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Music Music Music Music Music Music I wonder, I have to tell you those things I got when I ate Chipotle, when it was in San Diego, when I got time to eat Chipotle. Oh, when it was a thing? Yeah. When it was like big? And I didn't realize it. It didn't even occur to me. When I got too much back in July, I had to go to the bar. I may not have been able to eat Chipotle. But this is our bar. That was my first time ever eating Chipotle. So, I think that's probably why I eat Chipotle, because it's in Toronto. I'm glad that you're well, and we hope that you stay until the end of the year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening. Welcome to our service this night here at Faith Board Baptist Church. It's good to see everyone here on this Wednesday night. If you would all please find your seats and take your song books. We'll begin with our Wednesday night service. Turn to hymn number 412. Number 412. Onward, Christian soldiers. Number 412. And marching as toward hymn number 412. Onward, Christian soldiers. Marching as to glory. With the cross of Jesus. Glory of God before. Christ the Lord, the pastor. Who leads against the fall. Onward, Christian soldiers. Marching as to glory. With the cross of Jesus. Glory of God before. And the sign of triumph. Since its birth. Onward, Christian soldiers. Marching as to glory. With the cross of Jesus. Glory of God before. And the sign of triumph. Since its birth. Onward, Christian soldiers. Onward, Christian soldiers. Onward, Christian soldiers. Onward, Christian soldiers. Lift your voices. Louder and betrayed. Onward, Christian soldiers. Marching as to war. With the cross of Jesus. Going on before. Like the mighty army. March of God. Brothers, we are treading. Where the saints have trod. We are not divided. All one body lead. One in hope and doctrine. One in charity. And Christian soldiers. Marching as to war. With the cross of Jesus. Going on before. Onward, many people. Join our happy come. And with us your voices. In the triumph song. Glory, love and honor. Unto Christ the King. This through countless ages. Man and angel sing. Onward, Christian soldiers. Marching as to war. With the cross of Jesus. Going on before. I hope you all started to sing this evening. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Dear heavenly father, thank you for allowing us to be here on this Wednesday night. I pray, Lord, that you please bless the song service. And help us to be edified by it. And please fill the preacher with your spirit. Help him to preach boldly and help us to be edified by the preaching tonight. And we'll thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Let's go back to hymn number 21. Hymn number 21, what a wonderful Savior. Number 21. Christ has for sin atonement made. Number 21. Let's sing it out on this first verse together. Christ has for sin atonement made. What a wonderful Savior. We are relieved, the Christ has been. What a wonderful Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. I praise Him for the cleansing blood. What a wonderful Savior. I reconcile my soul to God. What a wonderful Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. He cleansed my heart from all its sin. What a wonderful Savior. And now He reigns and rules therein. What a wonderful Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. He gives me overcoming power. What a wonderful Savior. And I am many trying out. What a wonderful Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. To Him I give in all my heart. What a wonderful Savior. The world shall never share a part. What a wonderful Savior. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Jesus. What a wonderful Savior is Jesus, my Lord. All right. At this time, we'll get to our announcements. If you don't have a bulletin, slip up your hand nice and high. Good to have Brother Raymond back from the dead. Is this your first service back? All right. Give him a big hand. So we've been praying for him. They did determine it was for sure malaria, right? Yes, sir. So you look great, man. You feeling good? Yes, sir. All right. Thank God for that. That was a scary thing. Let's go through the bulletin together. On the inside, we have our service time. Sunday mornings at 1030 is our preaching service. Sunday nights at 6. Wednesday nights at 7 is our Bible study. And we'll be in Ezekiel chapter number 13 tonight. We've got the soul-winning times listed there below, as well as salvations and baptisms. Across the page is the list of all the birthdays and anniversaries for the month of November. And then the church picnic is just right around the corner. It's coming up in about a week and a half here on November 20th. And it's going to be at noon. Now, typically we do this in the evening, but this time it's a lunch thing. So it is at noon on that day. And so the church is going to provide burgers, hot dogs, beverages. So plan on bringing a side dish or a dessert to share. And again, you're never required to bring anything. So you can just show up and it's absolutely no issue. On the back, we're done praying for Brother Raymond. We're not interested. It's already been answered. It's already done. And then we're going to be taking a group photo immediately after the morning service next Sunday, November the 14th. So be aware of that. And then below that is the note about the zip lining coming up in a week and a half. And then at the bottom looks like the small town soul winning trips are postponed. So those are on pause for a little bit. But we've still got plenty of soul winning to do right here in Phoenix. And that's about it for announcements. So let's go ahead and just count up the soul winning for the past few days. Going back to Monday. Anything to report from Monday? All right. Gotcha. Anything else from Monday? What about Tuesday? Okay. Got it. Anything else from Tuesday? What about today? Wednesday? Anything from today? All right. Anybody else? All right. Very good. Keep up the great work on soul winning. With that, let's sing our next song. Come with us. All right. You should find the insert of rejoice in the Lord. If you don't have one, please raise your hand. Rejoice in the Lord. God never moves without purpose or plan. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. God never moves without purpose or plan. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. God never moves without purpose or plan. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. God never moves without purpose or plan. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. God never moves without purpose or plan. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Let's sing it on that first verse together. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord. 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370, 370 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30, 30. And so he's warning about preachers or prophets who are claiming that they're proclaiming God's word, but in reality, they've just dreamed things up in their own mind. They're just making things up and saying, well, this is what God says, but it's really just their own view. It's their own opinion. Now obviously, this is a time in which God did speak to man through prophets in this way. In Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1, God who at sundry times and in diverse manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. And so in the Old Testament, in diverse ways, in various ways, God spoke to the prophets and through the prophets. And so there were a lot of legitimate prophets, but then there were also a lot of false prophets. There were people who were really hearing from God and proclaiming that to the people. And then there were other people who would claim that they had a vision, but as it says in the scripture, they saw nothing. At the end of verse 3, it says they've seen nothing. They did not actually see a vision, but they just make up some vision out of their own heart. So obviously today, we're in a different situation. So the equivalent today would basically be a preacher who gets up and instead of preaching what the Bible says week after week, he gets up and just gives his own views or the views that are popular in