This is a rush transcript.

[00:00:02] We'll go ahead and have a seat, everybody. Do you love the Bible? Well, we want to talk about that here today. Why are we CompassHB Bible Church? Why are we always preaching the Bible when we get together like this? Why are we talking about the Bible in our fellowship groups? Why are we telling you you should read the Bible every single day with our scripture of the day? Well, I want to invite you to open your Bible and turn with me the first Kings. Twenty two. And we're going to answer that question. Why are we a Bible church and first kings? Twenty two is going to be an excellent passage for us to study. We read it as anybody reading through Kings on Scripture of the Day right now. OK, will you read it? So this little girl will get a little deeper into it. And if you haven't read it, we'll catch you right up with us here this morning. Now, if we're going to understand kings, there's a little bit of context that a lot of American Christians, they don't know. There's a lot of biblical illiteracy going on. I don't know what your reading level is when it comes to the Bible, but a lot of Christians and they got an elementary school level reading level when it comes to reading scripture to understand the Book of Kings, you got to know that there's a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. Let's see how we're doing here this morning.

[00:01:23] The northern kingdom is called what? Yes, in the southern kingdom is called one.

[00:01:30] So you really got to know that in our story here today. And first, King's twenty two.

[00:01:35] There's a king in the northern kingdom and his name is Ahab. What kind of king is Ahab? Is he a good king? Oh, yeah. Everybody, let's boo Ahab. OK, when we say Ahab, thumbs down. Bad guy from the northern kingdom of Israel, then we're going to talk about your host of Fat. That's fat with a P-H, everybody. Jojo's a fat king of Judah. Is he a good guy or a bad guy? He's a good guy. Good guy. Let's give it up for Jojo, Safad, everybody. Good guy. Good guy. OK, so I say Ahab. How are you feeling? Amen I say, Jehoshaphat, how we feeling? We're feeling good. We're feeling good. OK, now Ahab, he's not just a bad king.

[00:02:15] He's the worst of the worst. And he has led the people into the worship of all.

[00:02:21] And Elijah has already corrected that. But all is a false idol and your way is the true God of Israel. But now Ahab, he's deciding if he's going to go and get this city. Ramnath Chiliad, it's supposed to be in a city of Israel, but right now it's not under their control. It's under the hand of the king of Syria. And so the question on the table is, should we go and fight Syria to get back rame? If Chiliad and Jehoshaphat, he kind of has this, he's a good guy. You can read about your Josephite fat if you want to write down a cross reference. Second Chronicles 17, 18, 19, 20, they'll tell you the story of Jehoshaphat in more detail. And he actually had men going throughout the cities of Judah, the southern kingdom. He had them going around teaching the law. So he wanted people to know God's word. And even though he was a really good king, he made an alliance with the evil kings of the northern kingdom of Israel. It's like he still wanted Israel to all get along and to be together. And so he allies himself with Ahab. And Ahab says, jaws of fat. Will you go fight Syria? Will you go get Ramiz Chiliad with me? And Jehoshaphat says, I'm with you. My horses are your horses. And we pick it up here in verse five. This is First Kings twenty two, verse five. Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, Inquire first for the word of the Lord.

[00:03:57] Hey, you want to go take this city while I'm with you all allied with you. But before we do something, we should ask God if that's what He wants us to do. Let's inquire of the Lord.

[00:04:10] So the King of Israel, Ahab, gathered the prophets together, about four hundred men and said to them, Shall I go to battle against Ram if Chiliad or shall I refrain?

[00:04:24] And they said, Go up for the Lord will give it into the hand of the King. So Ahab is able to assemble four hundred prophets who all give him.

[00:04:38] Yes, you should go and take the city. Now, look at your Josephites response in verse seven. He has discernment. Jehoshaphat said, is there not here? Another Prophet of the Lord of whom we may inquire. So you want to notice? If you look back at verse six, these four hundred prophets, said the Lord, and you'll. Notice it's not capitalized, but when of says it in verse seven, it's l o r d all capital letters, whenever you see that, that is the name of your way. So the four hundred prophets say, go up, the Lord will give it to you and Josephites like, no, we really need to hear what your way has to say specifically.

[00:05:26] And so then he says, where can we find a prophet of your way?

[00:05:30] And the King of Israel, Ahab said to Joseph that there is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord Makhaya, the son of Immler. But I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me but evil.

[00:05:48] Oh, there's one guy we could talk to, but he's a real downer. He's a real killjoy.

