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Amen. Right, so up to Ezra 6. Like I said, we're over halfway through now and we were in Ezra 5 last week. We looked mainly at the effects of preaching, didn't we? And that was a great chapter, wasn't it? To be able to go and compare and see what was preached and the effects of that preaching. At least we got kind of a taste of what was preached because if you remember that the work had ceased, they'd been scared off by the government and then along came the hard preachers, didn't they? Ezra 5 said, then the prophets, Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Edo prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them. Then it said in verse 2 of Ezra 5, then rose up Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel and Jeshua the son of Josadak and began to build the house of God which is at Jerusalem and with them were the prophets of God helping them. And we saw some of the examples of what they're preaching, didn't we? God said through Haggai in Haggai 1, consider your ways, didn't he? Consider your ways and told them that they were being chastised. He showed them how they were being chastised. That was some hard preaching, wasn't it? In chapter 2, he then encouraged them to be strong. He kept saying, be strong, be strong, be strong. And then we saw in Zechariah 1, Zechariah reminded them of past failures and not to repeat the past failures of their fathers before them. And the result of all this preaching was that they got to work for God, wasn't it? And look, preaching can do amazing things, can't it? They got back to the purpose of life serving God and that's something that we often need to hear, don't we? That's what preaching, a lot of preaching is about, is to motivate you to serve God, to motivate you to do the things of God, to motivate you to get the sin out of your life that blocks you serving God. That's why, look, everyone here should be reading their Bible. I hope that everyone here has their own personal private time with God reading the Word of God on a daily basis. However, you also need preaching. You need preaching. Preaching is throughout the Bible, the preaching gets results, doesn't it? And here we see that it's such a great, for me, I really enjoyed going through that chapter last week. We saw that after that, where they got back to serving God, they were then wise with how they dealt with the attempts to stop them. So if you remember that there had been these attempts to stop them then they tried again, didn't they? What's going on here? Who told you you could build it? And Ezra 5 finished with a letter that was sent to the king where they said in verse 17, And then we see as we go into Ezra chapter 6 and in verse 1 it says, I'd like to pray now before we then get really stuck into the message. Father, thank you for your, well, for this book, the great lessons we're getting out of this book, Lord. Help me to preach this one just clearly, who preached this chapter boldly and accurately, Lord. Help everyone here to really listen to what you've got to say, Lord. Film with your spirit, please, and just help everyone to have attentive ears. Help everyone to stay wide awake as well and just focused on what your Word says. So what did it matter whether or not there was a past decree by a former king? Well, we'll turn to Daniel chapter 6 because according to the law of the Medes and Persians, it definitely mattered. If you remember at this point now, they're under basically the empire of the Medes and Persians have taken over from the Babylonian empire. They've conquered that. And Daniel 6 is a famous chapter where Daniel's thrown into the den of lions which was a plot against him by wicked members of the empire. Daniel was the first of three presidents ruling the kingdom under what seems to be, you know, by all accounts, it's a different Darius. In case you're wondering, is this the same Darius? It's not. It's a previous Darius, which seems to be possibly a name just like king. It's like a Darius being a ruler of the Medes and Persians. But it was a previous Darius. But the other presidents and princes we see get bitter. So they get bitter with the fact that they're the same. And princes we see get bitter. So they get bitter with the fact that basically Daniel's kind of the top guy. When I say he's the first of three presidents, he was the top one. So they get bitter. And Daniel chapter 6 and verse 4 says this, Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find none occasion nor fault, for as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. And that's how it should be with us, shouldn't it? We should live by the laws of the land. Yeah, we should try and follow the laws of the land unless they contravene the laws of God. And that's what people will find against us will be when we're contravening, when we're contravening the laws of the land based on the law of God because we should obey God rather than man, shouldn't we? Now, here they then get the king to make a decree that no one can pray to their God for 30 days, claiming that they have all agreed this. So these guys are lying as well. They go to Darius saying, Yeah, look, we've all agreed to make this decree. Bearing in mind, Daniel's the top guy. No one agreed this with Daniel, OK? So they lie, they claim that and that no one can pray to their God, knowing that this will be then a problem for Daniel being a godly man that's going to be praying regularly to God. Verse 8 says, if you jump forward to verse 8 says, Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. So it seems that once the king signs a decree, their law says that it changes not, OK? That's the law of the Medes and the Persians. Now, Daniel carries on as usually he's praying to God three times a day and they catch him out. So they kind of stake it, they stake out Daniel's house. They find him still doing what he should be doing and that's praying to God, obeying God rather than man. And verse 12 says, when they came near and spake before the king concerned the king's decree, sorry, then they came near and spake before the king concerned the king's decree. Has thou not signed a decree that every man that shall ask a petition of any god or man within 30 days, saith the O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. OK, then verse 13 says, And answered they and said before the king that Daniel, which said the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not the O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day. Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with who? With himself, with himself for signing this decree, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him. And he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him. So there's obviously a strength in this decree, isn't there? OK, the signed law, the king can't just overturn it. The king can't just go, right, I'm changing my mind now. OK, so there was a power in the law of the land, the law of the Medes and Persians. He laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him, and did he manage to deliver him himself? No. OK, so he didn't succeed either. Verse 15 says, Then these men assembled unto the king and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, that no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed. Now, you would assume, therefore, with that, that all decrees can't then contradict former decrees. So it's not, oh, well, I'm just going to make a new decree now saying the opposite. Obviously, if it's a decree of the king, I don't think you can then just contradict it. OK, so the law of the land is powerful here, isn't it? OK, verse 16 says, Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God, whom thou service continually, he