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

So we've been away from the series for a little bit, but we're jumping back in and I want to just back up just a little bit because when I preached the sermon over a month ago on Ezekiel chapter 44, I only really preached on the very beginning of the chapter. I didn't get very far. So I want to back up just a little bit and start in verse 17 of chapter 44 and just kind of get back into the series here and refresh our memories of what we've been talking about. But in chapter 44 verse 17 the Bible reads and it shall come to pass that when they enter in at the gates of the inner court they shall be clothed with linen garments and no wool shall come upon them while as they minister in the gates of the inner court and within. Of course this is talking about the Levitical priests. If you back up to verse 15 it says the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from me. They shall come near to me to minister unto me and they shall stand before me to offer unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord God. And again let me just reiterate what I've preached over and over again in this series. How absurd it is to try to take this passage of scripture and somehow apply this to the millennial reign of Christ which is what the dispensationalists, the Judaizers of our day are teaching that somehow Ezekiel chapters 40 through 48 are talking about some future temple during the millennial reign of Christ. Of course there is going to be no legitimate temple rebuilt. The temple that's going to be rebuilt is going to be for the Antichrist. But there's not a legitimate temple with priests and an Ark of the Covenant and animal sacrifices coming in the future. That's all over. It's done. And this passage of scripture is clearly an Old Testament passage of scripture, Old Covenant. It is not about the millennial reign of Christ. It's absurd. The sons of Zadok, those are the priests that are in power when they come back from the Babylonian captivity. That's the context. The book of Ezekiel is written at a time when they're in captivity and they're about to return from Babylon and we know that when they come back, it's the sons of Zadok that are the priests. And if you remember, there were two different branches because if you remember, David had two high priests but one of them ends up being removed from the priesthood, his whole family and it's the Zadok branch of the family that ends up being faithful to the Lord and being the ones that continue being priests. That's where we're at in history, in scripture. So when we're reading this passage of scripture, what you're going to notice as we go through this next part here is that this reads a lot like the Mosaic law, doesn't it? As we read through the rest of chapter 44, as we get into chapter 45, these verses would be right at home if we were to just grab them and stick them in Leviticus or Deuteronomy or Numbers. You wouldn't even notice that they were in the wrong place because that's the genre of this portion of scripture. So if it was ever a no-brainer to classify something as Old Covenant, it's this passage because it's identical to the type of things that we see over in the Mosaic law because that's where it belongs, Old Covenant, Old Testament. And it's a wicked false teaching and I'm not going to re-preach those sermons that I did but to sit there and put this into the millennium or something is just preparing people for the Antichrist, this Judaizing thing that says, oh, we're going to bring back animal sacrifices and the temple and the Ark of the Covenant, folks that's just playing into the Antichrist's hands because that's exactly what he's going to do. But again, that's another sermon and I've already preached it. So let's look at this. Now specifically, what is he saying to the priests that when they come into the inner court, they're supposed to wear linen and not supposed to wear wool? Obviously there's a literal meaning there. Don't wear wool. Wear linen. Doesn't really help us very much today in 2022, does it? Because there are no more Levitical priests. There is no more temple. So who cares what they're wearing? But what you have to understand is that these things continue to have spiritual significance today. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine. And so we can still learn something here spiritually. It's not that God was just worried about fashion or something. You know, he didn't want to mix fabrics or something. This all has a spiritual meaning. And typically in the Bible, linen represents works. It's a plant-based fabric. Whereas wool is the animal-based fabric. And if you remember Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, they make themselves a fig leaf apron to cover their nakedness and God does not accept that covering and he gives them coats of skins to cover their nakedness because that pictures the blood of the lamb, you know, putting on the righteousness of Jesus Christ. The animal being killed to provide that clothing is a picture of Jesus Christ dying on the cross to provide a covering for our sin. Whereas the plant-based textiles represent the works that we would do to try to cover our own sins. And so that's why he didn't accept that as a covering for their nakedness. Then it's the same thing with Cain and Abel. You know, Abel brings the offering of the first things of the flock. He brings an animal sacrifice. Cain brings fruits and vegetables. Again, Cain is bringing his own works. Abel is bringing the lamb, Jesus, the sacrifice of Christ. So there's that same type of symbolism going on throughout the Old Covenant. So when God says not to, for example, mix linen and woolen fabric in one garment, he's basically saying don't mix our works with the work of Christ. We need to fully trust what Jesus did to save us and not try to mix in our own works. Now our own works are good and they have their place, but they're not to be mixed with Christ's work. You can wear wool, you can wear linen, but don't try to mix and wear the mixed fabric where you're mixing both. That's the symbolism that's going on. Now here, he's telling them that when they go and minister as priests, they're not supposed to wear the wool whatsoever. They're supposed to be wearing the linen. They're in there doing work for the Lord. They're wearing the linen garment and he doesn't want any mixing to happen. Then he goes on to say this in verse 18, they shall have linen bonnets upon their heads and shall have linen britches upon their loins. That means pants, britches or pants. They shall not gird themselves with anything that causeth sweat. Now what does that mean? Well, obviously just from a practical standpoint, he doesn't want them getting all hot and stinky and sweaty because if they're going to be working around a burnt sacrifice and they're going to be