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Man, Judges chapter 18 is the second chapter in a little two-chapter story here. If you remember where we are in the book of Judges, chapters 1 through 16 got us through all of the actual stories of the Judges. When we get to chapter 17, we're done talking about the Judges, and now we're just getting several chapters explaining what things were like in the times of the Judges. So this material is out of order from the rest of the book, because it's just stuff that happened in the time of the Judges. That's why at the beginning of chapter 18 verse 1 it just says, in those days there was no king in Israel. Remember that's the theme of this end portion of the book. We saw that statement made in chapter 17, we see it here in chapter 18, and then at the very end in chapter 21 we see that the last verse of Judges is, in those days there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. That's not a phrase that has come up earlier in the book of Judges in chapters 1 through 16, but in chapter 17 through 21 it keeps coming up, because this is kind of another section in the book of Judges showing us just what the times were like and the need for leadership and how there's a lack of leadership and how all of these wrong things are going on in Israel. In fact, if you study the book of Judges and compare scripture with scripture, you realize that these events that we're reading about in chapters 17 and 18 are actually probably hundreds of years before Samson, they're probably actually toward the beginning of the period of the Judges, because the period of the Judges is about 400 years and Samson was the last one that we saw and this is an event that happened earlier toward the beginning of that time. So it says in chapter 18 verse 1, in those days there was no king in Israel and in those days the tribe of the Danites sought them an inheritance to dwell in, and again this would tend to indicate this is toward the beginning when they're still getting settled into the land and everybody's getting dialed in with their inheritance, for unto that day all their inheritance had not fallen into them among the tribes of Israel. And the children of Dan sent of their family five men from their coast, men of valor, from Zorah and from Eshtaal, to spy out the land and to search it, and they said unto them, go search the land, who when they came to Mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, they lodged there. This is before hotels, so you would stay at people's houses. When they were by the house of Micah, they knew the voice of the young man, the Levite, and they turned in thither and said unto him, who brought thee hither, and what makest thou in this place, and what hast thou here? So basically they recognized this guy's voice, because if you remember we were introduced to this bozo back in chapter 17, this priest of Micah, and this guy's just a wandering guy, and right away you have to wonder, if this guy's a Levite, shouldn't he have a gig already back serving the Lord, you know, with the other Levites, and shouldn't he be with his family and serving the Lord in the tabernacle and doing what Levites do? Why is he just wandering? When you have a guy who's just wandering and he doesn't have any friends or family, he's just kind of this guy out wandering around, and he's just going to start a church now? That's kind of weird. That's why we kind of make a big deal about the fact that anybody who pastors a church or anybody who starts a church, they need to be coming from a church. You have just these guys who've been out of church for years, listening online, now all of a sudden they're going to found their own church. That's ridiculous. You know, before you can be a leader in the church, you need to be a follower in the church, and great followers make great leaders, you know? So if you've got a guy who's serving faithfully in his local church and approved of by his fellow church members, and they decide, yeah, this is great, this guy's qualified, yeah, this guy should go start this church, that's a little different than a guy just out on his own, wandering around, and he's just going to do it on his own. Because there's obviously something wrong with this guy's life if he's just wandering around willing to just go anywhere and just, sure, I'll be a priest for you, whatever, and that's who this guy is. I don't want to review from last week, but that's what we talked about last week, this guy. And they recognize this guy's voice because they're coming from the same general region that he's from. And so it's just kind of a small world where they recognize the guy's voice and say, whoa, this is our buddy, whoa, what are you doing here, man? And I want to show you some things about this phony priest. This is something that can really show us an example of what false preachers or false teachers or phonies in the ministry are like. Notice the first thing he brings up when they ask him, what are you doing here? Who brought you here? How'd you end up here? Verse 4, thus he said to them, thus and thus dealeth Micah with me and hath hired me and I am his priest. Notice what the priority is. It's right away, here's what I get from Micah. Now, a religious leader is supposed to be a minister, right? He's someone who's serving and ministering and helping people. And yet the first thing on this guy's mind when he's asked, what's your situation here, is, well, let me tell you what Micah, let me tell you about my pay package. Let me tell you what Micah does for me. And he hath hired me. These are the first two. So two out of three things that he mentions are, here's how Micah deals with me. Here's my clothing allowance, my talents of silver, my food allowance. Here's my pay package. I've been hired. Oh, and by the way, I'm his priest. So you can see that this guy is a hireling. He's in the ministry for the wrong reasons because what would be the right answer to this if this guy were actually serving God? Now, obviously we know he's not really serving God the right way because he's got a graven image. It's a religion based on idolatry. But notice the answer here because the right answer would be something like, well, you know what? I just, I really love the Lord. I want to go into the ministry. I want to serve God. I want to reach people with the gospel. You know, I'm ministering to this family and we're