on the afternoon service, and it's the first snow of the year, so the worst is yet to come.
Alright, so let's turn to song number 134, my anchor holds song number 134. On the first,
though the angry surges roll, my temp is driven, so I am P-O-4, say stand up, can't see the snow,
say excuse me, could you open us with a little prayer? To song number 224, song 224, there shall be
showers of blessing, there shall be showers of blessing, this is the promise of love, there
shall be seasons refreshing from the savior of a blessing, we see jobs round the showers we plead,
there shall be showers of blessings, vibing us and the vows on the source of blessing,
jobs are showers we plead, there shall be showers of blessings, send them upon us,
oh lord, now refresh our blessing with jobs round us, our four showers we plead,
there shall be showers of blessings, oh that today they must to God we, oh Jesus, we call
us a blessing, with jobs round us, our four showers we plead,
good saying, and if you don't have a bulletin, please raise your hand and Asher will bring one
to you, let's look at the verse of the week, Hebrews 12 verse 15, the bible says, looking
diligently, lest any man fail of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness spring up trouble you
and thereby many be defiled, and like I said this morning during the sermon, there's nothing wrong
with bitter things happening to you as long as you're not allowing the root to spring up
and defile you and hurt the people around you, and if you want to look at the inside page,
we're on YouTube, Facebook, Rumble and X, so please give us a follow, service time as usual,
Sunday morning at 11, Sunday afternoon service at 4 p.m., and Wednesday night Bible study at 7 p.m.
We'll be going over Judges chapter 5 this coming Wednesday. It's a son of Deborah and Barak talking
about the execution, you know, nailed, going through the temple, so it's a really nice story,
so please join us on Wednesday night. And then we have soul winning Sunday afternoon at 1 30,
and Saturday morning at 10 30 a.m. So today we have 13 soul winners, and how many salvations?
Let's see six salvations, so praise the lord for that. It's a good receptive spot there, and so I
mean praise the lord for for the indoor apartments, amen. So and salvations, and last week's attendance
is for you to see. I mean it's glad to have brother Matt back, you know. I was joking this morning,
you know, this is a joke, okay. So Matt may screaming, maybe screaming at a nurse, "Let my child go!"
And then they start bringing all the plague, saying all the firstborn getting killed in the
NICU, and they finally let the baby go, you know. Anyway, it's a bad joke, but yeah, it's good to
have him back. So let's look at the upcoming events. The pie and pray service will take place during
the Sunday afternoon service on November 23rd. That's two Sundays from now. So just bring a pie
that can feed your family, and then we can all share. It'll be a modified service with a song
request, a sermon net, and then we get to partake pies and raw milk, maybe some raw egg too, you
know we can make that happen, I don't know. Christmas service will take place during the
morning service on December 21st. There will be a regular song wedding and then the afternoon
service after that. There'll be a pollock right after morning service. Join us for the Christmas
Eve service on Wednesday, December 24th. Songwenni Marathon coming up November 22nd is the last Gary
Songwenni Marathon of the year. We'll meet at 10 30 a.m. at the address below, and then we'll
finish the year up with the Winter Wonderland Songwenni Marathon. We'll meet at the church
building at 1 p.m. and then we'll go out for three and a half, four hours songwenning straight.
So the rationale behind this is I don't care how cold the weather is, how heavy the snow is,
we'll push ourselves anyway. Now you can warm in your car if it's too cold, but the goal is
to push it out just and finish the year strong and then we can partake the barbecue or like
whatever food afterwards. And then please help us with the cleaning of the church building right
after the right right right after the service. We'll have a mass preaching night on November 23,
November 20, November 30, during the during the afternoon service. So please let me know if you
want to preach. Let me know your sermon topic so I can get you to sign up for it.
Titan offerings for you to see. Let's look at the birthdays coming up.
We have Samuel's birthday on the 15th. So let's sing happy birthday to Samuel. Ready?
Happy birthday, happy birthday, God bless you. All right, congratulations. What's next? Okay,
let's sing one more song and then we get to take off the offering.
Turn to song number 174. My Jesus, I love thee. Hopefully I don't butcher another
sound like this morning. Song 174, my Jesus, I love thee.
My Jesus, I love, I know. Take up the, uh, spring.
