I have to turn my ringer off.
We'll begin this morning.
The hearts make gold.
Amen. Good start to our singing this morning.
We want to go before Lauren asks blessing on the service,
so I've asked for the Fidel Gonzales to give you some purpose.
Father in heaven, we want to thank you for our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
We want to thank you for this beautiful church building, Lord.
We ask you to bless Pastor Anderson, fill him with your Holy Spirit,
and let his message be edifying to us all.
It's in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.
Amen.
Amen. Back to hymn number 70, hymn number 70.
Will Jesus find us watching?
When Jesus comes to reward His servants, whether it be noon or night, let's lift our voices together now, hymn number 7-0, sing it out now, hymn number 70.
When Jesus comes to reward His servants, whether it be noon or night,
Maple to Him will He find us watching, with our lips all trimmed and bright.
All can we say, we are ready, brother, ready for the soul to fight on.
Say, will you find you and me still watching, waiting, waiting when the Lord shall come?
If at the dawn of the early morning, he shall call us one by one,
answer thee well done all can say we are ready brother ready for the souls
right home say will he find you and me still watching waiting waiting when the
Lord shall come have we been true to the trustee
We obey all the Lord commands us. We shall then be truly blessed.
All can say we are ready, brother, ready for the souls right home.
Say will he find you and me still watching, waiting, waiting, and on the last.
Blessed are those whom the Lord finds watching, In His glory they shall share.
If we shall come at the dawn or midnight, To find us watching there.
Oh, can we say we are ready, brother, Ready for the souls' rise?
When the Lord shall come.
Matt, good singing.
All right, everybody.
Welcome to our first service at the brand new church building.
Welcome to the barrio.
and it's great to have you all here this morning.
We're still trying to kind of get things figured out.
I'm just super impressed with how well this move went
because we didn't even start moving until Wednesday morning.
And you know, here we are Sunday morning
and everything is out of the old building.
Everything at least has been moved down here.
I thought I was gonna have to do some kind of a work day
on Saturday or something,
but so many people just kind of spontaneously volunteered
on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
that everything just happened on its own and so thank you so much to everybody
who's been helping us out getting settled in and stuff like that
and just bear with us as we try to kind of get everything figured out about the
new location and you know you get your new seat figured out and
everything. All right so let's go ahead and go
through our bulletins. If you don't have a bulletin,
lift your hand nice and high and we'll get to you with one.
Can everybody hear me okay? Sound is good? All right.
So, we've got the service times, of course, below that, the soul winning times,
salvation and baptisms, and then note that no, we don't want any children on the platform
at all for any reason, just for safety reasons, or in the baptistry or anything like that.
And then congratulations to the young family on the birth of baby Marcus Abram, born on
9 pounds, 9 ounces, 23 inches.
Mother and baby are doing well.
Please speak to Mrs. Amanda Wright.
If you'd like to sign up to be on the meal train
to take the family a meal on the back,
we're going to be starting up our yearbook photos
for this year on October 5th.
There's going to be a sign up sheet.
And this year's background color is dark brown
so that you can plan your ensemble accordingly.
Of course, thank you to everyone who's helped out with the passing of our dear friend, Brother Kevin Rowe.
If you want to help out, there's information there to help out with Lola and the needs there.
And then other upcoming events are listed there below.
Just a couple other things. So, in the future...
The landlord had said that they were going to be
cordoning off like a special area where we're supposed to park.
But I think that they just forgot to do that this morning.
So in the future, I think that there is going to be some kind of a
cordoned off area that we're supposed to use.
So if you pull up and you see like a cordoned off area,
then use it.
But this morning it was just kind of the Wild West.
So that's OK.
What was the other thing that you're going to have to be?
Oh yeah, so we got these really cool pens made
for our church that commemorate the move to Phoenix.
They're over here.
So can I just get a bunch of guys to come up here
and just let's just hand those out real quick.
And so everybody can get the nice new
faithful word Baptist church pens.
And then what are you signaling me now?
Too many helpers it's it you know, it's it's better to have too many people who want to help than not enough, right?
This is how it's been the last few days moving though
Just people are just showing up just masses of people to help us great. So alright, so
So just get the pens out there everybody gets a pen alright
All right, I still feel like there was one other thing that I needed to announce besides the parking situation
All right, very good, I think that that's about it for announcements so while we're handing those out
Let's go ahead and sing our next song
Brother Daniel come lead us
All right, you should find the answer from your hymnal with Psalm 67
Does everybody have inserts or no?
All right, everyone turn your Bibles to Psalm 67.
We're still gonna sing this song, all right?
So I'll give you a moment to turn to that page.
Kira's gonna play the intro one more time
and I'll give you enough time.
Starts, God be merciful unto us
and bless us and the chorus is,
let the people praise thee, O God.
Let all the people praise thee,
sure y'all are familiar with it.
So when your Bible Psalm 67 begins God be merciful unto us and bless us sing it out together now
and a good singer, everybody.
Go on your hymnals now to hymn number 334, number 334.
Make me a blessing, hymn number 334.
334 begins out in the highways and byways of life.
Many are weary inside.
Sing it out with me now, hymn number 334.
Out in the highways and byways of life.
All right, this time we'll pass our offering plates around as the plates go around.
Let's turn in our Bibles to Isaiah chapter number five.