will deliver thee. Now, the king feels clearly as though his hands are tied, right? That's how strong the law was. Now, a couple of quick points here is that wicked people around governments, and we're not going to go into this story, obviously, we're looking at Ezra 6 rather than Daniel here, but wicked people around governments will slowly and cleverly change and institute laws, ultimately to persecute God's people. And you sit there going, oh, but, you know, really? Because does it really matter? Do they really care? Look, the devil cares, OK? The devil cares about what few believers there are in this nation, he cares, OK? And his devils care as well, and they will change things. So think, for example, things like hate speech laws. Who ultimately do and will hate speech laws persecute is believers, Christians. Preaching the Word, preaching what the Word of God says. That's who it's ultimately against. Now, yeah, sure, there'll be some sort of anarchist-y type, freedom-y type people that get affected along the way, but the real goal is us. The real goal is Bible-believing Christians. Think protest laws. And we're seeing protest laws change, aren't we, in this nation as well. And they do it in a clever way as well. So they just get these most bizarre protests of these just weird, like, who even are these? What do they call them, the most recent one? Insulate Britain. Insulate Britain, that's the one. What even is that? Nobody even knows what the cause is. And the people, they always just seem a bit kind of no-face-y, just, like, it's just weird, isn't it? Very weird. So you get these just bizarre protests and, understandably, the people are like, yeah, we need to stop this, bring in stricter laws and protesting, right? But then ultimately what does it do as they bring in these stricter laws, eventually that's going to be a problem for us, isn't it? Because you won't be able to say and do things that you could before. You won't be able, and maybe we're not, yeah, we're not called to protest. There will be others that will be wanting and should be protesting laws that come in claiming to be part of this democratic society when you can make your voice heard, but that's slowly getting eroded, isn't it? And we're seeing this sort of stuff, you know, the gun laws, for example. And obviously this is big in the US, but this happened here a long time ago. They used the Dunblane massacre to just remove all handguns. And look, I know we're so kind of, you know, on the other side of it in general in this nation, but for me it's absolutely crazy that you can have a government of sadly more and more reprobates in our police force and everything else, which seem to be upping the amount of guns they have while we're not allowed to defend ourselves. I mean, we're at the mercy of the government here, which is what the whole point in the US is to prevent, isn't it? It's to prevent the people to be able to be basically dominated by a tyrannical government. That's why they have guns, and that's what we should have here. Oh, wouldn't everyone be getting shot? Well, no, hopefully, most people would just be using their guns to not get shot. Because it's madness that you have criminals with guns, you have a lot of weirdo police with guns and you have people that can't have guns. And all that stuff, what does it do? It basically means that they can be more draconian as a government, they can persecute more, they can basically instil more and more laws and you don't really have a say anymore, do you? What would happen if people tried to charge Parliament and they'd just all get shot? I mean, even now, put up barricades outside there, haven't they, as well? But what about homeschooling? What does that do? It just persecutes people that are trying to follow God's way. Yeah, I'm sure there are some Muslims homeschooling, I'm sure there are some other people with children with maybe issues and problems at their homeschooling, which isn't for godly reasons, but ultimately it persecutes us. And now, we don't have it here, but they do in... Am I right in certain... Maybe, I don't know if they have in certain nations here yet. I know they've obviously, for example, parenting, they've banned smacking, smacking your child's bottom. I mean, how bizarre is that? They've banned that in Scotland and Wales, haven't they, now? I mean, that is absolutely crazy, isn't it? I mean, that's the most just weird, recent, liberal nonsense you could ever hear, that, oh, no, you can't smack your child's bottom. I mean, people will literally emotionally abuse their kids, they can do all sorts of crazy stuff but you can't smack their bottom when they're naughty. I mean, that is nuts, isn't it? And who does it persecute? People that are trying to follow God's law, which says that we should use the rod, that we should beat them with the rod, they shall not die. So you've got that sort of stuff. And, look, they tried this during the Covid fast, didn't they? So, again, they brought in laws during the Covid fast which, what did it do? Persecute people wanting to worship God, wanting to do the things of God, etc. What was the answer? Well, like Daniel, what's the answer? What's the answer? We keep serving God. And often things just work out, don't they, when you serve God. And we've seen that happen in this nation as well, haven't we? Things just work out. Back in Ezra, one way is to sometimes appeal to those same laws. So, look at Ezra, and we'll just look at chapter 5 again quickly, verse 17. Ezra 5, I think it is in 17, says, Now therefore, if it seemed good to the king, let there be search made in the king's treasure-house which is there at Babylon, whether it be so that a decree was made of Cyrus the king to build this house he got at Jerusalem. And let the king send his pleasure to us concerning this matter. Which basically is kind of what we did in the Covid days, didn't we? We appealed ultimately to the law. We appealed to the law. Now, it was a funny old thing because you had suddenly what seemed like all these rules and laws coming in and people were a bit confused. How does this even happen? Well, suddenly they were banning you from having church, they were banning you from going out and preaching the gospel and stuff like that. But it's like when you're like, right, I'm just going to serve God and then see what happens. We said, no, we're still going to meet for church, we're still going to go soul-willing. And then suddenly out of nowhere, it turns out that the law was only a should. And it wasn't actually a must. And most people didn't even seem to have any idea of that, did they? And the only reason we did not be, oh, you just, you know, you really search far and wide, brother. No, because we had a heart here, those people here and here at that time, right, we're still going to serve God, we're still going to go out soul-willing, we're still going to have church. Then actually, funnily enough, it turns out there were some legal loopholes which meant we still could because it wasn't lawful because the law is still, is ultimately the higher power in this land, obviously beneath God. There is still the law of the land and they couldn't just suddenly change the law. So they started giving in these guidelines and then act as if they were law, didn't they? And they used their spokespeople like the BBC and others to act as if you cannot and you can't do this. But then when you look to the law, it said you shouldn't do that and you should not do this. And it turned out, yes, we could go out and preach the gospel and yes, we could do these things. And once we knew what the law said, we were all right. And the point being with that is that when you set your heart to serve God, a lot of the times things will work