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

1 Chronicles 9, this is the last chapter in 1 Chronicles in this beginning section with all the genealogical type information. This chapter is a little bit different though than the previous eight chapters because we're not so much into a genealogy per se as much as just explaining who the inhabitants of Jerusalem are and especially who the different servants in the house of the Lord are, going into details about their various offices. So it's just giving some genealogies of different families, but it's a little different than everything leading up to this. There's a lot of really interesting stuff in this chapter we're going to go through and hit the highlights tonight, but let's start out in verse number one. It says, so all Israel were reckoned by genealogies. So you can kind of see that he's wrapped up the genealogies in a sense of chapters one through eight, and we're getting into some new material here. And it says, behold, they were written in the book of the kings of Israel and Judah who were carried away to Babylon for their transgression. Now the first inhabitants that dwelt in their possessions in their cities were the Israelites, the priests, Levites, and the Nethinims, and in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah and of the children of Benjamin and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh. And then he begins to list people, and that list of people goes down to verse nine, and then he starts listing the priests and so forth. So first of all, let me just mention to you who the Nethinims are. There's that group that's mentioned at the end of verse two where it says the Israelites in general, but then it also says that there are the priests, the Levites, and the Nethinims. Well, the Nethinims are a group that are mentioned in 16 different verses in the Bible. They're basically found in the book of Chronicles, in the book of Ezra, and in the book of Nehemiah, which of course those books are all written around the same time period, the final books of the Old Testament historical section. And the Nethinims were a group of people that couldn't really be proven to be of the children of Israel. They were a family, their genealogy was not reckoned as being bona fide Israelites, but they served the Levites, okay? So the house of God is of course run by the priests, assisted by the Levites, and then the Nethinims were a group of people who assisted the Levites. So they were helpers or workers under the Levites in the chain of command. And when you study this chapter and when you study other portions of the Bible, you realize that a lot went into running the house of God when it was at its heyday in Jerusalem, from the time that Solomon built the temple, and when the kings of Judah were really putting a lot of effort into serving God, there was a lot that went into running the thing. And as we'll see in this chapter, there are people that are baking the showbread, there are people that are working in the music section, there are people that are just handling all the accoutrements and just doing all the menial tasks. There are all kinds of sacrifices going on, there's all kinds of preaching and teaching going on. It was just a very active facility and there are just hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, yay thousands of people involved in running the thing. And of course this is pictured in the New Testament church because we don't have a physical temple in the New Testament, but the Bible tells us in 1 Timothy chapter 3 that the house of God in the New Testament is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. In the Old Testament, the house of God was first the tabernacle pitched at Shiloh or pitched in other places in the land of Israel, but then eventually it was that temple that was at Jerusalem. And in the New Testament, we don't go to a physical location such as the tabernacle or the temple, but we assemble with fellow believers at the local church. And the reason we call it the local church is because local has to do with location. And when we say the local church, it's because we don't have to get on a plane and go thousands of miles to go to church, right, or we don't have to make some pilgrimage once a year where we travel and go to some distant land or some distant continent, we have the church right here in our town, we have the local church, right, because there isn't just one. We've got a church here in Phoenix, other people have their various churches all over the world. So the house of God in the New Testament, it's not one house, it's churches, plural. Local churches where we go and worship the Lord. But we can take the lessons that we see here and apply this to our service in the local church. You know, they were serving in the temple, the tabernacle, that has a spiritual significance for the local church in the New Testament because this all is symbolizing and foreshadowing the New Testament church because it's the house of God back then and we're in the house of God right now, although it's not a physical building, it is this assembly of people. The word church literally means congregation or assembly and that's what this is, right, this is an assembly of people. A lot of people struggle with that and they say, well, church isn't a building, therefore I'm just going to stay home and call it church, or I'm just going to go out in nature and call it church. Well, no, the church is the assembly of God's people. So yeah, if we all went over to my house right now, that wouldn't work because my house is much too small. But if we did, that would be church, right? If we're all there, if we're all assembled. If we all assembled in nature somewhere and we're like, all right, everybody, you know, we're meeting at the nature preserve, we're all going to be there. We could have a bona fide church service there, right, if the congregation is there. So it's not the building that makes the church, it's the congregation. But where people get messed up on this is where they just say, oh, we're the church. So then what they mean by that is just that they personally are the church, like all by themselves so that they can just get together with a couple friends and say, well, this is church, man, where two or three are gathered together. Now look, where two or three are gathered together, Christ is in the midst, amen? But it doesn't make it church. You know, if I get, look, two or three are gathered together, that's like one corner or section of my house. I mean, we could have like four different gatherings of three going on in my house or six different gatherings of two, but we don't have six churches in my house, we don't have any churches in