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

So in 1 Kings chapter 21 we continue the saga of Ahab and Ahab is a really interesting character in the Bible. He's a very complex character because he's a bad guy but he's not really always a super bad guy. Sometimes he'll kind of do the right thing like we saw this morning that God reached out to him and was going to help him win the battle. He actually said something cool at one point and then at the end of this chapter we see him humbling himself and receiving mercy from God. This is one of the reasons that the Bible is not just the word of God and just powerful and quick and all that because it's the word of God and so spiritually important but it's also even just by worldly people considered to be great literature just because it's such a great read because it doesn't have these sort of like cardboard cartoony characters where the good guys are just good all the time and the bad guys are just bad all the time, sort of like the Quran or other really crappy literature. So in 1 Kings chapter 21 we see that after the whole incident that we read about this morning there's this situation where Ahab gets fixated on getting Naboth's vineyard and this is something that's kind of a theme in the Bible a lot of places where people can become fixated on the one thing that they don't have. Instead of being thankful for all the things that they do have they just get obsessed or fixated on that one thing that they cannot have and when you look at it as an outsider it's really absurd that someone would get so worked up over something like this because he just really wants to have this little herb garden or he's just on some weird gardening cake or whatever so he's got to have his little herb garden by the palace he just really wants to have Naboth's vineyard to use it for garden of herbs and when he doesn't get it he's sad he's pouty he's laying on his bed with his face up against the wall and just doesn't really want to talk to anybody and there are lots of examples of this in the Bible like for example in the book of Esther where you have Haman and Haman's just obsessed with the fact that Mordecai won't bow down to him he has all this money power authority fame success but it's just this one thing that bothers him or another great example is Amnon King David's son where he just becomes obsessed with his half-sister Tamar and when there's all these women out there that he could be with and obviously as the king's son he could probably have his pick of all kinds of women he just becomes obsessed with this one person that he can't have and of course then once he gets Tamar he doesn't even like her in fact he ends up hating her because these type of obsessions they're not healthy they're not righteous God commands us to be content with such things as we have and we should not fixate on the things that are off limits unto us right God has given us so much it's sort of like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden right you know you can have all the trees of the garden but there's just this one that you can't have and then of course Eve ends up heading over to that one tree that she can't have so we want to make sure that we're not the same way where we just have to have that forbidden fruit that one thing that's off limits let's just be happy with what God has given us and let's choose from the options that God gives us and obviously King Ahab he could have set up his herb garden maybe a little further from the house and maybe got a little exercise on the way walking to it or whatever or just pick a different hobby but he's obsessed with this thing so Jezebel sees him pouting and whining and here's the thing about Jezebel Jezebel is just a super wicked person with no redeeming qualities really but she's married to Ahab who is a horrible person but he's not a reprobate he's not all the way over the edge of just being a lost cause as a human being he's a complex character and so his wicked evil wife Jezebel sees him pouting and upset and she says oh I'll take care of this for you she trumps up these charges against Naboth gets him falsely arrested and accused and has him executed for a crime that he didn't commit just has fake witnesses testify against him in court and has Naboth murdered and then just gets the vineyard hands it over to Ahab and says here you go buddy you have your garden of herbs but because of the wickedness that he did Elijah is going to confront him and talk about how God's judgment is coming upon him for this so it says at the end of verse 13 this is talking about Naboth then they carried him forth out of the city and stoned him with stones that he died so Naboth this innocent godly man ends up being killed so that Ahab can get the herb garden it says in verse 14 then they sent to Jezebel saying Naboth is stoned and is dead and it came to pass when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned and was dead that Jezebel said to Ahab arise take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite which he refused to give thee for money for Naboth is not alive but dead and it came to pass when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite to take possession of it so he's literally just going down there for the first time he's just about to claim what he wanted so bad this vineyard that he was just so obsessed with and God tells Elijah to go meet him there and prophesy against him as he goes to take possession of this vineyard and it says in verse 17 the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying arise go down to meet Ahab king of Israel which is in Samaria behold he's in the vineyard of Naboth whither he's gone down to possess it and thou shalt speak unto him saying dost sayeth the Lord hast thou killed and also taken possession and thou shalt speak unto him saying dost sayeth the Lord in the place where the dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall the shall dogs lick thy blood even thy now here's what's interesting about this is that Jezebel is actually the one who did all of this she did it in Ahab's name but she's the one who wrote the letters hired the false witnesses got Naboth killed and did all that but yet the Lord confronts Ahab with hast thou killed and when you're reading a King James Bible whenever you have the words thee thou thy that is singular whereas ye you your is plural it's really easy to remember if it starts with a T it's singular if it starts with a Y it's plural and a lot of people complain about oh man the King James Bible has these these and now's but in fact it makes the story more understandable because if we're reading one of the modern versions that just uses you for everything we don't know is it singular is a plural we don't know so the nice thing about the King James is that you can tell the difference and so it's interesting that God just homes in on Ahab he doesn't say hey did you guys do this you and