America today. Or he just sort of gets up and does a self-help or a motivational speech based on man's wisdom and man's ideas. And this is exactly what you get if you tune into Joel Osteen or something. You know, you tune into Joel Osteen, he's got a lot of things to say. He's got a lot of advice for you. He's got a lot of teachings and a lot of them sound pretty good. That's why he has millions of listeners, but is his teaching coming from the Word of God? No. His teaching is coming from his own heart or whoever is writing his sermons. And then he might pepper it with Bible verses. He doesn't do that? Okay. But anyway, let's say he did, okay? You know, if he peppers it with a Bible verse, and sometimes it's in such a goofed up version of the Bible, it's hard to even recognize it as Bible if it's coming from the message or the living Bible or something. Even the NIV can get so squirrelly that you're just, you know, you're wondering, is this even the Bible that I'm hearing? But even if it's peppered in with Bible verses, you know, the backbone of what's being taught is man's wisdom. It's just what do people want to hear? What does America think is right? You know, what do people in America that are conservative Christians want the teaching to be? That's the starting point, when in reality, the starting point needs to be the Word of God. You know, the man of God spends time with God in the Word of God, and then he delivers and transmits to the people that which God has shown him in private, in Bible study, okay? Everybody in the audience all has a Bible in their lap, so they can all check and see if this is actually legitimately coming from God's Word. And so today, we have the luxury of not having to try to figure out which prophets are true prophets of God and which ones are not. It would have been a little harder in the Old Testament to figure that out. It's a lot easier in the New Testament because we have the written Word to try things by. We can try the spirits, whether they be of God, and we can try the preaching that we hear and see if it lines up with the Bible. And so I would say today, woe unto the preachers that are preaching something other than the Word of God. Preach the Word, the Bible says. Be instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. And, you know, preach the Word is not just a slogan. It means that when I get up behind the pulpit, I better be quoting scripture. I better be reading scripture. I better be preaching the Word and talking about what's actually in the Bible. And so these foolish prophets, they claim that they've heard from God. They claim it, but they're following their own spirit. And today, we have the exact same thing as well when you have people say, oh, God told me this. You know, I was in the shower the other day, and God spoke to me in the shower and told me X, Y, and Z. But, you know, the Bible says, add thou not unto God's words, lest he reprove thee and thou be found a liar. And so we need to be very careful not to just make this claim, oh, God told me this. God spoke to me and said this. We need to make sure that we reserve that for things that actually were spoken by God and not just things that we make up or that feel right to us or sound good to us. No, we need to stick with what we actually know is the Word of God right here in the Bible. It says in verse 4, oh, Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the desert. And the fox is just an animal that's known for being a trickster, for being very cunning and crafty and sneaky. So he's saying that these prophets are intentionally deceiving and manipulating, and they're very cunning in that way. And he rebukes these preachers, these phony prophets, by saying in verse 5, you've not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. Now this is, of course, going to come up later, and if you want to keep your finger there in chapter 13, go to chapter 22. It's going to come up later in the very famous verse. In fact, this might be, at least for independent Baptists, this might be the most famous verse in the entire book of Ezekiel. As far as just growing up in church, which verse from Ezekiel gets quoted the most? I would say it's probably Ezekiel 22.30. I mean, this is kind of the big one. It says, and I sought for a man among them that should make up the hedge and stand in the gap before me for the land that I should not destroy it, but I found none. So we have that famous verse there. But that idea is coming up already in chapter 13, where he's rebuking the false prophet saying, you've not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. So if you think about a hedge, what is a hedge? A hedge is a barrier, right? We would think of in our neighborhoods today a hedge as being something that would divide one piece of property from another. It would divide maybe a pathway from what is not the path. And basically the hedge is, in a sense, it's making up like a fence or a wall, but it's a living fence. It's not just a fence made out of wood. It's a living fence because a hedge is a wall or a barrier that's made out of plants that are alive, right? That's what a hedge is. And so in battle, when you go to war, you're lined up and you have ranks, right? And you don't want to break ranks. You've got one soldier and he's right next to the other soldier and he's right next to the other soldier and you form like a solid front against the enemy. And that's, in a sense, a hedge because it's a living wall or barrier or boundary, okay? And making up the gap would be to fill in an empty space in that hedge in order to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord. You know, when I think about this preachers making up the hedge and standing in the gap, you know, what does it mean to stand in the gap? Well, in order to stand in the gap, there has to be a gap, right? If there were no gap, then God wouldn't be upset that he can't find anybody to fill the gap. He's trying to fill a gap because there's a gap. What is a gap? A gap is something that's missing. And when I think about preachers and speaking the Word of God, there are certain subjects or certain doctrines or certain scriptures from this book that other preachers aren't preaching. I would say that's a gap. You know, if nobody's touching this chapter, nobody's touching this doctrine, nobody's calling out this sin, nobody's preaching about this thing that's going on in our society, then that's a gap. You know, we're doing battle with the forces of evil, with the rules of the darkness of this world, and we've got all these gaps where you don't have a preacher preaching on this subject or you don't have anybody talking about this, right? So in my ministry, what I've sought to do is to try to find those things that need to be talked about that nobody else is talking about and preach on those things so that I could stand in that gap. And that's what we should want to do as preachers is to fill in the gaps. You know, even in my own ministry, I guarantee you that in my preaching, there are gaps in my preaching because I'm one person. And obviously, I have my own biases and I have my own chapters that I like more than others or things that I'm going to emphasize more than others. So, you know, even my preaching is going to have gaps in it. And when I'm writing sermons, I'm constantly trying to find gaps and ask myself, you know, is there some subject that I'm not covering? Is there some part of the Bible that I'm neglecting? Just to try to fill that in so that we can have everything we need in the war against the forces of evil. We want to have all the Bible being preached, want to have all the doctrines tightened up. We don't want to leave a chink in the armor because if there's a chink in the armor, the devil is going to want to exploit that weakness and use that to attack us. So we want to make up that hedge and it's going to take more than one person to make up that hedge because one person is going to have gaps in their preaching because nobody's perfect. We're human and there's only so much that we can do. And so, you know, you have multiple preachers, you've got preachers all over America, and you'd hope that with all the Baptist preachers across America, everybody getting up on Sunday morning and preaching and putting it out on the internet even and crying out from the housetops that, you know, everything gets covered, that all of the gaps are filled. And preachers become a human barricade, right? What's a hedge? It's a living wall. It's a living fence. A human barricade, a human boundary that says, hey, we're not going to let things go any further. We're putting a stop to this garbage. We're standing up to this and we are going to preach what the Word of God says and we're all standing here shoulder to shoulder and we're going to defend the Word of God and fight against the wiles of the devil and so forth. What's interesting is that the bad preachers are rebuked for not making up that hedge or standing in the gap, but watch a little bit later what they do instead. Let's keep reading here. It says in verse 6, they've seen vanity and lying divinations saying, the Lord says, and the Lord has not sent them. And they've made others to hope that they would confirm the Word. Have you not seen a vain vision and have you not spoken a lying divination? Whereas you say, the Lord says it, albeit I've not spoken. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, because you've spoken vanity and seen lies, therefore behold I am against you, saith the Lord God. Now what does vanity mean? Vanity is that which is empty or meaningless, right? If I said that I did something in vain, it means I did something that was really no point to what I did. Vanity is emptiness, meaninglessness. And so when these preachers aren't lying, they're just preaching vanity. You know, again, it's not like I've listened to a whole lot of Joel Osteen, but I'll bet you if I were to turn on Joel Osteen tomorrow and listen to whatever his sermon, I'll bet you a lot of what he says would be true, right? I wouldn't be able to say like, oh, this is heresy or listen to this horrible teaching. But I guarantee there'd be a lot of vanity there. You know, there'd be a lot of what the Bible calls lightness, light, vain and light persons, lightness, meaning just a lot of fluff, a lot of emptiness. You know, here's where the hottest part of the battle is. Here's where the rank has a hole in it and we need somebody to stand in the gap and make up the hedge. Here's the preaching that needs to happen. Meanwhile, you know, basically you've got these preachers that they're staying away from the real fights and they just want to talk about a bunch of fluff, a bunch of vanity, a bunch of light preaching. Instead of getting the real meat on the bone, they're just getting a bunch of lightness. It's not even the milk of the word. It's like an almond milk is what they're preaching. You know, you want to talk about lightness and vanity. You say, well, I put almond milk on my cereal, but here's the thing, you could put water on your cereal and it'd pretty much be the same thing. Okay. I'm glad you love almond milk, but you're going to have to put a lot of Nestle Quick in it before it tastes like anything as far as I'm concerned. But the point is, you know, hey, I'm for the milk of the word being preached. I'm for the meat of the word being preached, but then there's just emptiness. Then there's just fluff. Then there's just blah, blah, blah, without scripture, without real doctrine, just entertainment, stories, illustrations, but there's really nothing there. And so, uh, these bad preachers, they, they preach a lot of vanity and they just preach straight lies and they claim that God says things that he doesn't say. They attribute teachings to God that he's never given. And you hear people do this all the time. Well, didn't Jesus say X, Y, and Z? And you're like, no, he didn't because I've read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and there was nothing like that. But yet people make those kinds of statements all the time, don't they? And he says in verse number nine, my hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity and the divine lies. They shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel. Neither shall they enter into the land of Israel and you shall know that I'm the Lord God. Basically they didn't make it into the Bible. You know, they're not written in the writing of Israel. You know, thankfully whatever bogus books that they wrote didn't survive, didn't make it. They ended up going in the trash where they belong. And we live in a day where you have people digging up trash, digging up that which has been rejected and discarded and not used by God's people is being pulled out now as a, you know, the hidden scriptures, the mysterious, you know, and people basically, they get all excited about these exotic scriptures. They haven't even read the Bible cover to cover. You've got people who've never read Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, right? Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk. You've got people who've never read those books, but they're excited about the new scripture that's been discovered. But all that stuff is that they're finding is just discarded trash. If that stuff had been the word of God, it would have borne fruit. It would have been preached. It would have been copied. It would have been preserved. God preserves his word. If he doesn't preserve it, it's because it's not his word, okay? And in fact, even people at the time knew that a lot of that stuff was junk. They knew it was garbage. And then the Roman Catholic Church wants to pull out a bunch of stuff that even the Jews didn't even accept as part of their scripture, right? They want to pull out Jewish scriptures and the Jews are like, that's not our stuff. And they want to pull that out and add that into the Bible in their so-called apocrypha, right? All their bogus junk books that have been rejected over the years. And now even worse things are being pulled out. The Book of Enoch and all these other, Gospel According to Thomas and all this junk. It's trash. It's stuff that was rejected. God worked it out to where the true prophets, where he had spoken to them and it was his will that they would pin these books like Hosea, Joel, Amos, these guys, you know, he made sure that that stuff got preserved and that it was canonized and that it was put in the Bible. And he's saying these bogus prophets that are lying, their stuff's not going to make it into the Bible. It's not going to make it into the writings that go into scripture. And you shall know that I am the Lord God. And we certainly do know that. Verse number 10, because they have seduced my people saying peace and there was no peace. So they're preaching a positive message when a negative message needs to be preached. And I'm for preaching both, but we need to make sure that we're not all just love, joy, peace. We've got to also preach the negative things in scripture. And these people, they just want to say peace, peace when there is no peace. These lying prophets, positive only. And this is the part I want to focus on. It says, and in verse 10, and there was no peace and one built up a wall and lo others daubed it with untempered mortar. So I want you to notice the contrast here. The true man of God, he is the wall. Okay. He makes up the hedge. He's a human wall. He's a human hedge because what is a hedge? A hedge is a living thing. A wall is not a living thing. A wall is made out of bricks or wood or whatever. Whereas a hedge is like a plant. It's actually alive. So God's contrasting here. The true preacher, the true prophet of God, he is the true wall. I mean, he is making up the hedge. He's standing in the gap and being the wall. These phony preachers, they make a wall. Okay. But it's not a real wall. It's a fake wall. It's not going to hold up because it has been daubed with untempered mortar. Okay. It's been daubed with untempered mortar. Now this is basically a wall that's made out of bricks. And if you make a wall out of bricks, you lay down a brick and then you lay down some mortar and then you put another brick. Now if there's something wrong with the mortar, this wall is not going to stand because imagine if you just piled up bricks with no mortar. You just piled up bricks with no mortar, it's just you could just – a child could just knock it over. You just walk up and just push it over. The wind could