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

All right, we're in 2 Kings chapter 10, look down at your Bibles at verse 32. The title of the sermon this morning is Cut Short, Cut Short. And if you look at verse 32, it says, In those days, the Lord began to cut Israel short, and Haziel smote them in all the coasts of Israel, from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, and the Gadites, and the Reubenites, and the Manassehites, from Arar, which is by the River Arnon, even Gilead, and Bashan. And I want to preach on that phrase there, the Lord began to cut Israel short, the Lord began to cut Israel short. Now that's a phrase that we would typically use today when we talk about something being cut short. For example, what that simply means is that basically a person does not reach their full potential, right? You think of a person who dies young in their teenage years, their life is cut short, they're not able to reach the full extent of their years of their life. When we think of a successful athlete who receives a debilitating injury, we'll say that that person's career was cut short because of that. And we see here that that is exactly what we see in the nation of Israel, is that due to the sins of Jeroboam, because of what's taking place in Israel, Israel is actually cut short because of it. It's not able to reach its full potential, it's not able to succeed as a nation because of that. Now, why were they being cut short is the first question that we have to ask ourselves. The second is, what was the potential that God was referring to? And then what days is he referring to? Well, if you look in the beginning at verse, excuse me, verse number 28, it says then Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel, how be it from the sins of Jeroboam, the sons of Nebat, which made Israel to sin, Jehu departed not from after them to wit the golden calves that were in Bethel and that were in Dan. And the Lord said unto Jehu, because that was done well and executing that which is right in mine eyes and has done unto the house of Ahab, according to all that was in mine heart, thy children of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel. But Jehu took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, which made Israel to sin. And then we see there that that's the reason why he cuts them short. So Jehu, the king of Israel, was basically one of the reasons why the nation of Israel did not reach its fullest potential, why it was not able to succeed later on in the future. And what is it particularly that he's referring to? What is the sin of Jeroboam? Well, go with if you went to 1 Kings chapter 12, 1 Kings chapter number 12, 1 Kings chapter 12, hold your place there in 2 Kings 10, we're going to turn back to that, what is the sin of Jeroboam? First of all, who is Jeroboam? And then what is his sin? Well, let me give you just a brief concise history of the kingdom that we're looking at right here. Of course, during 2 Kings chapter number 10, the kingdom has already been divided. You have a northern and a southern kingdom, the northern kingdom being Israel, the southern kingdom being Judah. This took place years prior under the reign of Jeroboam. Now, at one point, the kingdom was united under one sovereign. You know, you have Saul, then you have David, after David, you have King Solomon. And the Bible tells us that King Solomon made an affinity with Egypt, with Pharaoh of Egypt, married his daughter, took upon him 700 wives, 300 concubines. These were strange women that drove Solomon's heart away from God, okay? And the Bible tells us that his heart was not perfect with God. For this reason, God judged Israel in a way that he basically removed 10 tribes from Israel, gave it to a different person, and Solomon stayed with two tribes, okay? So he has two tribes, which is Benjamin and Judah, and then the rest of the 10 tribes go with someone else. Now, who's that person that it goes to? Well, the person's name is Jeroboam. Jeroboam, according to the Bible, was an industrious servant of Solomon, a prophet is sent unto Jeroboam to anoint him to be king, and he becomes king, and he basically, he says, hey, you're gonna be king over Israel, you're gonna be given 10 tribes. And this guy's not necessarily a valiant man, so to speak, because as soon as he gets word from that, he takes off to Egypt. He's like afraid that he's gonna lose his life. Solomon begins to seek after his life, so he stays in Egypt. When Solomon dies, he decides to return back and appeal to Solomon's son, Rehoboam, and to see, hey, you know, if you can be kind to us and be kind to us, you know, we'll serve you. Of course, Rehoboam refuses to do that. The kingdom is split into two. But we see here that Jeroboam actually had a great opportunity to do something great for God. He's given a platform to succeed as the new kingdom. He's given 10 tribes. He has God's blessing, you know, God's telling him, hey, if you walk in the laws of the Lord, you obey me, you know, you'll be a great king, you can lead the nation in the way of righteousness. You know, you can do something big. He's given this great opportunity to do something great for God, and he just screws it all up. Why? Because we see that he begins to commit sin, the sin of idolatry, which is the sin that's very abominable in the eyes of the Lord. And look at the sins of Jeroboam in 1 Kings chapter 12 verse 25, it says, Then Jeroboam built Shechem in Mount Ephraim and dwelt therein and went out from thence and built Penuel. And Jeroboam said in his heart, Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David. 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 into their Lord, even unto Rehoboam king of Judah, and they shall kill me and go again to Rehoboam king of Judah. So what do we see right off the bat? Well, we see that Jeroboam is very insecure. Why is he insecure? Well, he's saying, look, oh, man, if people go to worship in Jerusalem, they're going to want Rehoboam to be their king, and I'm going to lose everyone. They're going to want to kill me. They're going to return back to Judah. I'm not going to have a kingdom. No one's going to follow me. He's being insecure is what he's doing. So what is his remedy? What is the solution to the problem that he's supposedly facing here? Look at verse 28, whereupon the king took counsel and made two calves of gold and said unto them, it is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem, behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt. And he set the one in Bethel and the other put he in Dan. So this is a solution. Hey, I got a good idea. I'll make two golden calves, I'll put one in Bethel, one in Dan, and you don't have to make the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. You can worship God here, right? Not a good solution. He's causing the people to commit whoredom, idolatry. So in order to help the people conveniently serve God, he causes them to commit idolatry. Okay. All because of his insecurities. Verse 30 says, and this thing became a sin for the people went to worship before the one, even unto Dan. And he made, here's the second thing to do. Look at verse 31. And he made an house of high places and made priests of the lowest of the people, which were not of the sons of Levi. So what's the problem there? He begins to ordain and deputize people who are not qualified to be priests. Okay. So the people who were chosen to be priests had to be from the tribe of Levi and more specifically from the house of Aaron. Instead, what does Jeroboam do? He just chooses the lowest of the people, just whoever wants to, you know? And in fact, later on, he says, whosoever will. Hey, if you want to be a pastor, you come to this college and we'll give you a diploma and you can be a pastor, you know, online, pay this man a money. Here's your diploma. And you can be a pastor. You can be the priest. Okay. It doesn't matter. He could make, he chose of the lowest of the people to become their spiritual leaders. Strike two, strike three, look at verse 32 and Jeroboam ordained feast in the eighth month on the 15th day of the month, like unto the feast that is in Judah. And he offered upon the altar, so did he in Bethel sacrificing unto the calves that he had made. And he placed in Bethel, the priest of the high places, which he had made. So he offered upon the altar, which he made in Bethel, the 15th day of the eighth month, even in the month, which he had devised of his own heart and ordained a feast unto the children of Israel. And he offered upon the altar and burnt incense. So what did he do here? He invented his own un-holiday. What