your wife Jezebel but rather he says hast thou singular killed to Ahab and also taken possession and then he says and thou shalt speak on him saying thus saith the Lord in the place where the dogs lick the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood and then look at these last words even thine so there's an emphasis on the fact that Ahab personally is going to be punished otherwise why say at the end even thine no no it's you it's you Ahab that's going to be punished you have done this and you're going to suffer for it so the idea here is that he can't hide behind his wife and say oh that was what she did you know I I didn't really want her to do that I mean now she did it I'm going to take the vineyard but you know it wasn't really my idea I didn't think she was going to go that far whatever you see we as husbands we're actually responsible for what our family does as well as far as when they're living in our home obviously if an adult child grows up and leaves the home and they're out doing their own thing you know you can't hold my dad or my mom responsible for the stuff that I do you know as a grown man but here's the thing we as men are supposed to rule our houses though so our wife and our children that are living at home you know we are supposed to rein them in and keep them doing right and keep them under control we can't just let them just do whatever and just say oh that's not me that's them you know it's our job as men to rule our home and as for me and my house we will serve the Lord and so Ahab is held responsible for what his wife did even though there doesn't seem to be any indication in the story that he even necessarily knew that she was doing this let alone planned or participated in it you know it seems like she does it and then tells him about it now we don't know you know did he just kind of sit back and let it happen did he not even know about it at the end of the day though she's doing it in his name she's doing it as his wife it's his job to get his wife under control and so if his wife is out doing these horrible things he ends up being held responsible for the murder of Naboth even though it was his wife who actually carried this out and so God proclaims this judgment that the dogs are going to lick up his blood in the same place where they licked up Naboth's blood and then it says in verse 20 and Ahab said to Elijah has thou found me oh mine enemy now this is Ahab's attitude also in chapter 19 when Elijah confronts him he calls Elijah the troubler of Israel oh you're the one who troubles Israel and then Elijah says no wait a minute you're the one who's troubling Israel with all your whoredoms and the whoredoms of Jezebel and the whoredoms of your father's house you're the problem you see it's not the man of God who confronts you with sin it's not the man of God who preaches against sin that's the problem it's the people that are out doing all the sin that are the problem you know the people that are destroying America today are the people who are promoting wickedness and godlessness not the pastors who stand up against it you say well you're just a troublemaker and and here you are just raising hell and raising Cain no my friend we as pastors are preaching the truth and preaching the Word of God and of course there's a fight of course there's conflict but we did not start the fight or the conflict the Bible says I'm for peace but when I speak they're for war okay they're the ones who create the conflict and you know later on this this Ahab saga doesn't even really fully resolve until much later in the book of second Kings you get into second Kings chapter 9 for example and you've got Jehu the son of Nimshai who is ordained as the or uh what's the word anointed as the king of Israel and Jehu ends up confronting this wicked household of what's left of Ahab's household and they say you know well Jehu is at peace man are you are you for peace man and he says what peace you know as long as the whoredoms of Jezebel and all this wickedness are going on and what does the Bible say there's no peace saith my God to the wicked and so the ones who cause the trouble the ones who cause the conflict are the wicked not the preachers who stand up to them okay and so here he portrays Ahab or I'm sorry Ahab portrays Elijah as an enemy and as a troublemaker and he's troubling Israel but in reality Elijah is doing Ahab a favor by confronting him because we're going to see a little bit later that Ahab actually hearkens to what Elijah preaches and ends up getting right with God and then God actually backs off his punishment a little bit so in reality Elijah is doing him a favor and so realize that when preachers confront you with sin or preach hard against the sin that maybe you're tempted with or involved in they're actually not your enemy don't get mad at them and fight against them don't fight against your parents when your parents try to keep you living a clean Christian life when the pastor tries to keep you living a clean Christian life and warns you about the dangers of sin your parents are not the enemy the pastor is not the enemy they're your friend even if they're getting on your case even if they're rebuking you you know open rebuke is better than secret love and it's better to have someone tell you the truth and rebuke you so you can get right with God before it's too late than for somebody to just tell you what you want to hear and so he says oh has thou found me oh mine enemy and he answered I have found thee because thou has sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the Lord verse 20 behold I will bring evil upon thee and will take away thy posterity and will cut off from Ahab him that pissed against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and of course when he says him that pissed against the wall he's referring to all the men right because there's a difference between the way men use the bathroom and the way that women use the bathroom so when he says I'm going to kill everyone that pissed against the wall he's saying all of the females are not necessarily going to be wiped out but the men will be wiped out and I will make the house I will make thy house verse 22 like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah for the provocation wherewith thou has provoked me to anger and made Israel to sin and of Jezebel also spake the Lord saying the dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat so not only are they going to be killed for their wickedness but they're going to have the dishonor of not being put in graves they're going to be eaten by wild animals which is obviously a dishonor unto them so in verse 25 so this is Elijah preaching to him but then in verse 25 the narrator interrupts here just to give a commentary on the situation so this is not Elijah talking or anything this is just the narrator jumping in and he says but there was none like unto Ahab