knock it over. It's worthless, right? The mortar is everything because the mortar connects it all and really the chain is only going to be as strong as its weakest link. And so if the mortar is untempered mortar, then it's just going to break apart anyway. And it doesn't matter how good the bricks are, if the mortar is trash, the wall is trash, right? So if you think about this, you could think of the bricks – you could think of good stone bricks, you could think of those as maybe scriptures from the Bible or verses from the Bible, right? The word of God, the rock, right? So you have all these pieces of the rock, right? But here's the thing, even if you've got good bricks, even if you've got a good Bible verse but then you're connecting it to another Bible verse with garbage that you say. So you quote a good Bible verse, then you say a bunch of garbage that isn't true and then you say another good Bible verse and then say a bunch of other garbage that isn't true. You see how this is what a false prophet would do because false prophets use the Bible. So just because somebody is using the Bible, you can't just automatically say, oh, this guy is legit. I heard him quoting scripture. Even if he's quoting the King James Bible and he quoted it correctly, even if he used a lot of verses because what is he slapping in between those verses? Imagine using dung as a mortar. It's just going to dry and be crusty and it's just going to break apart. It's not a good tempered mortar. So if you're preaching junk in between the Bible verses, then the wall is no good, okay? So these guys, they're making a wall, but it's a fake wall and again, what is a wall? What's the purpose of wall? It's a boundary, right? It's a border. It's a demarcation and we as preachers are supposed to build walls for a lot of reasons because number one, we need to distinguish between right and wrong and show, hey, there's a boundary. Don't go beyond this point, right? If you're committing fornication, you're over the line. If you're drunk, you're over the line. If you're stealing, you're over the line, right? So we're preaching against sin and we're putting up boundaries and guardrails and saying, hey, this is what God says that we're supposed to do, how we're supposed to live our life. And then when it comes to doctrine, you know, we're also putting up boundaries and saying, hey, look, you know, we believe in the deity of Christ and if somebody here is saying that Jesus is a created being or that he's not God or that he's not deity, then, you know, we'd say that guy's over the line. False teacher, false prophet, right? Or if somebody's adding works to salvation over here or if somebody is teaching some other heresy, then we would wall that off and say, no, no, no, there's a line here that separates and divides between what's right and wrong. And so the Bible says, come out from among them and be separate, say at the Lord. You know, it says rightly divide the word of truth. And the Bible says to put a difference between clean and unclean, you know, so, so these are proverbial walls or, or, or demarcation lines that we would put up as preachers that it's our job to, to, to separate these things and to divide these things and to put a difference between. How about male and female? I mean, put a wall up between those two things, right? But see the false prophet, you know, he goes through the motions of putting up a wall, but it's the wrong wall. It's in the wrong place. He's using untempered mortar, meaning that he's mixing in a bunch of weakness, so he's got a few strong points, but then he mixes in so much weak stuff that the enemy can just knock it right over like it's nothing. So he goes through the motions of putting up the wall, but then also, you know, he's not really invested in it like the real preacher. The real preacher is the wall. I mean, he's, he's making up the hedge. He's standing in the gap. He's exposed and he's taking the brunt of the assault. Whereas these guys, you know, they make the wall. That's a separate activity versus being the wall. You know, they aren't willing to expose themselves to the enemy and actually be on the front lines. And let me tell you something, you know, when you stand in the gap, when you're saying things that other people aren't necessarily saying, and when you actually take a stand and preach hard against sin and use the word of God and use it properly, you're going to get attacked. You know, you're opening yourself up to persecution. You're opening yourself up to afflictions because the Bible says all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. And so when you actually make up the hedge, you end up exposing yourself to injury from the enemy. Whereas when you just make your little fake wall and then it falls over and you're just kind of like, you know, you just kind of get out of there. And these preachers, you know, they're constantly changing. The false prophets, they constantly change because what they preach now is popular now. But if things change, you know, then they're going to have to change in order to stay on the cutting edge, stay with what's trendy, stay with what's popular and so forth. Whereas, you know, the real preacher of God's word, he, you know, he just looks at what the Bible says. He preaches it and just, it is what it is. So that's the difference here with the, the dobbing the wall with untempered mortar. It says in verse 11, saying to them, which dob it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. It's not going to work. There should be an overflowing shower and he O great hailstones shall fall and a stormy wind shall rend it low when the wall is fallen shall not be set into you. Where is the dobbing wherewith you've dobbed it? I mean, did you even use any mortar at all? The thing fell over so easily. Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, I will even rend it, rend means to tear something. I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. Again, this thing, this, this, this bogus wall doesn't even need human beings or tools or animals to destroy it. Even the weather can destroy it. Okay. And it says in verse number 14, so will I break down the wall that you've dobbed with untempered mortar and bring it down to the ground so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, which we would say in our modern vernacular uncovered and it shall fall and you shall be consumed in the midst thereof and you shall know that I am the Lord. Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, upon them that have dobbed it with untempered mortar and will say unto you, the wall is no more, neither they that dobbed it. To wit, the prophets of Israel, which prophesy concerning Jerusalem and which see visions of peace for her and there is no peace, saith the Lord God. People might want to hear peace, but sometimes peace is not what's on the agenda for the preaching. You know, we can't, the Bible says there's no, there's no rest for the wicked. There's no peace to the wicked. And so, you know, we can't just be super positive and, and nice and, and loving to that which God hates, to that which God is disgusted by. We've got to get up and rebuke it sharply and preach hard and say some unpopular things. That's the job of being a preacher. So then he kind of switches gears at the end of verse 16. So up through verse 16, he's preaching against these false prophets. They're claiming to preach the word of God. Maybe they even have pieces of the word of God, but they've dobbed it with untempered mortar. They've mixed it with lies. And when you mix truth and lie, the whole thing becomes a lie at that point. And so these guys are going to be destroyed. He's going to punish the prophets and he's going to destroy their teachings. And this is why, you know, here we are in 2021, we don't have these guys' teachings. We don't know what their names are. We don't have their books. I'm sure some archeologists will help us dig up some of this trash, but you know, it's trash. It's buried. They're forgotten. Whereas Ezekiel lives on. The true man of God and his teachings live on. You know, here we're reading it today. These guys' wall was broken down and destroyed and they were personally punished as well. So then he switches in