Isaiah chapter number five in our Bibles.
Follow along silently with Brother Corbin Brock as he reads Isaiah chapter five.
Isaiah chapter five.
Now I sing to my well beloved a song.
My beloved touching is vineyard.
My well-beloved hath a vineyard and a very fruitful hill.
And he fenced it and gathered out the stones thereof,
and planted it with the choicest vine,
and built a tower in the midst of it,
and also made a wine press therein.
And he looked that it should bring forth grapes,
and it brought forth wild grapes.
And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.
What could have been done before to my vineyard that I have not done in it wherefore when I look that it should bring forth grapes
brought it forth wild grapes and
Now go to I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard
I will take away the heads thereof and it shall be eaten up and break down the wall thereof and it shall be trodden down
And I will lay it waste. It shall not be pruned nor digged, but there shall come up briars and thorns.
I will also command the clouds that they reign no reign upon it.
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant.
And he looked for judgment, but behold oppression, for righteousness, but behold a cry.
Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place,
that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth.
In mine ears said the Lord of hosts, of a truth, many houses shall be desolate, even great and fair, without inhabitant.
Yea, ten acres of vineyard shall yield one bath, and the seed of a homer shall yield an ephah.
Woe unto them that rise up early in the morning, that they may follow strong drink, that continue until night, till wine inflame them.
And the harp and the veal, the tabret and pipe and wine are in their feasts,
but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither consider the operation of his hands.
Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge,
and their honorable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.
Therefore hell has enlarged herself.
opened her mouth without measure and their glory and their multitude and their
pomp and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it and the mean man shall be
brought down and the mighty mighty man shall be humbled and the eyes of the
lofty shall be humbled but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment and
God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness then shall the lambs feed
after their manner and the waste places of the fat one shall strangers eat
Woe unto them that draw iniquity with cords of vanity and sin as it were with a cart rope that say
Let him make speed and hasten his work that we may see it and let the counsel of the holy one of Israel draw an eye and
Come that we may know it
Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness
That put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter
Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes and prudent in their own sight
Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink,
which justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from
him.
Therefore, as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeeth the chaff, so their
root shall be as rottenness, and their blossoms shall go up as dust, because they have cast
away the law of the Lord of hosts, and despise the word of the Holy One of Israel."
Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people,
and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them,
and the hills did tremble, and their carcasses were torn in the midst of the streets.
For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.
And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far,
and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth,
and behold they shall come with speed swiftly.
None shall be weary nor stumble among them, none shall slumber nor sleep, neither shall the girdle of their loins be loosed, nor the latchet of their shoes be broken, whose arrows are sharp, and all their bows bent, their horses hoofs shall be counted like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind.
Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions, yea, they shall roar and lay hold of the prey, shall carry it away safe, and none shall deliver it.
And in that day they shall roar against them like the roaring of the sea, and if one look
unto the land behold darkness and sorrow, and the light is darkened, and the heavens
thereof."
Well, we just come before you this morning. We just thank you so much for letting us be here today Lord in this new building
And we just lift up this service to you. We just ask that you would just bless Pastor Anderson with your Holy Spirit
Goddess and lead us here in the truth this morning
And we just thank you for your holy word and the King James of Bible your name. We pray amen
Man, the title of my sermon this morning is things that are backwards, things that are
backwards.
The Bible says there in Isaiah chapter 5 verse 20, woe unto them that call evil good
and good evil that put darkness for light and light for darkness that put bitter for
sweet and sweet for bitter.
So that's a description of things just being backwards, not just morally backwards as far
as calling.
good evil and evil good, but even just the insanity of just putting sweet for
bitter, bitter for sweet, light for darkness,
just things that are just wrong in our world today.
And of course, God is the one who's right.
Everything that the Lord says and does is right.
The Bible is right about everything,
and it's our world that often gets things backwards.
And we're gonna look at some of those things this morning.
It says in verse 21,
woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes
and prudent in their own sight.
So the first thing I wanna mention is people
that think that they're smarter than God, right?
Obviously, that's totally backwards because God is omniscient, all-knowing, he has all
knowledge and our knowledge is nothing compared to his and yet there are people in this world
who think they know more than God.
They approach the Bible and basically stand in judgment of the Word of God like they're
the final authority.
Well, let me see if I agree with what the Bible says here.
Let me see if this is right or not and they're almost like evaluating the Bible from a position
of authority like they're smarter than God or something you know the right way to look at the
Bible is to realize that you know we're we're nothing compared to God and we need to let God
tell us how things are and if we disagree with the Bible it's us that are wrong. We're the ones who
Now you don't have to turn there, but in Isaiah 55 verse 8 the Bible reads for my thoughts are not your thoughts
Neither are your ways my ways sayeth the Lord for as the heavens are higher than the earth
So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts, right?
So God's ways are just way up there in the stratosphere
His thoughts are in the stratosphere compared to our earthly carnal
God knows a lot more than we will ever know,
and so it's backwards to think that you're smarter than God.
The Bible says in Psalm 1830,
as for God, his way is perfect.
The word of the Lord is tried.
He is a buckler to all those that trust in him.
Proverbs 21.30 says this,
there is no wisdom nor understanding,
nor counsel against the Lord.
So anything that goes against God, against the Bible,
it's wrong.
