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

So we're in Ezra chapter number four, and just to kind of bring you back to speed, because we had a little bit of a break from chapter number three, but in chapter number three, they had just laid the foundation. So they had returned to the land, they're rebuilding the house of the Lord, and in chapter number three, the children of Israel had laid the foundation of the Lord, but that's just, you know, the starting point, right? It's just kind of getting things kicked off, and they're really excited. Now in chapter number four, they're starting to do more of the work of the house Lord. They're starting to build other aspects of the work of the Lord, and it starts out in verse number one. It says, now when the adversaries of Judah and Benjamin heard that the children of captivity built the temple on the Lord God of Israel, then they came to Zerubbabel and to the chief of the fathers and said to them, let us build with you, for we seek your God as ye do. And we do sacrifice unto him since the days of Ezra-Hadon, king of Assar, which brought us up hither. Now it's interesting here because in verse number one, it clearly says these were adversaries. Now what is an adversary? It's someone that's against, that's someone that's contrary to you. Another similar word that we think of is enemy, someone that's being an enemy of yours. They're kind of your foe. They're someone that's not for you, but obviously against you. And these people that are against the children of Israel, and verse number two, when they come unto them, did they say, hey, you know, we're your enemy. We're your foe. We're against you. Now they say, hey, we want to seek your God with you. You know, hey, we're here to worship your God too. Notice that they're not coming in the spirit of their adversity, but rather they're trying to pretend like they're on their team. Like trying to pretend that they're someone that's good. And we see truly a lot of the adversaries in the Bible, if not all of them, they usually present themselves as a good guy at first. They try to come in and they try to pretend like they're on your side. They're on your team. They're your buddy. You know, just like the serpent when he comes unto Eve. The serpent's not coming around like, hey, you want to die? Hey, you interested in eating and breaking God's commandments and dying? No, he comes after her and he's trying to entice her. He's trying to deceive her. And the enemies, the adversaries in the Bible are always very deceptive. They're always very subtle. And I think even in the context of what they're saying, we can kind of pick out a little bit of that because notice they say, hey, we want to seek your God. Notice they didn't even say like, hey, we're seeking the Lord. We want to seek God. We want to seek your God. That almost implies it's not their God. Okay. So we kind of get a little bit of subtlety here, but I want to kind of just focus on this aspect of adversaries for just a second. And let's go on our Bible to Proverbs 24. We're going to keep our finger here. But some mentions of adversary in the Bible. In 1 Samuel 1, the Bible mentions Hannah as having the adversary of Peninnah. So Peninnah is mentioned as being her adversary. Why? Because she is provoking her from day to day. She's teasing her. She's making her feel bad about the fact that she's not bringing forth any children. I don't know what she said. We can only guess things that she said. Maybe she was saying, hey, you're not godly. That's why God's not blessing you with children. You're in sin or God doesn't have any favor towards you or your husband doesn't love you as much as he loves me or just some kind of ridicule or some kind of put down that Peninnah is constantly making against Hannah. It's making her an adversary. An adversary is not one that's going to speak well of you, but rather is going to attack you, is going to hinder you. Now Peninnah may have been saved. We don't know. We don't know the context of Peninnah or Hannah. So someone being your adversary, and you need to understand this in the Bible, it doesn't mean that they're always like an unsaved Judas or that they're just necessarily a reprobate. Sometimes you can have enemies that are saved brethren. And in fact, when we study the Bible, there's a lot of saved people that have conflict, that have issues. But in the Old Testament, most of the adversaries that you're going to see, they are just a wicked heathen. They are, you know, a Judas type of an adversary. But the Bible says in Proverbs 24, look at verse number 10, it says, if thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. One thing you have to understand about the Bible, you have to understand about being a Christian is your life is going to have adversity. Now let's take it out of the context of the Bible. Let's say you're not a Christian. Let me help you out. You're going to have adversity, okay? Some people think that, well, I don't want to serve God, it's just tough and there's all these struggles and there's all these bad people and there's just constant adversaries. Look, I don't care if you go to this church or not, you're going to have adversaries. You're going to have issues, you're going to have problems, you're going to have conflicts. And I would much rather have adversaries that hate me because I love God, because I'm serving him, than just to have adversaries because I'm a wicked person, because of just the natural course of things. I would rather it be for me doing that which is right. And the Bible's saying, hey, when you faint in the day of adversity, you have a small level of strength, meaning you're weak, meaning you're a coward. Look, we as God's people ought to be strong, we ought to be bold, we ought to be ready to take on some adversity in our lives. And in fact, nobody in this room experiences the adversities that we see in this Bible to its extreme extent. I mean, the people in the Bible are literally being sawn asunder. Anybody been sawn asunder lately? I mean, they're being persecuted unto death. The Apostle Paul is being shipwrecked. Now look, all of us have faced certain levels of adversity, whether that be people dying in our family, whether that be our personal relationships having issues with personal relationships, whether that be a spouse, whether it be a parent, whether that be a child, I mean, there's gonna be those level of adversities. But you know what? If we just go to your workplace and we talk to your coworkers, I bet you they have bad relations with their spouse, with their parents, with their children. I mean, divorce is rampant in this country, period, whether you're a Christian or not. Look, you can't escape adversity by escaping God, okay? But we have to understand that when you become a Christian, when you serve God, it's not like all your adversaries disappear. You still have adversaries, and in fact, you usually gain some new kinds of adversaries, some really wicked types of adversaries. Go to Jeremiah chapter number five. Just to the right, your revival, Jeremiah chapter number five. We see as soon as they start doing the work of the Lord, what happens? Adversaries come. And look, when you do the work of the Lord, adversaries are gonna come out of the woodwork and they're gonna try and stop you from building God's house, stop you from doing the Lord's work. And in fact, it should be evidence that you're doing the Lord's work, in many cases. You say, hey, God's never stopped, you know, I never have any adversaries. Well, it sounds like you're not preaching the Bible. You say, oh, you guys, you'll always have protesters. Well, it sounds like we're doing something right. I would always ask, like, why protest our church? Isn't there, you know, thousands of Baptist church in this area that believe the Bible? Well, the problem is most of them don't actually preach the Bible, and you know what he hates? The Bible. So, of course, he's gonna go to the church where they preach the Bible the loudest because he hates it so much. Like, it has nothing to do with me, it has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with God's word, and God's word is gonna offend people. It's gonna draw up adversaries today, and you're gonna be a coward if you think, well, I just can't face any adversity. Well, then you're not gonna come to this church. Look at Jeremiah chapter five, verse 26. It says, for among my people are found wicked men. They lay weight, as he that set his snares. They set a trap. They catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit. Therefore they are become great and waxen rich. Now, isn't that interesting? Every characteristic of this person is just wicked, it's evil, they're liars, they're deceitful. But notice the rich, and in case, you know, in fact, a lot of times this is that type of person. The type of people that have lots and lots of money, and they just get it very quickly, it's because they're usually a very wicked person with no ethics, no morals, they're very deceitful, they're liars. That's the type of person that gains all of these riches, okay? Verse 28, it says they are waxen fat. They shine. Yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked. They judge not the cause. Now, there's something you never hear in a church. He's mad at these people because they don't judge. Oh, you should never judge. Oh, like these wicked people? I mean, it's just ridiculous. Judge not the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper, and the right of the needy, do they not judge. So notice they don't want to judge people that are having, you know, they're down on their luck. They don't want to judge and understand why those things are happening. They don't want to say, well, it's because our government's wicked, and because our government doesn't actually enforce the right policies, because there's all these churches out there that are just feeding homeless derelicts, and that's why they're the way they are. Look, we need some right judgments today, and we need to help the cause of the fatherless. We need to help those that are needy, but you know what? We need to judge righteous judgment today, and we need to not just put our money out just to anybody for any cause. That's what people want to do. They just want to hand money to wicked people, to slothful people, but