which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord whom Jezebel his wife stirred up so make no mistake about it Ahab is not an okay guy Ahab is not a good guy Ahab is a horrible person as far as the sins that he committed he's second to none as far as just being very wicked and the Bible says there's none like him which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord so this guy has angered the Lord severely by working an incredible amount of wickedness now for the narrator to interrupt the story here and tell us this it must be important because usually throughout these historical books you don't necessarily always have a lot of commentary coming from the narrator about what's going on a lot of the stories are kind of open for interpretation the Bible just kind of tells us what happened and we're supposed to search the scriptures and kind of figure out who's right who's wrong what's going on and what we can learn from it but this is kind of interesting that the narrator feels the need to jump in and just say wait a minute let me just emphasize to you just how bad this guy is you know lest you think he's not that bad since in chapter 20 he was kind of on the Lord's side there for a minute and since he kind of got sucked into this whole Naboth thing and it wasn't even his idea or whatever lest you go soft on Ahab God is emphasizing to us that Ahab is a super wicked guy and he's second to none as far as just sinning and committing wickedness and committing wickedness in the side of the Lord so he's committing just this incredible amount of sin everybody got that that's important to understand okay he did very abominably so what what specifically is he guilty of he did very abominably in following idols according to all things as did the Amorites whom the Lord cast out before the children of Israel and it came to pass okay so he did a lot of idolatry that's what's angering the Lord but also from the context we know that Jezebel has persecuted the preachers in the land severely and the prophets of God were executed and killed for preaching the truth and if you remember Obadiah had to hide them in a cave and everything to try to protect preachers from being just massacred and wiped out during this time and obviously again this is something that Ahab is responsible for because it's his household it's his regime it's it's his government and she's involved in it but you know at the end of the day the buck stops with him because he's the leader and so there's been a huge persecution of God's people he's following idols so he is committing serious sin to the point where God says nobody like him to work wickedness in the side of the Lord but that's why this is so shocking that in verse 27 it came to pass when Ahab heard those words that he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly it's kind of shocking here that he actually responds to the message because you assume that he's just so wicked he's not even going to listen but yet he does listen and the word of the Lord and this is even more shocking it says the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying seest thou how Ahab humblest himself before me because he humblest himself before me I will not bring the evil in his days but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house so we see God actually backing off his punishment a little bit and showing a little bit of mercy on Ahab simply because Ahab humbled himself so he says look Ahab humbled himself so you know what I'm going to throw Ahab a bone here I'm not going to wipe out his family while he's alive I'm going to wipe out his family after he's gone and actually Ahab is going to receive a proper burial so what's Ahab's reward for humbling himself are there just no consequences for his wicked actions no he still has to face the consequences for his wicked actions he's been super incredibly wicked but the thing that is noteworthy here is that God is showing him any mercy at all when he's that wicked first of all it's noteworthy that he even repented in the first place and that he's even humbling himself and then second it's noteworthy that God accepts that and that God even backs things off a little bit and again it's not that there's not going to be a consequence he's still going to be killed he's still going to be punished the dogs are still going to lick up his blood in Naboth's vineyard but now he's going to get a proper burial and he doesn't have to live to see what's going to happen to his family that's going to happen after he's dead like I said it ends up taking place starting in like second kings chapter nine so it ends up happening in the future long after Ahab is gone now what can we learn from this what's the significance of this the significance is this though there are a few things we can learn first of all humbling yourself goes a long way when it comes to God rebuking you and confronting you with your sin you know if you humble yourself you're going to find mercy okay and if Ahab could get mercy from humbling himself it makes it seem like anybody who humbles themselves can get mercy from God if Ahab can because there's none like him to sell himself to work such wickedness okay the other thing that's interesting here is that Ahab is clearly not a reprobate now there are other men that are described in both the Old and New Testament that are reprobates like for example what about Eli's sons Eli's sons the Bible says are sons of Belial it doesn't say that about Ahab it doesn't say he's a son of the devil he's a son of Belial he's a reprobate no no Eli's sons are sons of Belial when they get preaching and when they get confronted the Bible says well they didn't hearken to the preaching because God would destroy them the Lord would destroy the Lord wanted to destroy them because they were done it was too late for them they're reprobates so what's interesting is that Ahab's not a reprobate now you say to yourself how can it be that Ahab's not a reprobate that he's not a son of Belial when there's none like him who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord here's why because being a reprobate has nothing to do with the magnitude or quantity of sins that you've committed okay this is where a lot of people can get confused and think that oh man somebody who just committed so many sins there's no hope for them it's too late for them that's not true that's absolutely not true because a magnitude or quantity of sinning does not make someone a reprobate we could point to another example in scripture it's not just this one isolated incident with Ahab we could think about King Manasseh and Manasseh is using witchcraft he's literally worshipping Satan and he's murdering his own children and doing all these horrible idolatrous acts but yet he also gets right with God he also ends up doing a complete turnaround and it's just like wow Manasseh really it's it's hard to believe it's incredible this guy's not a reprobate but no because