does that mean? He just created a holiday. He's like, we're going to worship on this day. We're going to sacrifice calves. And he created his own unholy holiday to worship God. He said, what's the problem with that? Well, because they're making sacrifices unto Baal. They are worshiping false gods. Okay. So that's the third thing he does. And out of all three of these things, the thing that God really hits on is the fact that he put two golden calves, one in Dan, the other one in Bethel, and he caused Israel to sin. Now what's the problem with this? You say, well, why is this so, obviously we know that idolatry is bad. Why is it so bad? Well, because of the fact that Jeroboam is the first king of that Northern kingdom. So he became, his sin became the catalyst and stigmatized every single king thereafter. Okay. Because if you read the next nine kings or 10 kings, or even all the kings after that, they're all bad people committing idolatry. And it often says they did not depart from the sins of Jeroboam. So think about this. You have 10 kings, a succession of 10 kings that come after Jeroboam, right? And every single one of those guys didn't think, didn't think to take the initiative to remove the idols from Dan and from Bethel, you know? And by the way, even Jehu, who was a righteous king, he's, I mean, we're going to get into the exploits of Jehu. He's one of my favorite Bible characters in the Old Testament. He did some amazing things, but one thing he didn't do is he just didn't take the initiative to remove the idols from Dan and Bethel, the sin that God really harped on a lot here. Okay. So this is the sin of Jeroboam, okay? So we have Jehu, he comes on the scene years later. He begins to clean house. I mean, he's like, this guy is the kind of church member every pastor likes, okay? Because he's taking the initiative. He's just like, you know, he gets rid of Jezebel, he assassinates, he inspires eunuchs to kill Jezebel. I mean, when you can inspire a eunuch to man up, that's a great feat right there, you know? You are a leader, my friend, okay? He wipes out all the 70 sons of Ahab because Ahab was a wicked king and so were his sons. He removes the current kings of both Israel and Judah. He just assassinates both of them. We'll get into the story in just a little bit. And my favorite exploit is the fact that he held a feast for the prophets of Baal. So you know, he conspired a little bit and yeah, he was a little dishonest because it's like, you know, Ahab served Baal much or served him little, I shall serve him much. And they're like, man, this king is great. So he creates this feast and then he tells them, wipe them all out, you know? And if anybody escapes, your life shall go for his. This is in the Bible, you know? And you know what? One character quality, if we were to sum up his life in one word, it would be zeal. He was zealous for God and he did a lot for the Lord, okay? But you wonder is like, man, he did all these great things. Why is it that at the end of his life, you know, God basically said that in his days, Israel is still going to be cut short? Well, it's because it's not because of what Jehu did do. It's because of what he didn't do. You know? And let me say this. What we do is important. But if we choose not to do something, what God tells us to do, that's just as equally bad as if you choose not to do something that's good, okay? Or righteous in the eyes of the Lord. So not a single one of them corrected the sin of Jeroboam, including Jehu unfortunately. And you wonder like, why? Well, this is what happens when a previous generation, when sin becomes just normalized to a previous generation, and then we inherit that generation, we inherit that practice, and we don't question anything, you know? We might be sincere. We want to serve the Lord. We love God. But if we don't question certain things, if we don't compare it, if we don't prove all things hold fast that which is good, we can be guilty of what happened to Jehu that we're guilty of the sins of Jeroboam, okay? Now go back to 2 Kings chapter 10, if you would. So the sin of Jeroboam was idolatry, you know, ordaining these unqualified pastors and priests, okay, and creating his own unholy holiday, all right? Because he's like, he's just insecure, he doesn't want anybody to go to Jerusalem, he's afraid he's going to lose his people, okay? And these are the sins that they didn't depart from, and it says in 2 Kings 10 32, in those days the Lord began to cut Israel short, Hazael, which is, by the way, the king of Syria, north of Israel, smote them on all the coast, and then it gives the list of the coast that he takes over. So what does it mean to cut Israel short? Well, territory is removed from them, is taken from them. Now remember, they have 10 tribes, right? They have a lot of territory, but because of their disobedience, their inability to correct the sins of the past, what happens? God allows someone to come in and remove territory from them. You see, in these days, success was equated, or should I say territory was equated, with God's blessing. The more God blesses you, the more you're able to expand your influence, expand your territory, overcome more enemies, and take over more ground. If more ground is being removed from you, though, you can basically say, man, God's judging us. He's allowing a foreign nation to come in and take away territory from us. You think of the prayer of Jabez in 1 Chronicles chapter 10, where he specifically prays, Lord, bless me, enlarge my coasts, okay? This is a sign of blessing in the Bible when God begins to expand the territory of a kingdom. Now you say, well, how do we apply that to us today? Well, obviously we're not looking for territory, okay? You know, we're not gangs here, right? You know, like, this is my side, boo, you know? We don't care about territory, the physical territory, so to speak, okay? We don't care about the land of Israel, you know, they can have that if they want. I don't care about those things. You know, we're seeking success from a spiritual standpoint, obviously, okay? We want God to enlarge our coast of influence. You understand? You know, obviously, you know, we're not looking to expand our kingdom, so to speak, but we do want to expand the kingdom of God by going out and preaching the gospel. You see, we want to see a lot of people saved, and success of a church can be determined based upon the salvations that they're seeing, right? If they're winning people to Christ in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and the uttermost parts of the world, that's how we determine our success. Hey, we want to see more baptisms. Within the last two months, we've seen more baptisms than we've ever seen in the history of our church, the two years that we've been here. I mean, it's like baptism week after week after week after week, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Thursday, people are coming in, hey, I got saved on Sunday, I'm here to get baptized. You know, that's great. What is that? That's success. That's the Lord allowing us to expand our territory of influence and success to excel in the work of the Lord, and that's what we want, okay? We want to enlarge our coast of salvations, baptism, and discipleship, you know? We want people to adhere to the message that we're bringing forth, whether it's, you know, Bible preaching on salvation, Bible preaching on holy living, Bible preaching on vaccinations. We want to get it all out there. We want our influence to continue to expand, and we don't want it to be cut short. We don't want our influence and our territory to be cut short. We want it to continue to expand. You know, people have to say, aren't you the gangster church? You guys are like the gangster church. Call it what you will, we're expanding. Mock all you want. Aren't you guys the LA church where all the gang members are? Yeah, we're coming to you. We're coming to your town, you know? We're going to Belize tonight. The gangsters are going to Belize. Come April, I'm going to Ireland. Have you ever heard of a Guatemalan going to Ireland? He said, what do you know about Ireland? Lucky Charms, Irish Spring, and Leprechauns. That's what I'm looking for when I go out there. I'm just kidding. But what I'm saying is this, is we want to expand our influence, okay? And Lord willing, and I believe he is, he's going to allow us to do so, okay? But we don't want to be cut short, okay? We want to make sure that we reach our full potential as a church. But what about the building? I'm looking for like the fountains and all these beautiful things and the high steeple few people, you know? We