[00:05:54] He's negative. He never says good things, positive things. The things I wanna hear. He's always saying evil.

[00:06:03] Ha. We don't want to listen to that guy and Jehoshaphat, he's like he's trying to make it OK. Joseph had said, let not the king say so. Hey, you really shouldn't talk like that about a prophet of Yahweh.

[00:06:15] So the king of Israel summoned an officer and said, bring quickly Makhaya, the son of inlaw. Now, look at this picture here in verse ten. Everyone needs to see this picture. The king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. We're sitting on their thrones, arrayed in their robes at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Sumeria. And all the prophets were prophesying before them. So can you picture this? We're at the gate of a city.

[00:06:45] There's two kings up there on their thrones, in their robes, looking like an emperor, looking like somebody regal and noble. And there's four hundred prophets all around saying, go up, the Lord will give it to you.

[00:07:00] And then it says here in verse eleven, we meet this guy, kind of the leader here of these four hundred prophets, Zedekiah, the son of Chandana, which is one of the coolest names in all of the Bible right there. Zedekiah, the son of Xanana, made for himself Hornes of Iron and says that say your way, you want to hear from your way. I'll tell you what you always says with these. He's got these horns of iron. Maybe he's wearing them on his head like a helmet. I don't know. But he's got these horns of iron. With these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed and all the prophets prophesied so and said, go up to Ramat Gillion, try up, go up and claim your victory.

[00:07:47] The Lord will give it into the hand of the king.

[00:07:52] Now, we are at such a bad place in the church today in America when it comes to knowing the Bible, that I'm pretty sure if I opened up the Bible and I said, hey, everybody, let's turn to the book of Zedekiah, I'm pretty sure we could get a lot of people turned in these days. Zedekiah is my new favorite fake Bible name. Have you ever heard these cheesy Christian jokes before? The Book of Flesh? Wallonian. You heard about that one in the book of Second Opinions, right. Some people say we should all go to the book of Hezekiah Zedekiah is my favorite fake Bible book name. Right. Because if we ask people, hey, have you ever read the book A Zedekiah, it would prove they don't know what books are in the Bible.

[00:08:36] Zedekiah here he is a false prophet. He is leading the people astray. If they listen to Zedekiah, the son of Shannon, running around with his horns, they are going to die if they listen to him.

[00:08:54] Shannon, that's his father, we all know the famous song about him, na na, hey, hey, goodbye. That's what's going to happen here, everybody. They're going to get wiped out if they listen. And yet he's making such a compelling message.

[00:09:11] And so we see here that the evil king brings people around him who will tell him what he wants to hear, whereas the good king wants to hear from God. How do you live your life? Do you want to hear what you want to hear or do you know point number one, if you're taking notes. We got to hand out for you and your goody bag boy. Number one, you need to hear from God. Do you know that? Is that why you're a part of our church family here at CompassHB? Because you want to hear what God says? Are you like Jehoshaphat saying, no, we got to hear from God, we got to hear from ya. We can't hear people's opinions. We can't hear false prophets. We can't hear really catchy messages like you're going to go to Syria and go for the horns, grab it by the horns. We can't we're not we're not here for that. We're here to hear what God says and what you need to realize. His people are going to say that they are speaking on behalf of God. And if you listen to them, it will be, hey, hey, good bye for your soul. There are actively false teachings going on all around us. We're going to see the ratio in our tax is four hundred false profits to one real prophet of God. And the comment about Makhaya before we even meet in the comment is he's not positive enough, he's not encouraging enough, he's not going to tell us what we really want to hear enough. So we've got three dashes to make sure we're hearing from God under point number one. The first one, it may be positive, but is it true? It may be positive, but is it true? And we need to talk about this because this is now a cultural expectation. This is now what a lot of people want to happen when they come to church. Usually on a Sunday morning.

[00:11:08] You're getting extra credit for already being here on a Monday morning at eight o'clock. God bless your eternal soul. Thank you for being here.

[00:11:16] And people expect I want to feel better when I leave church. I want to hear something positive. I need some vibes that'll keep me going, that'll lift me up, that'll encourage my soul. I don't want to hear that. That's not positive. Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's positive. It doesn't matter if you feel better walking out if you got lied to while you were here. Doesn't matter if it's positive, it's if it's false. There's so much fake news going out in the name of Jesus that's making people feel a lot better about themselves while they're still living on their way to hell. Does it matter if you feel positive, if you're headed for destruction and judgment? What matters is it's true. And you say, well, that's why we study the Bible, because it's true. Do you realize that people can use the Bible to preach a false message?