out, won't they? And here we're going to see that things work out. Now, how did we know what to do and the others didn't? Like I said, well, the Jews here appealed to the king's decree, but notice how they didn't during the previous king's reign, did they? So what was the difference? It simply comes down to serving God. We looked at Proverbs 16, 3 last week. You don't have to turn there where it says, Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established. And you might think, well, it was a bit harsh that they got chastised for several years after being seemingly forced to stop building. Because you can read it, can't you? And think, well, God's just been chastising them for years. After they were forced, they had people come. The government's people came. The forces came in and threatened them, stopped them by force. And now they're getting chastised. What's going on there? But ultimately, they didn't want it enough or they would have found a solution, wouldn't they? Because if they'd really wanted to serve God, they would have surely carried on serving God and found a solution and appealed to the king's decree, wouldn't they? Because it was the same king's decree then that it is now years later when they're back serving God. There is a loophole for them. So a lot of it just comes down to what do we really want? What do we really want? Because you can find an excuse to not do it. We could have found an excuse in COVID to shut up shop, couldn't we? Gone live stream, like pretty much every other church in this country did. We could have found an excuse to not go out sold with it. Well, we're not allowed, you know, to go and knock on people's doors. Well, no, actually, there was a guideline which said, well, unless it's charitable purposes. And I don't know about you, love, I'm not charging a preacher gospel. And it was charitable purposes. And as you see, but why was it really? Because we'd already decided, no, we're going to carry on. But had we decided we're not, I'm sure we wouldn't have found anything. We wouldn't have ever known and we'd probably still be sitting at home on live stream right now going, well, is it safe yet? Hiding behind the curtains like half the rest, like the rest of the nation was. It was crazy. So and that's what's happening here in Ezra 5 to 6. OK, the two chapters that is. And what was it that made them really want to serve? Well, they got to kick up the bum from the preachers, didn't they? And that's what got them serving. They chose to obey God rather than man. And next thing you know, they're appealing to a law of the ruling kingdom. And that's something that we will probably end up doing in time as well, won't we? And knowing the laws of the land, I would say is becoming more and more important in this day and age, isn't it? We should know because the law is a higher power. Romans 13 says that we're to be subject unto the higher powers. And, you know, above that plastic Covid policeman, I mean, they weren't even police, but they just wanted to pretend they were. They even walked around with their hands in the little things, didn't they? All those fake police do, don't they? And above that law unto himself, Sodomite Copper, who doesn't even seem to know the law of the land most of the time, does he? They just, I don't know, some people watch those, what do they call them, the ones who are auditing Britain and that sort of stuff. And I've seen a couple of clips of these people and most of the police don't even know what laws they're meant to be upholding. They just start quoting random sections and then claiming they can arrest people and stop them filming things and everything else. They don't even know the laws. Above that puffed up police sergeant, there's a lot of puffed up serges, aren't there, Ran? Above that dress-and-wig-wearing judge, above all of that is the law of the land. Yeah, the law of the land is above all of that stuff. We need to remember that sometimes as well, and I think we'll probably have to appeal to that because it's not so easy to change the laws of the land in this nation. They can, but it takes a lot longer. And maybe it's a good thing to kind of, well, to start kind of understanding and knowing a bit more about that. Something I looked into with the preaching, thinking, well, where am I going to stand when I'm preaching with this? And ultimately, because people go, you can't preach, I hate speech laws and everything else. However, there is a freedom of religion law here as well. And where they cross over and where the actual, you know, what the actual law is, is debatable. And it's going to probably get tested. Possibly it might get tested by us, it might not. Okay, but that's really, we're somewhere in between and it will have to, it's one of those things all the time in law, there'll be a precedent set by a ruling, won't there? And that's yet to come, to see that where it crosses over. And I'm not talking about idiots standing on soapboxes screaming at sodomites, you've got to repent of your sins, okay, who aren't even saved. Let them get nicked. In fact, let the police put the boot in on them and a bunch of false prophets. You know, we don't care about that. Because, look what happened. Yeah, we're standing on a soapbox telling sodomites that they can repent of their sins and get saved. No wonder he got arrested. Yeah, no wonder he got his arm twisted behind his back, that poor old guy. He's not a poor old guy, he's a false prophet. Yeah, good on them. Beat them up as well. Bring some police brutality on them, seriously, because they need it, don't they? Someone needs to, but when it comes to actually preaching behind a pulpit in a church of believers, it's a little bit of an interesting area there and maybe we'll see that proved in time to come. But, like I said, half of those people, look, they don't even care, they don't even know or care about the law, half of the sort of people who are meant to uphold the law, that above them all is the law of God. And they should know the law of God, shouldn't they, if they're upholding it, right? Like, we should know the Bible if we're preaching the Bible. You know, and these people should know the law of God. Sadly, they don't. In Acts 5.29, here you turn there if you like. Sorry, I haven't had you turning anywhere pretty much yet, so you've probably got twitching fingers. In Acts chapter 5, we're going to look at verse 29. Peter and the other apostles, they were clear about this principle when confronted by the leaders in their day. And we're just going to look at that one verse, Acts 5.29. It says then, Peter and the apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. And I tried appealing to pastors when the Covid thing first hit about that. And at least one part of it, they just try to argue and slip and slide their way out of that. But we ought to obey God rather than men. OK? And when it comes to a decision between the two, it's an obvious choice, we obey God, don't we? And part of obeying God is not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together. OK? That's part of obeying God. Part of obeying God is singing a pleasant song to the Lord, isn't it? Lifting up our voice when we sing to him. All of that is part of obeying God, you know, and we're not going to hide away from that stuff. But sometimes you have to go through some grief. And here in Ezra, God gave them the solution. So back in Ezra and chapter 6, in verse 2, it says, And there was found at Achmutha in the palace that is in the province of the Medes a role, and therein was a record thus written. It said, In the first year of Cyrus the king, the same Cyrus the king made a decree concerning the house of God at Jerusalem. Let the house be builded, the place where they offered