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

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hymn number 429 will begin this morning. Hymn number 429. Hark the herald angels sing. Hymn number 429. Once you've found your place, sing it out on that first. 429. Let's sing it out. 429. Ready. Let us recognize. Joyful all ye nations find. Join the triumph of the skies. We're with the telecos from plain. Christ is born in Bethlehem. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Light my highest heaven adored. Christ the everlasting Lord. Late in time the open door. Offspring of a virgin's gleam. Hail in flesh the God and King. Hail in heart and unity. With the man with man to dwell. Jesus, our Emmanuel. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Hail the heaven, the prince of kings. Hail the son of righteousness. Light and light to all he brings. Rest with him in his wings. Mildly lays his glory by. Born that man, no more may die. Born to raise the sons of earth. Born to give the second birth. Hark the herald angels sing. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. On these isle of nations come. Facing us, light of old home. Rise of all its concrete sea. Cruising us, the serpent's head. Adam's wife is now in base. And by image in its place. Second Adam from above. Free in status in thy love. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Let's sing it out. All that first verse together. Him number 428. It came along the land. I'm glad that glorious song of old. From angels landing near the earth. To touch their hearts of gold. Peace on the earth. And will to men. Protect all gracious King. The world is all a sin of its way. To hear the angels sing. Till through the golden skies. They come. For all the weary world. Above these sad and lonely plains. They then on the green wing. And ever on a battle sound. The blessed angels sing. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. two days from now 5 30 p.m. we'll meet right here we'll get organized into groups of about 20 or so people make sure we have a nice big group so that if you're not a big singer don't worry about it you can sort of just fade to the back we'll make sure that we have some strong singers leading each group and want to make sure everybody can participate we'll go door-to-door Christmas caroling for about one hour no more than that and then come back here for some hot cocoa and cookies and then speaking of cookies on December 24th we will have our normal church services as always Sunday morning 1030 Sunday night at 6 but we will also have the cookie bake-off that day at 4 30 p.m. so if you'd like to compete in that you can bake up those batches of cookies the categories that you can win are best tasting best-looking and most festive and then below that there's going to be a wedding reception on Sunday January 7th for my son Solomon and Chloe Miller that he's marrying the day before and so Sunday 4 o'clock January 7th everybody's invited but if you could please RSVP that would be helpful so that we can know how many people to prepare for with food and dessert be sure that when you RSVP include the number of people in your group on the back the preaching class starts up again on Tuesday January 2nd any man who goes soul winning is eligible to participate and if you come please prepare a five-minute sermon because no spectators are allowed brother say Gora is the one to talk to if you have any questions about that and then with soul winning yesterday part of the small town soul winning program in Roosevelt and Tonto Basin we had seven soul winners and four salvations keep praying for the expectant ladies in our church that they will have a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery and then other upcoming events are listed there that's about it for announcements let's go ahead and sing our next song come lead us all right you should find the insert in the front of your hymnal with the two songs we'll start with Oh come Oh come Emmanuel if you don't have an insert please raise your hand and we'll sing it to get on that first oh come oh come Emmanuel Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh Oh And then excellent singing everybody let's turn that sheet over we'll sing together God rest ye merry gentlemen God rest ye merry gentlemen Oh Save us all from Satan's power when we were gone astray From God Oh Oh Oh All right this time we'll pass to offering plates around as the plates go around let's turn our Bibles to first Kings chapter number 13 first Kings chapter number 13 as We always do we'll read the entire chapter beginning in verse number 1 1st Kings chapter 13 follow along silently with brother Nick as he reads 1st Kings chapter 13 the Bible reads and behold there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense and he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord and said Oh Altar Altar thus saith the Lord behold a child shall be born under the house of David Josiah by name and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee and Men's bones shall be burnt upon thee and he gave a sign the same day saying This is the sign which the Lord hath spoken Behold the altar shall be rent and the ashes that are opponent shall be poured out and it came to pass When King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God which had cried against the altar in Bethel that he put forth his hand from the altar saying lay hold on him and His hand which he put forth against him dried up so that he could not pull it in again to him The altar also was rent and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the men of God had given by the word of the Lord and The king answered and said unto the man of God entreat now the face of the Lord thy God and pray for me that my hand may be restored me again and the man of God besought the Lord and the king's hand was restored him again and became as it was before and the king said unto the man of God come home with me and refresh thyself and I will give thee a reward and The man of God said unto the king if thou will give me half thine house I will not go in with thee neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place For so was it charged me by the word of the Lord saying eat no bread nor drink water nor turn again by the same Way that thou camest so he went another way and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God Had done that day in Bethel the words which he had spoken under the king them They told also to their father and their father said unto them what way went he for his sons had seen what way the man of God went which came from Judah and He said unto his son saddle me the ass so they saddled him the ass and he rode there on and went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak and He said unto him art thou the man of God that came as from Judah and he said I am Then he said unto him come home with me and eat bread and he said I May not return with thee nor go in with thee neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place What was said to me by the word of the Lord thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there Nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest He said unto him I am a prophet also as thou are and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord saying Bring him back with thee into thine house that he may eat bread and drink water But he lied unto him So he went back with him and did eat bread in his house and drank water and it came to pass as They sat at the table that the word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back and he cried under the man of God that came from Judah saying thus saith the Lord for as