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Amen. Amen. Jeremiah chapter 22 verse 1, the Bible reads, Thus saith the Lord, Go down to the house of the king of Judah, and speak there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, O king of Judah, that sittest upon the throne of David, thou and thy servants and thy people that enter in by these gates. Thus saith the Lord, Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. For if you do this thing indeed, then shall there enter in by the gates of this house, king sitting upon the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, he and his servants and his people. Now again, to get the greater context of the book of Jeremiah, we understand that this book is being written and these things are being preached at a time when Judah is extremely wicked. They've been a godly nation in the past. King Josiah had been a godly king. After the death of Josiah, they go right back into the worst kind of sins and abominations, and therefore God is very angry and upset, and he's telling them that he's going to bring the king of Babylon to come and destroy them. They're going to be brought captive into a foreign country. People are going to be killed and die terrible deaths, and Jeremiah throughout this entire book is preaching against sin and warning people that if they don't change their ways, they're going to be destroyed. Of course, we know at the end of the book of Jeremiah, they're all destroyed. Everything that Jeremiah preached comes to pass because they do not get right with God as a nation. Obviously, he reaches many individuals along the way, but the nation as a whole does not listen to the message, and of course, they are destroyed. In this chapter, Jeremiah is told to go to the house of the king of Judah. He's actually told to go to the king's house and be like if we were to go to the White House or something and preach unto the president of the United States or to some other world leader and to his servants and to the people there. He tells him to preach this message, and it's basically a strong rebuke against the king of Judah at that time. Now this is something that is very common in the Bible. In the New Testament, we have the example of John the Baptist going right to King Herod and preaching against him for marrying a divorced woman because his brother Philip had put away his wife, which means he had divorced his wife. Herod had married her, and John the Baptist went and preached against him, and then as a result, John the Baptist was thrown in prison and later beheaded. All throughout the Old Testament, many prophets of God have confronted wicked rulers, wicked kings, and preached unto them the word of the Lord. Here God is specifically directing him to go preach to the king of Judah, and he gives him the choices that we see over and over again in the book of Jeremiah to do what's right and be blessed by God or to continue in wickedness and be cursed by God. I've said it many times, the path to God's blessing is through the door of obedience. If we want God to bless us, we have to do what's right. We have to obey the commandments. That's how we get blessed by God. Now when it comes to salvation, it has nothing to do with that. Salvation is by faith alone, not of works lest any man should boast. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. But once we're saved, whether or not we're blessed by God has to do with our actions. I mean, if you believe in Jesus Christ, you're saved, you're a child of God, but you disobey God, whom the Lord loveth, he chasteneth, and scourges every son whom he receiveth. And so whether you're saved or unsaved, God's not going to bless you if you're living a life of disobedience. And that's what these people are doing. They're very wicked, ungodly people, and Jeremiah is preaching hard against sin, trying to get them to straighten up. Now look at verse 3. Remember this is directed at the king, or directed at government, if you will. So he says to him, execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor, and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place. Now let's jump over to verse 15, where he kind of continues on the same theme. He says to the king, koniah, which is short for jekkoniah, you can probably put that together, that koniah and jekkoniah are the same God. Shout thou rain, because thou closest thyself in cedar? Did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him? Now here's what he's saying, just because you live in a fancy government building doesn't mean that I'm going to allow you to reign over my people. Your father, referring to Josiah, who was the godly king, he ate and drank, he enjoyed the perks of being a king, but he also did judgment and justice, and then it was well with him. Again, he's blessed because he's doing what's right. Look at verse 16. He judged the cause of the poor and needy, then it was well with him. Does not this to know me, saith the Lord, but thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence to do it. Pretty much the same list of things that we saw over in verse number three. And these are the type of things that governments tend to do wrong. These are the types of wickedness that a bad ruler will participate in. What do they do? First of all, they're filled with covetousness. Covetousness is desiring that which is not rightfully theirs. This would also be known as greed, or lust, or the love of money. These would all be parts of covetousness, desiring what doesn't belong to them. This is a problem in government. The other thing that's brought up is oppression, violence, murdering innocent people, and not pleading the cause of the poor, but rather destroying the poor. Now listen, our government today in the United States participates in all of the above. Now stop and think about this. Covetousness? Okay, well there are 435, what, congressmen, 100 senators, or is it 535 plus 100? Who cares? But anyway, we're talking 500 plus people in the United States Congress, and let me tell you something, they're all giving over to covetousness. Here's the proof. They all have millions of dollars, and you say, well Pastor Anderson, you know, they earned that by working hard. No they didn't. They are all millionaires, not because they received some million dollar salary for being a congressman or a senator. If you look at their salaries, their salaries are not that crazy. They're not that high. So