here's the thing in both cases it is not an abundance or seriousness or magnitude of sins that makes one a reprobate it's not like people just commit too many sins and they just make God too mad and God's like that's it I'm done with you I don't care how many sins you've committed what the seriousness of those sins were that doesn't make you a reprobate okay anyone who humbles themselves before the Lord is going to find some degree of mercy now Ahab doesn't really find a whole lot of mercy here he still gets killed in the next chapter but he finds some mercy I mean God receives his humbleness and so anybody can find mercy with the Lord if they humble themselves okay and it's not a bunch of sin or the seriousness of one's sin that makes one a lost cause a son of Belial a reprobate someone for whom it is too late because look there are people in the Bible for whom it is too late in the Old Testament New Testament Romans 1 I mean you know I'm not going to re-preach those sermons but I've done plenty of sermons on what is a reprobate and what the Bible teaches but guess what Ahab's not a reprobate even though his level of sinning is to the max yet he's not a reprobate you say well then what does make someone a reprobate what makes someone a reprobate is rejecting and hating the Lord ultimately okay when they knew God they glorified him not as God and neither were they thankful but they became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened professing themselves to be wise they became fools changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image okay but ultimately what it comes down to is this even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient the reprobate is one who hates the Lord and doesn't even want to retain him in their knowledge it has to do with prideful rejection of the Lord that's just ultimate that's just final just an ultimate proud saying God I want nothing to do with you I'm done and then he says okay well I'm done with you too and Ahab is not at that point you know Ahab is a guy who yes he's super incredibly wicked he's going to suffer for it and he goes down in history as being a wicked man very few preachers would ever preach a sermon with anything positive say about Ahab because most of what the Bible says about him is extremely negative and people aren't naming their child Ahab today I mean I know that character in Moby Dick for some reason his parents named him that or whatever but it's not a popular baby name because he goes down in history as being a wicked person and yet in his heart there was still some openness to the things of God and he had not ultimately rejected the Lord we don't always know whether someone has ultimately rejected the Lord or not because of the fact that we can't see inside their heart now there can be signs though obviously some people are just very open and expressive of their hatred for the Lord and then that can be like okay this guy is probably a reprobate because he's talking about hating the Lord and definitely doesn't want to retain God in his knowledge also in Romans chapter 1 the Bible teaches us that one of the symptoms of being a reprobate is that God gives reprobates over to vile affections and he gives them over to these unnatural lusts men burning with lusts toward other men that's not normal that's not natural even the most sinful wicked people that you know don't have that desire unless they've been given over to a reprobate mind now of course people's minds are so corrupted and confused today with all the junk in our media that now even children and teenagers are being told hey you might be this way and so obviously I understand that kids who get molested and get exposed to all this junk could get confused and have weird mixed up thoughts and feelings and so forth but ultimately the one who is actually burning in their lusts toward the same gender there's something wrong with that person and I'll tell you what's wrong with them is that they've been given over to a reprobate mind because that's not normal it's not natural okay even the most sinful dude that you know yeah he might want to be a whore monger and sleep around with a bunch of women but he doesn't want to be with another dude okay and so that is the sign or the symptom of the reprobate mind when you see these out and proud homos take it to the bank they're reprobates that's how they got that way okay that's not normal okay and so obviously we could look at that outward symptom and say okay man burning with lust toward another man as a reprobate somebody who's just open about their hatred for the Lord is a reprobate but a high level of sinning even to a habs levels does not make one a reprobate a hab is not a reprobate and that's important to understand because a lot of people will will get confused on this or mix this up or accuse us of believing things that that we don't believe like they'll try to say well you're saying that you know there are certain sins that Jesus won't forgive or you're saying that Jesus didn't die for everybody's sins or that Jesus didn't pay for certain things that that's not what we're saying of course not or oh you're saying that there are certain sins you know personally folks it's not the sinful act of being a sodomite that made that person a reprobate it's it's being a sodomites is a symptom of something that already happened in their heart where they became a reprobate they're not a reprobate because they're a sodomite they're sodomite because they're a reprobate it's that simple it's not that hard to understand it's just that normal people don't go down that road normal people don't feel that way normal people don't have those type of compulsions that the the wicked sodomites of this world have and so what we see here is that if you humble yourself God's going to accept you but here's the thing about the reprobate what characterizes the reprobate well let's ask the reprobate let's ask the sodomites what their favorite adjective is uh or what it's proud isn't that how they describe themselves oh you know like the billboard that's up in phoenix you know anderson cooper you know i'm gay and i couldn't be any possibly any more proud well isn't that the exact opposite of what ahab's doing in this passage so you say well who's done more wickedness you know anderson cooper or ahab well here's the thing it doesn't really matter even if ahab had done more wickedness than anderson cooper which is probably unlikely but let's say that he had that's not even the point that's not the point the point is that one guy is lifted up in pride and hates the lord another guy humbles himself to the voice of the lord that is the colossal difference and so that's why this month which is a month celebrating sodomites is literally called pride month you say why are you preaching about this well we're literally our country has has declared this to be pride month so i'm preaching about humility and and what a