In the Word

Pastor Mike Warren: You are going to see a miracle tonight. There are only eight verses in Chapter 15, and I can probably do it in five minutes. I am serious. You wait and see. Maybe ten. Ezekiel Chapter 14. Let's pray.

Father, we thank You for Your word tonight. We would just ask that You'd give us ears to hear what the Spirit is saying through Your word to the church in these last days. Then just give permanence to those things. Plant it deep in our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen.

By way of reminder, we are in that section that started back in Chapter 12 and will go all the way through Chapter 24, where God is justifying or giving reasons for why He must judge sin. Isn't it interesting that God is so righteous and so just that He is even willing to give us reasons for why He must judge sin? He owes us no explanation. His word is without contestation. He is the sovereign God of heaven. He is transcendent, almighty, eternal, and omnipotent.

He owes us no explanation, but because He loves His creation and because He is a God that wants us to understand, He gives us reasons. I think as I have gone and studied through this section many times and considered it, God wants to give us reasons simply because He hates to have to do this. When we study through Revelation, you remember when we get to the last of those bowl judgments that are being poured out, it is the final judgment. The seven seals have already been opened and the seven trumpet judgments have been sounded. He gets to the last and He has those seven bowl judgments that are being poured out.

These are severe. Each one intensifies in magnitude. God Almighty goes into His temple and He shuts the doors behind Him. Nobody is allowed to go in. There is a grieving and a mourning. We are going to see that in the Book of Ezekiel because we are going to read things like, "Turn ye, turn ye, why will you perish? I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked." Understand as we are going through this series of visions that Ezekiel is having concerning the judgment of God, He is judging people that He has been warning now for years.

Isaiah lived a hundred years before this. Then He sent Jeremiah and many of the minor prophets. Now he has Ezekiel and Daniel, and they are not listening. God is slow to anger, but He also tells us His Spirit will not always strive with man. That is why He is going to tell us tonight to turn and repent. Quit walking in your crooked and pernicious ways and just humble yourself and come under My authority and My discipline. Be corrected and walk in holiness and walk in righteousness. That is all God is after.

The more stubborn we get, the more He will amp up His desire to get our attention. We are going to see again His desire is that we would walk in that way. Verse one says, "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me." This is the second time in the Book of Ezekiel now we have had this scene. Back in Chapter 8, the elders sought out Ezekiel's counsel. No doubt these elders knew that Ezekiel would have been a priest had this judgment not come upon Jerusalem and they were besieged by Nebuchadnezzar in 605 and then the temple sacked and all the priests brought into bondage in Babylon in 597.

They also recognized that God has turned this man into a prophet. They are coming to a recognized man of God, to a prophet, to a man that has had an experience with God so that when he speaks, it is "Thus saith the Lord." These men are coming and they are seeking out the counsel of this notable prophet of God. They sat before Ezekiel. Verse two says, "And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying," so there is this scene where you have these elders, these leaders, these people that are responsible even in bondage for the spiritual well-being of the nation of Israel and especially the two southern tribes of Judah that had been led astray to Babylon.

They are seeking the counsel of a notable man of God that has had an experience with the Lord. The word of the Lord comes unto Ezekiel in this situation as these elders are seated before him. He says, "Son of man," and again, He is reminding Ezekiel that he is a human being. That is the idea of "Son of man." You are a human being, nothing more than a human being that I put My hand on, that I have stood up and filled with My Spirit. That is all any of us are.

We should never worship a man. We should always be thankful for the giftings that God gives through His Spirit to men and women for the benefit of the body because the power is never in the messenger. It is in the message. There is far too much personality worship in the church today instead of the worship of the true and living God. There is too much focus on human beings. We have turned true worship in the church into entertainment where we are in awe of these artists or we are in awe of a certain personality or a certain person or a certain way they teach.

The power is not in the person. I can be up here in tie-dye and jeans, and the power is not in the messenger; it is in the message. God is reminding Ezekiel, "Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts." These men are coming and seeking you as a prophet for "Thus saith the Lord," but I am seeing what is in their hearts. God is seeing what is in our hearts every time we gather. You people are here because we are a Bible-teaching church. That is why you are here, because we are serious about the word of God. We are serious about the work of the Holy Spirit.

We pray that the Holy Spirit would manifest itself and explain the word to us every time we gather. We teach expositionally through the Bible, Old Testament Wednesday nights, New Testament Sunday mornings. Monday nights, we take a book of the Bible as we are discipling the men and the ladies do the same. We are a Bible-believing church that stands on the foundation of God's word, and the people who come here are looking for that. Yet, people who come here that are looking for that, like these men are coming to someone who is going to speak for the Lord and not water it down, yet they can still come into this sanctuary and still have idols in their heart.