don't care about those things. We want to make sure that we succeed as a church, as individuals, as family members, as husbands, as fathers, you know, as children, that we're just excelling, that we're succeeding, that we're growing, okay? That we're expanding our territory and we're not cut short. But look, I believe we can do great things for God, and we are doing great things for God, thankfully, amen? But I think that the best days are ahead of us, okay? The amount of salvation that we've seen since the church started does not compare to what we're going to see in years to come. The great works in the future are going to be great, and I believe something great is going to continue to happen. But here's the thing, if we're not careful, we can be cut short, okay? You as an individual can be cut short. Now you say, oh, how can I as an individual be cut short in my Christian life? Well number one, you can just die. Point number one, okay? Because if you die, you're done, you know, you go to heaven and that's it, you can't do anything else. I know that's profound, right? Go to 2 Kings, if you would, chapter number nine, 2 Kings chapter number nine. Well let's look at Jehu, because Jehu, because of him, Israel was cut short. Why is that? Let's apply what happened to him and apply it to ourselves. But let me just say off first and foremost is that Jehu did a lot of great things, and I mentioned them already, but let's go through some of them. He removes the previous kings of both kingdoms, both Joram and Ahaziah in 2 Kings 923, look what it says. He says, And Joram turned his hand and fled and said to Ahaziah, There is treachery, O Ahaziah. And Jehu drew a bow with his full strength and smote Jehoram between his arms, and the arrow went out of his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot. Then said Jehu, and so on and so forth. So what happens here? Well, the way Jehu's ministry got started was pretty unique, because he's living during the time of Elisha, the prophet. Elisha sends one of his prophets to go anoint Jehu as king, he comes there and he's just like, what do you want? And he's like, I'm here to anoint you king. He's all right, let's do it. He anoints him king, Jehu goes to his friends, and they're like, what does this mad fellow want? You know, and Jehu basically tells them, you know what he's here for. You know his communication. And he says it is false. In other words, like you lying. He's like, no, I'm king. So they begin to prepare his chariot, they lay the garments, he becomes king, and immediately he goes to work. What does he do? He just dethrones the two weakling kings that are in power, immediately, he just goes after the weaklings. Okay, that's great. You say, why is that? Because it just shows that he's a man of execution. He's a man who does not waste time. Soon as he's in, all right, let's go to work. Let's remove these weakling of kings. Let's lead the kingdom in the way of righteousness. And the way we're going to do that is we got to remove all the wicked people, the kings. So he does that. And then he inspires the eunuchs to kill Jezebel. Go to verse 29, if you would, and when Jehu was come to Jezreel, Jezebel heard of it, and she painted her face. The Bible uses very interesting terminology there, right? And teared her head and looked out of a window. And as Jehu entered into the gate, she said, Had Zemirai peace, who slew his master? And he lifted up his face to the window and said, Who is on my side? Who? And he looked out to him, two or three eunuchs, and he said, Throw her down. So they threw her down and some of her blood was sprinkled on the wall and on the horses and he trode her underfoot. This guy's gangster. He didn't even acknowledge her. And by the way, you're like, oh, poor Jezebel. You haven't read the Bible. Jezebel was a wicked woman. Jezebel murdered a bunch of prophets and threatened the life of Elijah. I mean, Jehu is pretty crazy because even Elijah was afraid of Jezebel, unfortunately. So he comes and she's trying to speak. She's obviously heard of Jehu. She comes just like trying to, you know, basically appease him. He just ignores her. And he looks up, he's like, Who's on my side? And then the eunuchs are like, you know, us? And he's like, throw her down, you know? And they fulfill prophecy because of that, because God actually foretold of that in previous times that that's exactly what was going to happen to her. And you know, her blood sprinkles on the wall. And then he takes his horse and he just just tramples her just to finish the job. This is pretty morbid, but it's in the Bible. I love this stuff. This is good. Verse 34 says, And when he had come in, he did eat and drink, he's like, I'm hungry, and said, Go see now this cursed woman and bury her, for she is a king's daughter. And they went to bury her, but they found no more of her than the skull and the feet in the palms of her hands, wherefore they came again and told him. And he said, This is the word of the Lord, which he spake by the servant Elijah the Tishbite, saying, In the portion of Jezebel shall dogs eat the flesh of Jezebel. And the carcass of Jezebel shall be as dung upon the face of the field in the portion of Jezebel, so that they shall not say, This is Jezebel. I mean, he knew, he's like, Well, this is bound to happen. This is what took place. So you know, Elijah ran from Jezebel, you know, Jehu ran toward Jezebel, took her out. So then he inspires the assassination of the 70 sons of Ahab in chapter number 10, he gets rid of them all. And he inspires zeal, you know, the famous verse, look at verse 15 of chapter 10, it says, When he was departed thence, he lighted on Jehonadab the son of Rekab, coming to meet him and he saluted him and said to him, Is thine heart right as my heart is with thine heart? And Jehonadab answered, It is, if it be, give me thine hand. And he gave him his hand and he took him up to him into the chariot. And he said, Come with me and see my zeal for the Lord. So they made him ride in his chariot and he was a zealous man. Now, the last thing he does is obviously he conspires the assassination of all the prophets of Baal. Let's just read it. Because I love this story. Can we just read it? Look what it says in verse number 18, And Jehu gathered all the people together and said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little, but Jehu shall serve him much. Now therefore, call unto me all the prophets of Baal and all his servants and all his priests, let none be wanting, for I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal, whosoever shall be wanting, he shall not live. So he's like, hey, whoever misses this, I'm going to kill you, and he's going to kill him anyways. But Jehu did it in subtlety to the intent that he might destroy the worshipers of Baal. And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal, and they proclaimed it. And Jehu sent through all Israel and all the worshipers of Baal came so that there was not a man left that came not. And they came into the house of Baal and the house of Baal was full from one end to the other. And he said unto him that was over the vestry, Bring forth vestments for all the worshipers of Baal. And he brought them forth vestments. So what is he doing? He's basically marking them. All the worshipers of Baal, hey, you guys get special clothing, you know, with a nice little target on your back there. Verse 23, Jehu went and Jehonadab the son of Rechab into the house of Baal and said unto the worshipers of Baal, Search and look that there be here with you none of the servants of the Lord, but the worshipers of Baal only. And when they went into offer sacrifices and burnt offerings, Jehu appointed four score men without, and said, If any of the men whom I have brought into your hand escape, he that letteth him go, his life shall be for the life of him. And it came to pass, as soon as he had made an end of offering, the burnt offering, that Jehu said to the guard and to the captains, Go in and slay them, let none come forth. And they smote them with the edge of the sword and the guard and the captains cast them out and went to the city of the house of Baal. And they brought forth the images out of the house of Baal and burned them. Man, this guy took care of business. So he's not, he wasn't going, he wasn't going to have a campaign to go to just look for every individual Baal worshiper. He just collected them all in one place and just said, Hey, you know, all these prophets of Baal with one stone, let's bring them all into one house, make them think they're worshiping Baal and just wipe them all out. Okay. I like that. You