(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

Amen. Well it is, but brother Dan always ends up getting the tricky genealogies of the Bible readings. But he always does a great job. So that was the genealogy in Ezra 8. It's been a couple of weeks, hasn't it? So we had the men's preaching night last week. At the beginning of Ezra 7, we were there a couple of weeks ago now. If you remember, there was a jump forward in time from the end of chapter 6 of about 60 years. There's this jump forward of about 60 years, and it's now time for Ezra to get involved, who was described as a ready scribe in the law of Moses, if you remember. So he was a scribe, and we looked at what a scribe was, and sadly what it had become when we get into the Gospels. And obviously that's not what they were meant to be. These were people that were meant to be transcribing the law, and should have been, had a good knowledge and everything with it, and obviously ultimately should have been saved as well. He brought a new group of people on what we saw was a five month journey. So can you imagine that? They did a five month journey from Babylon to Jerusalem, and he brought with him a letter from King Artaxerxes, commanding support and provision for the house of God, money and commanding offerings to be brought as well, so he came with all of this in this letter. And then there was a command that no tax be put on the workers in God's house, and then to institute God's laws again as well. So it wasn't just to come and, you know, well, as long as they can do this without having to pay taxes and things. The whole point was also to now reinstall God's laws with judges enforcing them and everything else. So theoretically it was meant to be getting back to a godly nation, but underneath this sort of what was quite a large empire, wasn't it, of at this point the Medo-Persian Empire. So then verse 27, it finished with this, it said, Blessed be the Lord God of our fathers, which hath put such a thing as this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of the Lord which is in Jerusalem, and have extended mercy unto me before the king and his counsellors and before the king's mighty princes. And I was strengthened as the hand of the Lord my God was upon me, and I gathered together out of Israel chief men to go out with me. Then chapter 8 and verse 1, it begins with, These are now the chief of their fathers, and this is the genealogy of them that went up with me from Babylon in the reign of Artaxerxes the king. I'd like to pray before we continue. Father, thank you for this chapter of the Bible, a chapter with, again, just many lessons, you know, that could be taught out of here. Help me to just teach and preach the lessons that I've chosen to preach out of here, Lord, just clearly and accurately. Boldly, Lord, as well, help me to just be full of your Spirit. Lord, help everyone here to just really pay attention and to stay alert and wide awake after a warm afternoon and what's in a warm building now after a busy day, soul winning and listening to the preacher this morning. Help me to just do all these things in Jesus Christ's holy name. Amen. OK, so last week I preached about the importance of the chief men that went up with Ezra, if you remember, and I was talking about why we need chief men. And obviously throughout this Bible study, throughout this book, I've just been trying to apply it to our life here, building the house of God in this country, you know, rebuilding, you could say, as well, and everything that goes in hand in hand with that. And with that, we need chief men as well, don't we? And I was preaching about that, making it clear that, look, this isn't a one man show. This isn't about, you know, a couple of people doing all the work, whatever it is. It's about just chief men, people coming in here, leading their families, leaving their houses, those that don't have families, just here to just be chief men, to be a part of the work, getting stuck in, getting busy for the Lord. And we do need that here. And it's not just to be able to lead, to be able to turn up a church that is strong enough to endure the whole Christian life. Because a Christian life isn't easy at times, is it? It needs endurance sometimes. It needs people that can just really just stay strong, stand fast in the faith. Look, there are many challenges that come from being a Christian, especially when you're serving in a church. Because the devil wants you out of this church. The devil wants every one of you out of this church, one way or another. And sometimes you've got to defend the different ways that that happens, the ways that you'll be attacked, whether it's through family, friends. Sadly, sometimes people in the church, people outside of the church, there's many ways to try and weaken you, to try and get you to start to be discouraged, demoralized, et cetera, and start that slow slope back out of the church. And it can be slow for some. And our pastor, I've heard him talk about this before, when you start to see and you start to get an idea of people that are kind of already on their way out, and look, you want to make sure that's not you, and if you start to feel that, you've got to take action. Because it's not just spiritual even, it can be the flesh as well. It's much easier for the flesh on a Sunday afternoon to be sitting at home doing what you used to do, whether it's watching Soccer Sunday or whatever, Super Sunday with a load of not very super matches, or whatever else it is, sitting there eating lots and not doing much else, feet up, sleeping all day, and then back to work Monday, whatever it is for people. And the flesh wants that, doesn't it, a lot of the time. So it is a battle, there's endurance there as well. And then like we spoke about as well, to endure hard preaching. And that's endurance as well. Because a lot of people just can't take it. And a lot of people, it's pride, isn't it? It's pride, it's finding it hard to hear your stuff preached about. And a lot of the time I think people, what they'll do is they'll say to themselves, you're preaching on me, I'm having a go at me this week, or something else. And you know what, it's very rare I do that. Now I will sometimes on Wiki people preach on them. And people that I think need to preach in some behaviour I'm seeing, or things which could potentially be that, I'll preach hard on that stuff. A lot of the time I just preach stuff. Sometimes I come away from a sermon and I think back and I think, yeah that probably could have sounded like I was preaching at so and so and so. And most of the time I'm not. But I can imagine, and this is the reality of how we are, people will go, I can't believe it, how dare he. But ultimately what is that? It's pride. And you should be able to recognise that, and hopefully most people will just quickly check themselves and go, okay look, I need to deal with that. The word of God is being preached, yeah he might interpret this or whatever this way or that way. Maybe I don't agree, but it's not the end of the world is it, obviously unless it's something important. But a lot of the time people will just get their backs up won't they? And then suddenly it's like this kind of downhill slope from there, because they just can't deal with the fact that their weaknesses and things are getting preached on. That's pride, and that's an issue isn't it? And you have to be strong to endure sound preaching, to endure the hard preaching from the word of God. And enduring the spiritual battle, which includes then the persecution, the tribulation that's going to come with it as well, it's all a spiritual battle isn't it? And obviously look, a lot of it, I'm going to feel the brunt of that a lot, lead your church, but like I said, it's everyone in here, that's why we need chief men. Men who are able to not only protect themselves and get food, but also protect those around them, because they need to protect the weaker vessel as well, they need to protect their kids in the spiritual battle, because it's a tough battle sometimes isn't it? Many of you know that here, many of you will have experienced it yourselves. And here Ezra gives us this genealogy of this new wave that went up with him for Babylon. So in verse 2 he says, Of the sons of Phinehas, Gershom, of the sons of Ithamar, Daniel, of the sons of David, Hattush, of the sons of Shechemiah, of the sons of Pharosh, Zechariah, and with him were reckoned by genealogy of the males and 150, of the sons of Pahath Moab, Eli Hoani, the son of Zerahiah, and with him 200 males, of the sons of Shechemiah, the son of Jehaziel, and with him 300 males, of the sons also of Adon, Ebed, the son of Jonathan, and with him 50 males, and of the sons of Elam, Jeshiah, the son of Atheliah, and with him 70 males, of the sons of Shephartiah, Zebediah, the son of Michael, and with him four score males, of the sons of Joab, Obadiah, the son of Jehiel, and with him 218 males, and of the sons of Shelamith, the son of Josephiah, and with him 103 score males, and of the sons of Bebei, Zechariah, the son of Bebei, and with him 20 and 8 males, and of the sons of Azgad, Jehanan, the son of Hakatan, and with him 110 males, and of the last sons of Adonakim, whose names are these Eliphileth, Jael, and Shemaiah, and with them three score