Mac, would you pray for the offering? Ezekiel 44, we're going to be in Ezekiel
chapter 44 tonight. If you don't have a Bible, please raise your hand and Usher will hand you
a Bible so you can read along. Ezekiel 44, verse 1 reads, "Then he brought me back the way of the
gate of the outward sanctuary which looked toward the east, and it was shut. Then said the Lord unto
me, 'This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it. Because
the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the prince,
the prince, he shall sit in to eat bread before the Lord. He shall enter by the way of the porch
of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same. Then brought he me the way of the north gate
before the house. And I looked, and behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord,
and I fell upon my face. The Lord said unto me, Son of man, mark well, and behold with thine eyes,
and hear with thine ears all that I say unto thee concerning all the ordinances of the house of the
Lord, and all the laws thereof, and mark well the entering in of the house with every going forth
of the sanctuary, and thou shalt say to the rebellious, even to the house of Israel,
thus saith the Lord God, O ye house of Israel, let it suffice you of all your abominations,
and that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers uncircumcised in heart and uncircumcised
in flesh to be in my sanctuary to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer my bread,
the fat, and the blood, and they have broken my covenant because of all your abominations.
And ye have not kept the charge of mine holy things, but ye have set keepers of my charge
and my sanctuary for yourselves.
Let's say of the Lord God, no stranger uncircumcised in heart nor uncircumcised in flesh shall
enter into my sanctuary of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.
And the Levites that are gone away far from me, when Israel went astray, which went astray
away from me after their idols, they shall even bear their iniquity, yet they shall be
ministers in my sanctuary having charge at the gates of the house.
And ministering to the house they shall slay the burnt offerings and the sacrifice for
the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them.
Because they have ministered unto them before their idols and caused the house of Israel
to fall into iniquity, therefore have I lifted up mine hand against them, saith the Lord
God, and they shall bear their iniquity.
And they shall not come near unto me to do the office of a priest unto me, nor to come
near to any of my holy things in the most holy place, but they shall bear their shame
and their abominations which they have committed.
But I will make them keepers of the charge of the house, for all the service thereof,
and for all that shall be done therein.
But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary
when the children of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me to minister
unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith
the Lord God.
They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table to minister unto
me, and they shall keep my charge.
And it shall come to pass that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court, they
shall be clothed with linen garments, and no wool shall come upon them while they minister
in the gates of the inner court and within.
They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins.
They shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat.
And when they go forth into the outer court, even into the outer court to the people, they
shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers,
and they shall put on other garments, and they shall not sanctify the people with their
garments.
Neither shall they shave their heads, nor suffer their locks to grow long.
They shall only pull their heads.
Neither shall any priest drink wine when they enter into the inner court.
Neither shall they take for their wives a widow, nor her that is put away.
But they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel, or a widow that had a
priest before.
And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them
to discern between the unclean and the clean.
And in controversy, they shall stand in judgment, and shall judge it according to my judgments.
And they shall keep my laws, and my statutes, and all my assemblies, and they shall hollow
my Sabbaths.
And they shall come at no dead person to defile themselves, but for father, or for mother,
or for son, or for daughter, for brother, or for sister, that have no husband, they
may defile themselves.
And after he is cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days.
And the day that he goeth into the sanctuary, unto the inner court, to minister in the sanctuary,
ye shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord God, and it shall be unto them, poor
and inheritance.
I am their inheritance, and ye shall give them no possession in Israel; I am their possession.
They shall eat the meat of the offering, and the sin offering, and the trespass offering,
and every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs.
And the first of all, the firstfruits of all things, and every oblation of all, of every
sort of your oblations shall be the priest. You shall also give unto the priest the first
of your dough, that he may cause the blessing to rest in thine house. The priest shall not
eat of anything that is dead of itself, or torn, whether it be fowl or beast.
Brother Brett, could you please pray us into the service?
Amen. You're there in Ezekiel 44. Thank you, Evangelist Justin John, for having me preach,
and for Pastor Thompson letting me preach.
And so the title of my sermon is, "Where are the sons of Zadok?"