[00:12:09] Do you realize that people are doing that all over the place? They use words of scripture, do you even realize that in this passage Zedekiah, son of Chandana, is using scripture to make his point with the horns here?

[00:12:26] His point is quite literal. With the horns, go to Deuteronomy 33 17. Everybody, I need you to turn back to the law of Moses. And here, towards the very end, before he dies, Moses gives a blessing to the tribes of Israel. And you could see he's going to go through the sons of Jacob, who are now the tribes of Israel. And he's going to say different things about different tribes. And he's going to talk about Joseph in Deuteronomy. Thirty three. This is page one hundred and seventy six. If you got one of our Bibles, Deuteronomy thirty three, and he starts talking about Joseph in verse thirteen and then he says this in verse 17, Deuteronomy thirty three, verse seventeen.

[00:13:10] A first born boy, he has majesty and his horns are the horns of a wild ox. With them he shall go for the peoples, all of them to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of ephriam and they are the thousands of Monalisa.

[00:13:32] So Joseph had two sons, Ephraim and Nasser, which became two of the twelve tribes. And one thing you need to know if you're going to understand the context of the Book of Kings is Ephraim Equals Israel. Can everybody write that down? If you're taking notes, Ephraim, when it says there there are ten thousand of Ephraim, that's the northern kingdom of Israel. Whenever you hear Ephraim and Kings and all the prophets, you should think, oh, Ephraim's referring to the northern kingdom of Israel. That was one of the main tribes that made up the northern kingdom.

[00:14:06] So Zedekiah, son of Xanana, it's not just making up this message about the horns. He's actually quoting Moses. He's actually quoting the law of God, the blessing upon the tribe of Ephraim. Hey, don't you remember Ahab? We've got horns. We're ready to go people to the end of the earth. We're going to win the victory.

[00:14:27] So it may be a verse, but is it in context? Let's get that down for our next line here. It may be a verse, but is it in context, one of the most dangerous things that you can do is use one Bible verse, just one verse, which we often do.

[00:14:49] We pull out one verse to memorize, one verse to post on Instagram, one verse that gets sent to us by some daily devotional. Here's one verse to encourage you today. When you just look at a verse and you don't look at the verses before or after it, you don't read the whole chapter. You just look at one verse.

[00:15:10] See, that verse might come to mean something that it doesn't actually mean when it was written in scripture.

[00:15:18] This is a common way of preaching in America right now and a lot of churches, they don't open the Bible.

[00:15:24] People don't bring a Bible if they show the Bible at all, they show it up on some kind of screen and they usually show maybe one verse at a time up on a screen. And if you pay attention, you'll even notice they're using different translations of different verses. They're not even consistent in what Bible translation they use because this translation uses this word and this translation uses that word. And I'm here to tell you that kind of teaching can be very dangerous because you can give people a verse and an interpretation and they can think, oh, I'm living by what the Bible says, but you actually twist the scripture and use it in a way in which it was never intended.

[00:16:07] That's what Zedekiah is doing.

[00:16:09] And he is going to lead King Ahab to his death by quoting scripture in a false way. And so, yeah, they might even be able to say, well, the Bible says, but a lot of times when people are saying what the Bible says, they might be quoting the words, but they're not giving the right meaning.

[00:16:31] They're not using the correct interpretation. They have taken it out of context. Turn with me to Second Timothy Chapter four. Let's jump ahead to Paul writing his last letter before he's going to die. Second Timothy chapter for page nine hundred and ninety six. If you got one of our Bibles, jump all everybody. Hopefully you've got a Bible and you can go to second Timothy because Paul's writing to Timothy about us here in the Church of Jesus Christ. How are we supposed to conduct ourselves and really now that he knows he's going to die, he tells Timothy, who has always followed him, Timothy, you need to follow my words. You need to stay true to the teachings. And Paul warns Timothy about what's going to happen. This is second Timothy, chapter four, verse three. And Paul's going to tell Timothy what's going to happen in the future.

[00:17:21] And this is the time that you and I are living in in America today for the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. They will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

[00:17:48] There's going to come a time when people won't want revival from the Bible. They won't want to hear the true teachings from the word of God. They're going to want to get their ears scratched. They're going to want to hear something positive, what they want to hear, and they're going to go find, just like Ahab found, four hundred prophets who would give him his yes men positive message. People today are looking for teachers who are going to make me feel good, going to lift up my feelings. I'm going to walk away from that message, feeling better about myself. That's what's going on. The most popular message going around in America today is a feel good message about how you can have your best life now. How can we make this all about you? How could your marriage be better? How could your family be better? How could you have more money in your bank account? How could you live longer? Let's talk about you. Like the whole point of this thing is you being a better you that's being preached in most churches.

