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Guest Speakers: Against the World
July 2, 2023 · 52 min
Speaker: Justin Hart
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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
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0:00 Father God, I thank you so much for your mercy and your grace and your goodness, Lord. I believe that when we come in here, Lord, and we remove distractions and we focus our eyes on you, Lord Jesus, you do a0:11 work in our hearts and our minds and our families and our culture, Lord Jesus. And I'm asking you, through your word, by your spirit today, to bring a transformational miracle in every single 1 of our lives and an0:22 anointing so that we would leave this place ready to herald the gospel of Jesus Christ and ready to live out the gospel that you've said has happened in us when we place our faith in you. We love you and we thank you in0:33 Jesus name. And everybody said, amen. Amen. Well, let's get after it. I am I am from Colorado, born and raised here. I'm like 1 of the 10 of us that are actually left.0:45 You got, you know, I don't know if you guys feel that way, but I'm like, where did they go? They're gone and and so many people have come in from these different places and being here all my life, I gotta tell you guys 10:55 thing that drives me like crazy is when people mispronounce words. Okay. Like like it's Arvada, not Arvada.1:07 Alright? You wouldn't say Nevada. You would say Nevada. Alright? 1 in particular that's near and dear to my heart, it's not Westminster.1:19 It's Westminster. A minster is a church. Okay? So technically I am the Westminster minister, so that's for free. That's my1:30 unofficial title, that you're allowed to call me if you so choose. But but here here's what I wanted to share. Oftentimes people say things and we just kinda go along with it because we're like, alright, they just don't1:42 know. It's fine or I'll be nice. It's not a big deal. In fact, I was at a small group years ago and we had this newer family that was coming in and we were talking about meals and sharing a meal and he was like,
1:54 man, this Qdoba is delicious. And listen, we have a deliverance team here at Brave Church. So if you say, Qdoba, we can help you. We can get you taken care of. We'll cast that out of
2:06 you. Don't even worry about it. And I was sitting there. First it said, this Qdoba is delicious. And everyone's kinda looking at each other like, is anybody gonna say anything? Like, let this person
2:17 know. And the conversation starts kicking off again. And I literally said, somebody's gotta tell him. Like, before before we go any farther, somebody has to let this person know because he cannot continue going on
2:29 and saying, Quodoba. I just felt disgusted on the inside and dirty. It was wrong. Like that's not what you say. But what I've coined this, what I've started calling this is a courtesy trap. A courtesy trap is when you
2:41 end up going along with something because in the moment you're just trying to be kind or you don't wanna ruffle feathers or you don't wanna make it awkward. And all over our culture today, we're seeing people get stuck
2:53 in courtesy traps because they're going along with things that they shouldn't go along with. And and my heart is like somebody's gotta say something. Somebody's gotta stand up and say something.
3:04 Somebody needs to address this so it doesn't go any farther. And I go to this church. I'm assuming most of you go to this church because pastor Jeff brings bold messages that are full of the Holy
3:16 Ghost and he brings them with power and he's willing to say something in a culture that oftentimes doesn't wanna say anything. Amen? But what I what I
3:28 wanna share coming up for the internship, being part of this congregation is my heart, my desire and I think the desire of brave church is actually to eliminate the distance between the pulpit and
3:40 the pews. Like we don't just want pastor Jeff to be bold. It would be weird if pastor Jeff got up here and preached awesome messages and then all of us went and just live normal lives. Right? You guys realize there's no
3:52 such thing as a normal Christian. That's not a thing. We stand out because we have the Holy Spirit burning inside of us and the goal of coming together on a Sunday morning is to be
4:03 equipped by the leaders of the church who pour into us so that we can then go do ministry the other 6 days of the week. This is just a bonfire church. We come together and we worship and we proclaim
4:15 Christ so that we can take our torches and go out and burn hot to a world that desperately needs Jesus. And there's this thing in our culture today that I think we need to address because a lot of people think they're
4:26 being bold but they're really only being bold in front of people that agree with them. Which is to say they're not being bold, right? Like it's not boldness if you're just sitting around and you know clinking drinks and
4:38 saying, yeah, no, there's there's a fake kind of boldness that's more along the lines of machismo and bravado that actually won't stand when there's actual pressure and real difficulty and
4:50 real struggle going on. And so we need to know what real boldness is. We need to be able to grab onto that and say, that that's not real boldness, that's fake. This is spirit filled,
5:01 Christ centered real boldness that's willing to stand when things get difficult or pressure starts happening and we have such a deep need for this, especially coming out of pride month. I just gotta be honest, it has
5:11 been crazy seeing how many companies have just caved and just bowed the knee. How many schools? Man, it breaks my heart. I'm so thankful what we're doing with Brave Academy because when I see that stuff, I'm like, man,
5:23 somebody's gotta say something. Somebody's gotta do something about that. Amen. We can give God praise for that. I'm fired up about it. And then unfortunately, we're also seeing it in churches. Are we not?
