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[0:00] 1 Kings 16, starting in verse 8, will go through the end of the chapter. It's a series of verses that will get us down to verse 34. So it's a big chunk of Scripture, but again, especially when we're reading and studying the historical writings of Scripture, this does us better to look at that.

[0:18] There are some places where we can kind of pause and be still, but it is a little bit more fitting for us to make our way through big sections of Scripture. So just so that we have it in context and we have it right, if you remember verse 7, let's read verse 7 of that 16th chapter, because this is the king Basha.

[0:39] Basha is used of the Lord. He's not a good king, but he is used of the Lord to fulfill the prophecy that God had sent to the prophet Jeroboam. That is, because of Jeroboam's wickedness, every male in his household would die.

[0:53] Basha is the king. We see it later, we see it at the end of the 15th chapter, that fulfills that prophecy. Last time we were together, we were looking at this truthfulness, this would have been not this past Wednesday, but the Wednesday before, that God is not confined in using only the righteous, right?

[1:13] God is free to use in his sovereignty all of mankind, and that does not mean he ordains the sins of Basha, but he had foresaw the sin of Basha, which was a fulfillment of the prophecy of God.

[1:34] Big difference, right? So we say that because that does not excuse him killing those men. But God had declared that it was going to happen, but there's no excuse that it would.

[1:46] So we need to get that in context for even our text this evening. But verse 7, which we looked at, which was kind of holding Basha accountable, is a prophecy that we need to hear that was given to him.

[1:57] So we read it. So there it is where God holds him accountable for the deed of killing all the men of that household.

[2:19] Okay? So now let's get to our text. In the 26th year of Asa, king of Judah, Ella, the son of Basha, became king over Israel at Tirzah and reigned two years.

[2:30] His servant Zimri, commander of half of his chariots, conspired against him. Now he was at Tirzah, drinking himself drunk in the house of Arzah, who was over the household of Tirzah. Then Zimri went in and struck him and put him to death in the 27th year of Asa, king of Judah, and became king in his place.

[2:48] It came about when he became king, as soon as he sat on his throne, that he killed all the household of Basha. He did not leave a single male, neither of his relatives, nor of his friends. Thus Zimri destroyed all the household of Basha, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke against Basha through Jehu the prophet, for all the sins of Basha and the sins of Ella, his son, which they sinned, and which they made Israel sin, provoking the Lord God of Israel to anger with their idols.

[3:14] Now the rest of the acts of Ella and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? In the 27th year of Asa, king of Judah, Zimri reigned seven days at Tirzah.

[3:26] Now the people were camped against Gibethon, which belonged to the Philistines. The people who were camped heard it said, Zimri has conspired and has also struck down the king. Therefore all Israel made Omri, the commander of the army, king over Israel that day in the camp.

[3:40] Then Omri and all Israel with him went up from Gibethon and besieged Tirzah. And when Zimri saw that the city was taken, he went into the citadel of the king's house and burned the king's house over him with fire and died because of his sins, which he sinned, doing evil in the sight of the Lord, walking in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin, which he did, making Israel sin.

[4:01] Now the rest of the acts of Zimri and his conspiracy, which he carried out, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? Then the people of Israel were divided into two parts. Half the people followed Tibni, the son of Gennath, to make him king, and the other followed Omri.

[4:18] But the people who followed Omri prevailed over the people who followed Tibni, the son of Gennath. And Tibni died, and Omri became king. In the 31st year of Asa, king of Judah, Omri became king over Israel and reigned 12 years.

[4:31] He reigned six years at Tirzah. He bought the hill Samaria from Shemar for two talents of silver, and he built on the hill and named the city which he built Samaria after the name of Shemar, the owner of the hill.

[4:46] Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord and acted more wickedly than all who were before him. For he walked in all the way of Jeroboam and the son of Naboth and his sins which he made Israel sin, provoking the Lord God of Israel with their idols.

[4:58] Now the rest of the acts of Omri, which he did, and his might which he showed, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and Ahab, his son, became king in his place.