trying to reach this town for the Lord. That's not, that doesn't even come into play here. It's just, I'm getting paid and I'm just interested in serving this one guy. It's us four, no more. We're not reaching anybody. We're not preaching anybody. This guy's a phony. He's just in it for the money. He's in it for all the wrong reasons. Okay. And they said unto him, verse five, ask counsel we pray thee of God that we may know whether our way which we go shall be prosperous. You know, a lot of people out there who just think anybody who is any kind of a priest or a pastor or a rabbi or whatever is, Oh, Hey, bless me, father. They just kind of think, Oh, this guy is a man of God, man of the cloth. He's clergy. But let me explain some of you about ministers. You know, they can be great people or they can be literally the scum of the earth because I'm telling you, the worst scum are phony preachers, false teachers, false prophets, because what kind of an evil, horrible person would get up and preach lies about something so important? I mean, about something that's heaven or hell. I mean, where souls are in the balance to get up and preach lies about that. You have to be the worst scum of the earth to be a fake preacher, a phony preacher. And you know, the Bible talks about how in the Old Testament, Jeroboam made of the lowest of the people, priests unto the high places. So what does that show you? That shows you it's the low of the low that take that job of being a false prophet and worshiping Baal and doing all this stuff. But these people, they just think, Oh, a preacher, Oh, a pastor, Oh, a priest. They just think they're all good when in reality, most are bad. Broad is the way that leads to destruction. Many there be, which go in there at straight as the gate narrow is the way which leads to the life and few there be to find it. And so you got all kinds of phony preachers and false teachers out there. They just kind of think, Oh, you're a priest now. You're a Levi now. Well inquire of God as counsel of God. We pray thee that we may know whether our way, which we go shall be prosperous. Now there's no mention of him actually asking the Lord as counsel of God. There's no mention of, okay. So then he goes and he prays and he, you know, searches the scriptures and he asked counsel of God. I don't know. He just turns around and says, go in peace before the Lord is your way. We're in. You go. So here's another sign of a false prophet. It's just positive only just bless everybody. Good God, good devil, cold hell, and it's all great and just blessing everybody. I mean, just, it's just an automatic blessing. This kind of a coin operated preacher doesn't actually check the scripture, doesn't actually pray to the Lord and figure out whether these people are right with God, whether what they're doing is right. He just kind of just gives them a blessing, a little bit of holy water and calls it good. And so not always the phony preacher in it for the wrong reasons, in it for himself and not in it to help and bless other people and reach people. But number two, he's a positive only kind of a guy. Now I do want to turn to one place tonight. Keep your finger in Judges 18 and go to Jeremiah chapter 29. This is, this is a passage that I really like in Jeremiah. I'm sorry. Chapter 28 looks like is where it is Jeremiah chapter 28. And this is where Jeremiah is confronted by some preachers that are preaching a positive only message. When God has said the opposite, I mean, God has said, look, Judah is not right, not right with God. They're going to be punished and they're going into captivity and it's going to be bad. There's a group of preachers who just continue to preach positive message about how it's going to be your best life now and, and you know, God's going to bless Israel no matter what and, and all that. So Jeremiah is rebuking this and I love what he says. It's one of my favorite passages from the book of Jeremiah. Look at chapter 28 verse seven. Nevertheless, hear thou now this word that I speak in nine years and in the years of all the people. The prophets that have been before me and before thee of old prophesied both against many countries and against kingdoms of war and of evil and a pestilence. So he's saying, you know, I think back to the preaching of the past and the preaching of the past by real men of God. It was against countries. It was against kingdoms. They preached about war, famine, peasants. I mean, they preached some doom and gloom. They preached some hellfire and damnation. They preached some negative messages. He said, that's how the prophets of the past have typically preached. And he says in verse nine, the prophet, which prophesiest of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord had truly sent him. And here's what I love about this. Obviously God has us preach positive things. I mean, I preach positive sermons all the time. A lot of people, they, they think I have this reputation for only just preaching negative things and me, but that's just only because they chose to only click on my negative sermons. You know, you can't just listen to the most radical five minutes of the most radical sermon and think that you're getting the fair picture of, you know, our entire church here and my entire ministry or something, right? So obviously God has called us to preach about love and joy and peace and all these things. But here's what Jeremiah is saying. He's saying, look, when somebody shows up and they're preaching a positive message, the default is to kind of be suspicious of that because the Lord has moved so many preachers to preach so many hard negative things that when somebody comes and starts preaching peace, I'm like, I'll believe it when I see it. That's what he's saying, right? He's saying when it comes to pass, then we'll know that it was from the Lord. But he basically says, frankly, I'll believe that when I see it. But when some guy comes in and says, God's going to judge America, it's just like, yeah. You know, it's like he just has me at hello because of the fact that, you know, it's true. And that's, that's how the Bible reads. I mean, the Bible has all these really negative things. It has a lot of judgment and a lot of wrath of God. And so that's the kind of preaching you expect from a real man of God. And of course, we read the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah is preaching