5:35 All over the place it breaks my heart when I see rainbow flags over churches and stuff and it's like, man, what is happening? Somebody's got to say something and I feel like in so many ways our culture is losing its
5:47 mind. But 1 of the reasons that I wanted to touch on this topic today is because I wanted us to know as Christians that we have a deep heritage and legacy of boldness in the face of difficulty
5:59 and struggle. Did you know that? Do we have a deep heritage and lineage of people who are willing to stand against the dark and say something when nobody say anything? We would see great heroes of the
6:10 faith that are part of our spiritual bloodline who would stand against wickedness when the church was retreating and instead take steps forward and see revival. And I believe by faith brave church, if we will be bold
6:22 together, if we will link arms and take steps forward together in faith and boldness, we are going to see revival here again in Colorado like we've never seen before. Amen?
6:35 But so that we don't come off the top rope brash for no reason and thinking we're being bold, we need a lens by which we can actually understand what is happening. So today, we're gonna go to second chronicles chapter
6:47 18. I hope you brought your bible. You brought some weird device or whatever. The Lord will forgive you. I will not. And I wanna talk about a prophet, a particular prophet
6:59 that maybe you don't know about. His name is Micaiah. Turn to your neighbor and say, Micaiah. Remember, it's important that we pronounce words right. Somebody mispronounced it. Don't let them off the hook. Don't let them
7:10 off the hook. And so we're gonna start by reading second Chronicles 18 and I wanna read the first 3 verses to give us a backdrop a little bit for what's happening in the context in which we're entering
7:22 into this story. Okay, here we go. Now Jehoshaphat had great riches and honor and he allied himself by marriage with Ahab. Not Ahab the
7:33 man but his family. Strange times we're living in. You gotta address things. Some years later, he went down to visit Ahab at Samaria and Ahab slaughtered many sheep and oxen for him and the people who were with him and
7:45 induced him to go up against Ram of Gilead. Ahab, King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, will you go with me against Ram of Gilead? And he said to him, I am as you are and my people as your people and we
7:57 will be with you in the battle. Okay. Here's what you need to know Brave. Ahab is perhaps the worst king that Israel has ever had.