Things go on in your heart that ought not to be going on: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. John tells us that every sin will fall into one of these three categories. It will either be a sexual sin of some sort. By the way, you don't see with your eyes; you see with your mind. It can be pornographic in your mind. You could be desiring somebody else's wife or husband or just given over to sexual sin. You could walk in here and you could look normal, but you could have that problem going on in your head and in your heart.

Or you could be so caught up materialistically that you are so connected to this world and the things of this world that those things own you. They consume you. You are more concerned about the physical than you are about the spiritual. You are more concerned about the things you get to do than that you get to be in the presence of Almighty God. I am going to go up again this weekend and spend a day and a night, and the thing that winds my clock is that I can sit in the presence of my Father. There is nothing I want more.

I don't need the things of this world. In fact, I need the things of this world to grow strangely dim in the light of His love and His grace. I need to touch this world just as lightly as possible, seeing that the present scheme of things is rapidly passing away, and too much of the church is caught up in materialism. I think God is about to wean us from that. Or it could be the pride of life where you just don't have a teachable spirit. You come here, you hear God's word, but then you will say, "Not for me, for somebody else." It doesn't apply to my life; it applies to my wife. I know somebody that should have been here.

What about you? What about me? I teach for an hour, but you have to realize it takes me a long time to prepare for that hour. I am getting hammered by the word and by the Holy Spirit fifteen times more than you people are, so just suck it up, cupcake, and let God deal with you. He is saying here, "These men are coming to you as a notable prophet. They are seeking you, but they have set up idols in their heart and they put a stumbling block of their iniquity before their faces."

Instead of My face before their faces, their sin is before My face. Then He asks Ezekiel a question, and I think this is an important one: "Should I be inquired of at all by them?" When they come with concealed, habitual unwillingness to repent, should I accept them to come and inquire of Me when there is unrepented sin? I want you people to know we all deal with that stuff. The great Apostle Paul, writing in Romans Chapter 7, calls it "the great struggle."

Paul wrote Romans probably twenty-five or thirty years after his conversion. Paul writes, "The things that I should do, I don't. And the things that I shouldn't do, I do. I find that there is a law that when I want to do good, evil is present." Then he goes through this diration of, "O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of sin and death?" Then he says, "I thank God that Jesus Christ has done that. I am born of the Spirit. I put off the old man, I put on the new man, and am in the process of putting away evil things, and God sees my heart."

Holiness is more of an attitude than it is an action because the Bible presupposes that we are going to sin. What is your attitude toward sin? Is it acceptable? Do you dabble in things you shouldn't dabble in and say in your heart and your mind, "Well, God's grace will cover that," or do you grieve over that? Does it break your heart? Do you mourn that you broke the heart of your Father? Once you grab ahold of that relationship and you understand that your sin breaks the heart of your Father, it should break our heart.

How you treat your wives, if you don't treat them as God has commanded you to do, it breaks the heart of your Father. Wives, when you don't submit to your husbands and show them the respect you are commanded to show them and come under their leadership, it breaks the heart of the Father. Fathers, when you don't step into your children's lives and bring them up in the way they should go in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, it breaks your Father's heart. Lying, cheating, stealing, all of those things break the heart of the Father.

What He is saying is these men come to inquire of Me and they have set up by an act of their will iniquity and idols in their heart of hearts and all manner of evil things. Ezekiel was taken and got to see what the things that were written on the walls of these priests' hearts. Then God asks a question: if they come with unrepentant sin, not broken. Jesus taught a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray one day, and you remember the first was a Pharisee, a very religious person. He comes into the temple, walks straight up to the front, looks up to heaven, and the first thing that he says is, "I thank You that I am not like other men."

I think that would qualify as pride. The thing I have learned in forty-six years is I am just like every other man. I am flesh, and even though I am born again, I still have a traitor living in me that I have to deal with every day. Then he goes on to brag of what he has done. He pays tithe and prays three times a day as though God is pleased with the things that we do and not what is in our heart. The great prophet Isaiah, as he signs off dealing with what is going on at this time in Israel and the ten northern tribes and the two southern tribes, at the end of it, they were saying in Chapter 65, "God, we are going to do these great things for You. We are going to build this great edifice for You."

God answers them in the first part of Chapter 66 and He says, "What could you do that would impress Me? I am not impressed with the person of man. Are you kidding me? You are going to build something for Me? You are going to do something that will impress Me? The earth is My footstool. It is the place I put the dirtiest part of My body to rest. The heavens of heavens are My throne, and they can't contain Me. You are going to do something that will impress Me? You need to get over yourself."