If you look here in verse 9, we'll read again, it says, "Thus saith the Lord God, no stranger
uncircumcised in heart nor uncircumcised in flesh shall enter into my sanctuary of any
stranger that is among the children of Israel. And the Levites that are gone away from me
when Israel went astray, which went astray from me after their idols, they shall even
bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in my sanctuary, having charge at the gates
of the house, and the ministering to the house. And they shall slay the burnt offerings and
sacrifice of the people, and they shall stand before them to minister unto them. Now look
down to verse 15, it says, "But the priests of the Levites, the sons of Zadok, that kept
the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray, they shall come near
to me to minister unto me. And they shall stand before me to offer me the fat and the
blood, saith the Lord God. They shall enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near
to my table to minister to me, and they shall keep my charge." Now it's almost impossible
not to notice when reading this passage that there is a group of people that went astray,
and there is a group of people that kept the charge of the sanctuary and did not go astray.
And as we look at the world today, and even back then, we can safely say that most people
have gone astray, just in the world. The whole world lieth in darkness, and most people
did not choose to receive the Lord. But even amongst most Christians, even most Christians
go astray. You think of when Jesus cleansed the ten lepers. There were nine that went
on their way, and there was one that turned back and rejoiced and praised God. And Jesus
said, "Where are the nine?" Only one has turned back. He said that there were ten that
were cleansed. And so, it's a common theme that people go astray and they go after idols
and they go after their own way. And most preachers even go astray. It says that they
took the people with them, but the sons of Zadok, they stayed by the stuff. They kept
the charge of the sanctuary. And so, I want you to turn to Zephaniah chapter one. When
reading through Ezekiel, you have to kind of remember he's in exile in the place called
Tel Aviv by the river Chibar, which is not a desirable place to be. It's kind of like,
if you see how African refugees are, they'll be in a place where it's just all dirt, and
it's kind of, it's not a desirable place to be. They're there because nobody will attack
them there, because that's a refugee. There's nothing strategic that would be wanting there.
And so, the Babylonians have put Ezekiel in this undesirable place next to the river Chibar,
but in Zephaniah, he warned that these things were going to happen. Because when you're
reading through the major and the minor prophets, it kind of goes where Zephaniah and then Jeremiah
comes on the scene and says, "Well, hey, because you guys said that nothing was going to happen,
that this is what's going to happen now." And then, you see at the end of Jeremiah,
he gets a pass. He gets to stay in Jerusalem as a remnant that's exiled by the Babylonians
and the rest are taken away into captivity. And then you'll see Daniel is in the capital
and he's being trained in the ways of the Babylonians. And they want him to bow down
to the idol of Nebuchadnezzar, but there were three ones that didn't bow down to it. There
were three guys that stayed by the stuff out of all those thousands that were there. And
when you're reading through Ezekiel, Ezekiel is in this place that's kind of a muddy, dirty
place next to a river that dries up in the summer. It's not really a great place to be.
And in the 25th year that he's there, God sends him this vision in the book of Ezekiel.
And so I want you to read Zephaniah chapter 1 verse 12. It says, "And it shall come to
pass at that time that I shall search Jerusalem with candles and punish the men that settled
on their lees." And they say in their heart that the Lord will not do good, neither will
He do evil. They're just kind of saying the heavens are brass. God's not going to care
either way. The devil may care, but God He won't is what they're saying. They're saying,
"Well, nobody's going to care what we do. God's not going to punish." And you've heard
people say that recently, that God's not going to punish no matter what. And there's this
dangerous movement in America where God saved you and He's your buddy and He's your friend
and you don't have to obey Him and you don't have to have any fear for Him. And that's
hogwash. And that's what brought the judgment of God on the people of Israel, is that they
rose up to play and went after idols. They worshiped the calves of Dan and Samaria that
Jeroboam had set up and they did not turn to the Lord. Look at Jeremiah chapter 2. Jeremiah
calls them out on this. The Lord sends Jeremiah to preach Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 13, "For
my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters,
and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." You know, I think
about how the Bible is the word of life and how there's no truth that comes out of, you
know, in the world other than out of the Bible. The Bible is the truth and it is the way of
life. It is how you should live. It is living waters by which you will be refreshed and
that you can live your life. And people turn away from it and go their own way and they've
made themselves cisterns that can't even hold water. The things that they teach you,
they don't last. They don't, they don't subside. You know, if you keep going along with the
world, you just have to keep going and changing no matter what. And people that change on
what the Bible says, then several generations later, you don't even have any semblance
that they were even Christian. That their descendants were Christian or that it was
even a Baptist church at one time. You know, I can think of a Baptist church that became
a first Baptist church of the brethren and then it went on to be something else and now
it just has this weird flame on it and it says the tabernacle. And every time I pass
it I think strange fire. That's what's going on. That's what they're offering at that
church is strange fire. Some non-denominational tabernacle. What is that even? We don't know.