[5:12] Now Ahab, the son of Omri, became king over Israel in the 38th year of Asa, king of Judah, and Ahab, the son of Omri, reigned over Israel and Samaria 22 years. Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him.

[5:28] It came about as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Naboth, and he married Jezebel, the daughter of Ethbal, king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him.

[5:41] So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal, which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.

[5:54] In his days, Hill, the Bethelite, built Jericho. He laid its foundation with the loss of Abiram, his firstborn, and set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son, Segab, according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by Joshua, the son of Nun.

[6:13] 1 Kings 16, 8-34. I want you to see this evening the tragedy of a slow fate. Now we say slow fate even though it seems like it has happened very rapidly.

[6:24] Once the nation was divided, you had the northern kingdom referred to as Israel and the southern kingdom referred to as Judah. It seems as if these matters happened very rapidly. It seems that way because we're reading a condensed history of God's people.

[6:38] We're not reading, I know it's just been a number of chapters, but we also know that it has spanned a number of years. These kings, some of them, had rather extended reigns, some had short reigns like seven days.

[6:49] Some had 22 years, some had 12 years, some had a number of years. But what we understand, surely, of the 19 kings that serve in Israel, none are declared doing what is right in the sight of the Lord.

[7:04] So of the 19 kings, every king does what is wicked in the sight of the Lord his God. None are good, no, not one. In contrast to the southern kingdom and the southern kingdom of Judah, we always have this glimmer of hope.

[7:17] There seems to be the wicked king, but then we meet this king who does what is right in the sight of the Lord his God and repents and cries out. We have great kings there who show humility and humbleness.

[7:29] And, you know, we have these kings who do what is right and they're seeking the Lord. They turn the people of God back to the Lord God. We don't have that in Israel. We don't have it in the northern kingdom. This is why the northern kingdom falls so much sooner.

[7:43] It falls because of its sins. Yet we also know that this is an ordained act of God. Never forget that the division of the nation is God's discipline for the divided heart of the king who is ruling over them, Solomon.

[8:01] So since Solomon's heart was divided, the kingdom would be divided. The remnant that is preserved in Judah is for the sake of David who loved the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his might.

[8:12] Doesn't mean he was perfect. Just meant he was a man after God's own heart. It means that when sin is revealed, he repents. He cries out. He forsakes the sin. He calls out to the Lord God and asks for mercy to be shown and to be cleansed, not so that he can feel better, but as the penitent psalms of David declares, so that the people will hear of the Lord God.

[8:36] Either way, God brought this division and Jeroboam, the first king over the northern kingdom, was foretold that he would be king and God extended a promise to him that he would give him an enduring house if he would walk in faithfulness.

[8:51] We have to do a little bit of backstory so that we can understand what's going on here. We know that Jeroboam didn't walk in faithfulness. He set up two golden calves. He set up one in Dan and one in Bethel.

[9:03] And he set them up in such a place because he said, it's way too far for you to go to Jerusalem. It's not, I mean, the nation of Israel is not that big of a land mass. Bethel is actually on the way to Jerusalem and he wanted to interrupt.

[9:14] He was doing this for security. He used worship as a means of securing his own borders. He knew that if the people went back into Jerusalem to worship at the temple, then they would know that they were one with the people they were worshiping with because that was the design of worship, right?

[9:31] The design of worship where God had called his people to come worship together three times a year at least, the five festivals of the year at most, when he wanted his people to worship together was so that they would understand their unity with one another.

[9:46] They were not a separate people that were worshiping however they wanted to worship. They were a united people that the Lord, their God, was the God over all the people from Dan to the southernmost portion all the way down to the southernmost portion of Judah.

[10:01] He wanted them to worship together, to live together, to fellowship together. The wickedness of their heart led them to division and so the worship became distorted. I know I'm giving you a lot of information but I want you to see how this wasn't a slow fade.

[10:17] The first six kings of Israel, northern kingdom, the first six kings at least pay lip service to God.

[10:30] They erect the golden calves supposedly to be a representative, as most Bible scholars will agree, of the cherubim that were inside of the temple.

[10:43] They were wrong. Absolutely wrong. Their worship was distorted. Their worship was confused. But they didn't absolutely neglect God.