Then He says something very interesting: "But to this man, to this woman will I look: to the one who is of a broken and contrite spirit." They are broken because of the sin. They are contrite because of the failure. They don't justify it. It is not acceptable to them. It vexes them, and they tremble at My words. If that is in your heart, the Bible says, "Come boldly into the throne room of grace to receive help and mercy in a time of failure." The door will never be shut to you. What God is looking for is a heart that is broken, that is contrite, that trembles at His word, that cries for that day when sin will no longer be an issue.

You will never have to repent again and say, "Father, I don't know what is wrong with me." How many of you said that this week? What is wrong with me? Well, you still got a traitor living in you, and every once in a while he gets out. He is slippery. I get this picture in my mind when I am dealing with me is I put that old man in a coffin. I have worked all my life with battery-powered drill guns. It is like you have that screw gun and you are trying to keep the lid down to keep him in the box.

How many have tried to keep old Desperado, the old man, in the box and you are screwing the lid down as fast as you can? You find out he has the better model screw gun because the faster you can screw them down, the screws are coming back up and pretty soon the lid pops up and he slips out. Then you have to go chase him down. You have to bring him back and wrestle him into submission and put him back in the box. I have some good news for you, and I have some bad news for you. One of these days you will never have to do that again. That is the good news.

The bad news is you have to die or be raptured for that to happen. In this life, you are going to fight with that guy. The flesh is going to war against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and God knows that, but He is looking at our hearts tonight. Is your heart to be obedient? Is your heart to love righteousness and to hate evil? Is your heart to be well-pleasing to the Father and when you fail, is there a brokenness and a contriteness about it? Do you fear the Lord? Do you tremble at His words? I have been asking for the last few years that the Lord would put more of the fear of the Lord in me, and He is doing it because I know that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

I know the things that Acts Chapter 2 says were prominent in the early church that put them in a position to rock the world around them. These are the ones who rock the world. I'm sorry, I lied about Chapter 15. I repent. See, there you go. I'm humbled. I repent. We may get there; I don't know, but I'm not going to worry about it. Where was I? Verse one. It is this t-shirt. My hippie days are coming back. It is a heart issue. When you come before the Lord with a broken and contrite spirit, He says, "You I will not refuse."

The second person who came in to pray fell on his face, rent his garment, didn't even approach the front, but cried out, "God have mercy on me a sinner." Broken. Jesus said, "I tell you of a truth, the latter left more justified than the first." When we approach Almighty God, He doesn't see the outside; He sees the inside. He knows the thoughts and the imagery in our head and in our mind. That is why He told Samuel the great prophet, "When you go choose a new king because I have rejected Saul, men look on the outward appearance, but I the Lord search the heart to try the reins to know what is in the heart."

He says to Ezekiel, "These men that are inquiring of you a word from Me, should I answer them when they come with unrepentant, unbroken sin? In fact, I have judged them for the sin and they have been carried away into Babylon and they still don't get it." They still don't understand. I am trying to correct them. They are seeking the prophet, but they are not repentant. He said, "Should I be inquired of them?" Verse 4 says, "Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord: Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up idols in his heart, and putteth the stumbling block of iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet," He is saying to Ezekiel, "I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols. You are not going to get to answer that guy; I will answer."

He is going to tell us how He is going to answer: because they hated the truth, He is going to send false teachers. They are going to be deceived by the false teachers. I am not making an accusation; I am making an observation, but there are a lot of false teachers and pastors in pulpits today that are giving false conversions and false hope to people. I am here to tell you if you are born again by the Spirit of God, then Jesus paid for your sins. The evidence that you are born again and filled with the Spirit is there is a changed life.

It may be slow in growing because we are called to grow in grace, forgiving us and forgiving others, and in the knowledge of the Lord, but there should be a notable difference about you because you put off the old man, you put on the new man, you are walking in newness of life. I would say that you need to examine yourself to see whether you be in the faith if you still find pleasure in bars and alcohol and in things that you shouldn't be involved in. When God's Holy Spirit comes in us, it is not that you don't fall into those things, but they are oopses and they are quickly repented of and you jump back out and you beat the fire off. You understand what I am saying?

But you don't live there. You don't habitually practice sin as a way of life any longer because you are born of the Spirit. His seed remains in you so that you can't do that because brokenness and contriteness and repentance will come. He is saying if they are coming for justification, so many times we come to the Lord to justify. I used to have, years ago when I was a youth pastor, this guy would come by the church when the pastor wasn't there because he wore the pastor out and he would take up my time and he wanted to argue with me why alcohol was okay for Christians.