powerful message when you think about the fact that ahab who sold himself to work wickedness inside the lord there's none like him found mercy through humility isn't that powerful truth in the word of god and this is an extreme example i believe god gives us these extreme examples just to show us how serious he is about this like for example the apostle paul you know he says well jesus christ came to this world to save sinners of whom i'm chief and so if he can save the chief he'll have no trouble saving the indians as the saying goes and so the idea is that he uses this extreme example and the apostle paul said that i obtain mercy that in me first he might show forth he's going to show it as a pattern and as an example unto those that afterward would believe unto righteousness when they see the apostle paul and say well here's a guy who literally persecuted christians in fact he literally was responsible for sending christians to their death okay and so he's responsible for sending them to their death and you say man talk about working wickedness in the sight of the lord but was the apostle paul reprobate no he said i did it ignorantly in unbelief he didn't hate and ultimately reject the lord in his heart he thought he was doing god's service you know jesus christ prophesied to his disciples while he was on this earth he said yea the time cometh when he that killeth you will think that he do with god's service and so that was the apostle paul in paul's warped mind he actually thought he was serving god by persecuting christians and jesus confronted him on the road to damascus said paul paul or saul saul why persecute is thou me he says you know if you persecute my people you're persecuting me he's like you're persecuting me and of course that's when paul humbled himself and received mercy from the lord and so this pride month is the exact opposite of that it's a celebration of being stiff necked and hard-hearted is what that is and the bible says he that being often reproved hardened at his neck shall suddenly be destroyed and that without remedy and so those who are hard-hearted stiff necked prideful not receptive to any kind of correction from the lord they're doomed whereas no matter how bad you've been in your life you can always find mercy with the lord you know don't ever get to the point in your life where you feel like you know i've just committed too many sins it's just too late for me to come back to church it's too late for me to make things right with my parents it's too late for me to get right with god you know don't ever think that because here's the thing if it were if it were truly too late for you first of all if you're saved it's never too late for you okay but let's say an unsaved person let's say an unsafe person it really were too late for them here's the thing they would not humble themselves they would not be coming because they would have this hard-hearted arrogant prideful attitude that comes with being a reprobate that's part of the reprobate mind is that hardness of heart that will not humble themselves to the word of god and so if anybody is like the prodigal sign where they kind of think to themselves you know what i'm going to humble myself i'm going to come home you know they should never think well it's too late for me i've gone too far because if you'd gone too far you wouldn't be thinking that way you wouldn't be desiring to come home you wouldn't be desiring to make things right that's the proof that you haven't gone too far and so no matter how many sins you've committed no matter how wicked you get in your life don't ever get to the place where you think i've gone too far i can never come home again i can never get right with the lord i can never fix things because if you humble yourself you can find mercy not to say you're not going to suffer for what you've done i mean like i said ahab in the next chapter is going to get shot but if he hadn't humbled himself it would be even worse he would have died a worse death and he would have had to see his whole family get wiped out and stuff and here's the thing it's questionable you know is ahab in heaven did ahab get saved did ahab believe on the lord you know i don't think the bible is clear on that i don't think you could necessarily get up and just say like this guy was for sure not saved i don't think we could say that he is saved but you know what i wouldn't be super duper shocked to get to heaven and see ahab there okay you know i i for sure believe manasseh is going to be there i don't think there's any question about that but i wouldn't be super shocked to get there and find ahab one of the worst kings of israel one of the most wicked sinful people because jesus christ came to this world to save sinners and if paul said i'm the chief of sinners and paul did similar things to what ahab did who knows and again i'm not saying he's saved but you can't say that he's not we don't know and so when you look at this scripture it's pretty remarkable to see someone of this magnitude of sinfulness humbling himself and getting right with god and so don't think that it's too late now now look again there are some people for whom it is too late and you know what it's the pride crowd you know because that is something that you just it's a deal breaker with god you know everyone that is proud of heart is an abomination to the lord and you know i can't emphasize enough how pride is that destructive sin that ends up taking the most people to hell because think about it we go out soul winning and we give people the gospel we're telling them to accept a free gift jesus paid it all now of course there are those people who just say oh i don't i reject the bible i reject jesus i reject the lord i don't believe in god i think i'm just a you know a monkey or whatever a hairless monkey that you know stands on his hind legs or whatever but but here's the thing about that is that the majority of unsaved people that we run into in the united states what do they say i mean they'll claim like oh yeah i'm a christian but they then you ask them why they're going to heaven it's all about they live a good life they're doing good works they don't sin they help people they rescue animals or whatever they list to you all of their good deeds and all of their credentials for why they're going to have sometimes they don't even mention jesus yes like why are you going to heaven jesus doesn't even come into the picture even though they just finished telling you they're christian all the reasons that they're going to heaven have to do with their good deeds and keeping commandments and so forth and so what is that that's pride instead of humbling themselves and just realizing that they have nothing to offer god and that they are sinners totally incapable of saving themselves totally incapable of earning their way to heaven or getting into heaven on their own merits and just humbling themselves and accepting that