much as thou hast Disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and has not kept the commandment which the Lord thy God Commanded thee but came us back and has eaten bread and drunk water in the place of the which the Lord did say to thee Eat no bread and drink no water Thy carcass shall not come under the sepulcher of thy fathers And it came to pass after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk that he saddled for him the ass to wit For the prophet whom he had brought back and when he was gone a lion met him by the way and slew him and his Carcass was cast in the way and the ass stood by it. The lion also stood by the carcass and behold men passed by and saw the carcass cast in the way and the lion standing by the carcass and they came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt and when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof He said it is the man of God who was disobedient under the word of the Lord Therefore the Lord hath delivered him unto the lion which hath torn him and slain him according to the word of the Lord Which he spake unto him and he spake to his son saying saddle me the ass and they saddled him and He went and found his carcass cast in the way and the ass and the lion standing by the carcass the lion had not eaten the carcass nor torn the ass and the prophet took up the carcass of the man of God and laid it upon the ass and brought it back and the old prophet came to the city to mourn and to bury him and He laid his carcass in his own grave and they mourned over him saying alas my brother And it came to pass after he had buried him that he spake to his son saying when I am dead then bury me in The sepulcher wherein the man of God is buried lay my bones beside his bones For the same which he cried by the word of the Lord against the author in Bethel and against all the houses of the high Places which are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places whosoever would he consecrated him and he became one of the priests of the high places and this thing became sin under the house of Jeroboam even to Cut it off and to destroy it from off the face of the earth Father in heaven, thank you for your son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit as well in the Bible and thank you for faith for Baptist Church I pray that you please bless Pastor Anderson with the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit as he preaches your word So that we your children would continue to grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Savior Jesus Christ in Jesus Christ name I pray amen man first Kings chapter 13 We have this story about Jeroboam the son of Nebat being confronted by this unnamed prophet And this story really centers on one of the most significant events in the Old Testament when it comes to this time of the kings of Israel and it's something that's referred to Over and over and over again and it's known as the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat So Jeroboam is a very significant character because just to back up a little bit to chapter 12 He actually starts a false religion that ends up just persisting for centuries in Israel if you would just back up to chapter 12 and verse number 26 for a moment We'll give a little bit of background to the story in chapter 13. It says in verse 26 Jeroboam said in his heart Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David if this people go up to sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem Now what is he talking about here? He's talking about the fact that Solomon had been the last king who had reigned over the whole Kingdom of Israel all Twelve tribes and because of Solomon's sins God is going to take the kingdom away from the house of David But he leaves one tribe with David so that he can keep his promise to David so now you have the northern kingdom of Israel and then you have the southern kingdom of Judah okay, so Jeroboam is the one who becomes king over that northern kingdom of Israel He's ruling over those ten tribes to the north, and then you've got Rehoboam ruling over Judah in the south and so what Jeroboam says here in this passage that we just looked at is that He's thinking to himself if people are worshiping God in Jerusalem if they travel down to that southern kingdom To worship the Lord three times a year which God had explicitly commanded them to do He said you have to go to Jerusalem you have to go to the house of God three times a year to worship the Lord He's thinking you know if they go down there And then they're hanging around the southern kingdom people and they're seeing the king of Judah and his court and the house of God And they're gonna start maybe thinking hey, we need to be united we need to be one nation Why did we break off in the first place and so he's afraid that if they go down there Then he's gonna lose his power and so if you look back down at your Bible there in verse 25 It says or sorry verse 27 if this people go up to do sacrifice in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem then shall the heart of this people turn again unto their Lord even unto Rehoboam king of Judah and they shall kill me and Go again to Rehoboam king of Judah verse 28 whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and Said to them it's too much for you to go up to Jerusalem behold thy gods O Israel which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt So he creates these golden calves, and he tries to create a religion That still is based on worshipping Jehovah and still has a lot of similarities with What the Bible actually teaches But it mixes in an element of idolatry and it has nothing to do with Jerusalem and so he can keep people geographically separated and create a wall of separation between the two kingdoms and so he puts one of these golden calves in Dan which is at the extreme north of the kingdom and the reason why is because remember What's his whole selling point on this religion? It's too far for you to go to Jerusalem God doesn't expect you to go that far and so therefore if he just makes one golden calf people might think like hey You know, this is still kind of far So he says well, I'm gonna put one in the extreme north one in the extreme south And then you know, these are your gods that brought you out of the land of Egypt You don't have to go all the way to Jerusalem You can worship God by bowing down to this statue of a golden cow, right? Like what does that have to do with God? But false religion mixes truth with lies and So why did he pick Dan and Bethel well because they're the geographic extremes Bethel is to the south Dan's to the north also because the word Bethel literally means house of God So this is an easy selling point to people he can tell people hey if you go back to the Hebrew You know Bethel is the house of God It's not Jerusalem and so he can get him to go there and then Dan Had already had a history of idolatry all the way back to the early period of the judges they're already Worshipping idols and so that's easy to get them over to this particular idol And so Jeroboam does this and says hey, it's too far to go to Jerusalem And by the way, don't let the devil convince you that it's too far to go to a good church Right. It's worth the drive. It's worth the trip to go to an actual house of God Not just necessarily well, I'm just gonna go to whatever church is down the street now sometimes it's worth the trip to get true biblical preaching and Of course the devil wants you to think that everything that God asks you to do is too hard Right because the Christian life is just too hard Following God's commandments are too hard going to church every week. It's