my house, that's called a family. And when you get together with your friends, that's called friendship. But when we all come together here and assemble, this is church. This is the congregation, this is that general assembly where we're all come together and gathered in one place, as the Bible says. That's where we are right now. So the nethanims were some of the workers just because there was so much work to be done. And you know, one of the signs that you're in a good church is that a lot of work is being done. When Christ judged the churches in Revelation 2 and 3, he said to each of them, I know thy works. That was the first thing that he judged them on was the work that they were doing. So the right kind of church is a church where there's a lot of work going on, there's a lot of activity being performed, a lot of people are being saved, the gospel is being preached, the Bible is being taught, it's a place of action, not a place of just sitting around and just kind of coasting and just maintaining. But there's things that are going on. Okay. Verse 3 says, and in Jerusalem dwelt of the children of Judah and of the children of Benjamin and of the children of Ephraim and Manasseh. Now we know that Jerusalem geographically is located right on the border between Judah and Benjamin. So it makes sense that there are people of Judah and Benjamin that dwell there. But there were also people from Ephraim and Manasseh that dwelled there. These are the sons of Joseph. These are from the northern kingdom of Israel. And what you have to understand is that Jerusalem was the spiritual center in the Old Testament. Okay. If you remember, this was a point of contention with some people. Remember Jesus with the woman at the well? And she says, well, our fathers worshiped in this mountain, but you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship, right? And he says, well, you don't even know what you're worshiping. Because the Samaritans had a messed up religion. They had a false religion. And that's why he made it crystal clear to her who was right and who was wrong in that situation because he said, salvation's of the Jews. Remember that? He said, you don't even know what you're worshiping. You know not what you worship. We know what we worship for salvation's of the Jews. So he was identifying, Jesus Christ was identifying with the southern kingdom. He was identifying with the worship of the Lord in Jerusalem. That was the place that God chose to set his name there. But a lot of people will misquote and misapply that because what did he say right after that? But the time cometh and now is when men shall worship, neither in Jerusalem, neither in this mountain, right? And he talks about worshiping the Lord in spirit and in truth. And we're living in that time where we don't go to Jerusalem to worship. I've never been to Jerusalem. I don't want to go to Jerusalem. This is where I want to worship God, right here in Phoenix, Arizona. Not in Jerusalem, the so-called holy land. And so the point is that at that time though, that was the place where men were supposed to worship. It wasn't just worship God anywhere. There was a specific place where God's house was located and Jesus made it clear where he stood on that controversy of, hey, should we be worshiping in Mount Gerizim in the northern section of Samaria or should we be worshiping in Jerusalem? He made it pretty clear, hey, it's Jerusalem. So the reason these people are there from Ephraim and Manasseh is because people who really were serious about serving God from the northern kingdom, people who really loved the Lord, they wanted to move down to Jerusalem to be where that spiritual action was and to be there serving God on the front lines. If you were serious about church, you're going to be down there at Jerusalem, right? So this is the spiritually elite or the serious believers are going to move from that northern kingdom because that northern kingdom was pretty dead spiritually and had a lot of false religion going on. So that's why you find those of Ephraim and Manasseh gravitating toward Jerusalem at various times so that they could be near to the house of God. It makes sense, right? So then it lists all these people and then it says at the end of verse 9, wrapping up the list, all these men were chief of the fathers in the house of their fathers. So he's listing the key players, the important people, and the reason that they're getting listed is that they dwelled in Jerusalem. Now why is he listing these people for dwelling in Jerusalem? Because this is an honor for them to be the ones who dwell at Jerusalem. Now go to the book of Ezra, chapter number 11, or I'm sorry, Nehemiah chapter 11. If you have 11 chapters in the book of Ezra, there's something wrong with your Bible tonight. So that was just a quick test to make sure you have the right Bible. Make sure you don't have a Catholic Bible with like 20 chapters in the book of Ezra. And you've got to get in Nehemiah chapter 11, and that is a true story by the way. Nehemiah chapter 11, verse 1, the Bible reads, and the rulers of the people dwelled at Jerusalem. The rest of the people also cast lots to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem, the holy city and nine parts to dwell in other cities. So there's kind of like a lottery to live in Jerusalem, do you see that? Because first the leaders, the important people, they're living in Jerusalem. But then there was also a lottery amongst everybody else. And when I say lottery, I'm not talking about gambling to try to, you know, get a bunch of filthy lucre. I'm talking about a lottery like when you're hunting and you enter a lottery or you want to hike a certain trail and you have to enter a lottery, who knows what I'm talking about, in order to get chosen to do something. So that's what this is. One part gets to live in Jerusalem, nine parts to dwell in other cities. Also a little bit of symbolism there of the tithe, the tenth part. Verse 2, watch this, and the people blessed all the men that willingly offered themselves to dwell at Jerusalem. So what we see here is kind of two sides to this. It's a great blessing to dwell at Jerusalem in this time of coming back from the Babylonian captivity. It's a great honor, you get your name on a list, you're considered one of the movers and shakers, but on the other side of that, the 90% that's not living in Jerusalem, their attitude is like, hey, God bless you guys for being willing to live in Jerusalem. Why? Because there's also danger associated with living in Jerusalem. You know, that's where the action is, that's where the honor is, but that's also where the fighting could be or the danger could be because of all the enemies of the Jews when