You
Good evening ladies and gentlemen. Welcome back to Faith Ward Baptist Church.
So good to see you all here for our midweek service.
Find your seats please. Take a song book and go to hymn number four.
Hymn number four. The Way of the Cross leads home.
Hymn number four.
Once you all find your place we'll begin singing together on that first now.
Hymn number four. I must needs go home by the way of the cross.
Hymn number four was the voice of the Lord.
Hymn number four. I must needs go home by the way of the cross.
Oh, by the way of the cross, through the other way of this,
I shall air inside of the gates of fire.
If the way of the cross I hid, the way of the cross we told.
I'm blind where the soul lives, I'm blind where the soul lives
Ask His blessing on the service.
Let's bow our heads together.
Your heavenly Father, Lord, we come before you tonight
and we thank you for giving us the opportunity
to be in church this evening.
We thank you for the safety of a lot of us to have
so that we're able to be here.
We just ask that you'd meet with us
and that you'd fill us with your spirit.
and bless us as we sing out these praises unto you,
help us to be focused on the words of these hymns
as we sing them out,
and that you would also just prepare our hearts
for the preaching of your word to come.
We ask that you pass it with your Holy Spirit,
fill them with your power so that you may be able
to preach boldly and clearly unto us
and help us to have open hearts and ears
to receive the message tonight.
And that all that said and done
would bring back the honor and the glory they deserve for it.
We'll thank you for it in Jesus' name, amen.
Hymn number 54, hymn number 54.
Oh, that will be glory him number 54
We'll be get together that first verse now him number 54
Begins when all my labor
Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ Ḣ
His grace I shall look on His face
That will be glory,
glory for Him
That will be there I have thought long ago
Joy like open...
the angels before me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me, for me
Go through our announcements together.
If you don't have a bulletin,
slip up your hand nice and high.
We'll get to you with one.
On the inside, we have our service time.
Sunday mornings at 10.30 is our preaching service.
Sunday nights at six.
Wednesday nights at seven is our Bible study.
Tonight we're in Second Chronicles 36,
the last chapter in Second Chronicles.
We've got the soul winning times listed there below,
as well as Salvation and Baptisms.
Cross the page this coming Sunday is going to be donuts and coffee before the service at 10 a.m
So show up early for that
We had another great cruise mission strip to the Bahamas myself and my son Steven
We had 24 people saved also with the help of brother Kenton that we met up with on one of the days in Nassau
And so Bahamas remains super receptive to the gospel the fields are wide into harvest
And so really looking forward to our church's big trip there next month
And of course, steadfast Baptist Church also had a great trip out at the Bahamas where they had over 200 people saved.
Below that, we've got the note about the Mother-Daughter Tea Party.
This is for all ladies and girls.
You don't have to be there with your mother or your daughter.
It could be sisters, it could be friends, it could be any ladies and girls by yourself.
We'll put you at a table with other ladies. No issue.
So we'll have registration open on that soon.
Two different dates are available.
On the back, we've got the free food over here to my left.
A lot of good stuff over there, a lot of name brands,
sometimes even organic, really good stuff.
So pick up some organic feed over there after the service.
And then we've got the list of expectant ladies.
Pray for them to have a safe and healthy pregnancy
and delivery.
Up.
coming events. We've got Brother Corbin Russell coming and preaching two weeks from today
on Wednesday night service from Straight Pads Baptist Church down in Tucson. And then the KJV
conference is coming up in May in Vancouver, Washington. And that is about it for announcements.
Let's go ahead and count up the soul winning from the past few days. Does somebody have a pen? I
Okay. Got it. Okay. Oh, there we go. Got both of you guys. Okay, and then how about Tuesday?
Okay.
Okay. All right, and then how about today, Wednesday?
Anything? Okay, gotcha. Anything up? Anything else from today? All right, very good. Keep up the
great work on soul winning. And with that, let's sing our next song. Come lead us.
All right, you should find the answer in front of your hymnal with Psalm 15.
If you don't have an answer, you can raise your hand and we'll sing it together.
On that first verse, Lord, who shall abide the night's hour now?
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Let's speak of the truth in his heart.
Lead that log in uprightly and work in righteousness.
Let's speak of the truth in his heart.
Thank you for watching!
Will you, Ranger, hold in the storms of night, When the clouds unfold, air wings of sky,
When the strong tides lift and the candles ring, Will you, Ranger, tread nor firm remain,
We have, Ranger,
And he's the soul, said passenger While the pillow's rolled
Fasten to the rock which cannot rule Grounded firm and deep in the Savior's love
It's safety, Lord, the storm will stand For just a thousand years
Thank you very much for watching this video and don't forget to like, share, and subscribe!
Firm and deep in the Savior's love,
And our eyes behold through the gathering night,
The city of gold, our heart, their pride.
We shall anchor glass by the deadly shore,
And the storm's all past forevermore.
that leaves us all.
Stand fast and sure while the pillows roll.
Fasten to the rock which has unrolled.
Round in firm and deep in the Savior's blood.
All right, at this time we'll pass the offering plates
as the plates go around.
Let's turn our Bibles to 2 Chronicles, chapter 36.
2 Chronicles, chapter 36, as we always do,
we'll read the entire chapter, beginning in verse number one.
Follow along silently with Brother Dan as he reads,
2 Chronicles, 36, starting in verse number one.
In 2 Chronicles, 36, the Bible reads,
Then the people of the land took Jehoahaz, the son of Josiah,
and made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem.
Jehoahaz was 23 years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.
And the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem and condemned the land in a hundred talons of silver and a talon of gold.
and the king of Egypt made Eliachim his brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem,
and turned his name to Jehoiachim.
And Niko took Jehoiachas, his brother, and carried him to Egypt.
Jehoiachim was twenty and five years old when he began to reign,
and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem,
and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God.
Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar also carried the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon
and put them in his temple at Babylon.
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim and his abominations which he did and that which was
found in him, behold they are written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah.
And Jehoiakim his son reigned in his stead. Jehoiakim was eight years old when he began to reign
and he reigned three months and ten days in Jerusalem and he did that which was evil in the
side of the Lord. And when the year was expired King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon
with the goodly vessels of the house of the Lord and made Zedekiah his brother king over Judah and
Zedekiah was one and twenty years old when he began to reign, and reigned eleven years
in Jerusalem.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God, and humbled not himself
before Jeremiah the prophet speaking from the mouth of the Lord.
And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God, but he stiffened
his neck and hardened his heart from turning under the Lord God of Israel.
Moreover all the chiefs of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all
the abominations of the heathen, and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hollowed
and the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers,
rising up be times and sending, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place.
But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his prophets,
until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy.
Therefore he brought them of the...
Therefore, he brought upon them the king of the Caldees who slew their young men with
the sword in the house of their sanctuary and had no compassion upon young men or maiden,
old man or him that stooped for age.
He gave them all into his hand, and all the vessels of the house of God great and small,
and the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king, and of his
princes.
All these he brought to Babylon.
they burnt the house of God and break down the wall of Jerusalem and burnt all
the palaces thereof with fire and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof.
And them that had escaped from the sword carried he away to Babylon where they
were servants to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia to
fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah until the land had
enjoyed her Sabbaths for as long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath to fulfill
three score in ten years. Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia
that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished,
the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, king of Persia,
that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom,
and put it also in writing, saying,
Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia,
All the kingdoms of the earth have the Lord God of heaven given me,
and he hath charged me to build him in house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Who is there among you of all his people?