[10:57] They just twisted it. Now we know that's just as wrong as a half lie is a full lie. Right? A half truth is an absolute full lie. We understand this.

[11:09] But they did not immediately cast off God. They just began to make God in their own image in the way that they wanted to. They began to worship how they wanted to, where they wanted to, and they began to gradually slide further and further away.

[11:26] By the time we get to Ahab, you know Jezebel. Jezebel is going to be used through the rest of scripture as a sign and a symbol and a name for everything that is not good. Right? We get to the book of Revelations and we meet that woman Jezebel again over and over and over again.

[11:40] We meet Jezebel. But it wasn't until we get to Ahab that we see he's the seventh king. Ahab is no longer concerned about worshiping God in name only and trying to fuse the worship of God with the worship of idols.

[11:58] Ahab wants to replace God. And he replaces God with Baal and the Asherah. So much so that Jezebel makes it her ambition.

[12:10] We haven't got there yet. We will. Jezebel makes it her ambition to kill all of the priests. Remember Elijah? I'm the only one that's left. She's killed all the priests. You know, we're about to get to Elijah. We're about to get into the extended prophetic time of Elijah.

[12:23] She had made it her ambition to kill all the priests because they were replacing God. So we went from halfway worshiping God how we want to to fully replacing God. And it's a slow fate.

[12:36] But you're going to get there because the moment you begin to deviate a little bit you will eventually get there. We always say bring it to its uttermost end to its natural outcome.

[12:46] When you take any action any sin any decision to its full and final end what do you get? You begin to deviate just a little bit off course here and you begin to deviate just a little bit there where is it going to eventually lead?

[12:59] It's going to eventually where you're no longer worshiping God in name only you're just replacing him with a totally different God. And that's what we find. So what happens during this time?

[13:10] So when we see this fade what is the tragedy that is going on during these days? We begin to we can get lost. I know we're reading this historical writings we can get lost in all these names and not only do we get lost we can also just get upset and say well let's hurry up and get through this portion of scripture because everybody's killing everybody and you know nobody is right no not one nobody's doing anything good and we just want to bypass this yet God has declared that the word of God is here for us to read and the reason it is is because the people of Israel were to be a nation of priests so that the world would know what it looks like to live in a holy relationship with a holy God.

[13:46] Right? We can all agree with that. I know we say this over and over again but it bears repeating every time we're in the Old Testament especially in the historical writings. the intended purpose of God's deliverance of the nation of Israel from the Egyptian captivity.

[14:01] He brought them out of Egypt in order to bring them into the promised land but as they were on their way out of Egypt he brought them to the base of a mountain and he made a covenant with them. He said I will be your God and you will be my people and he called them to be a nation of priests living among the nations of the world.

[14:20] That is they were to be the billboard for a watching world of what it looks like to live in relation with holy God so that the world could be drawn to this God not so that God could cast everybody else but they were to be the influence that would draw so that when people ask and people see your animals do not fail to give birth the rains do not fail to give rain all these things the crops always bear fruit they were to be a testimony but rather than being a testimony of good they ended up becoming a testimony of destruction so just as God had called them to be a priest of showing what it looks like to live in relation with God they become a people who display for us what it looks like to live in rebellion against holy God and in the same way the same application goes for us today here's the danger of the slow fade of the church today we will reflect a relationship with holy God either one of faithfulness or one of rebellion and these tragedies are still present today things that are as applicable then are as applicable now the first thing that we notice in this state of slow fade is the degenerate state of man to be degenerate means to be progressing on a downward morally or physically trajectory it is to be breaking down when we read through the book and we studied through the book of Judges if you remember the book of Judges has one theme it is repeated five times near the end of the book of Judges and the book of Judges says in those days there was no king in Israel and every man did what was right in his own eyes so what we have in the book of Judges is we find out what happens when everybody does what is right in their own eyes friend we are in a day and time where everybody wants to do what is right in their own eyes we don't have to wonder what is going to happen we don't have to wonder what might happen we can open up the book of Judges and find out what will happen because when there is no king in the land and everybody does what is right in their own eyes these things happen so the book of Judges is on a downward spiral we end up with a faithful few who come into the promised land and they are there and then that generation who knew