the Bible says, hey, you need the righteous considered the cause of the poor. You know, what do the Democrats want to do? The Democrats want to come in and tax our nation at 50%, okay, and then just give handouts to every single impoverished person today. Look, that's not a righteous attitude. They're not judging. They're not saying, hey, the reason why you actually have no money is because you're lazy, because you're slothful. Look, in America, people don't have money in most cases because they're lazy or they're slothful or they don't want to work hard. Now, in other nations, it'd be a lot different. You know, in some nations, all the poor, it's just because they're born in the wrong family or, you know, the government's just even more oppressive than our government, you know, a communist nation or something like that. They work their fingers to the bone. They're working 60 hours a week, and they still are starving, and you know how you can tell someone's starving? You can see the bones in their body, okay? When someone's not starving, they're overweight. Look, you can't convince me that someone that's like 30 pounds overweight that they're starving. Like, you're not starving, buddy, okay? That's why when you look at people on the street corner that are, you know, several hundred pounds overweight, and it's like, you're not starving. You could skip a couple meals, you know? Now, obviously, because most of the time they're eating junk food and they're not getting any exercise, that can cause a lot of problems, too. But we need some righteous judgment today, and notice that God said there's going to be wicked people among you, and what is their attitude? Their attitude is not to judge righteous judgment, okay? Their attitude is not to do that which is good. They just want to just kind of get in there and overpass the deeds of the wicked. Oh, we don't want to judge anybody, you know, for drinking alcohol or committing fornication or for theft or for any... We want to overpass those things. We're so much more gracious than you guys are. We have so much grace. Look, they just lie through their teeth. It says in verse number 29, Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means, and my people love to have it so. You know, that's the worst part about it, is you talk to people and they love this. Oh, judge not. Judge not. You know, we need to go out and just help people. I remember we were going down to the Nosa McAllen Soul Waning Marathon, and the first stop was this pizza place. It was called Texas Pizza Beast Grill or something. It was great. The food was awesome. But I tried to talk to the first lady there. I was trying to give her the gospel, and I was just kind of asking her about salvation, just kind of opening it up, you know, like, hey, what do you think about salvation or what do we have to do? And she's like, you know, I just think that all of us in America should just put like five, ten bucks together and just think how many homeless people we could feed with that. And I was thinking like, what in the world? You know, why do I care about that? You know, why do I want to get, you know, if you think about it, there's 300 million people in America, and we all gave $5, okay, and we're talking about like $1.5 billion. You know what? It still wouldn't fix anything. You know what happened? We get more homeless people. That's what we wouldn't help the problem. It wouldn't cause less people. We need to have more jobs, and we need to tell people to go out and work hard and do things that are right. But notice she's concerned with people feeding the homeless, feeding the poor. So of course she's going to go to a church where, you know what their number one ministry is? A food bank. But they're not going to preach the Bible. They're not going to judge anybody. They're going to overpass the deeds of the wicked, and then they're just going to set up a food bank. And they're not going to actually consider the righteousness of what the Bible has to say. And that led to Luke chapter number 11, Luke chapter number 11. Look, it's a spiritual condition of the people. If the people don't realize what the Bible says, they're going to let these false prophets come in to lie to them, and then they're going to love it. They're going to think, oh, this is great, you know, because I'm wicked. I don't want to hear how wicked I am. I just want to feel how good I am because I helped the poor, you know, because I help, I help all these people, and I do good things under them. You know, I've even talked to people that came to this church. They visited, and they say, you know, where's your ministry for the poor? And I'm like, well, we go out and preach the gospel. I mean, what is it that you want me to do? It just, it's gross today, the heart of many people, they don't care about feeding people spiritually. They just want to give them a burger. You know, they just want to give them a sandwich, but you know, that's not going to help people. You'll feed them for a day. You know, teach a man to fish, all right, and to fish for souls. Luke chapter number 11, let's look at verse number 52. The Bible says, whoa, unto you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. He entered not in your cells, and them that were entering in he hindered. Notice, that's an adversary. Jesus Christ was preaching against adversaries, and Jeremiah chapter number five, we have the adversaries. They're in the midst of the people teaching false doctrine, getting the people off the word of God. And then here, we see Jesus Christ is saying, hey, you lawyers that are among the people, you're stopping people from getting saved. Now what do we have in Ezra chapter number four? We have adversaries coming. Once you start building the Lord, they start having adversaries come. Look, there's always been adversaries. There was adversaries in Jeremiah's time. There's adversaries, which was before Ezra, right, because we learned the timeline. That was before the destruction of Jerusalem, so they had adversaries back then. Then they rebuild, they have adversaries then. Then at the time of Christ, what? We have adversaries again, the lawyers, says in verse 54, laying weight for him and seeking to catch something out of his mouth that they might accuse him. What are they doing? Their goal is to just sit around and just wait and just see if they can catch anything that he says and use it against them. Look, there is people that come to this church or leave this church, and their whole goal is to just catch something out of the pastor's mouth they can use against them. Any little thing that he says, they just want to make a video. They want to try and find anything that the apostles can just attack the pastor or attack the church or go against them. Look, that's the modus operandi of these adversaries, of these wicked people. The lawyers weren't coming to Jesus to get saved. The lawyers weren't coming to Jesus to learn the doctrine. They didn't really care. Hey, can we divorce our wives for any cause? They didn't care. They're just asking him tough questions. The scribes and the Pharisees, the Sadducees, when they come, and they're asking about, hey, who's going to be married to who in heaven? They don't really care. They're trying to trap him. They're trying to deceive him. When people come in and they start asking stupid questions like, what kind of shape of the earth? Do you think it's flat? This is a dumb question. They're trying to catch people away, deceive them. They're an adversary. Go to Titus chapter three, Titus chapter number three, Galatians chapter one warns about people preaching another gospel, preaching a false gospel. When he warns about people preaching a false gospel, he says, it's not another. They pervert the gospel. Notice, nobody's going around preaching a different thing than the death, burn, and resurrection. They pervert the gospel by saying it's not free really, that the blood's not sufficient to really wash away all your sins. Well, you also have to get circumcised too. If you're not circumcised, then you're not really saved. People say, hey, if you're not baptized, then you're not really saved. It's called the hills. That's that church of Christ over here. That's right up the 183 or whatever it is, or 820. I mean, if you go and look at their doctrinal statement, you look at salvation, you know what they say, hey, whenever you, you know, you put your faith in Jesus by getting immersed in water, that that's when you receive eternal life is when you're immersed in the water. You need to have baptism in order of being saved. And I guarantee if you talk to them, you also have to persevere in your faith too. Because all church of Christ believes that you can lose your salvation. I remember my boss that I worked at a software company, his brother-in-law is a church of Christ member, and they would go hunting all the time. And my boss would always ask him, he's like, so do you think I'm on my way to hell? And he'd be like, yep. He's like, do I have to go to your church every week to go to heaven? He's like, yep. But, you know, they'll go hunting, and the guys may even try and invite him to church too. Can you imagine believing that? Thinking like, if you're not going to my church, you're going to hell, buddy. Like it's just ridiculous, the doctrines that people have, and the adversaries that exist today, but so many people, they don't want to believe that. They want to believe that everybody's saved, and everybody's going to heaven, and we're all good. And some people would be really offended by the fact that whenever they came on to, you know, Zerubbabel and Jeshua, that they turned them away. People would say, you turned people away from your church? You don't want just anybody coming in? You don't want people preaching the false gospel? You don't want the lawyers coming in? You don't want people dissimilar? Well, let's see what it says in Titus, chapter number three. Let's look at verse number 10. Titus chapter number three, look at verse number 10. A man that is an heretic, after the first and second admonition, invite him over to your house. It says, reject. It says, hey, get rid of this guy. It says in verse 11, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sin it, being condemned of himself. Now, look, being a heretic isn't necessarily even an