Dear Lord, thank you for faith Lord Baptist Church Lord
And I pray that you would help us to love you more and love the lost more and love one another more
And I pray that you would
Open our hearts and ears to the message Lord and that you'd pray
That you'd fill Pastor Aniston with your Holy Spirit and do something pray amen
Men, 2 Chronicles chapter number 36, we get to the end of the story here when it comes
to the kingdom of Judah.
Judah has gone back and forth throughout its history between godly kings and wicked kings
and we had just finished up with the story about Josiah who was a very godly king and
Judah was in its final days and in decline and they're getting further and further away from God.
Still, Josiah was able to do some really great things and have the greatest Passover that they'd ever had
and, you know, do a lot of great things for God. But now Josiah has died. If you remember,
he ended up going out and fighting against the king of Egypt and it was a stupid battle for him
to get involved in because it really had nothing to do with him and he was even warned
by the king of Egypt and in fact let's review that because we're going to see how this connects
to what we're looking at this week so I want to just review that one part very quickly in
chapter 35 where it says in verse 21 but he sent ambassadors to him saying what have I to do with
thee thou king of Judah I come not against thee this day but against the house wherewith I have war
For God commanded me. Notice what he says here.
God commanded me to make haste, for bear thou from meddling with God who is with me, that he destroy thee not.
Nevertheless, Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself that he might fight with him and harken not unto the words of Niko.
And notice this startling phrase here, from the mouth of God.
And it says, and he came to fight in the valley of Megiddo.
So we see here that when Niko is warning Josiah, don't get involved, I'm doing God's will,
you don't have anything to do with this fight, the Bible is actually letting us know that
he's actually telling the truth.
So we might wonder like is God really with this guy or is he just saying oh God told me to do this
God's with me, but yet the Bible then turns around and says well this warning was actually from the mouth of God
through Theronico, and what you have to understand is that in the Old Testament
God's word came through prophets, holy men of God, spake as they were moved by
the Holy Ghost, and sometimes God would even use some unlikely people to speak
his word, right? At one point there was even a donkey that spoke.
the word of God in a Bible story and so God could obviously use this king to speak his word
and and you know it's very likely I think and from what we're going to see in chapter 36
I think it's very likely that the king of Egypt is actually saved you know they actually believed
in the Lord that God actually was with him that God actually was blessing him and they's actually
And so, what you have to understand is that when a human being speaks the word of God,
that's actually God talking, right?
So, if you or I or anyone else gets up and reads a Bible verse…
That is God speaking, right?
He's just using a human instrument to get his word out there.
And so when we're reading the Bible, we don't want to ever take the Bible
as just being, oh, written by man, and then sort of just brush it off and say,
well, that's just man talking, that's just David talking,
that's just the apostle Paul talking.
No, my friend, the Bible says that the Holy Ghost
spake by the mouth of David the prophet.
And the Holy Ghost was speaking through the apostles in the New Testament.
That's what the Bible clearly states.
And here we see that he hearkened not at the end of verse 22,
under the words of Niko from the mouth of God.
And what were those words?
They're Niko saying, hey, God's with me.
God told me to do this and so it must be true that God's with him and it must be true that God told him to do that
So unfortunately Josiah gets involved in this fight that has nothing to do with him
And then he ends up getting killed in the process
Okay, now just a quick review on Josiah
He started to reign when he was very young if you remember he was eight years old when he began to reign and he reigned for 31
Years so when he dies he's about like 39 years old roughly, okay?
So then let's jump in and see what happens after he dies.
It says in verse number one,
then the people of the land took Jehovah has the son of Josiah
and made him king in his father's stead in Jerusalem.
Jehovah has was 23 years old when he began to reign
and he reigned three months in Jerusalem.
So from this, it seems to indicate that, you know,
this is probably
his oldest son because of the fact that he would have had him
when he was about 16.
So he would have sired him when he was about 15 years old.
So probably the oldest or one of the very oldest sons.
And then it says he reigned three months in Jerusalem.
Here's the thing, typically when these kings reign for a very short time,
it's because they're wicked in the sight of God, God's not blessing them,
and so God ends up cutting their reign very short, and then you'll find that in general,
the righteous kings will reign for a long time.
And in general, the wicked kings will reign for a short time.
Now the Bible does not explicitly tell us in this chapter,
but if we look at the parallel passage over in 2 Kings,
it tells us that Jehovah has did that which was evil in the side of the Lord.
So he's a young man, he's 23 years old,
his father who's 39 or so,
who'd been a very godly righteous man, he made one mistake.
going out to war with Egypt, but in general he was a very godly man, very
righteous man, and yet this 23-year-old punk does not do right in the side of the
Lord, right? He does evil in the side of the Lord, and so his reign is cut very
short. He only reigns for three months in Jerusalem, and the Bible says in verse
3, the king of Egypt put him down at Jerusalem and condemned the land in a
hundred talents of silver.
and a talent of gold.
So the king of Egypt, remember,
that's who Josiah had just been messing with.
And so now the king of Egypt comes back
and finds them and punishes them
for coming and fighting against him for no reason
by making them pay a talent of gold
and a hundred talents of silver.
And he also puts down
the king here, Jehovah has.
And I wonder, and I have a little proof for this
coming up in a few verses,
you know, I wonder if he puts down
Jehovah has precisely because he is wicked
in the side of the Lord.
Because, and the reason I say that is because obviously the king of Egypt is upset about
what happened with Josiah, he's upset about Judah warring with him, and so he wants retribution,
he wants his talent of gold, he wants his hundred talents of silver.
But what is the point of changing the regime?
You know, what is the point of changing the king?
The guy's only been in office for three months.
I believe that if this young man, 23 years old, would have done right in the side of
I think that he would have been allowed to continue reigning.
I think that God would have allowed him to continue reigning,
and I think that the king of Egypt would have allowed him to continue reigning.
Apparently, the king of Egypt did not like him.
Okay, and let's read on further for a few more hints.
It says that he took Jehovah has his brother,
or I'm sorry, we gotta back up verse four.
It says, and the king of Egypt made Eliachim,
his brother, king over Judah and Jerusalem,
and turned his name to Jehoiachim,
and Niko took Jehovah has his brother
and carried him to Egypt.
Now here's what's really interesting about this.
Why does he now change the name of the next guy?
So he takes Jehovah has,
and takes him down from being king,
takes him away into captivity, makes him a prisoner,
and then he makes Eliakim his brother.
So this is another son of Josiah,
the brother of Joaz named Eliakim,
and he makes him king.
But then the Bible tells us that he changes his name.
from
Eliachim to
Jehoiachim. Now everything in the Bible is there for a reason.
Nothing in the Bible is incidental, coincidental, or accidental. The Bible is very
economical in its writing style, meaning that it never gives unnecessary details or meaningless details.
There's typically always a reason for everything. And so what's the point of changing the name? What does the name change mean?
Okay, well, these are some really basic
Hebrew words that even just reading the King James Bible, you're going to kind of come
across the meanings of these words because probably even somebody with no training in
Hebrew is going to know that L means God, right?
And you know, Beth-L is house of God.
And our English Bible will define a lot of place names and people names and things to
that L means God, and then of course we have the proper name of God in the Old Testament,
the tetragrammaton, which is either Jehovah, or sometimes it is shortened to just Ja, right?
And in fact, we have this word, hallelujah, okay? And hallelujah, the Ja part there is the personal
is just Hebrew for praise the Lord, okay?
And so he's changing his name.
This is very interesting that he's changing his name
from Eliakim, which means set up by God.
But think about today, the name God.
can sometimes be a little bit generic.
Like even though it's a name of God,
it is legitimately one of God's names,
it can be a little bit generic too, right?
Because people could just be talking about
kind of just a higher power in general
that they just made up and just suddenly say,
God or whatever, right?