a lot of rough things. Isaiah is preaching a lot of rough things. Ezekiel is preaching a lot of rough things. Now there are some really peaceful chapters in Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. You think of Isaiah, you know, come for ye, come for ye my people. I mean, there's all kinds of positive stuff, but there are a lot of rough chapters too. And so what he's saying here is be suspicious of the prophet who comes and just tells you everything's great and it's wonderful and, and God's just going to bless America and, and we're the chosen ones and all this stuff. Whereas the guy who preaches a negative message is more likely to be telling the truth. I mean, that's what the Bible is saying here. Hard negative preaching is more likely to be the true story from God than the positive only stuff. So this verse doesn't really bode well for like a Joel Osteen type of preaching where it's just very positive and doesn't talk about anything negative. It's funny how all the prophets of the past weren't like that. It's funny how all the guys in the Bible are preaching rough sermons. Something isn't right when it's all sweetness and light. So in Judges chapter 18, if you want to turn back there, we see that, you know, some of the signs that this guy is a bad preacher, a false prophet is that number one, he's just more interested in his gig. This is just a gig to him. I'm getting paid. Look how well I'm being treated. Look at my money. It's a gig to him. Number two, he's a positive only kind of guy. He doesn't even ask God because he already knows it's a yes. You know, he just kind of just tells everybody what they want to hear, but let's keep reading about this guy. Let's see what kind of a guy this guy turns out to be. So in verse seven, then the five men departed and came to Laish because remember they're on a scouting expedition from the tribe of Dan. Dan wants a little more territory because they slacked off when they were supposed to be getting territory. So now they don't have enough territory and they want to go get more. So they send these five men to spy. They stop at Micah's house. Micah's phony preacher has that conversation with them. Then they get to the destination that they're scoping out, which is a place called Laish. They came to Laish in verse seven and saw that the people that were there in, how they dwelt careless after the manner of the Zydonians, quiet and secure, and there was no magistrate in the land that might put them to shame in anything. And they were far from the Zydonians and had no business with any man. So they find kind of this isolated village that isn't really in touch with anybody. And they basically just decide, we can just wipe out this village and take over and nobody's going to know. You know, the magistrates aren't going to get us in trouble. Nobody's going to necessarily find out. And so it says in verse eight, they came unto their brethren, to Zorah and Eshtaol, and their brethren said unto them, What say ye? And they said, Arise, that we may go up against them, for we've seen the land. Behold, it's very good. And are ye still? Be not slothful to go and to enter in to possess the land. When you go, ye shall come unto a people secure and to a large land, for God hath given it into your hands, a place where there is no want of anything that is in the earth. And there went from thence of the family of the Danites out of Zorah and out of Eshtaol, six hundred men appointed with weapons of war. And they went up and pitched in Kirjethjirim and Judah, wherefore they call that place Mahanay Dan unto this day. Behold, it is behind Kirjethjirim. And they passed thence unto Mount Ephraim and came unto the house of Micah, then answered the five men that went to spy out the country of Laish and said unto their brethren, Do ye know that there is in these houses an Ephod and Teraphim and a graven image and a molten image? Now therefore consider what you have to do. These are not things that the Lord would approve of, these accoutrements just being set up in some random house of God with idolatry. And they turned thitherward and came to the house of the young man, the Levite, even unto the house of Micah and saluted him. So they say hi to their buddy. And the six hundred men appointed with their weapons of war, which were of the children of Dan, stood by the entering of the gate. And the five men that went to spy out the land went up and came in thither and took the graven image and the Ephod and the Teraphim and the molten image. I mean, they basically just, hey, buddy, how you doing? And then they just start basically just emptying out his church building, his little house of God, his little chapel that he's got going there. They just start to just unload everything. They just walk in. And I mean, remember, this is valuable stuff. The molten image is made out of silver, solid silver. So they just grab the molten image and they just grab the Teraphim. They grab all his little crucifixes and holy water and all of his little good luck charms and little statues of saints and little merry shrines. They just take all his candles and his incense and whatever. They just start taking all of his, they just start stripping his little chapel that he's got going. And this priest is like, what are you doing? Oh, hi, guys. They start unloading all of his stuff, just stealing everything from the location. So it says they came in thither. They took the graven image. We're halfway through verse 17 and the Ephod and the Teraphim and the molten image. And the priest stood in the entering of the gate with the 600 men that were appointed with weapons of war. And these went into Micah's house and fetched the carved image, the Ephod and the Teraphim and the molten image. Then said the priest to them, what do ye? What are you guys doing? What do ye? And they said to him, hold thy peace, shut up, lay thine hand upon thy mouth and go with us and be to us a father and a priest. Is it better for thee to be a priest under the house of one man or that thou be a priest unto a tribe and a family in Israel? And the priest's heart was glad. Yes, a better gig. I mean, there's a lot wrong with this picture. I mean, this is, there's a lot to unpack here. Okay. First of all, we see how much the preacher who tells you everything you want to hear, the positive only kind of a guy, you can see how much he loves you. False prophets don't