And then second Kings chapter number 10,
we have this great story about Jehu picking up
where we left off.
Remember last time Jehu was anointed as king
and he went and faced off with the king of Israel
and the king of Judah, defeated them both and so forth.
Now we're beginning to see the aftermath of this
because it wasn't enough for God to just judge Ahab
himself personally that happened many, many years earlier
but also judging the king on the throne, Jehoram,
the son of Ahab but actually God is just gonna wipe out
completely the entire house of Ahab.
Everybody's getting punished, everybody's getting smoked
and that's what we see in this chapter
and also we're gonna see Jehu just completely eliminate
Baal worship from the nation of Israel, right?
There's been all of this Baal worship
and Baal is just Satan, right?
Baal Zeebub, Baal is the devil.
They're literally worshiping Satan
and he's gonna completely wipe it out.
Let's jump into the story here.
It says in verse number one,
Ahab had 70 sons in Samaria.
So he obviously as a king, he has a multitude of wives.
He's put out lots of children, 70 sons
and Jehu wrote letters and sent to Samaria
under the rulers of Jezreel to the elders
and to them that brought up Ahab's children saying,
now as soon as this letter come into you,
seeing your master's sons are with you
and there are with you chariots and horses,
a fence city, also an armor,
look even out the best and neatest of your master's sons
and set him on his father's throne
and fight for your master's house.
Now you gotta love Jehu's style.
I mean, this entire chapter is hilarious,
watching Jehu and his style because I mean,
this guy is a bad dude
and he's got a serious sense of humor
at every stage of this.
I mean, this guy is just on fire
and you see him in the previous chapter,
he's just driving furiously,
he's super eloquent against the enemies
and then in this chapter is just a two or day force
and as you're reading this,
if you don't know the end of the story,
you're just thinking like,
Jehu is my new favorite Bible character.
You're ready to name your kid Jehu
and you're all excited about this guy.
That's how I felt reading this for the first time.
You're just like,
where has this Bible character been all my life?
Like this is the coolest guy in the whole,
but what ends up happening though
is when we get to the end of the chapter,
what we see though is him just compromising
in a huge way and just totally failing
as a king of Israel.
So he does a great job at just destroying the enemies
and wiping out the house of Ahab,
wiping out Baal worship,
but when it comes to actually doing something positive
and leading the nation,
he's a complete and utter failure
and it's the biggest disappointment in the whole Bible.
You know, when you're reading this,
when Jehu doesn't pan out.
And I think that there are a lot of lessons
we can learn from this today
because people like this abound,
people that are really good at pointing out the problems,
people that are really good at identifying the error,
but they're not actually good
at giving you the right solution
or giving you anything positive.
And so we have to be very careful about this
that there could be some great preachers out there.
Oh man, they're doing such a great job
exposing the Jews or exposing Islam.
You know, these people are exposing,
you know, this fraud over here
and they're exposing the Catholics or whatever,
exposing the atheists.
And we have to be careful because sometimes
you could have these awesome people
that are so eloquent and so good
at trashing a false religion,
but then you look at their religion
and they have stupid beliefs of their own
and they're not actually soul winning Christians,
actually preaching the right gospel
or anything like that.
And so we gotta be careful
that we don't just get into only destroying that
which is evil, we need to also be building
and producing that which is good, okay?
And here's the thing about Faithful Word Baptist Church
is that Faithful Word Baptist Church
isn't just a place where we preach against false religion
and preach against false teachers.
No, no, it is a place that is super focused
on soul winning, right?
Being productive, winning people to Christ.
We're going out and preaching the gospel.
We're going out and evangelizing, right?
And we're knocking doors and going on mission trips
telling people the good news
about the Lord Jesus Christ.
We're giving clear presentations of the gospel
and here's the thing.
People out there, they could sit there and say,
well, here's what Faithful Word's known for.
They're known for being against homos
or they're known for being against Israel
or they're known for preaching against Islam
or whatever, but at the end of the day
like what we're actually about here is the soul winning
and the winning people to Christ.
Like that is really the heartbeat of the church.
And so anybody who only gets the negative side
is kind of missing the whole point, okay?
And here's the thing.
There are lots of other people out there
that will expose heresy and false religion,
but that's only part of what we do around here.
We do it, but you know what we can also do
is give the solution, give the right answer
and actually do something positive,
getting people saved, starting churches,
seeing people get saved, lives changed,
joining the church, serving God,
learning how to win souls.
You know, that's a lot harder and more rare
than just pointing out what's bad.
You know, and you have entire ministries
that are just based on trashing false religion
and I'm glad that they're exposing the errors
of the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Mormons or whatever,
but at the end of the day,
if they're not having the real answers
about what the right gospel is, what the truth is,
what are we supposed to believe,
what are we supposed to do?
You know, it's super imbalanced
and at the end of the day, it's not really what we need.
We need the whole package.
We need, yes, the negative stuff,
but we need the positive stuff too.
Yeah, we want to tear down that which is wrong,
but we also want to build up that which is right.
And so be careful about getting sucked in
to some eloquent destroyer of this heresy over here
because, you know, he might be like a Jihu
where he's super good at trashing Baal,
but he's just gonna get you into the sins of Jonadab,
the son of Recap, sorry, not Jonadab,
the son of Recap.
Yeah, that was a horrible thing to say.
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat,
I'm getting ahead of myself in the sermon.
He's just gonna get you into the sins
of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat.
So it's kind of out of the frying pan into the fire,
like, oh, we're not gonna worship Baal,
we're just gonna worship, you know, these golden calves.
It's, you know, there's not like a hell number one
and a hell number two, folks.
There's just hell.
And so, you know, at the end of the day,
I don't think the devil really cares
if you switch from one false religion to another.
What he really doesn't want
is the devil doesn't want you
to actually get the gospel.
Get what's right.
And so it's always easy to point out,
you know, even just politically,
it's pretty easy to just point out
everything that's wrong with America, right?
But the hard part is finding the right solutions
how to fix things.
You know, that's gonna be the more difficult thing.
That's always gonna be the more difficult thing.
And so, Jihoo, he starts out
by saying at the beginning of chapter 10,
hey guys, you know, you guys have a lot of resource.
You got horses, you got chariots,
you got 70 sons of Ahab to pick from.
