Judges 17

The Time of the Judges and Why Judges 17 Is Out of Sequence

Andy's drawing's better than mine, so y 'all can pick at mine. He had a big Hershey's Kiss up here when he did his. So from chapter 1 to 3, 6, what did Andy call it when he gave y 'all the entry in November?

This was the description of the time of the judges. Is that how you said it, right, Andy? Okay, description. And from 3, 7 to 16 was the time of the judges. This here, from 17, is the continual description of the judges.

We're starting 17, but this actually takes, this period right here actually takes place in between these two verses. I'm going to show you why we come to that conclusion from the text internally, not externally.

First, if you take your Bible, go to Judges 18. And this is going to be at the end of the situation with Micaiah. But this is going to tell you what time frame this took place, so you know I'm not just pulling this out of my hat.

It says in verse 30 that the sons of Dan set up for themselves the graven image and Jonathan, the son of Gershom, the son of anybody's text say Manasseh, okay, hold that thought. The son of Moses and his sons were the priest of the tribe of Dan until the time of the captivity.

I was hoping Mike Smith would be here today because I could have him stand up and then Mike stand up because Gershom would have been the son of Moses, everybody remember Gershom? Anybody not remember who Gershom was?

And Gershom is Moses' son that Zipporah had to circumcise before he went to lead God's people out. She cut his foreskin off and she threw it on him and says God was going to kill you because you're a man of blood.

If you don't remember that whole scenario, go back to Exodus, I think six, seven, eight, somewhere around there. But Gershom was his son. His son, Jonathan, is this priest that becomes a crooked priest.

So I was going to have Mike stand up and have you stand up because that would show you how far from the time of Moses that this takes place, two generations, okay? Then if you go over to, that's internally, and if you go over to Judges 20, I think it's around 27, 28, here it is, 27, and the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord for the ark of the covenant, or the ark of the covenant of God was in those where, I'm sorry, back up, and the sons of Israel inquired of the Lord, the ark of the covenant of God was there in those days and Phineas, the son of Eleazar, Aaron's son, everybody remember who Phineas was?

Anybody not know who Phineas was?

What did Phineas do? He stopped the plague by killing the Midianites, it was a Midianite woman.

They were having sex outside, open blading, the plague went out, he ran and shoved a spear right through him and her and stuck him to the ground. And what does it say? Phineas was serving, and who was Phineas?

Aaron's grandson. So once again, this time takes place back here. That's how we come to that conclusion. Now, back to the Manasseh Moses. How many people's Bible says Manasseh? Andy, what does yours say?

It says Manasseh. It does? All right. This is something... Does anybody have a footnote? Okay. What verse was that again in A .P.? 30, I think. Man, that didn't go away good, did it? If you were to look at the Hebrew text, I wrote it that way because you read it backwards.

Okay? Okay. Mem, Shem, He. Those are the three vowels, okay? Remember, there's no vowels in Hebrew, okay? But you have vowel points. So in the Hebrew text, you have a vowel point here, here, here, here, here, here.

That tells you how to pronounce those, Moshe, okay? Follow me? What would that word be? Moses. That's what it says in the Hebrew text. That's what it says. Listen, I'm not going on that conclusion. That's what the Hebrew says.

Black Vulgate, that's translated that way. Jerome translated it. It says it's Moses. The Talmud. How many people have heard of the Talmud? Anybody? First and second generation Hebrew commentaries on what the Hebrew text and the Masoretic text says.

All of them say that this said Moses, okay? But where the discrepancy comes in with Manasseh is right in the text is this vowel. And I put it like this because it's called a suspended noon. That actually is called a noon in Hebrew.

That's the vowel. And there's a vowel point right here. They put it suspended above the line because it's not part of the original text. It was added by the translators to try to sanitize Moses' name.

Does anybody know why they would want to do that? His name was supposed to be written down. Ma 'am? His name was supposed to be known. They were trying to keep Moses away from this immortal Levite we're fixing to talk about.

That's what it is. That's not my conclusion. That is the conclusion from the Hebrew text. That's why some of yours will say Manasseh and some will say Moses, okay? That's why. So this, when you pronounce it this way by adding this suspended noon, Manasseh.

What is that? Manasseh. Okay? So when 18, when we get to that, you'll know why some say Moses and some says Manasseh. All right. This would have been the Sea of Galilee, Jordan River, Dead Sea, would have had land of Judah, somewhere like here, Judah, then you would have had Benjamin and you would have had Ephraim.