males, and of the sons also of Bigrei, Uthai, and Zabed, and with them 70 males. So I've got that as approximately 1,485 males there, not including wives and children, okay, that's just the men alone. So this is a sizeable group, isn't it, that's about to return to Jerusalem and get involved in God's work. This is just a few guys going along. This is a big, big extra edition of numbers now about to go along. Like I said, we're kind of many years on now, decades and decades on, from that first return under Zerubabbel. Okay, so verse 15 that says, Now, you can imagine that it took a few days for everyone to gather and for Ezra to do a proper headcount. He had to work out who he's got there. They've got priests from Aaron's line, but none of the other sons of Levi. And, you know, you've got the priests doing the priestly duties, but then the Levites are doing everything else around the temple, responsible for the day-to-day work in the temple. And Ezra needed some Levites, didn't he? Some temple workers to come with and do the temple work. And again, just to, you know, kind of compare it to here, when it comes to how it's got here, there is a lot of work that goes into just the Sunday service alone, isn't there? I think some people often just aren't aware of how much work goes into a Sunday service. You've got the music, you've got the Bible reading, the ushering, the live streaming, the collecting and counting, the tidying, the cleaning, the driving, the soul-winning planning. I mean, that's a lot for just a Sunday alone, isn't it? And sorry if I've missed anything there. And we don't have a group of professional Levites here, okay? We don't have that here in the New Testament church. Look, we rely on people helping out, don't we? And we have to have that because, look, you know, as the church grows, I should hopefully be able to spread that work more. So at the beginning, a lot of the time, and there is an old saying in church work that is, and it's something I don't want to be the case here, that 90% of the work is done by 10% of the people, okay? And a lot of pastors will talk about that, but it's something we don't want. So I do want to spread it more. And at the beginning, it was something that there were certain people that I knew were regular and involved and were taking on certain roles in the church. But ultimately, we do want to spread that, don't we? Because it's a lot to have on certain people. And that can be a problem sometimes. You just feel like, I'm just doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, et cetera. So we do want to spread it out. But the thing with that is that we do need people turning up and wanting to get involved as well. So we do need some New Testament versions of Levites, don't we? People that just want to get involved. And what does that mean? And I've talked about some of this stuff before. For example, when it comes to the counting and the jobs in the church, everyone knows the rule here is a tie to do that. Also, turning up early enough to do that. Because I'm looking for people to count and things and people that I know are solid and that will come and count and stuff, and I don't need people here early enough to be able to do that, otherwise I can't choose them to do that. And look, again, you might decide, well, I don't really want to do stuff. You don't have to, but it is ultimately a blessing, isn't it? What an honour to serve God. What an honour to have jobs to do in a church. It's amazing that we even have the opportunity to do stuff like that. And even whatever you consider to be the most degrading job is an absolute honour to be able to do in a church, isn't it? And there are things that, as we grow, there's going to be more to do, more to spread out amongst people. So for me, though, what I look for, and this is something that I'll always look for, is people that have the right mentality with that as well. I want people, and again, I'm trying to find horses for courses, and I'll learn, and as we grow as a church, I'm going to find people more that I think are suited to certain jobs, and as we grow and we take on more things and have more jobs, I'll slowly want to spread it more, and some people might not want to do stuff, and I'll probably get an idea of that pretty quickly as well, so you're not trying to force people to do any work. But you're trying to look for people that have the right mentality. One of those is to be regular, isn't it? So obviously, if people aren't regular at church, and now I understand that we have, you know, it's not so easy for those that live far away in jobs and things for the Wednesday evening service, but, you know, regular Sunday service people, I mean, you know, I've heard before that you'll often just get people that are kind of expecting to do jobs at a church, yet they don't turn up, you know, every other Sunday. I mean, it's just weird, isn't it? I mean, they're not, why would you get them doing jobs at church? Or people that are perfectly capable of coming midweek and just choose not to. And if people are, like, that's a bit stranger, isn't it? That's, for me, not someone that's invested into the church and stuff. And here's another one, is people that submit to the leadership here, because that's getting harder and harder to find in life, isn't it? Because people are so just puffed up and so, you know, we've gone so the opposite in life, haven't we, with people that just almost think it's insulting to just submit to authority in life. But in a church, it's really important, isn't it? Because, look, people can't submit to just the authority of the church. Why am I going to get them to do any jobs in the church? And the thing is, there are people that claim to, but you can see sometimes that over the years, obviously, we've had some bad people here where, you know, they're just constantly trying to push you an edge, while claiming to want to serve the church. I mean, it's just bizarre, you know, and they're reliable as well. You know, we just want people that when they say they're going to do something, say they're going to be here at a certain time, say they're going to get on with something, they're just going to do that as well. They have the right motivation. Because serving in a church should be about just serving God, shouldn't it? Okay, that's what we want to do. Look, you know, I just want to serve God, okay? Seriously. I'm not trying to big myself up. I know there's many people in this room that are saying they just want to serve God. But sometimes you start to see through where it's not really I want to serve God, it's more I want to make myself something. You know, and that obviously isn't the right mentality for church workers. Well, and look, another one is people that, look, if they want to serve God and they want what's best for the church, they're not going to have a hissy fit when they're not asked to do a job that they think that they should be doing. Yeah, because again, I've had that before as well here and I don't want that again because that's not the right motivation, is it? Because that's not helping the church if you're just getting offended because you're not asked to do things. Well, obviously I've probably made the right decision then, haven't I? You know, on jobs as well. So look, ultimately it is a blessing though. You know, serving in a church, just getting involved, helping the house of God, what a great thing. You know, you earn rewards for that as well. You get blessings in life for that. It's a great thing to be able to do because I think some people look at a church and think, well, it's a pastor evangelist responsibility and they should be grateful for any help they get. People think of it like that, don't they? And we have had that here before and sadly we'll continue to have that where people are kind of like just here to be served almost, you know? And, you know, like I've moaned about it before and I will have to. Constantly, it's just always never ceased to amaze me when you go to go soul-winning, you come back from soul-winning and the place is like an absolute, like, just dump. You're like, how do you do that? How do you come into the house of God and just leave your empty cups, your half-drunk stuff, your chewed-up food and kids' food all over the floor? It's just nuts, isn't it? Because I know that if people were in, like, the very pristine C of E church or wherever else, you know, with the polished wood floor and everything, they wouldn't be doing any of that. But what's really the difference? You know, because it shouldn't be about the appearance, it should be about, look, I'm in God's house here, right? I'm in God's house to clear up after myself. I should make it look as nice as I possibly can. And there is a bit of a not my problem mentality sometimes in church. However, this church, with that in mind, I couldn't do it anyway. So it couldn't function without all the great people here that do get stuck in, that do just have that great mentality. We do have New Testament Levites in this church, okay? And that's amazing because without that, look, it wouldn't work. I can't do it all. You know, writing three sermons a week is hard, yeah? It's hard. Those of you that have preached an hour sermon, in fact, those of you probably that have preached a 