And they don't really mean the God of the Bible.
or Muslims could talk about God and say there's only one God and Muhammad is his prophet or something like that.
So, you know, God is a kind of less specific term, although it is one of his names.
It's not the most specific name, whereas Jehovah would have been like the specific name at the time.
And so it's interesting that the king of Egypt is coming along and changing this guy's name from a generic name for God
or something that could be perceived as generic to the very specific
Jehoiakim, meaning instead of God establishes this guy, it is specifically Jehovah that
is establishing this guy.
And so why would he do that?
You know, why would he come along and say, instead of being Eliakim, you're going to
be Jehoiakim, we're going to change it?
And he's saying, you need to worship the Lord, buddy.
It's not just God that's establishing you.
That's true, but it is the Lord specifically,
Jehovah that is establishing you.
And so that's why I think there's a lot of evidence here that Niko, the king of Egypt, really is walking with God.
He really does believe in God. He really does have the correct God.
He does apparently believe in Jehovah God because otherwise why would he insist on this guy being named a name derived from the word Jehovah?
It wouldn't really make any sense, would it? Unless he actually believed that Jehovah was legitimate.
And so I think that that's pretty interesting that you have this heathen king at a time when God's people are apostasizing,
at a time when Judah is going astray and turning to other gods, even we have heathen kings and around the same time we have, of course, the heathen king Nebuchadnezzar,
who's also going to come to know the true God over the process of time.
And then you've got this king of Egypt who knew the true God.
And so what we have to understand is that although in the Old Testament, God's primarily dealing with the Hebrews,
the nation of Israel, the nation of Judah,
That's not the only people that he's dealing with
and that's not the only people that were getting saved
in the Old Testament.
There were sometimes Gentiles and heathen and things
that would believe on the Lord,
call upon the name of the Lord and be saved
even if they weren't Israelites.
And I think that this King of Egypt is an example of that.
If his words came from the mouth of God
and he said, God's with me,
then God must have been with him.
And then here he is, using a proper name of God to name the successor, which makes it seem like to me,
the reason he's getting rid of the first guy is because of what second king said about him.
He did evil in the sight of the Lord. That's why he lost his position.
You know, if you want to succeed in life, you better do right in the sight of the Lord.
Because God can take you out of whatever position you're in.
He can put someone else in that position, and that person better walk with God, or they're going to be replaced as well.
Because what we're going to find is that the replacement, even though he gets a name
change, telling him to straighten up and fly right, unfortunately, he doesn't do it.
And so we got to make sure if we want to succeed and thrive and prosper, we got to walk with
God.
The path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience, and if we disobey God,
to take us out of whatever positions of authority or prestige or whatever good job you have
or whatever standing you have, you know, you're going to lose it if you don't walk with God.
That's what the Bible teaches. So now we got the new guy, right? With the name changed, Jehoiakim.
He was 20 and 5 years old when he began to reign.
Okay, so he's, this guy's a little bit older even.
25 years old, the last guy was 23 years old,
and he reigned 11 years in Jerusalem,
and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord has got.
Now Chronicles is coming right out and telling us that.
He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord has got.
Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon,
and bound him in fetters to carry him to Babylon.
Nebuchadnezzar carried of the vessels of the house of the Lord to Babylon and put them
in his temple at Babylon.
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and watch this, don't miss this, his abominations
which he did, and that which was found in him, behold they are written in the book of
the kings of Israel and Judah, and Jehoiakkin, his son, reigned in his stead.
The first the first son of Josiah that's mentioned
23 years old when he begins to reign reigns three months
gets carried away captive into Egypt, right?
The next guy comes along, 25 years old,
he reigns 11 years, but he still did evil
in the side of the Lord,
and he ends up going captive the other direction, right?
Instead of being carried down into Egypt,
he gets carried eastward into Babylon,
but they both end up suffering the same fate.
And then it says,
Jehoiachin, his son, reigned in his stead.
So this is now going to be the grandson of Josiah.
Now, what's interesting here is that in this chapter what we seem to have is the story
of four different kings of Judah in rapid succession and we have, of course, three sons
of Josiah as we're going to see.
So far we've met two sons of Josiah and a grandson, but when all is said and done we're
going to meet three sons of Josiah and a grandson.
And I got bad news for you, they were all wicked in the sight of the Lord.
the side of the Lord. Now this should possibly surprise us, you know, why would
a godly man like Josiah have three sons and a grandson that are wicked in the
side of the Lord? I mean wouldn't you expect the apple not to fall that far
from the tree and you'd expect little Josiah Jr. and Josiah III, you know,
going on and continuing to serve God the way that their father did but unfortunately that's not
the way the world works and the only way that that would surprise you is if you haven't been
reading the rest of the book of second chronicles and seeing all of the other righteous kings
who had the ungodly sons or how about that what if you went all the way back to Genesis
and just read the entire Bible up to this point and see that actually the majority of the time.
Not a lot of the time, not frequently, but rather more often than not, the majority of the time,
great men of God, their children do not follow in their footsteps.
They just don't. And this is why nothing in the church should be hereditary.
Okay, and look, I'm not against if some godly young man
happens to come as the son of a pastor,
and then you got the grandpa's a pastor,
dad's a pastor, son is a pastor.
I'm not against that if that's actually how it goes down.
But it should all be merit-based.
It should not just be this thing of,
well, the pastor's son is the heir of parents,
because I can't even count.
How many times you have an awesome pastor and then the pastor's son is just sort of put in that position.
He's just kind of seen as the heir apparent and he is just going to be slotted in as the next pastor.
And he's way more often than not super lame.
And look, I'm not throwing shade on any good godly men of God that are sons of pastors.
So, don't you dare take what I'm saying and go apply it to some godly man and say,
oh, your dad's a pastor, so you must be lame or something, you know.
That's ridiculous.
That's absurd.
But what I'm saying is that I've seen example after example after example.
I mean, I could list.
I could name the examples I've seen throughout my life where the son or the son-in-law is
a disaster.
and he is not like dad, he is not like his father-in-law,
but yet he is just put in that position
because it's his dad.
and nepotism takes the day.
And it is a bad, bad idea,
simply because of the fact that the majority of the time in the Word of God,
great men of God, their sons do not follow in their footsteps, unfortunately.
And you wonder, like, why is that?
Part of the reason is simply because we just live in a sinful world
where, first of all, few people get saved,
and then out of the people that get saved,
very few people who are saved actually dedicate their lives to serving God.
Let's face it, I mean out of a hundred people that get saved, it's only a small handful
that really are serious about serving God, that really dedicate themselves to serving
God and the proof of that is that when we read the New Testament and we read about the
ministry of Christ which lasted for about three and a half years, we see multitudes
being saved, thousands and tens of thousands of people being saved and baptized under the
three and a half to four year period,
we have literally tens of thousands
of people saved and baptized.
But then when we get to Acts chapter one,
how many members are there in the early church
in Acts chapter one?
120 members total, including the women.
including everybody. So we're not just, oh, they're only counting the heads of household.
No, no, no. 120 total men and women combined total. So let me ask you this. Where are the
other 20, 30, 40, or even more thousands of people that were won to Christ and baptized
by John the Baptist and Jesus? Where are they all?
That goes to show me that the same phenomenon that we see in
2025 is the same phenomenon that you see back then that you go out and you get thousands of people saved and
Very few people show up for church very few people
Continue serving God and doing great things for God. It's just the way the world works
Unfortunately, the heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That's the problem human nature is
sinful
that's the problem. It's just like when God flooded the entire earth and then he says,
you know what, man's thoughts and his imaginations of his heart are just evil from his youth up.