But at least when somebody's Baptist you know that they're standing on the fundamentals
of what it means to be a Baptist. Turn to chapter 5 of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 5, 31. "The
prophets prophesy falsely and the priests bear rule by their means. And my people love
to have it so. And what will you do in the end thereof?" So this here says that when
those prophets go astray it says that the people love it to be so. They love to be in
sin. And they love to be in idolatry and wickedness. And they want somebody to give them a pass
to go and play, is what they want. And not do what the Bible says. And sometimes unfortunately
churches are measured by the spirituality of the preacher and everybody just follows
after him. And if he doesn't take it seriously, they don't take it seriously either. If the
preacher doesn't take marriage seriously, nobody in the congregation takes it seriously.
If nobody makes sin exceedingly sinful from behind the pulpit, nobody in the pew is going
to take it seriously either. And that's what's happening in our churches today. And you think
about Jeremiah, he warned the people and he was called a traitor. They said that he was
sent there by Nebuchadnezzar and that his scribe was actually the one, I mean Barak the
scribe is actually the one, writing all this and telling him to say all this. And so they
make up all these lies and actually arrest Jeremiah. And you remember how horrible it
was for Jeremiah and he was in the mire, in the hole. And then they come and they carry
away into Babylon, Jeremiah is spared. He gets out by the skin of his teeth because
he stayed by the stuff and he did what God told him to do. And so when we're reading
through Ezekiel 40 through 48, I think a pastor told me one time, he said if you ever want
to preach somewhere and you don't know if somebody's going to preach the same thing
you preach, just preach out of Ezekiel 40 through 48. Because no, but most people that's
kind of a hard saying for a lot of the things that are in there. It's hard to understand.
And the mistake a lot of people make when they read through it is that they apply a
lot of that stuff to the millennium and that's false doctrine because they're still offering
sacrifices in this time. And what I believe that it is, and I'm not saying this is exactly
right, but what I believe that it's talking about is that this is what the children of
Israel could have been had they not gone astray. This is what their nation could have been
like when God restored it after bringing them back from the captivity. And because they
went their own way, you know, God ended up, and they ended up rejecting the Lord Jesus
Christ when he came to this earth, they did not get this entire fulfillment of this story
here, or this vision that he gives Ezekiel. But I think he showed Ezekiel this and this
is what it could be like when I restore, when I restore, when they build that second temple.
And so you also have problems with, if you try to say that it's the millennium, that
the prince that rules over it, he's married. And so Jesus wasn't married and didn't have
kids, and he didn't have some lieutenant governor, you know, like Michael Beckwith, leading over
the millennial kingdom. So he's not, there's no lieutenant governor. It's Jesus Christ
sitting on the throne and the disciples ruling over the 12 tribes of Israel is what he said
it would be. So you have a lot of problems if you try to say it's the millennium as you
read through it. And so, but the Levites, you know, they walked away and they walked
in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. And if you see in the scriptures, it talks
about Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, being, you know, because remember the kingdom split
after Solomon, that he's the one that caused Israel to sin by making the calves of Dan
and Samaria so that they would worship those instead of going down to the southern kingdom
and worshiping where they were supposed to at the temple. And, you know, it was the first
Jeroboam, come as you are, original drive through church sort of deal. You don't have
to come and stay. You just come by and you worship the calves and you go on your way.
And you can play and sing and dance and do all the, you know, be half naked kind of like
they did in the time of Moses and just do whatever you feel is on your heart and not
do right is what Jeroboam offered them. And the people fell for it and they sinned. And
26, 27 times it talks about that people went after the sins of Jeroboam. And some of these
Levites went with them and they took the people astray with them. But the sons of Zadok, they
kept the charge of the sanctuary. Now, who was Zadok? Zadok was the priest when David
was king. And he's the one that anointed Solomon as king with Nathan the prophet. And so he
was faithful in the things that God had given him to do. He was a very good priest. And
his sons, a few hundred years later here, they're talking about it in Ezekiel that they're
the ones that kept the charge of the sanctuary, stayed by the stuff. Somebody said, "I preach
out of the Old Testament a lot." And I'm pretty narrow-minded. I'm about this narrow-minded.
