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Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Thank you for watching. Praising my Savior all the day long This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long Perfect submission, all is at rest I and my Savior am happy and blessed Looking and waiting, looking above Lost in His love, lost in His love This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long This is my story, this is my song Praising my Savior all the day long Thank you for coming to Steadfast Baptist Church. If you need a bulletin, you can lift your hand nice up and high and we'll get you a bulletin. We have our Proverb of the Week. We're on Proverbs chapter 31 verse 2. We're working on this Bible memory passage. We have any child that's able to quote the verse of the week and receive ice cream after the service. On the inside we have our service time, soul winning times and church stats. And also on the right we have a list of several ladies who are expecting. And so if you'd please be in prayer for all of them. And the list keeps growing. Also our prayer list down below. We like to go over on the Wednesday night services. We've been continuing to pray for brother Cameron, for his leg. We've been praying for brother Wallach's daughter Haley for her pregnancy. Also we've been praying for Ms. Cooley's stepdad, his cancer treatment. We've been praying for brother Ozzie's brother. We've been praying for the name's grandmother. Also been praying for brother Nate. And we've been praying for brother Kuzmin's, one of his people that he got saved, Ms. Sharon. We're praying for, I guess she has a brain condition. And so we're just praying for her on that. Also we've been praying for Ms. Linda for a vehicle. That's pretty much all I have as far as just announcements and our prayer list so far. We'll go ahead and just say a quick word of prayer for our church family. Thank you Heavenly Father so much for giving us this opportunity to be here this evening. And thank you so much for all these ladies who are expecting. I pray that you'd please be with them during their pregnancies. Please help them with a speedy delivery, that it would go well, that it would be smooth. I pray that you'd help these children's developments. I pray that you'd also be with our chronic issues. We have several people who are struggling with lots of health issues. I pray if possible that you would just give them healing. If not, that you would just give them peace and comfort during their time of tribulation. Please also help our church family that needs favor and blessing right now with vehicles and job and safety. And I pray that you would just be with them, strengthen them. I pray that you would help our upcoming conferences and that everything would go smoothly. That people would be given a lot of zeal and spiritually renewed and have a stronger desire to serve you. I pray that you'd also help us to get people saved during that conference and for everything to go as smoothly as possible. We just thank you for all you give us and in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Back upcoming events, of course our conference is about to happen. It's coming around the corner. There is a sign up sheet if you would like to just help with some of the extra cleaning. Just because we'll have pretty much a service Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and we'll even have activities at the church on Saturday. So it just it probably needs to be cleaned virtually every single evening and just to kind of help out our regular cleaners. It'd be nice if you could just sign up and there is a time on there. So it should say like this service time or this day and this kind of like general time. When people will kind of generally meet to help just moving things back together, throw away trash, help vacuum a few things like that. That would be a huge blessing. Also, we have at the end of the month, October 31st is our Texas chili cook off. And so we're going to be having just a night of fun and fellowship. And if you would like to participate, we have a competition where we essentially anybody can bring a chili. That they would like to be judged and we'll see if anybody can beat Miss Cassandra because man, she's won two times in a row. And I don't know if it's going to be a third time or not, but you know what? She's going to win if no one enters. All right. Because I know that she's going to enter. All right. So and of course, there's prizes. And even if you don't win those prizes, I think for we've done it for first, second and third. So it's a it's a great time. And I did last year a pastor's pick and my the one that I liked the most didn't even place. So apparently we need to get some better judges in there. All right. And I just pray for judges, pray for righteous judges that hate covetousness and love the truth. And so, of course, we'll be working on that. It's a shame. It's just because all the people that really like the normal chili, they enter and then all the leftovers are the judges. I'm just kidding. Hey, if you're a judge this year, we're going to we're going to put you to the test. All right. Also, November 4th is the Abilene, Texas soul winning marathon. It's a great opportunity to get some extra soul winning in. I think it's about, I don't know, two and a half, three hours from here. It kind of just depends on which part of the DFW area you live in. And so we'll be heading out that way for an all day sowing marathon. It'll be we've never been to that area, so I don't know what it's like as far as soul winning. We've had some members that live over there and live in that part of the world, but I assume it'll be pretty decent soul winning. So I'm excited about that opportunity. That's pretty much all I can think of. Oh, we did. We did get the fire breathing Baptist shirts in already and they look really, really nice. So you're definitely going to want to get one of these things, but you can get it next Wednesday. So this next Wednesday you can come tonight. I'm going to be starting a new Bible study in the in the book of Malachi. I I'm pretty sure next Wednesday, though, I'll probably just preach something different. We'll just take a break. And then the following week I'll probably pick back up in Malachi. And so I'm looking forward to this Bible study. Let's go ahead and go sing our third psalm of the week. Our third song is Psalm 150. If you have a sheet, you can look at it on or you can just use your Bible if you need to. All right, that was Psalm one hundred and fifty, Psalm chapter one hundred and fifty in your laminated handouts or in your Bible. Everybody sing it out together. Praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in the firmament of his power, praise him for his mighty acts. Praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise him with the sultry and harp. Praise him with the timbral indents. Praise him with stringed instruments and or hymns. Praise him upon the loud cymbals. Praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord. Praise God the Father. Praise God the Son. Praise God the Holy Ghost. Praise God and free person. All right, great singing everybody. Now, as the offering plate is being passed around, go ahead and turn your Bibles to Malachi chapter one. That's Malachi chapter number one. Thank you. Malachi one, the Bible reads the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. I have loved you, saith the Lord, yet ye say, wherein hast thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, saith the Lord? Yet I love Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, They shall build, but I will throw down. And they shall call them the border of wickedness, and the people against whom the Lord hath indignation forever. And your eyes shall see, and ye shall say, The Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master. If then I be a father, where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear? Sayeth the Lord of hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar. And ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? And if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person, saith the Lord of hosts? And now I pray you, beseech God that he will be gracious unto us. This hath been by your means. Will he regard your persons, saith the Lord of hosts? Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for naught? Neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for naught. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts. Neither will I accept an offering at your hand. For from the rising of the sun, even unto the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering, for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted, and the fruit thereof, even as meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it, and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts. And ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick. Thus ye brought an offering. Should I accept this of your hand, saith the Lord? Be cursed, but cursed be the deceiver, which hath at his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrifices unto the Lord a corrupt thing. For I am a great king, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen. Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father in heaven, we thank you for Malachi chapter 1, and I pray, Lord, that you just enable Pastor Shelley to explain the chapter to us to the best of his ability, and just fill him with the Holy Spirit, Lord, as he goes through this Bible study tonight. We love you, and in Jesus' name I pray. Amen. So we're starting a new Bible study in the book of Malachi, and just to give a little bit of setting, obviously this is the last book of the Old Testament, and it's going to be towards the end of the Babylonian captivity, towards sometime between the Babylonian captivity and the rebuilding. In the Bible that I have, it even kind of places it around the time of Nehemiah. Of course, that's not Scripture, that's just kind of what people will say. I think that's a pretty reasonable timeline to kind of think of it maybe around the time of Nehemiah, or possibly even a little later than that, but it's pretty clear that it's kind of in a rebuilding phase, is kind of what it's talking about a little bit here. Of course, the Babylonians did not only destroy Jerusalem and Israel, but rather they destroyed the entire area. They basically destroyed every kingdom, every single area, and so it's also kind of mentioned in this chapter a little bit about Edom building up again, too. So you kind of see it as kind of there's a reprieve in this area to some degree, to where the damage of the Babylonians has been kind of done, and now people are starting to kind of rebuild here, and then that's going to be kind of alluded to a little bit in this chapter. So that just kind of gives us a little bit of an idea of where we place this particular portion of Scripture. Additionally, it kind of fulfills Scripture because in Jeremiah 49 and in Obadiah, God prophesied about Edom specifically and a lot of things that happened to them, and it seems like in Malachi, it's kind of talking about it having happened, rather than it being prophesied that it's going to happen. So Jeremiah 49 and Obadiah are kind of more in the context of talking about when this is going to happen to you guys, and then you have here in the book of Malachi where it definitely has happened. And it's interesting because