Human beings are just sinful. That's why what we need is the Savior Jesus, right? And then,
the Savior Jesus, he forgives all that, right? He died for all our sins and was buried and
rose again. He forgives all that. And then once we're saved, the Holy Spirit moves in.
And now, with the Holy Spirit, we actually have the capability to really be transformed
and really walk in the Spirit.
But guess what?
Ninety-some percent of Christians aren't taking advantage of that.
Ninety-some percent of Christians are going to be walking in the flesh, not serving God
hardly at all.
It's just the reality of the world that we live in.
And so, people that are really serious about serving God are special people.
They're rare people.
They're special people.
They're not just everybody who's saved is just going to be this zealous soul winning, you know fired up Christian
I wish that were the caveman
I wish people who got saved would just automatically be super serious about serving God, but they're just not and
It's the reality of the world. We live in now in the New Testament. We have very little information about family
We don't really go into the lives of the apostles
as far as their wives and their children.
We know that all of the apostles were married
except for Paul and Barnabas.
The Bible tells us that.
So all of these guys, John and Peter,
and they're all married.
Presumably they had kids.
So there's all kinds of family stuff that happened.
But yet, none of that information
is really given to us in the New Testament.
Because the New Testament is too busy just telling us
about the life and ministry of Jesus.
The Acts of the Apostles, which, you know, about halfway through the book, it turns into the Acts of the Apostle singular, Paul.
And so, you know, we have a bunch of doctrine, we have a bunch of preaching.
There's just not a lot of family stuff as far as stories in the New Testament.
But in the Old Testament, we do, don't we?
In the Old Testament, we have a lot of stories about families, don't we?
And let's just start at the very beginning.
We've got the first family, and, you know, what a wonderful family.
And they're blessed with two wonderful, bouncing baby boys
until one of them murders the other one.
What a family.
I mean, that's like the first family in the Bible.
And then, you know, you move on to the next Bible story.
You get to Noah.
And of course, Noah has, he's the most righteous man on the planet.
God wipes out the entire planet and just saves Noah and he's got three sons on board the ark and one of them's a total
Creepo weirdo purvo
But not only that
You give it a hundred years after the flood and the entire world is corrupt again
And the entire world is united in building the Tower of Babel building a tower to reach David
So it didn't take long for the sons of Japheth and set and and sham to go bad as well
as they're all united and building that Tower of Babel
within a hundred years of getting off the Ark.
Then we get to Abraham, right?
Abraham's a really great family guy,
like especially when he lies and says
that his wife is his sister,
and then she gets taken into another dude's home
as his wife.
Don't you hate it when that happens?
I mean can you imagine that your husband's like hey say you're my sister and she's like hey, I'm the sister
He's like okay. Well now you're my wife. It's like what what what just happened and the only reason why?
She didn't end up getting defiled in that other man's house is because God came and visited that man in a dream and said
Do not touch this woman or I will kill you and
Then he's like whoa. I didn't know I thought it was a sister, you know
Right, and you think they'd learn their lesson from this debacle, but guess what this is what Abraham?
Did for his wife and then guess what Isaac does guess what Isaac the son of Abraham does he does the exact same thing?
what dad taught him to do and
Isaac was the good kid
He did the same thing lying and saying that his wife is a sister and all this stuff
But then that's the good kid because the black sheep of the family's ishmael
Oh, and how did Ishmael come about?
Oh, just from Abraham, just sleeping with a concubine,
sleeping with the handmaid,
going outside of the bounds of marriage
in order to produce an heir.
Wonderful families.
Then we have Isaac's sons, Jacob and Esau.
Thankfully, we don't have another Cain and Abel situation.
Quite.
because he escapes before he gets killed.
Esau says, I'm going to kill Jacob.
And then Jacob just leaves and skips town
before Esau can actually murder him like Esau wants to do.
Of course Esau goes out and marries a couple
heathen wives that are such a grief of mind
to his parents that his mom says,
I don't even want to live anymore
if Jacob marries a woman that's like Esau's wives.
I don't just kill me now.
that happens. Then of course we have Jacob, he goes out and he goes to marry
his wife and what happens? Well Jacob's father-in-law tricks him into accidentally
marrying the sister of the girl that he actually wanted to marry and so he's
just ushered into the tent, it's dark, he ends up consummating marriage with who
he wanted to marry's sister.
Okay, and that was awkward, that was weird.
Then, when he figures that out, he says,
oh, you can marry the one you wanted as well.
You know, you just need to wait a week,
at least wait till the honeymoon's over.
And then, you know, you can marry her as well.
He ends up with two wives.
And then, of course, the apple doesn't fall
very far from the tree.
So, you know, Abraham had Hagar on the side.
Well, Jacob ends up having Zilpa and Bilhaw on the side.
Now, let's talk about Jacob's wonderful family.
Let's talk about Jacob's wonderful children.
And look, let me ask you this.
Was Noah a great man of God?
Was Abraham a great man of God?
Was Isaac a great man of God?
Was Jacob a great man of God?
You know, the Bible says that these are great men of God.
And the New Testament, Jesus is praising these men as great men of God.
But it sounds like they had some skeevy things that happened in their lives, and it sounds like they had some children that didn't turn out right.
Like, how about Jacob? Let's talk about Jacob's wonderful children.
Jacob's firstborn son, Reuben.
Well, he ended up sleeping with his dad's concubine, so basically a super wicked form of fornication, exactly what we see in 1 Corinthians chapter 5.
Ruben committed that wicked sin of 1 Corinthians chapter 5
by committing fornication with his father's concubine.
Well, but surely the second son
and the third son were good guys, right?
Well, you're talking about Simeon and Levi.
Well, Simeon and Levi, they ended up murdering an entire town.
Oh, and why did they go and murder the entire town?
Well, they murdered the entire town
because their sister, their one sister,
went out and committed fornication.
And they didn't like the fact that some guy seduced her
and committed fornication with her,
and so they decided to just kill the whole town
because they said, hey, we don't want him dealing
with our sister like you would deal with Harlan.
What about the fourth born son?
I'm sure he's a great guy, right, Judah?
Well, what did Judah do?
Well, first Judah went to a prostitute.
That's super wicked, that's super skeevy, right?
That's gross, and even in today's world it's illegal.
But you know Judo went to a prostitute, but oh it gets worse turns out. It wasn't a prostitute
He thought it was a prostitute. It was his daughter-in-law dressed up like a prostitute. Oh
And I forgot to mention what Judo did before that when he actually sold his brother into slavery
You know, don't you hate it when that happens? You know, you got siblings fighting next thing
You know you come home and one of your children has human trafficked one of the other children
Don't you hate it when that happens?
And then, of course, we have the sons of the concubines, right?
Dan, Naphtali, Izakar, Zebulun.
You know, these were stand-up guys, right?
Well, no, because Joseph comes and brings their evil report.
And the Bible doesn't get specific about them, but they're apparently doing evil because
Joseph is bringing dad their evil report.
Hey, you guys want to keep going?
I can do this all day. I don't have any notes up here. I have zero notes. I've just got a Bible in my hand.
I can do this all day because you know what? We're still in the book of Genesis right now.
And not to mention the fact that ten
10 of Joseph's brethren sold him into slavery.
So they're all into human trafficking.
You know, when they're not fornicating
with dad's concubine, go into a hooker,
murdering a town, doing some unknown evil, you know.
But let me ask you a question again.
Was Jacob a godly man?
Was he a righteous man?
Yeah, he was.
Of course, Joseph is the son that turned out right.
You know, there's nothing really too negative
about Benjamin either.
So, you know, Joseph and Benjamin, you know,
finally got some good boys in that family.
But then, you know, we move on to Exodus, right?
And we got Exodus.