10-minute sermon, understand that actually that could take a little while. Preaching three sermons a week is something else, you know? And again, look, I love the job. It's a great job. But you can't, on top of that, run a whole church and just do every other job in here. And there are hundreds of other jobs that go into a church other than writing the sermons as well. And look, I need the help here. What's great about this church is I've just got, I do have loads of people that just want to help. But sadly, in time and in the future, that will sometimes wane and there will be people that, you know, sadly will come in and try and affect that and stuff. But here, Ezra was the same, okay? He needed those Levites for the work in the temple. Ezra couldn't just go and do it all himself. So Ezra, look, he's like, seems to be the man here, doesn't he? He's the one, he's like, he's a ready scribe in the law. He's going to go and we saw last week he was preaching as well. We saw, you know, when we went to the book of Nehemiah, however, he needed the help, didn't he? And look, we'll always need that in a church like this. We'll always need help. We'll always need people to be able to get stuck in. In verse 16 it says, Then sent I for Eliezer, for Ariel, for Shemaiah, and for Elnathan, and for Jarib, and for Elnathan, and for Nathan, and for Zechariah, and for Meshelim, chief men also for Jorib, and for Elnathan, men of understanding. And I sent with them, sorry, I sent them with commandment unto Edo the chief at the place Cassiphia, and I told them what they should say unto Edo, and to his brethren the Nethinims at the place Cassiphia, that they should bring unto us ministers for the house of our God. And by the good hand of our God upon us, they brought us a man of understanding, of the sons of Marley, the son of Levi, the son of Israel, and Cherubiah, with his sons and his brethren eighteen, and Hashabiah, and with him Jeshiah, with the sons of Merari, his brethren and their sons twenty, also of the Nethinims, whom David and the princes had appointed for the service of the Levi's. Two hundred and twenty Nethinims, all of them were expressed by name. Now this seems to be another two hundred and seventy-three or so men, if my counting was right, when I wrote these notes. Notice how he talked twice about men of understanding. Verse sixteen, verse sixteen said, Then sent I for Eliezer, for Ariel, for Shemaiah, and for Nathan, and for Jerub, and for Nathan, and for Zechariah, and for Meshelim, chief men, also for Jorib, and for Elnathan, men of understanding. And then verse eighteen says, And by the good hand of our God upon us they brought us a man of understanding. So these are people of knowledge, you could say intelligence, you would assume in the work of the temple. Because bearing in mind they haven't had the temple, these are people coming from Babylon, aren't they? So they need to have the knowledge of what they're going to be doing. They seem to be, I would guess, fully aware of the ordinances, all the things they're meant to be doing. Because it's not just about dogs bodies either, is it, in a church. It's important to have men around that know how things should be done. And for our church, for our New Testament church now, that would be men that know their Bibles. Not so they can puff themselves up and try and teach everyone in the church, not so that they can be there and have their own little private teaching sessions and stuff in the church, but so that they can keep an eye open, for one, because when you know your Bible you start to know what you're looking out for, for problems, and so that they can behave in the right way as well. Because that's important, that's what we need of chief men here, don't we? We need people leading by example. It's one thing to preach here for the public. You know what, there's a lot of behaviour to preach about in life, isn't there? And I can't even cover probably half of it in a year. However, it makes a big difference if the men in this church especially are behaving how God wants us to behave, and that's probably more effective than a lot of the teaching I can do, isn't it? Because people are going to come into a church and just start to see the example of other people and learn how we're expected to behave in a church. So, for example, like I said, getting here on time, respecting the rules. I mean, we had a big problem with that before because it was just this constant battle with people just disobeying rules, disobeying rules, kids just disobeying rules, parents not even caring, in fact, knowing for when it seemed to be sometimes almost encouraging it. Because that's just going to be a problem as we go on in the church, isn't it? Do whatever job you're doing here to the best of your ability as well. So when we have jobs and roles and men are doing jobs and roles, that should be right. I'm working for the Lord, yeah? Not, oh, Ian's got me to do this, see how well I can do it. No, I'm working now, right? So I'm working for God, I'm going to do it to the best of my ability. And also worship in a reverent way. Because, look, again, the culture in a church is affected by the majority of the church, isn't it? So, for example, when we had clowns here whose kids were literally just shouting at the top of their lungs to the hymns, to ruin the hymns, that can become a culture in a church where it's, oh, how funny, I want to laugh, yeah, my kid's ruining the worship to the Lord. I mean, how wicked is that? That was bad. But how we all worship, how we do things is going to be important, isn't it? And here's another one, is being just polite and respectful to others in a church. Being polite, greeting people, and it should all be basic stuff. But not like legging it after the service or coming in before and trying to avoid everyone you can, stuff like that. They're just simple social skills, aren't they? We just come in, we greet people, we meet them, we say hi, and everything else. Normal stuff like, you know, because I can't just get around everyone. I try and make a habit, if I can, of standing near the back at the end of the service so I can say bye to people that are leaving soon after, but sometimes you get caught in a conversation with someone and it never ceases to amaze me. I mean, some people will literally come to this church week after week after week without saying hi or bye to me. I mean, that is weird, isn't it? I mean, how much disdain must you have to not be able to even greet me on the way in or say bye on the way out? I mean, that's weird, isn't it? I mean, you start to wonder, when people are like that and they literally are just disappearing every week, trying to avoid me on the way out and stuff, it's like, what's your problem? Why do you come here? Isn't that weird? I had that before as well, that's weird, right? Why are you coming to our church if you can't even say hello to the person leading the church? Yeah? Strange. So you get stuff like that. And then if we make a culture of that and show people that, then it exposes that even more, doesn't it? But if people are kind of a bit on and off that, well, I'm just going to... Look, sometimes I'm going to be doing stuff in the office. I'm not saying you have to find it, okay? Everyone's waiting in a queue outside the office to shake my hand. Don't have to do that. But when it becomes week after week, that becomes weird, doesn't it? And stuff like that. And the house of God then needs those men of understanding because if everyone's got the right culture and doing things the right way, other people are going to learn from that as well. And we just know how we expect them to behave. Same with the kids as well. That's why we need to be really hot on our kids. And sometimes I don't read it out just because I do sound like a broken record. But children must not be left attending the building at all times. Now, admittedly, that could be hard for myself and my wife because we have jobs and things to do in this church. But for everyone else in this church, that shouldn't really be difficult, should it? Other than if you're in the middle of a job for the church. But after the services, there's not much that people are doing by maybe a bit of the soul-winning captaining and stuff like that. So with that in mind, the problem is that if other people are doing that, then it becomes a culture in the church where no one knows where their kids are and then suddenly the biscuit tin's empty and just a load of other weird stuff's going on. So things like that, we need men of understanding, men that want to watch their kids, women that want to watch their kids. You just need all of that to make a good culture in the church. Verse 21 says, And I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ava, that we might afflict ourselves before our God, to seek of him a right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. So Ezra proclaimed a fast. And although it's not something that we as a church together are likely to do very often, look, there might be a time when I say, look, guys, we need a fast. We've got a big problem, we've got some big issues, and that could happen. That wouldn't be unbiblical to do that, would it? I hope everyone wouldn't go, what on earth is going on here? But I would hazard a guess that