Then all of what we're fixing to do over the next five weeks is going to take place primarily within these areas. You have Gibeon, which will be here. This will be very, very terrible, and you have Jerusalem here and Bethlehem, and then you have right here in the land of, right just above the land of Benjamin, you have, which is Bethel and Shiloh.

All of this will take place in this vicinity right here, with the exception of one event when we get to the top, and we'll talk about that whenever we get there. All right. Let's get to the text now that y 'all watched me draw.

Micah, the Stolen Silver, and the Making of Idols

Judges chapter 17. Now, there was a man of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micaiah. He said to his mother, the 1 ,100 pieces of silver which were taken from you, about which you uttered a curse in my hearing, behold, the silver is with me.

I have taken it. And his mother said, blessed be my son by the Lord, for he has returned the 1 ,100 pieces of silver to his mother. And his mother said, I wholly dedicate this silver from my hand to the Lord for my son to make a graven image and a molten image.

Now therefore, I will return to them to you. So when he returned the silver to his mother, his mother took 200 pieces of that silver and gave it to the silversmith who then made a graven image, a molten image, and they were set in the house of Micah.

And the man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod, a household of idols, and he consecrated one of his sons and he made him become a priest. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes.

Now, there was a young man from the Bethlehem of Judah and the family of Judah. He was a Levite and he was staying there. And when the man departed from the city, from Bethlehem in Judah, he went to stay wherever he might find a place.

As he made his journey, he came to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah. And Micah said to him, where do you come from? He said to him, I'm a Levite from Bethlehem in Judah, and I'm going to stay wherever I might find a place.

Micah then said to him, dwell with me and be a father and a priest to me and I will give you 10 pieces of silver a year, a suit of clothes for your maintenance. So the Levite went in and the Levite agreed to live with the man and the young man and become like a son to him.

So Micah consecrated the Levite, the young man became his priest and he lived in the house of Micah. Micah now said, now I know that the Lord will prosper me seeing I have a Levite as a priest. That's kind of crazy sounding.

As we read through and go through the next five weeks, this is the constant thing that should come up. What in the world is going on? And then the next thing we should say is the most important question we should always ask about scripture.

Why? Why is it here? Why is it here? Hopefully we'll show that over the next five weeks. So let's start in verse one. Now there was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micaiah. That sounds like a great thing considering if you know what Micaiah means.

Micaiah is a shorter derivative of Machael, which means, who said it, Michael, but what's the, Michael, what's that, what's the name, know what the name is? Who is like God. That's what it means for the shortness, who is like Yahweh.

So they have actually not made it, who is like Elohim, but really made it very pinpointed as who was like Yahweh. And from the beginning, that sounds like this is going to be good, but we're going to very quickly in verse two, this is bad.

He said to his mother, the 1 ,100 pieces of silver, which were taken from you about which you uttered a curse in my hearing, behold, the silver is with me and I have taken it. First of all, 1 ,100 pieces of silver is a lot of cash back then.

Anybody remember the last time we heard about 1 ,100 pieces of silver? Anybody remember?

Last week? I'm sorry? I said, I hope I do because I'm the one that said it.

Yeah, it was 1 ,100 pieces of silver, and there was actually five lords of the Philistines of Gaza actually, hey, each one of them was going to give Delilah 1 ,100 pieces of silver to turn over. So this chick obviously, Machiah's mother is obviously very wealthy.

She must have hit the Philistine jackpot, powerball, because she is loaded. And it says here there's 1 ,100 pieces of silver that were taken from her, and she uttered a curse. Now, we don't know what that curse was.

We just know she said whatever it was, God run down all the cursings from Deuteronomy on top of the dirty, rotten, scoundrel, dirtbag that stole my money. We don't know what it said, okay? We just know this, whatever that curse was, Machiah heard it.

And he immediately says, I took it. That silver is with me. I stole your money, Mom. So Mom immediately goes from cursing to blessing, because look what it says. It says, and his mother then said, well, bless me, my son, by the Lord.

He then returned 1 ,100 pieces of silver to his mother, and his mother said, I wholly dedicate this silver from my hand to the Lord. I'm going to stop there for just a second, because that sounds like a great idea, doesn't it?

Here it is. Her money's been stolen. Her son, for however you want to see it, as a form of repentance, whether it's just giving it back, he goes, hey, man, I don't want to be cursed, I'm going to give my mom her money back.