too hard reading the Bible is too hard Oh, well, God forbid you do anything hard Right God expects us sometimes to do some hard things and we ought to make Sacrifices for God and be willing to push ourselves a little bit in our service for God and not only be willing to serve God When it's super convenient or super easy or just right there So that's sort of the background for this story Jeroboam has set up this false religion and now he's being confronted by a prophet in Chapter 13 look at verse number 1 of chapter 13 be old there came a man of God we don't know his name, but there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense and he cried against the altar in the word of the Lord and said Altar altar thus saith the Lord Behold a child shall be born into the house of David Josiah by name and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee and man's bones shall be burnt upon thee so he comes and confronts Jeroboam about his false religion and He cries out against the altar that Jeroboam has built in Bethel And he says this altar is going to be desecrated by a great man of God someday His name's gonna be Josiah and he is going to desecrate the corpses of the false prophets He's gonna burn their bones on this altar. He's gonna defile this wicked abominable place and He gave a sign verse 3 the same day saying this is the sign which the Lord had spoken Behold the altar shall be rent rent means torn in half broken in half and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out and it came to pass when King Jeroboam Heard the saying of the man of God which he cried against the altar in Bethel And he put forth this hand from the altar saying lay hold on him, right? So he he hears the preaching against him and instead of Feeling bad about it repenting getting right with God. He points at him and says basically put him under arrest and when he does that when he sticks out his hand to To call for this man's arrest. It says that the hand he put forth against him dried up Again, so that he couldn't or sorry dried up so that he could not pull it in again to him So basically like he stuck out his hand and he became like one of those Hindus Who held their arm up for too long and it just kind of got stuck that way, you know It's funny because your you know Your parents will tell you like hey don't make that weird face because your face might get stuck that way Did anybody ever tell you that when you're a little kid, you know what Hinduism has proven that to be true Because Hindus have literally gotten in weird poses and they've literally got stuck that way and so mom was right So listen to mom if if you don't take anything else out of this sermon Don't make weird faces or get into weird positions because you will get stuck that way and if you don't believe that Then you can watch our documentary the truth about Hinduism and you'll see a guy who got stuck that way. All right But that's way but this happened a lot faster. He just holds his finger out and he just boom. He's a Hindu He's stuck that way. Okay And so Obviously the king is really upset and so the altar does break in half as the man of God prophesied So God performs two miracles here miracle number one Jeroboam's hand spazzes out and gets stuck in a weird position dries up and and withers and then number two is That the altar breaks in half. This is some kind of an earthquake or something where the altar breaks in half The king answered unto the man of God verse 6 is where we are entreat now the face of the Lord thy God and pray for me that my hand may be restored me again and The man of God besought the Lord and the king's hand was restored him again and became as it was before So he he shows mercy on Jeroboam Jeroboam says, I'm sorry. Just please fix my hand. You're not under arrest and so then he prays for him his arm goes back to normal and the king said in the man of God verse 7 come home with me and Refresh thyself and I will give thee a reward, you know, because I know you're the one who screwed up my hand But I appreciate you helping fix it And it says in verse number 8 and the man of God said unto the king if thou wilt give me half thine house I will not go in with thee neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place for so was it charged me by the word of the Lord saying eat no Bread nor drink water nor turn again by the same way that thou camest So he went another way and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel now so far This man of God seems like a great guy. I Mean what a powerful man about he boldly preaches the Word of God Even to the king of Israel's face when he preaches there's power in his preaching God actually performs a miracle Breaks the altar in half not only that when Jeroboam Gets injured and and prays for help because God has injured his hand and withered it up on the spot Well, then this man of God shows compassion on him and actually he doesn't just say well nuts to you man I hope your arm is always stuck that way because you you know, you've caused Israel to sin, you know, he's he's forgiving He's trying to give the king a chance to do right He is actually praying for him and he's got compassion for him So, I mean this this man of God has a lot going for him, right and then when he's offered money and he's offered You know a chance to go be with the king and eat and drink and be wined and dined He turns it down because he said well God told me not to do that. So this guy's not in it for the wrong reasons He's not in it for fame. He's not in it for glory He's not one who would disobey God's Word to make somebody else happy. He's being faithful. He's got a good attitude He's compassionate. I mean this guy is doing great and if the story ended here, it'd be a pretty simple story But here's where the story starts to get really weird, okay In verse number 11, it says now there dwelled an old prophet in Bethel and His sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel The words which he had spoken unto the king whom they told also their father now Let's think about this old prophet for a little bit. First of all, he's living in Bethel But yet you don't have any record of him preaching against Jeroboam or confronting Jeroboam or anything like that So what's this guy doing? You know He seems to be just some old guy Who's just sitting on the sidelines and he hears about the great works that this young man of God is doing verse verse 12 their father said unto them Alright, I'm sorry So so basically they told their father all about the works These two sons were there and they heard the words and then they come and tell their dad at verse 12 and their father said unto them what way went he for his sons had seen what way the man of God went which came from Judah and He said unto his sons saddle me the ass so they saddled them him the ass and he rode there on and Went after the man of God and found him sitting under an oak and he said to them art thou the man of God that Came us from Judah and he said I am so the sons tell this story Oh, man, you wouldn't believe what happened today you know Jeroboam was confronted by this powerful man of God out of Judah and The altar broke and and all this and he says well, you know, which way did he go? I want to catch up to him I want to go talk to that guy this old prophet wants to go talk to the the young guy who was preaching he catches up to him finds him under the oak tree identifies him and he says in verse number 15 and This is the old man speaking the old prophet he said in him come home with me and eat bread and He said I may not return with thee nor go in with thee Neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place for it was said