unsafe person. It's just someone that's, you know, teaching false doctrine. Romans chapter number 16 tells us to mark and avoid them, which teach, you know, offenses and divisions contrary to the doctrine which you've learned. So if people are causing offenses and they're teaching false doctrines and they're going around and spreading false doctrines, hey, if someone's coming in here saying, hey, we need all speak in tongues, get out of here. Hey, if you think you can lose your salvation, get out. This isn't a free for all. This is a Baptist church and we're a fundamental Baptist church and we believe all the fundamentals and we're not going to let people come in and deny the Trinity and deny, hey, let's get an NIV going on around here. No, the doctrine's not for sale. The doctrine's not, we're not trying it out. It's not a new coat. Nope. We're going to stick with what we got. It's a fundamental Baptist church. We already believe it. And then when we identify you as a heretic, we're going to throw you out. There's the door. Now look, we're all, I'm sure on some level going to disagree with one another. I'm sure there's passages in the Bible that all of us may look at a little bit different. There's going to be things that you disagree with the pastor on. There's going to be things you might disagree with other people in the church on. That's fine. You're not going to find a church where you agree a hundred percent and if you do, go join that church. That sounds great for you. You know, go work that one out. But I've never been to a church where I thought, well, I agree with a hundred percent of everything that's ever been said, ever been taught, every jot, every tittle. Look, we're supposed to let the Holy Ghost teach us and we're all learning here. No one's arrived. No one's made it. No one's perfect. Just go to a church that, hey, you believe the core doctrines of the faith and submit yourself, get excited and help the church, help the church grow, do good things unto it. But realize there's going to be adversaries in that church. There's going to be adversaries in your life. There's going to be people that notice you building the house of God. They hate that. They dislike that. They're going to come up to you and say, hey, we want to build with you. We love that. We love you. You're so great. Hey, you want to check out my flat earth chart? No, you go serve somewhere else. You get out of here. And then they get all offended and they get all upset. Go to 1 John, chapter number five, you know, the apostle Paul, he warned about Alexander the coppersmith. He didn't be much evil. Paul had constant adversary. He had constant people going against him. He had constant enemy and some people just get offended that you'd ever turn anybody away or you wouldn't, you wouldn't pray for good for people. Well, look at 1 John chapter five verse 16, if any man see his brother sent a sin, which is not unto death, he shall ask and he should give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death. I do not say that he shall pray for it. Did you hear a caveat there? Because I heard a caveat saying, hey, this guy that commits a sin worthy unto death, I'm not going to pray for it. I'm not going to help this person. Look, people that are heretics, get out. People that commit sins were, you know, unto death. Get away from me. People that hate the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be an anathema and maranatha. People that preach a false gospel, get out. Look, the New Testament does not teach. Let's just bring everybody in. All of us just come on. We're all going to worship the same Lord together. No, that's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches separation to come out from among them, to know the doctrines of the faith, to know who Jesus is, and then to reject bad people. It says in 2 John chapter one verse nine, look at verse nine, whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God, he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed. So the Bible is saying, look, people that don't believe in Christ, people that are not saved, and they're bringing a false gospel, okay, this is not just your average unsaved person. This is not just the heathen, okay. This is someone coming to you on purpose. They want to teach you a false doctrine. They want to bring you an antichrist doctrine. You do not bring those people in your house. You don't have anything to do with them. You don't bid them God speed. You let them be an anathema marinatha, is what the Bible says. Says in 3 John, look at verse number nine, I wrote unto the church, but Diotrophes, who loveth to have the preeminence among them, receiveth us not. Wherefore if I come, I will remember his deeds which he doeth, prating against us with malicious words, and not content therewith, neither doth he himself receive the brethren, and forbideth them that would, and casteth them out of the church. Now this guy, he's infiltrated the church so much so that the good people aren't allowed to come in. He's casting the good people out, and that's the goal of the adversary. The goal of the adversary is to get the good people out, is to identify good people in the church, and to offend them, and cause them to stumble, and to cast a stumbling block before them, and get them out of church by lying about them, by railing on them, by doing evil against them, and you know what, oftentimes it works. But if you think in the day of adversity, your strength is small. We ought to have a strong faith today, we ought to be bold today, and no matter what adversary comes inside, we say, you know what, Diotrophes, you need to take a hike. You need to get out of here. I'm going to go tell Pastor Shelley, he's going to remember your malicious words, prating against us, you know. You come tell me their wicked, stupid, flat earth doctrine or railings, and we'll take care of it. But at the end of the day, don't quit church because of an adversary. Don't let an adversary get you from stop building God's house. You ought to keep building God's house. We ought to be strong today. The righteous ought to be as bold as a lion today. It's the wicked that flee when no man pursue it. Go back to Ezra chapter number four. That's why when we have stupid cops come up to us, soul winning this night, trying to stop us from soul winning, we just stood there and just gave him heck. The guy was getting more, you know, he was getting nervous. He's like, you're not, you're not going to dictate this conversation. Because I'm like, hey, do you believe the Bible? Hey, what church do you go to? Hey, if you were to die, you're going to have, you're not going to dictate this conversation. You're going to do whatever I tell you to do. And I said, that's not lawful. I said, if you tell me to kill somebody, do I have to do it? He says, yes. Cops are on a power trip, my friend. I said, I'm going to get that off your camera, buddy. Then after I started videotaping them and asking the same question, he was denying it. Shocked. You have to do whatever I say. That's not legal. Cops can't just tell you what to do. That would be like, you know, pastors get on that power trip sometime too, where they're like, you have to do everything. Don't wear the blue shirt, Jeff. Why are you wearing a blue shirt? That's not within my realm of authority. That's ridiculous. He can wear blue shirts all day long. He can wear a pink shirt if he wants. You know what? He might get ridiculed in the sermon. He might feel really uncomfortable. As long as he's not wearing a dress, you know, I'm not going to pick him up and throw him out. Look, it's not the, it's not a pastor's job to just go around and step on people's toes and do whatever he wants. And it's not for cops to either. They're supposed to obey the law just as much as I am. Look at Ezra chapter number four, look at verse number three. But Zerubbabel and Jeshua and the rest of the chief of the fathers of Israel said unto them, you have nothing to do with us to build and house unto our God, but we ourselves together will build unto the Lord God of Israel as King Cyrus, the king of Persia, hath commanded us. You know what? We're going to obey the constitution against your stupid principalities that are lies. White settlement. They don't have any statutes. I said, what statute should I break? You go look it up. Well, why are you stopping me then? You go look it up and come back to me. I said, who's your boss? I asked one guy said, you fear God? He said, no. Scary. The type of cops that are out there and of course on Wednesday night, since they're not in church, they probably hate God anyways, but you need to be careful. You know who you're talking to and who you're around, but at the end of the day, like if adversaries come unto us, I'm not going to say, come on in, Hey, get out, take a hike. You have nothing to do with us. Because there's people that have nothing to do with us. That's fine. Get over it. It's not a kumbaya service here. We're not going to just, you know, hold hands with every single person. It's our job to build the house of the Lord and we're going to do it. And we're following, he's following the commandment of the King of Persia. We're following Christ's command. How much more important? We ought to obey God rather than man. I'm going to go out and preach the gospel period because Christ has all power. He's given us all authority to go out and preach the gospel. I don't care what man says. There is no steps. Even if it was illegal, I would still say, Hey, I'm going to obey God rather than man. But as long as it's legal, I'll just point out the fact that, Hey, I'm not even doing anything illegal here, buddy. You need to check your facts. And look, I was respectful of the guy. I said, yes, sir. He asked for my ID. I just handed it to him. They harassed us for 10 minutes and they left. But you know, I don't want to go to jail for just being a jerk. I'd rather go for preaching the gospel. And you know, right now they were, they wouldn't want to arrest me just for preaching the gospel. I'm not, I'm not going to be like, you know, reaching in my coat pocket real quick or anything like that. He was ready. I'm sure. But at the end of the day, Hey, I'll go to jail because I'm, I keep knocking doors. That sounds great. I'll do it all day long. Go to Galatians chapter