism, or six feet under at this point, if it wasn't for the saved people in America. Some people keep wondering, why is America not destroyed? It's only for the precious children of God that are keeping it alive right now. It is on its deathbed, just hyperventilating. And you know what? People want to say, like, revive America. It needs more than a miracle, folks. It needs some serious rehabbing. A lot of things need to be destroyed. Look at verse number seven. That's kind of just to give you the first part of this chapter. We can keep reading, verse seven. And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves, the one I call beauty and the other I call bands, and I fed the flock. So what's the picture? God's going to destroy Lebanon, Beit She'an, Jordan. But his people are going to come out from that. That's the flock of slaughter, and God's going to feed them. God's going to preserve them. God's going to take care of them. And that's an interesting thing in the history of this time in, you know, the Bible, and specifically just in history, where for about 500 years, we have the Greeks dominating and destroying this entire area, but Jerusalem just keeps staying up. And the temple just is there, and his people just keep going. Now, of course, they have some rocky roads, and Tychus Epiphanes comes along. There's the Maccabean revolt. It kind of goes back and forth. Yeah, there's some rough patches. But generally speaking, the temple stays intact, and God's people are still fed. And generally speaking, the ones that love God, they're taken care of. They've been given a little bit of help, and they've been hoping with a little hope, as Daniel chapter 11 and 12 talk about. Now, he brings up two staves. Staves are like a long staff or a rod, and that's what a shepherd carries. So who's the real shepherd? This shepherd is Jesus. He's the good shepherd. And he has these two staves. One is beauty, and one is bands, okay? And he says in verse number 8, three shepherds also I cut off in one month, and my soul owed them, and their soul also abhorred me. This is kind of, I think, back to referencing some historical of it. A lot of people argue on what that is. I'm not going to get into the details because I don't know. It's just basically talking about how there's a lot of tumultuous leadership changes at this time. But what's the beauty? The beauty is in reference to the glory of Israel. Okay, Israel is a glorious place. What makes it beautiful? Well, they've got the temple, they've got, you know, food, and they've got all these things. What makes a land glorious? The green grass and the trees and, you know, the land being beautiful. And Jerusalem is a beautiful place, and that is something that God is doing. He's giving them this beauty because it's feeding them, it's nourishing them. Beauty is pictured here as this specific staff. But it says in verse 10, I took my staff, I'm sorry, let me read verse 9. Then said I, I will not feed you that that dieth, let it die, and that that is to be cut off, let it be cut off, and let the rest eat everyone the flesh of another. So the three shepherds and these people that are dying, that's Lebanon, Bashan, Jordan, all these people that are not God's people, they're just being destroyed, wiped out. The rulers are constantly changing, they're wicked, and yet he's still feeding the flock of slaughter. Those that were persecuted are being taken care of. Verse number 10, and I took my staff, even beauty, meaning specifically beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people. So I believe that this beauty is a couple things. I believe that the beauty extends to all of this area. God made this part of the world beautiful at one point in time. It didn't used to always be a bunch of camel riding jockeys and stuff like that, okay? It used to be a bunch of tent dwelling weirdos that can't read. It used to be a luxurious, beautiful garden area. The whole Middle East was just beautiful and trees and gorgeous grass and the best foods and just, like, this was a beautiful area of the world. But he's going to break that covenant that he made with all of these people in this area, and this is now going to be a wasteland. I mean, the Bible describes Sodom as the well-watered plain, okay? Like, this whole area was really beautiful and probably even northern Egypt. Probably even Egypt and Africa. But if you've ever looked at a map now, it just looks like someone got an eraser and just, like, erased all the Middle East and the northern part of Africa. It's probably because of how many times they were so wicked that God was just like, all right, this place is just destroyed, you know? And it's, like, never going to be inhabited ever again. And it's just like a weird wasteland that's just randomly, like, in all that area. It's because of the constant rebellion. And then they'll say, like, yeah, but Jerusalem has remained. That's because that's God's one spot that he's just preserving, not for those people, but for his own sake, for his own name's sake, okay? But the rest of it is just, like, desert and not that great anymore in comparison to other parts of the world. You know, America was a beautiful place, but we just haven't been wiped out yet, okay? We haven't been destroyed like God has done these places over and over and over again. So one way he's breaking this covenant, I believe, is in the context of, this is not going to be a beautiful area anymore. He's literally going to destroy it. Another aspect of this, I believe, because he's talking about the covenant, that's the old covenant. That's talking to be the Old Testament. And now God's going to break that covenant with the children of Israel. Of