both individual and group fasting are probably not very common nowadays among God's people. Anyone think that it probably is? I think probably not. And when I say fasting, I mean fasting for spiritual reasons. So in case you're going, no, I'm doing an intermittent right now, brother Ian. I don't eat in the morning, so I've been fasting. I'm talking about spiritual fast, fast where your whole goal and purpose is for the things of God. But fasting is something that we see very often in the Bible, isn't it? We read about fasting a lot, don't we? In both the Old and the New Testaments as well. In Matthew 9.15, when Jesus was asked why his disciples don't fast, it says, and Jesus said unto them, can the children of the bride chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? Talk about himself. But the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast. So according to Jesus Christ, it's something for me that's expected of us. But for me, many people don't really know why, how and when and where and et cetera of fasting, do they? Some of you are like, I don't even know where to begin. What's the point in this? It's not something you hear preached that often, do you? I've never heard that much preaching on fasting. I think maybe one reason is because not many people do fast, so it's a bit harder to preach on something maybe that you're not doing yourself. And again, I'm not saying I'm this great faster. I'm going to lose my rewards if I do, because I'm not. However, this is something I've preached on just because I know it comes up in the Bible a bit, and it is something I've been really interested in. I've always been interested in food and sport and exercise and things like that, and it's just an interesting thing for me. So when I kept reading about fasting when I was first saved, it was something I took some interest in. So it was one of the first sermons actually I preached when we had our new church plant, was about the power of fasting. For me, that's one of my favourite sermons still, just purely because it had so much study went into it, and it's something that I am going to just preach a little bit on again now, just because, again, I think probably there are a lot of people here that don't really know much about it. It was in our Bible study in Matthew as well, if you remember, when we did Matthew chapter 6, but I'm not going to go into great depth tonight, but if you do think, look, I want to know a bit more about this, it is, yeah, it's a constant theme in the Bible. Matthew chapter 6 is more of a summary of it, and I think the sermon was called Power of Fasting, probably on our channel, and it's one of the first sermons on there as well. But I'm going to give you a few reminders about it, and to understand why it was that Ezra proclaimed a fast here, because we're doing a Bible study here of Ezra. Why did Ezra proclaim a fast? It said here, I think where we just were the verse before, it said in verse 21, then I proclaimed a fast here, okay? And he said that we might afflict ourselves before our God, seek for him the right way for us, and for our little ones and for all our substance. Okay, so first off, how do you fast? How do you fast? In the Bible, we see everything from a daytime fast to a 40-day supernatural fast. You can have everything from just avoiding food for one day, to 40 days without food and even without water as well, which is obviously supernatural because you're not going to survive doing that. Okay, so I'm not trying to encourage this 40-day fast, but we see both food fast, we see water only, faster, you can drink water, but you don't eat. And obviously the nil-by-mouth fast, which is basically if you don't have anything at all. Now, whatever the length, the purpose is to deny the flesh during that time that you fast, okay? And turn to Isaiah 58, where God is rebuking them for the wrong type of fasting, and then he points out the right type. And I'm going to try and do this fairly quickly tonight, but just something for you to think about. Isaiah 58 and verse 3 is this. It says, Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and now takeest no knowledge? This is Isaiah 58 and verse 3. Behold, in a day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labour. So they're saying, why aren't you recognising our fast, basically? Okay, so the question is, look, we're fasting and why are you not seeing it? Why are you not taking knowledge? The afflicting of our souls, okay? That's what a fast is meant to be, some sort of affliction, okay? So it's not, oh, well, I'm fasting because, you know, I quite like not eating until this time. The point is that you're doing some sort of affliction. You're going out of your comfort zone. You're denying the flesh for spiritual reasons, okay? Now, God replies in this hypothetical type conversation. He said, behold, in a day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labour. So they're not denying the flesh. The fast day is this sort of, for me it seems like it's like this pleasurable rest day. I think he's basically saying that they're kind of giving out the jobs they're meant to do to other people during that day. It's like, this is my fast day, so it's like sort of feet up, relaxing, what a lovely day of just sitting there and, you know, not really doing very much. In 1 Corinthians 7.5, we're going to go back, if you want to turn there you can, 1 Corinthians chapter 7 and verse 5. But we will be returning here in a second. Paul is talking to married couples not to deny each other a physical relationship except when they're fasting, okay? So again, it's not meant to be a day where you're just, you know, everything's normal. No, this is meant to be something where you're denying the flesh. He said in verse 5 of 1 Corinthians 7, he said, Defraud ye not one the other except, okay, so this is talking about defrauding of a physical relationship, except it be with consent for a time that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer, and come together again that Satan tempt you not for your incontinency. So fasting clearly from that is supposed to be a time of denying the flesh, isn't it? Okay, it's a time of denying the flesh, afflicting yourself. Verse 4 says, back where we are, verse 4, in Isaiah 53 it is, isn't it? Verse 4 says, it says, sorry, Isaiah 58, verse 4 says, Behold ye fast for strife and debate and to smite with the fist of wickedness. Ye shall not fast as ye do this day to make your voice to be heard on high. So they're fasting maybe to win a row, maybe to try to get their will over someone else, I'm going to have to fast about this so I can win this argument, or maybe just to prove their holiness above someone else, yeah? Maybe they're fasting just to show how much holier they are because they're fasting. And when we're thinking about how to fast, remember that it's not to be boasted about. Okay, it's meant to be a private thing, fasting. And when I say private thing, you know, that's meant to be obviously private within reason. So you don't have to, you know, maybe men here, if you decide to fast and your wife's offering you, you know, breakfast, lunch or dinner, and you just go, I don't want any. She's going, why not? I just don't want any. And she's like, what have I done? I spent hours over this. You have probably a good idea to discuss it with your family, okay, that you're fasting. Otherwise that can get a bit weird. But it's not something to go and boast to other people about, okay? I mean, I remember I definitely didn't boast that time I did my 40-day fast, you know? I made, oh, no. No! Lost those rewards. No, look, I'm kidding, okay, I didn't do a 40-day fast. However, look, it's not something we're meant to be boasting about, because when you boast about it, well, it seems that you're going to lose your reward. Matthew 6.16, Jesus said, moreover, when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast. Verily, I sound to you that they have their reward. Their reward being, well, you wanted to lift yourself up to other people, well done. Well, that's what you got out of it. Now, it's not just, I don't think, talking about heavenly rewards, because ultimately we often are fasting for a reason, for a purpose, and I think you're going to lose that as well. You're not going to get that blessing you needed or whatever it is that you needed if you're just fasting to tell people about it. And you go, who really does that? You'd be amazed, yeah. And I'm not just talking about wicked people. Although I remember one of our past wicked people trying to boast to me about a fast that he'd done, and I said to him, you just lost your reward, and that was quite fun. But, look, a lot of the time it's just fleshly people, and maybe that wasn't their purpose, but then they just really feel like they need to tell someone that they're fasting. And when you do that, well, you kind of got it all wrong there. So, this is what it should be about. Verse 5, where you ask this, is it such a fast that I have chosen a day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush? This is basically a drooping plant. And to spread sackcloth and ashes under him, wilt thou call this a fast and an acceptable day to the Lord? So, how it should be is the fast as he has chosen to afflict his soul, to bow down his