Why don't you just pick your favorite son of Ahab,
get the best one, you make him king,
and you get your horses and you chariots,
and you come at me because I am ready to fight you.
Come defeat me.
And they're like, whoa, this guy,
we don't wanna mess with this guy.
Look what they answer in verse number five.
Or sorry, verse four.
But they were exceedingly afraid
and said, behold, two kings stood not before him.
How then shall we stand?
They're just like, oh man, we're scared.
So Jihoo's intimidating them.
He's just like, come at me, bro, come on.
You got the horses, chariots, let's go, let's fight,
let's do it.
And they're just like, whoa, we don't wanna do this.
Jihoo's too powerful for us.
Verse five.
And he that was over the house
and he that was over the city,
the elders also, and watch this,
the bringers up of the children, right?
So these are like all of the tutors and schoolmasters
and trainers and babysitters.
Because when you have 70 kids and you're royalty,
it's like you just kinda outsource all that work.
And so they're being taken care of
by all the different nannies and everything.
So they all get together and they send to Jihoo
saying, we are thy servants
and we'll do all that thou bid us,
we will not make any king,
do thou that which is good in thine eyes.
Verse six.
Then he wrote a letter the second time to them saying,
if you be mine and if you will hearken unto my voice,
take ye the heads of the men, your master's sons,
and come to me to Jezreel by tomorrow this time.
Now the king's sons being 70 persons
were with the great men of the city which brought them up.
Now, just so you know, when he says,
hey, you know, bring me the heads,
he's not using this as like a synecdoche
where the part represents the whole or something like that.
He's saying, no, no, no, just the heads.
So he's saying basically remove their heads from their bodies
and just bring the heads.
That's what they do.
Look at verse seven, it came to pass
when the letter came to them that they took the king's sons
and slew 70 persons and put their heads in baskets
and sent them to Jezreel.
And there came a messenger and told him saying,
they have brought the heads of the king's sons
and he said, lay them in two heaps,
you know, in America we would call these piles, right?
Put them in two piles and he says,
lay them in two heaps at the entering of the gate
until the morning.
And it came to pass in the morning that he went out
and stood and said to all the people, ye be righteous.
See what I mean about the kind of sarcasm, sense of humor?
I mean, this guy is not playing games.
He says, oh yeah, you be righteous.
Behold, I conspired against my master and slew him,
but who slew all these?
So he's basically saying, you know, I killed one guy.
I killed King Jehoram.
I killed Ahab's son, the king of Israel,
but y'all just killed 70 people.
You beheaded 70, he's like, I killed my master,
but who slew all these, okay?
But here's what's interesting in the very next breath.
He says this in verse 10,
know now that there shall fall unto the earth
nothing of the word of the Lord
which the Lord spake concerning the house of Ahab,
for the Lord hath done that which he spake
by his servant Elijah.
And I think that the main point that Jehu is making here
is he's saying, look, this is not my personal vendetta.
This is not my personal agenda.
This is not me just kind of taking this upon myself
and I'm just taking revenge
and I'm just taking over the kingdom
and I'm just killing everybody.
He's saying, look folks, this is a force of nature.
This is God's word being fulfilled.
This is the fulfillment of Bible prophecy
and it is going to happen.
It has to happen.
It must happen.
And it's not just me doing it.
Everybody's involved
because everybody is fulfilling the will of the Lord.
And here's the thing.
When God decides that somebody's gonna go down,
they're going down.
There's no way to escape it.
And the Bible talks about people trying to escape
the wrath of God and he says,
man, if you climb all the way up to heaven,
I will drag you down from there.
If you dig down all the way down to hell, he says,
I will bring you up from there.
Like you cannot escape the judgment of the Lord.
He says, it's like when you're running,
and I'm paraphrasing, but he says,
it's like you're running from a bear
and you run into the house and shut the door
and then the serpent bites you or whatever.
Or you go down into the bottom of the sea
to try to escape and some weird poisonous sea snake
gets you or whatever.
It's impossible to escape the wrath of God,
the judgment of God.
And so what we see is that Jihoo is explaining to the people,
this is a process that has been set in motion by God
and nothing can stop it.
He's saying, I can't stop it.
You can't stop it.
Word is gonna go with it.
This is the word of God.
It's a judgment pronounced by Elijah.
It has to happen.
And here's the thing.
He's telling the truth.
Because if you remember,
in the previous chapter, chapter nine,
Jihoo was not planning to go become king.
He didn't have the idea to kill Jehoram,
but rather it was Elisha's messenger.
Elisha sent one of the sons of the prophet
that came and anointed him and said,
thus saith the Lord, you're gonna be king of Israel
and all that.
This is all from the mouth of the Lord.
He's saying, look,
I'm not the only one fulfilling prophecy here.
You guys are fulfilling prophecy.
You guys are all involved.
So I think this is a fascinating couple of verses,
verses nine and 10,
because I think that there are lots of different things
going on in verses nine and 10.
On the one hand, he's kind of saying,
hey, you guys are just as guilty as me now.
We're all kind of in for a penny, in for a pound.
And he's trying to kind of get them to see
that, hey, you guys are in this with me now,
because you guys have done this.
There's no going back from this.
So he's trying to solidify that with them.
But I think the bigger thing that he's saying
is verse 10, when he says,
look, none of God's word is gonna go unfulfilled.
We are fulfilling Bible prophecy.
It has to happen.
It's inexorable.
It's a force of nature.
You can't stop it.
God's word is not gonna return void.
It's gonna carry out that for which it was intended.
So it says in verse number 11.
So, Jehu slew all that remained of the house of Ahab
in Jezreel and all his great men
and his kinsfolk and his priests
until he left him, none remaining.
So what we see is that initially
he'd won the battle in chapter nine.
Then in chapter 10, the 70 sons are beheaded.
Then he explains to people, folks,
this has to happen.
This is the destiny that God has already forecast
through the preaching of Elijah.
It must happen.
And then he says, let's finish it.
And then he ends up killing
everybody else of the household of Ahab, right?
But it doesn't even stop there
because look at verse 12.
And he arose and departed and came to Samaria.
And as he was at the shearing house,
in the way, Jehu met with the brethren
of Isaiah king of Judah and said, who are you?
And they answered, we are the brethren of Isaiah.
And we go down to salute
the children of the king and the children of the queen.
So this feels like a chance encounter.
