Nahum 3:16-17 Traders & Locusts- all gone!

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Okay, so we're still in Nahum and today we're going to go over chapter 3 verses 16 and 17.

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So I will read through the scripture and I'll highlight the verses we're going to talk about. You too will become drunk.

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You will be hidden. You too will search for a refuge from the enemy. All your fortifications are fig trees with ripe fruit.

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When shaken, they fall into the eater's mouth. Behold, your people are women in your midst. The gates of your land are open wide to your enemies.

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Fire consumes your gate bars. Draw for yourself water for the siege. Strengthen your fortifications.

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Go into the clay and tread the mortar. Take hold of the brick mold. There fire will consume you.

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The sword will cut you down. It will consume you as the locust does. Multiply yourself like the creeping locust.

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Multiply yourself like the swarming locust. And this is the verses that we're going to be talking about today.

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You have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven. The creeping locust strips and flies away.

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Your guardsmen are like swarming locust. Your marshals are like hordes of grasshoppers settling in the stone walls on a cold day.

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The sun rises and they flee and the place where they are is not known. Your shepherds are sleeping,

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O king of Assyria. Your nobles are lying down. Your people are scattered on the mountains and there is no one to regather them.

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There is no relief for your breakdown. Your wound is incurable. All who hear about you will clap their hands over you.

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For on whom has not your evil past continually? Again, these are sobering words from the prophet with regards to Assyria.

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Assyria is going to be taken over by the Babylonians and God is letting them know just how bad it's going to be.

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And when God says something, it's a guarantee. So let's just quickly recap what we went over last week.

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Assyria is dependent on water. They were surrounded by it. In other words, they had an ocean on one side.

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They had rivers. In fact, the four rivers that we hear about in the Garden of Eden, they all flowed near the city of Assyria.

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And God mocks her and says, draw water for the siege. The Babylonians are going to cut off their water supply.

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And last year, last week, we made application with regards to the Holy Spirit being like water.

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So not only were they going to be cut off from physical water, they were also going to be cut off from the power of the

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Holy Spirit, the common grace that would restrain the Babylonians and strengthen the

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Ninevites. Because remember, at one point in time, Jonah went to Nineveh. He preached repentance to them and they all repented.

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Well, that's gone. That's done and over with. So not only are they not going to have physical water, they're not going to have the ability of the

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Holy Spirit. Assyria has an enormous wall, yet God tells her to strengthen her fortifications.

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He's mocking them. Oh, you're confident in that wall, huh? You better strengthen that. You better you better repair the bricks.

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You better get that thing ready because my guys are coming for you. The need for bricks, the need for bricks on the wall.

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So God tells them to go into the clay. And we saw last week that word means to immerse.

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It's almost like baptizing themselves into the clay. And where did God make mankind? Out of the dirt, out of the clay.

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He's telling us this is deconstruction language. Assyria would ultimately be defeated by fire and the sword.

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Again, this has eschatological implications. We know that there's going to come a time when Jesus comes back.

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He separates the sheep from the goats, the goats he's going to send into everlasting fire.

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The second death. So this has eschatological implications to it as well. Like an army, locusts will attack and devour

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Nineveh. This is a picture of divine judgment. Locusts throughout the Old Testament were used as a means by which

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God would, like the plagues, he would strip the nation. The locusts would come in and strip the trees of all the fruit, the leaves, everything that was useful to the people who lived there.

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So this is divine judgment upon Assyria. God continually mocks an

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Assyria sarcastically. OK, why? Because Nineveh, Assyria, was sarcastic with the people around them.

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They dominated them. They would, you know what they would do to the nations around them that they conquered.

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They'd parade their kings in front of the whole city and then send lions in to kill them.

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They would crucify them by sticking spikes through their bottom out their mouth. They would flay people.

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So God is now mocking them. God's people have water.

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We are filled with the Holy Spirit. Thank God we have God as our strength and our shield, and we are bricks in God's temple.