Jeremiah 49 and Obadiah kind of are almost the same. They really kind of overlap a lot. It's similar to how some passages in the book of like first and second Samuel are just like parallel in a psalm, where you kind of have like the same thing mentioned, kind of does the same thing there. And then also in Malachi, it brings up a lot of the same points. But I could be mistaken on Obadiah, but I think Obadiah is still in the context of prophesying in the future. But Malachi is more like the fulfillment of what was prophesied about Edom and specifically definitely in Jeremiah 49. But look at verse number one, the Bible says the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi. Now, you know, it's don't miss over there. Don't skip over this first verse, because let's let's pay attention to one word in this first verse burden. Did you notice that is burden a good word, a positive word or a negative word? It's actually a negative word, isn't it? A burden is something that's weighty. It's heavy. It's not good. It's a problem. There's an issue. And so the Bible saying the burden of the word of the Lord to Israel by Malachi, sometimes it's a burden to tell somebody what the Bible says. And you say, well, why is it a burden to tell somebody what the Bible says? Because God doesn't have a positive message for them. He has a negative message for them. Why is it that most preachers do not preach a lot of the Bible? Because it's a burden and they don't want to bear that. They don't want to be the bearer of burdens, the bearer of bad news. They don't want to be someone to, quote, beat up on the people or something. But, you know, holding back the word of God is not a good attribute. It's not a positive thing. God doesn't look down from heaven and say, well, at least you're a positive preacher. Now, he's mad that people won't deliver his word because he is the he's the one that gave the word. Why would God be mad at you for telling people what he said when he's the one that said it? You know, it's God doesn't need a delete button on his tweets. OK, God doesn't need the edit button. God doesn't think like, oh, you know what, I need to hide this post after I made it like, you know, Malachi was kind of a negative book. I wish we could kind of just like hide that one or something like that. No, no. God likes his word so much that he's going to keep it forever. That is preserved forever for all generations. And it's for us to read and to embrace. And, you know, I like Job's attitude where he says, hey, we receive good of the Lord. Why can't we receive evil? You know, if God has a negative message for me, then I need it. And you'll find that even though this message is a negative message, God still has a message of hope and grace, you know, inside of that particular message. And so sometimes we have to embrace the bitterness to then get the sweetness. You know, it's kind of like the sour patch because first they're sour, but then they're sweet. OK, and, you know, sometimes it's like with the word of God, it's like, well, it's a rebuke or a proof at first. But, you know, afterward it yielded the peaceable fruit of righteousness. And, you know, it's kind of like that chastisement. No chastisement for the present seemed to be joyous but grievous, but afterward it yielded that peaceable fruit. So, you know, sometimes in our lives we need a negative message to get us into a good place in the future. And those who ignore the negative messages of the Bible are going to be a fool. They're going to be destroyed. God doesn't think that it's cool to ignore portions of the Bible. God wants us to believe every single part of the Bible. And it's not like, well, that's Old Testament. No, it's still relevant for us today. There's still lots of things in the Bible that are Old Testament that are more relevant than anything you'll ever read online, in the newspaper, any application you could think of. The Bible always has the best applications and it has the best wisdom for 2023, today. You want to really understand what's, you know, if you watch the news, you're not going to have a very good idea of what's actually going on in the world. But if you read the Bible, you'll actually have a lot better idea of what's really happening in the world today. It's like the people that don't know anything about the Bible are often very misinformed as to what's going on in the world because there's a lot of trickery, deception. There's a lot of deceit. People don't want you to understand how marriage works and how family works and how joy works and how work works and how governments are supposed to work and who the real elites are and who the people are that are the enemies of the cross and who the people are that really love God. And, you know, in this book, it's even going to talk about that, that you can see the difference between the people that actually serve God and love God and the people that don't, the people that are fake, the people that are phony. And, you know, even with the children of Israel, it appeared for a long time that these are the people of God, but many of them were fake and phony. And they end up getting replaced with the Gentiles, which is also mentioned in this chapter. So, you know, I said a lot, but I just kind of want to give you a little bit of a, kind of a taste as to what we're going to be discussing here in this book. It says in verse number two, I have loved you, sayeth the Lord, yet ye say, Whereon has thou loved us? Was not Esau Jacob's brother, sayeth the Lord? Yet I loved Jacob, and I hated Esau, and laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Now, this is kind of a famous quote that we actually had covered recently in our Bible study of Romans, where in Romans chapter number nine, it says, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. It's being quoted from this particular passage, and, you know, again, some people would say, oh, well, when it talks about Jacob and Esau in the book of Romans, it's not talking about hating the person Jacob or hating, or loving the person Jacob and hating the person Esau. And I'm like, yeah, you're right. So, therefore, we shouldn't hate anybody or God doesn't hate anybody. No, actually, it was talking about groups of people. So it was talking about how he loved groups of people and how he hated groups of people. But you can't sit here and claim that God never hated anybody or God doesn't hate anybody for any reason when the Bible just plainly states, and I hated Esau. How are you going to interpret that? You know, I've run into Bible theologians that want to tell you, you know, everything's an expression of God's love. Well, then love becomes meaningless when someone that's burning in hell is being loved. Like you kind of ruin the entire point of what love even means at that point. Like why, if that's so loving, then why does God send his son to die on the cross so he wouldn't go there? Right? I mean, if me being in hell is just such a loving, wonderful place and it's just an expression of his grace towards me, then why would I even fight him on going there? Like, you know, it really just makes words meaningless at that point. And, you know, it's just kind of a people get this idea in their head and no matter how much verses contradict that idea, they sometimes are unwilling to change. Like, you just kind of get an idea in their head, like God could never hate anyone for any reason at any time. And then you just show them verses like this and they're just like, well, that just can't be how it's interpreted. But, you know, I would ask you this question, like, where did you come up with your view then? Like, because if you're not getting your view from scripture, you should always let scripture reinterpret your view. OK, because all of our views should come from scripture. But, you know, of course, we can't change our biases. We all come to the Bible with our own personal biases and presuppositions and different upbringings. And so we have a lot of baggage when we approach scripture. But at the same time, when we are challenged with something in the Bible that's different than what we originally thought, we should study it out to see if we're even right. And, you know, I have been proven wrong from the Bible many times in my life. There's been many times growing up where I thought one thing and then the Bible just clearly showed me something different and I just had to change on it. One that I had to eat a lot of crow on was the pre-trib rapture because my dad was never pre-trib. And but he took me to a church that was pre-trib. And so and I mean, it was pre-trib like we hear a sermon about it every like once a month, you know. So it was like pretty often that we're constantly hearing about the pre-trib rapture. And so I was super pre-trib and like I even thought I had studied all the different theories and all the different options. And I would be honest and say like, well, there's not really any verses to say that. But, you know, yeah, but it has to be pre-trib, right? I mean, you know, and so I kind of didn't really have a very good way to argue it other than just say, well, it can't be in their view. And then after, you know, actually reading the Bible, you know, like for real, I started noticing lots of passages that seem to really contradict what I believe in, especially Mark 13, where it says after that tribulation. And I was just like, man, that just sounds exactly like 1 Thessalonians 4. So then I went over there. I'm reading 1 Thessalonians 4. I'm going back to Mark 13 and I'm like, I'm wrong. You know, I just was like, hey, you know, I didn't have it wasn't somebody that came up to me and just slapped me across the face and was like, don't be pre-trib anymore or anything like that. I just had to face reality of like, hey, that's not what the Bible's really saying. So then I started researching that view. And boy, there was a lot more verses that also proved that that I was kind of ignorant of or not paying attention to. And so then it when it became really clear, I just changed. And, you know, it's OK. Sometimes we just got to change on what we believe. And we need to confront people with verses because at the end of the day, we can make all the logical arguments we want and kind of use reasoning and well articulated points. But at the end of the day, what changes hearts and minds is scripture. And so we always want to appeal to scripture. That's why it's also important that whenever you're arguing doctrine with people, that they're already King James only, because what I've also noticed is this. I've had a lot of arguments with people on the Bible in my life, you know, friends, family, whatever you want to call it. And I never seem to make any progress with anyone that's not King James only. And it's not so much that those people don't can't be saved or something or don't necessarily even like the Bible, but it's just they don't really have a standard in their life that you can measure anything with, OK? It would be like if I have a measuring tape and they have a piece of string and we're trying to agree on how many inches something is, it's like, well, you know, they just since they don't really submit to anything as being authoritative, they're just going to always be able to pull that string, however short or long that they want it. And it just basically fits their world view, whereas no matter what I do, that measuring tape is going to be the exact same six inches or nine inches every single time I pull