number two, go to Galatians chapter number two. And they rejected people because they're not ecumenical and we, they ought to not be ecumenical. What is ecumenical? It's just tolerating things that should not be tolerated. That's what ecumenical is. Tolerating the Catholic wicked false doctrine of salvation by works. Tolerating the Pentecostals, you know, demonic speaking in tongues and lose your salvation. Tolerating things. Look, I'll tolerate minor differences all day long. You know, someone's pre-trib, who cares? Obviously it's stupid. Obviously it's wrong. But I could still be that person's friend. We could disagree about a lot of different things in the Bible and I'd still be someone's friend. You know, there's people that don't like me personally. I'll still be your friend. I mean, for the cause of Christ, look, we ought not, you know, be looking for an attempt to separate ourselves from anybody. And that includes family. You know, you ought not try to burn your family just because you don't see eye to eye. Guess what? You and your family don't see eye to eye. No one's does. You ought to try to love your family. They ought to be the ones that walk away, not you. But at the end of the day, if I need to walk away from a situation, if I need to separate, I'm going to do it. It says in Galatians chapter 2 verse 1, So he's saying, hey, we have false brethren being brought in to spy on us and to try and bring us into bondage. And hey, they rebuke them sharply. They said, hey, we're not going to subject ourselves to this for one hour. We're not going to tolerate any kind of false gospel. Now this is the same apostle Paul that said he's all things to all men, that he might by all means save some. Paul was willing to go to any physical length that he possibly could to get someone saved. But you know where he drew the line? The gospel. You know where he drew the line? Christ's commandments. You know where he drew the line? What the Bible says. So we ought to say, hey, I'm willing, I'll put on whatever outfit I need to. I'll go wherever I need to go. I'll have whatever speech I need to have. I'll condescend to men of lowest state. I'll make it as plain as I possibly can. But you know what? At the end of the day, I'm still going to obey God rather than men. And I'm not going to tolerate false gospels. And notice these adversaries are coming in to bring them into bondage, to stop them from preaching the true gospel, to confuse the gospel, to pervert the gospel. And Paul's saying, hey, we can't let that happen. Go back to Ezra chapter number four, go back to Ezra chapter number four. These adversaries, they want to come in. They want to get you off the right gospel. They want to get you off the right Bible. Who is that? Well, Ray Comfort with his tracks of damnation, his repent of your sins tracks, chick tracks, trying to come in, trying to be adversaries, perverting the gospel. Look, there's so many good people out there that would preach the right gospel, but then they get mixed up. They get bewitched by liars like Ray Comfort, like Jack Trick. And they're going to these churches. I've talked to so many pastors and I say, hey, do you think you have to turn from all your sins to be saved? And they say, no. Well, how come your track says that? Well, that's the only tracks I could get. How hard is it to call up a print company and say, hey, give me a hundred tracks that say faith alone on it. Come on. I mean, you're so lazy, you can't even get your track right. And look, the tracks from chick tracks are expensive. It's way cheaper to print them locally or do some other option anyways. Hey, if you need tracks, you call me, I'll make your tracks. I mean, if you're listening out there and you get chick tracks, you get, hey, I'll help you make a track that doesn't say repent of your sins on it. It's wicked. Come on. Quit being so lazy. It's because these people pandered everybody. And these people love to have it so. Look at verse four, and it says, then the people of the land weakened the hands of the people of Judah and troubled them in the building. And notice that they're trying to stop them from working and it works. And as sad as it is adversaries work, as sad as it is adversaries are going to cause people to stumble. They're going to cost people get offended. They're going to cost people to quit going out soullening. They're going to cause people to quit going to the right church. They're going to cost people to quit reading their Bible. They're going to cause people to stop serving the Lord. And it's frustrating. That's why we need to stand against these type of adversaries. we need to fight and combat against them troubling us in the building, okay? It says in verse number five, and hired counselors against them to frustrate their purpose. All the days of Cyrus, king of Persia, even under the reign of Darius, king of Persia. Look, they had trolls back in their day. I mean, trolls are frustrating. They constantly report all your YouTube videos. Look, there's people, they came to this church, they were just an adversary. They leave and they constantly report every single one of our videos trying to get YouTube strikes and trying to get things taken down. Why would you do that? It's so weird. But you know what? I can't understand these type of mentality, this type of person. Why? Because under the pure, all things are pure. But in them the defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure. But even their mind and conscience is defiled. They profess that they know God. Hey, we want to worship your God. But it works, they deny him. Being abominable and disobedient and under every good work reprobation. What do you do with your life, Pastor Shelley? Why watch this church that I hate and I comment on all their YouTube videos? That's my life. You're pathetic. You're a loser. And you know what? I always say this and I keep saying it. Trolls raise loser kids. If your kids see, like, what does dad do? Well, he doesn't play with me. He doesn't actually go out and work. He doesn't spend time with his wife. He just sits here and trolls on YouTube videos. What a loser. You have a worthless existence. Why can't you find a church you do like? Why can't you go find somewhere to support? Why do you have to always be against everything? And look, that's the accusation we get, but we spend all our time, you know, soul winning and reading the Bible and preaching the gospel. Look, I'm for lots of things. And I'm not afraid to get on YouTube and write a negative comment or to be against somebody or preach against someone. But look, that's not the majority of our ministry here. That is not the major focus. The major focus is the gospel. You know what? At the same time, we need to point out these heretics, these losers, and notice every time the Bible says, avoid them. Mark and avoid them. Reject them. Cast them out. Get rid of them. Have nothing to do with them. It doesn't say follow them around and harass them on YouTube. It doesn't say go around and call them with all your prank calls and sign them up for magazine subscriptions. It doesn't say, but it's frustrating. These adversaries exist. I'm telling you what. They're going to call you. They're going to harass you. They're going to send you texts. Look, I guarantee the people that get thrown out of church, what do they do? They text everybody in the church. Oh, you know, you're in a cult. It's interesting how it's always a cult when you get thrown out. I thought cults tried to keep you against your will. You know what? I've never seen a Christian church or a Baptist church or anything like that for the most part that throws anybody out. They want everybody to come in. Anybody and everybody come in, they're so afraid to kick anybody out for any reason. They're somehow not a cult. They're trying to bring as many people in as possible. When you start throwing people out, all of a sudden you're a cult. It's like, do you even know what a cult is? People say they had to escape the cult while we threw them out. I escaped. How did you escape? We were trying to get you away. We preached you out the door. We didn't want you here. It's like, oh, you're so mean. It's like they're a mean cult that doesn't want you there. It's like, okay, you just don't understand what a cult is, buddy. But notice that they hired people against them. Now this makes me think of a lot of people. Go to Deuteronomy 23. Go to Deuteronomy 23. For sake of time, we're not going to go, Judas, isn't he hired? He's hired by the Pharisees to betray Jesus Christ. He seeks for an opportunity to betray him. They consult with him. They say, hey, we'll give you 30 pieces of silver. They covenanted with him. And then when he had his opportunity, notice at night, because that's when trolls and evil people like to work is at night in the dark when nobody can see their wicked evil deeds. But he comes and he betrays him and he's hired against them. There's another guy that's hired against God's people. His name is Balaam. Now Balaam is described in the Bible as being a soothsayer. What is a soothsayer? A soothsayer is one that tries to predict the future by means of divination, demonic spirits, familiar spirits. So this guy is one that would often be consulted to talk to devils, to talk to demons, to consult with that which is wicked. And who is the one that calls Balaam? Balak. Balak notices the children of Israel coming out of Egypt. They've already destroyed many different enemies that they had. He gets terrified and he wants to hire Balaam to curse the children of Israel. Now Balaam decides to try and go about this by the way of the Lord, but the Lord's not going to allow him to curse him because no man by the Spirit of God called Jesus Christ cursed. You know, you can't teach any false doctrine with the King James Bible because the King James Bible doesn't have any false doctrine in it. They have to twist it and pervert it, but look, you can't say anything amiss about Jesus with this book because this book can't curse Jesus Christ. Now they can misinterpret it. They can lie about it, but this book does not teach anything against Jesus Christ. By the means of Jesus Christ, you can't go against the Lord, but Balaam, he wants to curse the children of Israel. He's unsuccessful. The Lord doesn't allow him to do that. We see the Lord restraining