to me by the word of the Lord Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest He's saying look, you know, I already told this to Jeroboam I'm not saying what God wanted this guy to do this guy's a prophet from Judah the godly southern kingdom He wanted him to just go into that northern wicked Kingdom Preach a sermon Perform the miracle and then get out of there He doesn't want him hanging out in the northern kingdom or being influenced by them or whatever, you know He belongs in the southern kingdom. That's where God has called him to be a minister He's just supposed to go up there preach go home. Don't stop and and and collect $200 You know don't actually eat or drink or do anything like that You just need to just come back when you're done And so he told that to Jeroboam and now he's telling the same thing to this old prophet, you know This is what God has instructed me to do. So I'm not gonna go to your house and eat But look what the old prophet responds to him He said unto him in verse 18 I am a prophet also as thou art and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord saying Bring him back with thee into thy house that he may eat bread and drink water, but he lied unto him Okay, now here's the thing this young man who knows the Word of God he's already preached and been used by God He should have known not to listen to this old prophet. Why because what the old prophet is saying is Contradicting the Word of God that he already knows to be true You see if we already know that the Bible says something to be true We're not gonna believe somebody who comes along and says oh, I've got this other revelation An angel I'm a prophet too and an angel came and told me something different. Oh Well, okay I mean think about it should the young man trust what he got first hand from God himself or Should he rather trust third hand information? Who this he's getting from the old prophet who got it from an angel who got it from God? third hand preaching from some old has-been Preacher Telling him this or should he just go with what he knows to be true from the Word of God himself You see in the New Testament. We have the Bible ourselves Okay, and we don't need some old prophet called the Catholic Church like oh, we've been around for you know thousands of years Apostolic succession to tell us a bunch of stuff that contradicts the Bible Okay, see when I'm reading the Bible I'm a dwelled by the Holy Spirit reading the Bible for myself You know, that's me getting this first hand from the Holy Spirit from the Word of God That's all I need and then some old prophet the Pope comes along and tells me. Oh, no, no You don't understand, you know, I'm a prophet too. And here's what our church tradition has told us And so, you know and it look if it contradicts the Word of God, it's false Doesn't matter how old the person is that's telling you it doesn't matter how old their churches how old their religion is and people say Oh the Catholic Church is so much older. Yeah, it's it's as old as Satan. It's as old as Cain It's so old. It goes back to the serpent in the Garden of Eden because it's lies. It's garbage You know people will try to claim Hinduism is the oldest religion in the world Yeah, exactly. It goes all the way back to the Tower of Babel Goes all the way back to Nimrod, right? It goes all the way back to Satan in the Garden of Eden and so oldest is not necessarily best Older is not necessarily better. The older man is not always wiser than the younger man now, of course we should be gaining in wisdom as we get older and Often older people are gonna have wisdom that younger people don't have but at the end of the day Guess what trumps both the old man and the young man the Bible The Word of God is the boss and so therefore if we know what the Word of God says Someone else shouldn't be able to come along and tell us well, you know, actually it's like this We better check that with our original Word of God that we already know to be true what we saw in the Bible You see if some old prophet comes along and tells me something Well, I'm gonna go check it with the Word of God that I already know is true That I got right here in my hand in the Bible and if it doesn't jive then I'm not gonna listen to it, right? Here's another example, how about a guy named Muhammad comes along and says, oh, I know you've got the Word of God there But an angel came and talked to me and I've got another revelation called the Quran and guess what? It doesn't match what the Bible teaches Because the Quran says that Jesus is not the Son of God Well, guess what? You have to believe that Jesus is the Son of God to go to heaven And if you don't believe that Jesus is the Son of God, you're not going to heaven It's that simple because the Bible says he that hath the Son hath life and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life Right these things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God That you may know that you have eternal life and that you may believe on the name of the Son of God Think about the confession of the Ethiopian eunuch, right when Philip preaches the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch And he wants to get baptized. How does the Ethiopian eunuch confess his faith in Christ? He says I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God Right. Was that what the Quran teaches? No, and then fast forward. How about another guy who got a revelation from an angel that doesn't jive from the Word of God? Joseph Smith, right Joseph Smith comes along and says oh, I'm also a prophet and an angel spake unto me and Here's what he said. He said that there's actually You know billions of other planets With other gods that you can actually be your own god of your own planet someday Right and you know our God happens to be from the star-based Kolob and look that doesn't jive with the Word of God and So then the Mormons will just come along and say oh, well, there's a problem with your Word of God The Muhammad will come on and say oh, there's a problem with your Word of God. Nope. The Bible says that God's Word is preserved Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away Right. The Bible says it's easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one jot or one tittle to pass from the law until all be fulfilled and so some prophet comes along and Contradicts the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever I mean, let's face it the grass perish it the flower withers and fades away but the Word of God abides forever and so if God's Word abides forever and then somebody comes along and Contradicts that Word of God. Why would we believe them? Why would we trust them? And so unfortunately this good man Believes the lies of this old prophet who just straight lies to him and contradicts the Word of God Why does he do it? Why does he believe it? You know, perhaps he just thinks well, you know This guy is older and and and so I should respect his wisdom He's been a prophet a lot longer than I have or maybe he's just really hungry and this old prophet's kind of telling him what? He wants to hear because dinner sounds pretty good right now Since he hasn't eaten all day and he's been traveling and so forth We don't necessarily know why he gets sucked in by this guy But what we can learn from it is don't get sucked in by preachers no matter how Sage or old or wise they seem or If they come at you and say an angel spake unto me or I have this revelation from God You better check it with what you know to be true what you got first hand yourself from the Bible yourself And you know what the Bible says that the anointing that you've received from God Which is talking about the