8:09 He is oftentimes called the scourge of Israel. He was constantly bringing in demon worship and child sacrifice. He had a horrible wife named Jezebel who you've probably heard
8:21 of before and together they were leading the hearts of the people of God away from him. And then you have Jehoshaphat who's historically a good king who gets invited
8:33 in, has set himself up in a relationship with this man and is getting buttered up in this particular situation. What I want you to see here is a courtesy trap. He is saying, sure, we'll do it. We'll
8:45 go along with this. And can I just tell you right now, brave church, you're allowed to say no to wickedness? You do not have to ally yourself with sin and brokenness and messes and in this moment, he doesn't wanna deal
8:56 with that so he just goes along with it. And what we need to see is, no, no, no, no. This is a trap. We're not going this direction. We're not doing this thing. And so what I want you guys to see in this story, the
9:06 backdrop is good godly men end up allying themselves with wicked men. You have the capitulation of good men. People finding themselves in a wicked world with a bunch of people running
9:18 the opposite direction and and everyone in this moment seeming to bow down to this tyrant and go along with it with a battle that they should not be a part of. And then we have this guy enter the story,
9:30 Micaiah. He's a prophet and he's actually going to teach us today what spirit filled boldness looks like. So today, break church, I have for you 4 points about what
9:41 real spirit filled boldness looks like so that we don't end up coming up with some kind of counterfeit. We wanna live in our relationship with Christ and live out the real thing. So to start, I
9:53 wanna take us through verses 4 through 13 and then we're gonna get into the text a little bit. You ready? Okay, here we go. Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, please inquire first for the word
10:05 of the Lord. Then the king of Israel assembled the prophets 400 men and said to them, shall we go against Ram of Gilead to battle or shall I refrain? And they said, go up for God will give it into the hand of the
10:17 king. But Jehoshaphat said, is there not yet a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him? And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, there is yet 1 man by whom we may inquire of the Lord but I hate
10:29 him. For he never prophesies good concerning me but always evil. He is Micaiah, the son of Imlah. But Jehoshaphat said, let not the king say so. Then the king of Israel called an officer and said, bring quickly
10:41 Micaiah, Imlah's son. Now the king of Israel and Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah were sitting each on his throne arrayed in their robes and they were sitting at the threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria
10:51 and all the prophets were prophesying before them and Zedekiah, 1 of the prophets, the son of Chennai made horns of iron for himself and said, thus says the Lord, with these you will gore the Arameans until they are
11:03 consumed. And all the prophets were prophesying thus saying, go up to Ramoth Gilead and succeed for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king. Then the messengers went to summon Micaiah and spoke to
11:15 them saying, behold, the words of the prophets are uniformly favorable to the king. So please let your word be like 1 of them and speak favorably. But Micaiah said, as the Lord lives, what
11:27 my God says that I will speak. Real boldness knows the choice of ultimate authority. Real boldness knows the choice of ultimate authority.
11:39 And this is such a touchy topic in our world today but it's 1 of really great importance. Brave Church, Jesus is our king. He's our king. He's our Lord.
11:51 He is our God and we need to understand that today because sometimes we say the word Lord and I don't think we understand the fullness of what that actually meant in the first century. Like they
12:03 would say, they would say things like Jesus Christ is Lord. And what that meant to a society that spoke that language and understood those things is that it was actually kind of like
12:15 treason. See, I actually have a picture of a coin here. I wanna put it up for you. There were all kinds of coins like this 1 that we'll see eventually, God willing. There we go. We did it. Holy
12:27 Spirit's here guys. It's working. We have we have coins like this that we find all throughout the first century in ancient Roman world that would say things like, Caesar Nero, our only hope.
12:38 Caesar Nero, our savior. Caesar Nero, the son of God because he was known to be the son of Augustus and Augustus believed himself to be deity. And so they would have
12:50 coins that would have these inscriptions all over them. In fact, in Rome, there was something called the Pax Romana which is just means the piece of Rome and what it was was no big deal. Basically, just like a giant 1
13:00 world government that you could become a part of. And every time every time somebody joined the Pax Romana, they would nail these wooden boards to these places with the names of the people that joined the Pax Romana and
13:12 on the board it would say, there is no other name by which we must be saved, Nero Caesar. They were literally called Evangelion or what we would say Gospels.
13:24 And so when Peter says, there's no other name on heaven or earth by which we must be saved. Jesus Christ our Lord. He is making a very serious treasonous statement in
13:36 that moment because the whole world had set themselves up against God. The true God, the real authority, the real person that they should be listening to and it started caving to this idea
13:48 of peace that they were getting from a world that was actually diametrically opposed to what Jesus wanted. And so in this moment when they would say, Jesus Christ is my Lord, it might as well have been a death sentence.
14:00 It might as well have been them saying, okay, I guess my life is forfeit because I can't go along with this. I have a king. I have a Lord. And listen, as long as authorities are going along with the will of God and what
14:11 he's wanting, those are good things God has instituted them. But we have to know it is a choice in our heart when difficulty comes and if things set themselves up against who God is, our calling as Christians is to know
14:22 who our ultimate authority is. I don't know if you guys know this but we're coming up on the fourth of July here and I don't know if you know this but the revolutionary war was originally called the Presbyterian revolt.