And so a lot of this, though, you turn and right there, that's all the Old Testament
right there. And that's a lot more to explain. And a lot of people have read this and read
some of this, but they don't know how to apply this to this. And so I've read both enough
that I like to preach out of the Old Testament, because I think sometimes that's the part
people have trouble applying and trying to figure out what actually from the New Testament
applies to the Old Testament. And I also love all the stories, because you go through thousands
of years of history and you see how people end up based off of what their ancestors did
or what the people did in that time and who they followed. And you see how people end
up. In the New Testament, you hear about people leaving, but you don't really, like Demus
has forsaken me, having loved this present world, you don't really hear much more about
him or read much more about him. And so, you know, we know in the New Testament, we've
read through the New Testament a lot, or at least I did when I first got saved. I read
through it over and over and over again because I was like, and I listened to it in my car,
I was like, I just got to cleanse my mind of all the garbage that I've learned, all
the music and all the things that I learned. And so I listened and listened and listened
through it. And then once I felt like I understood it, when I was reading through the Old Testament,
I started understanding more and more of it. And so the sons of Zadok, they stayed by
this stuff, and Ezekiel saw them in this vision a few hundred years later. And so I want to
read Ezekiel 44, 23. It says, "And they shall teach my people the difference between holy
and profane, and cause them to discern between clean and unclean. And in controversy they
shall stand in judgment, and they shall judge it according to my judgments, and they shall
keep the law in my statutes and my assemblies, and they shall hallow my Sabbaths." And so
I want to ask, when it talks about between holy and profane, has anybody found something
that's better than the Word of God out there? They haven't, have they? And has there ever
been anything where somebody goes away from the Word of God and they're more holy than
people that stick by the Word of God? Is there anybody like that out there? There's not.
And so, people don't go astray because they're unsatisfied with this and they find something
better. They go astray because they don't read this at all, because they're lazy and
they don't even look at it. And they look to themselves and their feelings and they
look at society and they just go and do what it is that they want to do. That's the thing.
People don't just leave the King James Bible and find something better. They just never
pick it up. They don't pay attention to what it says. They don't heed to God's Word and
they go on the fruit of their own way. That tells me that there's holy and that anything
else other than holy is profane. What does profane mean? It means common. I don't mean
to get that deep tonight, but that's what it means. It's either holy and it's right
and it's righteous or it's just something common and it's something that most people
do. It can even be something sinful. This world, they love sin. They love for it to
be so, like it said in Jeremiah, and you think about just even something simple. If somebody
wears a toupee, it's okay to laugh at somebody for wearing fake hair, isn't it? If they're
on their bicycle and it's flapping in the wind, it's okay to laugh at them, right? But
some freak puts on a wig and a dress and high heels and you're not supposed to laugh at
that though. You know what the difference is? It's because it's not a sin to be riding
your bike with a male toupee down the road looking like a fool. That's not a sin. But
the reason you're not allowed to laugh at the other thing is because it's a sin and
people glory in their shame, people glory in sin today. You can wear shoes that make
you three inches taller as a man and people would laugh you to scorn. But all of a sudden
a guy puts on high heels and they want you to reverence that person. They want you to
worship them is what they want. It's not enough that you accept them anymore, it's they want
you to bow down and worship that. They want you to worship their sin. And sin needs to
be exceeding sinful today and what's an abomination today will be an abomination tomorrow. And
the preachers that accept it and don't call it out, they will be ashamed and they will
have menial tasks. The Bible says that he that breaks the least of my commandments and
teach men so he shall be the least in the kingdom of heaven. And the problem we have
today is that people are bringing in the uncircumcised in heart, they're bringing in the unsaved,
they're bringing in the sinful ways of the world into the churches and leading, the preachers
are leading the people astray with these false beliefs and with this seeker sensitive movement
that's in our country. And you know in the 60s people would laugh at just sin, fools
would make a mock at sin and they'd just say oh well that's funny that they do that.