indoors, you know, it could get hot. So he's telling them wear cool clothing so that you don't get too hot. That's the literal meaning here. But again, there's a spiritual significance. The works that we do, keeping God's commandments, doing good deeds, this is again pictured by the linen garments as we said. And he says don't wear anything that causes sweat. I believe that the symbolism here is that God's commandments are not grievous, right? The Bible says this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. And so God's commandments should not cause us to sweat. Now obviously, we live in Arizona, we're going to sweat no matter what we wear, no matter what we do. We're going to sweat. So you know, again, we're not talking about literally. We're talking about figuratively, right? We're looking at the symbolism here. What does sweat symbolize? Okay. Well, and again, don't get too literal. Sweat symbolizes you're working really hard or it symbolizes you're really nervous and stressed and agitated, right? So somebody who gets really anxious and agitated, you know, they might have beads of sweat coming down their face or, you know, you're working really hard. And I believe that what the Bible is showing us here is that serving God in God's house is not supposed to be a drag. It's not supposed to be something that causes sweat, something that makes you anxious or upset or it's a drag or it's considered like really hard work because God's commandments are not grievous. What did Jesus say in the New Testament? He said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest under your souls. And he said this, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Now stop and think about that. If Jesus said that serving him is an easy yoke and a light burden, then to me that's consistent with this idea of it not causing sweat. You know, you don't have to sweat God's commandments. Why? Because doing God's commandments is not asking you to do anything that's really unreasonable, that should just be so hard. You know, you think of the children of Israel, they're in bondage in Egypt and the taskmasters are whipping them and flogging them and giving them all these impossible tasks to perform and saying, you know, you have to get the straw by night and you have to make the bricks by day and they're beating them, fulfill your work, your daily tasks. And that's not the way God is, my friend. God is not up in heaven just whipping you and beating you as a taskmaster, giving you all these unreasonable jobs and just out to get you and out to nail you. Now is God going to discipline us? Of course, he chastens every son whom he receiveth. Of course, he's going to chasten those that he loves, but not as a grievous taskmaster. As a loving father, he will discipline us and he has reasonable expectations. God's expectations are reasonable. Our church's expectations are reasonable. The parents in this auditorium, you know, I believe that their expectations for their children are probably pretty reasonable, but yet sometimes children and teenagers don't think so because they just want to do whatever they want and they think everything's too strict. No matter how lenient or how strict the rules are, they're going to think it's strict. But here's the thing, you know, the teenagers don't make the rules, the parents do. The children don't make the rules, the parents make the rules, okay? And in the church, in the word of God, in the Christian life, in the Christian family, what God is asking us to do is reasonable. He said, not to be conformed to this world, be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. But he said, you know, present your body as a living sacrifice unto God. He said, it's your reasonable service. Reasonable service. God's commandments are not grievous. His yoke is easy. You want to live a hard life, then go out and live a life of sin. Disobey what your parents are teaching you, disregard what you're hearing in church, and you will find the sweat that you're looking for out there. You know, it's funny, my daughter and I were on a really long urban hike yesterday just walking through the city and we were sweating. And my daughter said to me, she said, you know, imagine these homeless people that are just out here all day in this incredible heat because, you know, we're out there for hours and it was pretty intense. You know, it was just like, wow, why would you want to just be out here all day holding that sign? Wouldn't it be simpler to just go to work? You know? And here's the thing. I told my daughter, though, I said, well, you know, we have something in common with the homeless people today and here's what we have in common. We both chose to be out here. We're both out here because we chose to be out here and we're doing this to ourselves for very different reasons, but we're doing this to ourselves. And that's the truth and a lot of people don't like to hear that truth. A lot of people get offended when you say that, but that's the truth. That's what's going on. Here's the thing. The way of transgressors is hard. You get into drinking, you get into drugs, you just blow off all your family and friends and burn everyone in your life and you're going to end up living a hard life. And if you're smart, you'll keep God's commandments, you'll listen to advice, you'll listen to your parents, you'll listen to the pastor, you'll listen to people at church that are giving you godly wisdom. They're not trying to make you sweat. You know, they're giving you work to do for the Lord, but it's not grievous. It doesn't have to be a pain. It doesn't have to cause stress or anxiety. And God is not a taskmaster. Nowhere in the Bible is he, that's why I don't like these modern Bible versions that say, Oh, I'm Christ's slave. That is the wrong connotation because today in 2022 America, when we use the word slave, we're thinking of basically African Americans in the 19th century being mistreated in the South. That's kind of the connotation that we have with slave. It's a really bad connotation and that is not what we are unto Christ. We're his friends. We're his servants. Okay. I believe that the KJV word servant has the right nuance because slave is a two negatively charged of a word because it makes God sound like some kind of a taskmaster flogging us and beating us and making us sweat. Yeah. He'll discipline us. He'll flog us when we deserve it. He will be reasonable though. His commandments are reasonable. His expectations are reasonable. Look, God's reasonable. I mean, look, he knows that we're flesh. He knows our frame. He knows that we're clay. He knows that we're not perfect. That's why his mercies are new every morning. And so his yoke is easy. His burdens light. So I like that symbolism that says they shall not gird themselves with anything that causes sweat. Okay. God is not just trying to just put us