Whatever wisdom, whatever education, whatever learning, whatever philosophy, if it goes against the Lord, it's wrong.
Because there's no true wisdom or knowledge that goes against the Lord. No real science goes against the Lord.
If something claims to be science and it goes against the Lord, it's science falsely so-called.
And the Bible even warns us about this thousands of years ago, oppositions to the Word of God that are based on
science falsely so-called.
And you know, I've studied a lot of science.
I've been pretty into science over the years
and I've geeked out on science
and I've gone pretty deep on it.
I've done some deep dives on science.
And let me tell you something,
the more that I studied science,
it just confirmed my faith in the Word of God.
You know it and the more I studied biology specifically it just confirmed my faith in the word of God the
Magnificence of God's creation that could not just come about by itself on its own. No, it's created by God
So number one people that think they're smarter than God are backwards
Number two, in the same passage here, he goes on to say in verse 22,
woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink.
The second thing I want to point out that's backwards is that people think it's cool or manly to drink alcohol.
Right, and the Bible talks about here people that are mighty to drink wine and men of strength to mingle strong drink
Let me tell you something that is a bunch of baloney. There's nothing cool or manly or tough or you know
Oh, you're so tough any idiot can pour that garbage down their gullet
doesn't take any
skill or character or any might to pour a bunch of toxic garbage down your throat and
and so you should not be drinking or taking drugs
and doing those things doesn't make you tough,
it just makes you stupid.
Because the Bible says, wine is a marker,
strong drink is raging,
and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.
It just makes you foolish to do those things,
doesn't make you mighty or powerful or such a big man.
You know, I mean, maybe you're gonna get a big beer belly,
but it doesn't make you a big man to drink alcohol.
Go if you would to Habakkuk chapter number two.
It's kind of a famous passage.
Habakkuk chapter number two,
starting in verse number 15.
I'll start reading while you get there.
Habakkuk 2.15, it says,
woe unto him, that giveth his neighbor drink,
that putteth thy bottle to him,
and maketh him drunken also,
that thou mayest look on their nakedness.
And then here's the part I wanna focus in on.
Habakkuk 2.16, it says,
thou art filled with shame for glory.
Right? So what this world maybe thinks is glory, like, yeah, it's so cool, man, we're going to drink so much, we're going to party, right?
The Bible says it's shame. You're filled with shame for glory.
He says, drink thou also, and let thy foreskin be uncovered, the cup of the Lord's right hand shall be turned unto thee, and shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
Now, why does alcohol and obviously you can include drugs in the same thing?
Why do alcohol and drugs bring shame upon our lives?
Well, the first reason is because when you get drunk, you can often end up getting naked.
You end up getting naked or you could get taken advantage of by someone else where you're so inebriated
You're so confused you don't know what's going on and then someone comes and uncovers your nakedness
Without you even knowing what's going on and we see that all the way back in the book of Genesis with lots daughters
Doing that and and it's you know throughout scripture and we've heard about it in our lives
We've known people like that where they got drunk and they got violated
it's shameful, it's embarrassing the nakedness of it.
And that's in the immediate context here,
verses 15 and 16.
But not only that, it says at the end of verse 16,
shameful spewing shall be on thy glory.
And spewing is of course, referring to vomiting, right?
Like if you're gonna spew, you know,
that means you're throwing up.
And so I don't think it's cool or mighty or powerful
to be bent over a toilet, puking your guts out, right?
But this world's like, hey, it's so cool, you know?
Oh, you're boring, you're a square
because you don't drink or something.
Now, it's shameful to be puking,
it's shameful to be getting naked and getting violated
and just all the dumb, stupid things you say and do
when you're under the influence of alcohol.
There's nothing cool about it.
Don't get that backwards.
Drinking makes you stupid, not mighty.
But not only that.
And I'm kind of just working my way down through this passage about things that are backwards right so number one in verse 21
We saw people think that they're smarter than God, and that's why they'll call evil good and good evil
They'll get things backwards because they don't make the Bible their final authority number two
We saw people thinking that it's cool or manly to drink alcohol in verse 22, but what about if we go to verse
23 the Bible says which justify the wicked for reward?
and take away the righteousness of the righteous from Him.
That's also backwards, isn't it?
Like justifying the wicked,
declaring wicked people to be righteous,
and then condemning righteous people,
just getting that totally backwards as well.
The Bible says in Proverbs 17.15,
He that justified the wicked,
and He that condemned the just,
even they both are abomination to the Lord.
So when we take a wicked person and praise them
and lift them up as a hero, that's wicked.
And also when we take a godly person and then tear them down
and say that they're wicked and say that they're bad,
that is also an abomination in the sight of God.
And the Bible also says that the wicked walk on every side
when the vilest men are exalted.
You know, when just like the absolute worst people
are lifted up as heroes.
And think about today, some of the people
that are the most celebrated people in our society
are a bunch of just weird sodomites and just derelicts you know whatever in the music industry
or in the movie industry or you know politicians or whatever that are just some of the most wicked
people that in time passed in our country we would have thought like oh this is really bad
you know these whores and whoremongers it's people that society would have been a little
bit ashamed of now we're now we're electing those people into office
You know I literally saw that it was saying that all the Democrats are thinking about putting up Kamala Harris and
Pete booty judge
as their ticket or whatever for the next election.