[00:18:48] In America.

[00:18:50] And that's the message that people want to hear, people would rather hear jokes and stories, they'd rather go to movies, watch TV series, read books series and binge out on fiction.

[00:19:02] Then they would rather read the Bible and hear sermons where it's explained and preached. And so, yeah, there's a little bit of scripture to make the feel good medicine go down, that's the recipe right there. Oh, we're not we're talking about the Bible. We're just picking out verses that go with our message, verses that make us feel good. Sure. We're coming from the Bible.

[00:19:26] It's just selected scriptures.

[00:19:31] Look what it says in chapter four, verse one, look at what was right before this, look at the command that Paul gives to Timothy. This is how church should be. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ. Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead by his appearing with Jesus returns by his kingdom when he judges.

[00:19:51] I charge you, Timothy, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season whether people want to hear it or they don't want to hear it reprove rebuke and exhort with complete patience and teaching.

[00:20:10] OK, so under under here, the number three, now our third Dasch under, you need to hear from God. Let's get this down. It may be correct, but is it correcting you? It may be correct. They might be saying that technically true thing. But look at how it says you're supposed to preach whether people want to hear it or not. We're supposed to be preaching what the word says. And I need you under that third point there, right down these three words reprove rebuke and exhort. Put those down. That's what it says. The preaching of the word is going to be like when somebody is preaching. They are reproving, rebuking and exhorting in our common English today, all three of those words would have somewhat of a rough, even negative connotation. Oh, how was it today? Oh, I got exhausted. See, that doesn't sound like it feels nice. How was it today? It was like the book was opened and they started slapping me in the face with the pages, it was a full on rebuke to how I've lived my entire life. I loved it. It was refreshing. Right. OK, so it's saying we need to have the right expectation in our culture all around us is giving you a wrong expectation. So I don't know if you've thought through this to the point that we need to, but when we open the book, whatever God says we need to hear and when we hear from God, it might come like a rebuke.

[00:21:43] It might reveal to you that you're not who you should be and we can't make this about you, if we make it about you, you'll continue in your sin and you'll die and be judged for it. We can't make this about you. In fact, we need a new you. We need a changed you. We need a broken and humble and repentant you. We need someone who's living by faith in Jesus Christ and not by your feelings anymore. You we can't make this about you because we'll kill you and send you to hell. We got to make it about God and his glory and his word to save you.

[00:22:18] That's why we're here. We can't make this about you. Look what it says in chapter three, verse sixteen. Even before he gets into the preaching, let's just start with what the Bible is. All Scripture from cover to cover, Genesis to Revelation. It's freaked out by God. It is inspired by the Holy Spirit. All of it is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training and righteousness. So what is this book going to do? It's going to teach you. So, yeah, there's going to be some information. There's going to be a correct understanding, but then it's going to reprove you. It says it's profitable for reproof.

[00:23:05] Now you're going to get reproved, that's not even a word we know what means anymore. It's not even a word we use.

[00:23:13] Like I'm going to have to hear the truth about myself, which is going to be unpleasant. I'm going to have to come to admit things about myself, to expose hidden secrets about myself, to see myself in a fresh light in a way that I never even knew myself before.

[00:23:29] I'm going to get corrected, I'm going to get told that what I think is wrong, the way I've always been doing it, is wrong. The way that comes naturally to me is not the right way. And then I'm going to get trained. I'm going to get taught up a new way, a way of real righteousness, righteousness that I get from Jesus that I don't bring myself. That's what the Bible is going to do and right here in this book, cover to cover is everything. If you want to live for God, if you really want to live your life, not for yourself, but for God in his glory, if you want to take up your cross and deny yourself and follow Jesus. This book is sufficient. Scripture will equip you for every good work that God wants you to do. You desperately need to hear this book if you hear from God and listen to him and change your life, you will live. If you don't hear from God and keep being you, you will die.

[00:24:31] That's why we're a Bible church.

[00:24:33] Because you need to learn who you really are. This book is a sword, and it cuts straight to the thoughts and intense of your heart. This book, what God has spoken here, what is written down for you to read, for us to gather together and preach it will expose who you really are better than anything else in your entire life. The Bible knows you better than your closest loved ones. It knows you better than you know how to think about yourself. The Bible is the book where God will show you who he is and his glory in heaven and who you really are down here on earth.