it out. You know, I can't really I can't really argue with it. It's just the fact, right? That's why it's also important to say, like, look, this is what the Bible says. This is our measuring tape. This is our authority. It says what it means and it means what it says. And so, you know, I don't need to play games like, well, in the Greek or in the Hebrew. It's like, look, if you want to know, I'm going to I'm going to unveil a secret for you. If you want to know what the Bible says in the Hebrew and in the Greek, in English, read the King James Bible. You know exactly what the Hebrew and the Greek say in English. All right. OK. It's that easy. OK. That's why it's funny when they say, well, actually, what the Hebrew says. I already have what the Hebrew says. What the Greeks already have what the Greek says. OK, it's exactly what it's saying. All right. So we have to just embrace the fact that God loves some people and he hates other people. Now you say, well, what does it mean to hate people? Well, what does he say? Verse three. And I hated Esau and laid his mount his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness. Whereas Edom saith, We are impoverished. So what was a way in which God shows that he hated Esau? Well, he destroyed them literally. He destroyed their city. He destroyed their town. He destroyed all their high places. And they became very poor and destitute as a consequence. So that's an illustration of God hating that person. It would be hard to say like God's loving you while destroying you, which reminds me of the fact that, yeah, the people burning in hell, God doesn't love because he's destroying them in hell. OK, it's that clear. All right. Now, of course, we use in our modern vernacular love and hate really broadly. You know, I'll say something like I love pizza and I hate ranch. You know, you know what I'm not doing, though? I'm not actively destroying ranch every time I see it. Like, I don't I don't just go to the grocery store and just pick all the ranch bottles up and just throw them on the ground and start screaming like, what an abomination. You know, that's that's not really how I behave, but I just means I don't like it. Right. I don't want it. If it was somehow on my food, I might scrape it off or something like that. You know, I went to a restaurant not longer and they put ranch on my sandwich. And I was just I was really upset, but I was running late and I had no other options. You know what I did? I just ate it. OK, so sometimes and you know what? I didn't like the ranch like I like the sandwich, but I kind of hate the ranch. Just kind of like, man, just reminded me of the fact that I was right and that ranch is gross. OK, and I'm not like in the future thing and like, you know, let's try that again. No, no, no. I'm going to have to double be like, hey, last time you put ranch on this. Not again. OK, I'm not trying to shame the places I like it. All right. But they made a mistake. OK. And yet there are some things in my life that I hate that I wouldn't even tolerate for a second. Right. Like, it's not like, well, I just ate the ranch sandwich. Right. But if I was going to a church and they're preaching a false gospel, I'm not just going to sit there and take that. You know, I'm not just going to take lots of different things in this world. I'm not going to say, you know what? Let's just invite sodomites over the house. No, that's just there's some lines where the hatred is much more intense or much more extreme when it comes to things that we hate. And I believe the same with God. You know, God uses the word hate broadly. OK, he talks about how we should hate his enemies and we should abhor that which is evil. And then, you know, in other passages in the Bible tell us to hate, you know, our father and our mother and our brother and our sisters. There's obviously a huge difference between hating the enemies of God and hating your family. OK. But in both cases, it's just talking about not preferring one, disliking the other. And in certain situations, you would basically make an alternative decision. OK, and we can we can understand that there's levels and degrees of hatred and love. But let's just believe what the Bible literally says here, that he hated this group of people. He's destroying them. He's making them destitute. And even though they're impoverished, verse four, it says, but we will return and build the desolate places. Thus say the Lord of hosts, they shall build. But I will throw down and they shall call them the border of wickedness and the people against whom the Lord had indignation forever. Wow. Now, that sounds pretty close to the word hate, right? I mean, it's indignation. What is that anger? He's upset. Right. Wrath. He's saying, I'm going to have wrath with you forever. This is like hell, which is for ever indignation for ever. His wrath is kindled in hell for ever. Why? Because he hates those people. And he's also showing that's how he feels about Edom. Edom is a synonym for Esau. When we're talking about the group of people, we're talking about that nation as a whole. Just kind of like Jacob and Israel are the same person. When we talk about the group of people, Esau and Edom are the same person in the context of talking about the group of people. That family is considered Edom, is considered Esau. And God is just going to destroy this family. Verse five, and your eyes shall see and you shall say the Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel. So what he's trying to say is, look, you as a nation, Israel. Are going to end up getting rebuilt and you're going to have still blessing from God. But Esau or Edom, they're going to rebuild and then I'm just going to destroy them again. And then you're going to see the major difference between you as a group of people and Edom as a group of people. Where at the end of the day, they're going to be completely wiped out and destroyed and utterly decimated forever. And you guys are going to be established again and have a thriving community. And of course, they do, because it's necessary for them to rebuild the temple, thrive again, be replanted so that Christ can come. Christ can go through all of the prophecies of him being rejected, visiting the temple and all the different things that are going to be there. Then, of course, after having rejected Christ, there's no more need for that temple or any of those things. So 80, 70 comes along, wipes them all out. And really, arguably the only other reason for another temple is for the Antichrist to go inside and call himself God. OK, so that's why a lot of people speculate that there will be a third temple built where essentially they're going to start the daily sacrifice again, which talk about one of the most blasphemous things you could ever do. They start offering lambs as a sacrifice when we've already had the lamb of God. Talk about an Antichrist religion. And then he comes in and stops the daily sacrifice. Because, you know, look, Christ was supposed to stop the daily sacrifice, too. You realize that, right? Christ was the one that had the veil and the temple rent. And Christ is the one that's supposed to stop the daily sacrifice because he was that once for all sacrifice. And the Book of Hebrews is written to the Hebrews to try and say, look, we're done with the sacrificial system. It's already waxing old. It's ready to basically vanish. There's no more need for it. We have a new order after the order of Melchizedek, not after the order of Aaron. And so the Antichrist always tries to imitate that which is Christ. And so what is he going to do? He's going to come in and try to pretend like he's fulfilled that, have his own mini version of the gospel, his death and kind of resurrection. And he's going to claim that he is God and everybody has to worship him. Now, here's a big difference, though. Everything that Christ did is what the Bible said to do. And everything that Antichrist does is the opposite of what the Bible said to do. Right? The Bible is saying, don't get a mark of 666 in your hand. And the Antichrist is going to say, get a mark of 666 in your hand. Right? Okay. And all the prophecies of Christ coming as meek and lowly and as a servant, whereas the Antichrist has become showy as a conqueror, taking over, flattering, lying, being full of iniquity and full of evil and full of sin. And so we're going to see a dark contrast to these two figures. All right. But it's important to realize that, you know, when it comes to groups of people in the Old Testament, God wanted to illustrate a spiritual truth that the children of Israel reflected that which is the saved. And now the saved are going to eventually be returning with Christ and set up. And we're going to have that kingdom. We're going to live forever with him, whereas the unsaved are going to be destroyed forever, kind of like Esau his here, kind of like Edom is. So it's kind of foreshadowing a little bit just of the saved versus the unsaved here. Now, some people would ask this question, why is Edom so hated and destroyed? Well, keep your finger here and go, let's go to Obadiah for a moment, go back to the left, just a hair. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zachar, Malachi. So it's right before Jonah. Obadiah, it's a one chapter book, so it's super easy to miss, but it's right after Amos. It's right before Jonah. Have you gotten to Daniel? We went too far. Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum. So this kind of gives you an idea. Obadiah, let's look at verse one. The vision of Obadiah, thus saith the Lord God concerning Edom. We have heard a rumor from the Lord, an ambassador is sent among the heathen Arisee and let us rise up against her in battle. So, yeah, again, I'm pretty sure I'm right again. The Obadiah is kind of the foreshadowing, the future talking about Edom, just like Jeremiah 49 is. But notice it's specifically about Edom. Look at verse number 12, what's prophesied about them. And I'm just, for sake of time, it says it's going to be destroyed, all the things we've already read, but this is explaining why. Verse 12, But thou shouldest not have looked on the day of thy brother in the day that he became a stranger. Neither shouldest thou have rejoiced over the children of Judah in the day of their destruction. Neither shouldest thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress. Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity. Yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity. Neither shouldest thou have stood in the crossway to cut off those of his that did escape. Neither shouldest thou have delivered up those of his that did remain in the day of distress. For the day of the Lord is near upon all the heathen. As thou hast done, it shall be done unto thee. Thy reward shall return upon thine own head. And of course, really, you know, if you're going to summarize chapter number one of the book of Malachi, this is the reigning thought of the chapter. And of course, it's kind of a theme that's consistent in the Bible that you're going to reap what you sow, that what you end up doing, you're going to be recompensed. And notice he's saying, hey, your reward is going to return upon your own head. So how you treated Jerusalem is going to be returned in favor into how you are going to be treated. Now, what happened with Jerusalem? Again, Jerusalem was surrounded by Nebuchadnezzar and the armies, and they decimated them. But what it's trying to say is that Edom and Esau, its neighbor, was kind of looking and saying like, oh, well, you know, they didn't take everything, so we could go down there and we could rob them too. Now that they're defenseless, now that they're weak, now that they don't have their arm anymore, now that they've been kind of decimated, we can go down there. And in fact, not only that, any of them that escape, we won't bring them in as refugees. No, no, no, no, no. We'll cast them out or turn them back over to the Babylonians or I don't know exactly what they did to them, but it does say very clearly that they weren't letting them into their city or protecting them or whatsoever. They're basically just like really just being evil towards those people. It's kind of like somebody that you already didn't like and something bad happens to them and you're just kind of piling on. You're piling on to their evil. You're piling on to their calamity. You're glad that bad things are happening to them. You know, God even tells us in the Proverbs not to be joyful or happy when our enemy stumbles. You know, it upsets the Lord. And of course, they're not their enemy for a righteous reason. It's not like Jerusalem or Israel has done anything to them or is like an enemy of God. They just hate them because they hate them. You know, they're just kind of they're actually the ones in the wrong here. And their hatred towards their brother, their hatred towards their kind of envious, kind of like Cain is or kind of like Esau was. I mean, Esau was kind of hateful towards his brother Jacob. And it kind of makes sense that what happens, Edom kind of ends up becoming hateful towards Jacob as a group of people because that just is inherent to their nature. And so as a result of that, God is going to end up punishing them and destroying them as they would see fit. And, you know, it just goes to show that you can get away with things for a while, but God's always going to recompense you. God's always going to repay you, how you treat other people. And so if you want, death and destruction will treat other people that way. So we went back to Malachi, chapter number one. We should be careful how we treat other people. And, you know, right now there's a part of the world like Ukraine. Ukraine is kind of just being destroyed by Russia and especially their troops. And, you know, you may not like Ukrainians or you may not like some of the people over there. You know what would be wrong is for us to be happy or joyful that they're being destroyed or killed. Or vice versa, if Russians were being killed. You know, I've seen certain politicians and certain governors that were like praising the fact that Russians were being killed. What was that spineless sodomite Republican that was, someone should help me with this. What is it? No. Lindsey Graham. That's exactly what I was thinking of. Thank you. Lindsey Graham is like some broadcast basically praising the Ukrainians for killing Russians. Like it's so amazing that Russians are dying. And it's like only politicians have such a wicked evil heart where they just love people dying for virtually no reason. You know, it's like why are these soldiers killing each other? It's not because they just hate each other as soldiers or as people. In fact, in many cases the Ukrainians and the Russians are like brothers in a sense that they're very closely related. A lot of them are family related. They have a lot more familial bond than people in America. Us in America are like a weird melting pot. So it's like if you like your neighbors, you know, then they have much more reason to like their own neighbors. But because of politicians and because of the fact that you have NATO and Russia and they have nuclear warheads and all these different problems escalating, then they're forced into the meat grinder of the war effort. And they're trying to preserve themselves. The Russians are trying to preserve themselves from NATO and nuclear wars. And the Ukrainians are just trying to protect themselves from dying from Russians. But at the end of the day, the NATO and Ukrainian leaders hate their own people and are just sending them in the meat grinder for their own wishes, wants, and desires to load their pockets with American dollars as we keep printing more and giving it to them. And they don't really care because they're just killing people that they never cared about in the first place. Sorry, this is a break from the story for a moment. But you say, well, how do you know a lot of those things are happening? Well, have you ever read the Bible? When you read the Bible, you see the captains in the war in the same thing where they just say, hey, let's just play them in. And they just, every man grabs his own fellow by the hair and stabs him with a knife and they all fall down dead. And it's just like, what's all this waste? And you see all the controversy between Joab and Abishai and Amasai and all these different people. And it's like, the soldiers don't care at all. They're just basically pawns for all of these captains and Ishbosheth and Saul. I mean, they're just basically pawns just being led around, killing each other, all kinds of worthless bloodshed. And it's happened in the Bible. It's happening again today. And it's just going to keep happening until we have Jesus Christ return and we actually have the Prince of Peace, which would be nice. Rulers that desire peace and not war and bloodshed for their own personal enrichment. But that's, of course, a different sermon. At the end of the day, though, Edom is going to be destroyed and it's a picture of how God is going to magnify them. And notice they're called the border of wickedness, whereas Israel says the Lord will be magnified from the border of Israel. So one magnifies the Lord, the other one magnifies wickedness. You really think the God of the universe is going to keep elevating a nation that's basically hashtag is wickedness? I mean, you have to realize America is going to be judged super harsh, even if it wasn't the Babylon US. And even if you say, I don't think it's Babylon whatsoever. Well, then you have to realize that God's going to judge America very harshly for its sins, for the evils that we have committed, for the abominations. Of course, constantly in the Bible, God delays his judgment. He delays the evil that he's going to bring on a particular nation. And he constantly offers them and begs them like, look, if you guys just turn back, if you turn back to me, if you're if you seek the Lord, then I can hide your sins and I can restore you. But unless America has a giant revival, it's going to have to pay double for its sins. And it's not going to be pretty. And so it's important for us, even as a nation, as a whole, as a group of people, to make sure that we are serving the Lord faithfully and not going the way of Edom. Says in verse six, a son honor this father and a servant is master. If then I be a father, where is mine honor? And if I be a master, where is my fear? Say the Lord of hosts unto you, O priest that despise my name. And you say, where have we despised thy name? Now, this this starts getting really silly because think about this. He starts out the chapter by saying, I love you. And they're like, well, you know, how do you love us? Right. Doesn't that already sound like contempt? Like, hey, we don't think that you actually love us. You know, they're kind of like mad and despising the Lord. And then he says, like, hey, you guys despise me. And they're like, oh, when did we despise you? And it's like, you can't have your cake and eat it, too. It's like, look, if you're going to say like you don't even love us and then be like, but we're not despising you. It's like you're obviously despising the Lord. OK, they're obviously upset with the Lord and taking liberties with his commandments and they despise him. And that's where we despise my name. Well, we already proved it in verse two when it says we're in as though loved us. Isn't that I mean, if you ever said that to someone that actually loves you, they would not look at that as a positive thing. Imagine looking at your spouse and be like, when have you ever loved me? That's that's not you being genuine. That's just despising them. Right. If you looked at your parents and said, oh, where have you ever loved me? You know, it's like there's no nice way to put that. OK, that's obviously showing you already had some kind of resentment or bitterness or some kind of evil towards that person. So God answers in verse seven, you have off or you offer polluted bread upon mine altar and you say, where have we polluted thee in that? You say the table of the Lord is contemptible and then he just keeps reminding. It's kind of like they they're caught, but then they're like, where's the proof? And then he's like, well, you said this and it's like, but you know, this is so it's so funny as he gives this conversation. It makes me think of fighting with a liberal or an NPC where they bring up a point and you just totally prove them wrong. And then they just bring up another point. Like, you know, it's not like, oh, OK, you're right. It's like, hey, where are we despising? When you said the despising like, OK, well, what about the push it? Well, when did you say that? Oh, right here. And it's just like. No answer, nothing. It's just like, oh, well, and then they just keep bringing stuff up and then eventually just turns into your occult and they just walk away. OK, that's just because they can't win the argument. You have to understand this, whenever someone says that you're in a cult, it's just an argument ender. They don't have a legitimate point to make anymore. They've run out of the conversation. And so that's just the last that's the last talking point. And it's impossible to defend against. So it just is a conversation ender. It's like, what are you going to say? You're in a cult. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. It's like, how are you going to do that? Right. And it's that's a subjective, like garbage thing to say. They just want to say it because they just want it to be over. Right. Oh, you're in a cult. And it's just like, OK, bye. What a strong argument that you have there. Yeah, it raises. There you go. That's that's the liberal one. That's another good one. But he's saying that, you know, they're offering polluted bread verse eight. And if you offer the blind for sacrifice is not evil. And if you offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? Offer it now unto thy governor. Will he be pleased with thee or accept thy person, saith the Lord of hosts? So they they're saying God doesn't love us. They're saying they despise the Lord. They're offering polluted bread. They're offering bad sacrifices. They're offering lame and sick. And this is kind of interesting what he says in verse eight about accepting by person, because, you know, this is this is really just inherent to the religion of Judaism and kind of just Jews as a whole, that they think that they're special because of who they are. And that's it. Just they're born a Jew. So then they're special. And it's like, is God just going to accept you just because you're a Jew, just because you're of the children of Abraham, just because you're of Israel? And the answer is no, because God's not a respecter of persons, meaning that God doesn't respect somebody just because of what family they were born into or what color their skin is or the fact that they're male or female or if they're a pastor or not a pastor. And, you know, he's mostly rebuking priests. And it's like these are the top of the top. I mean, if we're going to say like from a human perspective, being of Israel is kind of the top. And then being a priest is the top of the top. And he's saying, you know what? I don't care that you're a priest. I still don't respect persons. Now, don't take this the wrong way. I've heard some people get a stupid idea with this and they think like, you know, I should never respect a pastor or anybody in authority because I don't respect persons. That is not what the Bible is saying. What the Bible is saying is that if you sin and you're guilty of sin, it doesn't matter what person you are, you should be accountable for that sin. Right? Like the people in Congress should not be above the law. The President of the United States should not be above the law. Does that mean the President of the United States doesn't deserve respect for just being the President? Yeah, he does. But, you know, what makes the President of the United States unrespectable is his character and the actions that he's taken. And he shouldn't just be respected carte blanche because he's the President. He should be respected because he's the President and he's doing right. But when he's doing wrong, you know what, he should be held accountable for that wrong. And just like our members in the House and in the Congress and in the Senate and pastors. Look, pastors should be given respect. Pastors should be treated with respect and love and appreciation. But you know what? A pastor that is not following what the Bible says should still be held accountable for those actions. Okay? And so we have to balance these things. God uses a couple of analogies here. A son on the father and a servant as master. Okay? It's really important that you learn these in the Bible and not so much that you learn them but really that you do them because I think they're so obvious. But go if you would, keep your finger here and go to Ephesians chapter number six for a moment. Just go to Ephesians chapter number six for a moment. There are times where people are in positions of authority and regardless of their behavior, you still have to show them respect. Like a father. You know the Bible says rebuke not an elder but treat him as a father. Meaning that fathers and pastors just get a certain level of respect period. Not because of the person, because of the position. And we as people should respect positions regardless of the person. Okay? And even though this person has a title and a position though, in God's eyes they're still held accountable. But at the same time, us as people, we're not the ones that are holding every single person accountable for their actions. You know, it's not my place to judge my father. He's my father. It's not my place to hold my dad accountable for his actions. He's my father. You know who's supposed to hold my dad accountable for his actions? His dad physically and spiritually. Okay? Now of course now that my dad, my father's actually passed away in the last few years. COVID. Stupid garbage COVID. I think COVID basically killed him. Not so much the disease but just the pandemic measures. Because he was 97 or 98, still in good health. But you know he watched baseball every day. Alright? And then COVID happened and they basically locked him in the nursing home, shoved food under the door, no human contact. And you know what happened? Baseball went away. Because like pretty much all the sports were kind of like canceled for a while. So now he has nothing to watch, no one to talk to, nothing to do. He just gets meals shoved him under the door and then he finally died. Just of natural causes. But you know I believe it's basically you know when someone just has no reason to even use their brain or whatever, then they kind of lose their will to live. And it's pretty much just shown when people lose their will to live they just die. Sometimes when someone's spouse dies, they'll just die right after because they kind of like lost their will to live. And I've always told my wife this, you know, you got to stay alive for me because I'll just die too because I don't want to have to live without you. So you know and that's just how life is. Okay? That sometimes when you just lose that will to live, you just die. But okay he's dead so my dad has no earthly human person over him. But you know God's still over him. But let me say something, if my dad did something wrong, you know it's not for me to go and take care of it. Now that doesn't mean that I couldn't lovingly entreat my father and say hey dad I think you should make a different decision here. I wish you would do this differently or you know hey this would be a better alternative. It's not like I couldn't tell him he did something wrong in a nice respectful way. You know I should always entreat him as a father and be respectful and give him honor because he's my father. You honor your father and your mother as long as they're alive. You know I forgot the passage in the Bible that says as soon as you turn 18 you don't have to honor your parents anymore. That is not what the Bible says. Okay? And in fact really Jesus got so mad at the Pharisees for not honoring their father and mother when they were clearly in their old age and that person was an adult. That's when he got the most mad about it. Not when they were little kids and just like running around in diapers because look kids in diapers don't even know what they're doing. He got mad at the adult children for not taking care of their family and doing that which is wicked. And look what the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 6 verse 1. Children obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. Honor thy father and mother which is the first commandment of the promise that it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth. So notice what the Bible is saying. Parents are supposed to be honored. Period. Honor your father. Honor your mother. And it's like how is it? God's looking down. God's looking down. He's like how is it that you honor your earthly father who's not perfect, who sins and makes mistakes and has problems but you won't even honor me? He's like how can you honor that guy and not honor me? And how can you honor your boss at work who literally you don't even like in some cases? I don't know. I'm not going to judge you. Okay? Dylan loves his boss but I mean for the rest of you guys I don't know how you feel about your boss. But I'm just saying like you may not even like the guy but it's like you never speak a cross word in front of him. You always show up on time. He does something. You just say yes sir. And it's like you don't even treat God the way that you treat your heathen boss that you don't even like. And he's like saying this is so weird. He's saying how is it that the bosses of this world and the fathers of this world are getting more respect than the God of the universe? Than the father which is in heaven. That the father that does only good unto you. And he's like he's just so frustrated looking. Y'all are supposed to be the children of God and yet I get no respect, no honor, nothing. You know it just really makes him mad. And of course you honor your father and mother physically and spiritually so that you can live a long time. Why would God want to keep you around when you're disrespecting him? You know you really want to live a long life? Hey go to church. Go back if you went to Obadiah. I mean think about how many churches today have just some of the oldest people ever. I mean sometimes it's like a museum you go in there. You're just thinking like man you guys like hung out with Adam and Eve? Really? You were on the boat? I didn't even know you made it. It's like it's crazy but you know it makes sense. Look a lot of those people are actually still in pretty good health too. You know like they're still mobile walking around, moving around, doing things. You know God's going to preserve those who are faithful and love him. And you know I'd rather be old and sitting in church than old sitting in a nursing home watching baseball. Okay. That you know my grandfather died because he didn't have baseball. I would die because I had baseball to watch. Okay. If all I could do is just sit here and watch baseball I'm just going to be like it's over I have no will to live. Okay. At least give me golf or something right? Golf. Okay. I love golf all right. So I could even watch golf you know. Although it's like over now right now so it's off season. But it's just frustrating to God how these people just think that they're going to be right with God just because of who they are. And let me say this. We could have the same attitude where we think like oh well God's just automatically pleased with me because I'm in the new IFB. Wrong. God doesn't care that you're in the new IFB. God doesn't think that you're special because you're a Baptist or fundamentalist or you live in Texas or you live in America. Look and obviously we're the top of the top of the top. We live in Texas folks. Okay. All right. I mean and we don't even look like we live in Texas and we don't live in Austin. Okay. I mean you already know that we're in a good place. We already live in like one of the best states and in one of the best areas of that state. I mean we have like top of the top of the top. But at the same time you know what that doesn't give us like this special privilege with God. Where oh well now that I sinned I can get away with it or now that I don't care about God. In fact I would argue it's the opposite. That God is going to put us in a position where he's going to hold us more accountable. He expects more of us by living in the promised land. Okay. Those that live in the promised land are expected to really care about the things of God. And those of us that have a great church to go to should be expected to go. I mean think about there's probably people that are more faithful to old IV churches out there. Than people going to a really they have a great new IV option near to them. You know what a shame and embarrassment that people are faithful a church they don't even like that much. Or have to kind of hold their nose at when there's people that have a great option. And then they don't even get excited about it or don't even want to go there. You know and this is just kind of what's upsetting God. Look at verse 9 and now I pray you beseech God that he will be gracious unto us. This has been by your means will he regard your person saith the Lord of hosts. Now verse 9 is important because it's the burden of the word of the Lord. He's upset with them. He's rebuking them. But notice what it says in verse 9. I pray you beseech God that he will be gracious unto us. He's saying look we have an out here. We have an option. God doesn't want to just destroy us. God wants good for us. You know what we need to do as a whole as a group of people. We need to beseech the Lord and ask him for grace. You know as America you know what America needs to do is it needs to beseech God and ask for grace. I mean this is a consistent theme in the Bible. And you know as a people group we need to constantly be asking God for grace for our sins for our iniquities for not taking the things of the Lord seriously. For all the problems that we've already caused. You know and really we need to start taking the Bible very seriously as a group. Not just as individuals. That's why it's important to reach people. You know I don't