love you. You can hire some false prophet. You can hire some phony pastor to tell you everything you want to hear. But guess what? He doesn't love you. He's not loyal to you. Micah has hired this phony preacher to bless him and tell him everything's going to be great. But as soon as this guy has a chance to stab Micah in the back, what does he do? Yeah, I mean, because he's only interested in money. As soon as somebody else is willing to pay more, this guy's just going to go to the highest bidder because it's not like he just thinks, okay, well, I'm really into this graven image. I've been bound down to this graven image for so long. You know, if they take the image, I better just follow that image. Or well, these guys are 600 of them. They have weapons. I better just do what they say. Is that what the Bible says? No, the Bible says his heart was glad. He likes the fact that they're robbing Micah blind. He likes the fact that they're stealing Micah's stuff. He likes the fact that they're offering him a better gig where he can make more money. So this goes to show how wicked this guy is. He has no loyalty to the flock, no loyalty to his congregation, doesn't actually love the sheep. Let me tell you something. The pastor who actually loves you, he tells you negative things. He preaches the whole Bible to you, the good, the bad, and the ugly, not just a positive only message. Joel Osteen does not love his church members, but he seems super loving. I mean, he's just like oozing and just gushing with love. And then meanwhile, independent fundamental Baptist preachers like myself or like Pastor Roger Jimenez or like other of our friends, we get a reputation as being hateful, right? But in reality, it's the reverse. We actually love our church members. We actually care about you enough to tell you the truth, even if it means that we can't be as popular or can't be as successful in the world's eyes. We pay the price to tell you the truth because we want to help you. We know that the things that we warn you about, the sins that we preach against are going to hurt you. So we're trying to help you and be a blessing to you, even if that makes you mad. I'd rather make you mad and you get the message that you need to get than to just say, well, you know, I'm not going to preach this stuff because it's going to make people mad and just let people go off the cliff because they haven't been warned. And so this phony false prophet, he doesn't love his people at all because Micah is his congregation. That's the house. That's the family that he's ministering to. And he just ditches them. It takes one second as soon as they tell him, well, hey, you're going to have a bigger gig. You're going to have a better gig immediately. It's like, this is the best thing that ever happened. His heart was glad. He's loving this. But notice what they say to him because he says, what do you in verse 18? What do they say to him in verse 19? Hold thy peace. Lay thine hand upon thy mouth. But go ahead and be a father and a priestess as we tell you what to do. We're going to tell you to shut up. And then we're going to tell you to shut up again. And then we're going to tell you about your job description as our pastor. Shut up. Shut up. All right. Be our pastor. I mean, is that what they're basically saying? I mean, they say, hold thy peace, lay thine hand upon thy mouth and go with us and beat us a father and a priest. And of course, those are not appropriate titles for a man of God anyway. He's not a priest because he's not of the sons of Aaron. But yet they're calling him a priest. And he shouldn't be called father because we should only call the father in heaven father. We should not call pastors father so and so. So we see here that they want him to shut up. They want to tell him what to do. But they wanted to be the pastor. And look, this is the pastor that a lot of people are looking for. Don't preach on sin. Don't preach anything negative. Preach what we tell you to preach. But you're going to be a father unto us. You know, when I was growing up, I didn't tell my father what to do. I never told my father what to do. And by the way, my kids don't tell me what to do. They don't issue me orders and commands and tell me to shut up and tell me what to do. Right? You know, when I was growing up, my dad made the rules. My mom made the rules. And the children did not make the rules for the house. We didn't tell our parents and command them and go send them off doing errands for us and tell them how it's going to be and what they can say and what they can't say. That's not how it works. They told us what we were allowed to say and what we were not allowed to say. Okay. So isn't it ironic that they're calling him father even as they disrespect him, slap him in the face, and insult him by telling him to shut up twice? Okay. There's a group of people out there. They want this kind of a religious leader who's actually going to be someone that they control. And let me tell you something. I don't care if this is popular. I don't care if people say, it's a cult. It's like they just push that cult button, you know, cult, cult, cult. Because let me tell you something. The church is supposed to be run by the pastor. There. I said it. Okay. It is in pastor led churches. Let me tell you something. I grew up as an independent fundamental Baptist and every good church that I ever went to was led by the pastor. And every lame church that I ever went to, the pastor was just a figurehead and a paper tiger and had no authority and made no decisions and didn't actually lead the church. Let me tell you something. Churches need to be led by a pastor. And that's out of fashion right now. But I don't care if it's out of fashion. It's biblical. You know, if you study the Bible, you'll find that God uses leaders to rally his people to serve him all throughout the Bible, Old Testament, New Testament. I did a sermon a while back called One Leader. And I just went through and just showed just example after example after example after example after example. You know, our church is not run by a presbytery. This is not a presbyterian church. Okay. We don't have a board of elders. It's more like bored elders, boring elders. You know what I'm saying? Like it's like you got these deacon-run churches, board-run church. Let me tell you something. I've never been in a red hot soul winning church that was