they returned from Babylon. You know, the Sanballat and the Tobias and the Gisham, the Arabians, and those kind of people in the Book of Nehemiah that were antagonistic toward the children of Israel. And so what can we learn from that is that the lesson is that in the Christian life, there are spiritual hot spots and there are spiritual cold spots. You know, you can go out in the middle of nowhere somewhere and get in some country church out in the middle of nowhere somewhere and you can love the Lord and you can serve God and just kind of live a quiet and peaceful life where there's not a lot of action going on. But you know what? You're probably not earning a lot of rewards either. You're probably not really winning a ton of people to the Lord either if you're out secluded and sequestered out in the middle of nowhere, right? You could get in a church that's kind of a dead church and just kind of coast spiritually, right? I mean, there are churches in Phoenix, Arizona and all over America, churches where the doctrine is for the most part right. They've got all the fundamentals right. They're saved and they read their Bibles and they love the Lord, but maybe there's just not a lot of action going on, not a lot of soul winning going on. And you can go to there where they have soul winning once a month or twice a month and they're not really doing a whole lot. And the preaching is biblically sound, but the pastor doesn't really get up and rip on anything. So it's just kind of a place that's comfortable as it were, right? And here's the thing about that. You can go to a place like that, but you're not going to get the major rewards. You're not going to experience the power of God in your life and see the miracles and see the people being saved and the action and the excitement, but you're also not going to see a lot of fighting. So if you're a coward, if you're one that's a weakling, if you're one that has too much anxiety, you can just kind of go there and flee before Faithful Word Baptist Church. See Faithful Word Baptist Church is a place of action. What do we mean by that? I mean people are getting saved, soul winning is on fire, there's soul winning going on 12, 13 different times per week. The preaching is hard preaching. It's going to ruffle some feathers in this ungodly and crooked nation that we live in. People are going to get upset. Not only that, but because it's a soul winning powerhouse, there are going to be people trying to infiltrate it all the time, Judas Iscariots coming in and infiltrating. Then there's also because we're casting so many nets into the sea with the soul winning, we're going to bring in a lot of fishes, but we're also going to bring in some trash. So we have to gather the good into vessels and cast the bad away. So the bottom line is that if you're in a church that's on fire for the Lord where the action is, there are going to be problems. There's going to be fighting. There is going to be danger. There's going to be persecution. All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, but you get your name on a cool list, you know, and you get to see the rewards. You get to see the miracles. You get to see people saved. I mean, look, going to this church is exciting. It's not a dead call. You know, say whatever you want about it. It's not a dead church. This place is alive. And you know what? If you, if you can't handle it, you're just like, oh, I can't handle it. Just go somewhere else. There are plenty of places for weak Christians who want to stay a babe in Christ for the rest of their life. You know what I mean? Where you can just go and just kind of coast and just take it easy. You know, just easy street Baptist church where you're not really, you're not going to some wicked heretic church. You're just kind of going to a comfortable church, sweetness and light Baptist church. You know, I don't know about you. I want to be where the action is. You know, I want to be maximum for the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not trying to do the minimum to just coast and scrape by. I want to be on the front lines. I want to be in the spiritual special forces. Okay. I don't want to be stationed in some outpost, you know, out in the middle of nowhere, just you know, a desk jockey somewhere. You know, I want to be on the battlefield and I assume you do too, or you wouldn't be here tonight. Amen. So that's what faithful word Baptist church is. So it's sort of like a spiritual Jerusalem and other churches are the same way. Any church that's on fire for God is a spiritual Jerusalem, not just us, any church that's on fire, that's working hard, that's serving the Lord, that's taking it to the enemy, that's winning souls to Christ is a spiritual Jerusalem dwell there. Be one of the nephronyms. Be one of the Levites. Be one of the priests of the Lord, you know, spiritually get in there and don't settle to just be on the outskirts of Israel where you're just barely even in the promised land at all, but technically you're there, you know. So flip over if you would to Revelation 22. So when we think about this idea of being in Jerusalem as being a prestigious thing, an honorable thing, a blessed thing, where these men are listed and other Israelites who don't live there are blessing them and saying, hey, good job guys for willingly offering yourselves to dwell at Jerusalem. Hey, good job for being on that front line. Good job for getting serious about serving the Lord. Good job those of Ephraim and Manasseh who've even moved, you know, all the way down to the southern kingdom to get there where the spiritual hotspot is. You know, there's a spiritual application for this in the new earth, you know, the new heaven and the new earth after Christ returns, after the millennium and that new Jerusalem comes down from heaven, right? The actual literal city of new Jerusalem that descended out of heaven from God. Here's a verse that also talks about this and there are plenty of other verses about this that basically in the new heaven and the new earth, it's going to be a blessing to be one that is close to that city, to be one that dwells in that city. I believe that the people who are being rewarded the most and people who have served God the most are going to have more access to that city and be sort of like the old testament Jerusalem elite. You know, that's what you're going to be in the new testament depending on your works because look what the Bible says in revelation 22 14 is just one example. Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city. Now this is a verse that has perplexed a lot of people and in fact the modern Bible versions they just go ahead and change it. You know when something doesn't make sense to them they just fix it. They just make changes and until it makes sense to them. So this verse has been altered in many Bibles and your new versions like the NIV, New American Standard, ESV, they're all going to mess this verse up and they're going to say well blessed are they that have washed their robes and what they're getting at here is like well we don't really think this verse is right because we know you don't have to keep the commandments to be saved so let's change it to something that makes sense. You wash your robes right because we all know that keeping the commandments doesn't get you to heaven. But here's the thing if the Bible says keep the commandments that's what it says but the true story is that this verse is not talking about who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved because it's true that we don't keep the commandments to get saved we just believe on Jesus Christ to get saved because we're saved by faith not works right but this is not a verse about salvation. What this verse is about is those who keep his commandments that they may have right to the tree of life and may enter in through the gates into the city because there's the whole new earth. The Bible says of the people in the new earth the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. So the nations of them which are saved are going to live all over this earth and walk in the light of that great city but then there are the people who have the right to the tree of life and just enter in through the gates into the city. I mean basically you just waltz right in. You're at the front of the line. You're honored because of the fact that you have a higher status. The Bible talks about us ruling and reigning with Christ and the Bible says that we shall reign forever and ever. It doesn't just end after the millennium. We reign forever and ever. So if you think that when you get to heaven or when you get in the millennial reign of Christ or when you get to the new heaven and new earth that you're going to get to some kind of a communist utopia where everybody's equal and everybody's the same and we're all in the same playing field, you are wrong. The Bible makes it crystal clear that Jesus Christ is coming and he has his reward with him to give every man according as his work shall be and he's going to say to one, be over ten cities. He's going to say to another, be over five cities, be over two cities. Look he will reward us according to our works and the people who keep his commandments are going to be the ones who walk right in through the gate into that city. They walk right through the front door as opposed to dwelling in a more distant further out portion. Just like in the Old Testament it was that way. Physically that's symbolic of the fact that in the new heaven and the new earth there's going to be a higher status of waltzing right into the front door of Jerusalem and having a right to this and a right to that. You know what? The apostle Paul and the thief on the cross aren't going to be the same in the millennium and they're not going to be the same throughout all eternity. You know the apostle Paul is going to have great rewards, beaucoup rewards, right, for the apostle Paul whereas you know the thief on the cross, he didn't earn any rewards. What did he even do? You know he pretty much got saved and then died. Now you know maybe he's in some kind of a rewards package for all the people who get saved reading the story, you know, or every time somebody uses that, you know, as a soul ending illustration at the door he gets some kind of commission for that, I don't know. You know, if so, okay, but he's still not going to be the apostle Paul. You know the apostle Paul's getting rewards every time he uses the Roman's road, right? No, I'm just kidding. But anyway the point is though we don't know exactly how all this works, do we? We can't tell exactly what's going to be like in the millennium, exactly what's going to be like in the new earth, exactly what the rewards are going to be like. But one thing we know for sure, there are rewards for those who work hard and people who don't do the works, they miss out on those rewards. The Bible's crystal clear about that and we also know that there's something about being able to go into that city through the gates as opposed to just dwelling in the light of it because you're saved, being able to walk right in and be on the inside, the inner circle. You know what? If you want to be on the inner circle when you get to heaven, you know what? Why don't you get on the inner circle of your local church right now and get to work? If you're going to be on the fringes, if you're going to be a fringe church member that's half in, half out, then that's how you could expect to dwell for eternity, half in and half out. Now look, just being saved is great. You get to live forever on the new earth. That's a blessing. But you know what? We should want more than that. We should strive for the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. We should seek to win those rewards and crowns and give it our best and have eternity's values and view. So I don't want to go too much into that but that's another symbolic thing about dwelling at Jerusalem. Go to 1 Chronicles 9. So that's the significance of this list of people that dwells at Jerusalem. Why? It's an honor. It's something that's elite. It's a status thing of like, hey, these are the people that are really serious about serving the Lord. They're willing to go through some persecution, go through some danger, work hard, be held to a high spiritual standard. They're where the action is. That's what we see in 1 Chronicles 9. Look at verse 10. So that was verses 1 through 9. Look at verse 10 of 1 Chronicles 9. And of the priests, Jadiah and Jehorahib and Jacob, and Azariah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Mesholam, the son of Zadok, the son of Moriahoth, the son of Ahitub, watch this, the ruler of the house of God. The ruler of the house of God. Now why do I emphasize that? The house of God had a ruler because it's not a free for all. Go if you would to Romans chapter 12. Keep your finger in 1 Chronicles 9. Obviously that's where we're going to be for the whole night. Go to Romans chapter 12. The house of God had a person that is called the ruler of the house of God because of the fact that the house of God is not to be a free for all. There's to be authority there. That's why the Bible says in 1 Timothy 5 after it gives the qualifications for the bishop or the pastor, it says, let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in the word and doctrine as is written, thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn. So it says, let the elders