a lot of wicked people. The Lord restrains the devil against Job. The devil wants to destroy Job, but God only gives him so much of a leash. At first it's to destroy his physical possessions. Then he allows him to hurt him physically, but he says, you can't kill him. You can't go beyond that. So the devil's only on the leash of what the Lord allows him to do, and the Lord was not going to allow Balaam to hurt the children of Israel. It says in Deuteronomy 23 verse 3, it says, an Ammonite or Mobite shall not enter the congregation of the Lord. Under their 10th generation shall they not enter the congregation of the Lord forever, because they met you not with bread and with water in the way when you came forth out of Egypt, and because they hired against the Balaam, the son of Beor of Pithor of Mesopotamia, to curse thee. So they hired this guy, Balaam, in order to curse the children of Israel. But it says in verse 5, nevertheless, the Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam, but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing unto thee, because the Lord thy God loved thee. So notice, Balaam wants to curse the children of Israel. Whatever he said, God wouldn't listen to, wouldn't hearken unto, and even turned his curse into a blessing. So Balaam's hired against him. This tells me that, hey, if you're serving God, if you're doing that which is right, even though the adversaries come against you, and even though they curse you, God will turn that curse into a blessing. He can't, he's not going to let Balaam come in and destroy the children of Israel. He's not going to let them destroy the children of God. Look, no weapon formed against thee shall prosper, is what the Bible says. Look, God is going to defend his elect. If God be for us, who can be against us? I don't care what you do, Balaam. Go take your curse somewhere else. And look, it doesn't matter how much money they give this guy, he's not going to succeed. Go to Joshua chapter 24, Joshua chapter 24. The Bible paints a very clear picture about Balaam when you listen to what God has to say about him. It says in Joshua chapter number 24, Joshua chapter number 24, look at verse number nine. Joshua 24, look at verse number nine. It says, then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sent and called Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not hearken unto Balaam, therefore he blessed you still, so I delivered you out of his hand. So Balaam's coming to hurt the children of Israel. He wants to curse the children of Israel. He wants that money so bad. But you know what? God says, I'm not going to let him. I'm going to deliver him out of your hand, out of the hand of the adversary, out of the hand of the devil. Whatever the devil tries to do and comes against you, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world, the Bible says. Look, we ought not fear the adversary. We ought not fear those that would come against us. We ought to fear God. God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love and power and sound mind. We're not supposed to go out and just be so afraid. I'm not afraid of Bruce Turd, I mean Turd, sorry, whatever the loser guy's name is. I'm not afraid of infiltrators. I'm not afraid of false brethren. I'm not afraid of Balaam. I'm not afraid, I'm afraid of God. I'm afraid when I sin against God. I'm not afraid of me following God's commandments today. I would be afraid of me not following God's commandments. That's what God's people need to be like. That's how you're going to be steadfast. That's how you're going to keep building even when the adversaries come against you. Saying, hey, I don't care what you, Balaam, get out of here. Go to 2 Peter chapter number 2, 2 Peter chapter number 2. I'm going to read for you from Nehemiah. Look, you're going to have a Balaam come in your life. If you serve God for the rest of your life, you're going to have Balaams come in, you're going to have Judases come in. You're going to have these adversaries of Judah, like we read in Ezra chapter number 4, yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Look, the apostle Paul had a whole group of men. They made a curse upon themselves, saying they wouldn't eat until they killed him. That's some serious adversary, my friend. Somebody that's saying, I'm not going to eat. I don't know what happened to those guys, but it didn't turn out good. They're still waiting to get that meal. Nehemiah chapter 13 verse 2 says, talking about the Amite and Moabite, because they met not the children of Israel with bread and with water, but hired Balaam against them, that he should curse them. Howbeit our God turned the curse into a blessing. Now I had you turn to 2 Peter chapter number 2. Let's go to verse 9, 2 Peter chapter 2, verse number 9. The Bible reads, the Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust under the day of judgment to be punished. So temptation in this case is saying, hey, something evil that's going to happen unto you. Some kind of harm, like Daniel and the lions did. That was a temptation that he had to go through. You know, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, cast in the fiery furnace. They're delivered out of that temptation. The Bible says, hey, God knows how to get you out of it. You know, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were probably thinking like, I don't know how it's going to work out. I mean, that fire looks hot. The guy that's dragging me up here died. You know, I'm sure in the flesh, they didn't know how it was going to work. But they saw it by faith. You know, Abraham, when he took Isaac upon the altar, he had no idea how it was going to work out. He just thought, well, God could raise him from the dead. He didn't know he was going to not even have to kill his kid, that he was going to offer some kind of lamb, you know, ram, cotton thicket. So you may not see the salvation in the flesh. You might have no idea how it's going to work out in the flesh. But God knows how to do it. God knows how to deliver you. God knows how to take care of you. Says in verse 10, But cheaply then that walk after the flesh and the lust of them cleanness, and despise government, presumptuous are they, self-willed. They are not afraid to speak evil of dignities, whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord. But these as natural beauties, made to be taken destroyed, speak evil of the things they understand not, and shall utterly perish in their own corruption, and shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to write in the daytime. Spots they are, and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you. Now, this group of people, where are they? They're not outside. They're inside. They're spots. You know, if you ever have like a, you see somebody and have a really big blemish on their body, or on their face, it's kind of, you know, you kind of notice it. It's kind of like, and it's annoying. It's annoying to have some kind of blemish, some kind of physical, you know, issue, or something like that. That's what it's like to have these infiltrators. They're just spots. They're blemishes. They make it difficult. They're frustrating. You know, you go to the dermatologist. They cut it off. It grows back, and you're like, get over here, you know. They cut it, you know, it grows back. You're just like, you throw one infiltrator out, a new one comes right back in, and you throw that one out, and another one comes back in, and you throw him. Look, it's until Jesus comes. You say, I just can't get rid of these blemishes. Well, that's life. It says in verse 14, Look, Balaam loved hurting people. That's what the Bible says. It says that Balaam loved the wages of unrighteousness, the abortion doctor. The person who sells liquor. The casino dealer. The banker. The loan shark. All these band- I mean, the pharmaceutical rep. Oops. The gynecologist. The doctors today. They just keep restraining drug after drug after drug these people, watching them deteriorate in their lives. But hey, I make, you know, $200,000 a year, so. And actually, I like my job. I like making so much money. I like doing wickedness. I love selling drugs to people. I love hurting people. I love killing babies. I love getting people so drunk out of their mind, they don't even know where they are. That's the type of person Balaam is. He loves the wages of unrighteousness. He wants people. He would love to see the children of Israel get hurt and collect a paycheck on top of it. This is your false prophet today. This is the Catholic priest. He loves to hurt children, teach lies, and getting paid all the while doing it, laughing all the way to the bank. You're Joel Osteen's today. They love the wages of unrighteousness. They love to get up and preach lies and everybody prays them for it. They love it. They think it's great. You know, they would never want to stand behind the pulpit and preach things and people get offended and leave. They don't want that. Anything that's going to hurt their wallet. Look, these people are wicked. They're going to come in. They're going to attack. And it's the same with these other people. And Ezra chapter 4, go back to Ezra chapter 4. There's just so much application with this chapter. But you see constantly through the Bible adversaries, adversary after adversary after adversary. They're going to sneak in. They're going to trick you. They're going to try to deceive you. They're going to say things that sound right, but they're just with faint words, making merchandise of you. Look at these chip trucks. They're so cool. Throw them in the trash. I don't want to buy those. Notice you have to buy them. How many tracks you have to buy at this church? Let's go take as many as you want off the shelf. They're free. I'm not going to sell tracks. What a weird concept. Buy the truth and sell it not. Says in verse number six, and in the reign of Ahasuerus, in the beginning of his reign, wrote they unto him an accusation against the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem. And in the days of Artaxerxes, wrote Bishlem, Mithridath, Tabiel, and the rest of their companions unto Artaxerxes king of Persia. And the writing of the letter was written in the Syrian tongue and interpreted in the Syrian tongue. Makes me think of whatever loser called the cops on us. Stupid. What