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🎵 🎵Piano music plays🎵 🎵Piano music continues🎵 🎵Piano music continues🎵 We're singing Faith is the Victory. Welcome to Shur Foundation Baptist Church. You can find your seats and grab your green or red songbooks. Turn to page number 410. We're going to be singing Faith is the Victory. 🎵Piano music plays🎵 🎵Piano music continues🎵 Song 410, Faith is the Victory. Let's sing it together on the first. 🎵In camp, along the hills of light🎵 🎵Ye Christian soldiers rise🎵 🎵And press the battle air🎵 🎵The night shall veil the glowing skies🎵 🎵Against the foe, in veils below🎵 🎵Let all our strength be hurled🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory we know🎵 🎵That overcomes the world🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Oh glorious Victory🎵 🎵That overcomes the world🎵 🎵His banner over us🎵 🎵His love, our sword, the word of God🎵 🎵We tread the road, the saints above🎵 🎵With shouts of triumph trod🎵 🎵By faith they like a whirlwind's breast🎵 🎵Swept on o'er every field🎵 🎵The faith by which they conquered death🎵 🎵Is still our shining shield🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Oh glorious Victory🎵 🎵That overcomes the world🎵 🎵On every hand the foe we find🎵 🎵Drawn up in dread array🎵 🎵Let tents of ease be left behind🎵 🎵And onward to the fray🎵 🎵Salvation's helmet on each head🎵 🎵With truth all gird about🎵 🎵The earth shall tremble neath our tread🎵 🎵And echo with our shout🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Oh glorious Victory🎵 🎵That overcomes the world🎵 🎵On the last to Him🎵 🎵That overcomes the foe🎵 🎵White raiment shall begin🎵 🎵Before the angels he shall know🎵 🎵His name confessed in head🎵 🎵Then onward from the hills of light🎵 🎵Our hearts with love aflame🎵 🎵Will vanquish all the hosts of night🎵 🎵In Jesus conquering name🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Faith is the Victory🎵 🎵Oh glorious Victory🎵 🎵That overcomes the world🎵 Amen. Good to see you, Brother Brandon. Could you open up the Word of Prayer? Amen. For our second, we're going to be doing favorites. So we have a favorite in the green and the red hymn book. And, perchance, you might get picked. Let's see. Zoe. Twenty. When I See the Blood. Song 20, When I See the Blood, on the first. 🎵Christ our Redeemer🎵 🎵Died on the cross🎵 🎵Died for the sinner🎵 🎵Paid all his due🎵 🎵All who receive him need never fear🎵 🎵Yes, he will pass, will pass over you🎵 🎵When I see the blood🎵 🎵When I see the blood🎵 🎵When I see the blood🎵 🎵I will pass, I will pass over you🎵 Who else we got? Little Zacchaeus? Jesus Loves Me. It's in this one, huh? 187. I think you guys got it memorized. Oh, mate. 187. Hold on. Hold on. Alright. It's a hard song. Song 187 on the first. 🎵Jesus loves me, this I know🎵 🎵For the Bible tells me so🎵 🎵Little ones to him belong🎵 🎵They are weak but he is strong🎵 🎵Yes, Jesus loves me🎵 🎵Yes, Jesus loves me🎵 🎵Yes, Jesus loves me🎵 🎵The Bible tells me so🎵 Missed Bobby? 188. The Love of God? Song 188 on the first. 🎵The love of God is greater far🎵 🎵Than tongue or pen can ever tell🎵 🎵It goes beyond the highest star🎵 🎵And reaches to the lowest hell🎵 🎵The guilty pair bowed down with care🎵 🎵God gave his son to win🎵 🎵His erring child he reconciled🎵 🎵And pardoned from his sin🎵 🎵The love of God, how rich and pure🎵 🎵How measureless and strong🎵 🎵It shall forevermore endure🎵 🎵The saints and angels song🎵 Miss Sheila? 363. 363? Wonderful words applied. Song 363 on the first. 🎵Sing them over again to me🎵 🎵Wonderful words of life🎵 🎵Let me more of their beauty see🎵 🎵Wonderful words of life🎵 🎵Words of life and beauty🎵 🎵Teach me faith and duty🎵 🎵Beautiful words, wonderful words🎵 🎵Wonderful words of life🎵 🎵Beautiful words, wonderful words🎵 🎵Wonderful words of life🎵 Miss Jessica? 216. Shirley Goodness and Mercy? Song 216. Song 216, sing it together on the first. 🎵A pilgrim was I and a wandering🎵 🎵In the cold night of sin I did roam🎵 🎵When Jesus the kind shepherd found me🎵 🎵And now I am on my way home🎵 🎵Shirley Goodness and Mercy shall follow me🎵 🎵All the days, all the days of my life🎵 🎵Shirley Goodness and Mercy shall follow me🎵 🎵All the days, all the days of my life🎵 🎵And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever🎵 🎵And I shall feast at the table spread for me🎵 🎵Shirley Goodness and Mercy shall follow me🎵 🎵All the days, all the days of my life🎵 🎵All the days, all the days of my life🎵 Miss Kayla? 220. Jesus is all the world to me. Sorry, the work phone's a buzzin'. Song 220, Jesus is all the world to me. Sing it on the first. 🎵Jesus is all the world to me🎵 🎵My life, my joy, my all🎵 🎵He is my strength from day to day🎵 🎵Without Him I would fall🎵 🎵When I am sad, to Him I go🎵 🎵No other one can cheer me so🎵 🎵When I am sad, He makes me glad🎵 🎵He's my friend🎵 Brandon. 389. Song 389, bring the man on the first. 🎵Heart is the shepherd's voice I hear🎵 🎵Out in the desert, dark and drear🎵 🎵Calling the sheep who've gone astray🎵 🎵Far from the shepherd's fold away🎵 🎵Bring them in, bring them in🎵 🎵Bring them in from the fields of sin🎵 🎵Bring them in, bring them in🎵 🎵Bring the wandering ones to Jesus🎵 This is my father's world on the second. 🎵This is my father's world🎵 🎵The birds their carols raise🎵 🎵The morning light, the lily white🎵 🎵Declare their maker's praise🎵 🎵This is my father's world🎵 🎵He shines in all that's fair🎵 🎵In the rustling grass I hear him pass🎵 🎵He speaks to me everywhere🎵 Who'd I pick last from this little group right here? Jack. 100 on the second. Day by day. Song 100, day by day. On the second. Sing it together on the second. 🎵Every day the Lord himself is near me🎵 🎵With a special mercy for each hour🎵 🎵All my cares he feigned would bear and cheer me🎵 🎵He whose name is counselor and power🎵 🎵The protection of his child and treasure🎵 🎵Is a charge that on himself he laid🎵 🎵As thy days, thy strength shall be in measure🎵 🎵This the pledge to me made🎵 Mom. 112. We got maybe two more after this. 112. 112. Be still my soul, 112. Sing it together on the first. 🎵Be still my soul🎵 🎵The Lord is on thy side🎵 🎵Bear patiently the cross of grief for pain🎵 🎵Leave to thy God to order and provide🎵 🎵In every change he faithful will remain🎵 🎵Be still my soul🎵 🎵Thy best, thy heavenly friend🎵 🎵Through thorny ways🎵 🎵Leads to a joyful end🎵 What do we got? Rebecca. Number two. Number two. One more after this. 🎵Glory to his name🎵 Song number two on the first. 🎵Down at the cross where my Savior died🎵 🎵Down where from cleansing from sin I cried🎵 🎵There to my heart was the blood applied🎵 🎵Glory to his name🎵 🎵Glory to his name🎵 🎵Glory to his name🎵 🎵There to my heart was the blood applied🎵 🎵Glory to his name🎵 🎵Glory to his name🎵 Kathleen. 81. 81. 81 when we see Christ. Maybe we'll have one more after this. I think we got time, okay? 81 when we see Christ. Sing it on the first. 🎵Of times the day seems long🎵 🎵Our trials hard to bear🎵 🎵We're tempted to complain🎵 🎵To murmur and despair🎵 🎵But Christ will soon appear🎵 🎵To catch his bride away🎵 🎵All tears forever over🎵 🎵In God's eternal name🎵 🎵It will be worth it all🎵 🎵When we see Jesus🎵 🎵Lies, trials will seem so small🎵 🎵When we see Christ🎵 🎵One glimpse of his dear face🎵 🎵All sorrow will erase🎵 🎵So bravely run the race🎵 🎵Till we see Christ🎵 The last. Eli. I'll pick Eli. 187. Oh, Eli, you're fired. That's already been sung. No, we can sing it again. Song 187. On the second. Jesus Loves Me 2.0. Let's sing it together on the second. 🎵Jesus loves me this I know🎵 🎵Heaven's gates to open wide🎵 🎵He will wash away my sin🎵 🎵Let his little child come in🎵 🎵Yes, Jesus loves me🎵 🎵Yes, Jesus loves me🎵 🎵Yes, Jesus loves me🎵 🎵The Bible tells me so🎵 Alright, welcome back to the second service. Let's take our bulletins and go through the announcements again really quickly. And, was anybody not here or didn't get a bulletin in the last service besides the kid raising his hand? Anybody? Alright. Our verse of the week is, Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Colossians 2.8. And our service time is 10.30 a.m. Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service, 3.30 p.m. We're in Joshua 13. We're going to finish off the chapter. Tonight there was 33 verses in it, so I didn't get all the way through it. And then Thursday Bible study is 6.30 p.m. And we are in 1 Chronicles chapter 23 this week. And the so many times are listed below. We had so many today. We got skunked in our side, but did you guys get anybody? Alright, but you got two, right? Alright, anybody else get anybody? Alright, well we had two salvations out there today, so praise the Lord for that. And we're just talking about new soul winners going out. Brother Dave, we got to see a couple of people get saved. And they were from Crossroads Church, too. So that's double bonus points in heaven. I think that it was like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's double bonus rewards there. So good job. Alright, let's see. The stats so far for the year and the months and all that are down below. The so many times. And the sixth year anniversary for Spokane is this Friday. I'll be preaching there. 