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We are built on the chief cornerstone. So whereas all the other nations are relying on their own strength and in their own power, we rely upon the strength of the

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Holy Spirit and God's power. He is our strength and our shield, and we are built upon the rock of Jesus Christ.

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OK, so now we'll begin with you have increased your traders more than the stars of heaven.

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The creeping locust flies away. You increased your merchants. They had many traders there.

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When Nineveh was the proud capital of a vast empire, her merchants brought enormous wealth to the city.

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Now, however, these merchants and the huge treasure in Nineveh will do the city no good. Then the locust flies away.

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Right. There's going to be judgment. Then the locusts leave and they're going to be left with nothing. The enemy, having devoured all that there was in Nineveh through plundering and slaughter and destruction, will quickly leave the scene.

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So Nineveh, in all its power, is going to have judgment come upon it. And then the locusts who caused the judgment will leave quickly.

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The use of stars of the heavens as an example of great quantity is common in Scripture.

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Let's go through them. Genesis 15, five. And he brought him. That's Abraham. Abram at that time.

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He brought Abram outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you are able to number them.

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Then he said to them, so shall your offspring be. Right. So you would imagine this was a vast amount of stars.

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You ever look into the to the night sky on a clear night. You see the number of stars. God's telling

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Abram, this is how many your descendants are going to be like. So numbering the stars is basically showing that it's a vast number.

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We're going to see that several times. Exodus 32. Remember, Abraham, Isaac and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by yourself.

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I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and all this land that I have promised

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I will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever. Deuteronomy 110, the Lord has multiplied you today as numerous as the stars of heaven.

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Hebrews, therefore, from one man and him as good as dead were born descendants, as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand on the seashore.

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Now, this is really important, obviously, for this study, but also for study in general.

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So when you see a phrase in the New Testament, like the stars of heaven or he's going to come on the clouds, you want to take a look at that phrase and you want to find out where it exists in the

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Old Testament, because the Old Testament is going to give you the context and the meaning of that phrase. So we commonly go to Matthew 24 and so many people misinterpret the stars are going to fall from the sky.

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And they're going to crash into the earth, Peter says, right? If a star crashed into the earth, would the earth exist anymore?

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No. So that is not what that means. You need to you need to look at the Old Testament context for those phrases so that you can understand them in the context in which the author is writing it in the

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New Testament. Remember, the men who wrote the Old Testament were Jews who knew the scriptures.

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They knew what the language was. They knew the idioms. They knew the phrases that were used there. And they bring them forward into the

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New Testament. So if we don't look at those things in the Old Testament, we're going to misinterpret it in the new.

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In addition to her military prowess, Assyria had a strong entrepreneurial spirit. She multiplied her merchants more than the stars of heaven.

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Right. She's increasing her traders. What a lucrative trade Assyria carried on in her day.

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Down the Tigris River, her merchants would go to gain access to the sea and link up with the Phoenicians. Nevertheless, Assyria gains from an excellent trade balance, an enormous income and heaps of goods from all over the known world would become the enemy's spoils to be carted off.

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The enemy would be as thorough in looting Assyria's goods as locusts which scour the land and then suddenly fly away.

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Assyria would go from riches to rags in a matter of hours. Do you remember another situation in the

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Old Testament where the enemy's spoils were taken? And used for someone else? The Egyptians, right?

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When the Israelites left, all of a sudden they asked the when the

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Israelites asked the Egyptians for supplies. Not only did they give them supplies, they gave them gold and silver and things that they had.

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So everything that the Egyptians stored up was given to the Israelites. They took that into the desert.

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Nineveh's countless merchants navigated the Tigris River all the way to the sea where they did business with the

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Phoenicians. By their commercial activities, the land became rich. The latter part of the verse may mean either that the merchants would take their wares and flee the city or that the invading army would plunder the wealth accumulated by Nineveh's lucrative trade.