[00:25:09] And when you see yourself, you're going to realize I need to change my mind.

[00:25:15] I need to turn to God, I need less of me and more of him from this day forward. I need to decrease and Jesus Christ in me needs to increase. And the only way that happens is right here, everybody. That's why we need the Bible and go back to First Kings twenty two, because there is a false message. And let me just I'll just spoiler alert right now. Ahab's going to die because he's going to listen to Zedekiah, the son of Shannon, misquote scripture and the four hundred. Yes, man. And he's going to ride into battle now. He's going to be a little concerned. He'll disguise himself.

[00:25:53] But some are some soldier in the Syrian army is just going to shoot a supposedly random arrow just going out there.

[00:26:02] And it's going to happen to hit Ahab.

[00:26:04] And the one weak link in the armor, the one spot where he's exposed and Ahab is going to end up dying in battle because he listens to the false positive message of these lying prophets.

[00:26:20] Now let's meet the real man of God, Makhaya verse 13, the messenger who went to summon Makhaya said to him, Behold, Hey, Makhaya, pay attention to this.

[00:26:32] The words of the prophets with one accord are favorable to the king. Let your word be like the word of one of them and speak favorably. Hey McKeough, we're at the gates of Sumeria. We've got two kings on their thrones in their robes. Everybody's having a yes man party right now. There's a real positive vibe. Hey, for once, Makhaya, can you not ruin our fun?

[00:26:57] Can you not be a downer on our party here? Hey, Makhaya, everybody else agrees about this. Can you just be a team player on this one? Everybody underlined verse 14. This is how it really works.

[00:27:10] But Makhaya said as the Lord lives, what your way?

[00:27:16] What the Lord says to me, that I will speak. Can I get an amen from anybody on that? We don't get to decide the message, it's God's message, we don't get to decide if it's positive or not, we don't get to decide if people are going to like it or not. All we can do is say what God says to people.

[00:27:40] Say, what kind of message do you have for us today, Pastor? They act like it's my message. If I ever come up here and act like it's my message, I hope you'll come and rebuke me to my face afterwards. It's not for me to tell you what I think. It's not for me to fill your mind with jokes and stories. It's not for me to say, here's what I think we need to hear. I'm here to say what God says, nothing more and nothing less. That's what Makhaya says we're here to do. We're here to say what God says.

[00:28:12] It's God speaking his message through the word of God, to the people of God to cut to their hearts so that when it's really done right, it's like I'm not even here. It's like we're not even here. It's not Monday. We're not in the parking lot. It's like God's on a throne in heaven. And he's seizing your soul and he's speaking straight to you and he's telling you who you really are. That's what we're here to do. We're here to say what God says.

[00:28:40] That's Makhaya says, hey, you don't understand how this works, bro. I'm not going to go roll in there and decide what I want to say to Ahab and goes to fat and four hundred yes men. I'm going to say whatever God tells me to say.

[00:28:54] Everybody go back to Second Timothy, because we need to see this. We need to make sure that you know what my goal is every time we get together, whether it's me now, this is Second Timothy chapter to everybody right where we just were, whether it's me, Bill, Dan Taylor, another pastor from another church that comes to preach to us the word. I guarantee you, if we gather together as CompassHB that someone will be preaching from a specific passage of scripture. And here's what we will be expecting. Whoever preaches the word, we will be expecting them to do what it says here. And second, Timothy to 15, do your best to present yourself to God as one approved.

[00:29:39] It doesn't matter if the people like the message. It matters if God approves of the message.

[00:29:46] Do your best, work hard to present yourself to God is one approved a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. Let's get this down for point number two. You don't need a personal opinion, but scripture cut straight. You don't need a personal opinion, but scripture cut straight. You need to get into a passage. Any passage will work and we need to start explaining it. The person who's preaching, they should have done hard work. They should have started with the original languages of Hebrew and Greek. They should have studied the whole context. They should have looked up cross references, talking about the same idea. They should have been praying through the whole thing, studying the word of God, trying to understand what God says.

[00:30:38] And then how do I make it clear, how do I say it in a way to explain it, that everyone will understand? Not my opinion about it, not my analogy about it, not my personal story about it, but what God really said about it. And when people start understanding what God really said, see, that's when we've got this straight path. It's like we've blazed a trail, we paved the road, we've plowed a field. And it's like God spoke in heaven and it went straight to your soul.