how are they all millionaires? I'll tell you how, through dishonest gain. It's not through working hard. It's through insider trading, and I don't have time to go into everything about what insider trading is, you can look it up when you get home and get some more information about that, but it's illegal for me, it's illegal for you to do insider trading, but every member of congress and every member of the senate is exempt from that rule. They're allowed to do insider trading, and what that means is that they know inside information that's going to affect whether stocks go up or down, because they're making laws, and if they make a law that's really beneficial to a certain industry in a certain area, they know that stuff's going to go up. Those investments are going to go through the roof. They know when a freeway is going to go through a certain piece of land, they're going to buy up that land. They know when things are going to be passed that are going to be the ruin of a certain industry. Regulations, environmental things, they'll trade stocks based on that. Listen, somebody wins and somebody else loses. They're ripping people off. Somebody else's retirement fund gets raided. Somebody else's investment over here, they lose while these people just get richer and richer and richer, and listen, they're all millionaires. Look it up. A bunch of greedy dogs, covetous, just out to be more and more wealthy. The love of money is the root of all evil. They are also not considering the cause of the poor. Now these politicians love to give lip service to the fact that they're going to help poor people and they think the government does so much for poor people. It's a lie. They actually oppress the poor and steal money from the poor. You say, well, how do they do that? Well, here's the big lie that a lot of people have fallen for. They think that poor people in this country don't pay taxes. Let me tell you something, everybody in this country pays a lot of taxes. I hear these people all the time saying, oh, more than 50% of Americans don't even pay taxes. That is a lie. Every single person living in the United States pays taxes unless their hand never touches a Federal Reserve note, they're paying taxes. Fact. Unless they're just living off the grid somewhere. You say, well, how does that work? Because of the fact that first of all, number one, you're mixing up poor people with lazy derelicts who don't work. That's not a poor person. Poor people. When the Bible talks about the poor, it's not talking about lazy jerks who won't go to work. And I'll prove it to you. The Bible says that if any man will not work, neither should he eat. So if there are all these verses telling us to consider the cause of the poor, if we give to the poor, we're lending unto the Lord, and that God will bless us for taking care of the poor and helping the poor. But he turns around and says that the guy who won't work, let him starve. If any man will not work, neither should he eat. This is what the Bible says. People who refuse to work are wicked, slothful people. They're not poor people. Poor people are people who are actually going to work and they're getting paid very little. That's a poor person. A poor person is a guy who gets up, he goes to work all day, and he slaves away at some job and gets paid very little. And let me tell you something, every single poor person who goes to work is paying taxes. And even if they're not paying a federal income tax, they're paying FICA taxes, which is the biggest taxes that come out of any poor person's paycheck. 15.3%. Of course, they lie and deceive you that they're only taking out 7.65%, but that's because your employer is sending the other 7.65% before you even see it. It doesn't even show up on your pay stub. You're paying double what it shows on your pay stub. You're paying twice as much. Whatever you see taken out for FICA, it's double that. Your boss sends it for you. Oh, well that's just what he, yeah, but he would have given you that money. That's an expense in hiring you. They cut it in half to make it seem like less. So people don't realize how they're getting ripped off. You say, well no, some people don't even pay that. Some people are working under the table, right? But then they go to the store and buy something and they pay an 8% sales tax every time they spend the money. And then they rent an apartment and all the property taxes are built in. They put gas in the tank, they're paying gasoline tax. Everybody pays taxes in this country. Oh, these, these, uh, these immigrants, they're not paying taxes. They all pay taxes. First of all, if they commit identity theft, they're paying social security on someone else's account and they're never even going to get it back. And even if they do it under the table, even if they do it in cash every time they spend money. Oh, they're overrunning the schools and the hospital. Oh really? Oh, the infrastructure. That's all paid for by state, local property taxes, gasoline tax. The roads are paid for by gasoline taxes. The schools are paid for by property tax. When they buy a house, they're paying property tax. Even if they're working under the table, when they rent a house, they're paying property tax indirectly through their rent, their landlord pays. So these people are paying for the same services that everybody else is paying. But the immigrants, the Mexican immigrants are the scapegoat to just explain why the economy goes bad. It's just, I'll just blame the Mexicans, you know, blame these immigrants. Blame them. No, no, no. Why don't we blame the fat cat multi-millionaire, multi-billionaire people in the government that are ripping us off every day? That they want to take the attention off them and throw some poor immigrant worker under the bus and get us all to blame him. If he would just go home, everything would be fixed. Well, if he goes home, then there's going to be less people shopping at the grocery store, less people buying gas, less people paying into all these things. It's all a big fraud, my friend. The government pretends to care about poor people, but what they do is they tax poor people. They make them pay 15.3% of their income in FICA, even if they pay no federal income taxes. One-sixth of their income is taken out of their check. They only see that half of that is taken out, but really that's how much is taken out. Every time they buy food even, even food is taxed in Tempe. People are