This feels like a coincidence
because basically Jehu is heading on his way to Samaria
and just crossing paths,
he stops at the rest area basically, right?
He pulls off at the rest area
and here are the brethren of the king of Judah.
But remember, the king of Judah
is super buddy buddy with the house of Ahab at this time.
And they're kind of just going the other way.
So he's coming this way.
They're going up and they don't know what happened
because this is before the internet, TV, whatever.
So they have no clue.
They're like, oh, we're going up
to see the king and the queen.
They don't know that the queen
just got thrown out the window in chapter nine.
They don't know that the king got smoked on the battlefield.
They're just like, oh, we're just going up to visit.
Yeah, we're on our way.
And it's just like a chance encounter
where they run into them
and they're just crossing paths.
And look what it says.
At the end of verse 13,
we are the brethren of Isaiah
and we go down to salute the children of the king
and the children of the queen.
And remember, these are the guys
that just lost their heads a few verses ago.
That they're going to visit.
And he said, take them alive.
And they took them alive
and they slew them at the pit of the shearing house.
Even two and 40 men, neither left he, any of them.
And again, this was not a chance encounter.
I'm saying it seems like it feels that way,
but this is the will of God
because these guys were buddy, buddy
with the house of Ahab, the enemies of the Lord,
worshipers of Baal, and they're all getting smoked too.
You know, what I see as the main theme here
in this chapter is that, you know what?
You do not want to be hanging around with buddy, buddy with
and associating with the enemies of the Lord.
You don't want to do it
because here's the thing, just the fact
that these guys are coming up to visit the house of Ahab
and they want to hang out with the house of Ahab
and they want to be buddies with the house of Ahab.
They all get smoked.
They all get killed.
They all get thrown in a mass grave.
42 guys get thrown in a mass grave.
Why?
Because they're trying to associate
with the enemies of the Lord.
Keep your finger here
and go to 2nd Chronicles chapter 19 verse two.
2nd Chronicles chapter 19 verse two.
And look what the Bible says
and this is actually the exact same subject
because in 2nd Chronicles 19 too,
this deals with the exact same thing
where you have the people
that are from the good kingdom of Judah down south.
Jehoshaphat is a good king of Judah.
You know, they are worshiping the Lord down there
whereas in the northern kingdom
they're worshiping the devil.
And what do we see?
It's the same deal
where you have the better people of the southern kingdom
being buddy, buddy with these super evil people
in the northern kingdom.
And look what it says
in verse number one of chapter 19 2nd Chronicles.
Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah
returned to his house in peace to Jerusalem.
You know, from being up with the north
and Jehu, the son of Heneinai,
the seer went out to meet him
and said to King Jehoshaphat,
shouldest thou help the ungodly
and love them that hate the Lord
therefore is wrath upon thee
from before the Lord.
Nevertheless, there are good things found in thee
and he goes through some of the good things that he's done.
And so look, you could be a good guy,
you could be a good person,
you could be a person where God's pointing out
your good attributes and your worship in the Lord
and everything like that.
But he says, if you're helping the ungodly
and you're loving them that hate the Lord,
then God's wrath is gonna be upon you,
like God's mad at you
just for aiding and abetting the enemy.
And so we need to be careful
that we're not aiding and abetting
the enemies of the Lord,
the enemies of the church.
And you know what, by the way,
when people get thrown out of our church
for being super wicked,
for committing evil sins,
for doing 1 Corinthians 5 sins,
I don't care if you think,
oh, they're great people,
they're nice people,
they're cool, they're my friends.
Hey, if people are thrown out of the church
for a 1 Corinthians 5 level super evil sin,
you know what, you need to realize
that those people are under the curse of God
and those people are excommunicated
and you should not be buddies with those people,
you should not be hanging around with them,
you should not be friends with them,
and you know what, it's just, it's true.
Ah, it sounds so culty,
oh, okay, I forgot,
1 Corinthians 5 is a cult document
because 1 Corinthians 5 literally says,
with such a one, no not to eat,
put away from among yourselves that wicked person,
ah, it sounds kind of culty.
No, it's actually just from the Bible.
The Bible just says,
put away from among yourselves that wicked person
with such a one, no not to eat.
Jesus also talks about church discipline
in Matthew chapter 18.
And in Matthew chapter 18,
when he talks about someone being thrown out of the church,
he says, let them be unto you as a heathen and a publican.
And you know what's funny is,
you'll have people arguing sometimes
about whether they think that someone is saved or unsaved.
Here's the thing, who cares?
If someone's thrown out of the church,
it doesn't matter whether they're actually a heathen
because the Bible just says
they're supposed to be unto us as a heathen.
So why would I sit around trying to figure out
whether they're saved or not saved?
I don't care, a person can be saved,
a person can be a great person at one point
and then go down a dark path
and get thrown out of the church.
You know what, that person is unto me as a heathen.
I'm gonna treat them as a heathen
because that's what Jesus said,
treat them if they will not hear the judgment of the church,
let them be unto you as a heathen and as a publican.
And you know the sad thing is,
even truly saved, born-again children of God
can do some wicked things and can do serious sins.
And in fact, I've said this so many times,
I can't even count over the last 21 years of pastoring.
Here's the thing, that people who are not right with God,
even if they're saved,
even if they're a born-again child of God,
if they're not walking in the spirit,
but they're walking in the flesh,
if they're backslidden,
they can be every bit as wicked as unsaved people.
Why?
Because it's impossible to reform the old man.
The old man cannot be reformed,
the flesh cannot be reformed.
That's why the Bible says the carnal mind
is enmity against God.
The carnal mind cannot be brought
into subjection of the laws of God.
And this is why, what does the Bible say all the time?
It says put off the old man, put on the new man.
It doesn't say, hey, we're gonna fix the old man,
we're gonna reform the old man,
you know, we're gonna have a better old man.
No, no, it's just put off the old man,
put on the new man, walk in the spirit,
don't fulfill the less the flesh.
The flesh is never gonna stop having the wrong appetites.
It's never gonna stop having the wrong attitude.
It's never gonna stop wanting to sin.
That's why you have to crucify the flesh
and walk in the spirit, die daily, deny self,
take up the cross, follow Jesus.
I mean, this is clear in scripture
that you gotta walk in the spirit,
put on the new man because the old man cannot be reformed.
That's why the Bible says, mortify the old man,
mortify the flesh, put the old man to death
because you cannot fix him.