14:34 Yes, Presbyterians do stuff sometimes. Okay. Yeah. Send your emails to Jeff Schwarzentraub. That's what I would do. But they would literally fly a flag that said on the
14:45 flag appeal to heaven because they were making an appeal to heaven as their greater authority and saying, we have to serve our Lord Jesus. John Knox, who my son is
14:57 actually named after said this. He said, rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God. Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God. And when we read this passage, I love it because of
15:09 Micaiah's boldness in the face of an incredibly difficult situation. Micaiah is clearly not in good standing with the current powers that be. Micaiah is an actual prophet
15:21 who is part of the group of prophets who has been kicked out of the group of prophets because he wouldn't go along with what everyone else wanted him to say. Micaiah has been canceled. That that's that's where we find
15:31 ourselves. And he wouldn't stick around those people. Why? Because he wasn't confused about who his king was. He wasn't confused about who his authority was. There's actually
15:43 this huge problem in Israel that originally we need to understand this. Israel was never supposed to have a king. They were supposed to serve Yahweh. They were supposed to serve God and
15:55 they so desperately wanted to look like other nations and fit in with everything else that was going on that they finally pushed and pushed and pushed until God gave them a king and thus began
16:07 a long frustrating struggle with listening to the wrong voices and pleasing the wrong people. They wanted a political leader to save them and lead them instead of Jesus. And I can't help but feel that in
16:19 my guts today with so many people I talked to. Micaiah understood well what is contemporary Isaiah writes later on in Isaiah 33 22. The Lord is our judge. The Lord is
16:31 our law giver. The Lord is our king and he will save us. See, I think all of us would agree that our God is our authority, but oftentimes I think we allow things to rule over
16:43 us that should not. Listen, your authority is what you fear the most. You're being led by what you fear. Fear
16:54 can start to make us take these decisions that are instead of being bold faith and processing and running after God and standing firm, it begins to start making us a
17:06 road and our backbone and our ability to stand against wickedness. Fear starts to have us say it's okay and did God really say and it's not that big of a deal and it's not that big of a problem if I just let this go, if
17:18 I just stay in the courtesy trap, right? Some people are fearful of losing their relationship And because of that, they're allowing sin and things to happen in their life. And I
17:30 just wanna tell you right now, ladies, if you're in a relationship with a man and you're afraid of losing the relationship and it's going farther than you want it to go, be bold. Be bold. Get out of there. Man, if
17:42 you're in a relationship with a woman right now and it's it's not where it's actually supposed to be sitting, I wanna encourage you right now. If you cannot stand up to your wife, you can't stand up for your wife. And
17:54 that starts way before you get married. Some people are worried because it's it's money and I'm struggling with this financially and that financially. And so now you're getting jammed up and you're full of anxiety and
18:05 fear and all this stuff because you've forgotten that Jesus is actually your authority and your God. Some of you have a heart for ministry. God's put a burden on your heart. You know you're called to more. You you feel
18:17 it bubbling up when you and you hear these messages. You hear what God's saying or you're praying, but you're afraid of what it looks like to actually step out and see God do that thing in your life because it might mean
18:26 some things that you're afraid of. Some people are afraid of their bosses and are allowing shady things to happen at work that they know they should say something about, but they're afraid. So many churches shut down
18:38 last couple years just watching so many people in the moment say, we'll just go along with this. And I really feel like it was just a giant courtesy trap for a lot of people. See, fear is a very serious thing because
18:50 what you fear most will be what defines your life and your decisions going forward. This is why the Bible tells us that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Because you are not going to make wise decisions if
19:02 fear is your master. See, Micaiah knows his authority and is refusing to buckle. He understood that to hide the truth was actually to be ashamed of
19:14 Jesus and he didn't want anything speaking louder than the voice of truth in that moment. And if he doesn't speak the truth in this moment, he's actually choosing a different authority. What are you allowing to speak
19:25 louder than the voice of God in your life? Because if it's causing sin or listen, silence in the face of sin, that's not from God. That's a satanic fear.