fact that you're indwelled by the Holy Spirit The anointing that you have received from him abideth in you and you need not that any man teach you Let that sink in you need not that any man teach you but as the same Anointing teacheth you of all things and is truth and is no lie Even as it hath taught you You shall abide in him even as it that anointing has taught you you shall abide in him The Bible says you have no need that any man teach you what does that mean that means that there is absolutely Nothing that is true that you can't learn from the Bible yourself between you and the Holy Spirit yourself from the Word of God if Someone else has to explain it to you, and it would be literally impossible for you to derive that yourself from the Word of God Well, that's just simply because it isn't true Because you don't need anybody to teach you now of course God did give us teachers Why did he give us teachers to edify us to perfect us to help? Facilitate our growth to speed up our growth to expedite our growth look obviously if you're going to church and listening to sound biblical Preaching you're gonna learn the Bible quicker You're gonna learn faster, but do you have to have Pastor Anderson to know the truth about the Bible absolutely not You don't need any pastor to know the truth about the Bible the truth is all in there And you and the Holy Spirit can get it on your own. We say well, then well. This is my last day in church then But here's the thing There are lots of reasons. Why you need to go to church number one God commands you to go to church Not because you need someone to teach you and it's impossible for you as a saved Christian to understand the Bible but rather because God wants you to have the fellowship and God wants you to be stirred up Motivated and encouraged by the preaching and also it can help you learn faster But you could also learn it on your own. You know it's it's sort of like if I went and got Tutored in Spanish or something I'm gonna learn Spanish faster than learning it on my own, but guess what I could learn it on my own too Right I mean it could be done It's not like no no it's a mystical language And you need to be initiated by some Spanish guru or something like that You know the Bible and the Holy Spirit is all we need now Here's the thing unsaved people they do need someone to teach them the gospel Why because they don't have the anointing of the Holy Spirit, right? Why why do we have no need than any man teach us because the anointing which we have received of him? Abideth in us and We need not that any man teach us because the same anointing teaches us of all things see we have the built-in teacher The Holy Spirit because we're saved the unsaved man does not have the Holy Spirit And so he needs a saved person to come and teach him the gospel Preach the gospel to him explain it to him get him safe, but once he's saved Theoretically he can get everything from the Bible on his own, and you know what? What we need to do every single generation is we need to get back to the Bible go back to the source and evaluate Whether what the previous generation taught us was right? You know I grew up being taught a lot of wonderful things My parents taught me a lot of great things churches that I grew up in taught me a lot of great things But not all of it was a hundred percent accurate it's my job to go to the source to go to the Word of God and test everything with the Bible and And go back to source and and you see if you talk to the Catholics and the Protestants They'll say this is like the Wild West or something you know how dare you? Not listen to the authority of the church and the church fathers and the councils because that's an old prophet Contradicting what I got straight from the Bible, and so I'm just gonna go with the word of the Lord I don't care how old that prophet is of your council of this and council of that and church father this church father that You know what every generation needs to just check all that stuff and prove that which is you know prove all things hold fast that which is good and discard that which is not biblical and you know it's possible for a false doctrine to persist for centuries just because the doctrines old doesn't make it right and So we've got to constantly be testing things with the Word of God and so he believes the lies of this false prophet who says Oh, I'm a prophet an angel came and talked to me You know my name is Mohammed My name is Joseph Smith and come on over to my house today And he brings him home and look what the Bible says in verse 19 So he went back with him and did eat bread in his house and drank water Now here's where the story gets even stranger verse 20 It came to pass as they sat at the table That the Word of the Lord came unto the prophet that brought him back And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judas saying thus saith the Lord for as much as thou Disobeyed the mouth of the Lord and has not kept thy commandment which the Lord thy God commanded thee But came his back and has eaten bread and drunk water in the place of the which the Lord did say to thee eat No bread and drink no water Thy carcass shall not come under the sepulchre of thy fathers So while they're sitting at dinner the dinner that the old man told him to come to All of a sudden the Spirit of the Lord comes upon the old man and the old man just starts chewing him out Like why are you here? You shouldn't be eating this. God told you not to do this You violated the commandment of God and so, you know, you're not gonna go into the sepulchre of your fathers Now that seems a little strange doesn't it Well, let me give you a little symbolic interpretation here. This is exactly what the devil does According to the Word of God, what does the devil do when we think about the devil and what he does isn't he tempting people? To sin doesn't that what he tried to do to Jesus, you know He shows up to Jesus and he tempts Jesus three times and the Bible talks about how we don't want to fall into the temptation Of the devil the snare of the devil. We're not ignorant of his devices because the devil is out there he walks about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and he wants to tempt and deceive and Ensnare and trick you and entice you into doing something wrong into breaking God's guidance But then what does the devil also do according to the Bible? Satan is also the accuser of the brethren And isn't that a little bit ironic? It's a little bit ironic that the same devil who's trying to tempt you and seduce you to sin is The same one who turned over. Oh this guy's sitting over here He's gonna accuse you Before God the Bible says he accuses the Saints before God day and night. He's up in heaven constantly Accusing the Saints we see him doing this with Job and he's accusing job and talking smack about job up in heaven Satan comes before God to accuse job. He is accusing me. He's accusing you He accuses the brethren to God But he's the one who sits there and tempts them to do this stuff in the first place So just like this prophet he tricks him into doing it and then rebukes him for doing it and condemns him for doing it right another example of this exact same phenomenon in the Bible is with Amnon and Amnon is tempted by Jon Adab to end up forcing Tamar to lie with him and then after he does that Jon Adab turns around and tells on him to King David Oh, yeah, this is what you know he did Same guy who tempted Amnon is the same guy who accused Amnon and so and I've even seen real-life Examples of this if you live long enough you will see lots of examples of people trying to get someone to do something stupid This is like remember junior