sacrifices, and let the foundations thereof be strongly laid, the height thereof three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof three-score cubits. Now, let's not skim over that for a second here. Three-score cubits is at least 90 feet if you're going on 18 inches to a cubit, which is about 27 and a half metres. Now, that's one thing for the breadth, yeah, the width, but for the height, that's big, isn't it? Think that 90 foot tall. I think I've said to you guys before, if I'm about 6 foot and we've got 9 inches on the thing there, this building's probably only about 15 foot or so tall, isn't it? Maybe 20, I don't know. We're talking about 90 feet tall. No wonder they needed to dig those foundations, yeah, and put some proper foundations in there. And in case you're wondering and you're thinking, oh, is that what the temple always was? This isn't identical to King Solomon's original temple, okay, and you don't have to tell them, but 1 Kings 6-2 says, In the house which King Solomon built for the Lord, the length thereof was three-score cubits, and the breadth thereof 20 cubits, and the height thereof 30 cubits. Now, we're talking a big difference here. We're talking about three-score cubits, which obviously is 60 cubits, as opposed to the height thereof being 30 cubits, so it's double the height. Okay, this is a big, big temple. And what are the foundations of God's house now? Because they had to have strong foundations for that, didn't they? The foundation of God's house now, well, we looked at that last week. Ephesians 2-20 says, And it built upon a foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. I know it was a week before. Okay, Jesus Christ is our foundation, isn't he? The apostles and prophets continue to be those foundations. It's the Bible. It's the preserved words of God, isn't it? That's our foundations. And with the starting point being the gospel of our Lord and saving Jesus Christ, he's the chief cornerstone. Okay, and then it's the apostles and prophets built upon that. And the bigger the work that we undertake, the bigger a temple we want to build, the more imposing a temple we want to have here, a house of God preaching the word of God, doing the things of God, going out there preaching the gospel. We need to make sure that the foundations of this house are a sure foundation, don't we? Okay, we have to have a sure foundation here. And like I said, it's not just the gospel. It's also building everything upon the word of God. It's preaching the word of God. It's standing upon the word of God. It's preaching the whole counsel of God. They're the strong foundations of a church like this, aren't they? And the more we want to do, the bigger a house of God we want to have, the more effective a house of God we want to have, the more we have to build it upon those foundations. Obviously, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. He said in verse four, with three rows of great stones and a row of new timber, let the expenses be given out of the king's house. So don't forget that in the New Testament, we're the stones. And a great house needs great stones. He said with three rows of great stones. And because it's not just of, oh, well, as long as the preacher, stands and preaches the word of God, it's all going to be fine. As long as we have the right gospel, it's all going to be fine. No, it takes everyone here to be those great stones as well, to be strong, solid church members, to be church members that keep serving the Lord and that keeps doing the things of God, that just keeps, like we even talked about, just that contentment to just have that positivity, to have all those things in a house of God. The house has got these great stones as well. And everyone here should be, that's their goal is to be a great stone in the house of God. Yeah, look, none of us are the chief cornerstone. We're not the foundations. However, we are the great stones within it. Said in verse 5, And also let the golden and silver vessels of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took forth, out of the temple which is at Jerusalem, brought unto Babylon be restored, and brought again unto the temple which is at Jerusalem, every one to his place, and placed them in the house of God. And remember we looked at these, you know, I think in week one, we looked at these as basically being the proper tools for worship, weren't they? Okay, so how they worshiped in the temple, they needed these vessels and all these things to do the offerings and everything that they were doing, all the ordinances. Well, you know, we talked about the proper tools for worship nowadays being things like the proper hymns. Yeah, the proper psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Not the things modelled upon the world. Not the drum beats. Not all that nonsense. Not all that worldly junk. Not all that wailing and all that rubbish. No, we want hymns, don't we? Yeah, they're proper tools for proper worship. Yeah? Part of the tools for worship is proper preaching, isn't it? And proper preaching being preaching from the Word of God, turning to the Bible regularly, getting it from the Word of God, not just using a springboard verse to then preach a worldly speech or something. Not just tickling ears. Not just trying to make everyone feel happy and good about themselves every week, so they want to come back more and more. It's preaching the actual Word of God. It's proper preaching, right? To get results. A lot of the time, a lot of that's for proof of rebuke. There's some exhortation, right? But a lot of it is for proof of rebuke. A proper Bible as well. That's a tool for worship, isn't it? A proper Bible. Look, we will never use anything other than the King James Bible unless we're literally standing here showing how wicked those false versions are. And they are wicked, aren't they? Yeah, we might do a bit of Bible burning sometimes as a false Bible version, but we'll never preach out of anything else from this church, OK? That will never happen. Because it's a proper tool for worship, isn't it? What are we going to do with some false Bible perversion? Have a laugh at it, and that's about it. But verse 6 says... Now, basically Darius is saying to them, let them get on with this mighty work. Leave them be. Said in verse 8... So he said, in fact, give them what they need to get this work done. I mean, this is amazing, isn't it? What's turned out from them wanting to serve God, yeah? Previously, they had a previous king telling them, right, you can't do anything or you're basically going to get, you know, beaten at the least, whatever else. They stopped them by force. Now they're getting told, oh, we'll give you some money towards it as well. Amazing, isn't it? Verse 9 says... So that's clearly a pro-God king here, isn't it? And like I said, although it seems to be the next Darius, which, again, you can maybe say the next king, after the Darius from the Book of Daniel, or maybe it's two along the line, I think probably one, you get the feeling that Daniel's influence, probably, along with the other Jews there, might have had some effect, right? Because don't forget that many of them were taken, obviously, you know, loads of them were taken captive, originally to Babylon. The Medes and Persians had taken over, but there were a lot of these people there, weren't there? People such as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and others are there, and he's a godly people, aren't they? And this guy now, he seems to be pretty pro-God, doesn't he? You could argue maybe the Darius of, you know, Daniel and the lines then, you could argue that he seems to be pretty pro-God by the end of that chapter as well, doesn't he? But this is now another king after