kind of wicked person are you? And look, all of them claiming to go to church. Why are you calling the cops on church people? Verse eight, Rheum the chancellor and Shemshii the scribe wrote a letter against Jerusalem to Artaxerxes the king in this sort. Then wrote Rheum the chancellor and Shemshii the scribe and the rest of their companions, the Dionites and the Pharsathites, the Teperlites and the Pharsaites and the Archivites, the Babylonians, the Succonites, the Deovites and the Elamites, and the rest of the nations whom the great and noblest snapper brought over and set in the cities of Samaria and the rest that are on this side of the river and at such a time. Now, Samaria, that's like you're not a non-southern Baptist church. Basically, it's a mixed multitude. There's some saved people over there, but it's a wilderness, my friend. And they don't even know what they worship. They just go and they just kind of worship, but they're like, ah, you know. They have no idea. They're not worshiping in spirit and truth. They're the Samaritans and they say, hey, we want to worship your God. Get out of here. Come back with the King James Bible. Come back with the hymnal, you know. Come back with the right clothes on. It says in verse number 11, it says, this is the copy of the letter that they sent on him, even unto Artaxerxes the king, thy servants, the men on this side of the river, and at such a time. Be it known unto the king that the Jews, which have come up from thee to us, are come unto Jerusalem, building the rebellious and the bad city, and have set up the walls thereof and joined the foundations. Now, we're going to kind of dig through this letter for a moment, but notice the accusation they're making against the city of Jerusalem. They're calling it the bad city. Why is it bad? What makes it bad? Look, it's the city of the God. It's the place that he's anointed to put his tabernacle there, his temple there. It's not a bad city. They just come right out the gate and they want to just, you know, make things sound bad. Oh, it's that rebellious, that bad city. You know, they're just bringing up railing accusation against Jerusalem, against these people. Says in verse 13, it says, be it known now unto the king that if this city be builded and the wall set up again, then will they not pay toll, tribute, and custom, and so thou shalt damage the revenue of the kings. Now, first of all, how do they know that? How do they know it's not going to pay tribute? They just start, again, bringing up other railing accusations. They just start making up false rumor against them. And notice that they're trying to appeal to something they know that the king will get offended by, money, right? That's why they want to go after churches today. Oh, they're tax exempt. Isn't that a thing? The enemies of God, the adversaries of the Lord today, they want to get rid of our tax exempt status so bad. They want to try and rip that away from us. Oh, we're damaging revenue to the king, you know, whatever. Look, Cyrus already told them what they're supposed to do. They're following the king's orders. They're following the king's instructions. They're not being rebellious. They're doing what the Persians told them to do. And in fact, in many cases, you know, a church is only doing what the government already told them to do in America. I mean, America gives us the freedom of religion. You know, our government tells us that we don't have to pay federal taxes. In fact, a church is automatically exempt from tax exempt status or from having to pay taxes. If you look at the federal laws, you don't even have to do anything. Just be a church and you're tax exempt. So hey, by paying taxes to them, you'd be like violating their own code, their own statutes. But he wants to make up a railing accusation against them. And look, your adversaries, this is what they want to do. They want to come and they want to just immediately start attacking your character, making things up that haven't even happened. When do the children of Israel say, we can't wait to build our city so we can rebel against Cyrus, so we can do that which is wicked? They're not trying to rebel. They're not trying to go against them. Says in verse number 15, that search may be made in the book of the records of thy fathers, so shalt thou find in the book of the records, and know that this city is a rebellious city and hurtful unto kings and provinces, and that they have moved sedition within the same of old time, for which cause was this city destroyed? Now, here's the thing. They're telling a half truth, okay? Because it is true that this city has been rebellious in the past. But that is not the reason why it was destroyed. That's not the reason why God destroyed the city of Jerusalem. It wasn't because they rebelled against these foreign kings. It was because they rebelled against him. It was because they were wicked. It was because they were exceeding sinful. Now Zedekiah, the Bible makes it clear, he did rebel against Nebuchadnezzar, and that caused Nebuchadnezzar to want to come and to want to destroy them, so it's like a half truth. But the real reason why it got destroyed is because God is forsaking them, because God is destroying them. That's the real reason. If God told Zedekiah, hey, rebel against king Nebuchadnezzar, it wouldn't have been destroyed. So it wasn't the rebellion. It was the fact against the king, it was the rebellion against God that was causing them to be destroyed. And look, if you want to be in trouble with God, break his commandments. It's not about man's commandments. That's not why you're destroyed. You'd be destroyed for not following God's word, for not following his commandments. Go to 2 Chronicles chapter number 36. 2 Chronicles chapter number 36. Let me prove that point a little bit too. But it says in Ezra chapter 1 verse 2, Thus saith Cyrus, king of Persia, the Lord God of heaven, hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. So Cyrus is giving a commandment saying, I'm supposed to build the house. And he uses the Jews that are going to turn back the land to do it. Now, the adversaries, they didn't mention that, did they? They didn't say, oh, these people, they're building, you know, the house of the Lord, just like Cyrus told them to do. Because then he would have been like, well, Cyrus told them to do it, you know. They're trying to bring up a false accusation. They're trying to point out things that are not quite true about them. They're trying to misconstrue the facts. And look, the devil uses scripture out of context. The adversaries use scripture out of context. The Pharisees use scripture out of context. The Sadducees use scripture out of context. So you know what that makes me think? My adversaries are probably going to use scripture. Judge not. Now, they'll twist it. You know, they'll say all sin is equal. I don't know where that verse is, because the Bible doesn't say that anywhere. But they're going to try and use scripture. They're going to try and twist scripture. God is love. Well, guess what? God is also jealous. God is also excellent. There's a lot of attributes to God. God is just. God is the Lord God Almighty. You know what? He created a place called hell. That's my first thing. God is love. He created hell. Who do you think's going to hell? Who's he loving to hell all the way? I mean, hell is literally the worst, most unimaginable place on the planet. The same God that created hell is the same one that is love, okay? But notice that your adversaries, your enemies are opting to use scripture against you. They're going to put filthy, filthy, disgusted, you know, verses, you know, twistings of verses out here on billboards. They're going to try and attack you. Don't think, well, how could everybody be wrong? How could this Christian church be wrong? Look, the Pharisees are wrong. They knew the Bible better than anybody. The Sadducees, the Scribes, the Scribes are really coppering the Bible down every single day. You don't think they knew what the Bible said? They knew what the Bible said. They didn't believe it. They didn't actually accept it. And in fact, when you listen to some of these false prophets, they can quote the Bible all day long. They don't believe it. They don't know what it says. Second Chronicles 36, look at verse number 11. The Bible says Zedekiah was one and 20 years old when he began to reign and reigned 11 years in Jerusalem. And he that was just evil in the sight of the Lord is God, and humbled not himself before Jeremiah the prophet, speaking from the mouth of the Lord. And he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar. So is it true that he rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar? Yeah. It says, who made him swear by God, but he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart from turning on the Lord God of Israel. Verse 14, more overall, the chief of the priests and the people transgressed very much after all the abomination of the healing and polluted the house of the Lord, which he had hallowed in Jerusalem. And the Lord God of their fathers sent unto them, sent to them by his messengers, rising up a time and sending because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy. Therefore he brought upon them the king of the Chaldees, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion upon young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age. He gave them all into his hand. Verse 18, and all the vessels of the house of God, great and small in the treasure of the house of the Lord and the treasures of the king and of his princes, all these he brought to Babylon, and they burnt the house of God and break down the wall of Jerusalem and burnt all the places thereof with fire and destroyed all the goodly vessels thereof. So why is it that this got destroyed? They mocked the prophets. They didn't listen to his preachers. They didn't want to hear the words of God. They misused the prophets. They didn't listen to the words that they had. And then God says, you know what? I'm just going to destroy it because there's no remedy. God never gives up on anybody for any reason ever. Never happened. Well, sounds pretty, I mean, it says he had no compassion. The Lord is full of compassion, as the Bible says. It, there comes a point when you can get God so angry at you, there's