in a sauna suit to go serve in the temple. He wants us to be comfortable as possible, but still doing the work that he wants us to do. So what does that mean? It means that I'm willing to suffer for Christ. I know that I'm going to suffer for Christ, but I'm not interested in suffering just for the sake of suffering. You say, well, then why were you out there yesterday? Okay. I don't feel like explaining that right now. But anyway, the point is that God doesn't just make us suffer just because he wants to just hurt us or make, you know, if we suffer, there's a reason why we suffer and we're willing to suffer for Christ. We're willing to suffer for a righteous cause, but God is not there to just make us sweat for the sake of making us sweat. Okay. Let's keep going here. It says when they go forth into the utter court, even in the utter court to the people, and don't be confused by the word utter there. You can just add an O to that outer. That's just an old way of saying the outer court, the utter court. To the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered and lay them in the holy chambers and they shall put on other garments and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments. I already preached a whole sermon on that earlier in the series. Let's keep going. Verse 20, neither shall they shave their heads nor suffer their locks to grow long. They shall only poll their heads. And of course, this makes perfect sense because the New Testament clearly teaches us that it is a shame for a man to have long hair, but that a woman's hair is her glory. And so any man that prays or prophesies having his head covered, that is with long hair, is dishonoring unto Christ and that the woman who has short hair or an uncovered head is dishonoring to her husband. That's what 1 Corinthians 11 teaches. And so we understand that men are supposed to have short hair, women are supposed to have long hair, and the Bible even gives a reason for this. He says it's because man is in the image of God. And so man is not supposed to cover his head because he's in the image of God and so forth. So it's kind of funny that people persist in picturing Jesus Christ with long hair, which would make absolutely no sense. Jesus Christ is the express image of God the Father's person. So Jesus Christ is the express image of God's person. So if we're as men not supposed to have long hair because we're in the image of God, how much more is Jesus in the image of God? He's the express image. You know, I'm in the image of God, but Jesus is the express image of God's person, God the Father that is, because of course Jesus is also God because we believe in the Trinity. But how much more absurd would it be for Jesus Christ to be going around with long hair and then, oh, don't you have long hair because you're in the image of God. I'm super in the image of God and here's my long hair. That would make no sense. But just because some Renaissance painter who loves painting fat little naked flying cupids, you know, he also painted Jesus that way. You're just going to take that as gospel. I'm going to take the gospel as gospel and there's nothing in the Bible about Jesus having long hair. In fact, there's no physical description of Jesus in the Bible. Why? Because God doesn't want us to idolatries an image. He doesn't want us bowing down before some kind of a picture or an image. He wants us to know him through his word, not through an image. Therefore he doesn't give a physical description. It doesn't matter. And so he says here that men in the temple, the priesthood, obviously we're not priests. So you know, we're not strictly following this letter of the law because this isn't a thing anymore, but we can still get biblical principles from this. And we can say, okay, well God didn't want the Levites to have long hair, the dudes anyway. But he didn't want them to just shave it totally bald either. You know, he wanted them to pull their heads, which means to just basically cut the hair short. And it makes sense that in the New Testament that's reiterated that a man should not have long hair. And so, you know, I don't think that you should shave your head completely bald either. Now again, some of you, you know, it's not your choice. All right. So I'm not going to judge you. But anyway, if I have, if I have a normal head of hair, I'm not just going to shave it all off. You know, I'm going to keep it. But again, I'm not saying that it's necessarily a sin if you just decide to just bick your whole head for some strange reason. But you know, I'm just saying looking at this principle, it seems like God wants them to just have short hair. That's what we see as the ideal here for the priests. It says after that, neither shall any priest drink wine when they enter into the inner court. Neither shall they take for their wives a widow nor her that is put away, but they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel or a widow that had a priest before. And again, I don't believe that this is literally relevant of course today because we're not under the law. This is a Old Testament teaching about the Levitical priesthood and who they could marry because we know from other scriptures that there's absolutely nothing wrong with marrying a widow. Right? If a woman's husband dies, the Bible is crystal clear in Romans chapter 7 that she is free to marry someone else and she is not an adulterous though she be married to another man and she can marry whomever she chooses as long as it's in the Lord. And so there's absolutely nothing wrong with marrying a widow. But just in this situation, God did not want these particular priests to marry a widow and that's just for a symbolic reason and just it really isn't relevant in our literal lives in 2022 because again, the New Testament clearly teaches that there's nothing wrong with marrying a widow. However, it also says that they shall not marry her that is put away. Now what does Jesus say about that in the New Testament? Well he said that whosoever marrieth her that is put away comitteth adultery. So we definitely as Christians should not marry a divorced woman. So if you're a young man, you're a young single man and you're thinking about who to marry, you know divorced women are not an option unto you according to scripture. The Bible says whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband comitteth adultery. Okay. Now if you want to marry a widow, that is fine. That is scripturally allowed. This was a special case for Old Testament priests. And it says that, and you say, well, you're picking and choosing here. I'm not picking and choosing because I, again, I don't believe that any of this is literally relevant today in 2022. None of it is. None of these rules, not the rules about the hair, not the rules about the clothes, not the, you know, because this literally is referring to