And so they told you to laugh at it for like 20, 30 years and then all of a sudden they're
like oh hey that's not funny you can't laugh at that anymore. You know oh you're transphobic
you're this, you're that. And so the world just keeps moving the goalposts where if you
keep going along with them you are no standard at all. And it becomes idolatry is what it
becomes. And so Ezekiel 34, I want you to turn to Ezekiel 34 verse 18 it says, "Seem
it that a small thing unto you that ye have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread
down with your feet the residue of your pastures, and to a drunk of the deep waters, but ye
must fowl the residue with your feet." And as for my flock they eat that which ye have
trodden with your feet and they drink that which ye have fouled with your feet. I remember
Pastor Jack Hyles preaching, "Get your stinking feet out of my drinking water." And it's
okay as a pastor to have feet of clay but you shouldn't have your shoes off up here
at the pulpit showing people your stinking feet and putting it in the drinking water
and making holy profane and making profane holy and just muddying up the waters of what
the Bible says and muddying up the gospel and leading people astray. It's wicked and
they'll be held accountable for that but the listener will be held accountable also. You
need to take heed to the words in this book and there's sins that disqualify a man of
God like drunkenness and adultery and idolatry I would say. But preachers do sin but if they're
disqualified they should step down but like Greg Block for example is somebody that was
married to his secretary and left his wife and he's very popular today now. He's coming
up again in the conservative movement. You'll see him on the news and people like that,
they shouldn't be pastors. And they don't have enough sense to step down and they lead
people astray. And the Bible says in Proverbs 28, 4 it says, "They that forsake the law
praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them." And that's the problem
with our society is they that forsake the law praise the wicked. And that's why there's
so much praise into the wicked today in our society is because people have forsaken this
book and they've forsaken the way of the Lord. Psalm 12, 8 says, "The wicked walk on every
side when the vilest men are exalted." And when you go astray with these people, what
you believe will become unrecognizable as Christianity. You will not have biblical Christianity
if you accept everything that the world wants you to accept. And so be a son of Zadok where
you stay by the stuff and you don't just bend and lick your finger and put your hand up
like a reed shaking in the wind and just kind of go with any direction that the wind's going.
You need to stick with this book and stick with what it says. And so I think of in Sardis,
he told those men, he said, "Hey, turn to Revelation chapter 3, actually I don't want
to turn there." Because Sardis had a name but they were dead. That they were living
but they were dead. And so if you look in verse 2, he told them, he said in Revelation
3 verse 2, he said, "Be watchful and strengthen the things which remain that are ready to
die if I have not found thy works perfect for God. Remember there that thou hast received
and heard, and hold fast and repent. If thou therefore shall not watch, I will come on
thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I shall come upon thee. Thou hast a
few names even in Sardis that have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me
in white, for they are worthy." And hey, that's kind of like what he told those sons of Zadok,
that they will be worthy, that they will be the ones in the inner temple doing the fat
and blood sacrifices, that they will be the ones that are near God. You know, the Bible
says, "Draw an eye unto God, and He'll draw an eye unto you." But it also says, "Cleanse
your hands, ye sinners, and purify your minds, ye double-minded." So it says that you need
to get right with your sin, you need to get that right, and then get closer to God. You
don't just get to keep your sin and try to draw an eye to God, because God does not accept
that lifestyle. God does not accept for you to be in gross sins and try to draw near unto
Him. And so these men that were in Sardis, even though the church wasn't doing right,
they kept right, and they stayed by the stuff, and God said that they would walk in white
with Him. And so we need to remember that today. When we think about the things that
happened with the sons of Zadok, and with the children of Israel that were taken away
into captivity, there were people that were protected that were in that remnant that didn't
get taken away into captivity. And they were the ones that kept the charge of the sanctuary,
and they were the ones that when Nehemiah came along to rebuild the temple, that they
were the ones that were there. And so we need to have those kind of people that are
faithful and that aren't going to change on the Word of God. Because Jesus Christ,
He died so that you could have all the words in this book. Not so that you could just consider
the lilies. Or so that you could, you know, whatsoever men, you would have to do it and
you'd do so also likewise under them. You know, those are all good things, but there's
a lot in here more than that that you need to apply to your own life and get right in
your own life. And so Jesus Christ, He died for our sins and He's coming back as the
Lion of Judah. He's not coming back as the Lamb this time. And so these people are going
to be terrified when Jesus Christ comes back and rules and reigns on this earth. And they're
going to hide in the mountains and the rocks as they fall upon us and hide us from the
face of the wrath of the Lamb. And we as Christians, we need to have that fear for Christ and for
God the Father, because we are His children and He can punish us if we do wrong. And we
don't need to be like those people that were in the book of Zephaniah where it's like,
"Well, you know, God's not going to do good or evil to us." You better believe that if
you do wrong, if you just go into sin, that He will punish. It says, "They that despise
Moses' law died under two or three witnesses." And how much sorer punishment are we going
to receive when we have this whole book and they just had the word given by the mouth
of Moses? When we have this whole book, when you can sit down and read it anytime you want
and you don't want to obey it, and you think, "Oh, well, God's just not going to punish
me. We live in grace now." You got the amazing graces up there, Joseph Jones. God's not
going to punish. God's just going to say, "He loved me enough to save me. He's just
going to let me do whatever." No, He's not. There's a big difference between your positional
sanctification and your progressive sanctification where you can have your candle put out early.