course, we've been emphasizing and talking a lot about the surrounding area having rejected God, but look, the vast majority of the children of Israel physically also did not follow God's commandments or care and were wicked and were evil. They weren't the real flock of the slaughter. That's a mixed multitude always, okay? And so many of them, he's breaking the covenant with them for them being wicked, and they were being punished by intact epiphanies for turning away from God and being evil and being unrighteous and not serving the God of the Bible, okay? So he's also doing that. Then another thing that's going to picture, I believe, is the Lord Jesus Christ, and it gives us here in the next few verses a lot of information about him. It says in verse number 11, And it was broken in that day, and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it was the word of the Lord. So he's saying when he breaks the covenant, somehow his people knew that and, notice, waited upon me. They were like waiting for this covenant to be broken or waiting for beauty to be broken. It says in verse 12, And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price, and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver, and the Lord said unto me, Cast it unto the potter a goodly price that I was prized at of them, and I took the thirty pieces of silver and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord. So here we have, and this is probably the most famous part of this chapter, is a prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, again, the flock of slaughter, being those who are the poor, who are those who are the waiting upon the Lord, who he's going to feed, and he's going to feed them, and he specifically breaks this covenant. He destroys this staff, which is called beauty. I believe that that's none other than the Lord Jesus Christ being crucified and the breaking of that old covenant and entering into and ushering into the new covenant, okay? And that's how we knew it was the word of the Lord. We knew it was the word of the Lord. It fulfilled Scripture. So a lot of people have talked about the Messiah's coming and being like this ruler and setting up this kingdom and stuff, but the Bible's talking about someone being broken and talking about the beauty being, you know, here, priced. Well, what is that picturing? That's picturing Judas. Go if you went to Matthew chapter 26. Keep your finger here. Go to Matthew 26 for a moment. So God is always looking out for his people, even in the midst of all kinds of death and destruction and evil and a bad society. You know what I mean? The Bible says that we shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation. That verse wouldn't even make sense if we didn't live in America. Crooked and perverse nation, that's America. And you know, frankly speaking, we're probably still the best nation out there. So just think about other nations, how much more they are a bright and shining light, Christians that live in this world. We like to just kind of glorify the past and think like, oh, I wish I lived in this time. When was there not a crooked and perverse nation in history? You know, I mean, it's like, oh, well, America was so great. It's probably had better days at some points in time, generally speaking, but that's not even necessarily for sure. And like I even said, a lot of our church wouldn't even be able to be married to their spouse if we lived in 1967 in the state of Texas, because it was literally forbidden to have interracial marriage. So, you know, how does that work? I mean, there's all kinds of different things that have changed in the law. I mean, we couldn't even use the same water fountain as some of the people in this room. Some of you wouldn't even be welcome here. You know, think about all the accommodations to make for Spanish-speaking people in our country that those things wouldn't even exist. I mean, things change all the time. People love to say, I just want to go back in time to this other time. You know, that's a foolish idea because many times it's not even better. I want to go back to the 1950s. Well, let's go back to 1940 when you were automatically drafted into World War II and you had to go into Europe and fight Nazis. How much fun is that? Which were really skilled militarily. I mean, they were great fighters, even if you didn't like them as people. They were still a fierce foe and slaughtered and killed a lot of American troops along with a lot of other men in that time period. You know, that wouldn't have been exciting to be drafted into the military. I mean, I've seen some of the movies. They seem probably a little bit realistic because I've heard veterans even talk about it. Saving Private Ryan is a gruesome film. I mean, the guys are throwing up on themselves, eating the bathroom on themselves, because they're terrified about the fact that they're literally going to be slaughtered in just a few minutes getting off of boats, you know, on the beaches of Normandy. You know, you always think about going to France, but that's probably not the trip that they were expecting, okay? And, you know, we love to think and glorify the past, but, you know, many times the present's even better than it was in the past. So, you know, you can sit here and be sad about having Biden as a president, but what about Nero? The Roman emperor Nero, would you like that? Oh, for being Christian, oh, you're censored online? Oh, no. Oh, man. Well, you know, in Nero's time, we just put Christians in a coliseum and you have to fight lions that haven't eaten in a couple weeks. Have fun with that. Have fun just being in a coliseum where they're literally just feeding you to lions, you and