6.30, soul winning. It's going to be Saturday, weather dependent. I haven't even looked at the weather, so it could either be a soul winning marathon or it could be just a few hour soul winning time. And then Sunday we're going to have Remi is going to be preaching there. So I'll be back here for Sunday to preach. And there will be a soul winning marathon at the end of this month. And then we have the men's preaching night, the 30th. And if you've never preached at the men's preaching night before and you want to try preaching for the first time, that would be a good time to start. We do it once a quarter. And so it would be a good time to start. And if you're still just learning, then that's the perfect time. So we won't all laugh at you. We might laugh, but we won't laugh at you. But yeah, it's a good time to just kind of cut your teeth. And you're like, well, I've never preached before. Well, that's why we have men's preaching night so people can learn how to preach. So anyway, that's coming up. And then the Lord's Supper at the 3.30 p.m. service. We only do the Lord's Supper once a year, so it's something to prepare for. And I'll be preaching a sermon about it fairly soon. And I do that every year, kind of explain why we do it once a year, what we believe about it, and so on and so forth. So that will be a special service at 3.30 p.m. on April 13th. And that will be a week before Easter. We're going to do the mega marathon on the 19th. We're going to have Easter Sunday on the 20th. And then the second anniversary of SFBC Seattle. That will be 7 o'clock on a Friday night. Pastor Anderson will be preaching at the church building. Then we'll do Sony Marathon on Saturday. And then we'll do regular services on Sunday. So our times there are a little bit different. Our Sunday morning is 11 a.m. there and then 4 p.m. in the afternoon. But we do have the building all day on Sunday there now, so that's always nice. And we do have Wednesday services there at 6.30 p.m. So that's our normal service. And the King James Conference is coming up. We'll have a meeting about that fairly soon. We're going to have that song leaving class two Sundays from now. Not this next Sunday, but the Sunday after that. And that will be after church. And then we'll have Kayla's bridal showers coming up. She's registered at Target. That will be the 31st of May. Chicago's Sony Marathon is going to be the weekend of the 28th. And we're going to be kind of stationed in Cicero. So anyway, that's all I have for announcements. Let's go ahead and sing another song. And we'll receive the offering. All right. Our next song will be song number 266, Honey in the Rock, song 266. Song 266, Honey in the Rock. Let's sing it together on the first. Oh, my brother, do you know the Savior Who is wondrous, kind and true He's the rock of your salvation There's honey in the rock for you Oh, there's honey in the rock, my brother There's honey in the rock for you Leave your sins for the blood to cover There's honey in the rock for you Have you tasted that the Lord is gracious Do you walk in the way that's new Have you drunk from the living fountain There's honey in the rock for you Oh, there's honey in the rock, my brother There's honey in the rock for you Leave your sins for the blood to cover There's honey in the rock for you Do you pray unto God the Father What wilt thou have me to do Never fear, He will surely answer There's honey in the rock for you Oh, there's honey in the rock, my brother There's honey in the rock for you Leave your sins for the blood to cover There's honey in the rock for you Then go out through the streets and byways Preach the word to the many or few Say to every fallen brother There's honey in the rock for you Oh, there's honey in the rock, my brother There's honey in the rock for you Leave your sins for the blood to cover There's honey in the rock for you Amen. Good scene. Brother Sean, would you bless the offering for us? Lord, thank you so much for this wonderful day, Lord. Thank you for the souls that have saved us on today. I pray that you would just encourage them to get into a good church, Lord. I pray for the DeHaas family, that you would give them travelers' mercies when they go down to Texas, Lord. I pray that you bless this offering, Lord. That you bless both the gift and the giver. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. All right, go ahead and open your Bibles to Joshua chapter 13. Joshua chapter number 13, if you don't have a Bible, there should be one underneath the seat in front of you. Joshua chapter 13. Joshua 13, the Bible reads, Now Joshua was old and stricken in years, and the Lord said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. This is the land that yet remaineth. All the borders of the Philistines and all Geshuri, from Sihor, which is before Egypt, even under the borders of Ekron northward, which is counted for the Canaanite, five lords of the Philistines, the Gazathites and the Ashtathites, the Eschalinites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites, also the Avites. From the south, all the land of the Canaanites and Merah, that is beside the Sidonians, unto Aphek, to the borders of the Amorites, and the land of the Giblites, and all Lebanon, toward the sun rising from Belgad, under Mount Hermon, unto the entering into Hamath. All the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon, unto Mesrith, Bothmaim, and all the Sidonians, them will I drive out from before the children of Israel. Only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee. Now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, with whom the Reubenite and the Gadites have received their inheritance, which Moses gave them, beyond Jordan eastward, even as Moses the servant of the Lord gave them, from Aror, that is upon the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the midst of the river, and all the plain of Mediba unto Dibon, and all the cities of Sion, king of the Amorites, which reigned in Heshbon unto the border of the children of Ammon, and Gilead, and the border of the Gesherites, and the Magathites, and all Mount Hermon, and all Bashan unto Salcha, all the kingdom of Og and Bashan, which reigned in Ashtaroth and in Edri, who remained of the remnant of the giants, for these did Moses smite and cast them out. Nevertheless the children of Israel expelled not the Gesherites, nor the Magathites, but the Gesherites and the Magathites, dwell among the Israelites unto this day. Only unto the tribe of Levi he gave none inheritance. The sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance, as he said unto them. And Moses gave unto the tribe of the children of Reuben inheritance according to their families. And their coast was from Aror, that is on the bank of the river Arnon, and the city that is in the midst of the river, and all the plain by Medeabah, Heshbon, and all her cities that are in the plain, Dibon, and Bamath-baal, and Beth-maal-meon, and Jehazah, and Kedemoth, and Mesphath, and Kirjatthim, and Sibmah, and Zerath-shayar, in the mount of the valley, and Beth-poer, and Hashthoth-pizgah, and Beth-jeshemoth, and all the cities of the plain, and all the kingdom of Sion, king of the Amorites, which reigned, and Heshbon, who Moses smote with the princes of Midian, Evi, and Rekhem, and Zer, and Hur, and Reba, which were dukes of Sion, dwelling in the country. Balaam, also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them. And the border of the children of Reuben was Jordan, and the border thereof. This was the inheritance of the children of Reuben after their families. The cities and the villages thereof. And Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad, according to their families. And their coast was Jezer, and all the cities of Gilead, and half the land of the children of Ammon, unto Oror, that is before Reba, and from Heshbon unto Ramath-mezpeh, and Metonim, and from Mahaniam unto the border of Deborah, and in the valley of Betharim, and Beth-nimrah, and Sukkoth, and Zaphon, the rest of the kingdom of Sion, king of Heshbon, Jordan and his border, even under the edge of the Sea of Chenareth, on the other side of Jordan eastward. This is the inheritance of the children of Gad after their families, the cities, and their villages. And Moses gave inheritance unto the half-tribe of Manasseh, and this was the possession of the half-tribe of the children of Manasseh by their families. And their coast was from Mahaniam, all Bashan, and all the kingdom of Og, king of Bashan, and all the towns of Jeor, which are in Bashan, three score cities, and half Gilead, and Asheroth, and Edri, cities of the kingdom of Og, and Bashan, were pertaining unto the children of Machir, the son of Manasseh, even to the one half of the children of Machir by their families. These are the countries which Moses did distribute for an inheritance in the plains of Moab, on the other side of Jordan by Jericho eastward. But unto the tribe of Levi, Moses gave not any inheritance. The Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them. Brother Timo, will you pray for us? And we're in Joshua chapter 13, and I only got to verse 12 last time, so we're gonna cover 13 till the end of the chapter there. And last week I preached a couple points, and one of my points was life goes quickly, so serve the Lord while you're able. And young, and able, young and able, because sometimes you can be young and still not able to do something, because you never know what's gonna happen in your life. You could have something happen where you're injured or crippled in some manner or form, or you're not able to do the things that you used to be able to do. And my second point was that there's still plenty of land that remains to be conquered. And my point about that was that there's always gonna be something left to do. And I kind of was applying that to our city, the land that we kind of go out to. I mean, we've covered a lot of Vancouver, but in here, in this passage, there's always these strongholds that are left over, these nations left over. And I talked about Geshur and Makkah, those areas that are just, they're strongholds, the Jebusites. You know, they came in and burned the Jebusite city down and killed all the people, you know, wiped out Jerusalem, but then they just moved right back in, and then they were there, you know, and they built up their stronghold again, and then David had to come and take it back over again later on in his kingdom. So, and I kind of just apply that to, there's a lot of areas that are kind of tough to get here in this area, too. Like those apartment, was it hard to get into that apartment complex today? Or was it, you guys just walked in? But some of those, I mean, it's gated. Sometimes you have to, you know, you have to face these apartment complexes that are gated communities and so on. So, but my point tonight when we get into chapter 13 is that, you know, we shouldn't give up on hard cases. Sometimes hard cases, you know, are different things in our Christian life, and that could be a lot of different things, but before I get into that, I just want to look at verse number 13. The Bible says, Nevertheless, the children of Israel expelled not the Geshurites, nor the Maccathites, but the Geshurites and the Maccathites dwell among the Israelites unto this day. And so, just like Joshua and the children of Israel didn't give up in trying to conquer and drive out those nations that were hard to get out, they didn't give up doing it. They just, you know, at a certain point, I think, though, they kind of just put them under tribute and gave them, you know, pay to kind of stay in the area because they just couldn't really quite get