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Probably the latter. I would agree with that. It's so that they would plunder Nineveh's goods.

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Like locusts, the invaders would strip the land bare and disappear, fly away. Now, I couldn't help as I'm reading this to think about the situation that we have here in this country.

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Right. We are the center and source of trade. We trade with all these nations.

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We give them money. We gain here in the United States. The United States is kind of like the capital of capitalism worldwide.

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I can't help but think that there is a similar relationship to what's happening to America now with what happened with Assyria.

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And as we get into this, I'm going to make some draw some more parallels. But although the number of Nineveh's merchants was like the stars, astronomical in a literal sense, it would do them no good.

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The nationalizing of Esau's passion for the satisfaction of sensual desire could only mean the loss of an entire nation's birthright and blessing.

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To worship and serve the creature more than the creator meant in this case, not merely that God would give them up, but that God would multiply their enemies beyond them.

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So when we read this about Esau, what was it? What was the thing that Esau sold? His birthright for what?

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For a meal, right? So he wanted to satisfy his temporary hunger and give up his eternal blessing.

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How many people in America are doing that right now? How many people are doing that, not just monetarily, but morally?

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I want to satisfy my flesh. I want to be happy here and now. I'm not concerned about tomorrow.

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As the last portion of verse 16 indicates, by the sheer strength of numbers, the young locust strips and flies away, leaving nothing to identify what they had devoured.

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Not a leaf of foliage, not a thread of cloth, not a dietary delicacy shall be left in the eyes of the

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Lord of hosts. Multiplication by men means absolutely nothing. What does the term

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Lord of hosts mean? Lord of the armies, right? And what does he not give a lick about?

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Multiplication by men, right? So I think not only does this have application with regards to us as a country,

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I think this has application to us as a church. Look at the

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American church. OK, and we're going to explore that a little bit more. I don't want to give away what we're going to go through right now.

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Matthew 6, 19. What does it say? Do not lay up for yourself treasure on earth where moth and rush destroy and where thieves break in and steal.

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But lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rush destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.

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For where your treasure is there, your heart will be also. How many of the prosperity teachers outright reject this verse?

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They say, God wants you prosperous now. If you're not wealthy, if you're not rich, you're in sin.

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How horrific that is to what Jesus would tell us, we're to store for ourself treasure in heaven.

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And who remembers? How do we store up ourselves treasure in heaven? I'm sorry.

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Who is it? Yes. Right. So what's the only thing that's going to enter heaven?

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I'm going to take a little diversion. What's the only thing that's going to enter heaven? Will anything physical enter heaven? Now, any bank accounts into heaven, cars, vacation homes, what enters into heaven?

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Sorry, the soul, the soul, that's what enters into heaven. So how do you store up treasure in heaven?

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By sowing into the souls of people, because that's the only thing that's going to get to heaven. In first Corinthians three,

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Paul tells us your work is going to be either judged as wood, hay and stubble or gold, silver, precious stone stones, wood, hay and stubble, stubble.

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What's that used to build? Pharaoh's house. That's what the that's what the

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Israelites had to gather together to build bricks for Pharaoh's palace. Gold, silver, precious jewels.

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What was that used to build? The temple. What in the New Testament is referred to as the temple?

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The church. You are to sow into people's lives, to build them up spiritually, to nurture and admonish them in the things of the

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Lord based on the scriptures. You sow into somebody spiritually. Their soul is going to enter into heaven and how and God's going to examine that soul and say, well, how did that soul get to where it is?

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Did you sow into it? Did you sow into it? What did that soul sow into someone else? That's the gold, silver and precious jewels we have to remember.

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And we can also look at like tithing. Is it your money that gets into heaven?

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No, it's the attitude of your heart in giving to the church to see God's kingdom expanded here on earth.

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That's what that money is supposed to be used for. OK, Luke 12, 32 and 34.

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Do not be afraid, little flock, for your father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give them to the poor.