verse 17 to talk about women. So at first he's talking about prophets and we're picturing men, right? We're picturing like preachers who have a public ministry and they're preaching the word of God. Now we're going to get to some female prophets that he's going to rebuke in verse 17. It says, likewise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own heart and prophesy thou against them. Now in the Bible, there are some female prophets that were actually real prophets of God, meaning that they were actually legitimate. They were actually being spoken to by God and they were actually, you know, delivering God's word and so forth. I don't believe that any women wrote any books of scripture or anything like that because, you know, the Bible says holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and all of the authors that we do know about are all men. And typically when we see these female prophets in scripture that actually are speaking the word of God, they're not an imposter, they're not bogus, they're not phony. When we see these female prophets of God, whether in the New Testament or in the Old Testament, what we don't see is them basically running the church or having a big public ministry, leading the nation, preaching to giant crowds and doing these things. What we see is that they usually have more of a one-on-one kind of a personal ministry where they're speaking God's word to people but not in leadership because the Bible is crystal clear in the New Testament, for example, it says I suffer not a woman to teach nor do you serve authority over the man but to be in silence. The Bible says let your women keep silence in the churches for it is not permitted unto them to speak. Now, I don't know how you could get much clearer than these verses in 1 Corinthians chapter 14 and in 1 Timothy chapter 2 that clearly say it's a shame for a woman to speak in the church and that, you know, they should learn in silence with all subjection, I suffer not a woman to teach nor do you serve authority over the man but to be in silence. Obviously, a woman being a pastor of a church is totally unbiblical, okay, a woman being a leader in the church, leading men is completely unbiblical, okay, and she's not to be the teacher of God's word in the church, it needs to be taught by men, okay. But what we do see are examples of these female prophets and a lot of people when you show them a clear scripture that just says don't do it, to me, that should just be the end of story right there. Bible says don't do it, it's just like, okay, don't do it, yeah, but what about Deborah? The Bible said don't do it, I mean, that should be enough, the Bible said no, yeah, but I mean, what about Deborah though? But here's the thing, if you look at Deborah, Deborah's ministry is not a ministry of, alright, I'm leading Israel, I'm leading the congregation, I'm leading the troops, I'm preaching to great crowds, no, no, no, what we see is Deborah ministering to Barak and basically delivering the word of God to Barak and she speaks to Barak and she wants him to lead and she's just giving the word of God to him so that he can be the public leader and the one that's at the front of the battle and leading the nation and so forth. And you know, she's very strongly trying to make sure that he understands that God wants a man to lead because when he says, well, I'm only going to go if you go with me, then she says, okay, well, I'll go with you, but then the victory is going to go to a woman and not you. He probably thinks that she's talking about herself. She says, well, you know, if I go with you, then a woman is going to get the victory and not you, but she's not even talking about herself. She tags along, she doesn't seem to participate in any of the action, but rather a housewife, not some female prophet or something, a housewife who, you know, she's dealing with milk and butter and cheese and all these wonderful things, right? Because that's what she serves, Sisera, right before she basically destroys his head from off his body, okay? So she uses, you know, the implements of the household to just completely demolish Sisera's head, okay? And so, you know, that was the woman that God used, the one who's just basically in the home doing what she's supposed to do and, you know, a little extra beyond what she's supposed to, you know, but the point is that, yeah, we have Deborah, was she a legitimate prophet of God? Absolutely. And then the Bible also talks about her judging. Now what does this mean? People are coming to her to get disputes resolved and she is mediating between disputes. And the thing about this is that throughout the Bible, there's a theme of wise women that are acting as counselors or judging or giving advice or even prophesying from the Lord or, you know, training their children or whatever. You know, for example, we have a whole chapter of the Bible in Proverbs 31, you know, the words of King Lemuel, the prophecy that his mother taught him, right? So there we do have words coming from a man, Lemuel, but where did he get it? You know, he got it from mom. And so his mom taught him this prophecy and then he is writing it down or delivering it to us in Proverbs chapter 31. And so the point is that, you know, you do have wise women, you know, there's the wise woman of Abel and there, you know, we can go through all the Bible stories that the woman who is going to throw the guy's head over the wall and everything, you know, these lovely women of the book of Judges, but Judges has some pretty rough women in it. But the point is that you have wise women, you have women acting as counselors, you have women mediating disputes and not, Deborah is not the only one because again, you have other women throughout scripture in the book of 1 Samuel, for example, where people would go to this woman and she, whatever she says, they go with it because she's a wise woman. She's able to mediate and judge between people, okay? In the New Testament, you've got prophets in the book of Acts that are female, but again, you know, they're talking to people one on one. You don't see them preaching to large crowds and doing these things. And so what we need to understand is that women should not be leading in the church, they should not be preaching behind the pulpit, they should not be pastoring or running the show, they shouldn't be running their families either because the husband should be running the home. He's the head of the household, but that doesn't mean that women don't have a spiritual job even when it comes to speaking the word of God. And even in the New Testament, you know, we see in the book of Acts chapter 2 that a lot of those that preached on the day of Pentecost and got a lot of people saved were women because it was a fulfillment of the prophecy in Joel where he said, I'll pour out my spirit upon the handmaidens and they shall prophesy. So it was upon the servants and upon the handmaidens in Acts chapter 2. So in Acts chapter 2, what do you have? You have women preaching the gospel and getting people saved. Not on TV, not on the radio, but what are they doing? They're actually soul winning. What we would think of as soul winning, they're preaching to people and getting people saved one on one or not necessarily one on one, but you know, to a group of two, three, four, whatever, just two people on the street. And we strongly encourage that at our church. You know, we don't want our church to be a place where only the men do the soul winning. We want women to go out soul winning as well. And we have lots of great women in our church who do a lot of great soul winning and they go on mission strips and get great numbers of people saved on mission strips and that's fantastic. And so women do have a place when it comes to preaching or prophesying God's word, but it's not one of being front and center, leading, ruling, being the bosses or having these big public ministries like the joker, also known as Joyce Meyer, the human joker, okay? She looks more like the joker than the joker does. Like the joker looks like Joyce Meyer is what we should say, okay? But the thing is, you know, Paul in Philippians said, you know, help those women which labored with me in the gospel. You know, so the apostle