And so therefore, if you have a person,
and this is where people get confused about salvation too,
you could have a person who believes
on the Lord Jesus Christ,
truly believes on the Lord Jesus Christ,
calls upon the name of the Lord.
Let's just say that person never goes to church,
never gets baptized, never reads their Bible, never prays.
You know what, they're probably gonna act
a lot like an unsaved person.
And then people will look at that person and say,
oh, this person's not saved,
look at the way they're living, but hold up.
Could they still be saved?
Yeah, because what does the Bible say in Romans 4-5?
But to him that work could not,
but believe it on him that justified the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness,
even as David also described with the blessedness
of the man unto whom God imputed righteousness without works.
Saying, blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven
and whose sins are covered,
blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin.
You could have a person that worketh not, but he believes.
His faith is counted for righteousness,
the righteousness of Christ imputed unto him,
his sins are not imputed, he's saved,
he's going to heaven.
And the Bible talks about the same guy
in 1 Corinthians 3,
when he talks about being at the judgment seat of Christ
and your works are either gonna be gold, silver,
and precious stones, or they're gonna be wood, hay, and stubble.
And if all your works are wood, hay, and stubble
and all your works are trash
and all your works are burned up,
it says, yet he himself shall be saved, yet so is by fire.
And so yeah, you could still be saved
and just not have any good works that actually,
you know, stand the test of the judgment seat of Christ
and you're getting zero rewards, but you're still saved.
And so here's the thing is that people
who are saved Christians, truly saved children of God,
if they are not walking in the Spirit,
if they're in the flesh,
they're gonna be just like unsaved people.
They're gonna be just like they were before they were saved.
And look, we also have many testimonies
of people that we've known
where this person will get saved
and nothing changes about their life immediately.
Now there's a change that happens on the inside,
but we're not seeing it on the outside
because they're not putting on the new man.
The new man's there inside, there's a change inside,
but it's not worked its way out, unfortunately.
And so sometimes you'll see people in that condition
for five years, 10 years, 15 years,
and then down the road,
they'll eventually get into a good church
and all of a sudden, bam, they're getting baptized,
they're reading their Bible, they're praying,
they're going soul-winning, they're singing hymns,
they're getting sin out of their life
and then all of a sudden there's a dramatic change,
but they actually got saved like 15 years earlier
or five years earlier, 10 years earlier,
but you didn't see the dramatic change
until they start putting on the new man,
putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, walking in the Spirit.
And so we don't wanna get that wrong about salvation.
Salvation is a free gift, it's by grace through faith,
it's not of work, listen to me mention both,
you don't do works to get saved,
you don't do works to stay saved,
you don't have to do works to prove to God
that you're saved, to prove to yourself that you're saved.
No, works do not have anything to do with salvation, okay?
They are, after we're saved, we should do the work
so we can get rewarded by God, that's the point.
So when it comes to people committing grievous
first Corinthians five sins, you know, that's wicked.
It's not a small thing, it's not like,
well, great guy, but he just says this one problem,
no, if you're committing first Corinthians
five type sins, severe sins, drunkenness, railing,
extortion, idolatry, that stuff, hey, you're out.
And you know, obviously, you're brought back
if you're repentant.
Look, there have been people in our church
who were drunkards, but they felt bad about it,
they're sorry, they wanna get help,
they wanna change, we're not gonna throw that person out
if the person is repentant and getting it right.
But the people that are unrepentant, they're out
and they should be treated as heathens and they're wicked
and we should not even eat with them,
that's what the Bible says.
You know, and it's amazing to me
how people struggle with that, but it's pretty clear.
But you, and you say, well, why wouldn't I still hang around?
And here's the thing, I'm not out here policing you,
it's not that I'm like, hey, I'm not gonna let you
hang around with these people.
No, no, no, you go do what you want.
I'm just telling you, these people are under the curse of God,
you don't want that miasma, you don't want that,
that's a bad word to use, but you don't want that
contamination, that is a better word, getting on you.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, you don't want to be connected to that
and it's like when Korra, Nathan, and Abiram
are rebelling against Moses and Aaron,
God says, get you up from the tents of these wicked men,
lest you be consumed with them.
Get out of there, you don't want to get smoked with these people,
you don't want to be associated with them.
Because look, these people are being friendly
with these wicked people and what happens?
42 dudes in a mass grave, why?
Because they're going to visit and hang out with
and be buddy, buddy with these bunch of
veil worshiping wicked people in the Northern Kingdom.
So back to 2 Kings, we're done in 2 Chronicles.
Back in 2 Kings, chapter 10, we see this encounter
along the way at the rest area.
Then we see verse 15, and it says,
and when he was departed thence, he lighted on
Jehanadab, the son of Recap.
Sorry, Jehanadab, I accidentally mixed you up
with zero bone earlier in the sermon.
Jehanadab, the son of Recap, coming to meet him
and he saluted him and said to him,
and I love this, is thy heart right
as my heart is with thy heart?
It's a little bit of a tongue twister,
but I like what he says there.
Is thy heart right as my heart is with thy heart?
And Jehanadab answered, it is.
If it be, give me thine hand and he gave him his hand
and he took him up to him into the chariot
and he said, come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
So they made him ride in his chariot.
See what I mean about like when you're reading this
and you don't know how it's going to end,
you're like, this guy, gee, who's awesome.
So many one liners, just come with me
and see my zeal for the Lord.
I mean, it's exciting, you know?
In fact, one of the early versions of our tract
that we handed out door to door literally said,
come with me and see my zeal for the Lord.
Like, you know, that was like a tagline
for our church at one point.
Or maybe it was somebody that we sent out
to start a church.
I know I've put, I designed something
and stuck it on there at one point.
But the point is that he's saying to him,
is your heart right with my heart,
you know, as my heart is with your heart?
And you know, what I take from this is that,
you know, there are a lot of people
that you can be super cool with,
super nice to have nothing but good feelings
and good energy toward that person.
And in their heart, they do not feel the same way.
You know, and it's like, you'll be nice to people
and you treat people well and you love them
and you have nothing but good feelings for them.
And they just have malicious, evil intent toward you.
And that's what, gee, who is wondering like,
you know, he's like, bro, I have no ill will toward you,
but is your heart right with my heart,
you know, as I am with you?