your whole family, because it's one thing for you to be in a coliseum and have lions, but think about how you're going to feel with your wife right next to you and your young children right next to you and lions coming. How are you going to feel in those moments of your life? Oh, we're being so persecuted. Oh, you know, I wish I could go back in time. To what, Nero? Where do you want to go back in time? Oh, well, let's go back to Europe where they're all white. White people are so great, right? I mean, we love to say how bad immigrants are. Let's go back to Europe to our forefathers where William Tyndale was burned at the stake for wanting a King James Bible. That was a great time, right? Oh, when they were burning children and their families at the stake for having learned the Lord's Prayer. The Catholics, the white Catholics. Oh, you know, brown people are destroying our nation. We need to bring in some white Catholics so they can what, slaughter all the Protestant heretics? I mean, you know, wake up and smell the roses. Quit being so black-pilled on history, you know, of today. The history of yesteryear was not great either. It's just you don't even, you go to school and you learn about like Rosa Parks or something, you know, some black lady that was on a bus or something. It's like that's what you learn, maybe. I don't even know if you learned that story. But it's like you have this glorified picture of the past and it's like the present in many ways is just as good or better and, you know, Biden, he doesn't even know what he's doing, so that's probably better, okay? If you think about it, it's like do you want a president like Nero that knows what he's doing or an idiot? Maybe the idiot's better for right now. I'm like incompetence is a better foe than a vicious tyrant that knows exactly what he's doing, all right? Now, in Matthew chapter 26, we give this picture of Judas. It says in verse 14, Then one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will you give me? And I will deliver him unto you. And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver, and from that time he sought opportunity to betray him. So Judas was an infiltrator, he was wicked, he was a Jew. Matthew 27, look at verse 3. Then Judas, which he obviously betrayed him, afterwards, it says, Then Judas which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. Isn't that how you get saved, repenting of your sins? It's like the only person that you really find in the New Testament repenting of their sins is Judas. And he dies and goes straight to hell, folks. Because repenting of your sins doesn't save you. It's believing in Jesus, which he didn't do, okay? Saying, I have sinned, and that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, what is that to us? See, thou to that. You know, wicked people would love to get you to commit sin, and then when you say like, hey bro, you told me to do this, they're like, sorry. That was bad advice. Why'd you take my advice? You know, it's like, you'll listen to rap music telling you to kill cops and, you know, be a thug and die trying, and then you literally kill a cop, and you go to the Jewish lawyer, and you're like, but you sold me the record label. You literally funded DMX or whatever. You paid for him to make this album, and I listened to it, and then I did exactly what the music said, and he's like, what's that to me? You're getting 30 years of life, buddy. That's also going to cost you, though. He'll charge you after giving you this horrible advice. That's what the Jews are like. And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple and departed and went and hanged himself. And the chief priest took the silver pieces and said, it's not lawful to put them in the treasury because it is the price of blood. This is so funny. They literally will take church money and hire someone to betray Jesus to kill him, falsely, but they won't take the money back into the treasury. What kind of morality is this? I don't know why that's funny to me, but I'm just thinking, like, how is that your kind of morality? That's like even modern Jews today. Like, they'll literally commit the worst sins imaginable that you couldn't even dream of, but then they'll be like, but you know what? I can't work on Saturday. That's too much of an abomination to me, right? Or, you know, I can't eat chicken and cheese. I have to observe this kosher diet. They'll literally put these little tiny Torahs on the door of their house. It's like they have this warped view of morality, don't they? It's like, hey, we can't take money that was used to kill somebody and bring it into the treasury, but you took it out of the treasury to do it. Like, what? Like, if you had no morals, it just doesn't even make sense. Okay, their viewpoint, their religion makes no sense. The Talmud makes no sense. Judaism makes no sense, folks. It's a contradictory religion. Well, we can't bring this back in there. So it says in verse number 7, And they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field to bury strangers in. Wherefore that field was called the field of blood unto this day. In Acts, it calls it asadamah. Then was fulfilled that which was spoken by Jeremy the prophet, saying, And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him that was valued, whom they of the children of Israel did value, and gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord appointed me. As the Lord appointed me. Who's the me there? Jesus. Who's the Lord? God the Father. So the Father was always looking at Jesus for this particular passage. Additionally, I like this in verse 7, and when they buy the potter's field, who gets buried in there? Strangers. Replacement