a Levitical priesthood that no longer exists. But it's still profitable for doctrine because we can look at the clothing and take the symbolic about the linen and the wool and the sweat. We can look at the hair and say, okay, God wants men to have short hair. He taught that in the New Testament also. He wants genders to look different and make sense. We can look at this and say, okay, yeah, don't marry a divorced woman. But we know from the New Testament that marrying a widow is fine, et cetera. And on and on, they shall take maidens of the seed of the house of Israel or a widow that had a priest before. So they can marry a widow as long as she was married to a priest previously. And again, it's just purely for symbolic reasons. Let's keep going. And they shall teach my people, verse 23, the difference between the holy and profane and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. And in controversy, they shall stand in judgment and they shall judge it according to my judgments and they shall keep my laws and my statutes and my assemblies and they shall hallow my Sabbaths. They shall come at no dead person to defile themselves. But for father or for mother or for son or for daughter or for brother or for sister that have no husband, they may defile themselves. He's saying, you know, that they shouldn't approach a dead body. But if it's a really close family member, hey, they can touch that dead body because they want to say goodbye or, you know, be a pallbearer or whatever. That makes perfect sense. And then it says, after he's cleansed, they shall reckon unto him seven days, verse 27. And in the day that he goeth into the sanctuary and the inner court to minister in the sanctuary, he shall offer his sin offering, saith the Lord God. And it shall be unto them for an inheritance. I am their inheritance and you shall give them no possession in Israel. I am their inheritance. Now, what's the significance there? Well, the Levites and the priests did not inherit land in the promised land. And again, specifically the context here is that they're in the Babylonian captivity. They're going to be coming back into the land of Israel and they're going to be reapportioning the land. They've been gone and they're going to have to go back and repossess some of the land. And so they're not going to give any parcels of land to the Levites as an inheritance. They'll give it to other tribes, but not the Levites. The Lord says, I'm their inheritance. Now what does that mean? Well, what that means is that the Levites made their living off of serving God in the house of God. So that's their full-time job. They don't have another gig. They don't go be a farmer all week and then come down once a week and hold services at the house of God. You know, these guys are full-time servants in the house of the Lord. That goes to the Levites. That goes to the priests. That whole tribe is doing that work as their occupation. So they don't have land to work. Keep in mind, throughout history, 90% of people have been farmers. It's not that way anymore, but that's how it was throughout history. And so them not having any land is symbolic of the fact that they don't have a secular employment or livelihood. The offerings of the Lord are their livelihood. And that comes in a few different forms. One of the ways that it comes is through the animal sacrifices. When the animal sacrifices are brought by the people, they eat that meat that is sacrificed upon the altar. Part of it is burned off unto the Lord, and part of it, they eat of the sacrifices. Also, the tides and the first fruits of the land are brought by the rest of Israel unto the Levites and priests. Now, it makes sense. There's 12 tribes. So if you think about it, if you have 12 tribes, then the system should work. Because if the Levites are one-twelfth, which is pretty close to one-tenth, right? It's a little less than a tenth. So one-twelfth, well then, if the rest of the tribes are bringing one-tenth of their increase unto the Lord, if they're tithing their increase, then basically the 90% of the people, you know, are supporting the 10% with 10% of their income. Then that allows them to be full-time servants of God. And then this is the same model in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians Chapter 9, the Apostle Paul talks about how the Levites and the priests, they minister and they live off the things of the altar and the gifts of the altar. And the Apostle Paul said, so has God ordained that those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel. Jesus Christ told Peter, from henceforth, thou shalt catch men. And Peter, James, and John, and Andrew, they forsook their nets, their fishing nets, and they followed Christ. When they got backslidden and went back to physically fishing, then basically Jesus confronted them and wanted them to get back to doing the real fishing, fishing for men. They were not supposed to be bivocational. They were supposed to be 100% following Christ, preaching the Word of God. Jesus Christ was full-time. Jesus Christ was not doing carpentry gigs in between the Sermon on the Mount and some of his miracles, okay? Jesus Christ was full-time preaching the Word of God. And the Bible says that there were people following him that ministered unto him of their substance. And so Jesus was living off of offerings. And the apostles were living off of offerings. Now the Apostle Paul was a different case because he actually did, sometimes, not all the time, sometimes he ministered unto his own needs by making tents. In some places he did. In some places he didn't. But either way he preached and taught in 1 Corinthians 9 that the norm for ministers and servants of God was that those who preached the Gospel should live of the Gospel. Also he mentioned that only he and Barnabas were the only apostles who had jobs. So Paul and Barnabas had jobs. He said all the rest of the apostles were married and did not have secular jobs. Paul and Barnabas were single and they worked secular jobs. The rest of the apostles were not the case. So Paul and Barnabas are the exception. The rule was that those who preach are full-time servants of God. And so therefore it is quite scriptural for a pastor to be paid, for deacons to be paid, for there to be servants in the church, working for the church, being paid, and that's biblical. I don't care what the Mormons say because the Mormons try to say that it's wrong to have a paid clergy. But my friend, you get what you pay for. Who wants to listen to these Mormons preach? Not me. Here's what, you know, the Mormons don't have a paid clergy but here's the thing. The Mormons are being dictated their sermon on high every week. So they don't come up with their sermon, you know, down here in Mesa they're not praying and seeking the Lord about what they're going to be preaching this Sunday. No, it's just