high folks They'll try to get you to do something stupid, and then they'll tell on you when you do something stupid They're the ones who told you to do is their idea And then they go tattling because they wanted you to do it so that they could get you in trouble It's like when the Pharisees and scribes and Sadducees are coming to Jesus and trying to get him to say something wrong so they can go run and tell the Romans that he said something wrong because they want to get him in trouble and So this is the way the devil operates he both tempts you and Accuses you and it's ironic, but it's true. It's real. That's what he does We have multiple examples in Scripture, and so what I believe is going on here human That's kind of the the greater symbolic interpretation But I think what's going on humanly speaking is that this old prophet is just a complete jerk a complete idiot Complete weirdo. This is a weird thing to do you hear about some man of God doing something great, and then you just go hunt him down and Lie to him and tell him to come back and eat with you for whatever, you know, what's going through his mind, right? It's a wicked and strange thing to do, but I believe that the dinner table confrontation The way to explain that is that sometimes God will even use Phonies and bogus people to still you know speak his word or to You know pronounce judgment on someone or say something because think about it You know there are a lot of false prophets in this world a lot of Judas Iscariot's pretending to be God's people pretending to love the Lord pretending to believe the Bible and These people preach a lot of lies, but I guarantee you they also read a lot of Bible verses Even when a false prophet gets up pretending to be a Christian. He'll still say stuff from the Bible. That's true and God could still use the word of God that's spoken to plant a seed in someone's heart obviously He's not going to bring forth good fruit, but he could still if he quotes the word of God if a machine quoted the word of God Right if a parrot squawked the word of God to you You know it's still the word of God it could still plant a seed in your mind or in your heart And so I think that God Intervenes and moves upon this prophet to say this correct pronouncement at the dinner table And you know whenever I read this story This is the thought that always coming to my mind like did the dinner get really awkward right after that like what like like? How does this dinner end? Like he brings him back. They're sitting down. They're eating everything's cool, and then all of a sudden the old prophet just chews him out For doing it I mean does he just get up and run out of the room or does he does he finish his food I? Don't know It's a it's a peculiar story and so it says in verse 23 came to pass after he had eaten bread and After he had drunk which seems to kind of indicate that he finished his food because I mean he's already started eating and drinking by as well just fill the hump at that point and After he had drunk that he saddled for him the ass to wit for the prophet whom he had brought back So look after the guy chews him out at the dinner table and accuses him of Violating the word of God because he's the one who lied to him and tricked him into violating the word of God Then he saddles the guys asked for him here. Let me help you get on. Let's get you on the road, buddy and It says in verse number 24 when he was gone a lion met him by the way and slew him and his carcass was cast in the way and the ass stood by it and The lion also stood by the carcass and again the lion could further represent Satan right you know the lion represents the devil who walks about as A roaring lion seeking whom he may devour so this guy is devoured by You know or defeated by the devil because he listened to this Lying prophet who told him these things and so he ends up getting torn up by a lion but the lion doesn't eat him okay, so the lion kills him, but the lion just kind of stands there and doesn't eat the corpse and Then it says in verse number 25 behold men passed by and saw the carcass cast in the way and the lion standing by the carcass and They came and told it in the city where the old prophet dwell And when the prophet that brought him back from the way heard thereof he said it is the man of God who was disobedient under the word of the Lord Therefore the Lord had delivered him into the unto the lion which had torn him and slain him According to the word of the Lord which he spake unto him And he spake to his son saying saddle me the ass and they saddled him And he went and found his carcass cast in the way and ass The lion standing by the carcass the lion had not eaten the carcass nor torn the ass So you have the donkey and the lion and the dead body and the lion is very strange because you'd expect the lion to kill the donkey Because that's what he's programmed to do. That's what lions do they tear apart animals like that He's just kind of hanging out with the donkey and he's not eating what he did kill Because he should be chowing down on the corpse of the prophet, but he doesn't do that either He's just kind of standing there, and I think this is just emphasizing the Supernatural element here that it's not just oh the guy happened to get attacked by a lion but everybody who walks by kind of sees this as a Miraculous thing like wait a minute. This isn't normal this lion is there just to execute this guy and Not even eat him and not even kill the donkey And he's just kind of standing there to show that this isn't normal and then people come by and see this and then the old Prophet he explains them. Well you know this guy Didn't obey God. You know he wasn't supposed to eat or drink and he did eat and drink and by the way You know no, I'm not gonna mention that I'm the one who caused all this and It says that in verse number 29 the prophet took up the carcass of the man of God and laid it upon the ass and brought it back and the old Prophet came to the city to mourn and to bury him and he laid his carcass in his own grave And they mourned over him saying alas my brother And they came to pass after he had buried him Then he spake to his son saying when I'm dead then bury me in the sepulcher wherein the man of God is buried lay my bones beside his bones for the Saying which he cried by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the high places Which are in the cities of Samaria shall surely come to pass After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way But made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places and and of course the sin of Jeroboam goes on for centuries They continue to have this false religion where they worship these golden calves in Dan and Bethel And so what can we learn from the story? I mean there are there are a lot of things going on in the story It's kind of a complex story, and if it's too complex for you I'm sorry you know go back to your cartoons, but the Bible is a very sophisticated Book and so it has very complicated stories sometimes a complex some things in the Bible really easy some stories are simple This is one of those more complex stories where there's a lot going on here And there's a lot that we can learn some of the things that we can learn from this Are that you know even a great man of God or woman of God even a great person Can still get tripped up by the devil if they're not careful who they're listening to who they're following who they start hanging around with Okay, just because you have been greatly used by God in the past just because you have been doctrinally solid in the past It doesn't mean that you're immune From coming under bad influences if you start