oppressed in that way, but they claim to want to help the poor. What they actually do is they give free money to derelicts who don't work so that they can spend it on drugs, alcohol, and lottery tickets. That's what's really going on. That's how they help the poor. What they actually do is they don't help the poor, they end up just keeping people perpetually poor, where they stay poor. Listen, my wife and I just watched a documentary on the lottery, the state lottery. It is the most predatory, evil institution, and it is just the government's way of just ripping off and just destroying poor people's lives. Because guess who buys lottery tickets? You think that well-to-do, middle-class, smart people buy lottery tickets? Listen, if you buy lottery tickets, you're a fool, let me just tell you right now. The Bible rebukes you if you're hasty to become rich, number one. The love of money is the root of all evil. He that hates it to be rich is not going to be guiltless, but not only that, it is such a scam, and when you go to the casino, it's all rigged in the house's favor, and the lottery is totally rigged, and the government uses the lottery just as a way to have gambling. They make everybody else, you know, banned from being able to run a casino. They'll make gambling illegal in most states, right? All it is because they want to be the only one to offer gambling. That's why if you go to Oregon today, they have literal slot machines in every gas station, restaurant, truck stop, and these slot machines, they're not slot machines though, they're the lottery. It's a slot machine, I mean it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck, people are sitting there, ding ding ding ding ding, video, poker, video slots, you know, they call it a video lottery terminal. It's not a slot machine, and they are asked, you know, well what makes this different from a slot machine? And they said, well the difference is that a slot machine, that machine locally decides who wins, whereas we have a central computer for all of these that decides who wins, that's why it's not a slot machine. But the person who's sitting at that machine doesn't have any difference in what they experience, they sit there, they shove money into it, it's extremely addictive, it's extremely destructive, by the way, gambling addiction is one of the most suicidal addictions out there, one of the addictions that's most associated with people committing suicide. Look at the statistics on who buys lotto tickets, you know, the documentary we watched it focused in on the Chicagoland area, and it showed the poorest zip code in South Chicago is where the most lottery tickets are being sold. And then it showed a nicer neighborhood, nobody's buying lotto, almost nobody, okay? And people are just flushing so much money, and here's what they say, oh well this is better than raising taxes, we'll just take their money through lotto. And they use this, they use gambling, listen to me, our government in Arizona is funded by government-run gambling. The Arizona Lottery, the California Lottery, the Oregon Lottery, it's all over, it's all 50 states, cause one state sees the other state doing it, and they're like, wow, I want a piece of that action. Listen to me, government is often covetous. Government is often out to do a wealth transfer from the poor into their pockets. And look, they take money from poor people, and when I say poor people, I'm talking about people who are working, and making money, you know, they take money from you, right, who actually go to work, they take your money, this is how government works, then they give that money to people who don't work, just lazy, slothful, wicked people, and then those people spend that money on booze, cigarettes, and lotto tickets, which all goes back to the government. Because who's the one who's charging huge taxes on cigarettes? The government. Who's charging huge taxes on alcohol? The government. And who's the only one who's allowed to run the lotto and the gambling? The government. So basically the people who are on welfare get money from the government, and then they put that money into slot machines that goes back to the government again, they buy cigarettes where it goes back to the government, they buy booze, it goes back to the government, and it's just like this circle, but in the process, the people in government are just making millions and millions and millions and laughing all the way to the bank, and poor people's lives get worse and worse, they're being destroyed, they can't get ahead, they're being taught to be lazy and to be a derelict and everything else, and then the people who do go to work, then they don't make as much as when they were on welfare, and they're like, well I'm just going to be on welfare. Because I can't, you know, I mean, look, I could go on and on, but I'm here to tell you that the government doesn't love you, okay, and they do a lot of very sinful things. If I ran a casino, that would be a sinful thing for me to do. I mean, would you want me to be the pastor of this church and open up a casino? And say, well hey, I'm bivocational. I'm running slot machines, but that's what our government does, they run a literal casino. They literally profit from destroying people's lives, from causing people to commit suicide because of these gambling addictions that destroy their lives, they profit from cigarettes, they profit from alcohol, they profit from drugs, they profit from all these wicked things, and that's why they're multi-millionaires, they're greedy, covetous, wicked people. They need to read Jeremiah chapter 22. Not only that, but he talks about them oppressing. So not only are they not considering the cause of the poor, not only do they not love the poor, not only are they covetous and greedy, but they also oppress. Now what does it mean to oppress? Well, oppression would be the opposite of freedom. If we were in a place where the government gave us a lot of freedom, that would be the opposite of being under a very oppressive system. You know, an example of this is I just read in the news a few weeks ago how Russia has made it illegal to go soul winning. Did anybody see this in the news? Russia literally passed a law about a month ago that makes soul winning illegal. They criminalized it. It was all over the news. Vladimir Putin signed it into law, your hero, your buddy, because you've been watching too much Russia today, but he literally signed a law that says you can't talk about religion and try to convert people to your religion outside of church. So you can't go outside the church and try to convert people to your religion, and not only that, but even missionaries now, they have to have a work visa just to preach in church. So like if I just wanted to show up and be a guest preacher in Russia, I'd have to get permission from the government, a guest preacher, even if the sermon was taking place in someone's house or in a restaurant, because you can't do those type of activities outside of church now. No soul winning. No door to door. Do you know for sure if you died today, you'd go to heaven? And you know what? Don't say it couldn't happen here, because throughout history, governments tend to oppress. They tend to get in power and abuse their power. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And so the thing that really stood out to me when I read about this oppressive regime in Russia that would actually make soul winning illegal is I thought to myself, we have such an open door. We have such an opportunity here in the United States. How long will it last? We don't know. We don't know how long we have. And so the Bible says redeeming the time because the days are evil. Redeeming the time. Boy, while it's easy to go soul winning, you know the worst thing that happens to you is the church van gets egged. Big deal, right? The worst thing is the police come and say, well, you're not supposed to be doing this. And I always just tell the police, okay, then arrest me. And then they never do. So the bottom line is we have a wide open door. There's no danger. I mean, we can go out there. We can knock doors till we're blue in the face. And so many people are sitting on the sidelines when we have this amazing opportunity, 340 million people in our country, many of them from all over the world. The mission fields right here. It's right across the street. It's right across town. We can knock doors. We can preach the gospel boldly. No man forbidding us. Praise God. We need to take advantage of that opportunity because we don't know when our government would begin to oppress. And it's not far fetched. Already technically, it's illegal for us to knock literally half of the doors in Tempe literally illegal right now. We do it anyway and we can get away with it. So I don't consider that any kind of persecution or oppression because we just tell them to go jump in a lake and just keep doing it. But technically, we're not allowed to knock doors in any apartment complex. That's half of Tempe or any gated community. Tempe is filled with apartment complexes because it's kind of a college town. They literally out of the 180 some thousand people that live in Tempe, they would ban us from knocking half of those doors and say you can't knock the door of anybody who lives in apartment complex. And then they'll say anyone who has an HOA, anyone who has, you know, a gated community. Well, you know what? I'm going to continue to knock every door in the apartments and the HOAs and the gated communities. And they can go ahead and call the police and if I have to spend the night in jail, I will. I never have because they're not going to actually arrest you for that in America. Thankfully we still have the first amendment. We still have the freedom to practice our religion. But the bottom line is the reason why we have those rights is because we exercise them. I wonder how much soul winning was going on in Russia six months ago. Probably not much. I don't think that there were a lot of independent Baptists over there really burning up the streets and burning up the doors. That's why it's illegal. You know how we keep soul winning legal? By going soul winning. Because when there are just throngs and hordes of people going soul winning, they're not going to make it illegal. When it's just a few people, when it's just all those crazies down at Faithful Word, that SPLC certified hate group, you know, then they'll make it illegal because it's just them. You know, we need to go out soul winning in force. We need a mass movement of soul winning across America. We need every Baptist church to get excited and zealous about soul winning so we can keep our freedom in this country. Keep our freedom of speech. Keep our freedom of religion. But governments tend to oppress and they tend to take away freedom. Only when the people stand up to them do they back down. Or when God blesses, then God will put in their hearts to loosen things up a little bit. But when the people go into sin, God will punish them with an oppressive government. And then of course innocent blood. Government has been the greatest taker of innocent life in the 20th century if you look at the numbers. You know, over 100 million people. Death by government. You know, whether that's through warfare, whether that's through abortion, you know, however they implemented murder, you know, and you say what does the government have to do with abortion? Oh, they pay for it. Planned baronhood. So anyway, that was just to show you some parallels between the government under Konya and the government that we have today in the United States. There's nothing new under the sun. We see a lot of the same types of things. Oppression, violence, covetousness, wickedness, self-serving government. The Bible says in verse 5, if you would, But if you will not hear these words, this is what God is saying, I swear by myself, saith the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation. Now this house is referring to the king's house. The king's fancy palace that he lives in. Because at the beginning of the chapter, he was told to go to the house of the king of Judah and preach this sermon. Verse 6. For thus saith the Lord unto the king's house of Judah, thou art Gilead unto me and the head of Lebanon, yet surely I will make thee a wilderness and cities which are not inhabited. Now the reason he brings up Gilead and Lebanon is that these were very lush places. You know, Lebanon was known for its great cedar trees. Gilead is known as a fruitful place. You probably heard of the balm of Gilead. And so he's saying that even though they're very prosperous right now, God's going to turn them into a desert. God's going to wipe them out and make them uninhabited if they don't listen to his word. Verse 7. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons, and they shall cut down thy choice cedars and cast them into the fire. And many nations shall pass by this city, and they shall say every man to his neighbor, Wherefore hath the Lord done this unto this great city? Then they shall answer, because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God, and worshipped other gods and served them. And listen to me, if the United States is destroyed or suffers a terrible depression economically or suffers natural disasters or suffers invasion from a foreign army, you better know that it'll be because they've forsaken the Lord God. That's why it happened. Anybody who passes by, if they're asked the question, Why did God do this unto America? The answer should always be because they've forsaken the Lord, forsaken the Lord their God, and this is the punishment. Says in verse 10, Weep ye not for the dead, neither bemoan him, but weep sore for him that goeth away. For he shall return no more, nor see his native country. He's basically saying in that verse, you know, the people who died were the lucky ones. It's even worse for the people who are going away captive. Verse 11, For thus saith the Lord, touching Shalom, the son of Josiah, king of Judah, which reigneth instead of Josiah his father, which went forth out of his place. He shall not return thither any more, but he shall die in the place whither they have led him captive, and shall see this land no more. Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong, that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not for his work. So the Bible here is talking about people who get wealthy off the backs of other people. They build fancy houses, multi-chamber dwellings, through ripping off other people, using people's services without wages, not paying for it, being unrighteous, whatever unrighteous, ungodly gain. And there are a lot of people today who make money through unrighteousness, and they have fancy houses or fancy cars through being dishonest. Some examples of that would be dealing drugs, running a casino, running any kind of a gambling institution or lottery. Okay, these are wicked ways to make money. Another wicked way to make money is these predatory lenders, these check-cashing places, where they're charging 25% interest, 30% interest, $50 late fee, and they're just preying upon people and ripping people off. We need to decide in our lives that we are going to make an honest living. And no matter what we have to do, we're going to go out and work by the sweat of our face and do something honest with our lives. Now, here's the thing. You know, I have way more respect for somebody who makes an honest living, even if they don't have a glamorous job, than for a guy who makes a dishonest living. You know, if it's a garbage man or whatever menial, ditch-digging job, praise the Lord for people who work hard and make an honest living. Whether you're a blue-collar worker, white-collar, whether you're a carpenter, a plumber, an electrician, a landscaper, hey, if you're working and being honest, then you know what? That's honorable, and you work under the Lord. But there are a lot of people who want to just get ahead by being dishonest, by ripping people off, you know, by being some kind of a shady salesman of a product that they don't even believe in. There's nothing wrong with being a salesman if you actually believe in what you're selling. But when you're lying and you're doing shady dealings, you know, you're building that house with unrighteousness and God is not pleased. We need to make an honest living. And by the way, if you're going to be a pastor, that is a legitimate way to make a living, you know, to be a pastor or a youth pastor or, you know, a deacon or whatever. But let me say this. If you don't preach the whole word of God, you're as dishonest as a casino owner. I mean, if you think about it, because God has hired you in a sense, God has called you. God has appointed you. The church is expecting you to be the messenger of the Lord of hosts. They came to church to hear the word of God. They want to know what sayeth the Lord. And if you're getting up and sugarcoating the message, trimming the message, not preaching the whole counsel of God, and then you take the paycheck, you're dishonest. You're a fraud. You should go make an honest living. You know, you have to preach the whole counsel of God. That's the job. You got to do the whole job. And sitting around, not working, not showing up, not doing anything, just being idle as a preacher, idle as a pastor, idle as a deacon, idle as an evangelist, idle as a youth leader, whatever. You know what? If we're taking the paycheck, there's nothing wrong with getting paid. The laborer is worthy of his hire, but we're supposed to be a laborer. And we better carry out the job description that God gave and not just say, well, I'll do half my duties. No, we need to do all the duties and make an honest living. And if you're an electrician, a plumber, a carpenter, you need to make an honest living by not cheating on your time card, by not stealing materials from the job, by not lying to the customer and selling them things that they don't even need or charging them for things that they didn't even need. I mean, look, when I worked in the fire alarm business, you wouldn't believe the amount of fraud that goes on in the fire alarm business, and it's mind-blowing. I mean, I couldn't even believe how brazen people would be. I'd go out to a job, and I'd be doing annual inspections, and I'd call the home office and I'd say to them, hey, I'm out on this job and I need to get authorized to make some repairs, because if we would find something small that needed to be repaired on inspection, instead of failing the inspection, they wanted us to just call, get authorized and fix it right then and there if we had the parts. Otherwise, we had to fail it and come back. I'd go out there and call them up, and I'd say, hey, listen, there's something wrong with this panel. You know, there's a circuit burned out on it. The main circuit board is going to have to be replaced. And they would tell me, you know, we had a company that came out and replaced that panel six months ago. They charged us for it. We paid several thousand dollars. They replaced the whole fire alarm panel. I said, I'm looking at it. It says it's from 1996. I took a picture of it and emailed them a picture from my phone. I mean, I've gone to jobs where I said, hey, these heat detectors are all