head, to spread sackcloth and ashes under him. And, look, denying the flesh is one way, is part of fasting. Private, okay, like I said, within reason, is another way that we fast. And it can be any length, okay, that's our choice. And I would say if you've never fasted before, maybe try a daytime fast first before you go into the three-day or the seven-day or something like that. And that's going to be a bit harder to keep quiet about. Look, we should be anointing our heads with fresh oil and looking basically just as good as possible and not trying to make a point to everyone that you're fasting. What if I look really like, oh, I just can't have a biscuit, actually. Okay, well, you haven't told them, but you're trying to point it out, aren't you, okay? You get it, right? Okay. So, why do we fast? What's the purpose? Well, he said in verse 6, is not this the fast that I've chosen to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and let ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house, when thou seest so naked that thou cover him and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? So, for me, look, having looked at this at length, there are three individual purposes to fasting that we see in Scripture. Number one is we fast when seeking forgiveness. Number two, we fast when suffering tribulation. And number three, we fast when serving God. And often it's when going on to do something great for God, okay, to fast beforehand especially. Now, verse 6 said, is not this the fast that I've chosen? First point was to loose the bands of wickedness, okay? So, this is for me when we seek God's forgiveness to help us get right with him, okay? And examples include the Ninevites in Jonah chapter 3, famous chapter of the Bible there. Ahab in 1 Kings 21, we see him fasting to get forgiveness and he actually receives that as well. That's a wicked king, Ahab, as well, yeah? And it was really the result of him fasting and God said, humbling himself before him. Fasting is a great way to show remorse, isn't it? It's a great way to get your heart right after you've messed up because you kind of want to see that, don't you? Like any of your parents, you say you need to come down and apologise. Your kid's like, sorry. That kind of winds you up, doesn't it? Where's the remorse, you little brat? But, however, if your kid was like, I'm so sorry, I'm not going to eat dinner. I'm choosing not to eat dinner because I just feel so terrible. I couldn't even sit there and eat dinner with you after what I've done. You're probably like, hmm. Okay, yeah, that's pretty good. I'm going to go with that, yeah? And that's kind of the same with God, yeah? When you're fasting, you afflict your soul and say, look, I know I've messed up here. I've done wrong. I want to fast over this. I need your forgiveness, Lord. Okay, that's one way, one reason that we fast. He then said, and like I said, we're going to go through this quickly today, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go free and that you break heavy yoke. Now, for me, this is when we're suffering tribulation, okay? We need God to help us through it. And examples of that, there are many examples, but just a couple include Jehoshaphat in 2 Chronicles 20. He's faced this huge army, okay? They're all coming at him and he fasts, and he ends up then getting God's help with that. And, in fact, he calls the people to fast as well. Jesus Christ during his temptation in the wilderness as well, okay? He's suffering tribulation here and he fasts. And then verse 7 then says, Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to the house, when thou seest the naked, and that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? So this is when we want to serve God, to do something great for him, okay? So here it's to deal thy bread to the hungry, bring the poor that are cast out to the house, and that thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? You could argue a lot of that. Really, you could apply that spiritually to soul winning as well, couldn't you? And examples for that, and just for serving God, doing great things, include Anna, if you remember the well over 100-year-old prophetess in Luke chapter 2. It seems she's just fasting and praying most days in the temple, but she's preaching the gospel to people. She's still working hard at 100. And after ordaining elders in every church in Acts 14, we see that they fasted, okay? So they're fasting, ordaining elders in every church, and they're about to do this great thing, send these men out to do great things for the Lord, and they're fasting over that, okay? So that's another reason for that. And when we do it the right way for the right reason, look at verse 8 there, where you are, it says, Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily, and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward. So seeking forgiveness, suffering tribulation, serving God, okay? Three reasons why you might think, yeah, I need to do a fast, yeah? Not because, well, that'll be a good routine to help me lose a bit of weight, or that'll be a good routine to help me, you know, feel a bit healthier. That's going to be a good routine to really, you know, get my muscle growth going or whatever it is. You know, they're the reasons for a spiritual fast. You want to do that other stuff, cool, you know, but it's not a spiritual fast, yeah? I don't think we should combine them either, okay? So back to Ezra 8 and verse 21. They're both about to serve God, but they're about to go through a trial too, okay? So kind of you can look at both here as well, yeah? They're about to do something great here. They're going to Jerusalem to do this work. They're about to go through five months of trekking through cross country with what seems to be a shed load of money as well, okay? Money, valuables, all this sort of stuff. It says in verse 21, Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river, a haver, that we might afflict ourselves before our God to seek from a right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. For I was ashamed to require of the king a band of soldiers and horsemen to help us against the enemy in a way, because we had spoken unto the king, saying, The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him. But his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him. So we fasted and besought our God for this, and he was entreated of us. So Ezra wants God to guide their path through what's a dangerous journey. Now notice in verse 21 how one of the mentioned factors is the little ones. Did you notice that in verse 21? He said, Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river, a haver, that we might afflict ourselves before our God to seek of him a right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. Because, look, little ones need to be factored in two. And I say that because sometimes we need reminding that our children need considering. Okay, and sometimes as parents, I think probably often as dads a lot of the time as well, we kind of need reminding of that, because, look, Ezra said to seek a right way for us and for our little ones, because, look, what's right for you might be a bit different for your little ones. So the spiritual journey for you that, you know, maybe for you you're like, man, I reckon I could up the soul winning this week, you know. I reckon I could get those, that marathon in and this and that and this and that. But is that right for your kids? And that's important. Is that right for you? Oh, it doesn't matter. My kids are going to come soul winning five days a week. Yeah, my kids are going to come five days a week. They're going to soul win in the depths of winter and in the hottest summers. Is that good for your kids? Anyone think that's good for your kids? Now, some people from afar will look and go, wow, how godly is that? You know, the newborns out soul winning in minus six degrees. Oh, they're real men of God and family of God. But is that what people who are who at least aren't new Christians think? No, we look at that and go, that's not good. Yeah, you're you're messing up here, pal, because you need to raise your kids in the right way. That's not safe for your children, for example. So we need to get that balance, because on the same hand, we also would want our kids to love the things of God. We want to encourage our kids and grow them in the things of God. But sometimes that right way for us is different than that right way for our little ones. And as dads, especially leading the family, we need to get that right, don't we? OK, we need to get that right. He said to seek a right way for us for our little ones, because there is a difference. And I was thinking about a few things with this. For example, would myself, if I was like, right, I somehow can fit in the three sermons and all the church work. And I reckon I could up to soul winning five times a week. OK, that'd be great for salvation, wouldn't it? Maybe. Yeah. Would that be good for my for my for my young family, do you think? They don't see daddy, but don't worry, because daddy's getting people saved. Well, don't worry, the kids will come along. So the kids are like, yeah, you know, great. We just watch dad while he knocks on doors, you know. Is that good parenting? No, no, I've got