He gives her her money back, and then she says, well, you know what, I'm thankful that I got my cash back. I don't think she was thankful that her son repented, because he doesn't really repent. We'll learn that as we go on.

He's just happy she had 1 ,100 pieces of silver back. So then she says, I'm going to do what? Dedicate this to the Lord. So she said 1 ,100 pieces of silver from his mother. His mother says, I'm going to wholly dedicate this silver from my hand to the Lord, and here it goes, for my son to do what?

Make a graven image. Man, that ain't good. That ain't good. So she's going to dedicate it to the Lord to make an idol? Once again, what, what? Is God going to be approved of this? No. I mean, what do we see right here?

The laws that are being broken right here in the Mosaic legislation is one, two, three and four. No graven image, no gospel for me, dishonor your mother and blaspheme in the name of the Lord. That's exactly what's taking place right here.

Says, then my hand, I'm sorry, and then now, therefore, I will return them to you. So he returned the silver to his mother. She then took the 200 pieces of silver and they took him to the silversmith and they made them into a graven and molten image.

Now, the graven image and the molten image are actually two types of way of making an idol. One, either they took a piece of wood, they whittled it. You can read in Isaiah. He makes a statement of, hey, you've taken your, your pieces of wood, you've whittled it down.

Then you take your, the refuse, you sweep it up and you throw it into a trash can. You overlay it with gold and you bow down and talk to it. Okay. That's basically what it's doing. They're going to make either a, an image out of a piece of wood or out of a piece of stone and then they're going to take the silver and they're going to overlay it, the 200 pieces of it.

And then it says they were, and this took place in the house of Micaiah. So they're going to put these idols in Micah's house. Now verse five, and Micaiah had a shrine and made an ephod and household idols and consecrated his son that he might become a priest.

It was a shrine and what else? It says he did an ephod. Bet ah olahim. That's what it says. Anybody say house of gods in their translation? That's what it is. That's what a shrine is. The house of the gods.

The Hebrew is bet ah olahim. This is going to be house of idols. Notice it's plural. You may remember what an ephod was. It's kind of like an apron, right? Yeah, but what was significant of an ephod?

Well, it had stuff hanging on it or something, right? Yeah. Keep going.

I think that's all I know. Okay. The ephod had some stuff hanging off of it.

Okay. If you go back to the Mosaic legislation, who was the person that wore the ephod? A high priest. A high priest. And it did have a bunch of stuff hanging off of it, by the way. It did. A bunch of purple and very ornate.

And this was significant in that this distinguished who the high priest was. Nobody else wore the one with all the jewels and all the ornate apron or vest, however you want to see it. If it's an apron or vest, however you want to come up to your conclusion on it, that's you.

But it did. It drove over the shoulders, had hooks, and it hung down. Some people think it was a vest. I think it's more like an apron. So the ephod was to signify priesthood. That's what it was for. You see what he did?

Right here. He made a shrine of idols, and then he made an ephod, and then what did he do? What did Micah do? Hey, junior, come up out of the field and quit chasing the goats, and I'm going to make you a priest.

Did Micah have the authority to make somebody a priest? How did somebody become a priest? What's that? They were born. They were born a priest. Priests were born, not made, under the Mosaic legislation.

So here it is. He makes a shrine. He makes an ephod. Who else made an ephod that led people off into idolatry? We just went through it a few weeks ago, a number of weeks ago. Gideon. So here it is. He made his son a priest.

And then here's the, in verse 6, In those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. Wouldn't you say that Micah making his own priest out of his son, making a shrine where he can worship however he wants, and making the ephod for his son or for whomever he makes a priest, you don't think that's doing what they want to do right in their own eyes?

There's a word for what he's doing, a theological term, and it happens all through the Old Testament, especially with Jeroboam. He leads the whole nation. It's called syncretism. And the same thing happens in Exodus 32, when Moses goes up on the mountain to get the commandments, after he had already had the Ten Commandments, he goes back up there to get the rest of the 613 commands and prohibitions, and he comes down, and what are they doing?

What's that? They're worshiping an idol, but what did they call the idol? They called him Yahweh. So syncretism is taking right view, and I'm careful when I say this, of God, understanding that there's a true and living God, there's one God, and it's Yahweh.

That's what I'm talking about when I say the right view of who, that there's one God. But then syncretism then says we're going to worship our way. Anybody remember what the Puritans called this, when they worshiped their own way?