I forgot the actual tongue twister.
And so you need to understand that everybody
who's pretending to be your friend
isn't actually for real, unfortunately.
And it's sad, but you know,
this is exactly like Judas Iscariot betraying Jesus.
David was betrayed by close friends and family,
you know, all throughout the Bible,
you see people being betrayed
and turned on by people that they love.
And you know what, the apostle Paul,
you know, he sounds pretty disgruntled, disenchanted,
disillusioned, quote unquote, blackpilled
when he says, the more I love, the less I be loved.
I mean, what a thing for Paul to say in the New Testament.
Man, it seems like the more I love, the less I be loved.
You know, and obviously there are lots of other scriptures
about people being hated without a cause,
returning evil for good, and so forth.
It's a tragedy, but unfortunately it's out there.
And so that's what Jehu's asking, you know,
hey, I love you, I'm your friend,
but do you feel the same way about me?
And John Adab, the son of Recap,
he actually is a real one
and he's actually telling the truth when he says it is.
And notice, John Adab, the son of Recap,
he doesn't have to go into a bunch of flattery
and go on and on, like proving
how great of a friend he is to Jehu.
He just says, yup.
It's like, are you with me?
He's just like, yes I am.
All right, let's go come see my zeal for the Lord.
You know, sometimes the people
that kind of flatter you the most
and lay it on super thick and go on and on,
you know, those aren't even necessarily the real ones.
Because talk is cheap.
It's pretty easy to just say stuff.
It's more about showing it with your deeds,
showing it with your actions, showing it with your life,
the loyalty that you have as a friend
and your loyalty to the truth and God's word
and the church and so forth.
So let's keep going here.
He says, I'm gonna show you my zeal for the Lord.
Come see my zeal for the Lord.
And when he came to Samaria,
he slew all that remained under Ahab in Samaria.
I mean, look, wow.
Everybody associated with Ahab is getting smoked.
I mean, it's just like step after step
after step after step.
When God is ready to judge a group of people,
they all get smoked.
And it's just, you know, it doesn't happen overnight
because this happens over the course of like 10 years
because Ahab died like 10 years earlier.
And then now 10 years later,
it's just like everybody's getting smoked
in the same week.
But then it says here in verse 18,
Jehu gathered all the people together.
Here's Jehu's sense of humor once again.
His style comes through once again.
He said unto them, Ahab served Baal a little,
but Jehu shall serve him much.
He's like, hey, you guys like worship and Baal?
I got news for you.
Now this might have freaked some people out.
Like the worshipers of the Lord
are probably a little freaked out by this
because he says, hey,
Jehu served Baal a little bit,
or excuse me, Ahab served Baal a little bit.
He's saying, Jehu is gonna serve him a lot.
He's like, I'm gonna be the biggest Baal worshiper ever
because I'm gonna do the biggest sacrifice to Baal
that anybody's ever seen.
I'm gonna do the ultimate mega Baal sacrifice.
And so in order to do that,
I need every single Baal worshiper to show up.
We're gonna have the mega conference for Baal worship.
And we're just gonna bring every Baal worshiper.
Want every single priest of Baal, prophet of Baal.
This is just like the mega Baal convention of all time
because we're gonna do the greatest sacrifice
to Baal in history.
Like, you think that Israel was worshiping Baal before?
Oh, wait till you see what I'm gonna do to worship Baal.
So he brings them all out and it says in verse 19,
now they're forecalling to be all the prophets of Baal,
all his servants and all his priests
let none be wanting.
For I have a great sacrifice to do to Baal.
Whosoever shall be wanting,
he shall not live.
He's like, if we find out you're a Baal worshiper
and you didn't show up, you're gonna be put to death.
Like, this is, you gotta be here for this.
This is that important.
And they're like, they're probably like so happy.
They're probably thinking like, wow,
finally Baal worship is getting the attention
and the funding and the government support
that it deserves.
So they're super stoked.
They're like, they're just on cloud nine.
And they get all excited.
It's sort of like Mordecai where he gets his revenge on Haman.
But right before that, Haman's kind of top of the world.
Like, hey, I just kind of invited to be with Esther
at the bank or whatever.
It's like a lot of times these people will get all,
they're all chipper and they're all gleeful
and they think they're winning
when they're actually about to get smoked.
Pride goes before destruction,
a haughty spirit before the fall.
And so these Baal worshipers, they're all excited.
They're probably getting their priestly garments,
all cleaned and pressed and get it all decked out
and oh man, this is gonna go down in history.
The biggest Baal event ever.
And Jihoo said in verse 20,
proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal and they proclaimed it.
And Jihoo said throughout all Israel
and all the worshipers of Baal came
so that there was not a man left that came not.
And they came into the house of Baal
and the house of Baal was full from one end to the other.
And he said to them that was over the vestry,
bring forth vestments for all the worshipers of Baal.
So he's like, hey guys, we got a special outfit
for you guys all to put on so that we can
give you this robe that you're gonna put on
to identify all the elite platinum level Baal worshipers
and everything.
So they all put on the clothes.
Jihoo went and johannadab the son of Recap
under the house of Baal and said to the worshipers of Baal,
search and look that there be here
with you none of the servants of the Lord,
but the worshipers of Baal.
You know, we don't want any worshipers
of Jehovah God in here.
No, no, no, this is Baal worshipers only.
So look around and talk to your neighbor
and make sure that you know every,
make sure that these people are all real Baal worshipers
and that there's none of these like worshipers
of the Lord have snuck in, right?
And these people have no clue what's about to happen.
So then they make sure, no, no, no,
it's only Baal worshipers.
And then it says in verse number 24,
and when they went in to offer sacrifice
and burn offerings, Jihoo appointed four score men
without, so he gets 80 guys,
because you know these Baal worshipers,
they don't have any weapons or anything.
You know, they're just there to worship Satan,
worship Baal.
And so Jihoo just gets 80 guys, armed men,
and he says to these four score men, these 80 guys,
he said, if any man who might have brought
into your hands escape, he that let it them go,
his life shall go for the life of him.
He said, okay, now we're gonna kill
every single one of these Baal worshipers right now.
So they just bring them all together,
they're all excited, yay, worship big Baal.
And then just 80 guys just come in
and just kill every single one of them.
And it says, I lost my place here.