I'm thinking to myself like what kind of a country
do we live in where you have people putting up
a literal whore, Kamala Harris,
who literally got her first government appointed job
by sleeping with a married man
that was decades older than her, that makes her a whore.
She whored her way into that position.
She didn't earn it, she got there by being a whore.
And then this is feminist.
Folks, I thought that if feminism is trying to exalt girls and women, wouldn't they give
them a role model that actually achieved something through skill, talent, brains, not by committing
adultery with a politician, committing adultery with a married man?
This isn't some wild conspiracy theory.
Look it up.
It's admitted.
It's on the record.
Everybody knows that she's a whore, and yet it's like, hey, I don't know.
And I have an idea for her running mate, how about a faggot, right?
A faggot whose name, like sometimes I feel like I'm living in the twilight zone when
the guy's name is literally booty judge.
A faggot named booty judge and a literal whore, you know, and the Bible says the wicked walk
on every side when the vilest man are exalted.
You know and I've seen all kinds of pictures of that booty faggot with his you know his queer buddy
I'm pretty sure he
Purchased a child as well because it's not like they can reproduce. It's not like they can have children
But he purchased a child
In this country, folks, we got some backwardsness going on in our country,
and we need some pulpits across America to thunder forth the word of God.
We need heart preaching to call this stuff out and call a spade a spade
and get things turned around the way they need to be.
You know, we got too many churches compromising, too many churches watering down their message today,
when we need pulpits to be thundering forth louder than they ever have,
thus sayeth the Lord, turning to the word of God, and getting some sanity and decency back in this country.
And you know what, this church is going to continue to be totally unfiltered and uncensored like it's always been.
You know, it's so it's so funny just because we have a nice auditorium now people are kind of like oh, man
You know don't start compromising the preaching. It's like hold up hold up
Hold up because first of all number one. I would rather die than compromise the preaching
I would rather die. I would rather be in prison. I would rather go bankrupt. I would rather go get a different job
You name it
Number one, but number two this building is not more expensive than our old building
We're just getting a better deal, folks.
And so we're still in a strip mall.
We're still in the barrio, all right?
And we're keeping it real.
And so no, we didn't have some giant fund raiser
and raise millions of dollars to be here.
You know, we're just getting a good deal.
We're loving it, you know?
And we just, it is what it is.
And you know, while we're getting a little political
this morning.
And the only reason I get interesting,
the only reason I get political
is when it ties in with the word of God.
You know, and that's the only issue is just biblical stuff.
But you know, obviously the big thing
that's on everybody's mind right now is of course,
you know, Charlie Kirk being assassinated
and everybody's talking about that.
And every time you drive down the road,
there's billboards all about it.
And I saw some people that were offended
at comparing Charlie Kirk to Martin Luther King, Jr.
you know, because that's someone else who was assassinated, right?
And they were offended because they felt like Martin Luther King Jr. was such a better person than Charlie Kirk.
But I'm thinking to myself, you know, the way I look at it, and I'm not saying I know everything,
but the way I look at it, Charlie Kirk is just kind of a chill guy, and he's just kind of a vanilla Republican.
He's not even, like, like, like, he seems liberal compared to us.
You know what?
We're more right-wing than he is, but Charlie Kirk is just kind of a chill guy. Just kind of a vanilla
evangelical Christian
vanilla
Republican kind of a guy
But he's a family man. He's married got a couple kids just live in a pretty normal decent life by all accounts
Then you got Martin Luther King, Jr. Who's literally just caught just a serial adulterer
Just total adultery. It's all been released now. All those files have been released. It's all just on the record just total
adultery total
Hordoms every time we go speak somewhere just filling the hotel with a bunch of whores like literal prostitutes all these horrific things
And then you got all of his close advisors or like these Jew communists and whatever.
He's hooked up with the literal CPUSA, Communist Party USA and I did a whole documentary about
it many years ago called Marxist Lucifer King.
But you're right, we can't compare these two because they're just not really comparable.
You know because on the one hand we just have like a pretty normal average Christian American guy
Getting blown away because he said stuff that people didn't like
When we're supposed to have freedom of speech in this country first amendment
He just gets blown away, and then you have all these people celebrating that
You know even if you don't agree with him
You shouldn't expect that in America you go on a college campus and speak your mind and just get blown away
It's terrible
But yeah, you can't compare them to MLK, because MLK is trash.
The Bible says in Luke 16-15, if you would turn over to Ecclesiastes chapter 10,
in Luke 16-15 it says, He said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men,
but God knoweth your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men
is abomination in the sight of God. It sounds pretty backwards, right?
When something is highly esteemed among men, that's actually an abomination in the sight of God and so that's backwards
And so we want to make sure that we go to the word of God. We don't get things backwards, right?
Number one, we should never think that we're smarter than God
God knows everything the Bible's the final authority if we disagree with the Bible we change our opinion to match the Bible
Number two, we should never think that it's cool or manly or tough to drink alcohol. That's backwards. It's weak
It's it's it's shameful. It's an embarrassment
It's nothing to be proud of or brag about according to the word of God number three
We should never exalt vile people
We should not be lifting up adulterers and sodomites and whores as our heroes
And I don't care what avenue it's in you know as soon as I find out that some athlete is a sodomite
You know, I'm not gonna wear that jersey. Oh wait. I've never worn a jersey in my life of any athlete
But if I did it wouldn't be a sodomite
right
You know what I mean? Like as soon as you find out some singer or actor or you know, you know
You should be like, whoa, I don't want to promote this person
Knowing that they're that because the wicked walk on every side when the violist men are exalted
But number four another thing that's backward in our society
is people praising rebellion
and looking down on obedience
Praising rebellion.