theology. Oh, okay. I just like all the replacement theology in the Bible, but it does say in verse 9, Jeremy the prophet, and we read in Zechariah, and this is really a quote from Zechariah, but we have to understand is that, you know, the Bible is not limited to a specific book. Obviously, the preachers of the Bible were preaching things before they ever got pinned down in the Bible. So Jeremy, the prophet being Jeremiah the prophet, he obviously preached this part of Zechariah before Zechariah was ever written or ever pinned down. Because Zechariah's already dead, folks. This guy's already passed, but Jeremy, obviously, or Jeremiah, preached this, just like Enoch preached things back then that are now recorded in the New Testament in the book of Jude. Enoch having prophesied. You know what that tells me? Is that tells me that someone could have preached John 3.16 before it was pinned down. You know, we kind of like think like, oh, they're limited to this Old Testament or something like that. They had the Holy Spirit come upon them. They could have preached any part of the Bible, because the Bible was already written before human history even started. The Word of God was in heaven. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. So there's never been a point in time where John 3.16 wasn't the Word of God and wasn't available for men to preach. Okay, now again, as the Bible's being pinned and as it's being written down, more people have access to it. It's more known. More people are using it to their advantage. But I mean, good night. When you read the book of Romans, it's just like the Apostle Paul is just like taking all of these Old Testament verses and putting them together in this cohesive narrative. It's like people are preaching Romans 10 before the New Testament even started. Why? There was preachers in the Old Testament that were taking those same verses that Paul did with the same Holy Spirit. There's only one Spirit, and they were preaching Romans 10 and that you call upon the name of the Lord to be saved even back then. And no, that wasn't the function of the believer. That's how they got saved, folks, okay? Is they believed on Jesus Christ by calling on his name. That's how they did it, okay? That's just New Testament and Old Testament doctrine all in one. So the beauty was cut off, and Jesus was literally broken for us. The Old Testament was completely demolished, vanished away. It's no longer available. We're now ushered into the New Covenant. And think about this. We're no longer supposed to just create this beautiful nation in Israel anymore. We're a spiritual nation now. That beauty's been cut off. It's been destroyed. We're not about that. We're not Zionists. We actually believe the Bible, and so that's meaningless to us anymore. Look at verse 14 of Zechariah. We'll finish here quickly. Verse 14, then I cut asunder my other staff, even bands that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel. I think, you know, this one is just kind of generally talking about no more unity. And again, this whole region at different times had a little bit of a sense of a brotherhood, a little bit of a unity. We even see the kings of Judah making affinity with the kings of Israel, and they kind of had this brotherhood feel. I also think it's just generally speaking, like this whole area, you know, neighbors were neighborly. Like, they had this sense of brotherhood, of being a nation. And he's basically saying, like, that's going to be cut off, where now it's just a bunch of random people all living in the same place, and they don't really care about each other anymore. And we kind of see that in America. You know, in America, it used to be that if someone noticed their neighbor's yard had something wrong with it, they'd go fix it, or they would look out for their brother, or they would help them, or they would do good on them. Now it's a bunch of strangers living together because we just imported the third world and all these other weird people, Hinduism. I mean, you go into neighborhoods today and you knock on doors, and it's like Hindu, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, jihadist, Mormon, Pentecostal, Catholic. You're like, how are we America? Like, what even is America anymore? You know, it's insane. It's insane. And people want to be like, oh, America's being destroyed. Yeah, when you import, literally, every weird, fake religion, it destroys a nation. And it's not about skin color. It's not the skin colors that destroyed our nation. It's the religions that they brought with them. Because you know what? I see a lot of skin colors in here, and we have a lot of unity and a lot of brotherhood, okay? There's nothing wrong with importing that. But what unfortunately is true is that generally speaking, since America was a white nation and other nations were not, that when you import all this color, what you're importing is not color. What you're importing is Hinduism, Islam, Judaism. Hey, what's the worst religion we've imported? Judaism from white people, okay? But we've imported all this fake religion and garbage religion, and it's destroying America, literally. It's making America weak. It's making it a nation that can actually be conquered, whereas in times past, we were a superpower. We're no longer a superpower anymore. We're not the nation that we once were because we've imported all this diversity. And in a sense, I believe that God is doing that to this area. It used to be a brotherhood. They used to have somewhat of a camaraderie, some level of ethnic similarity, which again, it wasn't so much about skin color, but it was just the fact that they all had someone unison about, were God's