Paul is pointing out women that labored with him, not in the kitchen. He said they labored with me in the gospel. So there is a place for women out in the highways and hedges winning souls to Christ. You know, and I encourage you ladies to come to a soul winning time and get paired up with another lady and go out and knock some doors and win some people to Christ and also seek to give the gospel to people in your personal life. People that you know through the neighborhood or through different groups that you're a part of, you know, give the gospel, win people to Christ. Whether it's at, you know, and maybe you work or go to school or something, then win people to the Lord there. You know, women need to be speaking the word of God also. Just because they're not the pastor of the church doesn't mean that they don't have a ministry of speaking God's word. So we don't want to just look at this and just say, well, these women are prophesying that's, you know, and just reject them out of hand. The problem with these women is not that they're prophesying at all because like I said, we do have some examples of this with Deborah. We've got some examples in the book of Acts. We've got examples that are positive, but these women, like the men that we've been talking about, are prophesying lies. These are false prophets. That's the problem. It's not their gender that's the problem here. It's the fact that they're false prophets. It's the problem. So it says in verse 17, likewise, that son of man set thy face against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy, but here's the problem. They prophesy out of their own heart. They're making stuff up, not preaching the actual word of God and prophesy thou against them and say, thus sayeth the Lord God, woe to the women that so pillows to all armholes and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls. We hunt the souls of my people and will you save the souls alive that come unto you? And you say, what did I just read? What is that? Sewing pillows to armholes and kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls? What does that even mean? Now look, I can't get up here and tell you that I know for sure exactly what this means, but let me give you some insight on this. First of all, what is an armhole? Well, we know this from elsewhere in scripture. I mean, it's kind of a self-explanatory word, a hole in your arm, but in Jeremiah, it's a little clearer. I think chapter 38 verse 12 of Jeremiah, he is lifted up out of the mire where he's in the dungeon and Ebed-Melech lets down the rags to pull them out and he tells them to put it in his arm holes. Basically he's to put it under his armpits. So he wraps the cloth rope around his armpits so that he can be hoisted up. Basically that just from a logistical standpoint, we have to be talking about his armpits in Jeremiah chapter 38 verse 12, I believe. Now this right here, you know, you could make a case, could be another arm hole like in the elbow joint. But again, you know, we don't really know because that's clearly not what's referred to in Jeremiah. Here it could be referring to one of the, I don't think it's really that important. And you say, what are we talking about, pillows, sewing pillows to all arm holes. You know, instead of fixating on exactly what this garment is or what this clothing looks like, you know, and just kind of making something up, I think that the relevant thing here is that they're wearing a funny outfit, which is pretty much what false religions love to do. They love to put on a funny outfit because think about the nuns. There are no, there are none nuns in the Bible. There's no nuns. Like where did you ever read in the Bible about a nun or a monk? There's no monk. There's no nun. What about monastery, cloister? Is there any kind of a convent? No, you don't have these people in the Bible. There are no nuns. There are no monks. It doesn't exist, right? So it's fake. It's a fraud. It's a made up doctrine. And so what do they do? They put on a funny outfit, the penguin outfit in the case of the nuns, and then the monks put on like a Friar Tuck outfit. Okay. And so they wear these costumes and it kind of just puts out this vibe of like we're special. We're holy. Just to kind of make them stand out from other people by wearing these funny outfits. But lots of other religions do the same thing. You know, you go to the Orthodox Church and they're wearing all these shiny, fancy Las Vegas outfits with like a fancy hat and a big like wizard staff and a wizard cape and a wizard hat and all this stuff. So they dress up like a bunch of sorcerers and magicians and, you know, and that, by the way, makes me think of sorcerers and magicians themselves. What are they doing? Wearing a funny outfit. So Buddhists, Hindus, and look, I'm going to tell you right now as a Baptist, I don't believe in wearing a funny outfit. That's why I will never preach in a funny outfit. Like if this is not a funny outfit, okay, like getting up and just preaching in a business suit because guess what? This is the same thing that pretty much all of America would wear to a wedding or to a graduation or to a funeral or to go meet the president or to court. Right? I mean, what's Kyle Rittenhouse wearing right now? He's wearing something like I'm wearing right now. He's not a Baptist pastor up there, okay, but what's he wearing? He's wearing a suit and tie because you know what this is? It's a normal outfit that I'm wearing. I didn't say it was super cool or anything or that I'm wearing a particularly nice suit or anything, but I'm just saying, hey, this is normal clothing. Baptist pastors dress like a normal person. If you see a Baptist pastor out in public, you don't know that he's a Baptist pastor based on his clothing because he's going to be dressed like everyone else, right? If he's out, you know, doing whatever with his family, he's just going to be wearing casual clothes and if he's, you know, acting as a minister, he'll probably be wearing a shirt and tie or a suit or at least something nice, but it's not going to be anything weird. It's not going to be anything that you can't buy at JCPenney. If JCPenney doesn't sell it, a Baptist pastor probably doesn't wear it. You know what I'm saying? They just wear normal clothes, but yeah, what is the, you know, the, the, the, the, the, the Orthodox priests though, what's he got to do? He's got to wear like a, like a hat, like the, I don't know, like the, a dunce cap. Yeah. That's a, that's a, yeah. Or they'll wear that, uh, like one of those, like, like, like they're like a king of Africa or something. You know, those like, you know what I'm talking about? Those little cylinder hats with a little tassel on it or something, you know, they got to wear that kind of hat or how about just like a giant cross, just like a gigantic cross around their neck or something or, you know, the, the Orthodox Jews, they got to make broad their phylacteries and enlarge the boards, their garments, right? And the Orthodox Jews, when you see them at the airport, I mean, you can spot them. They've got what a funny hat. Where's that funny hat in the Old Testament? Where's the Old Testament say thou shalt wear a little bobby pin doily on the back of your head. What is that? But yet they wear it, don't they? I got to tell a story that's totally unrelated to the sermon, but once you hear the story, you'll forgive me. So my son John is talking to this guy who was clearly Jewish because he's wearing the funny hat on the back of his head, right? And, and, and, you know, my son, John was talking to this guy about career choices in this and stuff, and this guy's just like, Oh, you gotta be a doctor because they make so much money and, and, and John's like, no, no, this is what I want to go into. He's like, yeah, but the money you got to make the money, you know? And he's like, no, no, no, here's, this is what I'm interested in doing. Yeah, but the money, he's like, well, you know, the golden rule, right? And my son John's like, well, yeah, you know, all things whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do you even so to them, you know, do unto others, right? He's like, no, no, no, the one who has the gold makes the rules. And my son John told