Look what the Bible says in Ecclesiastes chapter 10 verse 4,
if the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee,
leave not thy place for yielding pacified great offenses.
You know, so the Bible's teaching us to submit to authority
here and in a million other places.
But then it says in verse number five,
there's an evil which I've seen under the sun
as an error which proceeded from the ruler.
Folly is set in great dignity, and the rich sit in low place.
I've seen servants upon horses and princes walking as servants upon the earth.
You say, man, that's backwards, right?
And so we want to make sure that we actually support biblical authority and not participate in rebellion.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that the Bible teaches that children should obey their parents, that wives should obey their husbands, that employees should obey the boss at work.
that we should obey the God-given authorities in our lives
and not praise rebellion against authority.
Whatever the authority is that's a God-given authority,
we should follow that authority.
But today, foolishness, folly, is set in great dignity.
The rich sit in low place.
I've seen servants upon horses and princes walking
as servants upon the earth, this kind of backwardness
of the followers ruling over the leaders.
You know and and by the way, this can be in a church, too
You can have a church where the pastor is afraid of the members and the members are manipulating the pastor
and then the pastor can't really get up and preach
with freedom and and lead the church right because the members are
Holding him back or dragging him down
And so you'll have these kind of committee run
or board run churches.
And I remember when I was growing up,
we'd run into this sometimes.
In the old IFB, we'd run into this
where the pastor would be cool,
but then there'd be deacons and trustees
and people that were kind of holding him back.
from really cutting loose and preaching the way he wanted to.
I remember one time Brother Hiles told the story
about how when he first took over
at the first Baptist Church of Hammond
that the deacons came to him and they said,
hey, we need to have a meeting about your preaching.
Is it okay if we have a meeting about your preaching?
And he said, yeah, sure.
And they said, okay, we're gonna do it at this date and time.
He's like, great.
But he didn't go.
And they're like, hey, you didn't show up and he said why I never said I was going to show up
You said you wanted to have a meeting about my preaching
So go ahead and have a meeting go and talk about my preaching and you can talk about whatever you want
I don't need to be there because I'm not changing my preaching
So I don't really need to be there to get that feedback
You know, that's that's what we need
We need pastors to get up and preach what the Bible says and let the chips fall where they may not like hey
You know, what do people want to hear? You know, what's popular today? That's not what we need
We need leaders to be leaders.
We need parents to be parents.
We need husbands to be the heads of the household,
to run their homes, right?
We need leadership that comes from the top down,
not a backwards leadership where, you know,
the students are grading the teachers.
You know, instead of the teachers grading the students, right?
We don't want to get backwards on this thing
and praise rebellion.
Now go if you would to Esther, chapter number one.
Esther, chapter number one.
Now, Esther can be sometimes a little bit of a difficult book because it is a historical
book and the reason that I say that historical books can be difficult is because sometimes
When we're reading historical books there could be different ways of interpreting the situation because historical books are not necessarily
Telling us thus say it the Lord or this is what God says to do or God says not to do a lot of times
They're just giving a history of something that happened and the thing about the book of Esther is that God has never even mentioned in the book of Esther
You know, it's a historical book and it's explaining to us
just what happened.
It's just a story of what happened.
And so whenever we're interpreting historical books,
what we need to do is look at other parts of the Bible
that are like clearly giving us statements from God
and commentary from God.
And we need to use those clear statements from God
to interpret the historical books, okay?
Because the historical books will often just tell you
that something happened and they won't always tell you,
this person was right, this person was wrong.
And let me just give you an example.
You know, in the historical books,
you'll read about people having two wives or something.
And so some people could wrongfully say,
oh, well, this guy had two wives,
I'm gonna do the same thing.
But in those same historical books,
people are stealing, committing murder,
doing all kinds of bad things.
What we need to go is with the clear statement
where Jesus said, God at the beginning
made the male and female
and a man shall cleave unto his wife singular,
and they too shall be one flesh.
What God has joined together, let not man put asunder."
So we need to always use the clear statement
to interpret the story.
Statement interprets story.
God speaking interprets a historical book,
because there are a lot of things that happen,
for example, the books of Ezra and Nehemiah
that aren't necessarily right.
but it's just explaining what people did.
But with that caveat, it's important to realize that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine.
So the book of Esther is still important for us to read, understand it, teach it, preach it.
We can still learn a lot of valuable truths, but we just need to make sure that we use other parts of the Bible to make sure we're interpreting it the right way.
You use the easy to interpret the difficult, clear to interpret the unclear, what's coming
directly out of the mouth of God or out of the mouth of Christ or out of the mouth of
any of the biblical authors versus a story, a historical book just telling you what happened.
So in this story, and I don't have time to delve into the whole story, but in this story
we have a situation where the queen defies the king of
Persia and and this is the most powerful empire in the world at that time that's made up of a hundred and twenty seven
Provinces that go all the way from India to Ethiopia. So this is just a huge
massive empire.