It says, and it came to pass as soon as
he had made an end of offering the burnt offering,
that Jihoo said to the guard and to the captains,
go in and slay them, let none come forth,
and they smote them with the edge of the sword,
we're in verse 25, and the guard and the captains
cast them out and went to the city
of the house of Baal, and they brought forth
the images of the house of Baal and burned them,
and they break down the image of Baal
and break down the house of Baal
and made it a draft house under this day.
What is a draft house?
Well, remember in the New Testament,
it's an old word that we're not familiar with necessarily
in 2026, but remember in the New Testament,
he said, whatever you eat is digested,
it goes into the belly and then it comes out the draft.
He's saying we're gonna make it into a public toilet.
So he basically turns the house of Baal,
he destroys it, tears it down to the ground,
and then says we're gonna make it
into a giant public bathroom.
Okay, it's just gonna be because Baal worship
is a bunch of crap, and so that's literally
gonna be what it is.
And then look at verse 28,
thus Jehu destroyed Baal out of Israel.
I mean, the religion's just totally eliminated
because every single Baal worshiper, every priest,
every prophet shows up, they're all dead,
the images are all destroyed,
and you know what you don't have noticed
about the gods that we read about
in the Bible of the heathen?
Because we read about all these false gods, right?
Baal, and Astoroth, and Molec,
and all these different false gods.
Have you noticed that no one worships them in 2026?
Think about it, like who is worshipping Baal by name
in 2026, who is worshipping Astoroth, Molec,
Ramphan, Cayenne, all of the false gods
that are listed in the Old Testament,
nobody's worshipping them.
Think about the gods of the ancient Greeks, Zeus,
and Apollo, who's worshipping them?
Nobody.
Who's worshipping the Roman Pantheon?
Nobody.
Who's worshipping the Scandinavian Pantheon?
Versus like, obviously yeah, there's gonna be
some weird white guy living in his mother's basement
who's like into Thor and whatever,
and he's either like, oh, I'm a pagan or whatever,
but it's like, seriously, realistically,
nobody's worshipping these religions,
because God ends up just eliminating them in the long run.
False religions in the long run,
they get eliminated, they get destroyed,
but the name of the Lord, the word of God
stands forever, the Bible stands forever.
These other false religions, they come and go,
is what they do.
And so, Baal worship just gets completely annihilated.
So, up to this point, Jihu is just batting 1,000,
and he has such great flair and such great style
about the way he does everything, and you love the guy,
but then look at this in verse 32, or sorry, verse 29.
How be it, from the sons of Jeroboam,
the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin,
Jihu departed not from after them,
to wit the golden calves that were in Bethel,
and that were dead.
I mean, this is one of the most disappointing verses ever.
This guy's just been awesome for two chapters,
and now all of a sudden, it's like,
still idolatry, it's just a different idol.
And again, it's like this.
You'll see some guy on the internet
that's just, some little short comes,
I don't watch stupid shorts, but people who do,
the short comes up, and you're like,
ooh, this guy sounds good, he's ripping on homos,
or oh, he's ripping on the Jews,
or he's ripping on Muslims, or whatever.
And then it's like, wow, this guy sounds really good.
And then you check, and it's like Roman Catholic.
You're just like, come on, like, Greek Orthodox.
You're just like, give me a break, man.
Right, it's just like, what?
Because guess what?
Those are just as satanic,
it's just a different branch of the same thing.
And so, obviously, it's easier to point out error
than to preach truth.
Preaching truth is more difficult and more rare
than just pointing out errors.
Anybody can point out errors.
It's having the right answer, the right gospel,
the truth from the word of God.
That's what is more important.
So, Jehu's awesome at destroying the bad guys.
All he does is destroy the bad guys,
but then when it comes to his walk with God
and now he's gonna worship the Lord,
he totally fails and has people worship
in the golden calves.
And so it says in verse 30, the Lord said to Jehu,
don't miss verse 30 though,
because I want you to see that this is a correct analysis here
that what he did was right and good.
Because it says in verse number 30,
the Lord said to Jehu, because thou hast done well
in executing that which is right in my eyes
and has done unto the house of Ab,
according to all that was in my heart.
He's like, look, what you did, Jehu,
this is exactly what I had in mind.
Wiping out the house of Ahab,
wiping out the worship of Abel.
He's like, you did what was in my heart, bro.
Isn't that what the Lord is saying?
You did well, you executed that which was in my heart.
He says, because you did that,
your reward is gonna be what?
It says, thy children of the fourth generation,
so sit on the throne of Israel.
So he's saying, you're gonna be king,
your son's gonna be king,
his son's gonna be king,
and his son's gonna be king.
Four generations of kings.
So that's great news, right?
But although the Lord is so good unto him
and so generous to him and so gracious unto him
to allow him to have that boon,
it says in verse 31,
but Jehu took no heed to walk in the law
of the Lord God of Israel.
So it's like, God is sitting there and telling him,
man, I'm gonna bless you,
you're gonna be king,
your son's gonna be king,
your grandson, your great-grandson,
and instead of being like, wow, man, God is so good,
God is blessing me so much,
I have a guaranteed kingdom.
My great-grandson has a guaranteed kingdom.
That should make him super thankful
and wanna do something good for God and be right.
But now it doesn't have that effect, unfortunately.
Because he took no heed to walk in the law
of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart,
for he departed not from the sins of Jeroboam,
which made Israel the sin.
He ends up having idolatry.
And again, idolatry is a severe sin.
It's one of those first Corinthians five sins, by the way.
Having idolatry is a severe commandment
of the second commandment of the Ten Commandments.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them or serve them
because I, the Lord God, am a jealous God.
And so he says, do not make graven images
and bow down to them, it's wicked, it's wrong.
And so this is very disappointing.
But it says in verse 32, you know, in those days,
the Lord began to cut Israel short.
So even though he's guaranteed to be the king of Israel,
all the way down to his great grandson,
it doesn't mean that Israel is gonna retain
all of its glory.
So it ends up losing territory, losing prestige,
losing power, he starts cutting them short.
And Hezail, that's the king of Syria,
smote them in all the coasts of Israel
from Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead,
the Gaddites and the Rubenites and the Manasites
from Arower, which is by the river Arnon,
even Gilead and Beishan, right?
And we were just talking about that before the service,
you know, that crew that inherited
on the east side of Jordan.