sent down to them from on high in Salt Lake City. This is the sermon that's going to be preached at all the Mormon churches and they have people serving for one year at a time as bishop in the Mormon church and it's an unpaid position because the guy only does it for a year and he just preaches what he's told to preach. So he's not actually doing the job the right way biblically. He's just being handed a sermon and he's going to preach that sermon and whatever. And it's so funny how the Mormons love to pontificate about their unpaid clergy but of course the people at the top, the president, the prophet, the quorum of the twelve, those guys are living in multi-million dollar mansions in Utah. You can look up their mansions and their net worth and they are cutting a fat hog my friend but yet they pontificate about their unpaid clergy. That's the little guy at the bottom that's unpaid. But what does the Bible say? The laborer is worthy of his hire. The workman is worthy of his meet. Living in the local church full time is just as valid of a profession as being an electrician or a carpenter or a plumber or a lawyer or whatever. It's work. It's a profession. It's a job. And if you want the job to be done well then you want to make sure that you give the pastor or whoever the tools to do the job. And obviously we have the right as ministers to eat and drink and have a wife and children and meet our needs. And so this system here where the Levites don't get an inheritance, it's because they are supposed to live off of their work that they do in the house of God and it's the same way in the New Testament. So the Bible says they shall eat, verse 29, they shall eat the meat offering and the sin offering and the trespass offering and every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs. One more thing I want to say about that while we're on the subject. I am their possession it says at the end of verse 28. So this is a two-edged sword because their needs are going to be met because people are bringing the tithes, they're bringing the first fruits, they're bringing the offerings. Their needs are going to be met but only if the people stay spiritual. So if you think about it, this actually gives the Levites and the priests a motive to preach the word of God and to get people worshiping the Lord because if people stop worshiping the Lord, guess what? They're out of a job at that point. Not only that but they're never going to get rich doing this job and it has never been God's intent for men of God to be rich. It is never right for anyone to get rich being a pastor, to get rich in the ministry, okay? We as ministers, obviously God is not prescribing poverty for us but he is also not in any way giving us permission to be rich and I think it is 100% wrong for any pastor or minister or deacon to be rich for any reason unless he made that money some other way before he went in the ministry. Obviously, if he was already rich and then he becomes a pastor or a deacon, that's different but anybody who becomes a pastor, I'm sorry, becomes rich while ministering is a fraud and I don't believe that there are any exceptions to that. I would say that there's no exception to that because you're just not going to get rich preaching the word of God and being hated of all men and the love of money is the root of all evil and these pastors who are making millions and millions of dollars are in it for the wrong reason. And again, if anybody listens to this sermon years from now, this is back when a million dollars was a lot of money, okay? Because the way inflation is going, Panda Express is going to be paying a million dollars a year just to cook food. But anyway, I digress. I'm their possession. So it's a two-edged sword there, you know. It's good for them. You say, oh, that's great for them but, you know, it could be negative because now they're relying on the Lord so, you know, it's not as concrete as a piece of land that's always going to be there. It's like, well, you got to make sure that the people are actually worshiping the Lord. Now, it's the same way in the New Testament. You know, I mean, if somebody is going to say, okay, I'm going to go live of the Gospel, they better be preaching the Gospel because if they're not preaching the Gospel and reaching people, then, you know, there aren't going to be any tides in the offering because, you know, if the church is tiny and it's not growing, then they're going to have to keep working a job, right? And if they're going to live of the Gospel, they're going to have to preach the Gospel because they're going to have to reach people and bring people in. So it really makes sense and there's a lot of similarity between the Old Testament and the New Testament in that regard. Okay, so I know I spent a lot of time on that, but there's a lot of good stuff there that I wanted to talk about. So rolling into Chapter 45 here in our last moments here, I already preached about verses 1 through 6 in a previous sermon, so I'm going to skip that because I tied that in with a previous sermon. I think it was Chapter 42. So let's jump down to verse 7. While we're talking about inheriting land, the Levites don't get a portion, but it says in verse 7, a portion shall be for the prince on the one side and on the other side of the ablation of the holy portion and of the possession of the city before the ablation of the holy portion and before the possession of the city from the west side westward, from the east side eastward, the link shall be over against one of the portions from the west border under the east border. That was kind of a mouthful, but basically what's happening here is that in the city of Jerusalem, there's a certain portion that's carved out where the temple is and surrounding the temple that's holy unto the Lord. It's not a possession for individual Levites to use for making money, but it's just a basic land for them to live and operate and serve the Lord. But then also there's a special portion for the prince. Now who is the prince? The prince is referring to the secular ruler, the governor, the king. When the Bible says the word prince, it's usually not what we think of like in England, the first born son of the king or something like that. It's usually referring to the king himself is called the prince, either a king or a governor, whoever the top ruler in the land is, that is usually who is referred to as the prince. And again, this is one of those other things that the Zionist Judaizers have to do all this mental acrobatics to explain who this guy is because in the millennium, guess who the prince is going to be? Jesus. In the millennium, Jesus Christ is not just going to be the high priest, he's already the high priest, amen, but he's also going to be an actual secular ruler. In the millennium, he's going to be ruling and reigning with a rod of iron. He's going