that rule well, talking about the bishop or the pastor that was ordained in the first part there of that chapter, rebuke not an elder and so forth. And then we also see in Hebrews chapter 13 where it tells us, obey them that have the rule over you, who've spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow considering the end of their conversation. Look at Romans 12 and you'll see that being a ruler in the house of God is one of the spiritual gifts that makes the church function. The Bible says in verse five, so we being many are one body in Christ and everyone members one of another, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith or ministry, let us wait on our ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth on exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity, he that ruleth with diligence. And then it goes on and talks about he that showeth mercy with cheerfulness. So different people in the church have different strengths, different spiritual gifts, abilities given to them by God that the church might profit with all. And one of those is being a ruler. What is a ruler? Somebody who can be an authority, someone who can lead, someone say, okay, we're going to do this, this is what we're going to do. Not everyone has that gift. Now if you don't have that gift, you're probably not cut out to be a pastor, even if you're good at preaching. You know, maybe you should use your preaching in another capacity besides being the pastor of the church. You know, you could preach in other capacities because of the fact that being a pastor you have to be able to lead. And part of being the ruler is you have to be able to tell people no to things. Now some people, they can't tell anybody no. So then false doctrine pours in, liberalism pours in, sin takes over, and it's just a free for all. You know, somebody has to be able to get up and say, no, this is what we're going to do, provide clear leadership, clear boundaries, a clear plan of what we're going to do and what's the attack plan and, you know, where are we going to go soul winning and what's the missions program, what's the preaching going to be like, what's the music going to be like. You don't want to just have a free for all because if you just have a free for all, you know what it leads to? The worst people taking over. Why is that? It's just like with the anarchist mentality. You know, the stupidity of anarchists. And you know what? Anarchy is one of the things that the communists will talk a lot about. And you'll have people that are called anarcho communists and then you'll have the anarcho capitalists, right? Who knows what I'm talking about? So you know, these anarchists have this idea of no ruler because what does anarchy mean? The archie means ruler. Monarchy means one person is the ruler, right? Oligarchy, right? It's the few that are ruling, okay? Because that's what that prefix oligo means, right? We have the few that are ruling versus monarchy, one that's ruling. Anarchy means nobody's ruling. Nobody's in charge. Here's the problem with anarchy. When you have anarchy, wicked people can just do whatever they want and they just rape and pillage and murder and rob and there's no one to protect them. The whole point of human government is to help the helpless defend people's liberty against encroachment from other people by doing what? Punishing the evildoer, right? The government has one job, punish the evildoer, okay? And by punishing the evildoer, they protect the little old grandma from the people who just come in, steal all her stuff, beat her to a pulp. Why? Because she's defenseless. That's why we need government. That's why we're not anarchists, okay? Because if you have anarchy, bad people take over. You have gangs and gang lords and war lords and drug lords, you know, all these people take over that are the worst people because there's a vacuum of power, right? So you have to have a godly, righteous government to keep bad people from taking over. That's the whole point of having a government is because it's impossible to have no government. Somebody's going to come in and take over and take charge. So you want to fill that void with the right people, okay? So the whole point in church is to do what? You know, you pick people that meet the biblical qualifications that are sound in their doctrine and say, okay, we're going to put this guy in charge. This guy's going to lead us. We're going to follow him as he follows Christ. We're not just going to follow every yahoo who shows up at the church and they've been saved for six months and they've read the Bible one and three quarter times cover to cover and they're going to tell us everything. No, no. We need a mature leadership, people who've been saved a long time, people who are established in the faith, they know the doctrine and they're willing to say no to people. You know, that's what we need leadership in the church and a church with no leadership, the devil's crowd is going to come in and just take over. Just like a country with no leadership, you're going to get the military warlord to come in and take over and have the evil dictatorship. So he that ruleth is there in Romans 12. Let's go back to first chronicles nine. I got to hurry. There's a lot of great stuff in this chapter, so I got to hurry up and get to as much of it as I can. So we saw in verse 11 the ruler of the house of God at the end of verse 13 we have another great statement. He lists a whole bunch of guys names and then he says at the end of verse 13 that they were very able men for the work of the service of the house of God. How many were they? The Bible says a thousand seven hundred and three score, so this is one thousand 760 men. I told you it's a big operation. There's a lot of work going on and he says that these were very able men for the work of the service of the house of God and this should be our goal that this would describe us. We need people like this. Now we don't need a thousand 760 of them yet, but you know we need very able men for the service of the house of God. What does it mean to be very able? Let me put in another part of speech for you. Having great ability. Very able means that you have ability. So what do we need? We need men and women who have abilities that can be used for the service of God. So we need men who have the ability to preach a sermon. We need men who have the ability to win a soul to Christ. We need men who have the ability to lead the singing. We need men that have the ability to minister to people that are sick, people that are struggling with this, struggling with that. Men with the ability to teach the Bible, answer people's questions, give people advice, you know just whatever type of