failing inspection. And then they said, how can that be? Those were all replaced several months ago. We paid several hundred dollars. They changed them all out. I'm taking pictures of them. They're ancient. They're 15 years old. I mean, companies literally come in and just get a work order signed that says we changed out the whole panel. Same panel. Just charging $3,000 to do nothing. And I mean, this happened all the time. I'd find stuff like that all the time. They charged them for changing the batteries. The batteries are five years old. They charge them. I mean, and that's brazen. That's not even a little bit shady or just, well, you know, we're stretching the truth. I mean, these people are just making things up, just telling bold face lies. I mean, and I don't think that fire alarms are the only industry that has that. Who's seen stuff like that in your trade? Yeah. Just saying that things have been replaced that haven't been replaced and just laughing all the way to the bank. It's unbelievable, but we need to make sure that we make an honest living and not build our house by unrighteousness. Verse 14 that says, I'll build me a wide house and large chambers and cut it them out windows and it is sealed with Cedar and painted with vermilion vermilion are basically animal designs. You know, this is just decoration, wallpaper, whatever. We already read 15 through 17 jumped down to verse 18 therefore, thus saith the Lord concerning Joachim, the son of Josiah, King of Judah. They shall not lament for him saying, Oh, my brother or our sister. They should not lament for him saying, ah, Lord or ah, his glory. He shall be buried with the burial of an ass drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem. You know, another thing for, for great leaders and Kings and rulers and royalty, it's often very important to them how their legacy is or how they're buried or their tomb. If we were to go to the tombs of governors and presidents and Kings, they have very fancy tombs, very ornate tombs. Think about the pyramids of Egypt. I mean, what are they tombs for Kings and all throughout the world, there have been all kinds of, you know, great, uh, mausoleums built for rulers that died and, and when people get older, the presidents, they have the presidential library or the presidential monument here and there and everywhere and they make these monuments. No King wants to be buried with the burial of an ass. That's a donkey. He's saying, it'd be like what you would do if your donkey died. What would you do? I mean, are you going to build a shrine? You're going to have a, you're going to say a few words, you're going to sing amazing grace. You're going to play a slide show or you're going to either going to have a wake, no. I mean the burial of an ass, he's pretty much saying is pretty much just the worst possible, most disrespectful way to discard of a dead animal. That's how you're going to be buried. That's your legacy. I mean, how many people know any kids named Konya? I don't know any. You know, whoa, I see that hand. I think she just likes to raise her hand though. Why? Because the guy has a bad legacy. The guy had the barrel of an ass. The guy is not going down in history as a great man, even though he lived in the lap of luxury in his lifetime, even though he commanded the respect of the people around him because he abused his power and used it to oppress the people. He used it to make himself wealthy and just keep building bigger houses, adding on more chambers. God did not bless him in the end. He had the barrel of an ass. Nobody remembered him. Nobody loved him. Nobody cared. I mean, wouldn't that be terrible to end your life that way? But that's what happens when we disrespect the Lord and spend our lives in a dishonest way. Verse 20, go up to Lebanon and cry. This is instruction to Jeremiah to go now cry against Lebanon. And by the way, when he tells him go up and cry, he's not telling him, you know, go to Lebanon and you know, that's called weeping. And Jeremiah truly is the weeping prophet and there is weeping in this book. But when God's constantly telling him cry against King Jeconiah, cry against Lebanon, cry against Judah, cry, he's saying, yell, cry. Jeremiah was not one of these soft spoken preachers. He was not a soft spoken preacher. The preachers of the Bible cried. Jesus cried. I mean, look it up. You know, Elijah cried. All the preachers of the Bible shouted, you know, the Bible says, lift up thy voice like a trumpet to Isaiah, smite with thy hand, stomp with thy foot. It's funny. Somebody asked me recently, they said, well, isn't it kind of childish when you're up there preaching and you start yelling and you start beating the pulpit or, you know, you actually would just kick the pulpit and they say, you know, isn't that like you're throwing a temper tantrum up there? And I said, well, no. Number one, I said, I'm fulfilling God's commandment to cry aloud, spare not, smite with the hand, stomp with the foot. All the preachers of the Bible did that. They preached with passion. They preached with power. They preached with emotion. They smoked. They yelled. They raised their voice. This soft spoken preaching is not biblical. You won't find it in the Bible. You'll find hard preaching. I said, I'll tell you what's childish though, because she's from England. I said, I'll tell you what's childish. What's childish is a bunch of grown men painting their faces and bodies and going to some rugby game or football game and yelling and screaming and jumping up around and dancing around over a game. Hey, I'd rather get up and yell about God's word and praise the Lord with a loud voice and shout against sin with a loud voice. I'd rather be crying out about the word of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ than about a game played by a bunch of overgrown children. Grow up! But it's true. And here's the thing. You say, well, you know, I love sports. I love football. You know, you're offending me. I love soccer. I love rugby. I love these things. But here's the thing about that, though. You know, it's one thing to go out and play sports. That has some benefit to your life. It keeps you physically fit, can build camaraderie and friendships, and it can be a way to spend time with family or time to spend time with brothers in Christ or whatever. But you know what? There's no benefit in you sitting your fat, lazy rear end in front of a TV and watching a