getting in some liberal church or or Apostate Church watered down church. You know that stuff is going to have an influence on you. No one's immune to it I don't think that this guy was a bad guy I think he just made a mistake because he got sucked in By some preacher that I don't know what the appeal was with this preacher somehow this preacher sucked him in and We need to understand that we're not immune and we need to take heed lest we fall and we need to be Careful to always be studying the Bible checking what we believe and making sure that we're listening to Biblically sound teaching and preaching so that we don't get deceived as well. This guy wasn't immune from it. Neither are we right? He's greatly used by God now. Look people can be greatly used by God Here's the next lesson from the chapter people can be greatly used by God, but then down the road they can crash and burn in their lives as well and Guess what? If you are greatly used by God and then in the future you crash and burn it really doesn't undo The good work that you did in the past necessarily and it also doesn't make what you preached in the past Not true, you know think about this What if some man of God gets up and preaches the Bible faithfully for 20 30 years? And he preaches a lot of great truth from the Bible and then as an old man he liberals out or he just Falls into sin or he stops serving God or he goes out and commits some awful sin or something, right? It has happened before and I'm sure that it will happen again where people who used to be godly men have Gone astray They have become apostate or they have become worldly or sinful or quit serving God or or whatever It doesn't change the fact that what they said back when they were serving God was true You know so a lot of people what they'll do is they'll find some example of some preacher who crashed and burned somewhere and say see this is Why you don't want to be a Baptist? This is why you don't want to be a fundamentalist See, this is why you don't want to be King James, you know And they want to try to say well because this guy failed or this guy crashed You see this is why I don't like about Christianity. Oh, this is why I don't go to church That's what people say, don't they? Oh I don't go to church because you know, I went to a church and you know, everything went up in flames at some point Well, guess what whether or not some particular person man of God or faithful Christian lady goes up in flames at some point or Crashes and burns in their own personal life or their own Christian life that does not prevent the Word of God from being true And if they preach the Word of God if that man of God said look Josiah is gonna desecrate this altar Well, guess what Josiah's gonna desecrate that altar because that's God's Word Even if he personally messed up because at the end of the day, we're not following personalities. We're following Christ Now hopefully the people that you're following Will serve God all the way to the end and of course many Christians do faithfully serve God all the way to the end Hopefully your parents stay faithful to Christ all the way to the end Hopefully your pastor and if I'm your pastor, hey take it to the bank All right. But anyway, I'm saying, you know, if you go to church somewhere else or people are listening online. Hey Hopefully your pastor makes it all the way to the finish line Serving God faithfully preaching faithfully doing the right things living right but at the end of the day When things do go bad when someone does crash and burn, you know at the end of the day we need to look into Jesus because he's the author and the finisher of our faith and So even if this young man of God messed up the Lord is still true Jerusalem was still the right place to worship the man of God had said everything right this old prophet is still a bozo Okay, and they still need to be abstaining from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat and Josiah is still coming and so forth You know you I mean take take King Solomon for example, you know King Solomon started out as being a very godly Righteous man a humble man a wise man and yet at the end of his life He had completely turned away from the right path and he was no longer serving God and he started just Indulging his foreign wives in the worship of all their false gods and he's basically Building shrines for them to worship their false gods and his his heart is more with these women Than it is with serving the Lord He's outlandish wives. The Bible says turned his heart away from the Lord in his old age Okay, but does that mean that the Proverbs of Solomon are true? No, because the Proverbs of Solomon are the Word of God. Does that make Ecclesiastes not true? Does that mean the Song of Solomon does not contain spiritual truth? No, it's still true It's still the Word of God human beings are gonna let us down That doesn't change the fact that Christ is the same Yesterday and today and forever and so we see here that this young man crashed and burned But the Word of God that he preached was still true Then we see the old prophet, you know, just because a religion is old doesn't make it right Just because a doctrine is old doesn't make it right, you know All these theological books from 300 years ago 400 years ago people. Oh, yeah, we got to get back to that stuff. I Say no Here's why I don't recommend Because if we're to get in a time machine and go back three or four hundred years The real powerful men of God their books aren't being published Think about it look around today Who do you see actually preaching the Word of God faithfully now, let me ask you this is their book at Barnes and Noble is Their book in the library of a Roman Catholic University No, well guess what the people who are writing the history books Throughout a lot of the last 2,000 years were Catholics Right, and then you have Protestants and then you just have the kind of mainstream Joel Osteen style Christianity and Rick Warren style Christianity and all of this kind of stuff Billy Graham style Christian, you know, that's what is popular. That's what sells That's what's going to be at Barnes and Noble That's what's going to be promoted. That's what you're gonna see in the libraries of the universities The pastors who are actually preaching the Word of God faithfully the people who are out there doing soul winning and everything You know, why would it be different in the past than it is right now Woe unto you when all men speak well of you for so did their fathers under the false prophets But I'm supposed to believe that the most popular Pastor in England 150 years ago was a great man of God. He's the number one most popular guy in England Well, let me ask this is the number one most popular pastor in England right now a great man of God is The number one most popular pastor in any country in the entire world a man of God Then why would it be the different back then? There's no new thing under the Sun my friend and let me tell you something Even the Apostle Paul in his lifetime said all they that are in Asia be turned away from me Okay, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution Okay, some Catholic monk in a monastery is not going to determine my theology some Protestant reformer who's in bed with all these kings and princes and and Promoted by the politicians and super popular and loved of this world is not going to determine my theology Okay, we look if I wanted to hear what somebody had to say from three or four hundred years ago I can't because they're dead and somebody wouldn't publish their books at that time Right if they were alive today, they'd be banned from social media You know if they were