ministry. We need people that have those abilities. So your goal as a church member should be to develop your spiritual gifts, develop your ability whether that's playing the piano, leading a song, winning souls. I mean you should be striving to get some skills to help the church. You know and there are people who have other abilities. Maybe they have abilities with carpentry, abilities with electronics, with video editing and stuff like that. You know those are all abilities that can be used to serve God. So whatever talents God has blessed us with and whatever abilities we've developed we should use those to serve God and we should have a desire to build new abilities that can be used to serve God, learning how to preach, learning how to go soul winning, learning how to lead singing, whatever the case may be, learning how to be a blessing and an asset and a helper in the work of the Lord in the local church, being very able for the work of the service of the house of God. Now it goes through a bunch of different jobs in this chapter and some of the jobs that are mentioned are kind of menial tasks. Like for example look at verse 17. It tells us the porters were. Now what are the porters? This is like the doorman, the guy at the door, right? And later he's called like a doorkeeper. Look at verse number 19 halfway through. It says keepers of the gates of the tabernacle and their fathers being over the host of the Lord were keepers of the entry. So we have people that are porters or keepers of the gate, keeper of the entry. Look at verse 21. Zechariah the son of Michelimiah was porter of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. Now we might think of that as kind of a menial job, being like what we would call today an usher or a greeter. These people are like greeters or ushers or men who are handling the doors or you could call them a security guard or whatever they were. But we wouldn't consider that front and center. They're not exactly the high priest or something, right? They're not exactly Samuel the prophet. But yet God considered them important enough to where he lists them by name. And he takes a bunch of time listing all these names. And I think what God's showing us here is that every job in the house of God is a good job, is an important job. You know the Bible says I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. So any job, any task whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. You know if you have a job to do in the local church, I don't care if it's cleaning, I don't care if it's preparing for an activity, I don't care if you're doing the keepers of the faith and maybe you're one of the people that's teaching the skills and keepers of the faith or whether you're leading a song, whether you're playing a piano, guitar, whether you're leading a soul winning time and you run that time, whether you're working in FWBC North, if you're up at Word of Truth Baptist Church, hey, whatever you're doing for the Lord, take it seriously. Every job in the house of God is a big job. Everything's important. Everything we do matters. And so don't just think oh well this job isn't that really important, I'm just going to kind of phone it in. No, give it your best. It's an honor. And just to drive in that point even further, the Bible says in verse number 22 after it talks about these porters, look at verse 22, all these which were chosen to be porters in the gates were 212. These were reckoned by their genealogy in their villages, but look at this, whom David and Samuel the seer did ordain in their said office. I mean look, this was considered important because Samuel the seer and David the king are specifically picking these 212 guys. It's not just like alright, everybody who doesn't have anything to do, do this. It's like oh okay, we need these porters, they're going to get listed here, they have a job to do at the house of God, okay, let's make sure and ordain the right people for this work. This simply means to choose or appoint. And so these guys are appointed to this position by David the king and Samuel the prophet. Sounds like they have a pretty important job. Why? Because any job in the house of God is important even if you're just the doorkeeper. Even if there's 212 of you. Say oh, you know, I don't have an important job. Hey, just having something to do in the house of God, being a part of the team is a blessing in and of itself. It's great to be a part of the local church, isn't it? And so the Bible has these people listed for that reason. Now I've got to hurry up. Let's jump down to verse 33. There are other jobs mentioned, people that handle various vessels and accoutrements and baking the showbread and all that, we're going to skip that for the sake of time. Look at verse 33. This is a very interesting verse. And these are the singers, chief of the fathers of the Levites. So we see that being a singer is a pretty high-end job in this economy here. If you're one of the singers, you're one of the chief of the fathers. He says chief of the fathers of the Levites who remaining in the chambers were free, watch this, for they were employed in that work day and night. These chief fathers of the Levites were chief. Oh, by the way, did I mention they were chief? How many times can you say the word chief? Five fathers that were chief throughout their generations, and hey, these dwelt at Jerusalem. Now what's interesting about this verse? Well it says that the singers were employed in that work day and night. What does that mean? Day and night. I believe that this is in the most literal sense. Now it's funny because I misread this verse for a long time. All my life I've read this verse and when it said that they did it day and night, I thought that was like an expression, like we use that expression, don't we? Like oh man, that's all we do day or night. Day and night, that's what I do, but we don't really mean that, day and night, because obviously we sleep at night, right? We don't really do anything day and night, but sometimes we exaggerate and use that as an expression. But actually if you study the Bible, it's pretty clear that this is literal that that's what they did day and night because there are so many of them, they're doing it in shifts. So what's actually happening is that the Bible tells us here that these chief fathers of the Levites who were the singers, it says they were free. What does that mean they were free? It means they didn't have other obligations or responsibilities. This is their job to be a singer, okay? And there were a whole bunch of them and these singers were employed with that work day and night. Here's what that means. Any time you went to the temple, it doesn't matter when you go there, it doesn't