And they said, hey, we don't wanna cross Jordan,
we wanna inherit on this side of the Jordan River,
Ruben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manassee.
And they end up inheriting on that east side.
And what happens here is that because they're
on the periphery and because there's
that geographic barrier of Jordan,
you know, they end up being the ones
who end up getting picked off by the enemy
more than anything, right?
Because Hezail smote them because they're on the edge, right?
And so here's the thing, when it comes
to the will of God, we don't wanna be on the periphery,
we wanna be in the center of God's will.
We wanna be in the heart of God's will, right?
And we don't wanna be a fringe person
of the church, we wanna be a core person of the church.
Because look, if you're a core church member,
you're less likely to get picked off
than when you're a peripheral church member.
And so here's the thing, the nation of Israel
represents the congregation of the Lord,
represents the church.
Like the Old Testament nation of Israel
is analogous to the New Testament church, right?
When Moses has the congregation of Israel,
it's called the church in the wilderness.
And so these people who are like,
you know what, we don't wanna go all in.
We don't wanna be all the way in the Promised Land.
We like it over here on the edge,
east of the Jordan River, on the periphery.
But you know what, they're the ones
that end up getting smoked the most, right?
And so here's the thing, it's always gonna be
this way at church.
At church, you're gonna have people
that are super involved.
And most of the people that I'm talking to right now
are the really super involved people.
That's why you're here on Wednesday night.
Because the primary service that people
would tend to go to is Sunday morning.
And so you have a lot of people
that are Sunday morning onies.
And they only come to church on Sunday morning.
And so they're more, what we would call
in the modern vernacular, the casuals, right?
The casuals show up on Sunday morning
and they're not that into it.
They're not showing up for soul winning.
They're not going to conferences.
They're not going on mission strips and whatever.
And look, okay, I'm not saying like,
hey, you have to go on Sunday night.
You have to go on Wednesday night.
You have to go to everything.
I'm not saying that.
I'm just saying that the Bible says
not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together
as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another.
And so much the more as we see the day approaching
that as we see the day approaching
we need more church, not less.
And the people who are getting the fellowship,
getting the preaching, showing up to more services,
showing up to more soul winning,
showing up to more events and everything like that.
You know what, they're more deeply rooted
in the church, rooted in their beliefs,
rooted in the faith.
And it's going to be more difficult for the devil
to pick them up than the fringe people
who are showing up three times a month.
Now look, if you show up three times a month,
I'm glad you show up three times a month.
Love to see you three times a month.
If you're a Sunday morning only
and maybe you're listening to this online,
hey, we love having you here on Sunday mornings.
And it's good that at least you're supplementing
your Sunday morning attendance
with at least a Wednesday night live stream
or download of this.
But at the end of the day,
you don't wanna be a fringe person
and you can figure out and decide what you think that means.
If you don't agree with my definition
of a fringe person, then why don't you figure out
what you think a fringe person is?
But you know what, when I read the Bible,
when I'm reading the book of Numbers,
when I'm reading this story right here,
what I see is that the fringe people get picked off first.
That's the way it tends to be.
And so therefore, I wanna be all the way in.
I don't wanna be on the periphery
because who's more likely to get out of church?
The guy who's going three times a week
or the guy who's going three times a month?
You know, because here's the thing.
If I'm going three times a week
and let's say something comes up,
let's say I get sick,
let's say something bad happens
and I get pulled away, I'm going on work trips
or who knows what happens, right?
Here's the thing.
If I go to all three services every week,
I'm going to church 13 times a month, right?
Our church has approximately 13 services per month.
So therefore, if you're going to all three
and you miss a few, you're still getting
a lot of church, right?
Let's say I miss three services in a month.
I still got 10 services.
That's pretty good, right?
But if you're a Sunday morning only
and you miss three services,
now you went to church like once.
And you know what I've seen is I've seen,
some people are like, oh, I have to miss,
you know, church for work sometimes
and sometimes work makes me miss church
and stuff like that.
And here's what's funny is that
you'll have a Sunday morning only person
and then they're missing church for work
pretty soon they're barely even coming.
They're coming once or twice a month
and then, oh, I'm so shocked,
they're totally out of church now.
I can't even count how many times I've seen that.
Whereas if you had a guy who's three to thrive,
Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night
and then occasionally there's an emergency,
he has to deal with something,
work pulls him out or whatever.
Hey, at least he's still going to church a lot.
Does everybody see what I'm saying?
Now, personally, I for the last 25 years of my life,
26 years of my life or more,
yeah, I guess I'm getting older.
I need to update these numbers
because ever since I've been like 18,
I've pretty much been a die hard, died in the wolf,
like three to thrive, do or die,
where I really made it a priority
to be at virtually every service
or at least to show up to three services
a week or something.
I've been pretty serious about that
for that amount of time, so I guess now that I'm 45,
I guess it's like 27 years or something.
Where I'm just like three to thrive is the standard.
And I'm telling the boss, no, I'm not working
on Wednesday night, we're gonna find another way
to get it done and whatever.
But look, I understand that people
have different situations in their life
and I'm not dictating anything to you.
Like I said, if I see you every two months at church,
if I see you every four months at church,
I'm just gonna be glad to see you
and happy to see you and smile and shake your hand
and whatever.
You can come here once in a blue moon for all I care
because at the end of the day,
it's your life, it's your spiritual growth,
it's your spiritual development.
You're the one who is running the risks
of being a fringe person.
Whereas if you're a three to thrive core member,
you're involved, and by the way,
you know what, it's a good idea too a lot of times
to when you can get here a little early
and do some fellowship.
Stay after a little bit and do some fellowship.
Get together with friends outside of church
and have good spiritual fellowship
with like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ.
Those are all good things to be doing too.
Hey, go to a conference, go on a missions trip,
go out to dinner with brothers and sisters in Christ.
Get here early, stay late, come to special services.
You know, these are all good things to do.
Hey, I think we can all probably kind of figure out
who are kind of people that are taking it real seriously
and putting a lot of time in
versus people that are super fringe.
And again, I'm not mad at the fringe people.
I'm just telling you that when you decide
that you wanna be that fringe person
that's on the edge,
you're the one who has ale has gotten his sights
because the devil is like a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour.
And when the Bible says he's like a roaring lion
seeking whom he may devour,
it's like a lion, if the lion goes after the herd
of wildebeest or whatever,
it's been a while since I've watched
any nature channels or anything.