The Puritan calls it the will way. They don't worship any way they will. Spell that word, please. Which one? Syncretism. Oh, boy. S-Y-N-C-H-R-I-N-Z-E. Syncretism. I-S-M.

I-Z-M. What is it, Annie? Google it. I was just wondering because, I mean. Syncretism is not a biblical word.

That's not a biblical word. It's a way of showing how you take two ideas and you mesh them together. Jeroboam led the whole. Anybody remember what Jeroboam did? Anybody remember in the Old Testament? Jeroboam, remember God split the kingdom in half.

One went to Rehoboam, one went to Jeroboam. Solomon, one went to his neighbor, basically, and one went to his son. Well, one led the whole nation off into idolatry by making a golden calf and calling it Yahweh.

That's what they did. That's syncretism. It's all in the church today. All you've got to do is just look around in most of your feel-good, touchy churches, and syncretism is what's going on.

It's syncing one thing with another.

Synthesizing, too. You're bringing them together to try to make it. Hey, you can have a right view that there is one true and living God. You can. And you can have the right view that God has revealed himself in three persons but one essence.

But then as soon as you make an idol out of whatever that is, then you've been out of syncretism. You're worshiping God not the way that he prescribed. And under the Old Testament, when you worshiped in a way that was not prescribed, what was supposed to happen?

What? Death. Yeah, you take them outside the camp and you stone them. Hey, syncretism, blaspheming the name of God. That's exactly what it does. There was a man that was blaspheming the name of God. I think it was in maybe Leviticus 24.

And they come to Moses and they say, Hey, what do we do with this guy? Moses says, Bring him to me. Bring him to me. He says, Were you blaspheming the name of the Lord? They said, Yeah. He said, You take him outside the camp.

And who were the people that brought him to me first that heard it? He said, Okay, now you pick up the stones. You start stoning him first. The rest of the congregation will come behind you. That's what he did.

That's tough, man.

You know, mad. Yes, sir. So isn't this kind of like what Nadab and Abihu did? And that's kind of where the reformers got that regular principle of worship where God asked you to worship the way he has prescribed.

Yeah, Nadab and Abihu, they disobeyed explicitly in how they were to dedicate the tabernacle with fire. Yeah, I don't think that's really syncretistic because they hadn't even dedicated it yet. In the dedication of it, they go get strange fire or whatever that meant.

It was something that they were told not to do. And they went to light those censers with it. And what happened? Fire came out from a tabernacle and consumed them. That's exactly what happened. Yeah. So God doesn't play.

And you say, Man, that was pretty tough in the Old Testament. Well, just remember what God said under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to the writer in Hebrews. Do you think that they showed no mercy on those under the Mosaic law?

They showed it without mercy, those that disobeyed the law. That's what it says. He says, But how much more a severer punishment will you suffer for those that trample on the blood of Christ? That's worse.

So you say, Man, God was pretty tough in the Old Testament. Well, you need to read your New Testament a little bit more. There's coming a day. There's coming a day. And when that dam that's holding back his wrath, imagine a little old dwarf like me standing in front of the Hoover Dam and poof!

I would just be gone. Man, that's what's going to happen to all of humanity that has rejected the revelation of who God is under the new covenant. OK? Where is that? What's that? Where is that? That's in Hebrews chapter 10, verses 27 through 31, I think.

My Bible also says he made a teraphim. What is that? That's a God. OK. Yeah, that's an idol. OK. Yeah.

Yeah, a teraphim's a God. So here it is. We've got to move. We have a shrine made, an ephod made, and the household of idols. Hey, is yours right after the ephod, yours says teraphim? Yeah, that's it, household idols.

So you have all these. You have idols. And it's not one. I mean, this guy's full of them. And that's going to be very important when he goes on into the next thing. You see what takes place with all that shenanigans.

Oh, the one he's talking about, that is. Now let's go to the next paragraph. It says, now there was a young man from Bethlehem. Interesting how the first one begins, hey, there was a man, and then the next paragraph says there was a young man from Bethlehem in Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he was staying there.

Now, the young man probably, the Hebrew word there is nahar, and it probably is someone that has a wide range of adolescence to about the age of 20. And I don't think the kid was 13 walking around, but who knows?

It could have been. But probably around 20, because he had already left home. And it says that he was from the area of Judah, so he was a Levite, and he was staying there. And the man departed from that city, so he left Bethlehem, and he just started walking.

He leaves, and he comes to the hill country of Ephraim, to the house of Micah. And Micah says to him, where do you come from? And he said, well, I'm a Levite from Bethlehem of Judah, and I'm going to stay wherever I can find a place.