to get that balanced, don't I? And that's the same with everyone here. We have to get that balance as parents between wanting to serve the Lord and we want to serve the Lord. We encourage our kids into that, but not getting to the point where your kids resent the Lord, resent the things of God. Get to the point, well, daddy said we're going to kick a ball down the park, but he bought his Bible and he's just like preaching the gospel to everyone. Oh, well, never mind. Just kick the ball. And then it's like two hours later. Oh, you've got to say, because that's how you start getting kids resenting the things of God as well, don't you? There's a different path, isn't there? And again, we're trying to get that balance right, aren't we? And we're going to get that wrong. And like I said, like going on marathons in probably the extreme that we might get a 40 degree heat spell again. And for young children, that's not good, is it? OK, we don't want to come back for marathons and our kids are like burnt red raw and stuff like that. But it's like, oh, they've got to come on the marathons. Do they have to come on every marathon? Oh, no. If they want to and they enjoy it and you think as a parent, no, this is a wise decision call. But we have to be, Kevin, saying, like I said, that we had minus six or something here, didn't we, in the winter. Would that have been a good idea to take maybe my James, my Charlie out in that? I don't think so. Right. That's a good idea to leave him in the Wark church building and say ultimately you're not benefiting anyone anyway. Because you're probably more likely to be a distraction or you're shivering and shaking. And what do I what does everyone do out there? You're poor children because they try and pick on it, don't they? So look, and obviously they're going to find fault in everything you do. However, we want to be sensible, don't we, as well. Right. And the path is different for both. Or and another one is something that probably we have to think about. Things like, is it sensible to take a long car journey to maybe maybe we're going to do so many marathon and some city the other side of the country. You know, maybe parents will have to think about, well, is that a good thing to have my little one, you know, sitting in the car for an eight hour drive with maybe one break for a quick toilet stop, you know, and that's your little one. You know, things like that. Look, we need to get that balance right. And you might decide, actually, no, that's that's a good idea. That's your choice on that. But I think things like that we want to think about. Another one, you know, it's something we had here and again, we haven't because I've preached it since. But we had we had the I'm returning to know. In fact, before we had a lady here who never went soul winning. Suddenly soul winning, like eight and a half months pregnant, came on a marathon. What on earth is going on here? Yeah. Then returned to church literally within a week of having her baby. That's not sensible, is it? OK, that's like, you know, and her husband was trying to boast. It was all the whole life was boasting, boasting, boasting, all about look at us, look how holy we are and everything else. But it's nuts. It's crazy. And then what this woman did was then got out the hoover in front of everyone and started hoovering the church floor, having just had a baby earlier that week. I mean, that's dangerous, isn't it? That is absolutely. And you know what? Deep down inside, she would have been like. But she probably put a brave face. Oh, that's completely crazy. Yeah. However, look, why was she even doing that? Why was she allowed? And it was to boast and puff herself up. And what it does do then, it make other women feel a bit insecure and stuff like that. And, you know, should I be taking what the biblical precedent is if I feel like it to take that time out from after having your baby? Yeah. Yeah. Take your time before you come back. So all that stuff, look, there's a different, there's a different, there's a different route, isn't there? And as parents, as fathers and as mothers, you know, but as fathers, as the head of a family, you need to make that wise decision that then is serving God and looking after your family at the same time. And I don't know, I'm going to get that balance out wrong myself a lot. OK, we're all going to get that wrong, but it's something we need to think about. Yeah, as well. So with that, you know, obviously we don't want it to go the opposite way where it becomes this bizarre holier than thou attitude. OK. And obviously we had that before here and we want to avoid that in the future where people are trying to prove their holiness by their kids, basically not factoring in at all. And it's all about the work of God. But to those in the know, you just look at it and think, that ain't good. That's not holy. That's actually the opposite. Look, children, heritage of the Lord, they're given to you by God to look after. We need to take that really seriously, don't we, as well, and get that balance right. And what we want to do, because what do we ultimately want to do? We end up, we want to have every person here, I hope, wants to have each and every one of their children being soul winning Christians in the future. Now, that's not going to be by just leaving at home every time you've got a soul winning, is it? Because they're not going to learn either. So it's trying to get the balance right, isn't it? So here we see Ezra, he's saying, he said that they're basically fasting to seek him in the right way for us and for our little ones and for all our substance. So basically, they need, look, and a lot of the time we just need God's guidance on that, don't we? And when you're in the will of God and you're in the spirit of God, what might work for one family might work differently for someone else as well. So don't forget that as well. One family, look, they might work well with doing that and they might have time at other times to put their time into their kids. And other families maybe don't. And they feel like, look, I can't do every one of these because I need some time. Well, I'm just with my kids. It's not just all about, you know, church work, for example, or whatever else. And it's going to vary. And how do we know? How do we get that right? By being in the will of God, right? Being in the spirit, maybe even praying and fasting to God for guidance on things like that. Right. And that's what Ezra did here. I have to remember this soul winning with the kids, you know, because I can learn. I tell you, sometimes when I go out soul with my family, I'm like, come on, come on, next door, next door. And I'm trying to rush them along and the kids are like, can I put one food? It's too slow. And look, I have to check myself sometimes because I'm just like, more salvation. Come on, let's get to that guy that wants to hear. And the kids are kind of like trying to run to catch up. And that's not good, is it? You know, because then it becomes a stress for them and it just becomes an unenjoyable experience. I remember hearing, I think, Brother Stuckey talking about this once and saying, when he takes his kids on soul winning marathons, he said that he will often try and find somewhere for the families, for him, where they're near, for example, a park. They're near, you know, things where the kids can enjoy themselves for a bit. It's not just going to be pavement pounding. A lot of the time they'll do the park soul winning with the kids, for example. And just try and find options where the kids can at least have some enjoyment rather than just kind of going from door to door. Look, when it's, you know, a bit of soul when you're here and there, the kids like that, you know, once a week. It's enjoyable, isn't it? It's quite exciting a lot of the time. But sometimes when it starts to become lots and lots of the long marathons just knocking, knocking, knocking in the heat of the day, it can get a bit rough for them, can't it? So we need to be wise with that, don't we? Try and make it enjoyable. OK, so here he said, he also said, by the way, for all our substance. So we need to be a little thing. Obviously, we're thinking about this in South Africa, wise with our valuables and things as well, you know. And, you know, in some places, maybe, you know, it's not some people try and be like, well, I'm working for the Lord, everything's fine. Well, yeah, but God still also wants you to be wise as well, doesn't he? You know, so if I'm soul winning in a rough area and stuff like that, maybe, you know, I'll put away my diamond encrusted Rolex that day, you know. I only get that out when I'm soul winning in the posh areas to impress him. OK, so things like that. Yeah, I don't have a diamond encrusted Rolex. It's a fake. Right, verse 22. So it wasn't just automatic, was it? They're fasting, seeking God's will, seeking his guidance. Then he's intrigued of them, isn't he? Oh, he's already intrigued, it was just a waste of time. Oh, well, we're doing something for God, so it's all fine. No, they're fasting, seeking his will. Right, and we need to make sure we seek God's will in everything we do. You know, another one thinking about that is that, you know, for example, and here, thinking about how they, like the point here is