them out. But that kind of happens in our lives, too, when we're dealing with maybe family members and friends. They don't want to hear it from us anymore. And instead of just beating our head against the wall and just continuing to bash them with the gospel, you know, we're not really helping at that point. We're kind of done, and so I think it's just bad to just continue to do that with people in our lives. Instead, they know that you're ready to give them the gospel at a moment's notice. They know because you've already done it so many times, probably, and we love them, and that's why we do that. And they don't fully understand, probably, or they just don't get the gravity of the situation, but we should still be there for them when they're ready. And so, the hard case is we shouldn't give up on them. Obviously, if they're reprobate, that is a different story. But if they're not clearly a reprobate, sometimes I think we reprobate people a little too quickly in our lives, and we're like, oh yeah, they just didn't want to believe the gospel, so they're a reprobate. But if they're like some full-blown queer, yeah, they're, you know, quit trying, all right? They're not gonna come around any time, ever. So, you know, but people would say, you know, different churches would say different things about that, but the Bible's very clear about that topic, which I'm not preaching about that. I'm talking about just normal, run-of-the-mill sinners that just, you know, for whatever reason, they just don't get it. They could be reprobates, who knows? But you shouldn't give up on someone until you really know that's the actual case, because people can be pretty sinful, pretty wicked, and still just, you know, just be not, you know, just a hard case, like I'm saying here. So we shouldn't give up on the hard cases, because sometimes, I mean, Miss Dixie, how old were you when you got saved? 54, 55 years old? I mean, do you think that's a hard case? How often do you get 55-year-old ladies saved? Not very often. So I would say that she probably was a hard case. You know, I'm sure that you got the gospel at certain times in your life, or at least had some sort of influence in your life, but it took all those years before she finally got saved. And my, I don't know, oh, yeah, my wife's grandma was 60, 72. So she's correcting me. She's doing sign language. She's speaking in tongues back there. No, I'm just kidding. But no, 72. And she had this Ouija board under her bed that she kept for years, for years. And I, when she, I started preaching to her that she should get rid of it and throw it out, and she did. But, and my wife said that she couldn't believe that I talked, nobody was even allowed to touch it. She guarded it like it was some sacred thing to her or whatever, because she was into all that stuff. But I just preached Leviticus, or Deuteronomy chapter 18 to her, and she was cured. I worked on her for a little bit. But sometimes you can just matter of factly say what the word of God says, and when someone's already saved, they're gonna get it. And she just got rid of it. But 72, I mean, we do get people saved that are older, but they are the hard cases, aren't they? Because usually people get saved young, as opposed to older. When you get older, you're more set in your ways. You've already probably been given the gospel message or had a lot of, you know, you've just been exposed to more things and had a lot more chances. And chances are, when you get pretty old, that you're not gonna get saved. But, you know, that's the hard case I'm talking about. So, and we shouldn't give out or give up on hard to reach lands either. I'm not saying we should go to the hardest places in the world. We shouldn't go to North Korea before we go to the Caribbean, obviously. But, you know, we shouldn't completely give up on every place in the world. You know, obviously we wanna go to the poorest places and the best, most receptive places that we can. But, you know, we live in this place, where we live now, but we still get people saved every single week here. So, to say it's not receptive, that's just depending on what you consider receptive. Not receptive is not being able to, not getting anybody saved hardly ever. That's not receptive. I wouldn't say we're super receptive, but I would say that we get, if we get people saved multiple times a week, then I would consider that to be somewhat receptive. I mean, it's still somewhat receptive. I just think that sometimes we get spoiled when we go on some of these mission trips or we've gone on some of these places that are actually really receptive, and then we get, we turn into little soul winning brats. You know? Like, ew, this is not receptive here anymore, mommy! You know, it's just like, fall down on the ground and throw a little fit about it. I haven't opened my Bible in two weeks! You know? We shouldn't be that way, you know? But, you know, whether we're, you know, fighting the top tier Karen boss at the apartment complex, or, you know, it's the gated community, or it's some housing, you know, demonic tenant, or a false prophet at the door, or it could be Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses out. We face different types of battles in different neighborhoods and things like that, and I know I brought that up, but there are hard cases out there to be won. And Joshua, God said to still get him out. He said to still fight against them. And, you know, it could be, like I said, that stubborn family member or that stubborn friend, but don't give up on the hard case. You know, wait. You know, you don't have to just keep battering them, again, with the gospel, but, you know, when they're ready to come to you, and they're ready to have questions for you, they will come to you. And maybe they're gonna just get saved by somebody else, so you don't wanna, you know, you don't wanna get them to the point where they're completely turned off to the gospel because you wouldn't leave them alone. You wouldn't quit cramming it down their throats. So, leave the ball in their court and pray for them, and maybe somebody else will get them saved. When Brother Stuckey, who is Pastor Stuckey now, was living in Pennsylvania before he moved to Verity Baptist Church, because me and him went to Verity Baptist Church for the first time at the same time. We both were there the same exact time, and he was just going to see whether that's a place that he should move to, and he did end up moving there, and then he ended up being, you know, working for Pastor Jimenez, becoming an evangelist, and then now he's the pastor of the church over in the Philippines, and he's got all kinds of churches started there, and he's just doing a great work over there. But, before he left there, and I didn't realize how much of a grind I was putting him through, but before he moved there, I asked him if he would go to my sister's house and give my brother-in-law and my nephews and niece the gospel before he went, and I was just thinking, oh, it's Pennsylvania, what's the big deal? You know, it's a couple hours or whatever, but it's, you know, East Coast traffic is a little bit different than West Coast traffic, apparently, and so it was probably a little grueling trip. I don't think he made no big deal of it, but, you know, it was kind of a big deal to ask him to do that, but he did, he went to my sister's house, and she was already saved, but he would not receive the gospel from me. I'd tried to preach the gospel to him before, and he just didn't want to hear it. He was Catholic, he's Italian, you know, it was like, he just wanted to stay with that Catholic religion, and it's kind of an Italian, you know, Italians don't want to leave that Catholic religion. So, he didn't want to hear it from me, so he heard it from Brother Stuckey, and he asked Brother Stuckey these questions, you know, he actually asked the Pygmies in Africa question, for real, and my nephew also was kind of asking him the same types of questions, and they didn't get saved, and I was like, well, you know, thank you so much for going, but the seeds that he planted, they ended, he did end up getting saved. They did end up going to a Baptist church, and they're still going to church today, still going strong. My niece and my nephews are still going to church today, and, you know, so I'm really thankful for the fact that he went to someone that was a hard case in my family, and now my brother-in-law is saved, and my nephews and niece are saved now because of something that a selfless man did for me, and all he did is, you know, I asked him a hard thing, but he did it, but sometimes, my point is that sometimes it takes somebody else to get that relative or family member saved, and if you have somebody, you know, we have lots of people that are very thoughtful in our group of churches, and if you have a family member that's near one of them, they probably would do the same thing for you if you would just ask. So sometimes we want to be the one because we know the gospel, we know what we can do or whatever, but sometimes they just flat out won't hear it from you, and we have to understand that that's a principle taught in the Bible by Jesus himself. Let's look at Mark chapter six, verse one, Mark chapter six, verse one. Now Jesus, he was reproved by his own family members and by people in the community, and even though he was perfect, literally, and I say that, a lot of people use the word literally, and they're literally not using it right, but Jesus literally was perfect, like in every way, never sinned, and when his mom told him to make his bed, he did make his bed. When his mom told him to clean up his room, he did clean up his room every time, spotless. He didn't say, yeah, mom, my room's clean, and then it wasn't. He did everything his parents told him to do. He kept the law perfectly. Look what it says in Mark six, one, though, it says, and he went out from thence and came into his own country, and his disciples follow him, so he's going back to his own country where he's from, and it says, and when the Sabbath days, when the Sabbath, excuse me, when the Sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many hearing him were astonished, saying, from whence hath this man these things, and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands? Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James and Joses and Judah and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him. So why are they offended? Because they know him. He's from the same area. They're like, don't we know his family? Like, we know who this guy is. How is he so great and powerful or whatever? He's just one of the boys from around the same neighborhood or whatever, but what does Jesus say? He said, but Jesus said unto them, a prophet is not without honor but in his own country and among his own kin. What does that mean? His own family members, right? And in his own house. In his own house. So a lot of times, if you try to preach the gospel to your own family members or your own house, it says that a prophet is not without honor but in his own country and among his own kin. So what is it saying? Well, we're not gonna be as effective as somebody else is gonna be with our own family members. Now, I'm not saying we can't get them saved, and it does happen, but sometimes they're just not gonna listen to us. And when it came, I mean, if the son of God can't break through to his own family members, if the son of God can't break through to his own countrymen, the people from his own neighborhood, then why would we think that we're gonna do better than him? I mean, if they're already turned off by what you're saying, they're offended at him, they're gonna be offended at you because they know you, and you're not perfect. They know the mistakes you've made, and so they're even more offended by the things that, you know, how dare you come up to me, son, and tell me that I'm a sinner. I've seen what you've done, you're my son. You know, it's just like, it's a little bit different. You know, and so your parents are gonna wanna hear you're a sinner, mom and dad, and you're gonna go to hell unless you believe the gospel that I'm preaching to you. It is gonna offend them. It's gonna offend your children, it's gonna offend people that are not saved in your family or in your neighborhood that know you and know where you're from. And it says he could there do no mighty work save that he laid his hands on a few sick folk and healed them, and he marveled because of their unbelief, and he went round about the villages teaching. So he couldn't do great works there because they had unbelief. They didn't believe him. They didn't believe the son of God. Now this happened to Jesus also in Luke where he goes and stands in the synagogue and he says these scriptures today are fulfilled in your ears. And what did they do then? Well, they tried to throw him off a cliff and kill him. I mean, and he says basically the same thing. He says, verily I say unto you, no prophet is accepted in his own country. I mean, they tried to murder him. They were so mad because he starts preaching about the Gentiles getting saved and they didn't like that. They were kind of racist. Now turn to 2 Chronicles 11. So in this story there's the countries that are talked about. I kind of talked about them a little bit last week. But Geshur and Makkah are two nations that are in the area that we were talking about up above the Sea of Galilee or Knesset or whatever you want to call it. But the Geshurites lived and David married the king of Geshur's daughter and her name was Makkah and she bare Absalom to him. And remember Absalom was like from head to toe, no blemish in him. He was like Fabio or whatever, if you know who that is. And had the long hair to boot, right? So he was on the cover of all the romance novels in Jerusalem or whatever. He was like just perfect in every way. And so his mom was this Geshurite woman and she was named after the country that was up above. So they're kind of like twin countries that kind of seem to have a lot of influence on each other. But obviously Absalom gets killed but he has children himself. Now in 2 Chronicles 11, so Reboam is King Solomon's son. So David's son Solomon kind of goes bad at the end of his life and he does evil in the sight of the Lord. He's a great king, he's obviously saved, but his wives turn his heart away. And so it says, And Reboam took him Mahalath, the daughter of Jeramoth, the son of David the wife, and Abbahel, the daughter of Eliab, the son of Jesse, which bare him children, Jeush, and Shemariah, and Zaham, and after her he took Makah, the daughter of Absalom, which bare him Abijah. So Abijah becomes king after Reboam. He took Makah, the daughter of Absalom, so that's David's son's daughter. And it says, And Ittai, and Zizah, and Shelamath. And Reboam loved Makah, the daughter of Absalom, above all his wives and concubines. So she's now his favorite. Same name as, because Makah is the name of Absalom's mother, but now he has a daughter and names her the same name. Her name is the same name as his mom's name, which is kind of weird, right? But anyway, so Abijah marries that woman, named Makah, and it says, And Reboam loved Makah, the daughter of Absalom, above all his wives and concubines, for he took eighteen wives and threescore concubines. Seems like he's kind of got a problem loving a lot of wives, too. And it says, And begat twenty and eight sons and threescore daughters. So he had twenty-eight sons, sixty daughters, with all these wives, right? And all these concubines. And Reboam made Abijah, the son of Makah, the chief, to be the ruler among his brethren, for he thought to make him king. So, this Gesherite woman, who marries into the royal family, basically, and then they keep naming these women that are born of them after that same country, not the Gesherite country, but the actual country called Makah, which is kind of just strange, right? So, because that country rebelled against David, and the Syrians, I mean, if you don't remember that, that's fine, but the Syrians kind of hired them a thousand guys to go fight against David with the Ammonites. That's my Thursday night sermons, so it's kind of blending together a little bit here. But, it says, And Reboam made Abijah the son of Makah, the chief ruler, like I said, and then it says, And he dealt wisely and dispersed all his children throughout the countries of Judah and Benjamin unto every fenced city, and he gave them victual in abundance and desired many wives. He desired many wives. So, Abijah's kind of a complicated character because in 2 Chronicles, it kind of makes it seem like Abijah is a good king, and he does do some good things, but in 1 Kings, he's not looked upon as a favorable character. So, it's like, it's kind of interesting because, you know, Manasseh, King Manasseh, who's the son of Josiah, he does all these evil things, and the Bible says he did evil in the name, in the sight of the Lord above all the kings that were before him, but you wouldn't even know he got saved unless you read 2 Chronicles chapter 33, where it says all the same stuff about him, but then in his old age, he does get saved and fears the God of the Bible. So, the thing about 2 Chronicles is that 2 Chronicles is going to tell you the most positive things about those kings of Judah. So, Abijah did have some positive things about him, but what's my point in saying this? That the hard cases that stayed in the land at that time, there was a purpose for them staying in the land, and later on down the line, those wives ended up marrying into the royal family and produced good kings. Now, Abijah, again, is kind of a complicated character because he does win a great battle by calling upon the name of Jehovah, and so he only reigns for 18 years, but his son, his son is Asa. You guys ever heard of Asa before? Asa was a great king, and so Asa comes from that line of David and this Geshurite king, their daughters. So, from those stubborn to get out people, something great does come from it. Great kings come from that line, and one of those great kings is Asa, and Asa's so great that his mother, called by the same name, Makah, however you want to pronounce it, how do you pronounce it, brother Eli, where are you? Makah. Makah, yeah, I'm close. I just didn't put the emphasis in there, but yeah, it's like the parrot or whatever. Anyway, so, I forgot what I was saying now. Dang it, I interrupted myself. I interrupted myself. I interrupted my own thought. But yeah, so Asa, what he did is his mother was named Makah, right? And when he was king, he denounced her as queen, if you remember the story, because she built a grove and was worshiping idols, and he was such a great king, he denounced that mother who was actually from that Geshurite family. So, I mean, great things, though, still came from that line, from that Geshurite king that made peace with David. And I can't imagine that David would have married someone that was not saved. So, I feel like in the land when David kind of took over, the ones that made peace with him, they probably converted to believing in God, because David was great friends with some of these people. And I can't imagine that he would just be great friends with people that hated God and served idols. I'm sure that some of those people were saved. I'm sure that that king of Geshur was probably saved as well. So, and you're like, well, what does this have to do with the story? Well, sometimes these hard cases just come along, and then you don't really see how it affects later on that they get saved or that they do some great thing. But really, we should have patience with people and not just destroy those relationships so that they never want to hear about God again, because great things can come from them later on in life. And so look at Acts 9, look at Acts chapter 9, because everybody would have gave up on this guy in Acts 9, a guy named Saul of Tarsus. Saul of Tarsus was persecuting people and hailing them and knocking on doors and kicking doors down and cracking heads, and he has a meeting with Jesus Christ that changes his whole life. Do you think he was a hard case? He absolutely was a hard case, and it actually took Jesus to convert him. It wasn't like all these people he's hailing to prison converted him, but I do think that the effect of those things did have an effect, and Jesus just kind of came in and kind of gave him the push that he finally needed, because the fact is that Jesus did say that he's kicking against the pricks. The Spirit of God is pricking against his conscience and trying to get him to do what's right and get saved. Look at Acts 9 and 3, it says, As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven, and he fell to the earth and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what will thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. So, again, the hard cases and tough areas can produce some of the results that you don't really see coming. You don't really see it happening. You're like, well, how did that person get saved? It's like, it's God. It's God just bringing forth something that we just don't see it coming. We don't see that person getting saved later. It's like, yeah, where a lot of people would give up on Saul, God didn't give up on him. And so we shouldn't give up on him either. And we should just expect that God's gonna get these hard cases saved in some instances. But, again, I'm not talking about reprobates, okay? So, but people get saved in all types of situations, all types of places, and all that. So, now let's move on to point number two. Point number two, and this is kind of, you know, a definite 180 from what we're talking about now. Point number two is, Balaam was 100% for sure a false prophet. 