But I remember when they used to wheel that cart
into the classroom with a TV and a VCR strap to it
with a belt.
And I watched the nature shows
and the lion is just looking for the slowest
wildebeest that's, and you know what?
The one that wanders off and gets away from the herd, right?
The core herd, most of them are gonna be okay.
It's the stragglers that are gonna get picked off
because that's who he may devour.
So I personally, I don't wanna be a straggler.
I don't wanna be a fringe guy.
I wanna be a core member of the church.
I wanna be all the way in.
And so it says in verse 34,
now the rest of the acts of Jihu
and all that he did and all his might,
are they not written in the book of the Chronicles
of the Kings of Israel?
And Jihu slept with his fathers
and they buried him in Samaria
and Jehovah has his son reigned instead.
And the time that Jihu reigned over Israel in Samaria
was 20 and eight years.
So look, God blessed this guy a lot
for at least smoking the enemies of the Lord.
He ended up, you know, getting to reign
for 28 years, son, grandson, great grandson,
all get to reign.
But at the end of the day,
he was a personal failure of a leader
because he did not take heed to walk verse 31
in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart.
That tells me that the ticket to success
is to walk in the word,
but to take heed unto walking according to the word.
What does that mean?
Take heed.
It means it's not gonna happen by accident.
It's not gonna happen with a sloppy Christian life
of just kind of like, yeah,
I'm kind of following the Bible.
Kind of a church member, kind of a Christian,
kind of a quasi, you know, here's the thing
is you got to put effort into your walk with God.
Now look, if you're a saved Christian,
you're going to heaven no matter what,
you can never lose your salvation.
But if you want to be a successful Christian
on this earth, you got to put in the effort.
You got to take heed.
And you know what?
Come into services, getting out soul winning,
investing in fellowship, Bible reading, prayer, whatever.
All those things are helping you take heed
unto your walk with God,
put in the effort and the attention to your walk with God
so that you can follow the Lord with all your heart
and not be half-hearted about your walk with God.
Look, if somebody asked me who I am,
the most important thing about who I am
is that I'm a Christian.
Right, that's more important than being American.
It's more important than being white.
It's so stupid when people's identity
is wrapped up in their race.
Like, just, it's all about being black.
It's all about being white.
It's like, you know, these white supremacists, it's stupid.
You know, oh, you know, it's all about being Hispanic
or Chinese or whatever, you know?
Like the Chinese or like, they think they're better
than the Japanese and vice versa or whatever.
It's like, bro, you guys are all just Asian, man.
Just, what's the difference, man?
You know, we're all a bunch of white people.
Who cares what kind of white people we are?
Whether we're French, German, Scandinavian, Russian,
whatever, my wife's probably back there thinking like,
wait a minute, German's better than being Russian.
I'm like, no, man, it doesn't matter.
Don't get wrapped up in, you know,
these other things that don't, you know,
at the end of the day,
our main identity is that we're Christians.
Red, yellow, black and white, we're Christians.
That's what matters.
It's not like, oh, you know, I'm wealthy
and I'm high society.
It's like, no, no, no.
You know what?
All the wealthy and the poor,
we're all in the same playing field here.
We're all Christians.
And Christianity should be our defining demographic,
our defining feature, our defining identity
where our whole heart is all just like all about
serving God, loving God, being a Christian.
And so that no matter what we do,
the whole day, whether we eat or drink
or whatsoever we do, we do it all to the glory of God.
So it's like, oh, you know,
my biggest thing in my life is I'm an electrician.
But here's the thing, if you're an electrician,
you should be waking up every morning
deciding to be a Christian electrician.
And you're gonna be the best electrician you can be
for the glory of God.
And you're gonna do good at your job
because you wanna honor Christ.
And because you wanna be the best Christian you can be
and you're thinking about God
and in all your ways, you're acknowledging Him
and letting Him direct your paths.
That's how you're gonna succeed in the Christian life.
Being halfway is just gonna lead to problems.
You know, you gotta be all in.
And I'm not saying that when you're all in,
you're not gonna suffer yet.
All that will live Godly in Christ Jesus
or gonna suffer persecution.
But at the end of the day, you're still gonna be standing.
You're still gonna be here because let's face it,
five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now,
we're not all gonna be serving God.
You guys know that, right?
Statistically speaking, I wish I could just say
everybody in this room, I now pronounce you lifetime
servants of God that will never crash and burn.
You know, I wish I could say that, but you know what?
There are kids in this room that are gonna grow up
and go the way of this world, go the way of the devil.
They're gonna be adults in this room,
they get back slidden, quit on God,
and just go out and just get totally out of church.
There are gonna be people in here
that fail and crash and burn.
You know what I'm talking about tonight?
You know what I'm talking about?
I'm talking about being one of the people
that is steadfast in the long run.
That's what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about who is still serving God,
whether it's here geographically
or somewhere else geographically,
who is still gonna be serving God five years from now,
10 years from now.
And look, hey, I got saved 39 years ago, okay?
And I've been consistently soul-winning
and serving God for like 28 years or something.
You know what I mean?
Like almost 30 years.
And you know what?
I wanna be here 10 years from now, 20 years from now.
I wanna be here 50 years from now.
I wanna be in it for the long run, right?
Christianity's not measured in years,
it's measured in decades.
And I'm telling you how to be a long run.
Cause I've seen some flashes in the pan around here
of some people who are super zealous
and super excited doing great works for God.
And I'm not saying that they were bad people,
they really were doing great works for God,
but they didn't make it in the long run.
I'm talking about not being a casualty
and being in it for the long haul
by taking heed and actually, you know,
following the Lord with all your heart.
Let's bow out in our word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for this great chapter, Lord.
Thank you for the good example of Jihu
in his zeal, his excitement,
and his desire to destroy false religion
and to stand against evil.
But Lord, help us also to learn from his failure
and to realize that we need to be all in,
all our hearts taken heed unto your word, Lord.
Help us not to be just negative people,
trashing everything that we don't like
and that everything that's anti-Christ and anti-Bible,
but help us also to be preaching the good news,
the good message of the gospel and getting people saved
and building something good as well,
planting churches, winning souls,
baptizing converts and teaching them to observe all things,
whatsoever Christ has commanded us.
And it's in Christ's name, we pray, amen.