him, he said, well, that might be the Jewish golden rule, but he said, what I quoted was a Christian golden rule. That has nothing to do with the sermon, but anyway, but you know, all of these religions, notice all of these religions, they all dress up in a funny outfit. Look at me. And so this is obviously some kind of a, a, a cult or a sect or some kind of a thing. The pillow armhole cult or whatever, you know, where they have some kind of a weird outfit that they wear and they have these pillows sewn into their arm holes where you can spot them a mile away, but that's what they are. There's some kind of a, you know, they're really like a witch is what it sounds like they really are, but there's some kind of a weird practitioner of some false religion, right? So they've got this thing, the kerchiefs upon the stature, some kind of a head covering, right? Some kind of a, a thing on their head sewn to their arms. And what I, and you know, by the way, let me just, let me just kind of just, just kick this dog as I walk past it. Okay. You know, this whole like Christian head covering movement is a false doctrine. Okay. First Corinthians 11 is crystal clear that the long hair is given for a covering. You know, women are to have long hair, men are to have short hair, but you've got these people who'd say like, you have to have some kind of a head covering or a veil as a woman and blah, blah. It's so easy to debunk that when it's debunked and people just want to persist in it, you have to just, you have to just wonder why. Because of the fact that they claim that it's actually talking about, you have to like put cloth covering on your head. Well, think about what they're saying. They're saying that women, they must pray or prophesy with this head covering and that a man must not. And it's a shame for a man to have, you know, like, like for example, this is where the thing comes from. Where if somebody is praying, it's like, oh, I got to take off my hat or something. Okay. But hold on a second. I can pray with my hat on. And here's the biblical proof is that throughout the Old Testament, the Levitical priests who were commanded to wear a certain clothing, part of the clothing that the men had to wear while they served God in the temple in the tabernacle was they had to wear a hat. They must wear a mitre. They must wear some kind of a hat. And so they had a head dress on while they serve God. So pray tell me, how can the apostle Paul all of a sudden in the first Corinthians chapter 11, just be like, every man that prays or prophesies having his head covered dishonors his head. If he's talking about cloth, is he saying the whole Old Testament is bogus? Is he saying the whole tribe of Levi's bogus and the priests are bogus? That's absurd is what it is. But you know what it's saying is that it's a shame for them to have long hair pre getting up and preaching. And you have long hair. Hey, lead us in prayer, brother, long hair. No, that's not right. And so if we study the Old Testament later in the book of Ezekiel, he talks about how the priests are supposed to have short hair. Even in the book of Ezekiel, he says the priests should not suffer the locks of their hair to grow long, but they must pull their heads or cut the hair short, which is consistent. Short hair on men in the Old Testament, short hair on men in the New Testament. Whereas if it's a cloth head covering, we'd have a gender swap halfway through the Bible because all the men are supposed to be preaching and praying and ministering in the temple, wearing their heads covered. And then all of a sudden in first Corinthians 11, it's like, what don't you guys know this doesn't even nature itself teaches, sorry. But here's what I've noticed about these head covering Baptists. Isn't it amazing how they all have false doctrine? Isn't it amazing how I've never been to a King James soul winning Baptist church where the women wear head coverings? Isn't that interesting? But yet the ones that I've seen that wear the head coverings, where are they at? They're at the Pentecostal church. They're at the tongue talking, lose your salvation type church, typically where they are. So again, notice how false doctrines and false religions and false denominations, they love to dress you up, don't they? The right church lets you dress normally like a normal person and you don't have to put on a funny outfit to worship God in church. You just dress like a normal person. Obviously God doesn't want us to dress in a way that's sleazy or effeminate as men or revealing as women. Obviously we have standards for clothing, but we still dress like normal 2021 Americans. When my family walks down the street, it's not like, whoa, what century did you just fall out of? All the girls are wearing skirts that go down at least to the knee, but you know what? I can't even count how many atheists that I've seen as women wearing a skirt down to the knee or down to the ankles. Do you really think that Baptists are the only women who wear dresses? Absolutely not. I guarantee you, who here as a lady would say, before I was saved, I wore dresses and skirts in my life sometimes? It's like every single person. And so, you know, they're putting on a funny outfit. They're hunting the souls of God's people. They save alive the souls that are appointed to death and they destroy the souls that God wants to live. Let me just thoroughly crank through this and will you pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread to slay the souls that should not die and to save the souls alive that should not live by your lying to my people that hear your lies. So apparently people are coming to them and bringing them food as payment for their services. They're showing up, they're giving them handfuls of barley or bread or whatever. They're bartering food to get some kind of a soothsaying or divination or whatever the spell or enchantment or whatever these women offer. I don't know how it works exactly with the pillows, but I don't think anybody knows how it works because it's something that hasn't survived because God put an end to it. God destroyed them and the practitioners of it and so, you know, we don't know. We don't need to know. We get enough of a picture here. Wherefore thus saith the Lord God, behold, I'm against your pillows. And there's nothing wrong with a pillow, just don't sew it to your armhole. Wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly and I will tear them from your arms and will let the souls go, even the souls that you hunt to make them fly. Now, that's a weird verse and to me, like when I hear about it and maybe I'm wrong because again, we don't have much to go on, so we have to maybe just use our imagination here if anything. You know, to me, this almost sounds like somebody have a voodoo doll or something. You know what I mean? Like you got a voodoo doll and you use it to basically cast spells on people or to harm other people and you're stabbing needles into a voodoo doll or something. To me, it seems like that pillow represents something, it represents some kind of a curse on people or something and that basically when God says he's gonna rip off the pillows from off their arms and will let the souls go, it's almost like maybe they are placing some kind of a curse upon righteous people or something. But who knows? You know, again, that's just what comes to... Every time I read this, that's kind of what comes into my mind as maybe the closest analog that we could find to this. But it's some kind of a witchcraft, voodoo, something or other of blessing bad people and cursing good people and doing some kind of hocus pocus for gifts of whatever, you know, grain or food or whatever. Your kerchiefs also will I tear, kerchief would be like short for what we would call a hand kerchief, also will I tear and deliver my people out of your hand and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted and you shall know that I am the Lord because with lies you've made the heart of the righteous sad whom I've not made sad and strengthened the hands of the wicked that he should not return from his wicked way by promising him life. Therefore, you shall see no more vanity nor divine divinations for I will deliver my people out of your hand and