game. So why don't you grow up and do something with your life? There's no benefit to that. That's not making you a better person. That's not making you a better Christian. That's not making you any smarter. That's not making you any more physically fit. That's not adding any time to your life. That's not benefiting the cause of Christ. That's not getting any souls into heaven. That's not bringing you closer to your wife. Unless you have one of some rare wife that's just into the same thing of sitting and, you know, eating beer nuts and watching, you know, whatever the sport. That's not bringing you closer to your kids and your wife, watching a game. You know, why don't you get out there and play the game? And then I'll be for you. Look, you want to go play basketball? Go play basketball. But it just blows me away to see people that are just totally out of shape and they say, we won. We're going to the Super Bowl. I'm like, you're not going to the Super Bowl. You know, you're going to the buffet or something. You're not going to the Super Bowl. You're not going anywhere. You're going to an early grave with your sedentary lifestyle. You know, why don't you get out and do something with your life? Ah, you're so childish. You know what? There's nothing childish about Jesus, Elijah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. You know, what's childish is to see grown men, OK, grown men acting like children. Put away childish things. You know what's childish? Grown men who are addicted to a slot machine. That's childish. You're like a little kid who can't pull himself away from a video game. And that's how they make these slot machines. They're like a video game to get people all addicted to it and into it and playing the game and everything. You know what? What's childish is people who don't serve God with their lives. They don't go to work and provide for their family. You know, those things are childish. But a man of God getting up and screaming, hollering, and yelling against sin is not childish at all. And I guess it was a temper tantrum when Jesus went into the temple and chased him out with a whip. He was throwing a hissy fit. That's blasphemous. Jesus Christ was cleaning house. And you know what? We need a spiritual house cleaning in this country and in this city and in all of our churches across America. Somebody needs to get up and shout about it. Said, go to Lebanon and cry. What verse am I in? Somebody help me out. I'm not on the right chapter. Here we go. Verse number 20. Go to Lebanon and cry and lift up thy voice in Bashan and cry from the passages, for all thy lovers are destroyed. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, but thou saidst, I will not hear. This hath been thy manner from my youth, that thou obeyest not my voice. The wind shall eat up all thy pastors, and thy lovers shall go into captivity. Surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness. Now watch this. Look at the beginning of verse 21. I spake unto thee in thy prosperity, but thou saidst, I will not hear. Then once he comes in and destroys them and punishes them, it says at the end of verse 22, surely then shalt thou be ashamed and confounded for all thy wickedness. Sadly, often it takes God's judgment and God's wrath before people will start listening to God. A lot of people won't listen to God in their prosperity. So when things are going good in our life, the tendency is to not think about the things of God. Then when bad things happen, then all of a sudden, we're ashamed of our wickedness. We're confounded for our wickedness. We need to make sure that we take heed unto the Lord even when things are going good. I would hate for God to look down at my life when things are going good and to say, wow, things are going really good for Pastor Anderson, and it's like he just doesn't even need me anymore. It's like he's just gotten worldly. He's gotten covetous. He's just really getting caught up in the things of this world because he's just at ease. He's too comfortable. I'm gonna have to go down and stir things up for him. Let me bring some persecution into his life. Let me damage his finances. Let me destroy his health and put him through pain. I mean, do you want God to say that about you? Oh, you're too comfortable because you're not paying attention to what I want you to do. You're not reading your Bible. You're not praying. Your life's filled with worldliness, covetousness, and sin. Well, I guess I'm gonna have to put you through the fire a little bit to purify you. You know, I hate that. When things are going good in my life, I'm constantly wanting to look up at God like, God, you don't have to bring bad things into my life. I'm gonna do what's right anyway. You don't have to persecute me, God. I'm gonna still be fired up. I mean, you know, if we're smart, right, we gotta seek the Lord while things are going good so he doesn't have to bring bad things into our life to get our attention. But the tendency is that when bad things come, we seek the Lord. And when things are good, we just kind of get distracted and just enjoy the good life and forget about the things of God. It says in verse 23, O, inhabitant of Lebanon, that makest thy nest in the cedars, how gracious shalt thou be when pangs come upon thee, the pain is of a woman in travail. As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence, and I will give thee into the hand of them that seek thy life, and into the hand of them whose face thou fearest, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and into the hand of the Chaldeans. Now you say, well, who's the king? I mean, is it Zedekiah? I thought last chapter the king Zedekiah. We're talking about now Coniah, we're talking about Jehoiakim, we're talking about a guy named Shalom. Who are these people? Well, here's the thing. These guys are not having long, prosperous reigns. These guys are reigning for three months. These guys are reigning for three months here, one month here. And even the guy who's reigned for 11 years, it's during a tumultuous time of who's in leadership, people are being taken captive, one's being raised up and others being brought down. There's no stability at this time. That's why it can be confusing of who's actually sitting on the throne at any given time. Sometimes it's more than one person that's ruling, sometimes the torch is being passed, and sometimes these are very short reigns that lasted literally for