We got the big characters in Exodus who are Moses
and Aaron and Miriam, right?
There's the family, three kids.
Okay, and here's the thing, you know,
Moses is a great man.
You know he was a godly man. He was a righteous man, but you know
We don't know much about his family except for the fact that his wife was a real piece of work
We got his wife rebelling against him and then finally when he gets her to submit and do what she's supposed to do in
Anger she circumcises their son and then flings the foreskin across the room at Moses
Okay, so she's throwing a bloody foreskin at Moses,
calling him names, they end up being separated
for a little while and so forth.
Moses has a couple sons that we don't really know much about.
What about Aaron?
You know, Aaron is a godly, righteous man
when he's not building the golden calf.
You know, he was in general, for most of his life,
a righteous, godly man.
What about his children?
How did his children turn out?
Well, the first two were killed by God.
Nadab and Abihu for being so wicked.
And then the next couple of kids,
you know, seemed to have turned out well.
The grandson, Phineas, was an awesome guy.
He was a great man of God and so forth.
You know, we could move on into the book of Joshua.
And you know what you're gonna find?
Joshua and all of the elders of Joshua's generation
were godly, righteous men.
But then as soon as Joshua died
and all the elders that outlived Joshua died,
what happened?
There rose up a generation that knew not the Lord.
You got an ungodly generation rising up.
You get to the book of Judges and you find godly men.
Like, for example, Gideon, right?
But then what about Gideon's kids, right?
You got murder, all kinds of wickedness.
And again, we could go on and on.
We could talk about David.
We could talk about David's wicked son,
David's man after God's own heart.
What about his son, Adonijah? Wicked, Absalom, Wicked, Amnon, Wicked, Solomon. Good son.
Till he got old and screwed up at the end of his life by marrying a bunch of heathen wives
Building a bunch of temples. You know what I find is that man seems to be pretty sinful
It seems like human beings are pretty sinful
It seems like all of sin and come short of the glory of God
It seems like there's none righteous no not one and because there's so much sinfulness in the heart of man
Because in our flesh dwelleth no good thing
Right if we're not walking in the spirit, we're gonna be susceptible to do all these type of things
Now, we got to be walking in the Spirit, let Him to think at these standards, take heedless
tea fall, we need to live clean lives, and we do in the New Testament have the added
advantage of the Holy Spirit, but I'm here to tell you tonight that the added advantage
of the Holy Spirit is not going to do you any good if you're not walking in the Spirit.
Being saved is not enough to guarantee that you will live for God or that you will be
a good person.
If you're walking in the spirit, you'll be a good person.
If you're walking in the flesh, you will not be a good person.
It is that simple.
Okay?
Now, here's the thing.
We need to do everything that we can to make sure that our children get saved.
First and foremost.
And here's the thing about that.
At least if our children can get saved, we know a couple things about our children.
If we can at least get them saved, you know what we know?
They're never going to be a reprobate.
Because all because reprobates are only unsafe people. So at least if we can get our children safe
We know they're never gonna be a reprobate. So it's never gonna be too late for them
It's never they're never gonna be just up too late. It's over for them
Get them saved then they'll never be a reprobate. Okay?
Here's the other thing, if you get them saved, now they have the potential to be a good person.
That doesn't mean they're automatically going to be a good person though,
because in order to walk right, they have to be filled with the Spirit and walking with God.
And you know what's interesting is that there are so many churches,
and I talked about this recently in a sermon, that have the right Gospel on paper,
but yet so many church members end up being unsaved when you talk to them, right?
You knock on their door, you ask them about salvation.
They're wrong. You talk to people in the Bahamas. They go to Baptist churches.
Do you know for sure if you died today you'd go to heaven? I don't know. I mean
I'm trying to live a good life, right? I'm trying to keep the commandments just no
clue about salvation. But you know what? I'm happy to say that a faithful word
Baptist church, every single person in our church is very clear on the gospel.
unless they just got here like a week ago,
unless they just got here two or three weeks ago.
I mean, if you talk to somebody at our church
that is not crystal clear on the gospel,
they probably just got here within the last month
and they're just brand new or whatever.
Maybe they just stumbled in five minutes ago
because I'm telling you, you walked around
and you ask person after person after person
at our church, you know you're gonna get
the right answer about salvation.
And you know what, someone who left our church a while back said,
oh well, you know, I thought that if I went to your church,
that was just a guarantee that my kids were all going to turn out right.
Well, here's the thing, you know, such a guarantee doesn't exist,
number one, for anyone.
I wish it did, but I will say this.
I would sure rather be raising my kids in an environment
where no one is confused about salvation.
Then to raise them in an environment where the statement of faith is questionable on salvation because it's got a little bit of repenting
Your sins jazz mixed in
You think I want to raise my kids in a church where there's you know, you know, yeah
The pastor's right, but whenever the pastor's son gets up to preach
Gets a little squirrely or the guest preacher comes in and says repent of your sins and we all pretend like oh, that's not really what he meant
I mean look
I'll tell you how you're going to have the best chance of making sure that your kids
are saved.
How about raising them in an environment where there's no confusion about salvation, right?
Where everybody's clear on salvation.
and it's clear from the pulpit,
it's clear in the statement of faith,
it's clear from the guest preachers,
it's clear from the usual preachers,
everybody in the church's on the same page.
And then you want to know another great way
to make sure that your kids get saved?
Take your kids out soul-winning with you.
I mean, you want your kid to hear the gospel a lot?
Soul-winning.
And if you get your kids, especially when they're getting to the age of pre-adolescent,
adolescent, teenager, that type of an age, man, get them out soul-winning with you.
And you know what?
It's so powerful to take the kids out soul-winning, and I'll tell you why, because not only do
they hear the gospel over and over, they hear the stupid answers from the people who aren't
saved.
and they can kind of see the difference.
And you know, I love bringing my kids out slowly
and just having them listen to the illogical,
foolish responses of the people who reject the gospel
and how what they're saying just makes no sense.
And the confusion that's coming out of their mouths.
And you know what, I'm kind of like,
even when I'm a silent partner,
I'll have one of my kids with me,
you know, somebody else will be doing the talking.
Whenever somebody says something weird,
I always look at my son like.
You know and then and then when we walk away from the door. I'm like, do you hear that?
You know because I want them to notice I want them to hear the right gospel, but I want them to hear how stupid
How stupid the answers are from unsaved people just the foolishness and the illogical
irrational
Nonsensical ways that people try to make salvation by works when it is not of works. Let's any man should boast
But they want to make it about works
And here's the thing, you know, I'm thankful that all of my kids are saved.
I don't doubt the salvation of any of them.
I believe that all of my kids are saved and I'm thankful for that.
All of my kids are, you know, going to one of these Baptist churches with all the wash-ups
or whatever.
But the point is, all of my kids are saved.
Praise the Lord.
You know, I'm thankful for that, but you know what?
That don't make them right with God, and it doesn't mean that they're living for God,
because in order to live for God, you've got to do more than just being saved.
You've got to be one of the few that actually get serious about living for God.
And of course, we all want that for our children.
We all want, you know what?
What we don't want is to have kids like Josiah's kids, right?
I wouldn't want my kids to be like Josiah's kids.
Josiah's kids are worshiping Satan.
Even though Josiah was a good man of God, Josiah's kids, when the Bible says they did evil on the side of the Lord and did abominations,
it's not just saying that, you know, they went through a rebellious phase, smoked some pot or committed fornication or did whatever.
I mean, what the Bible is saying here is that they are actually, as 23-year-old young men or 25-year-old young men,
they are actually worshiping false gods, idols, desecrating the house of God and committing abomination in that way.