you shall know that I am Lord. Now quickly with the little time I have left, I just want to deal with verse number 22 because he says here that they strengthen the hands of the wicked that he should not return from his wicked way by promising him life and this is so important. When a preacher doesn't preach on sin but rather tells people God's not mad at you, everything's fine, God's going to bless you, what that preacher is doing is he's strengthening the hands of the wicked, propping up the wicked. I mean imagine let's say we've got a couple of young people in our church and they just instead of getting married, they just move in together, they just move in together not married and they're just fornicating, right? They're just a man and a woman living together in fornication, not married and what if we just basically just said, oh it's such a blessing to have you in our church and we just love you so much and we're not going to judge you, it's between you and God if the Holy Spirit hasn't said anything to you about it and we just blast those people and in fact let's have a church activity at their house. Now you think that's funny but this is a real story from a Baptist church that I went to. Hey, let's have church activities meeting at the home of a couple that's not married, they just live together in fornication and they've been coming to church for years and that's where the church Christmas party is going to be. What are you doing at that point? What you're doing at that point is basically you're putting your stamp of approval on it and people aren't going to be motivated to change. Because basically if teenagers are just living their lives however, saying and doing whatever and I just tell them it's okay or I just basically just pat them on the back and bless them as they drink and party and fornicate and do these things, you know what I'm doing is basically I'm encouraging them to continue doing that. And in fact even if I'm just silent on these issues, even if I just don't say anything one way or the other, I'm encouraging that behavior. As a pastor I've got to get up and actively preach against these sins and make sin exceeding sinful so that people will know this stuff is not okay. Why do I want them to know it's not okay? In many ways it's for their own benefit because the Bible says there's a way that seemeth right unto a man but the end thereof are the ways of death. So I have people in my congregation that are living their life in a way that seems right to them and I know that the end is death, it's my job to do what? Hey, that may seem right but here's what the Bible says, it's wicked. What am I trying to do? I'm trying to save their life because sin when it is finished bringeth forth death. Okay if people that are saved Christians in God's house and then they just start living a life of sin I know where that life leads eventually it leads to death and I'm not talking about death when you're 90 surrounded by people who love you. I'm talking about premature death, right? I'm talking about death that is not a good death, something that's going to happen way sooner than you want and going to be nothing to be happy about. And so the point is that we've got to make sure that we're not strengthening the hands of the wicked. And you know I've taken a lot of flack on this over the years but I'm going to say it once again, okay, is that you know when people come to me and announce to me that they're pregnant with an illegitimate child I don't say like, oh congratulations that's so wonderful. Congratulations on the little bastard. That's not what I say, okay? Because here's the thing, you know a woman getting pregnant out of wedlock is not something to be rejoiced about, it's shameful. I mean come on folks, who here wants your daughter to come home and tell you, hey mom I'm pregnant with an illegitimate baby. So why would we pretend that that's good and celebrate that and congratulate that and act like oh it's so wonderful, we're so excited, it's so great. And you say well it's not the baby's fault. Okay well can I explain something to you? I'll congratulate the baby when he grows up old enough to understand English I'm going to say, hey little guy, congratulations on being you, being alive. Congratulations on coming into this world young two-year-old, I'll be glad to congratulate him it isn't his fault, but why would I congratulate, hey good job committing fornication. Hey good job, you had sex with a guy you weren't married to, great, what you know, are you registered anywhere? And look I don't care if you like that preaching or not my friend, it's my job as the pastor to get up and preach the truth about this because fornication is a wicked sin and it needs to be called out, okay. And so that's just one example but I want to make sure in my life that I'm not strengthening the hands of the wicked, strengthening the hands of the wicked and just propping people up as they continue in sin. And again I'm not saying, I'm not going to go seek out you know pregnant, hey by the way how's the bastard, I'm not, that's not what I'm saying. You know because there are certain things that just aren't my business. I'm going to mind my own business, okay. But you know what, if it's my family or if it's my church members or if it's some situation where I'm actually involved, you know, where I'm expected to say something, you know, you better just be smart and just not even ask my opinion. If you don't want to hear my actual opinion that fornication is wicked and that it's a shame and it's embarrassment and that it is nothing to rejoice about. You know now if you're married and you're pregnant, let's rejoice about that. Let's rejoice about that but let's not rejoice in sin. We don't want to strengthen the hands of the wicked and prop people up in their ungodliness. We want to call these things out and it's not always fun but it's our job to preach against sin and so we don't want to promise people life and oh it's going to be great. Now again don't ever let someone twist this verse on to make it about salvation or something because obviously yeah you don't have to stop sinning to be saved or else we're all going to hell at that point because every single person is a sinner. This is by grace through faith but let me tell you something. When it comes to this earth though, if you want to be blessed, if you want to live a good life on this earth, if you want the path of life ahead of you, if you want to be well with you and your days to be long on the earth, you better follow God's commandments and if you don't, the end thereof are the ways of death and the wicked shall not live out half his days. That's what the Bible says. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father we thank you so much for your word Lord and thank you for this great chapter and thank you for just all the blessings that you've given us Lord and thank you for the wonderful missions trip to Sierra Leone and bringing brother Raymond out of the hospital and Lord those who are still sick I pray that you'd be with them and heal them and just bless our church and help us to continue to win many souls unto Christ and it's in his name we pray, Amen. Let's take our song books please and turn to 271. Hymn number 271, Lord I'm coming home, number 271, I've wandered far away from God, number 271, Lord I'm coming home, let's sing an honest first verse together. I wandered far away from God, now I'm coming home, the paths of sin too long have come, Lord I'm coming home, coming home, coming home, nevermore to roam, open wide my heart I'm coming home, Lord I'm coming home, I've wasted many precious years, now I'm coming home, I'm now in bed with little tears, Lord I'm coming home, coming home, coming home, nevermore to roam, open wide my hearts above, Lord I'm coming home, I'm tired of sin and pain, Lord I'm coming home, now I'm coming home, God's trust and love may be my worth, Lord I'm coming home, coming home, coming home, nevermore to roam, open wide my hearts above, Lord I'm coming home, my soul is sick, my heart is sore, now I'm coming home, my strength renewed, I won't restore, Lord I'm coming home, coming home, coming home, nevermore to roam, open wide my hearts above, Lord I'm coming home. Amen.