know, you read that and you're just like, man, this guy's cool. This guy was righteous. This guy was zealous for the Lord. And I think of second, you don't have to turn, I think of second Chronicles 11, 711, it says, Before behold the self, same thing, that ye saw it after a godly sword, what carefulness it wrought in you, ye what clearing of yourselves, ye what indignation, ye what fear, ye what behemoth desire, ye what zeal, ye what revenge, and all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter. And that's exactly who Jehu was, he was a man who was very much zealous for the things of God now. But unfortunately, what was his downfall? Well, the Bible tells us that he didn't follow the Lord. He took no heed to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart, which is kind of interesting. You wonder like, wait a minute, it looks like that's what he did though. Didn't he like, destroy the prophets of Baal, didn't he get rid of Jezebel, didn't he get rid of the 70 sons of Ahab? How is it that he chose not to walk in the law of the Lord? How is that compatible with one another? What does that mean? Well, again, the quality of Jehu is that he was zealous. And it says that he chose not to walk, to take heed to walk in the law of the Lord. In other words, he was kind of ignorant of the word of God. So we can say what? He had a zeal that was not according to knowledge. He executed the word of the Lord. He was very zealous. He did a lot of great exploits, but you know what? He didn't know the Bible. You say, well, how do you know that? Well, if you read in Deuteronomy chapter 17, one of the requirements for the kings was that they were supposed to write out the law by hand so they can be with them, so they could know what is it that God required of them and they can grow in their fear of God. You see, if he would have read the law of God, he would have wiped out the two calves that were in Dan and Bethel, but because he didn't know what the word of God said, he just went according to what the prophet told him to do. You know, it's like church. You can be zealous for God, zealous for the things of the Lord. You could even do what I tell you to do sometimes and you still succeed, but you know what? If you're ignorant of God's word, you're going to cut yourself short because at the end of the day, guess what? Zeal is great, but it needs to be coupled with knowledge. My people, the Bible says, are destroyed for lack of knowledge. You can't just come to church and expect yourself to be a great Christian just because you attend the assembly of God. You have to put into practice. You have to read the word of God yourself. You have to make the Bible your core values. These have to be core values that you believe yourself. If there is no church on earth, which obviously is never going to happen, you could still live right because you know what the word of God says. You come to church to confirm what you're already getting out of the word of God. Look, this is not a church where I tell you to close your Bible and don't read it. Just take my word for it. Just listen to me. Don't listen to anybody else. No, we just teach you right. You confirm it through your own walk with God and you're depending. You could just depend on the Lord yourself. You're learning yourself. And look, this is dangerous right here if you have zeal without knowledge because you're going to fizzle out one day. You will not remain in the will of God for very long if you're not reading the word of God. Oh, but I listen to YouTube preaching all the time though. I mean, I just got my playlist and just live for hours on end. That's not sufficient. You need to read the word of God yourself. You need to give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine the Bible says. You need to read the word of God yourself. If not, you're going to cut yourself short and we don't want that, okay? You know, if you act right but don't believe right, you're cutting yourself short. You act right. You know, you got your life cleaned up. You're not smoking pot. You're not drinking alcohol. You're not fornicating, but you don't know what the Bible says about that. You can even point to a verse in the Bible that tells you not to do those things. Eventually, you're going to go back to that because it's not a conviction. Or how about this? You believe right, but you don't act right. What does that mean? Well, you got replacement theology down. You got the reprobate doctrine down. You got the end times Bible prophecy down, but you're as worldly as the day is long. You're not living righteously, okay? You don't have the breastplate of righteousness. You need both in order for you not to be cut short. You need the knowledge, but you also need the zeal. You need both. And look, if you have knowledge and no zeal, you're just a boring Christian. You're just lame. Because you know what the Bible says, but you have no zeal, no emotion. You're not excited about the things of God. You're lukewarm, okay? In order for us to reach our full potential, we have to do the right things and believe the right things, you know? But let me say this is that we also have to remove the sins of Jeroboam, okay? What is that? What is that picture? The practices of the previous generation that screwed up this generation. That's what it is, okay? And this could be applicable to like a lot of things, obviously. Time will not permit for me to go through all the examples that I can give, but let me just say this is that our church is different in a lot of ways, is it not? It's different in a lot of ways in comparison to other independent fundamental Baptist churches or just churches in general. Our church is very much different. Now we have like-minded churches like our church that practices the same. There's different operations, different administrations, but we believe the same. We kind of operate similar to one another, but in comparison to other churches, we are very much different, okay? But it's not for shock value, you know? We don't operate the way we operate just to like make you go, oh, wow, that's cool. There's methods to the Baptist here, okay? I'm going to go through some of the things that, some of the sins of Jeroboam that we removed from our church, that I removed from the church, in order for us not to be cut short in the future, okay? Now what are some of the things that we removed that our previous rulers, so to speak, did, okay? And as I go through these lists, look, and the reason I'm going through this, some of you already know these things, and if this bores you, then either go to sleep or get out. No, I'm just kidding. But we have a lot of new people in our church, you know, fall program brought in a lot of new people, and so this is new to a lot of people, okay? And if you know this, then I'm just reaffirming what you already believe, all right? So what are some of the things that we removed from the previous generation that I believe will cut us short if we didn't remove? Number one, Sunday school classes and nurseries can cut us short. I'm talking about the practices of the church, okay? What is Sunday school class? A Sunday school class is basically when you go to church and the adults stay in the main service, but the little ones, teenagers, and even, you know, the little infants, they basically separate all of them to go into different rooms, to be taught by different people. It's basically when you delegate your responsibility to teach your children to someone else. It's Christian daycare, that's what it is. It's a Christian babysitting center that you get every Sunday and Thursday at different types of churches. And look, people who, churches who practice this, some of them are well-meaning, okay? And let me just say this, this is not an old IFB bashing sermon. You'll get that tonight. This is not an old IFB bashing sermon because, look, I was a Sunday school teacher. What? I can't believe this, I can't believe this. I was a Sunday school teacher. I was a Sunday school superintendent. You say, what is that? I have no idea. I have no idea what that is. So that's what Sunday school class is. Nurseries is basically, you know, because the pastor doesn't have the discipline to just drown out certain distractions from the church. They want all the babies to be removed from the service to go in different rooms with strangers to watch over your children, you know, while you get fed, spiritually speaking. You know, we would consider ourselves to be a family integrated church. But in actuality, it's just a biblical church is what it is. Family integrated is just a term that we have to use in order to