Let's get back to the chapter here, but that just is something to think about here when we think about
Josiah's three sons and grandson
What is wrong with these guys?
What is wrong with especially when you got the king of Egypt coming along?
You know when the king of Egypt is coming along and telling you bro
You need to get right with God. It's Jehovah, buddy. In fact, I'm gonna change your name just to remind you not to switch gods
That's pretty bad when you have the donkey having to tell you what's going on
You have the king of Egypt having to tell you what's going on. You know we as God's people
We're supposed to know what's going on
and
So that's what we see in this chapter
It says in verse number nine
Jehoiachin was eight years old when he began to reign because remember a whole lot of time hasn't gone by you know
You know 39 year old
If you think about it, 39 year old approximately,
these numbers are not exact,
but 39 year old approximately Josiah has died.
We had three months of Jehovah has,
11 years of Jehoiakim.
Now we're onto Jehoiakin, the grandson.
So this would be like a grandson to,
if Josiah were still alive, he'd still be 50.
So he has a grandson who's eight.
Obviously Josiah is dead.
But do you guys see what I'm saying there?
Eight year old grandson.
He's eight years old, but he began to reign,
and he reigned three months and 10 days in Jerusalem.
And dang it, that eight-year-old did that,
which was evil in the sight of the Lord.
And look, but the point is,
you got a bunch of rotten people in this chapter.
You've got a civilization and decline and and here's the thing you could say well Josiah is a great man of God
He was you just failed as a parent
But then you'd have to also believe that Adam failed as a parent Noah failed as a parent
Abraham failed as a parent Isaac failed as a parent Jacob failed as a parent Aaron failed as a parent David failed as a parent
You know, it's just like really because then basically just everybody's a bad parent or maybe
Maybe kids just have free will
And maybe the heart of man is sinful by nature.
And so you're going to end up having a lot of sinful people in this world which is why nothing should be hereditary because you cannot guarantee which people will walk with God.
You know, and here's the thing, in my ministry, I'm ministering over the course of my ministry and all the preaching that I do over a lifetime.
God willing, you know, I'm ministering to thousands of people in person and hundreds of thousands and even millions of people online.
Passing on knowledge and biblical truth and biblical practice to a lot of people and
I don't really know
Where it's gonna take and where it isn't gonna take. I can't guarantee I can't be like okay
Well, you know Fidel he's gonna take my message and and you know continue and be but Daniel is gonna blow it later
Right or no, it's Daniel Daniel is gonna be the one who carries the torch for the next generation and Fidel is gonna apostasize
I have no idea, right?
And I'm sure that they're both going to pan out
because these guys are both awesome.
But what I'm saying is,
that's why I'm using them as an example.
I don't, you know,
instead of using skeevy people, no, I'm just kidding.
The point is though, that I don't know,
none of us knows.
We don't really know, you know,
we spend our lives investing in people,
preaching to people, winning souls to Christ,
teaching them to observe all things that Christ commanded.
We don't know which ones are going to pan out
and which ones aren't.
Right, but I guarantee you somebody's gonna pan out and in the next generation
There is gonna be a bunch of red hot soul winning preaching fire-breathing churches
And a lot of them are gonna come out of this ministry
And our friends ministries, but you don't know which ones they're gonna be you don't know who it's gonna be some of us the most unlikely people
You just don't know do you?
Which is why you can't foreordain, okay, the pastor's eight-year-old son, you know,
that's going to be the next pastor because you don't know what he's going to be like.
It should all be based upon actual merit, actual achievement.
And when I was growing up, they had this expression, they talked about preachers who were mama-called and papa-sent preachers.
Mama called and Papa sent preachers that's what we would talk about because it's true
You know you have a lot of them just their parents just decide you're gonna be a preacher
And that's where some of the most rotten preachers come from is just these four ordained
Mom and dad have decided that you're going into the ministry and again
Yeah, you could point to a good example
I could point to a good example of course there are good examples out there
But I also just have like a big long list of rotten examples like a hundred people long
Anyway, so let's keep going, we got this eight-year-old,
he began to reign, he reigned three months,
10 days in Jerusalem, he did that,
which was evil in the sight of the Lord.
When the year was expired, King Nebuchadnezzar sent
and brought him to Babylon with the goodly vests
of the house of the Lord and made Zedekiah his brother,
King over Judah and Jerusalem.
And don't quote me on this, but I believe that
Jehoiakin being eight years, doesn't that say
that he was 18 years over in Second Kings?
That's kind of just popping into my head right now.
Am I right about that, Baron?
So yeah, so here's the thing.
It's probably because you had the 11 year reign
and then it's probably a thing where he,
when he was eight years old, was like coronated
or it was decided, oh, he's gonna be the heir.
He's gonna be the next one.
We're super proud of this kid.
And so he was probably ordained as that,
but then he actually started reigning as an 18 year old,
which makes a little more sense for him to do evil
in the side of the Lord when he's 18.
that eight-year-olds can definitely do evil on the side of the Lord because the Bible
says even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure and whether it be
right.
But here's the thing, 18-year-old punk, three months, 10 days, evil on the side of the Lord,
he gets taken out of that position.
So what happens next?
Verse 10, when the year was expired, King Nebuchadnezzar sent and brought him to Babylon
and made Zedekiah his brother, King over Judah and Jerusalem.
And I believe if we look at the parallel passage again,
it's actually his father's brother.
And brother here is just being used loosely
as like relative or whatever.
So anyway,
Zedekiah was one in 20 years old when he began to reign.
He reigned 11 years in Jerusalem.
He did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord his God
and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet
speaking from the mouth of the Lord.
And he also rebelled against king Nebuchadnezzar
who made him swear by God.
Now isn't this interesting?
We've got Eliachim earlier in the chapter.
I know these names are confusing.
Basically, worship Jehovah by the king of Egypt earlier in the passage, now later in
the passage, we have this guy being made to swear by God by Nebuchadnezzar.
And so, again, it's ironic that we have these heathen kings that seem to be more in tune
with the will of God than the Israelites.
And of course, Israel of today is the same way, super out of touch with God, worshiping
And so it says here that Nebuchadnezzar had made him swear by God but he stiffened his
neck and hardened his heart from turning unto the Lord God of Israel.
Now here's the thing about this, that when people are not right with God then they're
often not going to be right with the human authorities in their lives.
He's being put in the position of power Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians. They're the ones giving him his power
He's a vassal. He's like us in a position where he's a
subservient leader
Underneath the larger empire of the Babylonian Empire and so Israel
Better called Judah at this point is like a vassal state of Babylon
And so Nebuchadnezzar is making him swear by God.
He's like, okay, I'm going to make you king,
but you know, you got to work for me, okay?
And he does swear by God.
And so here's the thing.
If Zedekiah swore by God to Nebuchadnezzar,
then isn't he responsible to keep his oath to God
and actually be true to Nebuchadnezzar and be faithful?
Do you see what I'm saying?
So is it right for Zedekiah to just decide to just rebel against the king of Babylon?
No.
The king of Babylon is his authority that put him in power.
That is his human authority.
And guess what?
People that aren't right with God, they're often not right with their human authorities
either.
Who are the human authorities in our lives?
Our parents are an authority given by God, right?
Wives their husband is a God given authority figure in their life, okay?
father are both authority figures in their life. When you go to work at your
job, your human boss, your supervisor, manager, the owner of the company, that is
a God-given authority in your life. You know, if you don't respect your boss at
work, then you need to go find another job where you respect the boss. Or you
need to start respecting the boss that you have.
And we live in a generation of rebellious employees.