that they're basically saying, I think in verse, what was it, in verse, the verse before, in verse 22, he said, he was ashamed to require the king of band of soldiers because they'd spoke to the king, said, and the hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him, but his power and his wrath is against them that forsake him. They're basically saying, look, we're protected by God, and now they're like, oh, we can't really kind of get the security team in now. We can't really get that, you know, that assistance from, and he would have sent horsemen and everything with them. And it's kind of like, look, when we're out soloing in rough places, we don't need the private security, do we? OK, we don't need, right, OK, we need to hire, like, we're out, maybe we're going on a missions trip somewhere. Right, we need the guys with guns next to us just in case. However, we want to make sure we're in the will of God with what we're doing, though, don't we? So we don't want to be somewhere in no man's land in between. Look, we don't need all that stuff, but we also want to make sure we're in the will of God. If you're just trying to puff yourselves up, yeah, I go to the roughest places, I don't care. I would say you're probably not in the will of God, are you? And then maybe you should be a bit concerned, right? OK, so here they're trying to be in the will of God with it all. They don't want to kind of have to get this extra help. He said in verse 24, Now, he didn't just get any old blokes to do this, did he? Verse 24 said 12 of the chief of the priests. OK, verse 24 said, and then I separated 12 of the chief of the priests. And then he kind of goes through a couple of names and 10 of their brethren with them. Because when it comes to money, people just can be weak, can't they? People can be weak when it comes to money. They can be weird, OK, as well. People start convincing themselves they're entitled, the lure of money, that mammon. They just start trying to tell themselves that actually, you know, why shouldn't I take it? You know, we're all holy here. Why shouldn't I have a bit extra or have this? And you've got to be careful with stuff like that. I mean, here, look, everything we do here is recorded. You know, everything that we count is signed. Everything that's then paid in is compared against that. Because, look, it is important, isn't it? Money is what corrupts so many people, isn't it? I mean, it's the root of all evil, the love of money, isn't it? And we do have to be careful with what we do, and we have to make sure that... Because if I just had like one guy doing the count on his own, going off and doing all the count, do you think that would be sensible? No. And do you know what it would at least? People would accuse him anyway. Do you know why? Because people are just weird. When it comes to money, they just want to accuse because people just... And a lot of the time it's people that covetous themselves. People that have their own issues with money are constantly trying to somehow suspect other people. They want to somehow try and, you know, suspect... They must be dipping their hand. They must be doing this. You get this weird sort of stuff. Now, don't get me wrong. If you like really had some worries here and some concerns, you're welcome to come and talk to me. I'm not saying like, I'm going to think you must be covetous. But a lot of people, they kind of just, they want to accuse. They want to find something, don't they, on someone. And it's often because of their own issues. So when you hear, he's like, well, I'm going to get some chief of the priests. I'm going to get some proper people. I'm going to get 12 of them to do this. And, you know, it seems that he got probably the most holy guys that he could. And do you know what I thought about when I was looking at this as well? I was thinking, like, Ezra, he's like, right, I'm going to get 12 of the chief of the priests to be involved with the money. And it made me think of that clown, Salam Kamara. Do you know what it made me think? Yeah. It just made me think, like, those guys, yeah, who were all paying tithing to this guy, yeah, for his £20 an hour community hall. What were they thinking? What were they thinking? It's just nuts, isn't it? They were, like, giving all this money to a guy clearly isn't even half holy. I mean, a lot of you guys met this guy when he came here, in case you didn't. He seemed to meet everyone within, like, sort of five minutes of me trying to preach the gospel to someone. It was very strange. And he was just kind of milling around to everyone, asking interrogating questions and then moving on to the next person. That guy, there was this big group, or medium group of people that were just, like, patting off tithing to him, like, yeah, you know, he's a holy guy, what's going to happen? That's just so weird, isn't it? And what happened is he was just helping himself to the money. Bit here, bit there, take that, take this. You know, there was no, like, it wasn't that he had a paycheck or anything. He was literally just helping himself to cash. And as and when he wanted it, just take your money. It was absolutely bizarre. And, yeah, how could they have ever been surprised? And it made me think with this as well. Because if any of you remember, when all this happened and they suddenly were, like, we've exposed him, we've taken down Salaam, is what this clown reprobate VJ Kumar said, yeah. We've taken down Kamara, is what he said, yeah, bravely took him down. Like, what they really did, they knew, he knew, this guy was, like, best mates with him. He knew what was going on. But when our church was growing and growing, they're like, okay, what are we going to do now? Because we can't justify our church anymore because he's still unqualified. It's still a self-ordained church. I know, we're going to basically come with an olive branch. Oh, no, no, we've taken him down. We're on your side. We finally found out he's taking money. So what do you think was going on with all that tithe money for the last, what, however many years of this clown church where apparently he wasn't even given the materials to go soul winning with? They were just sitting in some community hall for an hour or two or whatever he hired him for. And that was about the limit of their outgoing costs at the church. Just crazy, right? But they try to use it as a way to basically justify themselves. And then soon after, we end up kicking them out as well. But the point being here, he's looking for holy people. And even that wasn't enough, by the way. It wasn't just he had holy people, he had 12 holy people. And then he made sure that everything was checked that we're going to see. Because, look, someone who's, like I said, someone who's self-ordaining, church planting, self-church planting, all that junk. You'd be nuts to trust him. Here, he's not even trusting the 12 chief of the priest. He's still, and when I say not trusting, he's at least putting in things in place to make sure that there can't be any accusation, there can't be any issues. Look at verse 30. So took the priests and the Levites, the weight of the silver and the gold and the vessels, to bring them to Jerusalem and to the house of our God. Then we departed from the river of Ahavah on the twelfth day of the first month to go on to Jerusalem, and the hand of our God was upon us, and he delivered us from the hand of the enemy, and of such as lay weight by the way. And just jump forward for a second, and we're going to go back again. It says in verse 22, and we can't, sorry, we're not jumping forward. We're just going to continue, and then we're going to go back. And we came to Jerusalem and bowed there three days. Now on the fourth day was the silver and the gold and the vessels weighed in the house of our God by the hand of Merimoth, the son of Uriah the priest. With him was Eliezer, the son of Phinahas. With them was Josabat, the son of Jehoshua. Noah, Daleth, son of Biniwai, Levites, by number and by weight of everyone. And all the weight was written at that time. Did he say, no, don't worry, they're holy men? No, he said, we're still going to do things properly, yeah? And same here, look, yeah, we get, look, the people that I asked to count the money, I'm not thinking, you know, I'm just going to have to ask this person. No, I trust those people. They count the money, they take the offering, they count together, they get a third person to sign it. There isn't any, you know, there shouldn't be an easy way then for people to be tempted. Because people get weird with money, they get, it's sad, isn't it? But that's the way of the world, right? So there's those things in place for that. And for myself as well, you know, I'm, see, I know, look, I'd be happy, sorry, I wouldn't be happy if our pastor didn't have it all transparent with me. Because there can just be no accusations. I get the book, I photograph the book, it's signed off by three different people. The ledger, I send it to our pastor, I send him what, he knows what's paid into the account, he has access to the account, I send him statements, and it's just all clear as day, you know? And there can never be any issue, there can never be any question marks, and never be any accusations because of that. Here, he still makes a