19:38 The Bible tells us in first Timothy 1 7 that God hasn't given you a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Why do you need those things? So that you would be bold
19:49 and stand firm. So that you wouldn't cave under the pressure and fear that comes with difficulty in situations that we're going to face. The Bible tells us that perfect love casts out fear. Listen,
20:01 Jesus is perfect love incarnate and when we know his kingship and his rule and his reign and his power, it changes what we fear and who we follow when the time comes. That's
20:13 what was driving Micaiah and that's what I want to drive us. We need to know our authority and make that choice even when it's difficult and stop allowing things to speak louder than the voice of
20:25 Jesus in your life. Even if it costs you, which leads us to our next point here. So I want us to read verses 14 through 17 together. Here we go. When he came to the king, the king said to
20:36 him, Micaiah, shall we go to Ram of Gilead to battle or shall I refrain? And he said, go up and succeed for they'll be given into your hand. Dripping with sarcasm. Then the king said to him, how many times
20:48 must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord? And so he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains like sheep which have no shepherd. And the Lord
21:00 said, these have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace. Then the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, did I not tell you that he would only prophesy bad concerning me? Right?
21:12 He's like, I told you this is what he was gonna say. This guy's only bad news for me all the time. Did we have to listen to this guy? Okay. Here's the next thing that I want you to see. Okay? Real
21:23 boldness knows the value of speaking the truth. And I'm saying value here because there is a cost to speaking the truth. There is. It could cost you a relationship. It could
21:35 cost you a great friendship. It could cost you a job if you're in the business world. It could cost you a lot of money telling the truth. There is a cost because there is a value that goes along with it. Things that
21:47 don't cost us anything don't actually have value. Do you realize that? See, what Micaiah is saying here is that he values what God says more than being liked, more than fitting in,
21:59 more than keeping the peace and more than being perceived as loving by the world that he's around and in his case, more than being thrown into prison because that's exactly what happens to him after he actually tells the
22:10 truth. Right? To him, life lived as a lie was not life at all. To to Micaiah, life lived in silence of what you believe is just living a lie.
22:22 That's all that is. See, even if it meant everyone was set against him, even if it meant that he was going to have terrible things happen to him, he realized he had an obligation to the truth when everyone wanted him
22:34 to shut up and just go along with it and don't create waves, don't make things awkward, just let it be. And I feel like we're living in a middle of a culture that loves to cancel people and loves to
22:45 classify telling somebody the truth as hate. I mean, I felt there's so many texts in this scripture right here that in the years to come are going to be banned. You're not gonna be able to read them out loud anymore
22:57 because they're they're too hateful. We're gonna silence love because we're gonna call it hate, right? We had a couple of people even watched as Jeff has read some text from the Bible. Pastor Jeff brings the
23:09 word and he speaks it and sometimes he's just reading it. I've watched people get up and leave because truth in the face of sin feels like pain and you'll tell other people they're haters. Charles Haddon
23:21 Spurgeon has such a great quote. He said this, bold men are always called mean spirited by cowards. Isn't that the truth? If you're saying something that I don't like or it
23:33 rubs me the wrong way, it's your fault. You gave him the old Adam. It's the woman that you put here. It's her fault or it's your fault, but I didn't do anything. You're being mean.
23:45 Right? When I make the mistake of watching the news and happens from time to time or it's on a reel or even a clip, I'm like, it won't be a big deal. It's fine. Turn it on. And then I'm like, the world is ending.