About the second time he came in, I said, "You know the reason why you are arguing on that point is because it has a hold of you. I don't know you, brother, but you probably get drunk all of the time and drunkenness is a sin." He said, "No, no, I only drink till I get a buzz." Is it three beers? Is it two shots? Where is the buzz and where is the drunkenness? Brother, give it up. All things are lawful but not all things are necessary. You are trying to justify your behavior because Holy Spirit is convicting you and you don't want to give it up and you are trying to convince me it's okay. You're not convincing me of it. I used to be an alcoholic and drug abuser and immoral man. I gave that up the moment I got saved.

For no other reason, be an example to somebody. Don't cause somebody to stumble with what you would call a liberty. If you do, you are going to sin against Christ. Bible says, "Abstain from even the appearance of sin." I don't drink Martinelli's sparkling apple cider anymore. I had a guy come to me at the last church I pastored and say, "Pastor, I saw you driving down the road and you were drinking a beer." I said, "I don't drink beer." He said, "I saw you." Then it dawned on me I can't drink sparkling apple cider because it looks like beer.

Another guy came to me and said, "I didn't know you smoke, Pastor." I said, "I don't; I've never smoked a cigarette in my life; I'm allergic to it." He said, "Well, I saw you the other day driving your work van and you had a cigarette in your mouth," because I had a habit of chewing after I would get a soda, chewing on the straw and picking my teeth with it. I don't pick my teeth with straws anymore. I buy those really cool little things that have the hook on it. I don't know what they could accuse me of when I am using one of those now, but I don't want to stumble anybody.

He said, "I see what is in their hearts. They are going to inquire of you. I the Lord will answer according to their idols." Listen to what He says in verse 5: "That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols." Here is the deal. You can live as high and as low in your Christian experience as you want. You are born again. You are filled with the Spirit of God. You are washed in the blood. Your name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, but you can live a miserable Christian existence without any joy or peace because to the degree you are willing to be obedient is to the degree you will experience the presence of God.

When I go in the mountains, the first hour is dealing with me. It is not the big foxes anymore; I am not doing anything that would disqualify me for ministry, but those little foxes, those little attitudes and stuff are just there. I was telling somebody today I have been wanting to write a book. I have had the outline for the book for a long time and the title and the thing put together. You know what he said to me? "Is it about gray hairs that pull out in front of you? Are you going to write a book about that?" No, that's volume two.

But I struggle with stuff, but it bothers me. He says here when you allow that stuff in your life, if you are depressed or discouraged, if you are heavy-laden and burdened, if there is no joy or peace in your life, then you need to examine yourself to see if there is anything in your life that God has been working on to try to get out of your life that is separating you from your God. An idol by its very definition means there is something more important to you than the true and living God, more important to you than His presence, more important to you than His pleasure, that there is something more important to you than Him.

There should be no rival thrones in our hearts. We have to deal with the old man because he is still there. We have to deal with sin, but it is the heart that hates that, it is the heart that repents of that thing because we want the Lord to know there is no rival throne. There is nothing I want more in my life than Your presence. I don't want anything to get between You and me. That is what He is saying. Their idols have estranged them from Me because they are seeking peace in a pill instead of in a person.

They are seeking peace in a bottle instead of through the blood of Jesus. They are seeking peace in spirits but not the Holy Spirit. God is saying to Ezekiel, when these men seek Me and they have this stuff going on in their heart, I am not going to be second best. There are going to be no rival thrones. Seek Me with your whole heart and you will find Me. I find Him, and it is amazing. No drug I have ever been on, and I've taken a few trips and never left the farm before I was saved, no drug I have ever been on, no drunken binge that I have ever had, there is nothing of this life that I committed my flesh to do that has ever satisfied me like being in one second in the presence of Almighty God. It stirs deep in your spirit and in your soul.

Then He says this: here is the cure for it. I am glad that the Lord just doesn't deal with us without giving us the cure for it. He says this in verse 6: "Therefore because you approach Me with these idols in your heart, because you approach Me unbroken and unrepentant, because you come to Me to seek Me but really in your heart you don't want to hear what I have to say, really you are not seeking Me, you are seeking My approval and I can't approve of the things you're involved in because you want Me to, you're trying to justify it, you're trying to rationalize it, and there's no justification or rationalization of those things." He said, "Therefore say unto the house of Israel: This is what you answer them, Ezekiel, Thus saith the Lord God: Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols; and turn away your faces from all your abominations."

If you will just do that, that's all I am after. This whole thing could stop tonight. This discipline that I have brought on the nation of Israel and on the two southern tribes, Me bringing Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians against you to correct you, it could all end tonight if you would just stop and repent and turn away from those things and turn unto Me. I want to say this because I have heard a lot of pastors and preachers talking about repenting. Turn from your sin, and that is good. I think we should turn from those things.