point of weighing it and everything afters. And that's important, I think, when it comes to that sort of stuff. And if ever we do church plants in the future, that's, look, that's a big part of it. It has to be, like, money has to be in, like, clear, doesn't it, you know? And it has to be, you know, with counting and all that stuff because there's just so much of this stuff goes on in churches. So, okay, but point being, look, look, sorry, back to this point. Verse 31 says, And here's another truth about the Christian life. There are plenty of God's enemies just laying in wait, okay? They lay in wait by the way, but believe me, they just lay, they just want to fight, they'll crouch, they'll humble themselves and crouch like a young lion, but really they're just laying in wait, okay? And for many of these people who are outside of church just waiting, just waiting for you to try to get busy for God. So for many of you out there, it's just that you have friends, family, you'll find when you start wanting to get busy for God, like these guys are going to Jerusalem, that's when the problems start, the distractions, the opposition, all the issues around it, just trying their utmost to stop you getting busy for God. And you'll get that in many different areas, and then when you seek God's will, though, you submit to His leading, His guidance. Here we see that He delivers them from the enemy. It says, Okay, so look, if you do things God's way, He will deliver you, and they'll try, you know, they'll try in many different ways, they're trying to look for something, they're doing a diligence, search for something on you, but God will help you, but you've got to submit to Him for that. Verse 32 says, 70 and seven lambs, 12 he goats for a sin offering, all this was a burnt offering unto the Lord, and they delivered the king's commissions unto the king's lieutenants, and to the governors on this side the river, and they furthered the people and the house of God. And that's what new additions do, don't they? And I say that just because I think, you know, sometimes people can feel like, you know, it can be hard sometimes, joining a church, can't it? You know, and sometimes it takes a certain person to just come in, and they feel a bit, well, I haven't been there from the beginning, especially a fairly new church, but there they furthered the people and the house of God. Look, I love it when new people get involved in the church, okay? I absolutely love it. New families come in, new people come in, individuals, families, whatever it is, and they do further the people and the house of God. Just the extra numbers is nice, let alone people who are busy and here and want to start getting involved in stuff as well. And I think, because I think some people maybe like look at a church and think, when I come, I'm going to be getting grilled. I think maybe people are nervous that they're going to come to church and they're going to have to prove their knowledge and everything else and prove that they're, you know, they're a very learned Christian. But I hope some of the newer people here haven't got that and feel that actually, look, there's nothing to worry about. You come to a church and hopefully you're just going to get normal people being normal to them. And look, we need to make sure we're normal to new believers, not just new believers, just new members of the church. And something I hope everyone will always strive to be. And when I say normal, OK, that's also not jumping upon new people. Let me give you a couple of things that has happened over here in the past that's not normal just before we finish up here. OK, not normal is trying to swap numbers with a new member of the church on day one or day two, or I would say really for quite a long time. That's weird. Yeah. You have someone come into a church that you've never met before and within five minutes of meeting them, you're trying to take and swap numbers with them. I'm seeing big red flags there, big red flags. OK, if you're someone in our church and especially people in our church who don't even come that often and every time there's someone new, you're just all over them like a rash, but you barely even come to our church. That's weird, isn't it? Why do people, why would you do that? That's weird. Because we know, we know that's sort of stuff we're looking out for, isn't it? OK, weird behaviour. So if you are, if you're, and anyone in the future, you see that or you're fairly new to this church and people are just kind of trying to approach you and take you down, you need to come and talk to me about that, OK? Like, you know, when you're a member of our church and you've been coming, you want to be involved in our group chat, great. Yeah, but I'm not going to do that on week one. So why would some random person in the church do that? Yeah, there's stuff to look at. Also, just people, and again, we had this a lot in the past, new people, there would just be certain people that would just flock to them, but not to other people. That's weird. Yeah. If you, like, can barely talk to me, but you could spend all this time with new people in the church, I find that weird as well. I find that strange. So again, stuff that we look out for in churches, because sadly, as we know, we have to watch out for this sort of thing. So, and if you're new in the church and that sort of stuff is happening, you know, I don't want you to be freaked out. I just want you to, you know, just, you've got to be wary. Look, church isn't just, sadly, it's not just a high five. Everyone is like great people. The truth is, you know, it can be a battleground as well. Okay. So something to look out for. If you see that sort of stuff happening, please let me know as well. Okay. Because I don't want to see that sort of stuff. Other things I don't want to see happening. New person comes in the church. So have you tried soul winning before? Okay. That's weird. Okay. You don't have to do that. Okay. Look, if they're new to the church, it's not for you to encourage them or in fact force them or embarrass them to go soul winning, or worse, stop them ever wanting to come back to our church again. Because they're just saying, if I go to that church, they're going to force me to go soul winning. I'll preach about soul winning from the pulpit, but I'm not going to be going up to new people, whether it's one week, whether it's a year. Yeah. They want to go soul winning. They're going to want to go soul winning. They don't need you encouraging them. Okay. Please. And again, if you see that sort of stuff happening, you come and see me. Right. As well. So what else? Anything else? But again, it's stuff that I've seen going on. Okay. And I want to make it very clear that's not acceptable stuff. So when you see that sort of stuff, you need to let me know. Okay. And with that as well, just the teaching stuff. If someone's new to the church, guess where the teaching comes from? The pulpit. Okay. It comes from the leadership of the church, not Joe Blogg's individual in the church trying to show him how amazing they are at understanding this or show them their new amazing ways of soul winning and everything else. Okay. It's not a platform to teach new people. Okay. When new people come, sure, if they ask you a question, by all means, you don't have to go, my lips are sealed, I'm not allowed to say anything. But ultimately, you shouldn't be seeking people out to teach them and pull them into your own little gang or group or whatever else. Okay. So stuff to have a think about. Here, what happened? When we got the new people come in here, they've turned up now. They furthered the people and the house of God. That's why we want new people here, but we need to be the right environment for new people here. And as we're becoming the right environment, God will build and add the right people to our church. On that, we're going to finish up in a word of prayer. Well, thank you for, well, for, you know, a chapter of the Bible there, which, you know, there's a lot you can take from there. Thank you for, you know, the gift, well, the blessings that we can receive from fasting, fasting with prayer and the reasons we can and how we can seek your will and seek your blessings and seek your forgiveness, seek your help in life, and fasting is a way of kind of, you know, helping with that, help us to consider that, help us to think about that, but obviously not for the wrong reasons, Lord. Help us also to just think about the other things we've learnt today and thought about, you know, when it comes to the house of God and how to behave in the house of God, to be those chief men in the house of God, Lord, also to behave in the right way with newcomers as well and help us to just be, you know, be the sort of church you want us to be, Lord. We're a house of God here that we're building. We want to get things right. We're going to get things wrong a lot. Each and every one of us is going to make mistakes, make errors and stuff, but help us to just grow, to improve, to keep just getting better, to keep becoming more like the house of God you want us to be. Help us to all get home safe and sound tonight and to return on Wednesday and for those that can't on Sunday, for another day in your house. In Jesus' name, for all of this. Amen.