[00:31:11] That's what's rightly handling the word of truth.

[00:31:15] Now we have positive messages. Anybody ever been to this church and been encouraged before? Who's ever been here and left the church? Our hopes are high. We've set our hopefully on the future grace that's coming to us.

[00:31:27] Oh, there's a lot of good news. There's a lot of positive out there who's ever left this church.

[00:31:32] It felt terrible before after leaving this church, felt broken up, beaten down, like, wow, I don't know if I'm coming back to this place.

[00:31:40] Let's get honest. Who who's been there like that. Right.

[00:31:45] It doesn't matter whether we walk away feeling positive or feeling negative, it matters.

[00:31:51] Did I hear from God? Was that was what was said, what God said. This is how we should all be evaluating. If someone's preaching, if someone's teaching the word of God, this should be our source of evaluation. Did they do a good job of explaining to me what the scripture says or did they make it about themselves? Did they make it confusing? Did they make it about me and how I'm going to feel about it? Or did they cut it straight?

[00:32:23] And I felt it right here in my soul. I felt that blessed conviction of the Holy Spirit speaking to me. I felt the Holy Spirit helping me, teaching me, giving me understanding, illuminating my mind so that I could really get it. I felt like the Holy Spirit would actually lift me up. He would actually cause me to walk in God's ways in the Holy Spirit, would actually empower me to think, do say exactly what that scripture said. If you heard from God and not from man, that's a good day at church. Can I get an Amen from anybody on that? That's how we should say we went after the service.

[00:33:04] When somebody says, hey, what did you think about the message? You know, a lot of people, what they have for lunch after church is they have a little barbecue pastor. That's what they do. They roast the sermon. That's what they do. Did you like it or not? What you think about the pastor had to say it doesn't matter if we liked it or not. It doesn't matter what I had to say. Hey, did you hear the word of God? That would be a good question to ask somebody. Did you hear the word of God? What are you going to do about it? That would be a great question to ask. What are we going to do about what God says? Go back to let's see now what McCain says when he comes upon this scene. This is this is enlightening. This is going to open our eyes here today. Makhaya now is going to actually approach the gates of some area where there's the two kings and all they're regal robes and these four hundred yes men. And I just picture Zedekiah, the son of Shannon, with the helmet of horns running around talking about Goring the Syrians and how we're going to go claim our victory that God has for us.

[00:34:07] He's already said it in the law of Moses. And we're going to go find it at if Chiliad we're going to go go for the Syrians. You can just imagine these guys whipping themselves up into a feel good frenzy to just a positive experience for everybody. And here comes Makhaya verse fifteen.

[00:34:25] When he had come to the King Ahab Bou said to him, Makhaya, shall we go to Ram if Chiliad to battle or shall we refrain?

[00:34:35] I would imagine this is like one of those moments when the record stops and it like screeches right. Everybody stops there hooting and hollering. Whatever they were doing, it gets awkwardly quiet and in walks Makhaya son of in law.

[00:34:52] And Ahab puts him to him straight, shall we go up or shall we not? And here's his response. He's got everybody's attention, he answered him, go up in triumph.

[00:35:04] The Lord will give it into the hand of the king.

[00:35:08] OK, you should write dripping with sarcasm in in the little margin there of your Bible.

[00:35:14] I'll say what you guys want me to say, yeah, go on up. Take a. You got the horns.

[00:35:22] Look what the king says, this is classic verse 16, how many times shall I make you swear that you speak to me? Nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord. All right. Tell us the real message, Makhaya. We know how you are. Come on. Let's get to it. And here's what he said. I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said these have no master. Let each return to his home in peace. Who is the master of the northern kingdom of Israel? Who is the shepherd of God's people?

[00:35:52] Ahab. He says, Ahab, you're not coming back from the battle, people are going to return home, but they're not going to have a master anymore.

[00:36:02] And look what the king says, Ahab, verse 18, said to Joseph, Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil? Didn't I tell you this is how it was going to be, Joseph, that he's always saying negative stuff, always ruining our fun?

[00:36:19] Always out there with his repentance about sin turn from the coming judgment. Zik Jesus before it's too late, always that same message.

[00:36:31] And then we get to the real message, I need everybody give this your full and undivided attention. In fact, I'm going to ask if we would stand up right now for our scripture reading here, because this is the real message that God spoke from heaven through Makhaya to the two kings at the gates of Samaria.