deacon-run. I've never been in a church where the pastor was ripping face and preaching hard from the pulpit that was a deacon-run church or a board-run church or run by a committee. That's not how it works, my friend. And you know, it's funny, people can take scriptures out of context and argue and try to make their case from scripture. And you know what? The Bible truly is our final authority. But if your interpretation of the Bible doesn't line up with reality, something's wrong with your interpretation of the Bible. Because I am not one of these people that, you know, somebody asked a question on Facebook the other day. And they asked a question, you know, if the Bible said that the moon were made of cheese, would you believe in it? If the Bible said that the moon were made of cheese, would you believe that the moon were made of cheese? And everybody was saying yes, but I said no, I would not. No, I would not believe that. It's like, oh, you wouldn't believe the Bible? Hey, if the Bible were filled with lies, I wouldn't believe in it. You know why I believe in the Bible? Because the Bible is truth. The Bible is truth. Look, let me ask you something. If we could demonstrate to the Mormons that their book is filled with lies, don't we expect them to stop believing in it? If we can demonstrate that the Koran is filled with lies, wouldn't we expect them to stop believing in it? If we could show that Ellen G. White's writings are filled with lies, wouldn't we expect them to stop believing in it? So why would we say, well, if the Bible had something in it that I know is not true that can't be true, that makes no sense, I'm just going to believe in it anyway because I'm just so much – folks, it's a silly question because the very reason that we believe in the Bible is because it's the truth. And if the Bible were filled with goofy stuff like that, it wouldn't be true and we wouldn't be believing in it. So it's a hypothetical anyway because the Bible doesn't say anything like that. The Bible doesn't say that the moon is made of cheese. The Bible is actually scientifically correct and accurate. It talks about the circle of the earth and the earth hangs on nothing and that he stretches out the heaven over the empty place. It talks about space and hanging on nothing and the circle of the earth and it all makes perfect sense and the moon reflecting the light of the sun is totally biblical unless you're a flat earth idiot who didn't get past Genesis chapter 1. If you actually read the rest of the Bible, you'd actually see that the moon reflecting the light from the sun is consistent with what the Bible actually teaches about the sun and moon. But let me tell you something, you know, we believe the Bible because it's truth. What did that have to do with anything in my sermon is what I'd like to know. Where was I going with that? I get off on these things because it's just – you get off on these rabbit trails because it's just – this stuff kind of gets me fired up. Excuse me? Deacon-run churches. What in the world does that have to do with deacon-run churches? No, no, you guys are going back too far in the sermon. Somebody rewind the live stream and where was I going with that? I just, you know, I could just move on and act like nothing happened but I was on an important thought and so I don't want to lose it. They're telling them what to preach and the authority, the pastor-led model of the church is not deacon-run. What in the world does that have to do? That's true. Yeah, I said that. Yeah, right. Ah, yeah, yeah. All right. Give that man a trophy. All right. He got it. Okay. Our understanding of the Bible must line up with reality. Am I right? It's like the bozos from last year at that conference, right? We walk by faith, not by facts. That was the dumbest quote of 2020. That gives you a word. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. That gives you a word. Dumbest quote of 2020. We walk by faith, not by facts. Excuse me, but facts, you know what facts are? The truth. And what do we put our faith in? Do we put our faith in lies? Ignore facts and put your faith in lies. Amen. That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life. Facts are truth. Facts are reality. That's what facts mean. And so here's the thing. You know, we don't choose between believing the Bible and believing reality. We believe both. Both must be consistent or we have our wires crossed somewhere. You know, the Bible tells us to look at the natural world and learn from nature because of the fact that what we see in nature is real. And what we see in the Word of God is real. And these things are consistent. We don't have to choose between them. They're consistent. So here's where I was going with that. I know it seems like it has nothing to do with it, but you help me out, all right? Here's the thing. Isn't it funny how people have all these arguments for why the church should not be run by one pastor but that we should have like a board or a committee or a group of deacons or something running things? But isn't it funny how when we actually look at reality, every successful, soul-winning church that's doing a lot for God has a clear leader? You know what I mean? So it's like, yeah, I've got all my proof texts to prove to you one leader. I did a whole sermon, one leader, tons of evidence. And then they'll pull out their evidence, right? But at the end of the day, you know, isn't it funny how your house church sitting around the coffee table is not evangelizing your city? You know, and every successful church that I've ever seen in my whole life had a strong leader and had a clear leader. And then you've got these board run, deacon run, committee run churches that are dead as a doornail. So what does that tell you right there is that obviously it doesn't work. And you know what's funny is that whenever we've been planting churches in the past, Pastor Jimenez has planted a few churches, other of our friends have planted a church, sometimes you don't have a guy who can run the whole ministry. So you like cycle different preachers through. You know, like for example, Brother Jimenez's church plant in Idaho was like that for a while. We were flying some of our guys out there to preach. And didn't you preach out? I'm sure you preached out there a few times, Brother Segura out in Idaho. The church down in Houston is a little bit like that right now. There's