free gift it's pride that says well you can't just live however you want you know i was out soul winning the other day and we went on to this this person's uh front yard to knock on their door and it was the filthiest mess i've ever seen in my life it was disgusting like there was just all kinds of just rotten food and trash it was one of those ones it was just it was like disgusting to even be there there's just so much just filth and rot and mess all over this front yard it was just horrible and i knock on the door and this lady comes to the door and i think it was actually my silent partner that was doing the talking but whichever one of us was talking to this lady i mean she pretty much just said hey you gotta you gotta keep the commandments she said she's going to heaven because she lives a good life and i'm thinking to myself like like this is not a good life you know because i really doubt that you're this godly upstanding person and you're living in this level of filth you know because it's like you're you know you're supposed to be a keeper at home you're supposed to be a homemaker you're supposed to be guiding the house as a wife and as a mother i mean that's what the bible says and if you're just living in filth and this i mean this was extreme this wasn't just a you know hey she's having a rough day this was like stuff's been rotting for weeks or months i mean this was like this was just a perpetual state of decay and rot and it's just so ironic that this woman's going to sit there and tell us how she's going to heaven because she's keeping the commandments and and and it's like well you know i mean i didn't say anything obviously because it's you know that's not the message we're out there to preach we're not out there to preach that the gospel of cleanliness but you know we just we we tried to just show her hey it's a free gift it's faith alone but it's just it's just bizarre to me like come on really like you're going to tell us how righteous and godly you are while you're living in your own filth you know god wants us to be clean and be respectful of the body our bodies the temple and keep the house guide the house i mean come on how many verses do i do i need to to pull out it's kind of obvious that that's not the will of god for a woman to be running her house that way i mean if i went to my work and just did a horrible job people wouldn't say that i was right with god because the bible tells me to be zealous about my job well you know what obviously women need to be a little bit zealous about their job when they're just living in just utter decay and filth obviously that's not right but yet this prideful attitude said hey i'm i'm going to heaven because i'm such a good person and it's like they can't see but you know here's the thing about that is that our sins always look worse on other people than they look on us you know it's easy sometimes like this lady she could talk about all the sinful people that are going straight to hell but she's good to go but it's like she can't see what's right in front of her well here's the thing sometimes we could all be the same way where we have sin maybe that's less obvious because it's not rotting in our front yard but we all have sins in our lives and if we're actually humble before god we have a tender heart to those things and we realize those things and we are sensitive to the the the word of god or preaching or or even just you know we do something wrong it's like when david cut off a little bit of saul's garment that was pretty minor you know seeing the fact that saul is seeking to kill him all he does is just cut cut the guy's clothes a little bit what's the big deal but yet david's heart smote him even just for messing with saul's clothing because like oh man i shouldn't be messing with the lord's anointed i shouldn't be touching the lord's anointed i mean that's a guy who is a humble guy who's not just looking to always justify himself and and talk about how great he is no no he even notices the little sins in his life like oh man i shouldn't have cut that i shouldn't have done that that's why he's a man after god's own heart and so we as christians obviously we're not going to go down the road that this that this reprobate pride month is promoting because the fact that once we're saved we're always saved and there's nothing we can do to lose our salvation nothing can separate us with from the love of god which is in christ jesus our lord and he'll never leave us or forsake us and so we're never going to be these godforsaken reprobates that this month is all about promoting okay but couldn't we as christians still be infected with pride or sin the sin of being proud of course we could still be proud we're never going to be as prideful as they are but we could still fall into this trap of being pride and in fact during a month like this it could be easy to get prideful because we could start to overlook the sin in our own life and say well you know what i mean at least i'm not as bad as these people and that could kind of make us feel better about ourselves when we start looking around at the reprobates of this world but that's not what we need to be doing we need to be striving for excellence in our walk with god we need to be comparing ourselves to the word of god and staying humble and and honestly one of the damaging things about our society is that the sin and the filth has gotten so extreme that it can start to make other run-of-the-mill sins seem like they're not that bad you know like you hear about people fornicating and you're like well at least at least they're straight you know at least they're both you know uh consenting adults that are a male and a female but here's the thing fornication is super wicked we don't want to start thinking like oh well i mean at least it's just normal garden variety fornication and not some horrific deviant perversion you see how you know the devil could move the goalposts and then you could find christians living in sin kind of justifying themselves like well i'm not like that i'm not like these people at least i'm not as bad as those people so we don't want to fall into the trap of becoming prideful during pride month and saying like oh these evil filthy sodomites but hey you know we're doing pretty good aren't we no no we need to stay humble during pride month why don't we as christians take the month of june every year and make it a a month where we emphasize humility and think about being humble in our own personal lives and and what if i told you you could do this without sharing it on social media you know which is called humble bragging you know where people just like to be so open and you know what some of the biggest phony judas iscariots and flatterers and reprobates and sycophants that i've known over the years they always love to brag about how humble they are which is kind of ironic bragging about humble you are but they're always publicly