23:57 Right? Like what, like what is happening out there? And I see videos of stuff that's happening in Canada where like guys are just trying to hand out Bibles and share the gospel. They're getting arrested. I was watching
24:09 this video of this guy just trying to do baptisms and there was a mob of people going after and shouting all kinds of terrible stuff and I'm like, that is not that far away. And it oftentimes feels
24:21 like the whole world is set against us and this is why I wanna remind you guys, that's okay because we have a heritage of standing firm even in the midst of crazy. There's this guy that I loved. His name is Saint
24:32 Athanasius. And I don't know. You guys need to know like I'm a nerd. I like reading. I'm sorry but this is cool. There's some of the best stuff that we need to know is from history because it teaches us what we need to
24:43 do going forward. Athanasius loved the deity of Jesus Christ. He loved the person of Jesus and he spent so much time writing about who Christ was and and what it means for us to
24:55 actually know him and our salvation and what truth was. And there was a whole group of people called the Arians. And the Arians were coming in and they were trying to convince people that actually Jesus wasn't God.
25:07 And so what they were doing is they were fighting in a way that we see similar to today. They were telling priests, if you use this kind of language, if you use these words, we're going to remove you from authority and
25:17 we're gonna place someone who agrees with us in your place. And they kicked Athanasius out of his own hometown 5 different times. He'd he'd preach the truth. He'd be writing and they would
25:29 kick him out and then eventually he'd come back and they'd try to kick him out again. 17 years he sent exiled away from his own people because he would just continue to speak the truth no matter
25:41 what because he loved Jesus too much to let it go. He understood the cost and people came up to him and and 1 of his famous quotes people said, Athanasius quit. The the whole world is set against
25:52 you. And he said, then tell them Athanasius is contra mundum. Tell them Athanasius is against the world. Let them know because he wasn't gonna back down about it. He understood the cost of Christ was too
26:04 valuable to let people trample on it and silence it. Here's my question. Do you live your life in such a way that it is obvious you champion the value of truth and the
26:16 lordship of Jesus? Even if it gets you in trouble. If the world continues to set itself against Christ, are you willing to set yourself against the world like Athanasius? 1
26:28 of my favorite prophets in the Bible is this prophet named Jeremiah. He's frequently called the weeping prophet because he spends a lot of time rumbling and frustrated. He would do what God told him to do, say what God
26:40 told him to say and when he would do it, they would throw him in pits. They would beat him up. They'd tear up the works that he did and and there's this verse that a lot of young Christians like to quote from Jeremiah 20
26:51 verse 9 and it says, if I say I won't speak anymore in his name, then his word is in my heart like a fire shut up in my bones. I'm weary of holding it in. Indeed, I cannot. And and a lot of people like, yes,
27:02 that's how I feel. His words like a fire. And and really in that text, what's happening is is he's upset. He's frustrated. He's like, God, every time I do what you tell me to do,
27:14 it does not go well for me. How many of you guys know that we can we can reinterpret what blessing is supposed to mean? God's like, I'm gonna bless you and you're like, yes, jewels, cars. It's gonna be
27:26 bright. But actually blessing is so much bigger than that. You see, he understood in that moment even if he didn't want what was happening to him that the value of Christ was too important to stop
27:38 speaking. It was like a fire inside of him. And today, and through generations after that, thousands of years, people are being blessed by the words of Jeremiah who refused to back down and kept saying what needed to be
27:49 said. He wouldn't quit. Blessing is totally different when you understand it with kingdom lenses. It goes a totally different direction. See, ask yourself the question. Are you looking to be faithful by our world
28:00 standards? Are you looking to be faithful by Christ standards? See, Micaiah knows this is not gonna go well for him when he tells the truth. But he isn't looking for a successful life as 1 of the king's
28:12 prophets. He's looking to be faithful to truth incarnate. This man has the spirit of Jesus inside of him. I love reading it because it just stands out and it fires me up, guys. Bold faith is a herald of the
28:24 truth in a world that is opposed to it. Micaiah calls us to live to this example. Bold faith speaks God's word and it knows the cost. Now, there's something interesting that