[16:34] Joshua and reigned with Joshua dies and there arose a generation who knew not the God of Joshua and the ones who were with him and all of a sudden it begins to spiral downward so we begin to see what in the godly influences mood what happens in the world when we understand this we begin to see man in a degenerative condition man is not progressing we are digressing we would love to explain and even to convince ourselves that we are a progressive race of individuals but the reality is we are not we are in a degenerate state rapidly on the decline that is just how it happens and we see that because the further we move away from our stated and intended purpose of design that is to follow the Lord our God and to worship him the more distorted we become in our practice we see it in the nation of Israel the northern kingdom began to slowly move away from God ordained and foretold to worship and began to worship however they wanted to and the further we walk in that the more degenerate man appears to be

[17:43] I don't know if you've caught it but we look at these none of these kings are righteous not any one of them and we read over and over and over again of the tragic end of a number of these kings there are a multitude of quote unquote dynasties which arise in the northern kingdom none of those dynasties last none of them are enduring none of them make it through the end and we don't know who would be upon the throne of the northern kingdom today if there was such a thing there is only one rule that is unending and that is the lineage of David in the regions of Judah the southern kingdom the throne of David is established forever and ever and ever and ever and it's not because everyone is righteous everyone does right there are wicked kings there too but we see the faithfulness of God we also see they had the privilege of the worship of God they had the temple they had the priest they had the prophet sure they had that God was sending prophets to the nation of Israel in the northern kingdom too but what we see is these dynasties continue to come to an end we begin to see that man is not getting better in the northern kingdom they get things their way but that does not make it better they are worshipping how they want to they are doing it the way they want to do but rather than getting better things seem to be worse

[18:54] Basha is used by God to fulfill the word of God that was given to Jeroboam Jeroboam walked in wickedness and God says okay a prophet goes to Jeroboam from Judah and he is there and God declares to him that not a male descendant of Jeroboam would remain alive no one would sit upon the throne it is not until we get to Basha that we see that prophecy fulfilled and Basha it says in the 15th chapter kills every male of the household of Jeroboam and fulfills the word of God now Basha is walking in his own sins and God declares to him in the 7th verse of the 16th chapter that because you've done this you too will have every male in your family killed it is for his sins and his wickedness right and then we meet an individual named Zimri because Basha dies he dies we suppose a normal death his feet are ill in the latter part of his life and things of this nature but he dies we see here that his son becomes king

[19:55] Ella his son is now king and he is reigning he only reigns two years or literally it's not two years it's more than one year therefore in Jewish reckoning it's two years and he doesn't really like to do anything but sit around and get drunk that's what we're told that he does his soldiers are out fighting he's at the household drinking and one of the leaders of half of his chariots Zimri kills him but notice the degenerate state of man the prophecy of God was that every male of the household of Basha would die but it tells us this man who only reigned seven days that when he ascended the throne the first thing he did and it is there for you in verse 11 that it came about as soon as he became king as soon as he sat on his throne that he killed all the household of Basha that's the fulfillment of the prophecy right that's exactly what Basha did he did not leave a single male now look at this neither of his relatives nor of his friends so what Basha did is he killed every male in the household Zimri went further and killed even all the acquaintances why are we seeing this this isn't because this is what God wants this is because man is getting worse man is digressing the sins of man he said I'm going to do so much further than what Basha has done

[21:08] I'll kill even everybody that he was friends with and we begin to see these things that are happening and every king we meet he says he does what is wicked in the sight of the Lord is God he does what is evil in the sight of the Lord is God and then we get to Omri and it says that he did what is wicked in the sight of the Lord is God did evil in the sight of the Lord God more so than any king who went before him what we notice is that when man gets his way and does it the way he wants to do it and begins to separate himself from the ordained declared worship of God he gets worse it doesn't get better when man gets to decide how he worships where he worships who he worships and what manner he worships freedom does not make an individual better the freedoms that were extended to them or that they took of their own liberties actually made them as a people group worse until we get to Ahab and it is described as Ahab it says it came about that just to do the sins of Jeroboam was trivial in his sight that he did more wicked than any king who came before him no one could touch the sins of Ahab because he wasn't even concerned about God now he's replacing