And so, this is like probably the most powerful man in the world, literally.
But then, he tells his wife to do something, and she refuses to do it.
He tells her to come to this particular gathering, and she's just like, no, I don't want to.
I ain't coming.
It's like the most powerful man in the world.
So he's kind of, he's like, what?
What's going on?
So he goes and he gets all his counselors together
and he asks them, you know, what do I do in this situation?
Well, it says in verse number 16,
and Mimucan answered, before the king and the princes,
Vashti the queen had not done wrong to the king only,
but also to all the princes and to all the people
that are in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus.
For this deed of the queen shall come abroad
into all women,
so that they shall despise their husbands in their eyes,
when it shall be reported the king, as you hear us,
commanded Vashtai the queen to be brought in before him,
but she came not.
Likewise, shall the ladies of Persia and Medea
say this day unto all the king's princes,
which have heard of the deed of the queen.
Thus shall there arise too much contempt and wrath."
Okay?
Now, what they're saying here is 100% valid.
Unfortunately, because we're in a historical book,
these people are not Christians,
and they're not even serving the God of the Bible.
They're just worldly people.
They end up coming out with the wrong solution,
which is basically for the king to just divorce his wife
and just get rid of her
and just get a different one or whatever.
Obviously, their solution ends up being wrong,
but the problem that they identify is real here, okay?
And there's also a symbolism here where
Vastai represents the nation of Israel
who disobeyed the Lord and then they end up
getting replaced with Christians in the New Testament.
And so they no longer are God's chosen people
in the New Testament.
So there's a lot of great imagery and things you can get here.
But what I wanna point out here that the passage is saying
is that look, if you have a leader
that everybody's looking up to, the king of Persia,
and this guy's wife just defies him
and is not expected to obey whatsoever.
Then the idea is, well then everybody's gonna see
that bad example and then other wives
are all gonna do the same thing.
You know, they're gonna say, well, okay, this is the leader.
This is the tone that's being set.
This is the culture where every wife is gonna despise
their husbands in their own eyes, right?
Look down on them, think, I don't have to obey them.
I mean, hey, if the queen doesn't even have to obey
the king of Persia, why should I obey my Oswald
or whatever husband who's just an electrician or something?
a plumber. You know what I mean? Like why should I obey him? And so they're explaining, look,
you're hurting everybody when you're a leader and you let your wife wear the pants in the family
and you're just this hen pecked guy and you have no authority in your home. You end up hurting
everybody because then all the people in the pew, they're going to see that example. So basically
what it's saying is, you know, you go to a church where basically the pastor's wife is running the show
you know, then that's not going to help your marriage because your wife's going to see that and think like,
oh, I guess that's how we do business around here.
I guess this is how Christianity works, and it's an embarrassment.
You know, or think about the president of France, or what a prime minister, or who cares, whatever he is.
I don't know what he is, but his name is Macron.
And, you know, there was this video that was on the internet where they flew to Vietnam or something.
And all these reporters are all gathered around the edge of the airplane, and they all have their cameras already and everything.
The door to the plane opens, and basically this guy is just trying to be affectionate with his wife.
And she basically just like shoves him and hits him in the face.
On camera.
You know, so she's just she's just totally rebellious and let's not even bring up all the other weird things about this woman
That's a whole rabbit hole. You know, but let's just pretend it's a normal woman for a second. Okay
You know, so it's kind of an embarrassment
When the president of the country is just seen on camera just getting slapped around
Just getting assaulted and shoved and slapped around by his wife
You know that's gonna end up doing a few things number one
It could it could give us a lack of confidence in his leadership of the country
If that if his own wife is slapping him around
But then not only that it could also just send a signal of oh, this is normal all the way from the top down
This is just what women do and it's just normal
Maybe I'll slap my husband around tonight as well
You know if if Immanuel Macron can get slapped around so can my husband or something
you know, I think that's what we see going on here in
Esther chapter number one saying look now here's why I turned here
I want to tie this in with what we just read in Ecclesiastes
Because in Ecclesiastes, and if you would, keep your finger in Esther 1, let's go back to Ecclesiastes 10.
And actually, we can ditch Esther 1, I think we all heard it.
But Ecclesiastes chapter 10, it says in verse number 4,
If the spirit of the ruler rise up against thee, leave not thy place, for yielding pacifyeth great offenses.
Yielding is like submitting.
Right submitting pacifies great offenses watch this. There's an evil which I have seen under the Sun as an error
And this is what I want to tie in with Esther an error which proceeds from the ruler
So where is this error coming from? Where's this wrongness this backwardness coming from it's coming from the ruler?
Folly is setting great dignity
The rich sit in low place, servants upon horses,
princes walking as servants upon the earth.
This backwardness of authority proceeds from the ruler.
So we need rulers that will take charge and lead
and not allow backwardness to prevail in our land.
We definitely need that in the church house.
But we need it politically. We need it just everywhere in business, you know, and I'm not talking about being a
Tyrant or being brutal or anything like that. You know what I'm talking about is strong leadership
Yes, that looks out for the follower and does what's best for everyone, but that strongly leads
Okay
Obviously, we should all be unselfish and thinking about other people and doing what's best for others,
but leaders need to lead, and it just makes me want to spew, I should say.