100% for sure a false prophet, and you're like, well, where's Balaam in this story? Well, let's look at verse number 20, and we'll skip some verses here, and look at verse number 20. And it says, because it's saying where Moses gave the tribes of the children of Reuben, in verse 15, according to their families, in verse 20, And Beth Peor, and Ashdoth Pisgah, and Beth Jeshemoth, So, if you remember, Balaam is looking down from these mountains and trying to curse the children of Israel, and he goes, hey, go to this mountain and curse them from here. Balaam is hired by the Moabites and the Midianites to curse the children of Israel before they go into the land. Look at verse 21, it says, And all the cities of the plain, all the kingdom of Sihon, king of the Amorites, which reigned in Heshbon, whom Moses with the princes of Midian, Evi, and Rechum, and Zor, and Hor, and Reba, which were dukes of Sihon dwelling in the country, Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer. So, the Bible calls him the soothsayer. Now, I will admit, though, that Balaam is a very confusing character in the Bible, and I've actually gone back and forth of whether I thought he was actually saved, or something, I don't know. When I first read the Bible, the first time I ever read about Balaam, I remember being very confused as to whether he was saved or not, because of the fact that God actually, you know, he speaks to him. He actually, and he prophesies out of his mouth true things of God. And so you're thinking, well, how is it that this guy's a false prophet, and he's saying the true things of God? He actually makes the prediction about, the only prediction about the star when it's concerning Bethlehem, he predicts it. It's actually Balaam that actually says that. But here's the thing, in the Old Testament, sometimes God did use people that weren't saved to preach his word and to prophesy things. So, which sounds strange, you know, but that is the truth. I mean, he used unsaved people sometimes to preach. He used a donkey to preach to Balaam. He let an animal speak to him forbading the madness of the prophet, right? So, but, I mean, I've really come to the point where I'm definitely believing that he was 100% a false prophet. And our first clue should really be right here where it says that he was a soothsayer. And it says that he was, it says, Balaam also the son of Beor, the soothsayer, did the children of Israel slay with the sword among them that were slain by them. So, amongst all, you know, Moses is killing all these bad people, and Balaam was one of them. They slew Balaam with the sword. They were like, well, maybe Balaam was just saved, and he just kind of started loving money, and, you know, he just this, this, and that, whatever. I'll tell you what a soothsayer is. A soothsayer is a fortune teller, a prognosticator, one who undertakes to foretell future events without inspiration. God did not actually inspire this person to say these things. And if you've read the Bible before, you'll know that when God doesn't tell them to say something, and they're saying something anyway, that he really hates that. And he calls, they are false prophets, every time. If he didn't tell them to say that, and they're saying it, saying that they're speaking in the name of the Lord, God destroys them. They are false prophets. They are gonna go to hell. So, if he's a soothsayer, and he's saying things, he's predicting the future, and saying this is gonna happen, or that's gonna happen, or if he's preaching things that aren't true, then he is a false prophet, by definition. Because if the things don't come to pass, now, you might say, well, he did say things that came to pass. You're right, he did. But God, instead of letting him curse, he was trying to curse the children of Israel. This was his purpose. He was paid, or being paid, to curse the children of Israel, but God told him, you can't say anything that I'm not gonna let you say. I'm not gonna let you curse. So, when he'd stand up and say what he was gonna say, God was speaking and making him say what he wanted, you know, he was having him say what he wanted him to say. So, it's like he kind of just took Balaam over and just would not let him curse. And whatever he said, that's what he had to say, and that's why he kept telling him, you can pay me all the money you want, you can give me whole houses full of silver and gold, but I can only say what the Lord tells me to say. That's what makes him a confusing character. And I think that a lot of people are confused about him, and that's why I kind of just want to show you what the Bible says about him. It doesn't say Balaam, the son of Beor, a prophet of the Lord, it says the soothsayer, which is not a good thing to say about somebody. A soothsayer, soothsayers are like diviners and sorcerers, and they were considered to be pagans. They were not considered to be prophets of God. Look at Numbers 22, verse seven. Numbers 22, verse seven. So, of course, he's already dead, they're just telling this verse in Joshua to tell us about what Moses has already done. They've already killed him, but he's mentioned in this passage, so I thought it's probably a good time to bring it up. Now, Numbers 22, verse seven says, so they've already called him a soothsayer, the Bible says that he was a soothsayer, right? Look at verse seven in Numbers 22, it says, and the elders of Moab and the elders of Midian departed with the rewards of divination in their hand, and they came unto Balaam and spake unto him the words of Balak. So, divination is seeking knowledge by the occult. So, they have money, and they want Balaam to do something for them, and it's the rewards of divination in their hand. They want him to seek knowledge from the occult. And so, let's look at another verse. Just, I guess, we're gonna come back probably to some other verses that are close to here, but I do want you to go, yeah, we'll go back to Numbers soon, but it's gonna be 24. So, let's just go to Ezekiel. So, divination, what is it? Is there something wrong with divination, and what is it exactly? Well, I'll define it here for you in a second, but let's look at Ezekiel chapter 21, verse 21. Ezekiel 21, verse 21. It says, for the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways to use divination. He made his arrows bright, he consulted with images. So, what is an image? An image, it's like a false god, right? He looked in the liver. What does that mean? Well, he's obviously opened up the liver of some animal or something, and he's looking in the liver to see his future. That's divination. He's looking at stuff to read something in it to read his future. Now, and it says at his right hand was the divination for Jerusalem to appoint captains to open the mouth in the slaughter, to lift up the voice with shouting, to appoint battering rams against the gates to cast a mount and to build a fort. And it shall be unto them as a false divination in their sight to them that have sworn oaths, but he will call to remembrance the iniquity that they may be taken. So, divination is not a positive thing, but they're going to Balaam. Like I showed you in Numbers 20 to 22, that they're going to Balaam to have him do divination for them. He's a soothsayer. He's trying to predict the future. He's a treasure to predict the future. He does divination. And so, what does that mean? Well, you're trying to look at things to divine the future. And so, it says specifically in Ezekiel that he looked in the liver. So, there's all kinds of ways that these wizards and witches will look into things to, have you ever heard of palm reading before? They have palm readers on the side of the road or wherever. And I always curse those places in the name of the Lord and ask that God would destroy them. And a lot of them do get destroyed. I mean, they're just not there anymore. There's one on Mill Point as you drive past towards the freeway that I think finally went out of business. But, I mean, I just always curse the place and hope that God destroys it. But it's wicked. That's why. And so, looking in the liver, reading the bones. You know, I've ever seen where people will throw bones or whatever and they'll look at the bones or whatever. I don't know. Maybe in a movie or something like that. You might have seen something like that. Reading the, have you ever heard the term reading the tea leaves? That is talking about divination. Oh, look at the tea leaves. It's gonna tell you some futuristic thing or something. I don't know. But, palm reading where they look at your, oh, this is your lifeline and this is this or whatever. And then, what was the other thing? Oh, yeah, Ouija boards. I just kind of mentioned that earlier. Stay away from those things. They're, you know, they're just, you don't wanna play around with things that the devil uses to trap people with. So, and then, of course, there's seances where people try to contact, like, spirits. They think that they're reaching out to spirits of their dead relatives, but the spirits, the only spirits you're gonna get ahold of are the demonic spirits that have fallen from heaven that Satan took with him. You can't talk to your dead loved ones. They're all either in hell or they're in heaven. And if they're in either