He put the candles out in those churches. It didn't do what they said. He can put your
individual, your person candle out early. God can come see you come in and smash you
like a bug. Driving out here, I'm sure you know that's true, that He could smash you
like a bug any time He wants. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 15. It says in 1 Corinthians chapter
15 verse 58, "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast and unmovable, always abounding
in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the
world." So that there says, "Our labor is not in vain. Keep going along and keep doing
the work." And it says, "Be steadfast and be unmovable." Don't just change on the
truths in this book just because of your feelings. And that's what's wrong with a lot of what's
going on in the world today, is everybody just accepts everyone else's feelings as true.
And whether, you know, we used to be, and most of my jobs have been in the science field,
it used to be you could just believe a biological textbook, and that would be good enough for
most people in science nowadays. But now they want to tell you that men can get pregnant,
and that gender's fluid, everything's fluid, you can change it, you can be an attack helicopter,
you can be a horse, you can be whatever you want to be. If you just believe, just close
your eyes and believe hard enough, you can believe, be whatever you want to be. Except
for a Bible-believing Christian, you can't be that. And they've rejected what their own
textbooks say biology is. They've rejected chemistry, they've rejected everything that
was taught to us in school about herd, even just herd immunity, that people get sick and
they spread it around and it goes away. Has anybody died of COVID lately? Does anybody?
No. I don't have COVID, but I give it to people anyway. You know, it's like, well, I had to
wear a mask, right? Even though you weren't sick. Oh, it's one of the symptoms. Crazy.
We live in a crazy world, and it's just going to keep getting crazy. How crazy will it get?
Well, kind of like Thomas Jefferson said, "Tiredness will take it however far along
you will accept." And that's how far along the devil will take this world, is however
far you're willing to accept, and however far along the Christians are willing to accept.
Because Jesus Christ said, "Upon this rock I built my church, and the gates of hell will
not prevail against it." And the devil will not prevail against the church, but Christians
can abandon the church, and abandon the ways of the Lord, and it will prevail against them.
You're not guaranteed an outcome in your life that it's never going to prevail against
you. It will not prevail against the church, and against the standards that God has given
it right and wrong. And if you abandon that, then you have no guarantee of whether or not
you'll stand. And it's harder to stand alone than it is to stand with your brethren, just
so you know. If your brethren don't go out soul winning, you probably won't go out either.
That's how it is. And so I want to look back at Ezekiel 44, look down in verse 27, "And
in the day that he goeth out into the sanctuary, and unto the inner court, to minister into
the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord. And it shall be unto them
for an inheritance; I am their inheritance, and ye shall give them no possession in Israel;
I am their possession. So, you know, I think of when Peter asked the Lord, he said, "Well,
Lord, we've forsaken all." He said, "What are you going to give me? What are you going
to give us?" And he said that he would give them mothers and brethren and houses and lands
a hundredfold in heaven. But he also said, "In persecutions, though." You know, he's
going to give it to you in persecution. And so, I'm sure it was hard for these men of
Zadok to just stay by the stuff and be exiled there in Jerusalem and to be, you know, keeping
the charge of the house of the Lord when it's not really a popular time to do it. During
the carrying away of Babylon, I'm sure that wasn't the heyday of the children of Israel,
that that was the best time to serve, but that's when they served. And, you know, you
may be, has anybody ever heard the legionnaire song, the Polish national anthem, the legionnaire
song? No, probably not. But it says in that song, it says that you'll probably be dead
and gone before good times ever come back, you know? And so that may be true, even in
the ministry. You may serve, and you may serve hard and endure suffering, and it may be long
after you're gone before it actually, before you see, but anybody sees the fruit of what
you did. And so, but we need to keep serving anyway, because our inheritance is the Lord.