just putting on the show of how humble they are and stuff i'm not talking about some public humility fest in june i'm not saying to get a t-shirt or a hat about it we don't need a logo for this my friend i'm just saying why don't you in your personal life whenever you're confronted with this pride garbage why don't you take it as a reminder to say well i don't want to go down that road i know i could never go down that road all the way but i don't even want to go down the road of pride even a little bit i don't even want to be a proud child of god i don't even want to be a little bit prideful because pride leads to sin and it leads to god's severe chastening in our lives because he shows grace to the humble he resists the proud and he gives grace to the humble and so this month maybe just every time you're confronted with those things why don't you just think to yourself you know what i need to be humble like and why don't you just get on your knees and just start confessing your sins to god and being like you know what god here's an area that i'm sitting in here's an area i need to work on i'm sorry god help me to do better why don't you just drop to your knees and just start acknowledging your faults to god and just acknowledging your own sins to god and just being humble and just thanking god for his mercy and grace that he allows you to live such a great life in spite of all the mistakes that you've made in spite of all the sins and just get on your knees and just say god thank you so much for dealing with me lighter than my transgressions over the years have deserved and you've allowed me to live a good christian life and and please lord you know uh overlook this and that i'm sorry and i've done this and acknowledge things and be like david where you're tender to these things and you say well i just don't even know what i would confess you know what i mean i mean it's just like i don't even know where to start because i'm just kind of doing what i'm supposed to be done well you know what you're way out of line because i promise you that you're not perfect and that there are things that you could drop to your knees and confess right now and there are things that you could confess to the lord right now and if you're saying well nothing's coming to mind maybe you need to get a little more tender to these things okay this month is a wicked month but you know take what they meant for evil and use it for something good right and let me let me just say to you that this month promoting the worst deviancy and wickedness you know it's an abomination to god it's it's really it's a slap in the face unto our lord jesus christ it is super offensive to heaven but it's also super offensive unto us as christians it should be we should be super ultra offended by this month because it's just it's so wrong it's so godless on so many levels and don't ever sympathize with these people don't ever start to think to yourself like well you know pastor anderson and then you know and then and then start getting like soft on these people okay i mean i literally i went on my computer on june first and i don't remember if i was on youtube or what but i went on some site it was probably youtube and i kid you not on june 1st this was like my initiation into this horrific month because i forgot that it was happening this little thing pops up in the sidebar it's like hey are you a faggot take this test to find out no that's not the word it used that's the word i'm using it's so funny when i say these things sometimes people are like wow i really use that word i'm like you gotta translate i'm putting this into pastor anderson speak but it literally said like are you a faggot take the quiz to find out folks this is what they're doing to our kids in school today and this is what they're doing you know kids are on youtube kids are on social media kids are in school and here's what they're telling them oh maybe this is you here take this quiz and they're trying to mess with the minds of our young people and confuse them and warp their minds and pervert their minds it's horrible you know those of us that are older obviously we're big and ugly enough to take care of ourselves in this world and we see that quiz and we curse them in the name of the lord and we just close that window and move on to something else but here's the thing about that though what about the unstable souls that are out there what about the young what about children teenagers people that are susceptible people that aren't saved so they're susceptible to this kind of stuff people that are young children and they don't even understand these things and they're confused by this junk if you get mad at people like me and people like pastor shelly and and other pastors that are standing up to these things if you get mad at us i mean sorry but you're not right with god if you're mad at me for getting mad at these people that are just screwing with our kids minds you're not right with god and i'm you know i i make no bones about saying it and it's not because i'm anything it's not because he's anything it's because we are men of god getting up and preaching the bible to you about this disgusting sin okay and and and right now like like the fact that you're not mad about that quiz being popping up on a 12 year olds or a 10 year olds or an eight year olds computer screen the fact that you're not mad about that tells me that you're either a wicked piece of trash or a complete idiot or i don't know what i don't know what to do with you at this point you know if if that doesn't bother you that that but you know it's like that thing comes on the screen and a child could see that and have their mind corrupted you know i thank god that i grew up in a time when this wasn't even a thing you know what i mean i tell my kids about i'm like that old man from the pepperidge farm meme and i'm telling my kids like you know back in my day and i'm only 40 years old i'm 40 years old here's what i tell my kids i tell my kids i say did you know that the first time i saw an open sodomite in my life i was 17 years old and i mean i guarantee you people that are my age and older would say the same thing the first time i ever saw a sodomite in my life i was 15 because someone told me that guy's actually a homo but he acted and looked completely normal the first time i saw someone that was openly a sodomite i was 17 years old and i lived in sacramento california okay i didn't grow up in some small town or the bible belt i grew up in a city with two million people sacramento california okay and i was 17 years old the first time i actually was confronted in real life with someone who was a homo clearly i was 17 years old now that's probably kind of mind-blowing to you young people right it's like what are you serious folks that was not that long ago okay i was 17 years old in 1998 and 1999 okay so in 1998 and 1999 this was a rare beast okay as far as seeing this