no compassion, no compassion on the young maid, you know, on the old man, on them that stoop for age. He gave them all into the hand, horrible wrath. Now, why would God do such a thing? Well, here's the thing. You can't fully experience hell on this earth. You can't really know what the wrath of God is truly like to that extent. But he has examples like this to just give you a sneak peek of what it's kind of like. You can see the wrath of God revealed in heaven. How? Someone being a faggot because there's nothing worse. There's literally nothing worse from a personal level of just something bad happening to me personally. There is nothing worse than someone becoming a faggot. There's nothing. That's God's wrath being made manifest. Being like, please don't make that up. Look, give me all the boils in the world. You know, I'll eat dung. You know, I mean, just all physical pain and torment. Don't make me desire that. It's literally the worst. It's so disgusting. It's so filthy. It's so abominable. It just points to the fact what if there was anything worse, it wouldn't be the wrath of God revealed. That's why it's the wrath of God revealed. When God comes and wipes out an entire area, man, woman, boy, child, girl, animals, everything just wiped out. There's no mercy. Just the women are ravished. The children are, you know, thrown on rocks and destroyed. It's like, whoa, what was that all about? God, he's trying to warn you about how bad, how much his wrath is really like and hell's worse. He said, hey, it'd be worse. It'd be better. Just rip your own eyeball out right now. Can you imagine just like, he's getting, this is like, look, if something just touches my eye, it hurts. You know, smoking the eyes is terrible. Ripping your own eyeball out. It's that bad. That's why we should just, you know, want to preach the gospel to every creature. These people want to tell me the house of loving they are. How many people have preached the gospel? None. Okay, go back to Ezra. We'll finish the chapter, but notice they're telling half-truths. They're lying. They're not really telling the king what's going on because if they were telling the king what's going on, they would have said, well, listen, God gave us the city of Jerusalem because they rebelled against him and then because he was a wicked king, God destroyed him. And if you don't want God to destroy you, we need to follow his commandment that Cyrus already gave to rebuild the city. He'd be like, oh, okay, not going to touch that. Not going to get anger from God. Not going to get anger and wrath from the Lord. It says in verse 16, it says, we certify the king that if this city be builded again and the walls are set up by this means, thou should have no portion on this side of the river. So at first it was, they won't pay you tribute. Now all of a sudden it's saying everybody on this entire side of the river isn't going to give you any kind of money. He's saying, hey, this rebellion is going to spread to everybody. Everybody's going to, you know, not pay tribute. It says in verse 17, then sent the king and answer unto Reham the chancellor and Ashimsa the scribe and to the rest of the companions that dwell in Sumerian and the rest beyond the river, peace. And at such a time, the letter which he sent unto us have been read, had been plainly read before me. So now the king listened. He listened to the letter, but here's the problem. He didn't really understand the fact that they were constantly flattering him throughout that letter, that they were just, you know, saying all manner of things. He says in verse 14, it was not meet for us to see the king's dishonor. Did they really care? Were they going up to the children and be like, look, guys, we just really want to make sure the king's going to get paid his taxes here. They didn't say that. They got all offended when they were cast out. Oh, you guys are a cult. And then they go to the king. They're like, we just want to king. We just love you so much. You're so wonderful. We just want to make sure you're getting paid. We just love you so much. And we're just so worried about you getting paid. King, that we just want to warn you about. Look, it's flattery, my friend. You know, it's a sign of a wicked person flattery. You say, what's flattery? Well, if you're a good person, you have to worry about it. If you're worried about flattery, it sounds like you have a wicked heart because flattery is you say things you don't mean. It's a form of lying. Okay, go to Proverbs chapter 26, Proverbs 26 in your Bible. Let's get some lesson here because most people don't understand flattery. When someone walks up to them, they're like, you're the greatest person ever. You're like, I knew it. Finally, someone recognized. You know, you're just the best looking person I've ever seen. It's like, get over yourself, okay? You're not. You're not the greatest person ever, okay? When people say things and you can tell like, that's not true. You realize this person, what does this person want from you? People come up to me, that was the greatest sermon I've ever heard, ever. It's like, that was ever for? Like, I don't know. Ever? Is that the only sermon you've listened to? And then it's like, oh, by the way, you know, could I get a couple hundred bucks? It's like, I don't think they like that sermon very much, you know. People will come up to you and they'll just say all kinds of nice things to you and they'll butter you up and they'll say good, but they don't mean it. They want something from you. They want to get something out of you. That's why if you want to compliment somebody, you ought to mean it from your heart. And you got to catch yourself. Don't use these exaggerative compliments that ends up being flattery. That was the best sermon ever, after every sermon. You're just like, was it every sermon just keeps topping the next one? I don't believe you. That's not really the case. You know, you look at comments on movie reviews. Someone has always commented, best movie ever. I'm just thinking like, there's no way someone thought this was the best movie ever. It was terrible. But someone out there says best movie ever. You're just like, you say that about everything. You need to actually mean what you say today. Proverbs 26. Let's look at verse number 23. Burning lips and a wicked heart are like a potsherd covered with silver dross. He that hateth dissembleth with his lips and layeth up deceit within him. Say, what's dissembleth, Pastor Shelley? It means the same word here as deceit. Okay, dissembleth means to cover something up or to conceal something. So you're concealing your true emotions, your true feelings. You're dissembling with your lips. You're trying to trick them. You're trying to get advantage of them. So you look at somebody that you hate. You despise them, and you walk up and be like, I love you, man. You're great. You're wonderful. I really like, I really like that shirt, you know. What do you think about Pastor Shelley? Yeah. What do you think about Seth Vaz Vaz's shirt? What do you think about that sermon? I don't know if I agreed with everything. What do you think? You know, they just kind of come around. They kind of flatter you at first. Oh, or like in the men's preaching class, somebody will preach something. They'll come up and, oh, that was such a great sermon. I feel like that's different than what Pastor Shelley teaches. But you're just so smart. You're just so wise. You know, I think you're right. Will you tell me all about it? And they're just trying to pit you against other people. They're trying to get in there, and they're trying to fill you out. And they're trying to, you're so wise, and you're so smart, and you're so handsome, and you're so rich, and you're so talented. Look, they're lying to you to get something from you. Hey, we want to serve your God. They don't want to serve the God of the Bible. They're not interested in what God has. They're not interested in doing anything that's right. They're just coming in lying unto them. And it says in verse number 25, when he speaketh fair, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart. Look, you need to try every word that comes in your ear. The simple believeth every word. And I've been burned myself. There's been tons of people. Look, when you catch flattery from a person, don't just let that go. Don't just think like, oh, that's probably not a big deal. That should trigger a warning in your mind to say, I need to make sure what this guy is saying. I need to be careful and start perking up and listening to whatever this person's saying all of a sudden. You know, I've had people come to me, oh, you're a pastor. Oh, I love pastors. Oh, they're so great. They're so wonderful. I should have just been like, get out of here. You know, and I try not to tell people that unless the situation kind of arises for it because I don't even want that type of attention. So whenever they start doing that kind of stuff, it should raise a bunch of red flags. It should start causing you to be like, well, why are you saying all this? Why are you going out of your way to flatter me or to over compliment me or do these type of things? Well, because they want to hurt you. They want to take advantage of you. They want to do something evil to you. It says in verse number 26, whose hatred is covered by deceit, his wickedness shall be showed before the whole congregation. Look, when somebody hates you, oftentimes they don't come up and be like, I just don't like you. I don't like your face. I don't like your shirt. You know, I've been at workplaces where there was a guy I worked with and he would just talk so much garbage on the boss. Ah, the boss is stupid. The boss is an idiot. He doesn't even know what he's doing. Everything he's doing is making no sense. He's ruining the company. We're not going to go anywhere. He's just anything and everything negative. I tried to show him this thing. He didn't even get it. I don't even think he deserves this title. You know, just all manner of evil. For like an hour straight at lunch, we walk into the building and our boss is like, hey, I want to try something new. We're going to implement this new policy and for checking in code. And the same guy immediately pops up and he goes, this is awesome. You know what I really respect about you is the fact that, you