different guys preaching down there. Sometimes Brother Segura preaches there. You know, Tucson Church has been like that in the past. But isn't it interesting that when we switched to just having Corbin Russell preaching all the time, one guy, three times a week, how the church does better. And whenever we have these church plants where you have like a cycle where you got three different preachers cycling through or four different preachers cycling through, the church just, it's like you can't get it off the ground. And then as soon as you just have one guy like a Bruce Mejia in LA or Aaron Thompson in, I was going to say Portland, Oregon, you know, because, you know, they're just right outside Portland. But no, it's not Portland, Oregon, it's Vancouver, Washington. But anyway, you know, you got Aaron Thompson up there. We had Bruce Mejia out in LA. We've got Corbin Russell down in Tucson. You know, these are the successful church plants where you have one guy preaching Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. Isn't that interesting? Isn't it interesting that people, for all their talk about multiple elders, whenever you actually do it in practice, people don't like it, it doesn't work, it's not a success. So maybe you're understanding the Bible wrong and you need to actually look at it another way, because actually there's, and again, I'm not going to re-preach my sermon called One Leader, and I need to get back on track in the sermon because I'm just going all kinds of different directions. But you know, these are things that we can learn from this passage about this guy. I mean, the guy's a false preacher, he's a bozo, he's being told what to preach, so it's the deacon-run church. It's the committee-run church of the pastor, he doesn't get up and preach what the Spirit leads him to preach. He's not going to get up and say, well, here's what the Bible says, and I don't care whether people like it or not. And you know what, usually when I preach here, most people in our church like what I have to say. Amen? You know, most people, I preach on Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, I'm going to get a lot of amens, and people are happy, and people are smiling and shaking my hand, and most people here like the preaching, that's why they're here. But let me tell you something, there are times when I preach things where I know that the majority of the church is not going to like what I say. There have been times like that where I preach things and I know this is not what the majority wants, but you know what, I know it's right, I'm going to preach it anyway. I mean, should I just figure out what everybody believes and what everybody wants to hear and just make sure to preach what everybody already believes and what everybody already wants to hear and what everybody's going to like just to keep the peace? No, I preach what the Bible says. And if I read the Bible and I know for a fact that I'm right about something, I've prayed, I've studied, I know what the Word of God says, and I know people aren't going to like this, I'm not just going to hold that back from you and withhold that truth from you to not offend you, I'm going to get up and preach what the Bible says. And you know, if it comes to a point where the church is like, no, you can't preach that, we don't want to hear that, you need to change your preaching, that is the day that I will say, all right, well, you know what, enjoy, here are the keys to Faithful Word Baptist Church and I will go do something else with my life because I am not here to be a coin-operated preacher to tell people what they want to hear, I'm here to preach what the Bible says and be led by the Spirit of God, not led by the committee, not led by the women of the church who've decided that they don't like something I'm preaching, not to be led by, you know, the people who want to soften things or, you know, at the end of the day, and look, I'm open to advice and I frequently go to my staff and I ask them, what should I do? What do you guys think? Do you guys like this idea? You know, tell me if I'm wrong. I try to get advice from them and if people come to me, hey, I'm open to, but at the end of the day, I'm going to do what the Bible says and I'm not going to do what the majority wants. Now, like I said, 99% of the time, what I do and what I preach, the majority likes it. You know, that's the vast majority of the time. But every once in a while, I have to preach something unpopular or do something unpopular or make an unpopular decision and I have to do what I believe is right, not what's popular. Does everybody see why that's important? And so here we see the pastor who's being told what he can and can't say. That's the symbolism here. Close your mouth. And when somebody's repeated twice in the Bible, that means something. They didn't just say, hold your peace. It's like, hold your peace and lay your hand on your mouth, you know? So God wants us to notice that they're telling this guy to shut up. And it's symbolic of the fact that they're hiring a preacher and telling him, don't say these things. Don't say what we don't want to hear. Tell us only what we want to hear. And this guy's all too willing to oblige because he's just in it for the money and the fame and the prosperity and the gig anyway. I mean, his heart's glad when he hears about this. Oh, you want me to shut up? Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. You know? Oh, you don't want me to preach on that? Well, then I won't do it. You know, as long as your money's green, I'll preach what you want me to preach. So he took, you know, he's like, here, let me help you load up Micah's stuff. Because remember, they're stealing all the stuff. You know, he took, the priest always got, he took the ephod and the terephim and the graven image and went in the midst of it. He's like, here, let me carry that for you. You need a hand with that, buddy? Let's steal all Micah's stuff since I'm leaving too. We might as well take everything. So they turned and departed and put the little ones and the cattle and the carriage before them. And when they were a good way from the house of Micah, the men that were in the houses near to Micah's house, so these are all Micah's neighbors, were gathered together and overtook the children of Dan. So they caught up to them. They rushed to catch up to them, the neighbors. And they