that. And let his house be made a dunghill for this. And the god that has caused his name to dwell there destroy all kings and people, that shall put there to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God, which is at Jerusalem. I, Darius, have made a decree, let it be done with speed. And, look, over the years, I would say God has made favourable conditions for churches in various nations, isn't he? Here we're seeing now, we've got very favourable conditions, basically threatening to kill anyone that even gets in the way. But think, like I said, think about the freedom of religion laws. I mean, that's a blessing to even have that, isn't it? We have freedom of religion laws here, and there are in many nations. We're not the only nation with that. Lots of nations, they don't have that. I'm trying to remember where it was someone was telling me recently that there are certain things that they are not allowed by law to preach out of the Bible, for example. I think maybe China was one of them and other places, where there are certain things you just cannot preach, you cannot preach about. Now, I think part of it might have been about the coming rule of the reign of Christ and things like that. But, look, we have freedom of religion laws. There have been times, for example, where there have been godly kings who authorised the perfect translation of the Bible. I mean, that's an amazing thing, isn't it? And, yeah, okay, there was obviously, we had the Church of England and stuff and all their weirdness going on, but I think that was probably not a bad time for some of that. And there have been nations over Europe where Bible believers were able to be safe from persecution, weren't there? So there are many nations at times where people basically escape to when the Catholics were trying to burn them for daring to try and translate the Bible or something like that. And there have been places like that in time. And, look, don't miss verse 11 with this as well, where he says, Also I have made a decree that whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house and being set up, let him be hanged thereon and let his house be made a dunghill for this. Now, although that's the word of the king he's talking about, the decree he's made, what do you think God thinks about people altering his word? Yeah, I think he probably thinks that timber should be pulled down from their house and they should be hanged thereon, in fact worse, right? Altering the word of God is a serious thing, isn't it? And it's a serious thing. And obviously we look at the most extreme way of people just making false Bible perversions, taking out verses, changing verses, changing things. I mean, it was, I think, rather Dan was showing me a verse out of the Amplified Bible the other day where they just change in Acts 8 to, you know, where he says, I think where he says, What hath hidden me to be baptized? And he asked instead of, If thou believeth with all thine heart thou mayest, you know, and he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God or something along those lines. Instead, I think he started changing it, didn't need to, oh, this is the Amplified Bible, changed it to that you've got to basically be willing to obey him. And I mean, these people are wicked. I mean, what do you think is going to happen to people like that? I mean, that's going to be a low, low part of hell for changing the word of God. However, look, people do it as well in another way, don't they? So you'll get preachers who will get up, they know what the word of God says, but they'll just preach something different. They'll preach and just put a different slong. They'll just kind of say a verse, but then kind of change the interpretation of that verse. That's wicked as well, isn't it? And what do you think is going to happen to those false prophets? They're going to be burning with Westcott and Hort and the rest of that mob and the rest of these Bible pervertors all trying to make a quick quid out of their latest ridiculous new translation that changes another few percent from their last one. I mean, how? How does that even happen? Wasn't it good enough the first time? I mean, half of these guys have about ten editions. If not more, it's ridiculous, isn't it? He said, whosoever shall alter this word, let timber be pulled down from his house, and Big said, let it be hanged thereon, let his house be made a dunghill for this. He said in verse 12, and the God that hath caused his name to dwell there, destroy all kings and people that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God, which is at Jerusalem. I, Darius, have made a decree, let it be done with speed. Do you think God only cared about the house of God at Jerusalem? Do you think that was the last place he cared about, the last house of God? And you go, well, this is a decree of Darius here. Well, I don't know. I think that this was inspired for me. Now, whether it was inspired by the Holy Spirit or maybe some preacher was preaching at him, he said, and the God that has caused his name to dwell there, destroy all kings and people that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God, which is at Jerusalem. And for me, that applies to every real house of God around the world, doesn't it? People who want to come in and destroy the house of God, want to alter and destroy it, God takes that seriously, doesn't he? He takes that really seriously. And you know what? It's not just kings and governments. He said all people. He said all kings and people that shall put to their hand to alter and to destroy this house of God. Now, turn to Romans 12, because something that we have to accept in life as Christians, and it's difficult, is to leave the punishment of God's enemies to him. And I think that can be hard, can't it, sometimes? Because sometimes you just want to go flying in yourself, don't you? Sometimes you just want to punish people yourself. And obviously, look, he will punish people in ways through, obviously, through. For example, church discipline, you know, we'll be kicking someone out of church. But that ultimately should be applying to believers and obviously getting rid of false prophets as well. But the punishment comes down to him, doesn't it? And that can be hard, because sometimes you want to take matters into your own hands. Romans 12 and verse 19, Paul says this, he says, Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord. And that's something that we need to remember, don't we? Because sometimes it can be frustrating. Sometimes you see wicked people doing wicked stuff, don't you? Doing crazy stuff, people, like we said, persecuting the house of God, changing laws to ultimately affect believers. You see people come into church, try and destroy churches. He said, Vengeance is mine, I will repay. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he thirst, give him drink, for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. And again, verses that people avoid. They love the whole, if your enemy hunger, feed him, etc. But they don't like the Romans 12 version, where he's saying because you're going to be heaping coals of fire on his head. And look, ultimately why? Because if we don't do it ourselves, if we leave God to punish them, then God's going to punish them and the punishment's going to be a lot worse, isn't it? But it can be hard sometimes, especially when you don't necessarily see that punishment coming always in this life. Turn to 2 Thessalonians 1. Because we have to make no mistake about it, whether it's in this life or the judgment, they are going to be getting it, aren't they? They're going to get it. In 2 Thessalonians 1, we see Paul is basically louding the church in Thessalonica. So he's basically lifting them up. He's saying, you know, they're a good bunch, it seems. And he says this in verse 4, so 2 Thessalonians 1 and verse 4 says, So that we ourselves glory in you in the churches of God, for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that ye endure, which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God, that ye may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which ye also suffer, seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you. Do you know that? It's a righteous thing with God. And to you who are troubled, rest with us, where the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power, when he shall come to be glorified in his saints and to be admired in all them that believe, because our testimony among you was believed in that day. And whether it's those anti-God, seemingly prosperous leaders of the world, or it's those tears that never seem to get plucked up, eventually God's going to destroy them. He will destroy them. And if we don't see it in this life, it's going to be, well, it's going to be at the end, isn't it? It's going to be when it comes to that, ultimately, when it comes to that resurrection as well, isn't it? And they're going to end up being cast into the lake of fire for eternity. And that's why he said, vengeance is mine, I will repay saith the Lord. And you're not going to always see it. It can be frustrating sometimes, can't it? You can watch some of these wicked people and just say, how do you get away with it? But vengeance is mine, I will repay. He will repay, okay? And it might be an eternal repayment. Back in Ezra 6 and verse 12, Darius said this in verse 12. And it never ceases to amaze me, the enemies of God that just come up out of the woodwork, don't they? We had that today, didn't we? We just had an enemy of God just, I mean, I couldn't believe it. Two years, yeah, since I preached on this guy. So we preached on, so just a bit of a background to this because it was just a great example of this that goes on, yeah. There was this clown church, yeah, in this nation called Nioth Baptist, yeah, like absolute clown affair. This guy running it is, I mean, he is like a circus clown. I use that word quite a lot, but anyone that saw him today would say, that is a circus clown, yeah. Okay, so this guy, he basically self-ordained, yeah, just decided he's a pastor, started calling himself Pastor Salaam, I think. I think it's Pastor Salaam, he's a bit more of a kind of friendly guy next door pastor rather than Pastor Kamara. And he also decided to just make a church. Oh, I'm going to self-ordain and make a church. And he came up with some sort of nonsense. He kind of claimed some form of ordination, which wasn't really true. Okay, so this guy makes this church and then this church is going on for a while and people, you know, some people have kind of had a little bit to do, some people just like, what on earth has steered clear of it, okay, and it was ridiculous. Then what happened is after we started this church, a few people that had been there came to our church, you know, like, yeah, this is clearly, it's a false church, okay. And just if anyone's unaware of this, look, a church begets another church, okay. An ordained man ordains another man, okay. You don't just make yourself a pastor and make yourself a church, okay. That's ridiculous. Now, what happened is then after we started our church, this church, they basically folded. It turned out that this guy who had, I think, kind of hired a community club for like 20 quid an hour and that was about all he spent any money on was getting tithing from a lot of people and having, I think it was pocketing bits here and bits there and I can't remember all the details of it, okay. So basically this guy's just kind of taking all this cash and then he's, I think he's trying to hit people for cash as well. It was just ridiculous, yeah. And it all collapsed. All the details came to me. Everything that I had like a couple of witnesses for, I preached about, thought, well, let's bury this guy and make sure he never has another false church again, yeah. There was a lot of other weird stuff with him, covetousness obviously being a big one, right, like we talked about this morning. Define irony. The guy having been preached about two years ago exposed, you know, all over YouTube, he's a liar and a false prophet, I think was the, was it, did I call him a false prophet? Something like that. A liar and a thief or something like that, yeah, was the title. Well, the guy turns up at church this morning at our church with his back up in the middle of a sermon that I preached on covetousness. So, which was hilarious, with a big gold chain and an Alice band or something. I mean, it's the most bizarre thing I've ever seen. I thought, well, this young kid clearly isn't saved, I'm going to have to try and preach him the Gospel afterwards. Didn't recognise him at all. And then suddenly it turned out this guy was like a so-called pastor, a previous pastor. Anyway, so he came into our church and he had like, you know, the guns out and everything else. He then wanted to basically talk about the fact that I'd preached this sermon about him and previous to this on Wednesday I got a message from YouTube saying that there's been a privacy complaint and they're going to, you know, they're basically suggesting they're going to remove this unless I appeal, I need to explain it. Since they've removed, so he's now asked for this video to be removed. One of his reasons was that his very successful business that he told me he's having is being affected by the fact that there's a video out there calling him a liar and a false prophet or whatever. Unqualified, I think I said. Unqualified and a thief, I think that was the name of it, wasn't it? OK, so anyway, so he then wanted to talk about this. But what was funny is that they come in here and in the meantime they're like just going around talking to lots of different people, asked to talk to my wife, which one is his wife, wanted to talk to her. There's all this just weird behaviour, just sussing things out, talking to people, come into the office, tries to get a little bit sort of physically threatening-ish, tested the water a bit. That wasn't getting him anywhere, so he sat back down again. Tried a few different angles and eventually we kicked him out. Just said, OK, have you done now? I kind of listened to what he had to say. But basically what he's telling me is that anyone that reposts this video, I need to basically stop them. It's not my business what people repost here. But it was weird, but really what's their real goal? So they're coming in here, really you could say to alter the Church of God as well because they're trying to argue, I should have gone to hear Matthew 18 instead of preaching the Bible and preaching what the Bible says, which is basically to expose these people, to shine the light on this sort of wickedness. He's going, I should have rung him up and just said, look, man, apparently you've been stealing money. Can we talk about this? Can we talk about the fact that you're self-ordained and just kind of made yourself a church? Can we just have a chat about this? No, I preached about it, because that's what we're told to do, to preach about it. But what they want to do is to then basically threaten. So he came here to basically threaten, to try and alter how we then preach in the future, to alter me maybe preaching about this clown, to change little things in the house. God makes us a bit more nervous now, go around and start trying to chat to lots of different people and show what a nice guy he is and everything else. But it's just another enemy of God, isn't it? Another enemy of God turning up, then hanging around down the road for