But we are not called just to turn from evil. The word for repentance in the New Testament, the Greek word is *metanoia*. It means to turn and go in the opposite direction. What is the opposite of dark? Light. What is the opposite of evil? Good. What is the opposite of the god of this world? The God of heaven. We are not just called to turn away because you will not be able to turn away from evil unless you turn to the true and living God and you find your satisfaction in Him, your peace, your joy in Him.

When you find your satisfaction and your peace and joy in Him, the things of this world no longer have an appeal to you. It is like the old hymn we used to sing in church: "Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His love and grace." Whoever wrote that experienced it and he is right. Don't just turn away from evil but turn to the Lord. Repent and turn yourselves from your idols and turn away your faces from all of your abominations.

Verse 7: "For every one of the house of Israel, or of the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me," listen carefully, which he, they, separate themselves from Me. If there is a problem in your relationship with the Lord, it is not in Him. It is in you, it is in me, it is in us. We have turned away. All we like sheep have gone astray, each one to our own way, and all the Lord is saying is just turn back. Repent, *metanoia*, turn around, come back. He says, "they have separated themselves from me and set up idols in their hearts, and putteth a stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophets to inquire of them concerning me; I the Lord will answer him by myself. I will deal with it."

Listen to how He is going to do it in verse 8: "I will set my face against that man, and I will make him a sign and a proverb. I am going to use him as an example, and I will cut him off from the midst of my people; and he shall know that I am the Lord." I am going to do this to bring him to that place to know that I am the Lord. God doesn't punish His people necessarily; we are going to see a word that is used here, but really it is correction. If you are being corrected, you can stop that correction right now tonight.

How do you do that? Repent and turn. Maybe God's been dealing with something in your heart and you just haven't let go of it yet. You're saying, "Lord, I have no peace, I am all stressed out." Now, some of that's spiritual warfare and we will talk about it again next Sunday. Some of it's just the enemy because you're doing what's right. But examine your heart because if you're doing what's right, then it's just the enemy and it's warfare and just deal with it. Get some fight in you, get some vinegar in your blood, get in the fray of it, get your armor on, and go to work. Greater is He that is in us. Get your sword out and start slicing and dicing. And there's more! It slices, it dices, and there's more!

Go to work, but if it is because you know the Holy Spirit's dealt with you and you're not letting go of something, get rid of it. It ain't worth the peace that it's costing you to have that thing in your life. That is what He's saying now. "I will set my face, I'll make him a proverb, and I will cut that man off from my people that they may know that I am the Lord." Listen to verse 9: "And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and I will destroy him from the midst of my people."

They shall bear the punishment of their iniquity. The punishment of the false prophet shall be the same as those who listen to the lies and seek the false prophet. Because there is something wrong in your heart when you are seeking somebody to tell you something that is not true because you want to hear it. What did Paul tell Timothy when he was fading from the scene in 2 Timothy Chapter 4? Paul is reminding young Timothy who is to take his place, "I am being poured out like a drink offering, my time of departure is at hand. You're my disciple and now you're no longer going to be the assistant, you're going to be the main guy. I'm going to charge you as though we were before God who will judge the living and the dead at the coming of His kingdom. He's coming back, He's going to set up His kingdom, He's going to judge, and I'm charging you as though we were standing before God while I'm giving you this commandment: You preach the word. You do it in season and out of season, you do it when people want to hear it and when they don't want to hear it. You correct, you rebuke, you exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, because the time will come when men having itching ears will heap themselves teachers that will tell them what they want to hear, mythos, fables, fairy tales."

That time is here. He says, "But you, Timothy, you make full proof of your ministry. You stay true to the word and do the work of an evangelist." We know that we are living in a time where people having itching ears want to hear that God loves them and they love God and that's all that is necessary and they can live any way they want because they're saved by grace. The early church dealt with the same thing, antinomianism, which means "no law," that just because you are saved by grace you can live any way you want.

Herein is the problem. I had a young guy when I was a youth pastor come to me one day and he says, "Is it wrong to drink beer?" I laid my hands on him and I prayed for him and I said, "Lord, give him a conviction. I don't want him to have my conviction, but I want him to have whatever conviction You want to give him." That is the simple prayer I prayed. Just "Lord, give him a conviction as to what is right and what is wrong in his life. Holy Spirit, get ahold of his heart, lead and guide him into all truth, convict him of all sin."