to be running the government. The Bible says in Isaiah 9, 6, the government shall be upon his shoulders. And so if the government is going to be on Christ's shoulders and he's going to rule with a rod of iron and the 12 apostles are going to sit on 12 thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel and we're going to rule and reign with Christ, who is this guy? The answer is no one because we're not reading about the millennium, we're reading about the Old Testament when they come back from Babylon. This is another reason why that bogus interpretation is so far out there. The prince is talking about Zerubbabel specifically. And the sons of Zerubbabel, the different governors, rulers of Judah and then Judea, that's what we're talking about here. So that guy, the prince, it says is going to have this possession. It says in the land, verse 8, shall be his possession in Israel and my princes shall no more oppress my people and the rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribes. Here's what he's saying. Give this guy a little piece of land, give him a portion, and he needs to be content with that. He needs to be happy with that and not try to get more. Not oppress the people by trying to just amass all this wealth. And he says, I don't want them to do that anymore. They shall not do that anymore. When he says they shall not, that is not just predicting the future, that's him saying like thou shalt not. Don't do this. They shall not do this. It's a commandment. Don't do it. And he says they shall no more do it. If he says they shall no more oppress, that means that kings in the past had oppressed the people by trying to take more than their share, by getting greedy. And God's saying, look, the priests, don't give them another possession. This is what they have. They get the offerings, they get the tithes, they get the animal sacrifices. That's all they get. That's it. The prince, here, carve him out of section. Here's what he gets, here's his possession, here's his land. He needs to be content with that and not oppress people for more. And of course, this has relevance today, even in the United States of America, because we have governors, we have rulers, if you will. We have different congressmen and senators, presidents, governors, and so forth. And these people should be paid for the job that they're doing. Now I'm a strong believer, based on scripture and just based on common sense, that these people should be paid, okay? That the senators and the congressmen and the, and you say, well, that's obvious. Well, actually, in Arizona, it's actually not a full-time legislature, they're not actually getting paid a full-time salary. But in a lot of states they are, United States they are. And you know, people talk a big talk about how, like, we need to cut down their pay. Let's cut the pay of these senators. Let's cut the pay of these congressmen and they're making too much money. I totally disagree. And let me tell you why. Now, at first, you might be like, what are you talking about, Pastor Anderson? Here's why I totally disagree with that. Because of the fact that if you pay them a low amount of money, then they're going to feel like maybe they're justified to have a side hustle or a side gig, and that's all the dishonest garbage that they're involved in, all the insider trading and sweetheart deals and backroom deals and being wined and dined by lobbyists. You know what we ought to do? Here's my opinion, and I believe that I have the Spirit of God here, okay, and that it's based on scripture. What we ought to do is give them a good wage but not allow them to make money any other way, right? Because what's God saying here? He's saying, look, okay, this is how the priests and Levites are going to make money, but that's it. They don't get another portion. They don't get some other gig, some other side hustle, and he says the princes shouldn't just be taking more money off other people's backs. Just let them be content with this one thing. You know, the insider trading needs to stop. It's illegal for me to do insider trading, but it is perfectly legal for members of Congress to do insider trading. I'm not saying it's illegal and they do it anyway. I'm saying it's legal for them to do it, which is garbage. It's dishonest. It's stealing. It's unethical, but it's just legalized stealing, legalized fraud, and so people always justify the sins that they commit, and if you pay them a non-liveable wage, you're helping them to justify in their mind why they need to steal and do this other stuff on the side. I would rather see them just fully dedicating themselves to that job and doing a good job and being happy with that salary. I don't know, how much does the president make right now? How much does he make? 400 grand? Something like that, 400, 500 grand? You know what? I think that's reasonable. You know what I mean? The president of the United States, I think that's a totally reasonable fee for him to be paid 400 or 500 grand as the president of the United States, and that's like a drop of water on a hot stove compared to our budget. If you cut him down to 250, if you cut him down to 125, it's really not going to change our budget at all. Look, I wouldn't want to be president because the guy's probably working ... I don't know, this president is like Weekend at Bernie's or something. This guy's like a walking corpse or whatever. He's being propped up. But I'm saying in general, think about presidents throughout history, these guys are probably working a lot more hours than you are. How many hours do you think these guys are probably working? I would assume that these presidents are typically working over 100 hours a week, and they're burning the candle at both ends, and people are constantly trying to shoot them and kill them and stuff. I have no problem with them making 400 grand. I have no problem with a congressman making 200 grand or whatever they make. That's probably what they make, 200 grand, but why don't they just make that and let's just call it good at that. And you don't have to be making millions of dollars over here with your cheating and stealing and your pork barrel spending and you're passing these bills that benefit yourself financially and all this shady things that are going on. It'd be nice if they would just take their quarter mill a year and just be happy and just be content with it and just be done with it. Okay, I get it. You're operating at a high level. You're working 100 hours a week. You've worked hard to get where you are. You're doing a difficult job. Great, let's pay you well, but that's enough. But yet these guys go in to Congress and they're not a millionaire, but then when they come out, they're multimillionaires and something's wrong with that picture because they shouldn't be able to be worth 20, $30 million on that salary that they're getting