[22:21] God we think we do people a favor when we want to give them the freedom to make a choice but the freedom to make a choice really just highlights their degenerate state because we are only free we saw it this morning where the spirit of the Lord is there is liberty or freedom we are only free to be who we were created to be when we operate under the order of the creator when man steps out of the reign in order of the creator then we are no longer free to live as we were created to be we understand that right because there is a purpose in our creation there is a purpose in how we were formed there is a purpose and a power in our fashion we were created to reign we were created to rule all these things that God declares for us in the book of Genesis all these things that are declared for us that man would rule over creation that he would reign that he would be ordained to be the sovereign of God upon the creation of God but by the time we get to the book of Revelations man is crying out for God's creation to fall upon him and kill him why?

[23:34] it's because when we are free to do it our way all it does is highlight our degenerate condition it doesn't make us better when we think that we can pick and choose how we do church or how we do worship and how we do all these other things when we step outside the bounds of scripture and we step outside the bounds of God's ordained things and I know some matters are matters of interpretation I'm not talking about that but when we step outside the clearly declared word of God we're going to end up just highlighting our degenerate state not highlighting who we are as individuals and friend we don't have to go very far in church history and even recent church history you don't have to look very far to see those who begin to see this is how we want to do it so this is how it's going to be done that it's not making them better it's making them weaker and it's making them a little bit more insignificant in all of history and it's really just highlighting their weaknesses not highlighting the sovereignty of the holy God see we think that we do man a favor when we let man decide choose and all these other things just recently

[24:38] I don't pick on any other denomination but our own because I'm not here to do that I don't want to belittle any denomination I'll pick one of our own I read an article recently from one of our own denominational leaders and in this he thought he had some concerns and I'm not here really to get over all of what he was writing about but he said I think in this concern we're being too restrictive in our interpretation of scripture I'm just going to go ahead and be honest with you I want to be restrictive in my interpretation of scripture because I think it's pretty black and white and I like a hard line interpretation of scripture and I want it to be very clear because that's I feel like when we loosen the expectation and we do it in the name of cooperation or we do it in the name of anything else then we're setting ourselves up for a slow faith that all it's going to do is highlight who we are as weak individuals rather than highlighting who he is as a holy sovereign God we see here the degenerate state of man secondly we see the destruction which sin brings sin always brings destruction and the moment they began to deviate from the God appointed worship the only thing that we read is the destruction and I know we don't have to repeat it here we don't have to spend a lot of time in this but we have people killing one another we have people conspiring against one another we have the man who was so bold to conspire against his king and slay him and then going into the temple or into the inner courts of the king's house and committing suicide and sending it on fire around him it's destruction destruction destruction destruction destruction

[26:20] Zimri thought well I'm going to be king seven days later he ends up saying well I can't be king and he kills himself why because the wages of sin is death it's going to take you there every time the literal interpretation and the final end the end outcome of sinful behavior is death we read over and over and over again of every one of these kings and they died and they died and they died and they died and they died and they died it reminds me when we go back to the book of Genesis again we're we're following the lineages of Adam and Eve and after Cain kills Abel and then we see the righteous seed being preserved in Seth and you have the descendants of Seth but then we follow the descendants of Cain for just a minute I mean I know it's been eight years since we've been there but if you remember when we're following the lineage of Cain or you can go back and read it there's this one repetitive thing that happens and you're following the lineage of Cain they lived and then they died they lived and then they died they lived and they died over and over again this individual lived and he dies he lives and he dies why because the end of the wicked is death and then there's another word used when you're following the lineage of Seth and they live sure they inot, well,