cried unto the children of Dan. And they turned their faces and said unto Micah, what aleth thee that thou comest with such a company? So basically the children of Dan are saying, what are you chasing after us for? Why did you bring all your neighbors? What's the deal? And he said, verse 24, you've taken away my gods, which I made. When it's gods that you made, you need to rethink your religion. If you made them, how are they your gods? You took away my gods that I made and the priest and you're gone away. And what have I more? And what is this that you see me? What aleth thee? What do you mean what ails me? You just stole my stuff. You stole my whole religion. You packed up my entire church and took it with the preacher. Where am I supposed to go to church? And the children of Dan said unto him, let not thy voice be heard among us, lest any angry fellows run upon thee, and thou lose thy life with the lives of thy houses. I mean, I'm not saying that I would hurt you, but you know, we got some roughnecks here. If you don't watch out, one of them might just kill you or something. I'm not saying I'm going to hurt you. I'm not going to do anything, but you know, I can't control these guys. And the children of Dan went their way. And when Micah saw that they were too strong for him, you know, him and his neighbors, apparently he doesn't have enough neighbors because of the fact that the children of Dan have 600 armed men. So apparently Micah doesn't have 600 armed neighbors. And so they're threatening to kill him. So he just, I mean, it's, it's a sad ending for Micah, but Micah is a complete bozo. We learned from chapter 17 too. He's an idiot too. And guess what? What do you remember what he said at the end of chapter 17? Look at the last verse of chapter 17. Now know I, chapter 17, verse 13. Now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest. Well, this is God doing him good. Everything is taken from him. Not a blessing. And so he just has to go home sad and he lost everything because remember what's, what's the book about? What's the book of Judges about specifically from chapter 17 to chapter 21, there's no king in Israel. Every man did that, which is right in his own eyes. What are we supposed to take away from the story? What's the big picture? I'm, I'm focusing on the phony preacher because that's kind of relevant in 2021. You got a lot of phony preachers and, and so we could learn about that, but the actual story here is just showing you how the children of Dan can pretty much just get away with doing whatever they want because there's no king in Israel. Everybody's doing what's right in their own eyes. And so they can just rob this guy blind because what would we do if someone did this to us right now? We'd call the police, right? I mean, if somebody just started stealing all our stuff, we'd be like, um, yes, I'd like to report a burglary. You'd report that and there'd be some kind of an authority. There are police or military or some kind of a council of elders or leadership or the king order. This is just showing that that is kind of a wild west where it's 600 armed guys just kind of do whatever they want because nobody's there to stop them. That's kind of the point that's being made here. So when they took the things which Mike had made verse 27 and the priest, which he had and came on delayish unto a people that were quiet and secure, they smoked them with the edge of the sword and burnt the city with fire. And there was no deliverer because it was far from Zidane and they had no business with any man. And it was in the valley that live by Beth rehab. And they built a city and dwelt there. And, and you know, even though these are heathens, the way this story is written, it's written in such a way where you're supposed to kind of sympathize with this quiet town that's just getting massacred and slaughtered for no reason is the Lord in this, is this mandated by the Lord? Well, I mean, that priest said, yeah, that priest was like, yeah, do it. Go for it. But do we trust him? No, we don't. And so it's just kind of a backwards story here. Everything's kind of backward. Did you notice that? That's the theme of the story. Everything's backwards, right? The people are going to tell the priest to do the young guy is called father by the old guy. We're going to make a graven image for the Lord. You know, I just, everything, everything is backwards. There's just backward, backward, backward. Okay. And then this ending parts kind of a backward story where the heathen don't have a deliverer. Whereas usually it's like the Israelites who have a what throughout the book of judges, they have a deliverer that comes and delivers them. Now it's like backwards where the Israelites are the oppressor and it's the heathen that don't have a deliverer. It's just, everything's just backwards. Nothing makes sense. And this is why you could probably go to your, you could probably go to church your whole life in most churches and never hear a sermon on judges 17 or 18. I know when I was about 17 or 18, you know, when I was reading the Bible for the first time, I remember when I was 17, I finished the Bible cover to cover and I went to a family gathering. I can remember it like yesterday. I was at my parents' house in my parents' living room. I still live there of course, but it was a family gathering. So a lot of relatives were over and I remember just having a group of my relatives around me and I was telling them like, you guys will not believe some of the stories in the Bible. Like we, I was like, we've been in church our whole lives. We've never heard this story. Like I said, I'm going to tell you a story right now that I guarantee it's from the Bible. I guarantee you've never heard this story in your life. And they're like, all right, tell us. And I told them this story cause I'd been reading it and I'd, not only did I read it, but I kind of, I kind of learned the story cause I wanted to tell it to other people cause I was like, this is a weird story that nobody's heard. I'm going to learn this story so I can tell it. So I kind of went over it a few times. I learned it and I told it as at this family gathering just as an entertainment. I just said like, I'm going to tell you, and everybody was like, wow, like I've never heard that story. They're like, I didn't even know there was such a story like that in the Bible. I told him the whole