want to just necessarily say hey we're good we'll just go hide out in the wilderness and not reach people. No no I want to try and reach as many people as possible. I want us to go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in. I want to make my voice loud. And it's like oh well then you'll get persecuted and people will hate you. Okay sure. But at the same time like there's no way to fix our country by us going and hiding. God's not going to be pleased with us just going off and doing nothing. He wants us to be as loud and vocal as possible. You really think God's embarrassed that it's like oh no Fundamental Baptist believes the Bible. Fundamental Baptist believes what Leviticus actually says. Fundamental Baptist actually believes the entire Old Testament. Fundamental Baptist believes that God hates some people. Oooh. You know it's like that should be we should be screaming from the housetops. Yeah we do believe everything that this book says. Oh they they worship the King James Bible. Well that doesn't scare me that sounds great. Like how could how could you make me upset. Oh man they like the Bible too much. Oh man you know. They're memorizing it. Oooh. You know it's like. Yeah because we actually love God. What would be embarrassing or shame is like well they don't really believe all the parts of the Bible. They don't read all of it. They don't memorize it. They don't even use it in the sermons. They just watch movies. You know they just kind of hang out. No I want to be the group of people that says you know what they preach everything in the Bible. Good bad ugly. Sometimes they even have a burden. The burden of the word of the Lord. But we as God's people need to realize there's always an out. God is so gracious. I mean that's what people just don't get. They always get mad at God for all the evil in the world not realizing it's his grace that's allowing that evil to continue. He's allowing the evil to continue so that he doesn't punish you the way you deserve. And if America got what it deserved right now it would be six feet under. We he's like oh why is God allowing all these bad things to happen. So that we could actually the good people could actually get some grace and that we could actually restore our country and our nation. You know that's why God gives us that grace. But you know it runs out eventually just like it did for the children of Israel. And it can run out for individuals and so we need to take this as an opportunity to say you know what let's do our part. You can only affect you as far as for sure. But you know we can try our best to impact our brother and our neighbor. You know what will impact them the most is when you get right. When you take things seriously when you get in church. Look at verse 10 who is there even among you that would shut the doors for not. Neither do you kindle fire on mine altar for not. I have no pleasure in you say at the Lord of hosts. Neither will I accept an offering at your hand from the rising of the sun even under the going down of the same. My name shall be great among the Gentiles and in every place incense shall be offered in my name and a pure offering for my name shall be great among the heat and say at the Lord of hosts. So he's just kind of reminding them like look the things that you're doing it's not like you're doing them for no reason. And you're supposed to be giving me glory and honor but he says because you won't he kind of gives this foreshadowing again of how the Gentiles are going to end up doing it. That's the whole reason he replaced Israel. That's the whole reason he replaced Esau. Did you realize Esau got replaced by his younger brother? He stole his birthright. He stole his inheritance. Now of course it was God's doing God allowed him to take those things in the same way the Gentiles took the birthright and the blessing and the inheritance of the physical nation of Israel. Why? Because they were rejected because they didn't want it. We can be the same where as a group of people if we just say you know what we don't want to be a Christian nation anymore well God will just take it from us and give it to someone else. Give it to Uganda or something. Right? And take a weak nation like Uganda and turn it into a superpower because they actually believe the Bible. You know any nation that wants or Hungary any nation that wants to believe the Bible and use it as its life force will grow and be blessed and any nation that gets rid of it will be cursed and weakened and destroyed. And you know what our country honestly is not even that far from being completely destroyed. It's headed in a pretty bad direction right now. And if enough gasoline was poured on this fire it could be not the same America you've ever seen in your life. Overnight. And I don't know what the next year is going to be like but honestly with the impending debt that we have in our country and the impending immigration issues that we have plus with the tyrannical government. I mean you could have basically no free speech no money and all kinds of crime that you've never seen before in your life in the next five years. I mean it could be it could be a radically third world country all of a sudden. Yeah. And the elites would still be just having fun and enjoying Babylon to their dismay. But and I'm not saying that will happen and I'm not trying to scare you. What I'm trying to tell you is you need to wake up as a nation as a whole as a group of people and say look we need to serve God because the only way God will preserve this nation or allow it to keep going is if we take Christianity seriously. And he can give it to whoever he wants. He gave it to the Gentiles who were doing nothing for God. They were wicked. They were worshipping rocks. We make fun of those. I mean can you imagine going to someone's house and they literally have rocks that they're that they're bowing down to. I've seen a video of this. It's like in Hinduism these families will prepare a meal and they have this like rock statue and they're literally getting milk from a bowl and they're putting milk up to the mouth of this little rock. Like they're feeding rocks. And we're not talking about your baby. We're not talking about your little kids playing house. We're talking about grown adults making prime rib and steak and and the best meals that you've ever had in your time and just like putting it there while everyone in the family is literally starving. Like the family is eating rice and beans on a bare minimum basis just to survive their skin and bones. They look like vegans and then they're going to die while they're taking all the best food and wasting it on a rock. Like that's the type of people that God used to end up changing the entire world. That group of people that was pagan and worshipping false gods and didn't even know what's going on in the world. So you know what God can take really base people really simple people and turn them into wise people and he can take really wise people and turn them into really base people. And you know we've been noticing in our nation a lot of people turning into base people. And I'm not saying based. I'm saying base. NPC. OK. Liberal brain dead zombies that don't even they think that literally men turn into women. They want to be a whale like this kind of stuff. And you laugh but look it's not even funny. There are really people that are going to become the next doctors and lawyers in this country that think that they're going to become a whale. Like you're going to have your finger cut off and go to the emergency room and the person that's going to work on you thinks that they're going to become a whale. You'd be better off just throwing your finger in the trash. OK. And just take cutting your losses. And you think I'm laughing. You think I'm joking. You think that the American political system is corrupt right now. Just wait. Just wait until the next generation of judges that are going to be coming in. I mean it doesn't get better when you reject the word of God as a whole. We need to get back to the Bible. OK. And of course praise God that he did you know bring in the Gentiles and that we did get this offering and we did get to be redeemed. And you know God always wants to redeem his people. He always wants to be gracious. He always wants to bring them back. But of course it's up to us. You know I'm not this Calvinistic type person that thinks that everything that's going to happen is just going to happen. I think that we have our our part and that we literally get rewarded for our works. You know why is it constantly talking about being rewarded for what you do when God's forcing you to do that. I mean that just kind of seems unfair. You know that's like when I grab one of my kids arms and they punch their brother. If I literally then spanked him for that. Right. Like don't hit your brother and I make him hit his brother and then I spank him for it. Like what you'd be like you're the weirdest parent ever. You'd be mad at me for doing something like that. But if I said to my son if you hit your brother I'm going to spank you. And then he hit him. Well you know what. Then I'm going to spank him. Right. He's going to get rewarded for his bad behavior. That's how it works. OK. And the same is with God that we're not just these robots doing whatever he wants for us. You know we actually make our own decisions and make our own way and God's going to reward us according to the works that we do. Look at verse 12. But you have profaned it in that you say the table of the Lord is polluted and the fruit thereof even as meat is contemptible. Ye said also behold what a weariness is it. And you have snuffed at it say the Lord of hosts and you have brought that which was torn and the lame and the sick. Thus he brought an offering. Should I accept this of your hand sayeth the Lord. But cursed be the deceiver which hath in his flock a male and valve and sacrifice in the Lord a corrupt thing for I am a great king say the Lord of hosts and my name is dreadful among the heathen. He said look even amongst the heathen they're more afraid of me than you guys. And you know that's that's just the sad reality of how it is. You know profit is not without honor saving his own house and his own land and his own country. And sometimes it's just funny to me when I visit other places where people treat me as a treat me as a pastor better when I'm not their pastor than my own flock. Right. But that's just how it is sometimes. And you're just kind of like man you know they're like respectful and nice and asking for permission and whatever whereas then you know you get comfortable around your pastor and you just kind of treat them take it for granted. OK. Or you know just in any kind of situation you go to a place where you're not necessarily as well known and people fear you respect you. Try visiting a foreign country you know visit a foreign country and be like whoa people treat you way differently. They're really respectful they're really nice they they're appreciative all these different things and you know it's just it's just different. And he's trying to say look I am a great king and even the heathen are terrified of me and it's a shame or approach that you don't. Now when I say those things that's not like an excuse like oh well of course it's my pastor so I don't have to respect him. No you're still in the wrong for doing that. I'm just saying it's common. Go if you would to Matthew chapter number five go to Matthew. Just