28:36 happens in this chapter that I wanna show you guys. So come with me to verses 18. We're gonna read through 27. This is pretty interesting. Micaiah said, therefore, hear the word of the Lord. I
28:48 saw the Lord sitting on his throne and all the hosts of heaven standing on his right and on his left. And the Lord said, who will entice Ahab king of Israel to go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And 1 said this while
28:59 another said that. Then the spirit came forward and stood before the Lord and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said to him, how? He said, I will go and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all of his prophets. Then
29:10 he said, you are to entice him and prevail also, go and do so. Now, behold the Lord has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of these your prophets for the Lord has proclaimed disaster against
29:22 you. Then Zedekiah, the son of Chanana came near and struck Micaiah on the cheek and said, how did the spirit of the Lord pass from me to speak to you? Micaiah said, behold, you will see on that day when you
29:34 enter an inner room to hide yourself because of the destruction that was coming. Then the king of Israel said, take Micaiah and return him to Ammon, the governor of the city and to Joash the king's son and say, thus says
29:46 the king, put this man in prison and feed him sparingly with bread and water until I return safely. And Micaiah said this, man bristling with words here. If you indeed return safely, the Lord has not
29:58 spoken by me. And he said, listen all you people. Okay. Real boldness. This is important with regard to truth and speaking and proclaiming truth
30:09 incarnate. We need to understand that truth is spiritual warfare. Truth is spiritual warfare. It's not just what's happening in the physical and in the moment. There's something much bigger
30:21 happening when the truth is actually proclaimed and brought up. Now there's something very special that happens in this text that happens from time to time. And that is when the curtains kind of get pulled back and we
30:32 get to see into the heavenlies and understand some of what is actually happening behind the scenes. And what we see in this text is that God is on his throne and his plan is to give
30:44 Ahab over to his own wicked heart. Okay. This is exactly what we see in Romans 1. When it talks about the wickedness of men who suppress the truth of God and unrighteousness and instead
30:56 choose a lie. And what it says again and again is, and God gave them over. And the picture here is that God is actually holding back evil in his
31:08 common grace. He's restraining evil and people from doing all the things that they would actually like to do. But what we need to understand is that if you keep pushing God and saying, this is what I want. This is what I
31:19 want. This is what I want. Eventually, he will let you have your way and that is what the Bible calls the wrath of God. Now listen, Christian, you don't want your
31:31 way. You don't. Now listen, if if your way and God's way are lined up, praise God. We want that. Like that's awesome. That's what we're shooting for is to align our hearts with who Christ
31:43 is and what he wants in his will. But if your way and God's way are not the same thing and you keep pushing, you're actually gonna find yourself fighting against God and under
31:55 his wrath. You cannot say I love Jesus and I'm pursuing him and I want him and continue running the opposite direction and not expect things and expect things to go well for you. It
32:07 doesn't doesn't happen that way. We see God sending a spirit into the mouths of these prophets to entice Ahab's heart to go up against Ramoth Gilead. We see God giving a wicked
32:18 spirit, the ability to have its way in this man's life and the life of the people who are set against him, picking the wrong fights, going along with things that he shouldn't and going into eminent
32:30 destruction. Now, have you guys ever had a friend that would like cheer you on and doing things wrong? How many of you have been that friend? I have a
32:42 history. Alright. I wasn't born in glory and just floated up and yes, I love the Lord. It was messy and I remember several times where I was a voice in somebody's ear that was not right. Now, now here's what I want you
32:53 guys to see. When things go wrong or you're about to do something wrong, there's usually 2 people. 1 is the person that you wanna call who's gonna tell you, yeah, you should do that.
33:05 Absolutely. Go for it. And there's another person that you should call and you're like, I'm not calling him because he'll tell me the truth. You know, hate that. Right? And
33:17 we know what that feels like. See the voice of a wicked world in your life is a voice of a deceiving spirit. And if you bite, you will be sitting under an aspect of the wrath of God.