distinguish between those who use nurseries and Sunday school classes and those who don't. But in actuality, it's just a biblical way of doing church, okay? Go with me if you went to Deuteronomy chapter number 31, Deuteronomy 31. So Sunday school classes, you have, you know, your children, they go to these Sunday school classes. They get taught by a teacher. And let me just say this is that as sincere as these people might be, they're cutting their children short. First of all, they're cutting their children short of real Bible knowledge because these people typically, or the children get a really diluted, watered down, cotton candy message. It's like 15, 20 minutes long. And then they sugar them up. They give them, I mean, talk to Dr. Reed about that. They're giving them like sugar like crazy because they're bouncing off the walls. They're singing these weird songs that have nothing to do with doctrine. It's an entertainment center for these children is what it is. And it cuts the next generation short. People get offended at that, that we don't do Sunday school classes and nurseries. And people look down at family integrated churches. But you know what? At the end of the day, it's just not biblical to have Sunday school classes or nurseries, okay? And even when like my previous pastor, you know, when he found out that I was new IFB or whatever, you know, one of the first questions he asked me was this, do you believe in family integrated church? And I was like, yes. But here's the thing, that wasn't family integrated. I was going according to the program of their church, but I did have the conviction of being family integrated. That's what I preferred. And it was like a demonic thing or something to be family integrated. I was like, is it really that bad for me to want to have my children in the service with me, hearing the same preaching that I'm hearing? You tell me why is that wicked. You explain to me what is the problem with that biblically speaking, okay? Because that could point to you many scriptures where the Bible tells us that this is exactly the way we should do it. Let me read to you from Deuteronomy chapter number six, verse four says, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord. And thou shall love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, with all thy might. And these words which I command thee this day shall be in thine heart. Then the Sunday school teacher shall teach them diligently unto thy children. Oh, wait, wait, wait, that's like another version, right? And thou shall teach them diligently unto thy children and shall talk of them when thou sittest in thine house and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down and when thou risest up, the Bible says. So what is it telling us? It's telling us that the responsibility to teach the word of God is on the parents. See I have the responsibility to preach the word of God, but guess what, this is a biblical institution that has been established by God, which is the church, not Sunday school, not nurseries. And look, you know why parents like nurseries and Sunday school classes and teen services and all these other extra curricular events that take place? Because it removes the responsibility from them to learn the Bible themselves. Like, oh man, if we don't have Sunday school class, that means I'm going to have to actually know what the Bible says. Yeah, you got it right. Good job, you got it. You actually have to know what you believe to teach it to your children because you are your children's best teacher. Not just by example, but by what you teach as well, okay? And Sunday school class basically delegates that responsibility. You take them to that class, and look, let me just be honest with you, there's exceptions to the rule, I understand that, but for the most part, they're not learning anything in those Sunday school classes. There's good Sunday school teachers out there, don't get me wrong. I believe I was a good Sunday school teacher. I cared for the kids who were in my class. I tried to give them deep doctrine, you know what I mean? I tried my best, but you know what? In my observation of a decade long of doing Sunday school class and observing that, it's shown itself to be unfruitful, okay? Whereas when you have children in the service with you, they actually take in more than you think. You know, the kids pay attention in church here, and yeah, you have, you know, a baby every now and then, just scream, Milan's daughter, where's she at? She's over there. You know I was talking about your daughter. Don't be frustrated with the babies in the church. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Right. Right. Yes! ark. Right. Right. Yes! Amen. Amen. Yes! Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Yeah. Amen. Yay! So, they have to give a lot of fluff. the Bible and turn off the TV and then turn off the extra things that you have going on in your life that are causing you to have a short attention span all right look be your problems at the board be ready to hear my swimming here slow to speak so what I'm saying is this is that you're recording the second generation sure when we're not allowed to be in church they get a picture Bible story in Sunday School class most of the time I'm just telling you most of the time the Sunday School teachers don't even teach a lesson right yeah they just kind of entertain them until the half hour is over the hour is over and then they send them home what did you learn? What did you learn in Sunday School class? Jesus? This is why we encourage everyone. Look at Hebrew on me. Chapter 31. The Bible teaches us that everyone, man, woman, boy, girl, child, suddenly should teach her. When all Israel's come to appear before the Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose, thou shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing. Gather the people together, men and women and children and thy stranger that is within thy gates that they may hear and that they may learn and fear the Lord your God and observe all the words of this law. Oh no, but the children and the servants are just not going to learn anything. Oh no, they're going to learn a lot. They will learn about the sponge they're soaking everything in. I guarantee you. I've seen it. Go to Ephesians chapter number 6. Well that's Old Testament. The Old Testament now is for Israel. They didn't have a church building. That was a different dispensation. What it means in chapter 6, I'm reading from Ezra chapter 10 verse 1 says, Now when Ezra had prayed, when he had confessed, weeping and passing himself down before the house of God, there assembled unto him out of Israel a very great congregation of men and women and children for the people who have very sore. Now if that was true, if this was something that only took place in the Old Testament, then we have a very big problem in the New Testament because of the fact that we see the apostle Paul and others addressing churches through these letters that are meant to be read out loud in church. So when these letters were mailed to these churches, like for example, Ephesus, that letter was supposed to be read before the entire congregation. Look at verse 1 of Ephesians 6. Children will obey your parents. Well hold on a second. He's addressing who? So is this for the parents again? The Bible says children obey your parents? No. He's reading this because when you read it in church, it's who's listening. Look, we preach to the adults here, but we also preach to the children. What I'm saying is this, is that hey, God is no respecter of people. He wants his word not just to go to the adults, he wants to go to the teenagers and the children as well. And as they're reading this, there's some kids there who are disobeying, you know, getting their candy cart before service or whatever, who's still a little brat in service, and it's just like, John, open your parents to the Lord, for this is right. God put this in the Bible for you to listen to. This is not for the adults, this is for you. Honor thy father and mother, which is the first commandment of the Father, to say it may be well with thee, that thou mayest live long on the earth. Good night! Hey, Paul, this is children, man. You gotta take it easy, Paul. And still the fear of God in their hearts now. He's telling them, honor your parents. Hey, you want life insurance? This is the best life insurance you can get. Honor thy father and thy mother, that thou mayest live long on the earth. You know what, children, if you want to live long on the earth, you need to honor your parents. Don't disrespect them. Obey them! And Ephesians 6 is a