paid. Something's not adding up and it's because they're running all these businesses on the side and then there's a conflict of interest with legislation and there's so much corruption and dishonesty. And so what God's basically saying is, look, be content with your legitimate wages, whether you're a pastor, whether you're a politician or whatever, you should be content with getting the wage that's due to you, the amount of money that you should be making and not just out there oppressing people. And it's not a legitimate way that they're getting this extra money. He's saying that they're oppressing people, overtaxing and doing all this to just try to get more than what they should. And so that's what God's saying, they shall no more oppress my people. The rest of the land shall they give to the house of Israel according to their tribe. Let people keep their stuff, let them keep their land and he needs to be content with his portion. Thus saith the Lord God, verse nine, let it suffice you. What's he saying? Let it be enough. Let your paycheck be enough, Senator. Let your paycheck be enough, Congressman. Let your paycheck be enough, Mr. President, right? Let it be enough. Let it suffice you, O princes of Israel. Build violence and spoil and execute judgment and justice. Take away your exactions from my people, saith the Lord God. And so, again, in a perfect world, our secular leaders would get paid a decent amount and be happy with it and content with it and would not steal from us in order to make more. Then he rolls into just some ideas about justice in general. Verse 10, you shall have just balances and a just ephah and a just bath. You say, what is a just bath? This isn't talking about taking a bath. When he says have a just bath, a bath is a measurement. We have gallons and we have tons and we have pounds. We have all these different measurements. The Bible's just using other measurements. An ephah is some kind of a measurement. We would have a bushel, but none of us really knows what a bushel is because we're city people and so we don't even know what that means. We just know pounds at the grocery store and gallons at the gas pump, but some farmer probably knows what that means, a bushel. They have an ephah. Well, an ephah is like a dry goods measurement that you would measure something dry like grain or something that you would fill up a certain volume. Well, a bath is also a measurement, but the bath would be like a liquid measurement, hence the name bath. It'd be like if you filled up your bathtub with liquid and said, okay, that's one bath of oil, but obviously that's not the quantity that we're talking about, but I'm just using that as an illustration. We could make our own unit of measurement today because we'll do anything but metric. We'll do anything but metric. It's a bathtub full, five bathtubs full of oil or whatever. I'm just trying to give you the idea of what we're talking about. That's what he means by an ephah, a bath, a hen, a shekel. These are all units of measurement. What he's saying is have a just ephah and a just bath, meaning don't have a gallon that's like a few ounces short because you want to rip people off. If I go to the store and I buy a gallon of milk, I want it to be a gallon of milk. I don't want it to be like seven cups of milk instead of eight cups or 16 cups. I want it to be the right amount. I got that wrong. 15. I don't want it to be, well, I definitely don't want it to be seven if it says it's a gallon. Okay. There's 16 cups in a gallon. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Am I right? Can I get a witness? I want that to be 16 cups of milk. I don't want it to be 15 because I'm getting ripped off, right? I mean, I want to make, look, think about the gas prices. Do you want to go to the gas pump and it tells you you put in 21 gallons and you actually put in 19? That's why it has a little sticker on it that says, hey, this gas pump has been inspected by the departments of weights and measures to make sure that it's putting out the amount of gas that it's supposed to be putting out. And our government enforces that. And if they went to the grocery store and they tell you that you're buying a pint of cream and instead of being 16 ounces, it's 14 and a half, we have a problem. And so God's saying, don't be a crook. Don't be fraudulent in your dealings. Have just balances, a scale that's just, not a scale that lies and tells you, oh, you owe me more money than for this piece of meat because it's overweighing the meat and underweighing your money and all these things. So have a just balances, just ephah, just bath. The ephah and the bath shall be of one measure that the bath may contain the 10th part of an omer and the ephah, the 10th part of an omer, the measure thereof shall be after the homer. So it sounds like, you know, an ephah and a bath are the same amount, one's for the dry goods, one's for the liquid goods or whatever. The shekels shall be 20 guiras, 20 shekels, five and 20 shekels, 15 shekels shall be your manette. You're like, what is that? It doesn't matter. They're just, they're measurements. He's saying, look, we need to have some weights and measures that are consistent where everybody knows what a dollar means. Everybody knows what a gallon is. Everything's on the up and up. We know what a pound is when we go to the supermarket, okay? And notice there's no metric system here. No, I'm just kidding. The metric system is communist though, okay? But that's a whole other subject. Anyway, let's keep going here. So the shekels shall be 20 guiras and so forth. This is the ablation that you shall offer. So now he gets into offerings that they're going to make, the sixth part of an ephah of a homer of wheat. You should give the sixth part of an ephah of a homer and on and on I'm going to skip some of this for sake of time, but he's just talking about these different offerings and drink offerings, meat offerings, burnt offerings. It says in verse 17, it shall be the prince's part to give burnt offerings. Now again, not relevant in the New Testament, is it? Burnt offerings is already done with Christ, but what can we learn from that statement right there? It shall be the prince's part to give burnt offerings is that, you know, even the secular leadership should be a spiritual guy. You know, I'm all for separation of church and state and I don't want the church running the government. I don't want a government running the church. I don't want either of those things happening. Which church do you want to run the government? Because it's not going to be Faithful Word. Okay, Faithful Word's not even going to be one of the choices. I don't want the Roman Catholics running it. You know, I mean, I don't want Protestants running it. I don't want the Southern Baptist Convention running it. I don't want any church or religion running the government