And Micah then said to him, dwell with me, and be a father and a priest to me, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, and a suit of clothes for your maintenance. So here it is. This Levite, his name comes up in chapter 18, which was Moses' grandson, he's walking around looking for a place to hang out, and what Micah does is what they were supposed to do for their countrymen.

They're supposed to be hospitable. Well, he's a little bit more than hospitable. He finds out he's a Levite, and he says, well, come on in. And I'll put you into service. He said, dwell with me and be a father.

Interesting that here it is, an older man of Ephraim, Micah, says, I want you to be a father to me. Is that not ridiculous? Once again, what?

What? You can leave that up for next week, brother. The why? I'll use it.

I wish I had a little button. What? What? He says, you can be a priest to me, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year. Ten pieces of silver is a lot of money. I mean, just think how that 1 ,100 pieces of silver, that would have been over 100 years' wages is what Micah had stolen.

So now he says, hey, I'll pay you ten pieces of silver a year. I'm going to give you food, and I'm going to give you this funny robe. I'm going to give you some clothes to wear and whatever your maintenance is.

So, one, this priest is going to eat good, he's going to look good, and you have a good place to stay. And he's just been wandering. Would you say that that priest, man, what should that Levitical priest have said when he said, I'll make you a priest?

What should he have said? What's that? Good. Only God. Yeah, he should have. Dude, he was this far. He was that far from Moses. He should have said, no, man, my granddad would roll over in his grave because God would strike me dead if I did this.

But what does he do? He's like, man, I'm hungry. I'm walking around. My clothes are kind of dusty. I'll be on the take. So now this Levite no longer disregards God's law. Hey, just to let you know, both these sections that we're going to go through fall at the feet of the Levites.

It's their fault. This section and the one coming up after this, both of them, all on the feet of the Levite. What was the Levite's responsibility? Teach the law. They were to teach God's people the law.

And they were supposed to intercede for God's people. Man, this dude ain't doing nothing. He's doing whatever's right in his own eyes. What? Once again, that said there was no king in Israel. A disregard for the law and this Levite now becomes a professional.

He's going to get paid. So Micah consecrates this Levite in verse 12. We'll wrap it up. So Micah consecrated the Levite. The young man became his priest. He lived in the house of Micah. And then Micah said, here it is.

What? Now I know that the Lord will prosper me seeing how I have a Levite as a priest. What? He has found his four-leaf clover. He thinks that God is going to approve of his disregard for God's law. Because now he's got a man of a Levitical priesthood.

Is that not the most retarded thing? I mean, this should make you go... Because here it is, the Levite's going, I have no problem going in and making oblations or whatever they're going to do. However, he does this before these idols.

There is no fear of God in them. None. Zero. What's that?

No fear of God in any of them. Because every... But since there's no fear of God in them, could we look at that and say that they weren't drawn? They would not understand?

That is a New Testament idea of being drawn like that. We would say this, they had disregard for the law of God. They knew what the law of God was. You have no other gods before me, you bow down to no greater image.

The idea of being drawn, like you're talking about, is more of a New Testament wooing of the Spirit or drawing of the Holy Spirit. That's not what this is talking about. We can talk about it another time if you want to, no problem.

But that's not what this is dealing with. This is dealing with open, blatant, hey, I want to honor God, and I want to honor God my way. I want to honor God by making my idols. I don't want... Hey, you've got to understand, where this is taking place, it's just right down the road from where the tabernacle is.

This dude's been walking around for a place to find, and all he had to do was either go to Bethel or Shiloh, depending on where you thought it was at this specific time. We know it's going to wind up being...

Well, we'll get that next week. It's right down the road. It's right down the road, and they're going to worship their own way. They're going to do what's right. Here it is. They're going to just do whatever's right in their own eyes.

There's no fear of God. Now, it does make the statement back in the end of verse 6 where it says, in those days there was no king in Israel, and every man did what was right in his own eyes. And that is setting up some things that are going to take place.

That's how the book's set up thematically, what will take place when you go into Samuel, which will kind of bring kings in. But do we think for one second, though, that if there would have just been a king, that this would not have been happening?

No, because what happens to Jeroboam? He does the same thing. But it is setting up the fact that we do need... Andy, I'm going to have to clean this up so you can write it. It looks like John Madden was up here.

We do need a priest. Faithful, though. There's no faithful priest right here. I would even say this was taking place at the time of Eli and his sons were in Shiloh. I would even say this may have an over...