place, you can't contact them. So the only thing you're gonna get is a familiar spirit, which is somebody that has been walking the earth for 6,000 years and probably might have, you know, in that area might have known your aunt or uncle that, you know, might have known what type of ring he wore and then give you some kind of little, oh, he wore this cat, that cat's eye ring is in the, you know, inside the sink or whatever. It went down the sink and he lost it there and they might know some little information like that and that's how they get you hooked in that kind of stuff. And that's why people believe in that stuff because, oh, this familiar spirit, it was the spirit of, you know, my dead uncle Jack or whatever. Sorry, Jack, I couldn't think of anything else. But this is what traps people in this stuff and there are people that, you know, use divination and things like this to hook people into the occult. The occult is something that the Bible says specifically we need to stay far away from. But this is what Balaam was into. He's into divination. He's into doing all these things and now look at Deuteronomy chapter 18. While you're turning there, I'm gonna read Isaiah chapter eight verse 19. Isaiah chapter eight verse 19 says that when they shall say unto you, seek unto them that have familiar spirits and unto wizards that peep and that mutter, should not a people seek unto their God for the living to the dead? So, and Isaiah is talking about people that seek familiar spirits. This is what Saul, why God killed Saul. I mean, Christians should not be messing with this stuff because God, that might be the last straw that God just kills you for. I mean, if you're so wicked as a Christian that you're going to get your palm read someplace, or you're going to, you know, you're playing with a Ouija board or something, you're asking for God to punish you in a very severe, harsh way. Do not play around with it. It's not funny. It's not funny to get scared or whatever. It's not funny at all. God takes it very seriously. You should stay away from it, kids. It's not funny. It's not something funny to scare each other with or anything like that. You wanna get scared? Well, I mean, yeah, you might get so scared that God might kill you. I mean, you think that that's going too far? Well, he killed Saul. He killed the king of Israel. The Bible specifically said that's why he killed Saul. He killed him because the last straw was he went and sought a familiar spirit. He went to a witch, and she did call up Samuel, but she thought she was calling up one of her demons. And she was surprised. She was like, oh, whoa, this is actually Samuel. And then she was like, you lied to me. And he's like, yep, I did. And then he has this conversation with Samuel, and then Samuel says, you're gonna die tomorrow. You and your sons will be with me. So anyway, you're in Deuteronomy chapter 18, verse nine. Look at what the Bible says. It says, when thou art coming to the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone that maketh his son or daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination. So divination is explicitly said that you're not allowed to do that, right? What was Balaam doing? Divination. Why were they coming to Balaam? To do divination. It says, or an observer of times. That's someone that's trying to tell the future, right? Or an enchanter, or a witch. So an enchanter is someone that places spells upon people. That's what a witch does also. And witches, the Bible says that witches are being surely put to death. It says, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits. This is what that witch did with Saul. Or a wizard or a necromancer. A necromancer is someone that tries to reach the dead by talking, but they're actually, again, talking to demons. For all these, for all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord, and because of these abominations, the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee. Thou shall be perfect with the Lord thy God, for these nations which thou shalt possess hearken unto observers of times and unto diviners, but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee to do so. He's not allowing you to do these things. He said the people that you're moving in on their lands, this is what they did. And so why did God allow Balaam to be destroyed? Well, because this is what Balaam was doing. He was someone that was doing divination. Now turn back to Numbers chapter 24, verse one. Numbers chapter 24, verse one. So the story about Balaam is actually pretty long in the Bible, so I obviously don't have time to go through all this stuff with Balaam. You probably know the story pretty well. They hire him. He's supposed to curse the children of Israel, but every time he goes to curse them, he blesses them instead, because God is not gonna let him curse the children of Israel. So the only way he finally ends up, he finally ends up cursing them is by getting them to do something they shouldn't do. He gets them to commit fornication and worship idols. That's how he actually finally gets them in the end, not by actually cursing them with his mouth. So Numbers 24, one says, and when Balaam saw that it pleased the Lord to bless Israel, he went not, as at other times, to seek what? Enchantments. So enchantments are what? Casting, you know, spells, trying to do spells to curse them, but he set his face toward the wilderness. So Balaam saw that it pleased God, the Lord, to bless Israel, so he didn't seek to do the enchantments. So enchantment, again, is sorcery or putting someone under a magic spell. So he was trying to curse them with, what? Enchantments, magic spells, divination. Numbers 31, verse 16, just flip a couple chapters over in your Bible to Numbers 31, chapter 16, the Bible says, Behold, these caused the children of Israel through the counsel of Balaam to commit trespass against the Lord in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the Lord. So God killed 22,000 people in one day because Balaam taught them to commit fornication and to go after idols. So here's the thing, the Old Testament can be unclear about people sometimes, and with Balaam, that is the case. There's other people that might be unclear in the Bible. How about, well, I mean, I just saw somebody asking whether Cain was saved or not. I'm just like, oh, that seems pretty obvious, but then Cain, having the mark placed upon him so nobody would kill him, you're like, well, why would God not want people to kill him? So I mean, I guess that could seem a little bit confusing, but it's very clear in the New Testament that Cain was of that wicked one. He was not saved, and he was a false prophet. But Korah, very clearly unsaved. I mean, if you drop straight into hell, you're not saved. I mean, there's just no doubt about that one, but Esau is another one that people are like, yeah, I don't know, he could be, he couldn't be, and there's debate about that. But the principle of the New Testament shedding light on the Old Testament and making it more clear, that is a principle that we should really inspect when we're saying, well, hey, is this person saved or not saved? Well, the New Testament's gonna tell you and shed light on that subject a lot more. So when it comes to Lot, you wouldn't really be able to tell that Lot was saved unless you looked at the New Testament and it says just Lot vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked. He was vexed because he was just, because he was saved. The Bible specifically says in the New Testament that Lot was saved. And as far as Esau, there's some pretty mixed reviews, okay? So it doesn't really say a lot of great things about Esau. As a matter of fact, it doesn't really say anything great about Esau in the New Testament. So I could see why people would think that he's not saved, but there are some positive things that he did. But again, if you take the principle from the New Testament, I could see again why people would think he wasn't. I don't think the Bible specifically spells it out 100%, but I don't know. People have differing opinions about that. But I don't really care either way, honestly, about that. But one thing I do, I do care whether people believe about Balaam because Balaam is a little bit, he is pretty confusing of a character. I have bounced back and forth with Balaam, and I definitely think 100% that he's a false prophet, though. And why do I think that? Well, let's look at three New Testament passages that make it super clear for us. Let's look at 2 Peter 2. Now, 2 Peter 2 is specifically a passage about judgment against false prophets, okay? That's basically what the whole chapter's about. And so if it's talking about false prophets, it's gonna bring the names up of false prophets within that chapter, okay? So everybody that it's talking about in that chapter is gonna be a false prophet. And also in Jude, when it's talking in a section about false prophets, it's actually kind of a, it's kind of a parallel chapter to 2 Peter 2. So we'll turn to those, well, first we'll turn to 2 Peter 2, verse 15, it says, which have forsaken the right way. So if they've forsaken the right way, which way are they on? They're on the wrong way, aren't they? And are gone astray, following the way of Balaam, the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. So Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness, and that's why he was trying to take that money and curse the children of Israel, but God just would not allow him to. When his donkey was trying to knock him back and forth into the wall and crushing his leg and everything, and Balaam was like, he's literally having a conversation with his jackass, and the jackass is just like smashing him against the wall, smashing his legs, and then he's like, if I had a sword in my hand, I'd kill you right now. I mean, imagine just seeing this conversation taking place, and he's literally talking to a talking ass, a talking donkey, and it's like, I've always been a good ass to you. I've been with you since, you know, I was just a little baby or whatever. It's just like, I'd kill you. And he's like, have I ever done this to you before? No, and why would it be such a weird conversation? Because first of all, he's talking to an animal, and the animal's talking to him, but it just shows he's crazy. He's insane. So God