people, and that protected them and that made them safe. And he's breaking that. And think about it. The Middle East today is a hodgepodge of all kinds of weird stuff that's going on. There's not a lot of unity there. There's constant division, constant war, constant conflict. There's no sense of brotherhood there anymore. It's been taken from that area. Verse 15, And the Lord said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd. For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd of the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off. Neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still. But he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces. Woe to the idle shepherd, that leaveth the flock. The sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye. His arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened. Now, I'm just going to finish. Go to Revelation 13. We'll finish. It's been kind of a longer sermon. So I mixed in too much history, but I think it's just good to just get a sense of some of these things and how they make sense. If we look at this as a big picture, verses 1 through 9 kind of emphasize this Greek destruction. The Greeks are going to come through, and they're just going to destroy all this land, just utter desecration and destruction. And then God's going to break Christ. We see the foreshadowing, the prophecy of Christ coming, and Him being broken for us, and His slaughter. It keeps mentioning the flock of slaughter, the flock of slaughter, the flock of slaughter, okay? And even bands are broken. And then it brings up this foolish shepherd, which is kind of a picture of the Antichrist. This chapter has a huge, symbolic picture of the end times of essentially that first three and a half years of Daniel's 70th week and then that Great Tribulation period. Because what's going to happen? A huge destruction, just like the Greeks are coming through and just destroying everything and war and just all this destruction. But then what's also simultaneously happening is Christians are the flock of slaughter throughout this period of time. And I think the beauty being cut off and being destroyed is just a picture of the martyrdom of that Great Tribulation period. And it's coming from who? That foolish shepherd, that Antichrist. So you kind of have this loose picture of that period of time. So it's kind of a recap chapter. We're kind of going back from where we were in the chronology, and this is kind of a recap big picture that I've been talking about. And this foolish shepherd, it brings up how his arms are going to be dried up and his right eye utterly darkened. Look at Revelation chapter 13, verse 3. And I saw one of his heads, as it were, wounded to death, and his deadly wound was healed, and all the world wondered after the beast. The Bible says that the Antichrist will have a deadly wound. In verse 14, it says, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast, saying to them that dwell on the earth that they should make an image to the beast which had the wound by a sword and did live. So the Bible tells us that this Antichrist gets a deadly wound to the head, and it's a sword. Based in Zechariah, it talks about his right eye. So it's kind of presumed that these are connected and that we're talking about how the Antichrist is going to be stabbed with either a dagger or some kind of a sharp sword or knife or something, instrument, right here into his right eye and be killed, and then he's going to rise again from the dead. You know, this is where a lot of people talk about the Satanic imagery in Hollywood and all over, where they all do this. They all have these things where they cover their eye or do these things with their eye, and they're always, like, crossing things on the right eye, and it's like, you know, it seems like the devil's crowd believes the Bible. Why can't we believe the Bible? You know what I mean? Because they're trying to usher in their little Antichrist that's going to get this weird eye thing, and so, you know, again, someone's going to, like, stop the video where I do this and be like, Pastor Schiller is the Antichrist now or something. I think we should be aware of these symbols. Just because you did that or covered your eye doesn't make you the Antichrist, folks, okay? But obviously they're foreshadowing. They don't even understand that the spirit of disobedience that's working in them is probably just force them to do things. They don't even understand what they're doing, okay? But the devil knows what he's doing, and the devil is going to have the Antichrist killed, and he's going to come back to life. And the one thing I thought was interesting in this chapter is it talked about this foolish and idle shepherd, how he's not visiting the poor and stuff. That's important, because this prophecy that we're reading in Zechariah, this isn't New Testament. This is Old Testament. So it's prophesying of the coming Messiah, and it's trying to make a difference between the good shepherd and the foolish shepherd that's going to come, okay? What did the Jews think? The foolish shepherd, well, who would they embrace, and who were they anticipating? Someone's going to come rise to power and lead them in military conquest and take the nation back from Rome and set up a Davidic kingdom and rule from Solomon's throne. That's what they were hoping for, looking for, and wanting, okay? But he said, no, no, no. The right shepherd is doing something else. He's visiting the poor. And he's binding up that which was broken. And isn't that what Jesus did? He visited the poor, and he preached the gospel to them, and he was trying to heal the brokenhearted, and he was