After I got done praying, he said, "Well, you never answered my question." I said, "Oh, I did. I'll see you next Sunday." He came to me next Sunday and says, "My, my, my. I went to a kegger and took a sip of beer and it tasted like vomit that had been run through a dog kennel and I spit it out. I don't need this." I said, "Right on, bro, you have a conviction that it's wrong." God will do that for you. Well, he came to me again and said, "In PE they make us square dance. Is dancing a sin? Let me pray for you." He said, "I know what you're going to pray." Well, let me pray for you anyway. "Holy Spirit, put a conviction in his heart whether this is right or wrong."

I said I'll see you next week. He came and he said, "You know what? God didn't tell me it was a sin, but I just don't like it." I said, "Okay, now you don't have a conviction; you just have 'I don't like it' and that's okay too. But if they make you do it, you have to be submitted to the authority that's over you." He said, "No, I don't want you to pray for that one because those girls want to dance with me."

This is what He is saying. If a prophet tells you because you come to hear something you want to hear instead of hear the truth, He said, "I'll send them false prophets. I'll send the people that will tell them what they want to hear, and I will judge that false prophet just like I judge the people that want to hear the false prophet because if you are born again, the Holy Spirit is in you and you ought to know better because He will lead you and guide you into all truth."

Let me read you a couple of verses in 2 Thessalonians. Paul warning us about this in Chapter 2 verses 11 and 12 says this: "And for this cause God shall send them a strong delusion," this is when the Antichrist comes upon the scene, "that they should believe a lie." God is sending them a strong delusion so that they would believe a lie, then he tells us why: "that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

He will say in other places in that same section, because they not only did not believe the truth, they didn't love the truth. But you who want to walk in truth, God will help you. In Romans Chapter 1 verse 28 it says this: "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," they didn't want to be submitted to the Lord, they didn't want to walk in His ways and keep His commandments, "God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient."

There is a point when God will just say, "Okay, you want to be deceived? You want to walk in unrighteousness? You want to be disobedient? You come to seek the prophets but you really don't want to hear what they have to say? You come to seek the churches that teach the word but you really don't want to be obedient to it? Then I will send to you people and pastors and priests that I will send them, I will deceive them, and they will deceive you." That's scary, isn't it? Amen. That is why I study through the Bible, because my defense when I get before the Lord because I get a stricter judgment is I read it. I may not have gotten all the commentary right on it, but I read it, and the Holy Spirit will have taken it and dealt with your hearts about it.

They shall bear the punishment. Those who desire to hear falsehood and those who preach falsehood are going to share in the same judgment. Verse 11: "That the house of Israel may go no more astray from me." I'm just trying to make your experience in the world as most unpleasant as I can so that you will love Me more than you love the things of the world. I don't know what that does for you, but that just really makes me trust the Lord. Lord, You love me so much that You're not going to leave me to my own devices. You're going to make those things so abominable to me that I won't desire them anymore because they won't do for me what You will in my heart.

I love that the Lord does that for me because there's nothing of this world that I've been enticed to and been involved with that ever brought me the joy; in fact, it brought me the opposite. It brought brokenness and contriteness and then repentance and then a turning from that back to the Lord and then the restoration and the blessing and the peace. I'm at the age right now I don't want to sin anymore; it's just too much. It's too long, takes too much, it costs too much. It just ain't worth it. You get to my age and you start thinking about the end of it, not the beginning of it, and there ain't nothing you can entice me with because I know the end of that thing and the end of it is not good.

Then I've got to go through all of this brokenness and contriteness and no touchy the toesies. I know I'm still saved but there's a strain in our relationship and there's some days to get that back and hours in prayer and repentance and I just don't want to do that anymore. I'll just stay with You. It's easier. I'm built for comfort now, not for speed anymore. I don't mean to be fast, just to go slow and just enjoy the Lord. Verse 12 says, "The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing grievously."

Do you think what went on in that school was grievous to the Lord? Do you think what goes on in the abortion clinics is grievous to the Lord? Do you think what goes on in marriages where we no longer get married? We have two men and two women and all of this abomination? Do you think the politicians that are ripping people off and lying and involved in all kinds of wickedness, you think that's not grievous to the Lord? Do you think the things going on in this country as a whole are not grievous to the Lord? Do you think the things going on in this world, slave trafficking, fentanyl coming across the borders uncontrolled, people dying from overdoses? He loves us, and the things of this world have separated us from Him.

"Son of man, when the land, when a country, when a culture, when a civilization, when a group of people sinneth against me by trespassing grievously, greatly, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it." I just saw today on the news General Keane, because I was interested in what's going on in Ukraine, the war, because I've been praying for those poor people over there. What he was saying is the Russians have moved their warships and blockaded the main harbor of Ukraine so they can't ship the wheat.