only three months. But the Bible says in verse number 26, and I will cast thee out and your mama. He says, I'll cast thee out and thy mother that bear thee. He says in verse 26, I'll cast thee out and thy mother that bear thee into another country where you were not born and there shall ye die. But to the land where unto they desire to return, thither shall they not return. Is this man, Coniah, a despised, broken idol? Is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? Wherefore are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not. Oh, earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord, write ye this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days, for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David and ruling any more in Judah. I mean, these are some serious cursings. He's saying you and your mama and your kids and all your grandkids, nobody's gonna prosper. Nobody's gonna be blessed. I mean, I would hate for that to be said about me. That's pretty much the worst thing you can imagine. You're gonna get the burial of an ass, your mom's gonna be carried away captive, your kids are all gonna destroy their lives, every single one of them. You say, good night, is God going overboard? No, God is just. This is what these people deserved, according to the Bible. This is what God said they had coming to them. Now, we need to make sure that when we read the Bible, we apply it to our own situation. We apply it to our own nation. We apply it to our own lives. And what I see in this chapter is, I see a government that's wicked. Well, check, we've got that, right? We've got a government today that dishonors God every chance that they get. They blaspheme the Lord. They promote wickedness and sin and smut and filth worldwide. They have a special LGBT ambassador to the world. I mean, this is the government we have. They tax the working man, which, you know, we're used to it because we grew up with it, but there was no income tax before 1913. You know, historically in this country, there weren't the type of high taxes that we have today. We have a country where they're starting to come down on preaching and call it hate speech and try to make it illegal. They're testing the waters right now with that of trying to make it illegal to preach certain things out of the Bible. They're kind of testing it and putting out a feeler and planting the seed in people's minds. And listen, other places in the world, they're just a little bit ahead of us. You know, if you go to Europe and if you go to Canada or other places, what you're doing is you're almost getting into a time machine, the future of America on the trajectory that we're going. You can see, because they're farther along the decline and it's already illegal to preach the whole Bible in Canada. You know, a guy was telling me, start a church in Canada. I said, listen, there's no way I'm ever going to convince any of the guys in my church who want to start a church to go to Canada. Why would they go to Canada when they know that if they preach the whole word of God, they're going to be thrown in prison? It's going to be illegal to preach things that are in the Bible. They're not going to want to do that. And I said, here's what we're going to do. Here's what we ought to do. We need to start a church on the border. We need to start a church in the United States near Toronto. You know, get as close to Toronto as you can, start a church in the United States, right? And basically have a satellite up in Toronto where you're going up there, you're winning souls in Toronto, you're holding services in Toronto, and you preach all the real hot sermons south of the border, and that's where you base the church, that's where it's incorporated, that's where it's all based, right? And you have a church in the US that would have to just reach into Toronto and win souls in Toronto. And you know, I think that's a great idea for somebody to do. It's a great, excuse me, ministry for somebody. You know, and these guys were saying, man, I've got a list of 30-some people right now that are willing to drive an hour and a half or whatever to drive to that south of the border church, and then we'll hold services up here, we'll get another building up here, you know, sort of like we're doing in North Phoenix, have like another midweek service up there, and then they could make the commute down on Sundays. You know, because who wants to start a church in Canada? Because the laws are against you if you're a Bible-believing preacher. And so, I mean, think about that. Well, guess what? It's coming to America. It's coming to America. If we don't, now if all the preachers would stand up and actually start preaching the whole Bible, they couldn't stop all of us. But when it's just a few people, then they can come down on you and oppress you. Canada is like that, Europe is like that. I mean, you know, South Africa has, you know, not the same freedom of speech that we have, the oppressive of people who would preach the word of God. We need to realize that we have an open door right now in the United States of America, and we need to go through that door, we need to knock the doors, preach the gospel, get excited about serving God, not live our lives to just build a bigger cedar house and more chambers added, and, you know, a bigger backyard and a bigger RV. You know what? Obviously we need a place to live, but we need not go after riches and extravagant living, and we need to get serious about the work of God. That ought to be our main focus of our lives, serving God. The time is short. Let's redeem the time because the days are evil. Before this turns into Russia, before this turns into Canada, before this turns into South Africa or wherever else, you know, we need to cry aloud and spare not. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer. Father, we thank you so much, Lord, for this chapter from the Bible. It's not a chapter that's often preached about or talked about, Lord, but you've given it to us. It's profitable for doctrine. Help us to learn the lessons, Lord. We can see some of the same things that they were going through, mirrored in our own government and their behavior, Lord. And so help us to do as much for you as we can before oppression clamps down on us, Lord. Help us to pull out all the stops and to serve you and love you with all our hearts, minds, souls, and strength. And in Jesus' name, we pray, amen.