Rebellious employees where there's just this attitude where everybody's all unionized and
everybody is just ready to go on strike and everybody complains and talks bad about the
boss and they think that these companies exist to give them jobs.
when in reality, the company exists to provide a product to the customer
and the company exists to make money for the ownership.
That's what the company, look, if I start a company, you know what it's going to be?
It's going to be to make a product and to make money.
It's not going to be like, oh, I just really want to employ people.
What in the leftist Soviet garbage are you talking about?
What kind of a commie are you this is America love it or leave it
Okay, what is this garbage of it? Oh, you know me job provide jobs where look here's the thing you hire people
To serve your agenda
Does everybody understand what I'm saying?
You know so you know if I start a bit, you know, it's funny. I prophesied that one day I would start a bakery
I never did start a bakery
But someone close to me did.
But here's the thing, you know,
once I prophesied about starting a bakery
just so that I could refuse to bake cakes
for sodomites, you know,
just to show how easy it was
to say no.
But here's the thing.
If you start a bakery,
it's because of the fact that you're making money.
You're trying to make money.
Am I right?
I mean, look, who here is a man
and you go to work, you're a man,
You know, every week, you go to work, right?
And you're doing it, you're doing it for what reason?
Why do you do that?
Why do you work very good?
To make money.
Wow, that's amazing.
Me too. You too? Me too.
That's why I've always had a job, you know?
Folks, you go to work to make money.
Well, guess what?
The owner of the company?
You want to know why he goes to work?
The same reason you go to work.
he wants to make money too.
And so the purpose of the business is to produce,
first of all, a product for the customer.
It's, look, it's not just about making money.
I hope that when you go to work,
you're not just making money,
but you're also trying to do a good job for the customer.
So the owner, he wants to provide a product.
Hopefully, if he's a baker,
he wants to provide really good baked meats.
Hopefully, if it's a car dealer, he's trying to provide the best automobile that he can
for the customer.
That's doing your job with integrity.
But it's about providing the product, and it's about making money, and the employees
are servants of the company.
They are there to serve the company, they are there to do the will of the ownership,
to do the will of the management, the supervisor, the owner, the manager, are hiring people
to do their will. And if you are going to be a good employee, you obey the boss. You obey the
management. And listen to me, if you have this attitude of oh the management are idiots, I'm
going to do what I want to do. You know what? You're not right with God because the Bible commands
servants to be obedient to their masters according to the flesh. Number one, you're not right with
God. Number two, you are not going to succeed in life.
Because the workers that succeed are the ones who are a, quote, company man.
That's who's going to succeed.
That's who God's going to bless, the company man, the one who's loyal to the company, loyal
to the product.
And you know what?
I strove, when I had a secular job, I always strove to promote the businesses that I worked
You know makes me sick dear someone say oh, I work at so-and-so the grocery store, but I would never shop there
Oh, I work at this clothing. So I'd never buy clothes there. Oh, I work for this car company. I never buy that car
That's that's a rotten thing to say
You ought to be there to serve your bosses and you should be doing it from the heart.
The Bible says not with eye services, men pleasers, but as the servants of God doing the will of God from the heart.
We're supposed to be serving as unto Christ.
You're supposed to be treating your boss as if he's Jesus.
The management is if they're Jesus.
Now obviously if they tell you to sin, you're not supposed to sin.
But how often do our bosses in life really tell us to sin?
They don't, they rarely do, it's virtually never do you have these kind of conflicts and when you do, you navigate them and that's another sermon.
But the point is that these kings that are doing evil on the side of the Lord, they're not obeying their human authority.
You know, you're put in power by the king of Egypt, you're supposed to do what he told you to do, you've made an agreement to do what the king of Egypt did and then you rebel against that, you're not right with God.
Same thing with Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar puts you in power. He makes you swear by God and then you break your word
You're not right with him. You're also not right with God and those two things go hand in hand
You know you wives you want to be right with God start by getting right with your husband
You think you're gonna get right with God without getting right with your husband you're a fool
You cannot be right with God without being right with your husband period
Because your husband is your human authority.
If you don't love your brother whom you have seen, how can you love God whom you've not
seen?
And how can you claim to be obeying God when you're not obeying this commandment of God?
Wives, submit to your husbands.
Wives, be obedient to your husbands.
Like, how are you obeying God if you're not obeying that?
You know, and in teenagers, you want to be right with God, get right with your parents.
You say, oh, I'm right with God. Are you right with your parents? Because if the answer is no, then you're not right with God.
That's simple. And you know what? Teenagers are often rebellious against their parents.
They often have bitterness and grudges toward their parents, but you know what?
It's called not being right with God.
There's another word for it.
It's called being not walking in the spirit,
not a good Christian, not walking with God.
And you know what?
I was once a rebellious teenager,
and as soon as I got right with God,
you're not gonna believe this.
I immediately got right with my parents.
As soon as I got, as soon as I got,
because I was going to some liberal church,
watered down church.
And so I was backslidden as a teenager because I was going to a liberal church.
But then right before my 17th birthday, right around my 17th birthday,
I got into a good independent Fundamental Baptist Church
and I got really excited about the things of God again
and then just fixed things with my parents and had a great relationship with my parents.
And it's amazing how those two things went hand in hand.
Why? Because your mom and dad represent God in your life.
because God is your what?
He's your heavenly what?
Exactly.
So, if you're going to dishonor your earthly father,
you're going to dishonor the heavenly father.
Take it to the bank.
I don't even wonder about that.
Let's keep going.
Verse 14, it says,
All the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abominations
of the heathen and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
And what does that mean?
We're talking about idolatry, we're talking about false gods, we're talking about false
religion primarily, it could be other things as well.
It says in verse 15,
the Lord God of their fathers sent to them
by his messengers rising up at times,
meaning early and sending,
because he had compassion on his people
and on his dwelling place, verse 16,
but they mocked the messengers of God
and despised his words.
Now notice, they mocked the messengers,
is that plural or singular?
They mocked the messengers of God plural
and despised his words.
So whose words are we talking about?
God's word, God's singular, they despise God's word.
So when you see people mocking the messenger,
whose word do they actually despise?
God's word.
You know, assuming that the messenger
is speaking God's word, right?
So you have the messenger of God preaching God's word
and then you have people mocking the word of God
and it blows my mind.
how people will make fun of a preacher,
and sometimes they'll make fun of a preacher,
and they'll literally just show a clip of the preacher
like reading a Bible verse.
And they're just like, can you believe this guy?
And it's literally a Bible verse like like I literally just saw a video like within the last I don't know a few days or something where it was it was some video mocking me and attacking me and it played a clip where I'm just reading a verse and it was the verse that says that every man should fear his father and mother.
It's a Bible verse.
And I'm saying, hey, this is what should happen.
This is what the Bible is.
It's just like, can you believe this guy?
And it's just like, what are you really despising?
You're despising authority because you despise the Word of God.
You know, and we live in a generation that just despises authority in general.
And it's not even just children rising up against their parents.
It's not even just wives rebelling against their husbands.
Look up who initiates the most divorces, whether it's the man or the woman.
And you know what you're going to see?
Multitudes of women throwing off the authority of their husbands.
Am I right?
Right who's initiating the divorces out there in this world, and I understand that a lot of times
It's the man, but more often than not it's the woman. So what is that?