chapter, it's a verse that is needed in 2019. Disrespectful, rebellious, battling off teenagers who roll their eyes at their parents like they're an exorcist or something. You know what that tells me? It tells me they're not getting squatted with words. They don't fear their parents. You know, if I ever rolled my eyes at my mom, she'd hit me so hard my eyes would stay open. That's abuse! Take that nonsense and reiterate it somewhere else. You don't mind there's so many people on prison systems, you don't mind there's so many people on the brains, you don't mind there's so many delinquent, just disrespectful rebellious teenagers who just don't want to discipline their children. We need to go back to a time where the parents took it upon themselves to discipline their children. No, she did not get offended, by the way. You're just like, yeah, I'd be like that one lady who just walked out. So we see in Ephesians 6 that he's addressing their children. So what does that tell us? It tells us that we as pastors are addressing them. And look, we believe in spanking in our church. So much that, hey, if you need to go discipline your child, there's a room in your area where you can go do that. And I'm not going to look down on you, you go to the piano business, okay? Do what you need to do. But you know what, if the church was not family integrated, it would cut our church short. It would cut the future, the spiritual lives of our children. We would not be building the right type of appetites in our spiritual lives if that were the case, okay? And look, those of you who maybe are not used to something like that, you better get used to it. Your church is going to continue to have lots of babies. There's two ways the church is growing. There's so many that you're babies. If you have more babies and more babies, then guess what? You're going to hear crying and what you want, take that as an opportunity to learn how to focus in church. Right, amen. I'm having a hard time today. Stop drinking soda so late at night. Stop eating so late at night. So the blood from your brain is not working to digest all the food. You can focus while you're in church. Church should make you a bad person, amen? Amen. So, what we have to see is you get yourself short, you know? And it looks like I said, I know people who are sincere, who did some classes, and they came out great Christians, and they're sincere people, and look, most of the people who I've known who were involved in Sunday School class, they're still great Christians today. You know why? Because they've always been on the program, that's why. They've always been on board, and they recognize it's wrong, so they may forsake that, they adapt, and they adopt a new way, which is a different way, that means a new generation of old and new Bible, and they continue to succeed. So these are the things that will cut us short. Number two is Bible college. Mail. Bible college. Amen. Let me just say this, all right, all right, before everyone starts eating, please shame the leaders. Look, this is not a Bible college smashing sermon, and going, I want to get it done. What is Bible college, first and foremost? Bible college is an institution that leaders of the church will establish in order to train future pastors and missionaries. So what they'll do is they'll have an institute where people have to pay, well, let's just bring it back. You know, they'll establish this institution, right, where they will, you have to pay to learn deep Bible knowledge. This is known as Bible college, and it's all across America. Even in different countries, but obviously it came from America. And this is something that will cut a church short. But before you just start going on this rampage and witch hunt, just remember this. I was a Bible college, you're a pastor? Yes, sir. Hey, your pastor was a Bible college teacher. That's right. And let me think of a step further. At least three of the pastors in the new IFB were also Bible college students. Including Pastor Anderson himself. So look, what I'm saying is this, is that not everyone goes, we should never have this attitude, and I will rebuke you if I hear this, we should never have this attitude that people who are Bible college are just all the way continuous. Some people are just, just, they're sincere, that's what they were taught to do, and that's what they did. I didn't go into Bible college like, oh yeah, this uh, I got to go faster. I sincerely thought, well, if I want to be a pastor, I guess this is what I have to do. I was listening to my inform. And I did learn things in Bible college that were good. You know, the doctrine was terrible. I looked back on my neck, and we said, well, that wasn't good. I still learned this in our sessions. You know, there's a lot of good things that I learned, and a lot of bad things as well. And, you know, it will cut a church short. How does it cut a church short? Bible college creates a hierarchy amongst the members of the church. What is that? In other words, when you have a Bible college in church, you actually divide a church into classes. I don't mean like classrooms, I mean like classes of people. Those who are in Bible college, they refer to as the cream of the crop. In other words, these are like the fast people. These are like, these people are paying, these people are trading for the ministry, so they get favor more than anybody else in the church. Look, this is why pastors don't like to teach deep doctrine in church. If they say, if someone comes to them and says, pastor, can we just go through the book of Hebrews? Can we go through, you know, the book of Mosiah in church? I'll say, well, you want to learn that? You need to go to Bible college. So they'll give the deep doctrine, which by the way, is as deep as a cup. We'll just say that. Because they use the cloud and all the rest of the books to teach it to them. You know, they'll tell you, if you want to learn deep doctrine, you've got to work out a book. You've got to pay 400 bucks a month to take these classes in order to learn these doctrines. This is not right. And so what they do is like, well, the Bible college students, these are the cream of the crop, these are the services as they're preparing for full-time Christian service, what about everyone else? Well, they're just the laymen in the church. And what they mean is this, is that the people in church who are not in Bible college, they're not going to get very far in Christian life. They're just going to be faithful servants in church, they're just going to go to church, we just want to make sure we get their tithes, I mean their attendance, and stuff like that. And this is the kind of attitude that it creates. Everyone else can't serve God at that capacity. I know people who will say, a gentleman will come and say, I want to be a pastor, and if they think they're too far along to even get into Bible college, they'll say, well, I don't know, that's what I want you to do. Because then the way they determine whether someone will be a pastor or not is not according to the Bible. It's not the qualifications of the Bible, what is it? It's if they're old enough to go to Bible college. They have to finish Bible college. I mean, you didn't see that in 1 Timothy? You didn't see that in 1 Timothy and in Titus? One of the required qualifications of a bishop is Bible college. You have to graduate from Bible college. I'm kidding. But it is for them. And in order for you to even be considered to be a pastor, a missionary, or to get into full-time Christian service, period, you need to graduate from Bible college. That's their requirement. That's how they qualify you to actually be in full-time Christian service. This is not right. It becomes the marker that determines whether someone can be a pastor or a missionary. They'll tell you, well, if you're going to learn the right people skills, you've got to go to Bible college. In order for you to learn the right doctrine, you've got to go to Bible college and so forth. But what is the biggest sin of Bible college? Well, it's the fact that they're charging people money to learn the doctrine of Bible college. The doctrine, first of all, nothing should ever be sold with the house of God. Not only the house of God and the house of virgins. We won't sell a styrofoam cup to you. It's free. You say, well, what if you run out and there's no more free stuff to get? That's all it is. It won't happen entirely by the way. But they charge for that. So they're making the house of God and the house of virgins. And they're charging people what God says is free. Doctrines should be free. The doctrine should be