matter what day, day, night, middle of the night, there's singing going on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's pretty cool actually. Think about that. Now what does that remind you of? Heaven. Go over to Revelation chapter 4. Revelation chapter 4. And you remember that the whole point of the tabernacle and the temple is what? It is a picture of what's going on in heaven. Moses was told to make everything according to the pattern showed to him in the mount. And also the temple is patterned after heavenly things, the Ark of the Covenant, the candlestick, the showbread. These all have heavenly equivalents. You know, we don't need to worry about finding the original box of the Ark of the Covenant. There's an Ark of the Covenant up in heaven, the Bible tells us, the real Ark of the Covenant, the original, okay? Everything on this earth was a pattern of the heavenly things. The holiest of all was in heaven, the holy place, the most holy place. Well this singing that happened 24-7 in Solomon's temple is a picture of the singing and praising God that takes place 24-7 in heaven. Okay, now you're turning to Revelation 4, but in Isaiah chapter 6, I'm going to read for you Isaiah 6 and then we'll look together at chapter 4 of Revelation. In Isaiah 6, in verse 3, it talks about the seraphims and it says, And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. Right? That's Isaiah 6. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. Now look at Revelation chapter 4, we again have the seraphims, which can easily be identified by their six wings about them. They're called in Revelation the four beasts. And the Bible tells us in Revelation chapter 4 verse 8, And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day and night. Notice that. They rest not day and night. So this is happening 24-7, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come. Now you say, why is it holy, holy, holy? That's one for the Father, one for the Son, and one for the Holy Ghost. And this is the inspiration for the song. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. That's what this is based on, holy, holy, holy. And what's interesting is that in the Old Testament, it said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And then here it says, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty. These are different names of God. If you remember my sermon that I did a month or two ago, where I went through the names of God, these were two of the names that we emphasized. If you didn't listen to those sermons, I strongly recommend you to go back and listen to those. Those were key doctrinal important sermons that you need to hear the part one and part two on the names of God. But one of the things I emphasized in that sermon, and I'm going to say it again right now, because there are still people, it seems like, that don't get it. Now some people are never going to get it because they're ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth, because they are a reprobate concerning the faith. But it seems like you say certain things until you're blue in the face, but it's like, whoop, people don't get it. So let me just say this again, because repetition is something that we need sometimes to just hear things over and over again. Listen very carefully to this one point, very important. All of the Old Testament names of God can be applied to the Father, or the Son, or the Holy Ghost, or all three collectively. Okay? Everybody hear that? So when it says God, can we call Jesus God? Can we call the Holy Ghost God? Can we call the Father God? Can we just refer to the entire Trinity as God? Okay, what about the Lord, right? All four of those situations, we could use the term the Lord. How about the Lord of Hosts? Look, I proved it in the sermon, I'm not going to re-preach that sermon, but you may need to go back and re-listen if you're not sure on this doctrine, but the Lord of Hosts can be applied to Jesus. Jehovah! Don't miss this! Jesus is Jehovah! Now look, I don't know how to say that anymore clearly. In fact, I've been preaching that clearly for the last 13 years. I've made that crystal clear hundreds of times. If I had a nickel for every time I proved from the Bible that Jesus is Jehovah, I'd be a wealthy man, but let me tell you something. There are people out there who create this straw man argument against the Trinity. These foolish modalists, oneness, Pentecostal believers, who create their straw man against the Trinity by trying to somehow imply that we believe that Jehovah is just God the Father. Really? When did we ever say or teach such stupidity? Never. Because even the Mormons believe that Jehovah is Jesus, friend. I mean, you have to be blind to not see that Jehovah is Jesus. You can prove that hundreds of different ways from the Bible. Hundreds of ways. I mean, it's never been up for debate unless you're Jehovah's Witness. Those are the only people who don't believe that. I don't know of anyone else who doesn't believe that. I mean, it's just so clear. I mean, the Bible couldn't be any clearer. In fact, even when was that name rolled out? Let's stop here and learn a little bit here. When was the name Jehovah rolled out? At the burning bush. Right? Okay. Who's talking at the burning bush? The angel of the Lord. Look at the first couple of verses of Exodus chapter 3. The angel of the Lord spoke unto Moses out of the burning bush. And what did he say? He said, I am that I am. Tell them I am sent you. And the word Jehovah is derived from I am. It means he is. It's the third person. I am is the first person. Jehovah is third person because he is. Okay? But what you have to understand is that everyone who believes in the Trinity teaches this. That Jehovah is referencing the whole package, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That's all that we've ever taught. That's all that every Trinitarian teaches. This idea of, oh, well, Jehovah, that's just God the Father. That's just somebody who maybe is new to the Bible or something that would come up with that. But then these oneness Pentecostal types, they try to debunk the Trinity by proving that Jesus is Jehovah. That's called a straw man. Does everybody understand what a straw man is? Here's what a straw man is. It's where I make up a fake belief of my opponent and then prove that fake belief wrong. And then say that I proved my opponent wrong. So these oneness people, they set up this fake belief of, oh, the Trinitarians are saying that Jesus isn't Jehovah. And then they spend a half hour proving to you that Jesus is Jehovah, so I just proved oneness. You proved that you're an idiot that didn't listen the whole time you attended our church is what you proved. You proved that