[00:36:48] This is verses 19 to twenty three.

[00:36:53] And McCain said, therefore, hear the word of your way. I saw your way sitting on his throne and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left.

[00:37:10] And you always said, who will entice Ahab that he may go up and fall at if Chiliad and one said one thing and another said another, then his spirit came forward and stood before your way saying, I will entice him.

[00:37:27] And you always said to him, By what means?

[00:37:30] And he said, I will go out and will be a flying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, you are to entice him and you shall succeed, go out and do so now, therefore behold your way has put a flying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets. Your way has declared disaster for you.

[00:37:58] That's the reading of God's word. Please go ahead and have your seat.

[00:38:03] See, this is a tale of two throne rooms.

[00:38:07] And these kings have set up their thrones at the gate of Sumeria like they're in charge, and yet there's a throne room in heaven where there's one king who sits on one throne and whatever he says from his throne, that's what really happens. What is decreed in heaven is what happens here on earth.

[00:38:29] Can I get any Amen from anybody on that?

[00:38:32] Can I tell you that right now, you and I living through the coronavirus crisis, living through the unrest in America, coming up to an election year 2020, that we are spending way too much time wondering who's going to sit on the throne in America? And we need to spend way more time thinking about who's already on the throne in heaven. It doesn't matter what the leaders say down here, it matters what he says up there, that's what really is going to happen.

[00:39:07] And you can be deceived by the fake news. You can listen to the deceiving spirits in the mouths of all their profits.

[00:39:16] Or you can hear what God to Chris. And you can know the truth. I wonder how much time.

[00:39:25] If we could figure out a ratio in your life that you spent listening to what other people are saying, press conferences, news reports, all telling you, how many times have you heard the experts tell you what's going to happen only for the experts to be wrong?

[00:39:44] How many times have you heard God tell you what's going to happen? And has he ever failed you yet?

[00:39:51] Point number three, we need to get it down like this, you don't need a newsroom, but God's throne room, you don't need a newsroom but God's throne room C. This is what happens when you read the Bible.

[00:40:04] This is what happens when you hear from one of the prophets, one of the men who spoke or wrote down the words of God.

[00:40:12] See, then it transports you. You get a glimpse into the spiritual realm and you don't just see what's going on at the gates of Sumeria door. You see what's going on past the pearly gates on the streets of gold, in God's heavenly throne room, where the angels, the messengers of God. This scene is like the book of job, where Satan and even the demons come before God. And they say, Have you considered your servant job? Let us touch him. Let us go after him. We'll get him to turn against you. She got saying, hey, Ahab, I've been patient with him long enough, it's time for him to die, it's time for him to be judged. I've sent my profits to him again and again. He's heard the word of the Lord and the best he's ever getting is a fake sorry and a false repentance. It's time for Ahab to die. How are we going to end Ahab? And here, I imagine, comes one of the deceiving spirits all go out.

[00:41:12] Here's what we'll do. We'll get his profits to light and we'll just see them.

[00:41:19] That's how he'll die.

[00:41:21] Part of the judgment that God gives is when he takes back hearing his word and he lets a fake positive message be spread, and that kind of judgment is already here upon us in America, it's easier to find fake news than good news.

[00:41:41] In our nation, what are you getting caught up in?

[00:41:45] Now, this is why I'm going to beg and plead once again with every single person, if this is your church, CompassHB Bible Church now going into our seventh year, I am asking you, will you read the Bible with us, please?

[00:42:00] Will you read through the Book of Kings with us?

[00:42:03] OK, here, here's something I want you to to write down at the bottom of your hand out there, OK? In the Hebrew Bible, Kings was followed by Isaiah. Could everybody write that down in the Hebrew Bible? The Book of Kings was followed by Isaiah. OK, here's here's how it works. Like, for example, we're familiar with the Book of Acts. Who's ever read the Book of Acts before the story of the Church, The Apostles of Jesus Christ, Paul's Missionary Journeys. When you read the Book of Acts, then you go right into what's the book after acts. You go right into what? Romans It makes so much sense. Paul's going around preaching the gospel. He's preaching there in Rome. Now we're going to start reading the books that he preached that he wrote to those churches. Makes a ton of sense. It's the same way in the Hebrew Bible. Maybe you've never read it like this before. Kings. There's all these prophets giving a message from God. There's two kingdoms, different prophets going to both kingdoms. And then after you read about the kingdoms and what happens, you go right into the prophets. Isaiah will show up by the end of kings, and then we'll go right into Isaiah and see what he wrote down. Go to Isaiah. Everybody turn there with me to Isaiah Chapter six, and you will see that Isaiah when he came. This is the goal of the prophets. When they speak from God, when they give you the word of the Lord, they take you to the throne room of heaven. They take you into God's presence. When a prophet really speaks the word of God, when a pastor really preaches the word of God, that's how you go into the presence of God, into his throne room and you find out who he is.