We're going to receive an inheritance for the people that we've won to the Lord, for
the people that have forsaken us because we stuck to the standards, because of things
that you've lost just in your life because of persecutions, those things will be repaid
unto you. So, as I think about this, you know, I think that God's showing this to Ezekiel
in a vision, and Ezekiel's in even a much worse place than these men are. And Ezekiel
was a man that people said to him, "The ways of the Lord are not equal." Well, I don't
think anybody had it as bad as Ezekiel had it, really, in that time, at that place.
Because that was probably the worst place to be in the Babylonian captivity. He was
just exiled in the worst land, in the dried up barren land, and he was called to preach
to those people and say, "Yes, the ways of the Lord are equal, and the ways of the Lord
is just, and the Lord is looking for a man to preach what He has told him to preach.
To stand before Him in the gap between the land so that He would not destroy it.
And God said, "I found none."
Ezekiel 1-23 is kind of telling him how He's going to destroy Jerusalem, it's just an inevitable
fact.
And then in 25-32, He's telling him all the nations that He's going to destroy after that
and how He's going to judge them.
Because God sometimes sends the evildoer to punish His children, to punish like He did
with the children of Israel, but then He also punished those nations.
As He said in the book of Habakkuk as well.
But in Ezekiel 40-48, He talks about how He will restore that temple and how He would
have restored it in a much better way than if they would have stayed by the stuff, if
everybody would have stayed by the stuff, I think, rather than just those sons of Zadok.
But the problem is, it's that most people aren't staying by the stuff.
Most people aren't holding the standards, most people aren't reading their Bible, they're
not praying, and they're not seeking God's face of what to do with their lives.
They're just out there aimlessly wandering around and just not sticking to the Word of
God and not sticking to the truth.
And when times have got hard in my life, you know, I've turned to God and I've asked Him
what it is that I should do differently.
I don't hear an answer back, obviously, like an audible, you know, the whole sky doesn't
light up and God doesn't give me an answer, kind of like when Jack Scott, the whole room
lit up and God told him to preach.
You know, that, that, that, and then we've seen what happened with him.
But that, that's the kind of, that's kind of stuff, you know, that I worry about is
when you should talk to God and ask him what you should do.
But when he starts talking back in an audible voice, I questioned that.
So, but when God will reveal to you in wisdom through his word, what it is that you need
to do.
And most of the time, kind of like Joshua, he says, Hey, get off your face.
You already know what you're supposed to do.
And so we need to read our Bible and we need, and we need in this time, we need to more
than ever, we need to hold the standards that are in this book and not change on what this
book says.
And when people want to have a different version of the Bible, or they want to have a commentary
that tells you what it is the Bible really says, they're just trying to lead you astray.
And when people change on the Trinity, and when people change on the fundamental doctrines
of what it means to be a Baptist, we need to reject those people and stay far away from
them and not have fellowship with them and pronounce them, "Oh, you're saved, but you're
a little confused."
I don't think so.
If you believe in a different Trinity than what the Bible teaches, you're not saved.
And you may be, you know, you may be a baby Christian and not understand totally what
the Trinity is or how it is applied, because great is the mystery of godliness.
We don't all understand everything about the Trinity.
But if you reject the fundamental parts of it, you're not saved.
But we live in a world where idolatry and drunkenness and revelings and evil things
abound.
And will you stick by the stuff?
Will you be a son of Zadok and keep charging the sanctuary of God's house?
Or are you just going to go to some fun center and just try to search your own heart and
find yourself?
And so let's bow our heads and pray, "Heavenly Father, thank you for the day you've given
us, Lord.
I pray that you would help us, Lord, to be steadfast and sure and be unmovable, Lord,
always abounding in the word of truth, Lord.
And I pray that you would help each person here, Lord, to endure hardness as a good soldier
of Christ.
We love you and in Jesus' name we pray, "Amen."
Thank you, Brother Andrew, for the sermon.
Let's sing one last song, go to song number 325, "Trust and Obey," song 325.
When we walk with the Lord in the light world, what a glory He sheds on our way, while we
do His good will.
He abides still and with us, and obey, trust and obey, for there's no other to try to
share a cloud but He's smart, trying not to doubt, sub on, there's no to trust, all
agree, there's no to trust, we will say, He says, we are saved.