I'm not in this time, but the period of the judges. You get to the end at the time of Samson, I'd say that's probably an overlap. Andy may disagree a little bit because it's kind of intertwined. But Eli was probably a priest in Shiloh.

But was he faithful? Man, he had some disobedient sons that were just taking advantage. They were having sex with the women, taking food they weren't supposed to. Unfaithful. So this is setting up that what do we need?

We need a faithful priest. Then what do we need? We need a king. But we need a king that's righteous. We need a priest that's faithful and a king that's righteous. There ain't none in the book of Judges.

Even the deliverers that rose up, were they faithful? They were faithful to believe that God could deliver his people. But they weren't continually faithful. They were continually unfaithful. Why? Because the Judges was a period of how Israel was, and it was depicted in each individual that was raised up.

Were they righteous? That's a loaded question. You could say, well, were they declared righteous? Did they rule righteously? Would that sound better? No, they didn't. There was a time that they did, but then it fell away.

They did not have someone to continually rule righteously. So that's what this is setting up. There was no king in Israel, and there was no priest that was faithful. Question, comments, outbursts of anger?

Roger, demonstrations. We've got five minutes for you to throw stuff at me or disagree.

Why Judges Helps Us Understand the Whole Book

I think it's interesting, as you bring this up, because if you think about it, it kind of helps us understand the Judges. In other words, we went through the Judges, remember all the discussion we had about how could they do what they're doing?

And now you're reading what was going on. So when we see the Judges, you kind of get a little better perspective, I think, of what's actually taking place behind these people that God raised up. Faulty people, incomplete people, but yet God in His faithfulness still uses them as He did with Samson to deliver.

So I think it helps us get a perspective of the whole book by reading at the end what took place before the Judges.

Yeah, and that's why it's bookend that way by whoever the writer was. It's bookended that way to say, hey, man, this was the whole time, from the time that they failed to take the land to the time that Samuel comes on the scene.

This was it. This is what they did. Everybody did what was right in their own eyes. They did worship how they wanted. Were there sporadic places where there was faithful men? Yes, we'll see that in chapter 20 with Phineas.

Was he a faithful servant of God? Yeah, he was. But that was not the consistent pattern of the people. It was consistently disobedient. Hey, and as we move forward, I think I said this weeks and weeks and weeks ago, you're going to have rampant idolatry.

You're going to have rape, homosexual rape, genocide, abduction. You're going to have women, 400-plus women, swooped in virgins to be forced into marriage. I mean, this is this is bad. Yeah.

Worship, the Regulative Principle, and Everyday Faithfulness

What? Yes, sir. Yes. Sort of kind of to piggyback off of what you were saying, like, well, why were they even attempting to worship God? The reverence there is the proper reverence, I would say. And looking at the application, like even for today, like what do we see from this is like when there is an absence of, you know, you have the prophet as well.

You know, the word of God. When there is an unrighteous king or someone who is faithful, we get even today people who I think Paul was telling Timothy, have the itching ears and they will go and, you know, and to get people to say what they want them to say.

And they worship the way that they want to worship. And so we sort of kind of see the same thing today when we look at that. It's easy to say, well, that's Old Testament. But like the gentleman was talking about the regular principle, you have people who really do believe that there is a God one.

Sure. But hey, let me find a church that's going to suit my needs in the way that I want to worship him. And regardless of what the words say, how I feel, and a pastor that is going to be silent and not speak, I don't have any more.

Would you still say it's because those men are professionals? I'm not saying people shouldn't be paid for their job. They should be paid well for people that are in full-time ministry. But by and large, they're looking like you said.

They want to hear what they want to hear. And syncretism does have a part of that. I'm going to spell that out for you. Don't do a spelling bee right now. But that is syncretism is that people want to hear what they want to hear.

They raise up itching ears. What are itching ears? They raise up false teachers. Hey, there are some men that would agree in what we agree on on the Trinity, on, quote, by confession, faith alone, and Christ alone.

But the application of how that works out in the life of believers would be vastly wrong. Vastly wrong. I don't know if we can get into the regulative principles, normative, and all that. And some people might not know what I'm talking about.

But there is a way to worship God. He has revealed it.

He has told us. Yes, sir. Well, I think it goes back to, you know, I think we're mistaken when we say that we come to church to worship. We're supposed to worship God every day. And if we only worship God on Sunday, then will he receive our worship?