has allowed this man to be driven crazy, but the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil. He loved the wages of unrighteousness. So God has confounded this man's mind. Now look at Jude chapter one, verse 11. So that's a negative message about him, though, isn't it? They've gone astray and followed the way of Balaam. So it's a very negative thing that the New Testament's saying about him. Now Jude 1-11 says, woe unto them, for they're gone in the way of Cain. So it's gonna mention three false prophets in this little tiny verse here. The way of Cain and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward. So again, it's talking about that he loves money. And what do false prophets love? They love that money. They love going on TBN and saying, just touch this little napkin right here and send me $10,000 and I'll triple that money. They're just robbing people of their wages, and this is what false prophets love. This is one of the aspects that they love to do, is rob people of their money. And the way of Cain is what? False works salvation. Let me give you the veggies that I made in my garden. What was he supposed to do? Bring the sacrifice that pictures Christ. So that's two different types of false prophets, and then it says, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah. So Korah, he just tried to usurp the authority of the priesthood and was speaking against Moses. And because he did that, that was the gainsaying of Korah. He was trying to gain and divide the congregation and say everybody's holy, everybody should be the priest, everybody should do the sacrifices. And God destroyed him out of the congregation for that. Three different types of false prophets. So Korah we already know is going to hell. I don't think most people in the world would disagree that Cain is in hell today. But what about Balaam? Well that's two passages in a row where Balaam is talked about in a negative connotation that he's out of the way like Balaam and ran greedily after the error of Balaam. Now let's look at Revelation chapter two, verse number 14. Revelation chapter two, verse number 14. Revelation chapter two, verse 14. The Bible says, and this is Jesus' words here, if you have a red letter edition, it says, but I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam. What does that mean? That means the teaching of Balaam. What did Balaam teach? Well it says, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel? So the children of Israel were being taught by Moses one thing, but he's teaching what? To make them fall, to make them trip. Not literally, he wasn't casting rocks in front of them so they tripped in the middle of the night or something. He's teaching something to trip up their walk with the Lord, to get them to sin. And so it says, a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed unto idols and to commit fornication. So idolatry and fornication. And then therefore making God have to judge them for the things that they've done. God really hates idolatry and he was mad enough to kill 22,000 in one day for committing fornication. So he couldn't curse them, so he's like, well let's just have God destroy them instead. So Jesus said that there was those in the church that were teaching the doctrine of Balaam. And so there's three very negative mentions of Balaam in the New Testament. And it's already said in the Old Testament that he was seeking enchantments, he's doing all these wicked things, he's seeking enchantments, he's a diviner, he's doing divination, and he's a soothsayer. All those things are forbidden in scripture to do, it's dealing with the occult, it's dealing with wickedness. The Bible says we're not supposed to do it, so how would anybody say that he's a prophet of God? He's not a prophet of God, there's no way. And then when the New Testament condemns him and his error and his wickedness, it's lumping him in with false prophets in both 2 Peter and Jude, and then Jesus is saying that his doctrine is not the right doctrine. He's teaching against what he should be teaching the children of Israel to do. He's teaching them to eat things, sacrifice the idols, and to commit fornication, which is obviously the opposite of what God is telling you to be taught. Now let's flip back to Joshua. The pizza's not quite here yet, so I'll just keep rambling on until they get here. All right, and it says, And the border of the children of Reuben was Jordan, and the border thereof. This was the inheritance of the children of Reuben and their families and their villages. So Moses gave inheritance unto the tribe of Gad, even unto the children of Gad, according to their families. So I've already preached about Gad's little spot that they had, and they had the little tiny edge of the lake, the Sea of Galilee, that spread out. And then, let's see, under the edge of Chenaroth, skip over to, so yeah, so basically he's just giving the inheritances to those three tribes, and then there's gonna be nine tribes that are gonna get their inheritance in the next chapter. And then the last thing is that, like the Levites, our inheritance is the Lord. Like the Levites, our inheritance is the Lord. So today, in our day and age, like the children of Israel, they fought these literal physical battles, and they got to divide a land up by lots. Well, we're not living in a physical nation of Israel, so we're not inheriting anything here physically. We're fighting a spiritual battle where we're doing spiritual works, and because of that, we're not inheriting here on the earth. So it says, but onto the, verse 33, it says, but unto the tribe of Levi, Moses gave not any inheritance. The Lord God of Israel was their inheritance as he said unto them. It says that like a few times in these passages. So it's like really trying to make that point and drive that point home. Well, the Bible says in the New Testament multiple times that we are kings and priests unto our God. In the Old Testament, in Exodus, it says that ye shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation if they'll keep the covenant and they'll keep the commandments. But it doesn't say, it says, you know, obviously that there'll be a kingdom of priests. So it is kind of similar, but they were actually a literal kingdom too. They were a physical kingdom that fought physical battles. That's not what God's asking us to do. Our weapons are not physical weapons of warfare. They're spiritual. So now in the New Testament, there's three different passages where it talks about this and I'll try to get them in as fast as possible and when the pizza comes, I'll just wrap it up, okay? So Revelation chapter one, verse five, if you want to turn there real quick, Revelation one, verse five. Now I've gone over this before, so you probably know this very well, but so we, on this earth, we're waiting for something, we're waiting for an inheritance that we hope for. We have never seen it. Who's ever seen New Jerusalem before? Anybody? Have you seen pictures of it? No. You've seen artists' renditions of it? Kind of like space? Sorry, different sermon. I'm going down a bad trail here. All right, never mind. Never mind, strike that from the record, but you've probably seen pictures of what the New Jerusalem would look like or whatever, but we don't have any clue what it's going to look like in reality and it's probably way better than any artist could ever render. It's something that we're looking forward to. We don't know what Jesus looks like, but I'll tell you what he doesn't look like. He doesn't look like a long-haired, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, skinny hippie with a dress on. I know for sure he doesn't look like that. And we're not supposed to be having pictures to venerate or any kind of icons or anything like that. That is forbidden for us. Revelation 1-5 says, And from Jesus, who is the faithful witness and the first begotten of the dead and the prince of the kings of the earth, unto him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. So Christ has made us to be kings with him. He's made us to be kings and priests unto God and his Father. He says, Behold, he cometh with clouds and every eye shall see him and they also which pierced him and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, even so, amen. So Revelation 5, turn over to Revelation 5. Revelation 5 also mentions that we are kings and priests unto God. So just like the Levites, they didn't have an inheritance. Their inheritance was the Lord. So I'm sure that they might have been like, well, what does that mean exactly? What are we getting out of this deal? And their service was to be close to God. They got to minister unto God and feel that closeness that a lot of people didn't get to feel at that time. But we have something that they didn't have back then. The common people didn't have that same closeness that New Testament believers have. It says in Revelation 5, 10, it says, and has made us unto our God kings and priests and we shall reign on the earth. And I beheld and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne of the beasts and the elders and the number of them was 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. So we have a future time when we reign with our God as kings and priests. Now turn to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight. Any sign of that pizza guy over there, Brother Ramon? No? I told them five o'clock. They're hosing you guys. Sorry. Anyway, Romans eight gets me time to finish this off here. Romans eight, 18 says, so this is talking about the future glory that we'll have. It says, for I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. One day we're gonna have a glory revealed in us and it says, for the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. See, we are the sons of God. We are the daughters of God. But that glory has not yet been revealed. There's something that we're still waiting for. It says, for the creature was made subject to vanity not willingly but by reason of him who has subjected the same in hope because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. See, the animals and everything in this world that kills it, they kill each other and they hunt each other and all these predator-type animals, that's all gonna end and they are waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God when we