and I don't want the government running religion. Those things are supposed to be separate. But just because of the fact that there's a secular government and there's a religious governance in the local church, you know, there's leadership in the local church and there's leadership in the government, these new things are separate, okay? And they should be separate. They should always remain separate. It doesn't mean that we don't want this guy over here in government to be a moral Christian guy who loves the Lord. I mean, ideally, we want our secular leader to be a godly man. To follow the Bible. To read the Bible. To be Christian. See, today, this idea of separation of church and state has gotten to the point where it's like, oh, we just want our leaders to just have nothing to do with the Lord or anything. That's not what is intended by that. What's intended is that there are different spheres of authority and they should keep that separate. We don't want our government establishing a church, a state church like they have in Germany or something like that. But at the same time, you know, we want our leaders to acknowledge Jesus. We want them to, you know, give honor to the Lord and quote scripture and pray at night by themselves, you know, to the Lord and whatever and stop worshiping a giant owl statue and worshiping Satan and drinking blood and everything else they're doing. You know, we want them to just be normal Christian men of character. And so, you know, yeah, the prince here, he's not supposed to be the high priest. He's not supposed to go into the Holy of Holies and do all that. One of the kings of Israel or Judah actually tried to do that, Uzziah and God's modem and leprosy to punish him. So there are lines that shouldn't be crossed, but you know, God does want the secular leader to be worshiping the Lord. For example, the king of Israel was supposed to write out his own copy of the Bible and read it every day. You know, that's part of being king here. He's supposed to be offering the burnt offering. He's supposed to be, you know, worshiping the Lord, serving God. That's what we want. We want Christians in leadership. We just don't want a state church or we don't want these lines to be crossed, but we don't want our country to be run by Muslims and Hindus and atheists, right? I mean, we want them to be Christians. Ideally, we're not always going to get what we want, but isn't that what we want? And isn't that how our country was supposed to be founded? You know? Now, in our constitution, it says there's no religious test. So it's not like, hey, you have to believe a certain doctrine, and maybe that's a mistake. Maybe that was a bad idea to put that in the constitution because maybe there should have been just a basic religious test like, hey, do you believe in Jesus? You know, something real simple like, yeah, you got to believe in the Trinity. You know, just something basic, like nothing too crazy, but just, hey, do you believe in the Trinity? All right, you're good. But at the same time, and I'm not here to judge the constitution because I can't really necessarily do better. I'm not trying to replace it. I'm a preacher, you know. This is what I do here, preaching the Bible, okay. But I would say this, you know, that I don't believe that it was the intent of the founders of our country to have Hindus and Muslims ruling us in government at all. I don't think that that even entered their mind that we would have like heathens ruling over us because that's what Muslims and Hindus and Buddhists are, they're heathens, right? I mean, they're not, yeah, they're just not, okay. So anyway, let's move on. You know, it's supposed to be a Christian nation with freedom for other religions. You know, we're not gonna bind anyone's conscience, but even though there's freedom for these other religions, we're supposed to be a Christian nation, allowing other people to co-exist with us, but we're Christian, buddy, and we should be ruled by Christians. That's what I believe. And so it shall be the prince's part to give burnt offerings and meat offerings and drink offerings in the feast. He gives these things. You know, the priest is the one who does the priest's job, but he still participates by giving these things. He shall prepare the sin offering and the meat offering and the burnt offerings and the peace offerings to make it into reconciliation for the house of Israel, thus saith the Lord God. And then he goes into details about those animal sacrifices, kids of the goats, Passovers, sin offering, burnt offering, meat offering, et cetera. And so as we go through Ezekiel, I know this is kind of some heavy plowing because it's similar to these difficult law passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. There's still a lot to learn here, isn't there? Still a lot of great spiritual meat on the bone, even though we're not under the law and we're not going to say, hey, you cannot, you know, shave your head completely bald and you have to wear a certain clothing. You know, obviously that's not the type of thing that we are going to be demanding in the New Testament. And we don't do any of these meat offerings and drink offerings. Everything here has some relevance, everything. There is not a verse in chapters 44 and 45 that is not in some way relevant to us. It just might not be literally relevant, but it's symbolically relevant or the principle is there. Like we can get principles like, hey, God doesn't want dudes having long hair or a principle of, hey, wait a minute, you know, the prince needs to be satisfied with his due and not try to get greedy and take more money. The priests and the Levites live off of the things of the house of God. The principles are there. The symbolism is there. The text is rich in relevance for us today in the New Testament. And so we've got three chapters to go, 46, 47, and 48. I hope you're enjoying the Ezekiel series, a little bit of a tough meat of the word here, but guess what? We don't want to just be babes in Christ. We also need to get some of the strong meat at times and dig into some of these maybe passages that you've never heard preached in your life because they're just not exactly Psalm 23 and 1 Corinthians 13, but yet all scripture is given by inspiration of God. Let's bow our heads in a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much for this chapter, Lord, and thank you for the book of Ezekiel. And I pray that we would just be honest people with integrity, Lord, because over and over again it seems that's what you're getting at here with the just ephod, the just bath, the priests being content with their wages, the prince being content with his wages, Lord. Help us all to be content and to be honest and have integrity, not to get greedy and dishonest, Lord, but to serve you and do it righteously. And in Jesus' name we pray, amen.