Whenever I see these pastors that are up there cutting down a husband's leadership in his home
Cutting down parents leadership of their children cutting down bosses leadership at work. It's not biblical
It's not right and you know what it I remember back when I was in the pew
It used to drive me nuts when the pastor would do that
It was frustrating because we already have society that's backwards
We don't want the church to be backwards, because if the light that is in you be darkness, how great is that darkness?
Go, if you would, to Romans chapter one.
Actually, go to Exodus 21. Exodus 21.
Exodus number 21 things that are backwards is this thing of promoting rebellion and not standing up for authority and leadership.
And you know what? It's also when it comes to children with their parents as well because today it seems like what's being taught today is honor thy son and daughter.
seems to be the teaching today. Honor your son and daughter.
Is that what the Bible says? No, the Bible says honor
your father and mother is what it says. So look at Exodus 21.
The Bible says in Exodus 21.15 it says, and he that smideth
smideth just means like hits, like assaults or hits.
You know imagine like punching someone in the face or something in this context, right?
He that smighteth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death and
He that stealeth a man and selleth him or if he be found in his hand
He shall surely be put to death. What would to God we would bring back the death penalty for kidnappers in America today human traffickers
Kidnappers right what does the Bible say put them to death?
But then he says, he that curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.
So the Bible strongly condemns a child hitting their parent or a child cursing their parent.
Jesus reiterates this in the New Testament.
Matthew 15.4, Jesus says, God commanded saying, honor thy father and mother, and he that curses
father and mother, let him die the death.
That's Jesus talking in the New Testament.
And yet today, we have parents under attack for basically spanking their children.
What does the Bible say?
Withhold not correction from the child.
For if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die.
Thou shalt beat him with the rod and shall deliver his soul from hell.
So the Bible is telling us to spank our children.
So here the Bible commands us to spank our children,
but it commands children from hitting their parents.
But then today, it's like parents are under attack for spanking their children totally backwards
You know and the Bible says that if you curse your father or mother you shall surely be put to death
You know last time I checked Noah cursed his grandson and
God actually was on Noah's side and God backed up Noah in that situation where Noah cursed his grandson
But you know what? It's a one-way valve my friend. It's called authority
It's called siding with authority.
You side with the parents, not the rebellious, punk teenagers
who are defying their parents, cursing their parents,
maybe even God forbid assaulting their parents.
No, no, we need a back authority in this country.
This is what we need.
We need what the Bible teaches.
And you know what, have fun finding anything in the Bible
to contradict these clear teachings
that we're looking at right now.
You're going to find these things emphasized and reiterated over and over again, but you've got a bunch of people getting up and teaching things that are not in the Bible and they're teaching things that are backwards today.
But not only that, go to Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter number one.
Things that are backwards is what we're talking about today.
How about this one?
people who worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.
Sounds backwards to me.
Sounds like we should be worshiping the Creator,
not worshiping the creature.
It says in verse 25,
who changed the truth of God into a lie,
and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator,
who is blessed forever. Amen.
And you know what? It's also backwards
when people put animals before humans.
You know Jesus Christ literally sent 2,000 pigs running off a cliff and they all died in order to save one man
He just smoked 20 pig or excuse me 2,000 pigs
He just totally smoked 2,000 pigs so that he could save one man. That's the priority
Humans are not the same as animals my friend
Don't get that backwards
But people worship and serve the creature more than the Creator and this is a lot of what's going on with our so-called environmental movement.
And let me tell you this, obviously the Bible does teach that we should not pollute.
There are all kinds of scriptures we could point to about not polluting and about sustainable
practices and yada, yada, yada.
I mean, God is ahead of the curve on all those things.
But then there's crossing a line where it just becomes a worship of so-called mother
and we start putting animals above humans
and plants above them.
You know, we gotta keep things in their proper perspective.
God created this earth for us as humans to use it.
So we wanna keep it sustainable
so that we can keep using it.
But that's why we sustain it,
not nature for nature's sake.
No, God created this earth to be inhabited by humans
and He commanded us to subdue it, have dominion over it.
We are the lords of this planet according to the Bible.
That's what it means to have dominion.
We are the masters of this planet physically. We are the rulers of this planet as humans
We don't exist as just like caretakers for whales and porpoises or something. You know, we are here
For ourselves now ultimately we're here to bring glory to God
But we're certainly not here to serve animals
It's backwards. God has given us all these wonderful animals to serve us as we serve him
And that's the way it's supposed to work.
Plants and animals serve us, we serve God.
Right?
It's not supposed to be backwards
where we're worshiping and serving the creature
more than the creator.
who is blessed for every event.
Hey, while we're in Romans 1, let's just keep going, right?
I mean, you know, we're in the neighborhood.
Might as well just keep going.
Because I got something else coming that's backwards here.
How about the filthy, sonamite lifestyle?
Isn't that backwards too?
Because look what the Bible says,
for this cause, and notice,
because they changed the truth of God into a lie,
because they worshiped and served the creature
more than the Creator.
It says in verse 26, for this cause,
God gave them up unto vile affections, for even their women to change the natural use
into that which is against nature, and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman,
burning their lusts one toward another, men with men working that which is unseemly,
and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error, which is me. I mean, what could be
more backwards than a dude being with another dude instead of being attracted to women?
which God has provided the woman for us as men.
That is that help that is meat for us,
that is seamly, that is appropriate for us.