alive today, they wouldn't be published. They'd be self-published if anything, you know and so what has survived is mainly a bunch of stuff from just the popular preachers that this world is always gonna lift up and exalt and and and you Know the Catholics are gonna declare him a saint or whatever Whereas You know the real men of God you're not gonna hear about them in history But that's why I don't I don't buy into this like historical Christianity, you know historical fundamentalism or something like that You know, I'd rather go with biblical Christianity and biblical fundamentalism And I'd rather have every generation Hit the Bible again with the Holy Spirit in their breast and Find out the truth and test everything and check everything and make sure that everything jives and not just say well You know, let's go with the old-timers Gave me that old-time religion. Yeah, the old-time religion as long as we're going all the way back to the Bible But if we're just going back to the 20s or if we're going back to 1800s or going back to the Reformation I'm not interested. I either want to talk about 2023 or I want to talk about first century AD Christ and his apostles what we read about in the Bible Okay, that's what matters to me. And so that's another thing we can take care. Is that older is not necessarily better right preachers They can come along and maybe say some good things because the Prophet and the story said some good things the old man But he also lied Just because you say well this prophet preached some good stuff, yeah, okay, but what about the lies that he's telling You know, it's not like you think that as this guy's being torn up by a lion This guy's thinking you know, that guy did say some good things You know, he'd you know, hey at least the dinner was good, you know what I mean No, because when you're getting torn up by a lion that kind of outweighs any good that you got from this guy And so yeah You might be able to glean some good things from some false prophet because even a broken clock is right twice per day But that doesn't mean that you should go listening to these apostates because they can get you ensnared with the trap of the devil and you don't want that and So older is not necessarily better. You can't trust every preacher that's out there preaching You got to prove all things you got to test things with the Word of God and remember you don't need anyone to teach you So if anybody's like well, no, no you and the Holy Spirit that's not enough you need the church fathers You need theology you need systematic theology. You need the philosophers. You need the creeds. You need the councils You need the confessions. No, you don't you need the Bible and the Holy Spirit period and you know what? I'm here not because you need me. You don't need me. I'm here because I can help you You don't need me Okay, then you say well, I'm not gonna come to church Well, then, you know what? You're disobeying God cuz God told you to come to church But at the same time if there's some doctrine well, you know, you can only get it from Pastor Anderson Then it's a false doctrine And you know, what's so funny about this is that people people often have accused me of preaching unique doctrine and yet everything that I teach Every major doctrine I teach obviously I might have like Interpreted a single verse in a unique way because the Bible is so deep people are constantly finding new things in the Bible little tiny things But as far as the big things that I believe People will literally accuse me of being unique on these things and it's absurd because there are literally millions of but you name anything I've named anything I teach Anything absolutely anything and there are millions and millions of people on this earth that I could point to that believe the same thing You think I'm the only person who's not pre-trib Because there are millions and millions of people who don't believe in the preacher rapture Okay, there are there are all there are whole denominations that don't teach the preacher of rapture. There are Millions of Baptists who don't believe in the preacher of rapture I mean look nothing that I teach is unique and people people have tried to claim that the reprobate doctrine is unique with me What first of all, I grew up hearing the reprobate doctrine being preached throughout the 80s and 90s in Baptist churches I've met Christians all over the world who independently told they told me the reprobate doctrine and I'm thinking like yeah You know, I'm but you had me at hello. And do you realize who you're talking? You know, sometimes it's funny to me I'm like, do you realize who you're talking to? You're telling me the reprobate dogs. I'm like, this is great You're telling me the reprobate doctrine it warmed my heart Okay Because it's not unique to me It's in the Bible. It's right there in the text and you could go down the list. You could name any doctrine That I teach and I'm not talking about some super fine point of Bible prophecy or something I'm talking about the big, you know, whatever I'm teaching about the Trinity whatever I'm teaching about Salvation whatever I'm teaching in general about end times whatever I'm teaching about any kind of a Lifestyle thing I promise you there are millions of people believing the same thing because we all have the same Bible same Holy Spirit Nothing's unique to me. Okay When something is just unique Right, then that's a red flag when nobody's ever heard of something. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? Why because we shouldn't need a Certain person to teach us a doctrine and let's face it There are a lot of doctrines you're never gonna come up with in a million years reading the Bible Unless someone came and taught you have need that they teach you you think you're gonna read the Bible and come away with baptism by sprinkling Think about it No one's gonna read the Bible and say sprinkling You know, they went down both into the water and he baptized him Jesus went down into the water It comes up out of the water. We're buried with him by baptism sprinkling But you know, there's a church tradition of sprinkling Right, you think you're gonna so you go to the Bible and it's like a bishop then must be blameless The husband one wife bishops can't be married Bishops aren't allowed to get married No, you know who you need to teach you that the Roman Catholic Church because the Bible says the bishop must be the husband of one wife Catholic Church comes along just teaches the opposite Cannot be the husband of one wife But you need them to teach you that and we could I could list examples until I'm blue in the face At the end of the day the Word of God is the boss Nothing try go by what you got firsthand from the Bible Not what you're getting third hand from Joseph Smith Muhammad the Roman Catholic Church Church fathers or anybody else Let's buy rides in a board of prayer father. We thank you so much for your word Lord And we thank you that we have direct access to the ultimate truth Lord Thank you for the built-in teacher of the Holy Spirit. Thank you for direct Insight into the mind of Christ Lord help us to take advantage of that every day by reading your word and Lord help us Never to walk away from things that we know to be true To follow after something just because someone told us Lord Help us to realize there are many deceivers that are gone out into the world Lord Help us to be sober and vigilant that we be not devoured as this young man was and in Jesus name we pray men Amen Amen let's take our song looks please go to him number 433 433 away in the manger him number 433 Sing it out with me on that first verse in number 433 Oh Oh Oh Oh You