know, you always have these new ideas and they're really great and you're such a good manager. And I think that we should all just, you know, really be appreciative of the boss that we have. So we're like, you just sat here and told me for an hour how much he despised this guy and he's an idiot. And then we get in the meeting, he just sits there and just flatters the guy just tenfold. Well, he got fired later. He's such an idiot. But look, that's what people are like. They don't walk in and say, you know what boss, you're an idiot and a moron. Well, actually that did happen one time he got fired too. But most of the time, you know, their hatred is covered and they have to over, do they hate you so much they have to overcompensate by trying to just say good things. They're like, you're just wonderful and great and I just love you so much. He's a jerk and an idiot. Look, you need to be careful when people are over complimenting you. And look, there's nothing wrong with complimenting someone if you mean it. Because why? If you truly love somebody, say I love you, man. Hey, I love your shirt. Hey, I love, you know, what you're doing. I love going sewing with you. I love talking with you. I love, you know, just mean it. Just mean what you say. And when you have somebody over complimenting you or it doesn't fit with the situation, you need to be aware of that person. You know, for sake of time, I'm not going to go there. But women will do this. You know, the adulterous woman does this. She'll come up to a guy and she'll be like, you're so handsome. You're the one. I've never met somebody like you, you know. They just want to whisper in your ear and they're ready to go to bed with you on the first date. And it's like, you don't even know me. Why would you say this? Because they don't mean it. And men will do the same thing to women. Oh, you're just so beautiful. You're the one. That was what Jeffrey Epstein was like. I looked at his Wikipedia page and his mother caught him. He was calling all these girls in high school and she overheard. He was saying, I love you. You're the only girl for me. To like 15 girls. Like he's just calling every girl in the school. He's just like, you're the one. You're so special. He learned how to manipulate people and how to take advantage of them. And look, wicked people exist today and they want to come and they want to flatter you and say all good things to you to butter you up to slay you. Why does someone butter you up to put you in the frying pan? Why do they fatten the calf? Because they're about to slay it. Look, it's just human nature. They come and they want to butter you up and talk all sweet in your ear. But you need to be aware of those people. Go back to Ezra. We're going to, I'm over time. We're going to finish this chapter. There's just too much good stuff in this chapter. And you know, this is more applicable. Ezra chapter four is more applicable today than the newspaper, than Fox News. Because they're going to flatter you and lie to you and tell you all these things that aren't true anyways. They're like that letter that we just read. It says in verse number 17 again, it says, then sent the king an answer and array on the chancellor and shimshai the scribe and the rest of the companions that dwell in Samarian and the rest beyond the river. Peace and at such a time the letter which he sent unto us has been plainly read before me and I commanded and search have been made and has found that this city of old time have made insurrection against kings and that rebellion and sedition have been made therein. There have been mighty kings also over Jerusalem which have ruled over all countries beyond the river and told tribute and custom was paid unto them. Sounds like Solomon. Give you now a commandment to cause these men to cease and that this city be not builded until another commandment shall be given from me. Take heed now that you fail not to do this. Why should damage grow to the herd of the kings? Now when the copy of King Artaxerxes' letter was read before Rheum and Shimshai the scribe and their companions, they went up and hasted Jerusalem and the Jews and made them to cease by force and power, then ceased the work of the house of God which was at Jerusalem. So it ceased in the second year of the reign of Darius king of Persia. Now this is the context of the chapter. The context is the adversaries are going to come. Avocaries are going to lie about you. They're going to rail about you and they're going to flatter people against you. And the sad reality is a lot of times it works. They're setbacks. And something you have to realize about the Christian life is it's not always just like, I am pressing on the upward way. New heights I'm gaining every day. Sometimes you fall a little bit. Sometimes you trip. Sometimes you stumble. Just man fall seven times. So he rises up again. And here you're going to fall. You're going to stumble. You're going to have setbacks in the Christian life. You're going to be going one way and you're going to be thinking it's going great and then there's going to be a setback. All your children are going to die. Job, you're going to lose all your money. That was a setback. You're covered with boils. You think he was just like, oh, this got better now. He's ready to die. Elijah setbacks. All of them are going to constantly have setbacks. Joseph, oh, I was sold to Egypt. That felt like a setback. Oh, I'm cast in the prison and lied about by Potiphar's wife setback. Look, there's going to be setbacks in the Christian life. But you know what? God can use it for good too. And God uses setbacks oftentimes to test us and to give us more character and more patience and for us to see his faithfulness through in a hard time. The Christian life is not one of just constant joy and constant rainbows and constant just fun and excitement. Oftentimes it's going to be met with adversity, adversaries, constant issues, constant persecutions. I mean, if you look at the apostle Paul, his life's a lot harder than it is easier, okay? But if you don't have that expectation, when the storms of life come, you're going to be offended and you're going to quit because you have no root in yourself. Whenever the sun comes out, you're just going to shrink up. Whenever the wind blows, your house is going to fall down. Whenever the storms of life come and you were not expecting the storm, you fail. If all of a sudden a F5 tornado was coming towards our building, we'd probably fail because we weren't expecting it. Hey, if a hurricane hit our city hardcore all of a sudden, we'd probably fail because being in Dallas, you don't expect any hurricanes to hit, right? Usually when a hurricane comes, what do they do? They start putting boards on the windows and they start preparing. Look, expectation is good. You need to expect adversaries in your life. You need to expect setbacks. You need to expect failure and say, hey, I'm going to have a plan when I fail. Hey, when I get out of church, I'm going to kick my own butt and get back in church. Hey, when I quit reading the Bible, I'm going to have a plan to get back on reading the Bible. Hey, when I haven't been soul winning in a while, I'm just going to drag myself out and go soul winning again. Hey, when I'm not doing anything for God, I'm just going to figure out how to just throw myself in church and perk up and listen to the sermon and start serving God again. Look, you got to pick yourself up. You got to realize there's going to be setbacks. You got to realize there's going to be adversaries. If you don't have that expectation, you will fail. You have to have that expectation. You have to be ready for some adversity. Otherwise, you're going to fail. Another thing is you have to fortify yourself. You have to put the boards on the windows. You have to start building some roots. You have to start reading the Bible. If you're not reading the Bible every day, if you don't already go soul winning, if you're not serving God now, you will not be steadfast in the future. Why? Because it's only getting harder. Right now, it's easy. I mean, standing up with that cop is pretty easy. You know, when he pulls out the taser, when he's threatening jail, when they're threatening execution, that's a lot harder. If you can't even go soul winning now, when it's legal and you usually never get harassed ever, you're not going to be able to do it whenever there's major adversaries, major people coming against you. And look, even if they throw you in jail, hey, God's going to deliver me out of that temptation, and I'm going to keep going soul winning sometime in the future. And maybe that'll inspire other people to be more bold and go out and preach the gospel. So we need to have the right expectations for our setbacks. We need to fortify ourselves against those setbacks. And lastly, we need to have a faith and hope that God will deliver us out of those setbacks. And we're going to get that in later chapters. We have to realize this is a pretty negative way to end the chapter, isn't it? I mean, it seems like the enemy's won. There's going to be times in your life where it feels like the enemy won. The railer won. The adversary won. The troll won. They shut down your YouTube channel. You know, they lied about you and you can't fix it. Or, you know, somehow somebody got out of church or some bad thing seemingly happened, or there's going to be setbacks in church. Don't think that it's always going to be good. There's going to be hard times. But at the end of the day, they're going to build that house of the Lord. They're going to be steadfast. They're going to be unmovable. They're going to always abound in the work of the Lord. Why? Because if God be for us, who can be against us? Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for being with us and giving us these great stories of adversity so that we would know how to behave ourselves in the day of adversity. So that we would be prepared against the adversaries that would come against us. And I thank you that you're willing to deliver us out of those. That you want to help encourage us that we can be fortified in your word. We can be strengthened with the word of God. And that when those things happen, we can have faith and hope in your promises to deliver us out. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.