actually have our glorified bodies also. It says, for we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. They don't like doing that either. They don't like where they're at in this world. They don't like the sin-cursed earth either and animals somehow sense that they know that this world is gonna change someday and they're waiting for the redemption of us. It says, and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves. I can feel it. I can feel the groaning. I'm getting older. I can feel the groaning. My back is like... It says, waiting for the adoption to wit, the redemption of our body. This is what we're waiting for and once we have that body, that's gonna be like our super, we're gonna be like immortal super-beings at that point. Not beans, but beans, okay? Not like we're, yeah. So we're waiting for that redemption to happen and the animal kingdom is waiting for it as well. They want things set right too. They wanna quit killing each other. Think about it this way. It says we're waiting for the adoption to wit the redemption of our body. Orphanages aren't like a thing now, but it used to be a big thing where people would be orphans. Their families would, parents would both be dead and they'd have to go to an orphanage and go there and if someone wanted to adopt them, then they would adopt them into their family and I'm sure you've seen movies like maybe Annie or stuff like that where they're waiting, or I don't know. I can't think of any orphanage or adoption movies, but maybe Annie is all, but they're waiting for what? They're waiting for someone to come and adopt them, to love them, to come for them and what would be sad is if nobody ever came to pick you up. They adopted you, but they never came. But we're already adopted. If you're saved, you're already adopted into God's family and we're just waiting for him to come back and pick us up and it's like we already know we got all of our best clothes on. We got all of our, we're just ready to go. We're just waiting for him to come pick us up, but he wants us to do some things before he does that and what's great is that it says in verse 24, it says, for we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for it? See, when we hope for something, we're hoping for something that we've never seen before. That's what faith is. We're hoping for something we've never seen. We know it's true. We know it's real, so it's a different kind of hope. I talked about that last week, but it's a different kind of hope, isn't it? We hope for something that we know is true. We just have never seen it before. We've never seen Jesus. We've never seen the celestial city or whatever. We've never seen the heaven that is waiting for us. We've never seen New Jerusalem, but we know it's true. We know that we're going to get it and it says, but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. So we're waiting for it. We're just waiting for what God has in store for us. For now we wait, we serve, and live a life pleasing to the Lord and just patiently wait for that, what he's going to give us, what? A brand new body that can't die and then a home that we never have to move out of. I hate moving. I hope that we never have to move anywhere in heaven. I just want to get that spot, make it the best spot I possibly can. I want to be able to work on it, work on the garden. Adam was given a garden to work in before the fall ever happened. We're going to be working, doing something. We'll probably like working on something that's ours forever and nobody could ever take it away from us. I don't know, we'll probably be able to do some pretty cool stuff. Being able to fly and go through walls and all that kind of stuff. We'll probably have some pretty cool spots. I don't know. I'm not sure what it's going to be like. Paul said that it was so amazing. He said it was so, he couldn't even talk about it. If you believe that Paul's the one that went up to the third heaven, I believe it is, that he said that it wasn't lawful for him to speak about it when he came back. So all these stories where it says, this little nine year old kid went up to heaven and he's writing a book about it or something, not true. If Paul can't talk about it, this little nine year old brat can't talk about it either. So let's close with this. Let's close with Revelation chapter 20. While you're turning there, I'm going to just read Romans chapter 12 verse 1. Romans chapter 12 verse 1 says, I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. We're priests and kings, but right now all we can do is just give ourselves as a sacrifice. And God wants that to be holy. He wants it to be acceptable to him. Now obviously, we can try to live the best holy life that we possibly can, and try to not be conformed to this world. Try to transform ourselves and put on the new man and read the Bible and try to prove the things that are good and get rid of the things that are wicked, right? Revelation 20 verse 4 says, And I saw thrones, and they that set upon them, and judgment was given unto them. And I saw the souls of them were beheaded for the witness of Jesus and for the word of God, and that which had not, excuse me, worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads or in their hands, and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. So when does this priesthood happen? Well, it sounds to me like the big part of it is going to take place in the thousand year reign, but I believe that it's already now. Obviously, we're not going to reign as kings with him until the thousand year reign, and I think the actual kingdom and priesthood part, that's the main part. I mean, obviously, we're not literally priests. We're never going to burn sacrifices. Christ already was a sacrifice for us, but we're going to operate in a fashion where we're serving him as priest. We already do that now, though. Are we kings right now? I mean, I don't have a throne at home, but I have a chair. I have a nice chair at home, but we're not going to be ruling and reigning with Christ until the millennial reign. Isn't that what that verse says, though? It says, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him a thousand years. So when do all these things happen? Well, when we get our glorified bodies, and we're going to rule and reign with him for a thousand years, and these are things that we have to hope and look forward to. And, you know, it can be a little frustrating living in this world sometimes, but we should remember the hope that we have in us. Christ in us, the hope of glory, the resurrected bodies, and isn't it going to be cool to be in this animal kingdom where the animals don't want to hurt each other or you? To be able to pick up a snake and it doesn't try to bite you? That'd be kind of cool to pick up a cobra and it, I don't know, just spits distance. You can just have it spit distances instead of spitting your eyes and blinding you or something. I don't know. I just think it's going to be cool to be able to have a lion just walk up to you and you can just pet it or whatever. Wouldn't that be cool? Have the kids doing lion racing or something? I don't know. Just think of the possibilities. So our generation will never run out of work to do for God. Our rest is in the next life. So let's work hard while we're here. Don't give up on the hard cases and let the Bible in the New Testament shine the light on the Old Testament so we can perceive, you know, just things like Balaam. You know, don't let, you know, people talking and saying Balaam's saved. And remember that the Levites are, you know, like the Levites, our inheritance is a future inheritance. We're going to get some stuff here, but in the long run our inheritance is going to be something when Christ comes back and gives us those bodies. That's where we're waiting for the redemption of our bodies and the manifestation of the sons of God. And we're not there yet, but I'm really excited about that. I hope you are too. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you so much for this church. We thank you so much for all the soldiers that we have in this church. I pray that you'd help us to just continue to soldier on and, Lord, that we would think about things and think about things in a manner of decades and not just short distances. I pray that you'd help us to all have a heart for church, Lord, where we would hold church to be an important part of our life, attending, being together, fellowshipping together, preaching the Gospel, reading the Bible, praying, all these different things, Lord, that you want us to do. And, Lord, keeping sin out of our life. I pray that you'd help us, Lord, to care about the things that you care about and help us to be less selfish and more loving to our brethren and loving to you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, our last song is song number 274. Come unto me. Song 274, come unto me. Song 274, let's sing it together on the first. Hear the blessed Savior calling thee oppressed, O ye heavy laden, come to me and rest. Come no longer, Terry, I your load will bear. Bring me every burden, bring me every care. Come unto me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly. Come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burdens lie. Are you disappointed, wondering here and there dragging chains of doubt and loaded down with care? Do unholy feelings struggle in your breast? Bring your case to Jesus. He will give you rest. Come unto me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly. Come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burdens lie. Stumbling on the mountains, dark with sin and shame, stumbling toward the pit of hell's consuming flame, by the powers of sin, deluded and oppressed, hear the tender shepherd come to me and rest. Come unto me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly. Come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burdens lie. Have you by temptation, often conquered men, has a sense of weakness brought distress within? Christ will sanctify you if you'll claim His best. In the Holy Spirit, He will give you rest. Come unto me. I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Hear me and be blessed. I am eke and lowly. Come and trust my might. Come, my yoke is easy and my burdens lie. Amen. Good to see you. Brother Jesse, would you close the door of prayer?