thing last week and this week, I didn't give all the preaching, but I just told the story, you know, 17 and 18 just from memory. I just told the story and I'm telling you, you could, you could go to church your whole life and never hear a sermon on judges 17 or 18 because these are really obscure stories. But part of the reason why you don't hear preaching on them is because they're so hard to interpret because they're just so all over the place. They're such wild story. Everything's so backwards that it's kind of like, let's talk about Samson. You know, that makes a little more sense to me because this story is so it's just, it's just layers of wrongness upon wrongness, but that's the way these chapters are supposed to be. That's, that's what he's trying to show you how backward things are and how far from God the children of Israel are and how disobedient they are and how they have no king and they're all doing what's right in their own eyes and it's a mess when there's no leader. It's a mess. That's what we're supposed to take away from this. And so that's why you don't really hear these preached a lot because it's like, what do you preach? You know, but I'm, I like preaching these cause I think it's, I think it's fun to look at a story that's not talked about as often because it, you know, we've kind of heard the Samson story a lot, especially if you've been in church your whole life. These stories are still pretty fresh because they don't get as much air time, do they? But it's a great story. Nonetheless, it's a little hard to interpret sometimes, but once you just get it through your head that everybody in the story is wrong, then it becomes easy to interpret. See the problem with Judges 17 and 18 is when you're like looking for the good guy and the bad guy. Once you realize everybody's a bad guy, then it all makes sense. They're like, okay, I get it. He's bad. He's bad. He's being bad. They're bad. Stop looking for the good guy in this chapter. Makes a lot of sense. Okay, so it says they called the name of the city Dan after the name of Dan, their father who was born unto Israel. How be it the name of the city was Laish at the first and the children of Dan set up the graven image and Jonathan, isn't it interesting that all of a sudden now we get the name of the guy. It's kind of weird to pull out this guy's name all, you know, cause it's just like the young man, young man, young man, young guy, young guy, young guy, young guy. And that's like, Oh, by the way, Jonathan, Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of Manasseh, he and his sons were priests to the tribe of Dan until the day of the captivity of the land. And they set them up Micah's graven image, which he made all the time that the house of God was in Shiloh. Here's my theory. And this is just kind of a theory that I'll throw out there, but you know, I can't prove this or anything. This is just something that is possible because it's kind of, you got to admit, it's kind of weird that it's just young man, young man, young man. And then all of a sudden we find out exactly who it is, Jonathan, the son of Gershom, son of Manasseh, very specific. I think what is probably going on here is that it's intended for the reader to not know who it is until the end. Now to us, this means nothing to us, Jonathan, the son of Gershom, we're just like, okay, who's that? But you got to remember this book is written at a time a little bit closer to the events themselves, right? We're reading this thousands of years later. So my theory about this would be that basically everybody knows that there's this idolatry that's gone on in Dan for hundreds and hundreds of years because the Bible says that this idolatry in Dan went all the way until what? The captivity of the land. This is when the Assyrians take the northern kingdom of Israel captive. That's when this stops. So that means this went on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. So it's a well-known false religion up there. So basically you're reading about this squirrely, rotten guy and this guy just, as soon as he hears how we're going to rob Micah and you're going to get a bigger gig, he's just so happy to betray, you know, just, I mean, this guy is a rotten guy and then it's like, oh, by the way, this is where your phony religion comes from. Or this is where, you know, these people, and maybe even if it's not directed at anybody who'd ever followed this false religion, because it was a false religion that went on in the northern kingdom for centuries, it'd be kind of like if we told some wild story about some treasure hunter, some fraudulent treasure hunter who's got magic rocks that he talks into a hat and all this stuff. And they were like, oh, by the way, it's Joseph Smith. You know what I mean? I think that's kind of what's going on here. And even if we weren't talking to Mormons, that could still be an effective device in a sermon or something, right? Like if I just started preaching against some false religion, didn't tell you what it was. That way you're open-minded. You're judging it based on the fact, and then it's like, oh, by the way, here's who I'm talking about. And it's like, whoa. So I think that that's what's going on because there's got to be some reason why the guy's name isn't brought up until the story's completely over. It's kind of like, oh, by the way, that's the guy who founded that false religion up in northern Israel that we've been preaching against for years and telling you it was phony. We've been telling you it was bogus. Now they've been carried away captive into Assyria. And by the way, that's the guy who founded it, this bozo, this horrible person. So anyway, that's my theory about the ending there. Obviously, there's no evidence for that, but it makes sense as an explanation for why it is the way it is. Anyway, let's buy our zenepo or to purp. Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord, and even these obscure chapters in the Bible that aren't necessarily popular. They have so many truths in them, Lord. Help us to learn these things and to be able to spot these attributes of a false prophet or false religion and help us to take these characters as bad examples and not to be disloyal, not to be greedy, not to preach what people want us to preach, but rather preach what you've told us to preach in your word. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.