[27:22] God, and he was not, right, we understand and so, the people die over there, too but the word is different the wording is not an end of finality the end is the same word that we get when we get into the new testament and it's a word used for sleep or rest or uh it's translated for us for hotel right it's a different word it's they just stopped they didn't die when we read the lineage of cain we find finality it's over it's done that doesn't mean that there's not eternal hell we're not here talking about that it's not like it's an annihilationism they're not annihilated they're separated from god for all of eternity for that reason they're separated to christ's eternity but in the godly lineage of seth there's this continuation of that lineage when we read here of the kings of israel there is this common theme right they're all wanting to make a name for themselves they're all wanting to make a name for their family they all want to raise up their own dynasty man is going to do it his way and each and every time they die the only thing that they get is destruction they're sowing their works and they're sowing sin and so much so that by the time the assyrians come in and lead away the northern kingdom there is no dynasty to come back right when the southern kingdom is carried into babylonian exile you know who's there jeconiah or coniah depending on where you read it his name is declared that way two times you know coniah right he's there we meet him again in the lineage of christ in the book of matthew we can pick it right back up not saying that coniah was right as a matter of fact coniah was so wicked that god declared that no seed of coniah would ever set up on the throne you remember that right the good news is that jesus is the family of david but he's not in the seed of coniah because jesus's family tree is traced through another one of those sons of david not through solomon we find that we see this reality but what we know is that we have nothing that we pick up when you open up your new testament you find no lineage of any of the kings of the northern kingdom they're not there they're gone why because they have ended the end of sin is destruction but the outcome of the word of god and the faithfulness of god is that it endures and it lasts god declares a lasting legacy and a lasting generation and the lasting things i love this and i've read it a couple times already today and around our our house and you know in our home if you ever see it and we we have a we named our farm and we put a farm sign with it not that it matters for anything it's walnut springs farm but it's psalm 145 and the reason i love psalm 145 is it declares the goodness and righteousness of god but also speaks of how one generation would declare his goodness to the next generation and that god would continue to provide for those generations so that they can declare to the next generation declare to the next generation declare to the next generation why because that's the thing that endures it doesn't have anything to do with with you or i or anything of that nature has everything to do with the goodness and and the mercies and the grace of god but we see the destruction which sin brings you notice these kings have a long i mean you know omri lived reign 12 years ahab reigns 22 years surely during those reigns they do some good for civilization we know they're wicked before the lord their god but it says everything else they did is not recorded in the chronicles of the book of the kings of israel we read it over and over again right so so what what the word of god is telling us is someone kept a record it's the chroniclers what he's referred to in bible study there was a chronicler in the jewish nation that kept a record of everything these kings did but for our sake that doesn't matter it doesn't matter what good they did because the only thing that matters is that the reality that their sin ended up in destruction herod the great is a prime example of this when we open up the new testament we meet a king named herod the great herod the great was not herod the great because he was a great individual because uh he was a great person to be around he killed all of his kids save one he killed a number of his wives he was not a great individual but he was

[31:24] a great builder he was a great developer he was great in his what he did he developed underwater concrete created a maritime seaport for the nation of israel they had none he built aqueducts that brought water to the city of jerusalem until like 1941 or 42 something of that nature from 4 bc to 1942 or 1943 and that's that's pretty awesome right this gravity flow aqueduct system that was providing water from the mediterranean sea that's pretty awesome he did some good things civil for you know civilization and for the world but he was not a great person one thing that we notice is these kings might have done some good for society but the only thing we know about them is their sin ends up in destruction because in the end if we walk in sin it really doesn't matter how much good we do even if somebody's wrote wrote it down it doesn't matter what matters is how we have walked before a holy god number three and finally you see the degenerate state of man you see the destruction which sin brings number three we see the danger of overlooked warnings basha fulfilled the prophecy of the word of god which came to jeroboam jeroboam overlooked it and didn't pay much attention of it didn't didn't repent of it and therefore basha is the fulfillment of it basha is also given a warning a prophetic warning is given to him a prophet comes out of jerusalem and tells basha what will happen to him he overlooks it he denies it and then all of a sudden he dies because zimmery decides to come and kill every male in the household even all the friends they had but we get this kind of add-on verse here at the end verse 34 in his days that's the days of ahab in his days he'll the bethelite bethelite built jericho now you need to know that when the walls of jericho came tumbling down jericho was a city set apart unto destruction you remember that's the first fruits of the promised land god has said that there would be certain cities that were set apart for destruction jericho was one such city god made sure that the people of israel knew that because joshua had an encounter with the angel of the lord who was the captain of the host of the lord's army we believe it's a christophany that this is a appearance of jesus christ in the old testament we believe it's a christophany because joshua falls down and worships this individual and anywhere else in scripture when a person is worshiping an angel the angel says don't worship me for i'm your servant but when he does not deny this worship it shows us that this is more than an angel so christ himself appears to joshua and make sure that he gets the message so when jericho's walls fall down and the city is destroyed now we know that there was one individual who did not commit it to the lord aiken the sin of aiken but we're not here to get that after the destruction of jericho joshua pronounces a judgment against jericho or a curse and the curse would be that may the man who rises up to rebuild you begin the construction with the loss of his firstborn and end the construction with the loss of his last born that's the curse now let's fast forward that's a very clearly recorded word of god now the nation is divided worship has been distorted until we finally come to the time during ahab's reign where we're no longer even wanting to kind of play lip service to god we want to replace him and therefore what god has said is really not that important because when the worship of god is belittled the word of god is ignored and it doesn't matter what god has said besides 500 years have passed by this point and since it has been 500 years and since we're no longer worshiping god then