preaching them salvation. But when the Antichrist comes, what the Bible's trying to explain is that he's not going to do what Jesus did. He's not going to go into the poor areas and preach the gospel. He's not going to visit those that are brokenhearted. He's not going to pity the poor. He's not going to help those that are hurting. He's going to do what? Be selfish. It's all about him, and getting rich, and money, and power, and just taking that which is not rightfully his. Whereas Jesus Christ, he came and was bettered, beaten and battered, and broken for us, literally. And he had to pay the ultimate price, and he literally paid with the price of his blood to redeem us. He even bought that land. That land is Jesus Christ, literally, because he purchased it with his blood, literally. His blood was paid for 30 shekels of silver. They paid that, and then he literally bought the field with his blood money as a prophetic symbol of how Jesus Christ has purchased everything for our salvation. Whereas the Antichrist, when he dies, his blood shed is in vain. It's not purchasing anything. It wasn't benefiting anything. It's not going to do you any good. That blood is the blood of a worthless goat that's not going to save anybody, not the precious, spotless blood of the Lamb that cleanses us and washes our sins away and purchased us. And we've been bought by that blood. And so we need to be that purchased possession that he has. We need to be someone that serves God with our lives. Don't worry about the times of the past, think that I wish I lived in the past. You live in the present. You live right now. And even if we are the flock of slaughter, you know what, God can still feed us in the difficult times. But even if that's our fate, I would rather be slaughtered for the Lord Jesus Christ than to be slaughtered fighting stupid wars that are meaningless, than dying of old age on my yacht and never giving the gospel to anybody. You know, there's a lot of ways to die, but not very many of them a glorious death. But a glorious death is a sheep for the slaughter, dying for the cause of Christ. Or if you make it to old age, dying a life that says I've lived my fullest and I've given it my best and there's laid up for me a crown of righteousness. Why? Because you fought the good fight and you didn't care about the things in this world, you cared about things in heaven. That's why the Bible says like, that you may have treasure in heaven. You don't want to live, don't live for this life. Nuts this life. Oh, aren't you worried about who the president is? Who cares? Burn it all down. Like why are you so, why do you care so much? Does it even matter? What does it matter? Oh, what if they bring in a horrible person? Like it's like everybody's worried that they're going to vote in Trump and he's going to be Hitler. And I'm like, there's worse leaders in Hitler. Stalin. Stalin was worse than Hitler. If you said like right now, would you rather be a citizen of Hitler or Stalin? I would pick Hitler. Not just because I'm white, okay? Would you rather, would you rather be under Mao Zedong? Kim Jang-ul? Or whatever they say, I don't even know how to say these stupid names. You know, I mean, Miro? Like which leader do you pick? I want George Washington. Well, you know, sorry. You get Biden. Maybe even Kamala if you're lucky, all right? All right, let's go to birth. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us this chapter and thank you so much for being willing to sacrifice your son who paid the ultimate price, who purchased us with his blood. We understand that even if we are the flock of slaughter, that you still care about us and you're still willing to feed us. I pray that we would draw back to you in our hearts and our minds, that we wouldn't live our lives thinking about selfish gain or the things of this world, but rather we would care about the spiritual things and that you would strengthen us by Thy word, that we wouldn't be unknowledgeable, but rather we'd care about what the Bible says and give us wisdom to be safe during the evil day. And in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, for our last song, let's turn to song 102, He Hydeth My Soul. 102, He Hydeth My Soul. Song 102. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, A wonderful Savior to me. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, Where rivers of pleasure I see. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, That shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, That shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my soul in the depths of His love, And covers me there with His hand. A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord, He taketh my burden away. He holdeth me up, and I shall not be verve'd, He giveth me strength as my day. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, That shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of His love, And covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand. With numberless blessings each moment He crowns, And filled with His fullness divine. I sing in my rapture all glory to God, For such a Redeemer as mine. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, That shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of His love, And covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand. When clothed in His brightness, transported I rise, To meet Him in clouds of the sky. His perfect salvation, His wonderful love, I'll shout millions on high. He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock, That shadows a dry, thirsty land. He hideth my life in the depths of His love, And covers me there with His hand. And covers me there with His hand.