free. It should always be free. Well, you know, but if you don't charge them, they're not going to appreciate it. There's nothing in the Bible that tells us that that's all the determinants. If we sell information or not. Go to James chapter number two. Why do you cut the church short if you have Bible college? Because then everyone else who's not in Bible college feels inferior to the students themselves. You know? In other words, the people who are in the feuds. The people who are in the feuds in church who are not in Bible college. They're like, well, I'm not going to try even half as hard because I'm not a Bible college student. You know? I'm not going to try to learn the Bible as much as if I was a Bible college student because I'm not a Bible college student. Well, everyone's supposed to learn the Word of God. Everyone should be reading the Bible, covering it, covering it. It doesn't matter who you are. Whether you're planning to be a pastor, a missionary, full time Christian service or not. You should be reading the Bible. Hey, I hold Dr. Rita to that same standard. Man, she's a doctor though. She's a woman. She's like a man. She has the responsibility as everyone else to learn the Word of God. That responsibility is delegated to the cream of the cross. Now what is that called? It's called partiality. Yeah. Luke says in James 2, verse 1, my brethren, have not the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Lord, with respect of persons. For if they come unto your assembly, a man with gold ring and good lead and hero, and there come in also a poor man and mild ring, and ye have respect in him that aware of the gay clothing, and say unto them, sit down here in a good place, and say to the poor, stand out there, or sit here under my footstool, are ye not then partial in yourselves and are become judges of evil lots? So when you have a graduate college, they are favored more than the church members themselves. Now here's the thing, and this is the thing that really makes me mad about our college, okay, is the hypocrisy that takes place in our college. Bible college often will have rules for their students that are supposed to be executed in the house of God. So for example, if you have a student who's involved in fornication, don't give that person help. If you have a student that smokes weed, or drinks, or is involved in any of the cities of First Corinthians 5, they're out of it. But they don't hold that same standard in the church. The church, it's supposed to be a good place. So they're like, well, yeah, but these people are paying. That's what they'll tell you. It's like, wait, God, you are disciplining people in an institution that you created, and this discipline is delegated for the church itself. Why is it that you permit and tolerate these sins in church, but not in your Bible college? Answer me this. Why is that? I'll tell you why, because they're paying. They're paying money in order to be there, so they have to have to establish these rules. They hold them to a higher standard. And look, I believe in Bible college. This is the Bible college right here. We just call it church. You want Bible college? Sunday morning, Sunday night, Thursday night. That's where you'll get it. You want to learn the Word of God? Show up to church. You want to learn? Oh, I want to learn a book in the Bible. Come on, there's this. You'll learn a book in the Bible. You'll learn a book in the Bible. All three. And by the way, it's not a 30-minute sermon either. Sometimes I get a little overboard and I go like an hour and 10 minutes or something. Amen. That's good. You watch TV for an hour and 10 minutes all the time? I just get to some preaching. Man! According to Ephesians chapter number 4, a church is cut short if they have Bible college because they really need the responsibility to learn the Bible. And look, another thing is this, is that these guys go to Bible college and they come out, they graduate, they become pastors. They're still not pastors. Right. Still not prophets. They're not married. They don't have children. Or worse than that, you know, sometimes they just, they're not even safe. I've known students in college and I'm like, that guy for sure is not safe. Yeah, yeah. How can you judge, oh God, did he say he's an atheist? How can you say, you can't say that? That's right. I mean, wake up. Get yourself a hot cup of coffee, palm, and a cup. You have these people who are in Bible college, and look, I'm going to tell you another reason why Bible college is dangerous. Because it teaches wolves how to wear sheets of gold. Yeah. It teaches wolves how to wear sheets of gold. A lot of reparations are produced in Bible college. That's right. A lot of reparations are produced in school. And they go to Bible college. Don't believe me, just look at all the controversy in the fundamental Baptist churches and all the pedophiles. Yeah. Where all these leaders, youth ministry directors, youth pastors, all these people who are Bible college graduates, they're which are reparations. Yeah. And they use Bible college to learn how to be a Baptist. How to say the right things, look the right way. That's why it's dangerous. Now look, if you go to Bible college, I'm not beating on you, I just told you. Pacific Baptist Bible college, that's the college that I went to. Now if you go there and you ask them, they will completely deny it. I don't know if you feel it. They will probably just like completely deny it. But they don't work for it. I went. I was there for about five years. That's right. I've been there for a very long time. And again, there's people there who are not reparations here. There's people who are Bible college who listen to our preaching. That's right. Because they hear another preaching than the sire. That's right. I have Bible college teachers who still contact me for my Bible content. So they can teach their students. I'm still teaching Bible content. They're like, hey, uh, are they the divas? Are they the divas? And I'm not going to be like, no. I'm just, I'm a sculptor. Because the thing is, the students are already listening to me. How are we supposed to learn the Bible? In Ephesians 4, verse 11, he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and some teachers and some Bible college institutions. For the perfecting of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, for the work of man and measure and the stature and the fields of Christ. So the responsibility relies on me to train you to get to want to be a pastor. This is what pastors do. This is why Bible college exists. It's like, well, I don't want to train someone. So I'll just send them off to a different state. And this is what happens. This person who is excited about hearing the Lord, they move to a different state, and then they go to this huge Bible college. There's all these girls, all the glitzy clamor, and you know what happens? They stay there. They get to come back. And therefore the labors of that church are diminished because of the fact that all the students are allowed to be in Bible college. Hey, I'll train you here. We have a great training program in our church. It's called Holy Teeth. Amen? Amen. And that doesn't sound very... Hey, we have people who start off in the so many teams, and now they're team leaders leading their own team. Producing people who are going to be team leaders who are going to train those people. You know what I'm talking about? Men. Fathers. Husbands. Well, this is what I charge them. I charge them time. I charge them time. Time for what? They need to be out of so many. Because if you want to be a team leader in our church, you have to put yourself under a team leader, learn how to do so when you take correction in review. In order to be involved, I can't be a team leader. Where is that in the Bible? Well, you know what? It's not in the Bible for training so many kids. Amen. And we're not charging anybody here to do that. Amen. So what I'm saying is this, is that the church is the institution where people learn to do ministry. And look, we're not going to send a tour group out there to different churches and sing at churches to recruit people to come to their college. I'm here. If you want to serve the Lord and you want to learn how to, you can come to me. I'm not going to go to you. Amen. Because that saves me the trouble to trust. You can come to me and say, hey, I want to be a team leader, I want to be a pastor one day, and I'll see how serious you really are. And if you're serious, you're just going to do what we tell you to do and be a part of the training program. But we're not going to have Aaron come up here with