[35:30] surely i can go rebuild that city of jericho which was once a very prominent city now to rebuild it means to fortify it surely by this time people were living living in that region but nobody had constructed a wall around it and fortified it it wasn't a walled city so this individual decided that either he did not know god had said or he did not care that god had said either way it is a result of a fade away from true worship because when you don't worship god you have no idea what he has declared and when you choose not to worship god it really doesn't matter to you what he has declared but man's concern or lack thereof does not belittle nor lessen what god has already said because it declares for us that though this gentleman rose up to rebuild jericho he laid its foundation with loss of abiram his firstborn and he set up its gates with the loss of his youngest son segab which is an exact fulfillment of the word of god declared by joshua just because he did not know or if he did know did not care what god had said did not stop from what god had said from coming about and the ones who suffer loss have names these things actually happened there is danger when we distort worship and we move away from it the greatest danger is that we will begin to replace god with the works of our own hands and when we do that then we will begin to neglect the word of god but our negligence of the word of god does not invalidate the word of god though man does not care and though man may not pay attention and though man does not give heed to what god has said and what he has warned that does not remove the fact that there will be a day where every man will be held accountable according to the word of god jesus himself said it is not i who judges you but it is the very word of god which judges you there will be a day where every tongue will confess and every knee will bow that jesus christ is lord there will be a day where every individual will stand before the judgment seat of god and they will give an account to the word of god and how they have lived in relation thereof because the warning has been declared and we say well that's not fair they don't know but that does not invalidate the word of god and we know that and so since we know that to him much has been given much is expected so the onus is on us because we understand the reality this is why we will have elijah come up and have his showdown on mount carmel this is why god always has his people because the sin of degenerate man does not remove the dangerous consequences of the declared word of god the word of god is the standard the word of god will be fulfilled and if man does not know it does not mean that they will not suffer the consequences of it because god's word remains true it remained true then and it remains true now everything that god has said will come about for those of us who know it is now our responsibility to declare it to those around us it is our responsibility to share it with those close to us those that we have the opportunity to come in contact with if we do not then we will be held accountable for that but god will be righteous in his judgment because he has been right in his declarations here we see the tragedy of a slow fade the reality is is these things not only happen then they're still happening today when we begin to distort worship then we are setting ourselves up for this type of fate let's pray and then we'll be dismissed god i thank you so much for your word

[39:35] i thank you oh god that we can come together and we can read it and we can study it and we can see it in clarity lord we come admitting that there are so many points at which we fall short but god we praise you for the mercy and grace found in jesus christ our lord and savior so lord may we be people of the word of god seeking to live it to the best of the ability which you empower us and call us to do for your glory lord may we live it out boldly before those that you've put around us may you be glorified and honored in all we do we pray that you be with us now as we prepare to leave here tonight lord that we would live intentionally missional for you and your glory and we ask it all in christ's name amen thank you guys so

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