His suggestion was that a coalition of nations take their warships in and escort those ships out because if they don't get escorted out, by late June, which is just a short period of time, there's going to be a worldwide food shortage because Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe. If we can't get the fertilizer out and we can't grow our crops here, we're going to be in trouble. When God seeks to discipline a nation, He pulls back His hand of blessing. Some of you might be sitting going, "Uh oh, what about us?" When God sought to discipline Egypt for their cruelty and not letting God's people go and worship the true and living God, what did God do in Egypt? He pulled back His hand of blessing and He poured out those plagues upon them.

What happened in Goshen where God's people lived? Nothing. Darkness didn't go over there. If I had a time machine, I would travel back there. I'd like to stick my finger in the darkness and back out just like the parting of the Sea, dry land, sea, sea, walled up, nothing. Niner niner niner. You can reach in and grab lunch. I like cod; there's one right there, a big fat one. The Bible says that when the cattle in Egypt were dying of disease and that's how you live, that was the food source, in the land of Goshen amongst God's people, they were multiplying. No frogs, no flies.

When God seeks to judge, He protects the righteous, but it is a personal relationship. He's not going to protect your children because you're walking right. It's an individual thing. "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job," it's interesting He picks these three. Noah, a righteous man in an unrighteous world. When God sought to judge that world, was Noah judged with the world? No. For a hundred and twenty years as he's banging away on the boat, he's warning them of judgment to come. They didn't listen. But when God sought to judge the world in the days of Noah, He put Noah in an ark and He lifted him above the judgment and he rode it out safe.

Daniel is in there at that time and we're going to know that Daniel was in the lions' den. Did the lions eat him? No. When Daniel sought to pray and wouldn't compromise and he was arrested, was he protected? His three companions, when they got ready to throw them in the fiery furnace, what happened? They didn't even smell like smoke when they came out. What I'm telling you, when God judges, He will protect as a shield of the righteous in those times. He will bless them, He will provide for them, He will protect them because He will never judge the righteous with the wicked.

Though Noah, Daniel, or Job were in it, they should deliver only their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord. Now let me ask you this: are you righteous? You absolutely are. What did the blood of Jesus Christ do for you? When you were born of the Spirit, washed in the blood of the Lamb, forgiven of your sins past, present, and future, declared holy by a God who said by one sacrifice I have declared you to be holy forever and your sins and your iniquities I remember no more, so you better believe you are the righteousness of Christ in God.

We don't walk by feelings; we walk by faith. I know that whatever comes through those doors down the road, so to speak, my God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I could ever ask or think. I don't worry about any of it because my righteousness is in Christ and He sees me just that way. He's saying by their righteousness, saith the Lord, "If I cause noisome beasts to pass." Is He going to all of a sudden the Bigfoots are going to show up and the lions and the tigers and the bears, oh my? Maybe He'll use those to judge.

Maybe aliens, they're talking about UFOs now, maybe they'll show up and judge. I don't know what He's going to use. "If the noisome beasts pass through the land, and they spoil it, so that it is desolate, that no man may pass through it because of the beasts: Though these three were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter, but only they shall be delivered from these judgments, but the land shall be desolate."

I will protect the righteous. Your righteousness can't be an inheritance to your kids; it's got to be a personal relationship with them. Every person that has a personal relationship with the Lord will be protected during the time of judgment. "Or if I bring a sword upon the land, and say, Sword, go through the land; so that I cut off man and beast from it: Though these three were in it, as I live, saith the Lord, they shall deliver neither their sons or their daughters because this is a personal thing, but only they shall be delivered. Or if I send pestilence into that land, and pour out my fury upon it in blood, to cut off from it man and beast: Though Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, as I live, saith the Lord God, they shall deliver neither son nor daughter; they shall but deliver their own souls by their righteousness."

We are the righteousness of Christ in God by the blood of Jesus Christ and by our faith in that. We are the born-again ones, we are the people of God, we are the sons and daughters of God, and our God knows how to take care of His people in a time of judgment. I'll plant a garden and it will grow ten times more than it should and my neighbor over there is hoeing away and everything and nothing. He's going to say, "Why is your stuff growing and mine isn't? Why are your chickens laying eggs and mine aren't?" Because God is blessing me.

"How come God's blessing you?" Because I have turned from my wicked ways and repented and accepted Jesus as my Savior. You ought to do the same. Your chickens will start laying eggs. Your goats will start producing milk. "For thus saith the Lord God; How much more when I send my four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beast, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast? Yet, behold, therein shall be left a remnant that shall be brought forth, both sons and daughters: behold, they shall come forth unto you, and ye shall see their way, their wicked way."