you never listened to my sermons on the Trinity. You proved that you didn't listen to my sermon on the names of God. You proved that you didn't watch any Trinity moments. You proved that you don't know anything about what the Trinity even teaches because you're blind. Okay? The Bible is clear that God is referring to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That the Lord is referring to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That Jehovah is referring to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Lord of hosts, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Look, even the obscure name that's only used in one chapter of the Old Testament, ancient of days, it's only used three times in one chapter. And one of those times it's talking about the Father and one of those times it's talking about the Son. So let me just say it one more time, make it crystal clear for everybody. The Old Testament names of God are used for all three, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, right? So let me just say it again real slow. The Father, we can refer to him by any of those Old Testament names. We can refer to the Son by any of those Old Testament names. We can refer to the Holy Ghost by any of those Old Testament names. And we could refer to them all three collectively. So we have four uses for each of these names. Everybody got that? It's simple, right? It's not hard to understand. It's not until we get into the New Testament that we get specific separate names so we have new names that are rolled out. Here are some new names in the New Testament. How about this name? God the Father. You won't see that name in the Old Testament, God the Father. That's a New Testament thing. Okay, here's another name that's in the New Testament, Jesus, specifically referring to one person of the Godhead. And then here's another thing that we have in the New Testament, the Holy Ghost. So we got God the Father, we got Jesus and the Holy Ghost in the New Testament. But in the Old Testament, we just have names like God, the Lord, the Lord God, Lord God Almighty, Lord of Hosts. Why? Because those names are for God in general, okay? And I know it seems like I'm being a little redundant and repetitive up here, but you know what? For me, it's not grievous and for you, it is safe to say the same things unto you. Why? Because we're living in a day of great apostasy and heresy. We're living in a day where the Trinity is under attack, where damnable heretics have crept in with damnable heresy and it needs to be stopped. And the way to stop it is by knowing what we believe in, why? By understanding this doctrine and not letting these people pull the wool over your eyes with the bait and switch like, well, see, it's Jehovah right there. Behold, I'll send my messenger before my face and that's Jehovah, yeah, no, duh. Everybody knows that. We already believe in the deity of Christ, but that doesn't teach oneness because God is in three persons, three holies for the three persons of God, God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. All right, let me get off that now for tonight. You're off the hook for the rest of this, no, actually, I got something else to say. No, I'm just kidding. But anyway, go back if you would to 1 Chronicles 9. So we see that those names, Lord God Almighty, there's three holies for the Lord God Almighty because all three of them are the Lord God Almighty. Jesus is the Lord God Almighty, Jesus is the Lord of hosts, the Father is the Lord of hosts, the Father is the Lord God Almighty, but they're not the same person, right? Three persons, one God. And you know what? This whole doctrine of oneness, it's so bizarre and makes no sense. You know, in fact, we were just chatting before the service about Psalm 2. That someone could actually have such a bizarre mind to try to use Psalm 2 to teach oneness. When Psalm 2 specifically says that the kings of the earth rise up and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Christ or his anointed, right? So the kings of the earth set themselves, the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bands asunder and let us cast away their courts from us. But according to them, that's just one person. Even though it says they, and then he said, thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee, they think that's one person, you know, begetting himself. You know, and then it even says in Hebrews, listen now, don't tune out now. He says in Hebrews, so also Christ glorified not himself to be made in high priest, but him that said unto him, thou art my son, today have I begotten thee. So he literally says, well Christ didn't glorify himself because Psalm 2 says, thou art my son, today have I begotten thee. That's someone else. But then these idiots will actually use Psalm 2 to try to teach oneness. All this, all right, that's all one person, you idiot. It's clearly they, the father and the son. And it flat out says, well, he didn't, he didn't, I mean, he didn't ordain himself. I mean, look at Psalm 2. It's crazy, isn't it? All right. First Chronicles chapter 9. The singers were employed in that work day and night mirroring what's going on in heaven on this earth by singing 24-7. Can you imagine if you just showed up at Faithful or Baptist Church at 4 in the morning and there's just hymns are being sung, you know, 1 in the morning, 3 in the morning. Now, you know, that's not our mission because this isn't the physical Jerusalem house of God. We don't have tens of thousands of people. You know, but if our church ever runs tens of thousands of people, you know, we might institute that. So, you know, just, just a constant cycle just of, of singers and just nonstop music. I don't know if we're ever going to get to that point, but it sounds cool. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord. It's so clear, Lord, to those who are saved. Lord, I pray that no unstable souls will be beguiled by the stupidity of oneness and modalism when it's so crystal clear that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world, Lord. And we thank you so much for sending your Son, Jesus Christ. We thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord, that on the surface, it might not seem like there's a lot going on, Lord, but thank you for the powerful truths of 1 Chronicles 9 about what it means to serve in your house, what it means to be close to your house and to geographically be near your house, Lord, and to have a job working in your house, Lord. Help us to always take it seriously and give it our best, whatever responsibility we have, Lord, and help us to also realize the importance of singing praises to you and glorifying your name. And in Jesus' name, we pray.