33:29 This is why it is so important that we speak the truth. This is why we see Peter telling Jesus or Jesus telling Peter, get behind me Satan. For you don't have in mind the things of God, but the things of man. What he was
33:41 saying is we need to understand when something is opposing what God is saying needs to happen. There is a spiritual perspective and fight happening in that moment and you need to understand that so that you don't
33:53 cave. This is why it's so important for us to speak the truth because you're not just telling somebody something. You're speaking to spiritual realities that you can't even fully understand to try to hold back
34:05 destruction that is trying to encroach on people. This is what John the Baptist was doing when he was standing outside of Herod's house saying, you gotta quit sinning. You're in sin. Don't do this anymore. And some of
34:16 you are like, are we allowed to tell non Christians not to sin? Yes, please. Why? Because there's something spiritual going on. There's a fight for this thing that's
34:27 actually happening. Listen to me. Telling the truth may be the difference between heaven and hell for someone. There's this text that we love to quote from second Corinthians 10 and it talks about we don't fight like the
34:39 world fights. We're not fighting against flesh and blood. We're Our weapons are powerful destroying, you know, strongholds and principalities and all this stuff and it and it says this, that we're destroying
34:50 speculations. What are those? Just lies and lofty thoughts. I love that. Sounds great, not true. That are setting themselves up against the knowledge of God and we're taking every thought
35:02 captive and making it subject to Christ. And what we tend to preach on in the church is the personal nature of that verse, which is totally true. We're taking every thought captive. The second is corporal. What
35:14 we're talking about here is that actually what we're what we're doing is proclaiming truth to lies all the way across everywhere. Like like what's the point of preaching? To speak truth to lies.
35:26 To make those thoughts that are wicked and set against God subject to Christ. We're speaking truth and saying those things have to fall and as Christians were called to do that because we're fighting for people.
35:38 We're trying to keep them from destruction. Trying to keep them from their own way because if they get their own way, it's not gonna go well for them. Nothing is more sad to me than hearing sermons
35:49 from pastors and woke pastors that don't talk about sin. They don't talk about judgment. They don't talk about hell. They certainly don't talk about anything offensive. And
36:01 what they don't see is that they're being offensive to God. The 1 person that they should care about, the 1 person that they should not want to offend. Truth matters. Alright?
36:13 Telling someone a lie to help them feel better about their current situation is actually not love. That's hatred. You're saying go ahead. Do you do your thing that we don't wanna do that. We wanna fight for them and
36:24 listen to me. Going along with somebody who's living in sin is just selfishness. So what you're saying in that moment is I'm more interested in our relationship, staying comfortable and fine and not making things
36:35 awkward. So I'm just gonna go ahead and let you do it. Now, here's a slide I wanna show you. See if we can get it up here. Look at that for a sec. Like, it's
36:47 funny, but it's also not funny, right? It's funny, but it's sad because I feel like our world is teaching us that's what love is. And
36:59 that's not what love is. It's an offense to God when we espouse teachings and ideas like that. It's not godly at all. It's not loving. It's it's hateful to somebody. Micaiah speaks the truth and
37:11 he knows when he hears a demonic voice out of somebody else's mouth to you. Do you know when you're hearing something that is actually opposed to what God is trying to tell people? See, Jesus wasn't
37:23 killed because of his miracles or his kindness to hurting people. You realize that, right? They killed him because he told the truth. They killed him because he wasn't willing to buckle in those areas.
37:35 See, church, truth is war. Truth is choosing aside. Truth is incarnate in Jesus. And what we're trying to do is place Jesus in front of people and say, this is him. When you're telling somebody
37:47 the truth, what you're doing is presenting Christ. And what sometimes we try to do as Christians is this awkward like, oh hi Jesus behind me and I'll kind of talk to you and at some point I'm gonna try to show you like
37:58 little bits of them. No. Like present Jesus. He's the 1 that saves not us, not your awesome crafty argument. It's just truth. Amen. We wanna present Christ to people like he's the 1
38:10 that actually saves, not our ability to make people feel comfortable. Do you see telling the truth is spiritual warfare? If you struggle being upfront with the truth in your life, I wanna encourage you today, be bold in
38:22 your faith. Be bold in your faith. Speaking the truth is 1 of the single most important things you can ever do as a Christian. And it breaks my heart to see so many people taking scissors to the Bible or throwing it out
38:33 wholesale because of comfort. Or because of what our world is calling love today. I gotta tell you this. Listen. If you lose the fight for being vocal about the truth,
38:45 it's just evidence that you've lost a spiritual fight in your heart. It's evidence of where you've already lost on the inside. If you're not willing to stand on the outside, it's because of what's happening inside of us.Show more
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