about an hour and a half afterwards in sight of the church. I mean, what's all that about? And who knows what will be next, right? But it was just a great example, because really they just want to affect the word of God. They want to put the frighteners on us a bit. They want to make us think twice about preaching the truth. They want to basically, you know, for him, the goal, I mean, he probably doesn't even know why he's come along here. Just for him, he's going to lose out on money or something else, which is funny that he walked in that sermon. However, yeah, people do that, don't they? They put their hand to alter and destroy this house of God. And what do you think God thinks of that? Turning up at our church, bold as brass, two years down the line, walk in halfway through a sermon and just sit there eyeballing me for the whole sermon. I was thinking, man, this young kid, he's pretty worldly. He really doesn't like this preaching. He hasn't turned to one Bible verse. And I thought, oh, man, hopefully at the end, it's not going to be too awkward with him because he's clearly very covetous and everything else after this sermon, that big gold chain and everything, you know. And lo and behold, it was an ex-pastor. I couldn't believe it. But anyway, really their goal is, though, they want to somehow tear down, destroy, find fault, everything else, try and get a bit physically threatening if that had worked. Maybe he would have kind of jumped on that a bit more, just whatever they can. And look, these people are everywhere. And that's just one flavour. They're everywhere, absolutely everywhere, because they hate, ultimately, they hate the house of God, don't they? They hate a real house of God. He was happy when he was behind there doing his Martin Luther King sermons and stuff like that. He's happy with that stuff, when he's just got his little gang there and everything else. But they don't like a real house of God. That was a fake house of God. And we have a real house of God that hate it. They want to somehow do something to destroy. And who knows what will be next, right? But are we worried? Ooh, no way. It was hilarious. The guy was a clown, absolute clown. And he got kicked out. And they had to leave, didn't they? But we're not worried about these people, but we're going to get this sort of stuff from time to time, aren't we? Now, it's not just that they do that sort of stuff. Sometimes it will be that they'll go into a church to then change the house of God, won't they? So think about what's happened to churches over time, that someone's come in and then started altering it with maybe the worldly music. Or maybe they've started altering it with the new Bible perversion. Oh, well, we've got an easier to read one. We don't mind if the old people want to still use their King James. You know, so people are like, well, it's not that bad. At least I can use my King James. And slowly they start altering the church of God, don't they? And this has happened. Look, proper church to the past. There were churches in this nation. Where are they all? They got altered. They got altered before they ended up being destroyed. And there are so many different angles that happens. That's why we're so hot on this stuff. That's why it needs preaching so often to have our eyes open and watch out, watch out for this, watch out for that. At the same time, we want to be welcome. We want to love people. We want to bring them in. We want to build the house. We want to get those great stones up on the walls. But we have to be careful as well and be aware of the many attacks of the enemy as well. Sometimes it will be maybe they're just trying to push worldliness. They want to alter the house of God by pushing worldliness. And that's one tactic that we've seen here before as well. Just constantly pushing and promoting and encouraging worldliness to slowly alter basically the status quo in the house of God. Many ways it happens. And we have to watch out for all that sort of stuff, don't we? Verse 13 says, In Tatni, governor on this side of the river, Shethar Bosni and their companions, according to that which Darius the King had sent, so they did speedily. And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the what? The prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Edo, and they builded and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel and according to the commandment of Cyrus and Darius and Artaxerxes, king of Persia. So what was it that kept them building, that made the work a success, that made it prosperous? The hard preaching. The hard preaching. Look, it's not just because we're like, yeah, we want to be more like other churches and preach the Bible and shout a bit, bang the pulpit, and shout a few things now and again. It's pretty cool. It's pretty fun, isn't it? No, it's because that's what gets results. That's why we do it. That's why for me, a lot of the time you feel like, man, the Holy Spirit, I really feel like the Holy Spirit was in me. And when I'm feeling like the Holy Spirit is in me, I'm not just saying, let me try and tickle your ears, guys, and oh, I hope I don't offend anyone. I'm feeling really spirit-filled right now and everything else. When I'm feeling spirit-filled, get these guys fired up. Get this sin out of there. Get them working. That's what we're called to do, aren't we? And that gets results. And here is a prophesying of Haggai and Zechariah that basically meant that they prospered. They prospered. It gets results. It's good for you. But sometimes it feels a bit rough at the time, doesn't it? It's the hard preaching, the tried and tested formula. And we see it tried and tested throughout the Bible, don't we? The reproof, the rebuke, the exhortation. And also, we see the prophecies to come. If you go through the book of Zechariah, he's also prophesying about the end times as well. And he's prophesying things that basically, it's not just that, he's prophesying doctrine as well. It's a whole lot and it builds them up and they prosper through that. And that's why you need to be in church. It's one of the many reasons you need to be in church because you ain't getting that on the sermon at home. Look, it's better than getting nothing, right? But you ain't getting that on YouTube. There's a difference when you're in church, isn't there? You're in church, you're hearing it, and it's being talked to you, not to a load of people that you're watching a recording of. You can detach a bit, can't you? When you're there, sometimes you're feeling like, is this at me? Is she talking to me? Hopefully not when I'm talking about Solon Kamara. Have we got any Solon Kamara wannabes here? No. If you do, you're going to have to get some skin-tight trackies on and pull your socks over the bottoms of them, all right? OK. OK, enough about him, OK? But what was it that made them finish it according to the commandment of the God of Israel? Was it just the commandment of the God of Israel that made them finish it? No, it wasn't, was it? Look, many people here know many commandments. I'm sure if I kind of did a quiz here and went, right, OK, start telling me some commandments, they'd be throwing out commandments. But you know what's funny? People would be throwing out commandments that they're probably breaking. Because we know the commandments, we even read the commandments in our Bibles and know that we should or shouldn't be doing this or that, but there's a big difference when it's preached at you, isn't there? It makes such a difference. And look, you could be well-versed in the Bible, but reading it and having it preached kind of pulls apart, really. Now, don't get me wrong, we sometimes get convicted by a Bible reading, don't we? Sometimes we read through the