[00:43:54] Look at Isaiah, Chapter six, page five hundred and seventy one. If you have one of our Bibles, this is what the prophets are trying to say to us.

[00:44:03] In the year the King of Zion died, I saw your way.

[00:44:07] The Lord, sitting upon a throne high and lifted up the train of his robe, filled the temple above him stood the Seraphim. Each had six wings with two. He covered his face with two. He covered his feet, and with two he flew and one called to another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole Earth is full of his glory, and the foundations of the threshold's shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said, Woe is me, for I am lost. I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

[00:44:59] Then one of the serafim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, behold, this has touched your lips.

[00:45:10] Your guilt is taking away your sin, atoned for. This is why we need the Bible. We need to hear what God says on his holy throne, that we are sinners and woe is us. We are lost. And from God to us comes a message that you're seeing can be atoned for in the name of Jesus. You could be saved out of all of your sins. You could have a relationship with God. If you will just hear from God, you will live is what the Scripture says.

[00:45:42] Do you love the Bible? I'm asking you a personal question. Have you ever read the Book of Kings?

[00:45:49] Have you studied all of the prophets, do you keep going back day after day and say, I need to go to the throne room, I need to hear from God, I can't get enough of God speaking to me in my life.

[00:46:04] I know very clearly when I graduated college, I was highly motivated to get a job because I had this girl that I wanted to get married to and I knew there was no way her dad was going to let me marry her if I didn't have a job. Anybody ever been in that spot? Any of my brothers ever been there before? I needed a job badly. And my goal was to be a reporter at the Orange County Register. That was like my life goal, everybody. And I don't know if you've seen the empty building over off the five freeway that's still sitting there to this day, they don't. But back in the day, it was a newsroom.

[00:46:39] And I went there and I was going to work there and someone was going to train me how to be a reporter. This is where they break the news. This is where they say what's going on on planet Earth. This is where the truth is told. There's the editors over there. There's the publisher. Here's the columnist. Here's like reporters. I've read people that are known in the community. I'm like, oh, wow, this is going to be great. I'm going to report the truth. I'm going to help the citizens by telling them good news.

[00:47:09] I'm ready. Put me in. What does it mean to be a reporter? And I met with this guy who's like a reporter, but doing it his whole life. He's going to teach me the ways. He's going to disciple me in the world of reporting. And I'm like, what are we going to do today? And he says, Well, there's a baseball coach at one of the little leagues who's been convicted as a child molester.

[00:47:29] And what I found is I found the team roster. So we're going to call everybody on his team and we're going to talk to all the parents and we're going to ask them if they ever saw anything suspicious about this coach who's now convicted for being a child molester.

[00:47:47] And I had a thought that came to me that day that has stuck with me till this day.

[00:47:53] Do I want to spend my life reporting the bad news or do I want to spend my life preaching the good news?

[00:48:01] What are you doing with your life? It's all right here in this book.

[00:48:07] This is why we need to be CompassHB Bible Church, because people need to hear from God. Can I get any man from the congregation? OK, let me pray for us. Father in heaven.

[00:48:19] We thank you for six years of your words sounding forth of your gospel ring. Now we thank you for Brandyn, for Ethan, for Orlinda that we got to celebrate getting saved here today. We thank you for so many more who have been saved. Here at this church, we thank you for those who have been built up, sanctified by the truth of your word and God, I pray that we will always preach your word at this church that people always come ready to receive the correction in the rebuke of your word here at this church. And Father, we pray that you will speak from your throne in heaven and you will be heard by people that you open people's eyes to see you in all of your glory, that you will open people's ears to know you. To worship you in spirit and in truth.

[00:49:13] Father, we need more of the throne room and less of the newsroom, we need more of your voice and less of people's opinions. So, Father, let your word be known, let it be preached, let it be talked about in our fellowships, let it be read in the secret place in our homes, let it be taught to our children.

[00:49:35] Father, let your words be exalted as your name is exalted over all the earth, filled this church, filled our life on the truth of your word on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. We pray this in his name, Amen.