That's a woman throwing off her God-given authority
Rebelling against her God-given authority, and I can't even tell you how many people I've known in my personal life
Where these guys are not committing adultery. They are going to work every day
They are just normal nice family guys and their wives just decide to leave them
Whatever reason they don't make them tingle anymore or whatever. I don't know why but they just decide that they're just not in love anymore
Or whatever dumb stupid reason they come up with and they just rebel against their authority
So we have today children rebelling against their parents
We have wives throwing off the authority of their husband rebelling against their husband's authority
And then we just have this generation of entitled employees
They'd just complain about their bosses and whine about their supervisors and rebel against their supervisors
And now we're to the point where supervisors they can't even correct their employees
Without their employees just freaking out and then getting all you know, but hurt for lack of a better word
If I thought about it longer, I could probably think of a better word
But the Bible says here that they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words you see people mocking
preachers and look it's one thing if they're mocking a preacher because he's
saying you know put your hand on the screen send me a thousand dollars I
gotta buy a new Learjet or something like okay fine ha ha but when you're
mocking preachers for preaching the Bible something's wrong with that picture
can you believe this guy and then it's just straight biblical stuff that's
being said
They despised God's words and look, they misused his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people.
till there was no remedy, right?
Because there comes a point where things just get
two out of hand and you just can't fix it anymore.
And that's where Judah has gotten to.
And remember, we've been with Judah now
for 36 chapters of this book, right?
36 chapters of this book.
We've been reading the story about the good kings
and the bad kings and the good kings and the bad kings.
And it would kind of go back and forth.
You have a pretty good generation, bad generation,
pretty good, bad, pretty good king, bad king.
Decent king, couple good kings, couple bad kings back and forth.
But here's the thing, even though there's a back and forth,
it's all kind of circling the drain.
Like it's kind of going good, bad, good, bad, good, bad,
but it's all kind of on a slowly downward trajectory.
So by the time you get to Josiah's kids and grandkids,
it's to the point where you can't fix it anymore.
We need a reset button.
Like, something drastic has to happen at this point.
And that's why it says here, till there was no remedy.
You know, it just couldn't be fixed anymore, so it's going to have to be something radical.
Therefore, what does God do?
He brought upon them the king of the Caldees, these are the Babylonians, who slew their
young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary.
and had no compassion upon young men or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age, he gave
all into his hand.
You know what's funny about this is that godly preachers, men of God, prophets of God, when
they preach hard against sin, and I guarantee you that these preachers that God sent, they
were preaching against sin because Jeremiah was one of them.
And he's preaching against sin, he's preaching against fornication, he's preaching against adultery,
he's preaching against idolatry, he's preaching against drunkenness, he's preaching against sin.
And you know what, preachers like that will get accused of being unloving and not compassionate.
And here's what we see, the poetic justice.
Oh, you think that the preachers of God's Word aren't compassionate?
Let me show you somebody who's not compassionate, the Babylonian army.
Right?
Oh, we just need to be, we just need to be more loving and more compassionate and we
need to be seeker sensitive and we need to just meet people where they're at and we
need to just let them be whatever fluid gender they are this week and just, you know, we
just need to just kind of just accept everything the way it is and accept everybody and just
anything goes and just, you know, not ever judge anything or anyone, right?
And then you get this attitude, but here's what happens.
When you're not executing judgment in the house of God,
when judgment's not beginning at the house of God like the Bible says it needs to,
then what happens is it gets so bad that God has to actually send real judgment.
And you know what that judgment looks like? No compassion.
In reality, your local Baptist pastor does have compassion on you.
You know in reality pastors that preach hard on sin do have compassion on you
You want to know who's not gonna have compassion on you some foreign invading army that God sends because America got too wicked
I mean think about it if America just keeps getting more sinful and degenerate and wicked and then some evil army comes in
You know whether you know that the Chinese or the Russians or whoever
You know, I'm not trying to predict anything because I don't you know, obviously nobody can ever beat us
I get it, but I'm saying you know if God wanted to take us down. He can he can use anybody except Canada or Mexico
You know what I'm saying
You can use anybody you want.
Except, no, I shouldn't.
Except France, right?
No, I shouldn't.
But the point is, that's going to be no compassion.
You know who's not going to have compassion on you?
You know who's not going to have compassion?
The police, when they come to arrest you.
You know who's not going to have compassion on you?
The prison guard.
Yeah, oh my parents. Oh, you know, no matter how strict your parents are
It's probably better than being in prison
And I guarantee it's better than being in the nut house
And I can speak from experience brother
So the Bible says that you have no compassion on you know women children young men old men just everybody
Ends up getting smoked
All the vessels of the house of God, they get taken captive to Babylon and I'm out of time tonight
but the final thing that happens in this chapter though is that the grandson,
okay, the grandson ends up getting right with God like 30 some years later.
Okay, and which is interesting, right? Because we have, you know, we got these ungodly sons of Josiah,
we have these three wicked sons, we got the wicked grandson, but then
Ultimately, God ends up blessing the grandson, and what we see at the end of Second Chronicles,
the purpose of this, like from a narrative perspective, is that it's a glimmer of hope
that the same Davidic monarchy is going to continue because this guy is a son of David,
right?
Jehoiakins, the son of David, and so God gives us this glimmer of hope, like 37 years into
That okay, this guy is back and then his son's son, you know grandson or whatever is eventually going to come back
Someday and rebuild the nation after the 70 years of captivity
Because at the final verse in verse 23 Cyrus is making proclamation
For them to come back to Jerusalem after 70 years of captivity. So in chapter 36
Judah gets totally wiped out and taken captive, but then we have a glimmer of hope
With the grandson being lifted up, you know, and I'm reading between the lines that he's getting right with God
That's why God would bless him like that, you know
That's just my opinion and then we see that there's hope of rebuilding the temple
Coming back to Jerusalem and so forth and so here's the thing is that you know our lives
are going to be much better if we follow God and do right in the side of the Lord.
God can really take us down
if we don't follow Christ and if we do evil in the side of the Lord.
We've got to do right.
Here's the thing.
We also want to pass on
godly truths and godly wisdom to the next generation.
Now, hopefully, that's our biological children.
Hopefully, that's our friends and loved ones that are closest to us and our favorite church
members and friends and people.
But here's the thing, we need to sow the seed a little broader than that.
because it might not always be the people that we think that pan out.
So that's why we need to have lots of spiritual sons and daughters.
Somebody's going to get it. Somebody's going to carry the torch in the next generation.
If we get enough people saved, teach enough people the Bible, and so forth.
And even the ones who go astray, even the children and grandchildren that go astray,
you know, there's still hope that years later, decades later,
30 years later, they could get right with God.
And especially if they're already saved.
Well, the Holy Spirit is just there ready to go anytime they want to get right with God.
He's right there ready to go.
Even if they're not saved, you know, someday those people could hopefully get saved as
long as they're not reprobates, keep praying for them, keep witnessing to them.
And you know, we never really know what God's going to do down the road.
And so that gives us hope that even when God brings destruction,
there's always hope for the future for God's people.
There's always going to be hope for God's people.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this chapter to conclude the Book of Second Chronicles.
Lord, we pray that every single person in this room would make the decision to do right in your sight,
and that we would honor our earthly authorities, that we would honor agreements that we make,
and not be like Zedekiah, who rebelled against his human authority because he wasn't right with you.
Help us to be right with you and human authority, and Lord, help us to try to pass on the Word of God to the next generation,
not just our children, but also to just lots of different people.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen. Lastly, let's turn in our hymnals to song number 129.
Song number 129, Rock of Ages.
Song number 129, sing it out.
Rock of Ages, play for me.
Let me hide myself in me.
Let the water and the blood
from thy wound inside which flow.
Be our sin, the double cure.
Save from wrath and make me pure.
Could my tears forever flow?
Could my zeal no longer know?
These four sin could not atone.
Thou must save and Thou alone.
And no price I bring, simply to the cross I cling,
While I draw this bleeding thread,
When my eyes shall close in death,
When I rise to worlds unknown,
And behold, beyond my throne,
Let me hide myself in the dark.