Bible, we get convicted, but it's very different when you've got a preacher preaching your sin at you in church. And it takes toughness, doesn't it? That's why we have a church full of tough, great stones here, because they're people that can sit through having their issues, their sins, things like that preached on. And if we lose some along the way, then like I said before, so be it, right? Because, look, we want a church of strong people. And obviously, look, everyone's going to be at different levels. We're trying to build people up at the same time as well. OK, it's not like, right, deal with it or get out, you know? However, ultimately you're going to grow from this and if you can't take it, you're going to leave. Verse 15 said, So, yes, they got physically threatened. Yes, they got chastised. They got their faces ripped by Haggai and Zechariah. They likely put some hard graft in over the years. And what was the result? Joy. Joy. It said they kept the dedication of the house of God with joy. And, look, there's a joy that comes from serving God properly, isn't there? There's a joy. Look, sometimes when you just, you feel like, yeah, I'm doing things well, we were doing some good stuff, I've been out doing this this week, I've had a good week of this, that, you know, I'm hot on my Bible reading, I'm on my prayers, I'm serving God, I'm doing the stuff. There's a joy that comes with that, isn't there? For me, there's a joy and satisfaction like no other. And here, look, they kept the dedication of this house of God with joy. And sometimes, look, you can go through some rough times, yeah? Because they went through some rough times. Sometimes, look, those trials and tribulations make the joy even better, don't they? When we go through that hard time, when you go through those struggles, when you know, yeah, I had a struggle to get through that, we had a struggle to get through, you know, this and that test and trial in our lives, individual, as a group, as a church, as a family, whatever it is, that joy is that little bit more, isn't it, when it comes? And here, look, they got some joy. They said the rest of the children of captivity kept the dedication of this house of God with joy. Now, return to Psalm 126, 5 says, they that sow in tears shall reap in joy. You know, sometimes the sowing can be the hard bit, can't it? But when we reap, when we see the rewards, when we see, you know, the rewards of our labor, it's joyful, isn't it? Verse 17, where you ask, there's an offered dedication of this house of God and 100 bullocks, 200 rams, 400 lambs, and for a sin offering for all Israel, 12 he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel. And they set the priests in their divisions and the Levites in their courses for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem, as it is written in the book of Moses. And the children of the captivity kept the Passover upon the 14th day of the first month. For the priests and the Levites were purified together, all of them were pure, and killed the Passover for all the children of the captivity, and for their brethren the priests, and for themselves. And the children of Israel, which were come again out of captivity, and all such as had separated themselves unto them from the filthiness of the heathen of the land. I like that part of the verse, they separated themselves from the filthiness of the heathen of the land. To seek the Lord God of Israel did eat, and kept the feast of unleavened bread seven days with joy. For the Lord had made them joyful, and turned the heart of the king of Syria unto them, to strengthen their hands in the work of the house of God, the God of Israel. And look, aside from them, the fact that we even have a church here for me is a cause for joy, isn't it? They had joy that they'd basically built that temple, they'd built that house of God, and they were able to dedicate, they were able to serve. And it's a cause for joy. You know most nations don't have a church. Nations, whole nations. They don't even have a church with the right gospel in it. It's crazy when you really start to look into it, and start to look elsewhere and see how few churches there are. We have a church here, that's a cause for joy, isn't it? We should be full of joy about that. Sadly, look, sadly people won't, as the trials go on and life goes, you start to then, you know, it loses that excitement and joy. But we've got to remind ourselves of that, yeah? We have a church, there's a cause for joy. There's a cause for joy that the laws are at least part favourable to a church here. Because they are right now. Look, we're two, what are we now? I keep saying two years, we're like two and a half years down the line nearly. And we're still here. And we're still preaching. And we're still preaching the whole Bible. And we're still out soul winning. And we're still here. And look, God can bless us, can't He? And there are laws that are favourable to us here. And like I said, maybe we'll test some in the future, but right now we're just preaching the Bible. We're just a Bible believing church, preaching the Word of God. And we're blessed to be able to do that. Because, look, the world isn't Christian, OK? The God of this world is a devil. And His governments and His people and His kingdoms and everyone else, they don't like us. In fact, they hate us. They're set up against us. Yet here we are, in the United Kingdom, in England, preaching the Bible and building a church to the house of God. That's a blessing, that's a cause for joy, isn't it? Psalm 132, 9 says, Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy. And here we see them getting that joy. We should be shouting for joy. Most others aren't as blessed as we are. We shout for joy. Every time we just see, every time we're turning up to church, it's a joyful thing. For me, it's just a great thing. I love the fact we have a church here. I love the fact that we have all these great people here, just here to just serve the God, here to worship God, here to just be a part of this church. It's a blessing we have this church, isn't it? And we need to remember that, right? On that, we're going to finish up. Father, thank you for this church, Lord. Thank you that you protect this house of God. Thank you that you punish those that try to destroy it, that try to alter it, that we can rely on you, Lord, that vengeance is yours, that you'll repay, Lord. Help us to remember that. Help us to leave things in your hands with those things. So just do things your way, Lord, in every way that we do things. So really make sure this church is built upon that sure foundation and that foundation of not only that chief cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ, but also the apostles and prophets, just that whole Bible, that whole council of God. Help us to just make sure this church will always be built upon that, not some shifting sand of false doctrine and false Bibles and the rest of it. Help us to just be a strong church, not just for now, not just for the few years to come, just for decades, decades, centuries even to come if we still have that much time left here, Lord. Just help us to just be a great sort of star of churches in this nation. Help us to just stay strong, defend us, protect us. And, Lord, help us to also just remember you in our weeks as well when we're away from this church. Help us to all just have a good week now, a week where we think about you, a week where we're reading your Word, a week where we're in prayer and a week where we're getting out soul winning as well, Lord. Help all of that to go well this week. Help us all get home safe and sound. Help us to return on Wednesday, if not Sunday, for another day in your house. Jesus' name we pray all this. Amen.