his piano. The four guys in the middle of the hour are going at the same time. And brother and niece and two all have great seats with blue ties. We've got the trio group up here. Here am I. Come on and go. I'm just going to get a half train here. You know, what is that? I don't know what we're doing. We're talking about cutting into the church shortly. And look, this is why we don't have these things. Because sometimes people ask me, why don't you have some classes, why don't you have nurseries, why don't you do Bible college, why don't you do this, why don't you do that? Because we don't want to be cut short. We reach our full potential when we do it the God way. Amen. Right. Go to John chapter, actually go to, go to Second Samuel chapter four. I'm out of time, so why don't you just skip to something great. Try to make the preaching out a little bit shorter. When you don't want to offend anybody when you're preaching about the Word, so you can just be able to stop a sissy servant so as to not to offend anybody. When do visitors come to the church? Well, you know, at least they know that there's no love coming from this pulpit. At least they know that I'm going to give them the truth. At least they can trust that the pastor here is going to give it to them the way it's supposed to be given. You know, when someone has something that's a lucky sermon, they're lying to you. They're deceiving you. When someone just tells you how it is, it shows you, okay, well at least I know the person who he really is. Amen. Can't cut the sermon short. Selling things in a house of God can cut it short. Oh yeah. This house is not a house of merchandise. That's why everything is free. Activities are free. You know, the DVDs are free. Anytime you give out sweatshirts, whatever it may be, everything's free. What if we run out? Then we run out. But until then, it's all free. Everything is free. Even if you want a songbook, take it. It's free. What if I'm on fire? Okay, fire is free. We just will have five less people in the church who can sing on us. Over and over. Everything is free because this is God's house and that's how you expect it to be. And the literal soul shall be made fat. We don't want to be like the old IP where they charge for everything. Yeah. They charge for coffee. They charge for a stack of trash. I mean, they try to make money off of everything. Yeah. You know, you're playing yourself short. Okay. And then lastly, this is relevant to us today because tonight is misguided missions where we can be finished. Amen. Look, let me just say this, we're not always pastors. Amen. In other churches, that's how they kind of have been known as. It's like, well, in order for you to be a missionary, you've got to be a pastor, you've got to go on a dedication, you've got to visit like 50,000 churches for four or five years and get $25 for each church in order to accumulate all the finances necessary to go to T.J. I'm being facetious, but honestly, this is actually true. That's misguided. This is the way we do missions trips here at our church in order for us not to be cut short. You buy a plane ticket, I buy a plane ticket, we go to our country, we stay there for 10 days, and we win a bunch of people at Christ. And guess what? You get to be a missionary. Wait a minute, man, where's the altar? I would be like, be called. I'm calling you right now. Are you coming? Are you still coming? Well, I mean, do I have to go get a dedication? No. Don't I have to like graduate from Bible college? No. Don't I have to, what do I have to do to be a missionary? You have to learn how to be a good soul winner. That's good. And even if you're not, you can go and be a sound partner to be inspired to go the next time and help your soul. You know, brother Elon and myself, brother, did you go to Bible college? No. You know, brother Eddie, who's in his 70s, brother Robinson, we're all going tonight to Belize. And look, they're not in full-time Christian service. So to speak, as in being full-time Christian service, they're getting paid, but they're going to be doing full-time for the next couple days. You're going to be missionaries for the next couple days. Hey guys, you don't need to put together a presentation. You don't need a pair of cards. You don't need anything. You just need a plate to get a New Testament. We'll get some YouTube cards, and we'll do work. And you can be a missionary. What does missionary mean, by the way? It's an evangelist. Missionary is not in the Bible. Hey, let's use the word commissionary because it's an evangelist who's fulfilling the great commission. By preaching the gospel, that's all it is. It's an evangelist who goes to other countries to win people the price. He don't really will. He's our church missionary around the Philippines. He died or something like that. He comes back and he's like, Hey, he's staying. Amen. Did you go to Bible college? No. What I'm saying is this, we need to redefine what mission is. We are redefining it. Because some people are like, well, I'm not called to missions. Sorry to break it to you, but you are called to missions. We're called to reach the entire world with the gospel. Amen. Everyone is. Amen. You are called to the mission field. Look, this is what missions is in other churches. They do get their reputation for whatever, however many years, and then they go to a foreign field far, far, far, far away from where you can see. They rent a nice little building and they just do nothing for blood on it. And then they'll send a prayer letter, three, four, work her toe. We've been working on him for six months. We just got a church van. We're going to a nursing home and we're not going to get it done. You know why? Because Mom's watching. You're not accountable. That's not missionary work. That's right. My wife misses a trip, like a survey trip. This is what a survey trip is for most churches. They take all their teenagers to a mission field and they dig well. Yep. They dig well. That's what it is. Or they watch other people work and they come back and go, oh, we're a missionary. No, a survey trip is when you go somewhere to see if the land is fertile by going out there and preaching the gospel. When we go to Belize tonight, when we get there, we have no car. I've never been to Belize. I know it exists. We're going to Belize. We're going to Belize. We're landing and we're saying, all right, let's get on the bus and go to San Ignacio, win people all the way, figure it out as we go. New Testament, the Book of Acts, time is shifting, man. You say, well, I mean, aren't you going to wear a student shirt? Aren't you going to do that? Isn't that what you're supposed to do? No, I'm wearing shorts. Shorts, shirt, my New Testament, that's impossible. Because if we want to come back and say, hey, we've got a bunch of people saved, all you want to do is come with us in March. Ten days. Be some missionaries. We need to redefine what missions is. And I'm thankful for the missions conference that's coming up in January. Because that is real missions, amen? And we're going to change this next generation of missions. We don't want you to cut your throat. What's the sermon today? What's the sermon today? What's the sermon today? It simply is, hey, we need to reach our full potential as a church. But the way we do that is by coming away with the sins of Jeroboam from the British church. Some of those people, some of the Jeroboam in the past, they were welcoming people. I know them, I love them. I still love them, I still respect them. But you know what? Some of the things that they did, they cut them short. We need to remove those things and reach our full potential as individuals and as a church, amen? The prayer has not worked very well. We thank you so much for your word. And Lord, help us to have the zeal of Jehu but also to acknowledge the Lord's love. It almost makes me feel short. I know this, something like this can offend a lot of people. But it rubs us in the wrong way. It's simply because of the gap that's been brought to us. And Lord, I just pray that you'd help us to recognize these things. I pray that you would help us to remain humble before you so that we can continue to do better. We don't want to continue to be used by anyone. Our people do not know we want to continue to see people stay baptized and do great works for you. And I pray that you would help us to remain in the law of God, help us to agree it every single day and to remove things that shouldn't be there, to look in the past, the sins of Jeroboam and make sure that we remove those golden caps that no one removed in times past We love you so much for being here.