And then you got these backward freaks, right?
Turning it all upside down
because they've been given over to a reprobate mind.
And yet today,
It's the people who preach against that that are deemed the bad guys that's bad. I mean that backwards
God just something so that's been agreed by all humanity for thousands of years as being wicked and reprehensible
Now if you're against it, you're wicked
backwards
Malachi 2 17 says this
You've wearied the Lord with your words yet you say we're in if we wearied him
When you say everyone that do with evils good in the side of the Lord
and he delighted them, or where is the God of judgment?
You know, it says it really wears God out when you exalt
the wicked and tear down the righteous.
So I'm going to close with one final verse and I'll be done.
Here's my conclusion.
Christ will someday return to fix the backwardness of this world.
So right now, there are a lot of things about the world that are backwards, right?
But we, in our family, we can have things right side up.
in our family. In our church, we can have things right side up.
In our places of business, in our school classrooms, neighborhoods,
whatever spheres that we interact in, you know, if we're a student somewhere,
we can respect the teacher. If we're a worker somewhere,
we can respect the boss. If we're in church, you know, we can understand
that we need to have strong leaders in the church and not be,
you know, have a puppet figurehead type pastor. We need a pastor who's actually
going to lead.
take charge and make decisions and get things done. In our homes, we can have
our home be the right side up. That's what we need to do. But someday, Christ is
going to return. The second coming of Christ is a clear biblical doctrine.
It's taught over and over again. This same Jesus, which is taken up from you
into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you've seen him go into heaven.
And there's so many scriptures about Christ coming back and ruling and
and He will turn things the right way around.
And things will no longer be backward in this world.
Until then, we can have our own little islands
or enclaves of right-headedness.
But someday Christ is gonna turn it all around.
It says this in Isaiah 29, 16, last verse.
Isaiah 29, 16,
Surely your turning of things upside down
shall be esteemed as the potter's clay.
For shall the work say of him that made it he made me not or shall the thing frame say of him that framed it
He had no understanding, you know, we're the creation. God's the creator
We don't have the right to tell him how things are and we already talked about that earlier in the sermon
But I want to focus on that statement at the beginning
Your turning of things upside down shall be esteemed as the potter's clay
You turning things upside down world. That's gonna be like the potter's clay because what does the Bible say about Christ when he returns?
It says that he will rule with a rod of iron when he returns.
And it says, as the vessels of a potter will they be broken to shivers, right?
Christ is going to come with a rod of iron and he is going to smash the backwardness
and the upside downness of this world like pottery.
Like a clay pot that just easily shatters. He will break them with a rod of iron and so someday Christ is going to fix everything
Unfortunately, we're not going to have world peace until Christ returns
We're not going to have the the equity and the freedom and you know all the things we want worldwide until Christ returns
But ideally we can have it in our little area, you know in our church and our family
You know in our state and our nation, maybe we could have a little bit of righteousness and freedom and you know
We should always be that influence, but it's never really going to be fixed
Globally until Jesus Christ returns someday he's going to fix it until then we just need to be light in the in the darkness
We need to just be salt
that can savor this world, we just need to have an influence on our little corner,
our little area, our sphere of influence, and do what we can.
You know, instead of just being upset about how the world is,
yeah, the world's that way, and we need to talk about it,
and we need to acknowledge the backwardness so that we don't fall into that trap.
That's what I'm preaching about.
I'm not saying we're going to fix this world,
but what we're going to do is we're going to fix ourselves
to not go down that path that they're going down.
And then when Christ comes, He's going to fix the world.
But we're just going to fix ourselves and we're going to fix other people one-on-one.
We're going to try to reach each person that we can,
because God is going to dash the institutions of this world in pieces,
like potters, vessel, when He returns.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you so much for this word that you've given us, Lord, about backwardness
and the scriptures that you've given us about backwardness.
Lord, help us.
to keep our heads screwed on straight
and to get things right in this topsy-turvy world, Lord.
Help us to be founded on the rock that is your word.
Thank you for everything that you've given us, Lord,
and please continue to bless our church.
Bring us back safely tonight.
And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
Amen. Next, if you would, please turn it over
in your hymnals to song number 255.
song number 255 the song begins Jesus has a table spread where the saints of God
are fed song number 255 sing it out on the first with me Jesus has a table
spread where the saints of God are fed he invites a chosen people come and
die
With His man he doth meet, And supplies are every need.
O disweet to suck with Jesus all the time, Come and die, the master, call it, come and die.
Do fees at Jesus' table all the time, He who fed the multitude,
Turned the water into wine, To the hungry, call it now, come and die.
But the east side was claimed to land, Thus obeyed Christ's command,
For the master called unto them, Come and dine.
There they found their hearts desire, Bread and fish upon the fire,
Thus he satisfied the hungry every time.
Come and dine, the master called, and come and dine.
Table of the time
He who fed the multitude
Turned the water into wine
To the hungry call it now come and dine
Soon the Lamb will take the bride to be ever at his side.
All the hosts of heaven will assemble be.
O, to be a glorious sight, all the saints is polys white,
And with Jesus they will feast eternally.
Come and dine, the Master calleth, come and dine.
You may feast at Jesus' table all the time.
He who fed the motet to turn the water into wine
Through the hungry calling, now come and dine
Amen.
Great singing, everybody.
You are dismissed.