Thirty-seven times the word "way" is used in the Book of Ezekiel, and every time it's in an evil context. Then "their doings." Eight times the word "doing" is used in the Book of Ezekiel, always in an evil context. "And ye shall be comforted concerning the evil that I have brought upon Jerusalem, even concerning all that I have brought upon it. And they shall comfort you, when ye see their ways and their doings: and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it, saith the Lord God."

There's a righteous reason for it. I will protect the righteous. They're going to see their way and repent. The ones who don't, My only purpose for bringing this judgment is to drive them back into relationship with Me and if they don't, then it's on their own head. But you and I have nothing to worry about. Jesus died for your sins past, present, and future. Did He raise again to prove that He had what He said He had? Have you accepted Him by faith? Are you born of the Spirit? Are you His people? Then if God be for you, and He is, then what do you have to fear? Nothing.

God can judge the wicked all around you, and yet He will always spare and protect the righteous. Amen. There are benefits out of this world for serving the Lord. Examine your heart and do it often. Do what the Psalmist says: "Search my heart, O Lord." When you get alone in those times of prayer, my prayer starts off pretty much the same. I'm praying for you people. I pray for the ministry and the church, I pray for the things coming on. I spend a lot of time praying for Plumbline. I really think that's going to be the spearhead God's going to use in this church to reach the next generation before Jesus comes.

I pray for Nicole. She's popped her head up and she's said yes to what the Lord's asked her to do, and I guarantee you she's in the battle and in the fray of it. I guarantee you. She puts on a smile face and walks in here and you think, "Man, things are well." I guarantee you things aren't well. She's battling just like you men are battling to be men of God, just like you're battling to be men of prayer. There's a battle raging around us, but greater is He that is in us than he that is in this world. No weapon formed against us will prosper.

The things that God has called us to and we've set our hand toward, God is going to bless. We don't need to be afraid. I think some very exciting times are ahead. I think this school is going to just be a blessing to this community, and we're seeing more and more what's going on in these other schools. We're going to put a sign up out here: "This school is protected by God Almighty and guns." We will double-tap you if you come here.

But you better be more afraid of the Lord than of us because we're going to pray God's protection over this place. We're in the fray of it. Amen. You felt it? But you better look up and know who your God is. They that know their God will do great exploits. I don't measure things by me. I don't measure things by you. I don't measure things by this church. I measure things by Almighty God.

When I get alone with Him, I begin to pray for you people for strength in these last days that we would be exactly what God wants us to be. Then it's not long and I go to my heart. "Lord, how can I be this way and have known You this long? How can the gray hairs bother me so much?" They're not doing it so much anymore, God's delivered me of that, but there's something else. Always something else. But as I bring my heart and I put it on the altar, I actually ask God, "Take my heart in Your hands. Calm me, give me Your peace, give me Your strength. I can do nothing without You but I can do all things through You. Lord, I know that unless You build the house, I'm laboring in vain. You need to do it. Fill me with Your Spirit, fill me with Your strength, give me the words to say, give me a hunger for righteousness and a hatred for sin. Put the fear of God in me. Give me You. You've done this for me, You restored my mind when I got saved and You've given me a hunger for Your word. I love to study. Just keep doing that for me, Lord. Teach me to seek Your face and not Your hand because if I seek Your face, everything I have need of will be given to me." I'm not to seek His hand. Nowhere in the Bible does it say seek His hand; it says seek His face.

God is disciplining these people that are rebellious, stiff-necked, hard heart from the faith, and all God's saying to them is "Turn! Are you kidding me? Just turn, repent, stop it, and then the blessings will come. Why do you seek out false teachers to tell you things you want to hear? Because if you do, I'll just deceive you and you'll think they're the best thing since sliced bread."

The men that I hold in the highest regard in my life, men who've spoken into my life like Pastor Chuck and his nephew Pastor Bob Fromm and Pastor David Hood, the pastor of the church that had the property where they built the Bible College on that I attended, those men said some very hard things to me and they cut deep, but I knew they were talking the truth. I love those men, I respect those men. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. When the Holy Spirit is dealing with you, just humble yourself. Amen. It's not hard. Just agree quickly. "God, You're right; I've been wrong." Turn! Repent! Then the insanity will stop. Aren't you glad we serve a gracious God that is kind and longsuffering, gracious and merciful? Let's stand. I've used up the worship team's time so I'll just close you out in a prayer.

Father, we just want to be Your people because the blessing is in Your presence, the protection is in the shadow of Your wings. Lord, we know You're going to judge this world. You just told us here: "If a land that does this stuff, shall I not judge it?" But even when I do, if I find a righteous person in it like Daniel or Noah or Job, I know how to protect them and I will. Father, we just want to draw close to You. Love You with all of our hearts, listen to what You have to say, and be quick to be obedient, and we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.