like lying. Just because lying is common doesn't give you an excuse every time you lie. Like well everybody lies. No. Stop lying. Well there's not an excuse for lying. There's not an excuse for being disrespectful. There's not an excuse for being respectful to your pastor, to your father, to your husband, to your mom, to any of the people in your life. You're always supposed to show them that honor and that respect. And of course even more so God himself. They were always supposed to be respectful of him and consider him and treat him well. Now this last one point I kind of want to make and it's a little bit off topic from the chapter but I think it's a good thing to kind of mention while we're here. And it's talking about a vow. And he talks about the importance of vows. And he's saying that you know cursed be the person who would make such a vow to God and say you know what I'm going to give you a good offering Lord. And then when it comes time to actually pay that he then switches it out for something else. Because again they don't necessarily have money like the way that we do always. A lot of the times their money is in assets. So it's not always just in currency. Most of our money is like online and it's fake. But you know for them their money was like I have a sheep and the sheep's worth let's just say 500 bucks. So instead of having like a $500 bill in their wallet they just have $500 worth of sheep. And they're saying like look I'm going to offer this $500 to the Lord but albeit it's just I'm offering the sheep. But then when at times come to pay he has this other sheep he's just going to kill because it's diseased and it's worth zero. And he just offers it as a replacement so he's cheating out the Lord but making it look like he's actually giving an offering. This is kind of like what Ananias and Spire do in the New Testament where they kind of lie about their offering that they're giving unto the Lord and they hold back part of the price. And what happened in the New Testament? God killed them. And you know what? Cursed be he that's the deceiver. And you know what Ananias and Spire should have been doing? They should have been doing Malachi Bible studies before they ever tried to offer any money to the Lord and realized that that's a bad idea. Now here's the thing. You don't have to. No one in this room has to vow to pay God any money. Nor do I think that that's ever a good idea. But let me say this. If you ever did, you better pay it. OK, that's the whole point that's being made. Now look at Matthew chapter five. Let's talk about this for just a second. Verse 33. The Bible says again, You have heard that have been said by them of old time. Thou should not first swear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thy nose. But I say, and you swear not at all. Neither by heaven, for it is God's throne, nor by the earth, for it is his footstool. Neither by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great king. Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair white or black. But let your communication be yea, yea, nay, nay, for whatsoever is more than these cometh feeble. So a lot of times this gets a little bit. I would just say this passage is abused a lot. Number one abuse of this passage is people say stop cussing. And like this has nothing to do with cussing. OK, please get your vocabulary fixed because that is not what swearing means at all. OK, and it's just so frustrating. Here's a second way that I believe this is being abused is people basically go a little over the top and say like you can never swear at all in any capacity. And here's a synonymous term, promise. I do not believe that's what it's saying at all. I do not believe the Bible is saying you can't promise or swear. But what it is saying is that you can't swear on something above you. OK, and a word in our English language that kind of talks about this is called an oath. And in fact, if you go into court or you have to like testify, they'll ask for like an oath or maybe you're getting sworn into office. Then they'll ask for an oath. But you don't have to do an oath. You can actually do an affirmation. And here's the difference. It's a big difference though. And the Bible is literally commanding you to. Is that swearing or swearing on a deity above you or an oath, which is what that means, is like saying, I promise to do my job on the Bible. I promise to do my job on God or I swear to God I'm going to do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Jesus saying, don't do that. OK, but there's nothing wrong with someone saying, do you promise to hold your position respectable and follow the law and follow the Constitution and obey the Constitution? You say, I affirm. That's making a promise. That's letting your yay be yay and let your nay be nay. There's nothing wrong with saying yay. There's nothing wrong with saying nay. What's wrong is saying I swear to God or I swear on a stack of Bibles or I swear on my mother's grave. All these over the top things. It's like I swear on the hair of my head. You know, for some people, they can't even do that. All right. For another reason. But what it's trying to say is, look, if you have to make a promise to someone, just make the promise. Just make the promise. Don't don't go over the top. And whenever you notice people going above the top, realize there's something wrong with that. The people that. Oh, yeah. All the presidents that have to put their hand on the Bible and make some kind of an oath that they're going to keep their job and do it trustworthy. You know that there's evil there. You don't have to do that. And there's a reason why they're doing it. They want to appeal to authority. They want to appeal to something higher than them and try to make it seem like they're going to be trustworthy or honest. You know what? Even Barack Obama put his hand on the Bible. Even Biden put his hand on the Bible. OK. We know how that worked. We know how that went down. Even George Bush put his hand on the Bible. OK. Yeah. The guy is not great. All right. Sorry. It's a different sermon for another time. But go to James Chapter five. I believe that it's always wrong. No, it said not forswear thyself for swearing means lying. OK. It's like breaking your promise. God doesn't want us to break our promises, of course. And it's saying we need to keep our promises. And of course, if someone did do that, let's just say you didn't do what the Bible said. Let's say you just say, I don't care what Jesus said. I'm just going to swear anyways. I swear to God I'm going to do X, Y and Z. Well, then you better do X, Y and Z. OK. You just shouldn't even have done that in the first place. But if you do do that, you better make sure you do it. And it doesn't matter. No matter what promise you make, you're supposed to swear to your own hurt and change not. Now, why would we sit here and sing that song if we're never even allowed to swear? Like, don't we sing that as a congregation? Are we literally going to sit here and sing like how the guy that's going to go to heaven is the guy that swears and changes not, swears his own hurt and change? Like, obviously, there's nothing wrong with promising. You know, how can you even live your life without making promises? I mean, to buy a house, you've got to sign a contract. To get a job, you almost always have to sign some kind of an employee agreement. But you know what you don't have to do is when you sign your name, put like, I swear to God, and then your name. I wouldn't do that job if that's what I had to do. So it's OK to make promises to people. But then you should keep that promise, right? Let's take our word seriously again. Let's not just constantly break our word. If you say, hey, I'll be there at five, be there at five. Right? If you say, till death do us part, then you know what? Your house better die before you leave them. You know, it's just sick how people just stand there and promise before God and everybody else. Hey, you know, I'm going to love you until death do us part. And then just, oh, I don't like him. I want a divorce. You know, and Malachi is going to get to that. But God hates divorce. Why? Because you broke your word. Now, James, Chapter five also brings us up. Look at verse 12. But above all things, my brethren, swear not neither by heaven, neither by the earth, neither by any other oath. But let your yay be yay or nay nay lest you fall into condemnation. Go to one more place. Ecclesiastes chapter five. And we're going to finish this evening. Ecclesiastes chapter number five is right there in the middle of your Bible. We better make sure that we keep our promises. And of course, probably the most important promise that you'll ever make as a person on this earth is the marriage vow. And, you know, we need to take those seriously. That's why marriage is serious. And that's why you should really think about who you're going to marry and say, you know what, I am willing to live with this person until they die. That should be that should be on your that should be on your mind when you're dating and getting engaged and thinking about that. Because if you're like, I don't really know if I like this person, you know what? OK, well, you know, marriage is way harder than dating. Like dating was fun. All right. Like dating. Dating can be bad. And, you know, you can have some rough spots. But for the most part, for most people, unless you date for a really long time, dating is only enjoyable. In fact, it might even be one of the most enjoyable times of your entire relationship. And I'm not trying to be mean or unrealistic. Sometimes the honeymoon's better. It should be OK. But I'm just I'm just being honest. Like you get those butterflies. Like it's just fun. It's fun to date. It's fun when you first fall in love with someone and you just you want to be around them all the time and their breath smells bad and you don't even care. And, you know, they're dressed ugly and you don't even care. And like you like you leave stuff all around your house and she doesn't care. OK, then you get married and it's way different. Way different. All right. And that's OK. It's OK for things to change and evolve and grow up and develop and everything like that. But you have to realize and be realistic that, you know, if you can't even like this person while you're dating, good luck when you're married. But let me tell you something. You get married. Death, death. And, you know, some people have come up to me with all kinds of sob stories and reasons why they think they should, you know, get divorced or remarried. And I always tell them no. And I always have told them no. And I always will tell them no. And I've heard the worst of the worst. Like, there's really not much worse than like the ones I know about can't get worse. OK, so it's just like like Nabal seems like a good guy in comparison to some of these people. And I'm just thinking, like, sorry. I mean, you married them. Now, be like Abigail and pray for their death if they're Nabal. I'll pray with you. OK. We'll have prayer meetings. All right. But, you know, what I'm not going to do is encourage you to divorce. And, you know, I think that it teaches our children to take marriage seriously. The world's not taking marriage seriously. OK. And God gets mad when we break our vows. Look what it says in the Ecclesiastes chapter five, verse four. When thou vowest to vow unto God, defer not to pay it. For you have no pleasure in fools. Pay that which thou hast vowed. Better is it that thou shouldest not vow than that thou shouldest vow and not pay. Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy flesh to sin. Neither say thou before the angel that it was an error. Wherefore should God be angry at thy voice and destroy the work of thine hands? Now, it's kind of a weird thing where it talks about the angel. I don't know what that means. But, you know, you can interpret angels as one of two things. It could be like an angelic being or it could be a messenger. But even if it was an angelic being, they're always messengers anyways. And I think, you know, you think about how many times in the Bible someone was visited by an angelic being or a messenger, and then they made some kind of a promise. You know, they're promising about, think about Mary and Joseph. They're both visited by an angel and they're told to name their child Jesus. Do you think it was important for them to actually go through with that and name their son Jesus and not like Sam Gipp, where he says Emmanuel is what they should have named him? Sam Gipp literally taught that Mary and Joseph wrongly named Jesus Jesus. Talk about a satanic doctrine. Okay, what a weirdo. He's like, he should have named him Emmanuel. No, no, they should have done what the angel told them and said that they were going to do and said like, yeah, I'm going to do that. Okay, like Joseph, hey, I'm going to take Mary and I'm going to make her my wife like he was supposed to do. Okay, and praise God that Joseph took Mary and he made her his wife, even though, I mean, think about this. This guy never even got to go to the honeymoon stage and had to take care of a pregnant wife. Talk about all the debt and none of the fun. I mean, boy, that was brutal. No, he had to take her across the wilderness and then pay taxes. And he still hasn't even known his wife yet. Like, boy, that was, and then he had to go through postpartum before that could even happen. But, you know, he got his money's worth. He had plenty of children afterwards. Okay, so, but at the end of the day, you know, praise God, he was willing to take that burden. And let's be real, marriage is a burden. Honoring your father and your mother is a burden. Serving God can be a burden in some way. But don't, let's not get this attitude, what a weariness it is. You know, sometimes we get this attitude that the things that we're doing are a weariness. And you know what, it's the wrong attitude. God doesn't like that attitude. Because I guarantee I could find you almost every story in the Bible where people's lives, you would never trade them for one second. I mean, the ladies in this room, you think that having children right now is tough? Well, how about we go and trade places with Hannah where she was barren? That's harder. Let's trade places with women from any century before you where they literally have to wash all the clothes by hand. They have to literally wring the head off the chicken's head to get the meat. And they can't even look at TikTok because it doesn't exist. They can't even, they've never had grocery delivery one time. There is no drive-thru Starbucks at all. The homeschool curriculum is only the Bible. You want to know, like in school, it used to be reading, Bible, history, Bible, math, Bible. It's just like, this is our textbook. Because it's the only textbook everybody has that anybody can even afford. It's like this was the curriculum. This was what people were learning. This is what people were studying. This is what people were memorizing. Just to even be educated. Just to be able to learn how to read at all. And then people get so frustrated by their life being so hard. It's like you don't even realize what hard is. How about let's just transport you into the Middle East right now and see what those women's lives are like. Let's just transport you into China. What kind of women's lives do they have? They used to have a one-child policy. That means that if you were trying to follow God's commandments every single time you got pregnant, it didn't end in miscarriage, it ended in government death. How about the women whose children were ripped out of their hands and thrown in the Nile River, their sons? How about the women that had to walk through the wilderness? That was fun, I'm sure. And they still had to make dinner and put it on the table. How about all the things that the men used to have to do? I mean, you men have white-collar jobs. Good night. They were having to gather straw and make brick. They were having to build the pyramids with their bare hands in the sun. Some of you whiteys wouldn't last, okay? You'd be so sunburned. That's why everybody over there was dark, because all the white guys died, literally. All the white guys moved to somewhere that was bitter cold and they hid from the sun. They were kind of like already thinking Revelation Chapter 6, like hide us from the face of Him that's hidden on the throne. Just from the sunburns alone. You don't even realize how easy our life is. And then people get so distressed by like, Oh, man, it's such an awful thing to make food or have a job or go to church or drive in a car. Traffic. I mean, what do you think the traffic was like when you run into the Red Sea? What do you think the traffic was like walking through the wilderness where there's literally serpents coming out there and biting you? I mean, our wives get upset when they see a cockroach. How about a viper? I mean, like we just have no we have like really no perspective. And we're so spoiled rotten. And then at the same time, then we're like, oh, serving God is such a weariness. So you sound like a spoiled brat. We sound like spoiled brats when we look down. But God, you should praise God that you have an opportunity to go soul winning. You have an opportunity to come to church. You have the opportunity to be a father, to be a husband, to be. I mean, think about all the single guys in here that would love to have a wife. And you have a wife. You better not get better when she, you know, acts like a wife. OK, because she's going to act like a wife. All right. There's a lot of pregnant wives in here. Don't get better when she acts like a pregnant wife. You know, there's some guys that have no wife. And that was that's way worse. I would rather my wife be pregnant the rest of our marriage than not have a wife. I mean it. OK. You know, and at the end of the day, you know, having a husband so much better than most of the girls in this world that are trying to pretend like they're so happy. Going to the club all night and waking up in the morning with a hangover and, you know, feeding their cats or whatever. That's not real happiness. Oh, it's such a weariness to make food, making foods never been easier in your life. You know, just stop complaining. And why don't you think like what a privilege that I have to serve God. To raise my children, to make food, to go out and work and not even have to break my back. To have the ability to drive in a vehicle and not have to carry everyone literally around. I mean, boy, I got injured. And I'll tell you, just even having your health is such a blessing. I mean, just there's so much to be happy about and to serve God. And we need to take these things seriously. You know, the reason why the children got replaced is because they didn't take church seriously. They didn't care about the things of God. They were complaining about it all. And you know what? If you complain too much about something, God will just take it away because he's tired of you complaining about it. Let us not be the ones that are guilty of complaining about church and our wives and our children and our jobs and our roles because God may just take all of it away from you. Just like Job. All of your children, 10 children, gone. And then now you just have a nagging wife, which is even worse than losing her, okay? Now you have boils. Oh, your health? You forgot that you actually have health. Let me just give you boils all over your body. Have fun with that. Oh, you had respect in the community? Now everyone thinks you're a joke. Now everything thinks you're stupid. Now your own friends are attacking you. Every bad thing that you could ever imagine. God could just do that. And God did that to someone that didn't even deserve it. How much more to us that deserve it when we complain and don't take things seriously and don't want to do the service of God? Look, if you don't want to do the service of God, God will find someone that does. Let us take it seriously. And you know, I'm preaching to the choir on Wednesday night, but you take it seriously. And we need to take it seriously to change this nation. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for giving us the opportunity to be here and have this service and to study a book like Malachi. What a blessing it is that we can read these words, these pure words, and these reminders that we all need. I pray that if we've had ungrateful hearts and minds and attitudes that we would change. I pray that whatever promises that we've made we're going to keep, that we'd take them seriously. I pray that we would look at church as being something that is a joy and something that we need to put all of our effort and energy into because we're going to reap what we sow. And I pray that if you could give us grace in this nation, if you can give us grace in the state, if you can give us grace as a church, that you would just pour that out on us and that we would turn our hearts towards you, that we would have not just one person or two persons, but the whole church beseeching you for grace and for mercy and for rival, that you would help us to win many people to Christ, to turn many hearts back to the Bible, that you could help us to reach the lost and to do great works, not for our glory, but for your glory. And that we could see the difference between the saved and the unsaved. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Okay, in closing let's go to song number 119. Song number 119. Till the storm passes by. Song number 119. Everybody sing it out together on the first. In the dark of the midnight, have I oft hit my face, while the storm's howled above me and there's no hiding place. In the dark of the midnight, have I oft hit my face, while the storm's howled above me and there's no hiding place. May the crash of the thunder, precious Lord, hear my cry, keep me safe till the storm passes by. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sells the war, till the clouds will flare from the sky. Oh, he has let me stand in the hollow of my hand, keep me safe till the storm passes by. Many times Satan whispered, there is no need to try, for there's no end in sorrow, there's no hope by and by. But I know thou art with me, and to all of us, where the storm's never gone, near the skies. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sells the war, till the clouds will flare from the sky. Oh, he has let me stand in the hollow of my hand, keep me safe till the storm passes by. When the long night has ended, and the storms have performed, let me stand in my presence on that bright peaceful shore. In heaven where the dead lives never roamed, Lord, may I love with thee where the storm passes by. Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sells the war, till the clouds will flare from the sky. Oh, he has let me stand in the hollow of my hand, keep me safe till the storm passes by. Thank you for watching! You You You You You You You You