and knowing that that's what it is and think about it i wasn't living a sheltered life folks i'm spending the whole summer i'm riding my bike i'm playing i'm going with my friends here and there i mean hey when i was a teenager you know like teenagers do i'd go with my friends and we'd be at the mall for hours just walking around the mall and everything i mean it's not that we were sheltered my friend we walked around the mall for four or five hours in california and there was nary a sodomite to be found okay because that was a different world back then and it was 23 years ago okay and so i'm telling you this country is on a bobsled to hell okay and you may not see it you may not understand it but getting mad at me getting mad at other preachers i mean let's say that let's say that i preach a little too hard about it so what get over it you big baby you whining little sniveling brat who cares well i'm just saying pastor man has what a little so what first of all i don't i'm for all these guys you know the dylan aus uh pastor shelly's uh assistant whose clip is going viral you know my name is stephen anderson and i approve that message whatever dylan aus preached in that clip that i saw i thought it was awesome i thought it was great you know i was really proud of him you know it brought tears to my eyes no i'm just kidding but anyway you know i looked at that and i just thought you know what a great guy what a great guy thank god and then i watched him going into the city council who saw the videos where where those guys from sebast are marching into the city council and like rebuking the mayor and like uh speaking against the homo's i mean they went into the belly of the beast and they're speaking out in the government halls and everything and i was just like this is great praise the lord this is awesome these guys are doing great things you know and saying oh i just think that they're just not very loving you're an idiot so what first of all they are loving they love children they love america they love the things of god they love righteousness and they hate iniquity that's what's going on but to get angry at the men of god oh have you found me my enemy okay it's a good thing that ahab got rid of that stupid attitude and put some sackcloth on and quit seeing elijah as his enemy and realizing wait a minute i need to listen to what elijah is saying and so if if ahab can humble himself and find mercy with the lord you know what that shows that there's hope for anyone who's willing to humble themselves but there's no hope for people that are filled with pride okay that is the deal breaker and so as a christian if you start getting prideful just expect god to cloud up and rain on you and if you're unsaved get saved immediately get saved before it's eternally too late now is the accepted time now is the day of salvation if you're not sure if you're saved if you know if you have not actually made the decision in your own heart to believe on the lord jesus christ as your savior you know you need to call upon the name of the lord and be saved and get that settled right away but but man if you're not saved and you go down this this this road of pride you know you're headed down a really dark path that could lead you to horrific places and if you are saved if you get prideful you're going to be in store for some you're going to have some serious chastening from god in store but the encouraging thing about this message is that god gives us this extreme example showing us that you can always humble yourself and find mercy from god even if you're like the worst guy ahab so even if you go out and do horrible things you can always come back if you'll humble yourself that's encouraging and also realize that maybe if you know someone who's super wicked don't just jump to the conclusion that they're a reprobate just because they're super wicked because ahab is super wicked manasseh super wicked abundance of sand doesn't make one a reprobate does it what makes someone a reprobate is hating the lord now if someone's an open sodomite yeah they're a reprobate romans one but just because somebody does a lot of sins doesn't make them reprobate you don't see the apostle paul being a sodomite before he got saved you don't see manasseh being a sodomite before he got saved you don't see ahab being a sodomite before he possibly got saved right couldn't the bible have said that if it wanted to couldn't the bible have included some stories like that if it wanted to but it didn't because they don't exist and so i encourage you tonight make this humility month this is not hashtag humility this is actually you being humbled by yourself alone between you and the lord not bragging about how humble you are but just you know when when you see this junk you don't need to make a public show of hey i'm doing what pastor aniston said right now you know i'm seeing the rainbow and i'm ready to no no why don't you just in your heart just see this stuff and just take a moment and confess your sins to god and just thank god for being so merciful to you and just keep a tender humble heart before god this month you know that's what i've been thinking about over the last week that's what i've been thinking about in my personal life is just like you know what let's turn this around and turn it into humility right i mean it's just it's just a better attitude to have because honestly you know i don't obviously this stuff gets me mad and i get up and preach about it and and and blow off a little steam a few times a week you know and get this stuff off my chest about about this month but honestly i don't i don't want to be an angry person from day to day and so yeah when i see that stuff i yell at the computer screen and whatever and i get up three times a week and yell about it sometimes but day to day i'd rather focus on something more positive and wholesome you know whatsoever things are true honest just pure lovely good report i'd rather think on those things and so that's why i'd rather take this month and instead of just making it like a like a hate month rage month you know i'd rather kind of just focus on how i can be the opposite of these people and so how can i be the opposite of these people it's by being humble that's how i could be the opposite of them and so that's one way to fight back in your own heart let's buy example word of prayer lord we thank you so much for all that you've done to us and thank you that you are so merciful to us lord and that you don't punish us as harshly as we deserve and you your mercies are new every morning great is your faithfulness lord and help us to realize that if ahab could humble himself and and get just a little bit of mercy lord that that humility must be very powerful if it even works for the most rotten guy short of being a reprobate he's as rotten as you could get and yet he found mercy lord help us to be humble every single day and in jesus name we pray amen