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Provide purses for yourselves that will that will not wear out a treasure in heaven that will not fail.

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Where no thief comes in and no moth destroys for where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

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Also, if you're storing up treasure on earth where moth and rust destroy, where is your heart?

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On earth, concerned about things of the world, worldly things. Now, I'm not saying don't care about those things.

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All right, but we're going to go back to Matthew six. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and then all these things will be added onto you.

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The Gentiles seek these things. All right. Don't be like that. Seek your your treasure in heaven.

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God will provide for you down here. And I want to just want to make a clarification. I'm not saying don't be prosperous.

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Don't aspire to do great things in this world and take dominion over it and make money.

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But use that money for the kingdom of God. So into people.

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OK, you die. Your bank account stays here. What are you going to do with the money that you bring in?

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Jesus says you cannot serve both God and mammon. Make sure you're serving the right God. Mammon is looking for service.

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But although the number of nativist merchants was like the stars astronomical, OK, I did this already. Right. This is

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Romans one. OK, this is the verse that he cited in here.

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Therefore, God gave them up in the lust of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves because they exchanged the truth about God for a life and worship and serve the creature rather than the creator who's blessed forever.

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For this reason, God gave them up to dishonorable passions for the women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature.

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And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women who were consumed with passion from one another.

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Men committed shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. Now, I want to make application here with regards to the church.

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OK, could this model that we're talking about with regards to Assyria making traitors,

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OK, and having locusts come in and strip them? Could that be applied to the church?

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Has the church become a business? Right. And now they're multiplying traitors.

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All right. We'll start this campus. We'll start this. We'll start this ministry and we'll charge for this and we'll charge for that.

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And now we're looking at a P &L statement rather than the souls that are in the congregation.

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Remember before what I said about man? God does not care about human multiplication.

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What man can do is the church concerned about man centered growth.

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Does the does the pastor or the elder sit up front and say, hmm? Oh, yeah. Oh, we had 180 today.

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Oh, we want 190 next week. And then it becomes about numbers and not about the souls that you're sowing into.

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OK, that's going to enter heaven. Luke 16, no servant can serve two masters for you will hate one.

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He will either hate one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both

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God and money. Now, the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, were listening to all these things and they were scoffing at him.

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So who are the Pharisees? Well, that's what they write.

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That's that was their character. Religious leaders, they were in Judaism.

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They were teachers of the law. Right. If you were a Jew, you would look up to the

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Pharisee. Oh, my goodness. Look what this guy does. Look at what he teaches. Meanwhile, they were money hungry people.

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All right. Their their heart is askew. Romans one.

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And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to the base mind to do what ought not to be done.

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They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covenants, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness.

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They are gossip, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

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Yikes. Right. That's mankind, apart from God's spirit. Although they did not know

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God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

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Now, why do I bring this up? If the church wants to make money and you affirm certain sins, your congregation is going to be filled.

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Oh, itchy ears. I can fill a stadium if I tell them you're all God, you're

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God, you're the apple of God's eye. Look at you. What a wonderful, great, awesome person you are.

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Oh, there's greatness within you. You just got to bring it out. I could fill a stadium saying things like that.

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Is that the full counsel of God? No, it's not. Right. So we have to look at the traitors in the modern

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American church. Look at the mega churches. Right. They're increasing their numbers.

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They're increasing their traders. This is all about man centered growth.

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And think about it. First John says, everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness.

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Sin is lawlessness. If I remove the law, do you think I would get a lot of people coming into our church?

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You get a lot. Oh, yeah. You mean I can continue doing what I want to do and there's no penalty?

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Sure. Come on in. Just make sure you put a little in the envelope, you know, we'll feed you what you need.

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Does the visible church continue to practice sin or give approval of those who do?

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This seems to me like the church has countless traitors. However, God's judgment is coming and locusts are going to come in and fleece the church.

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Romans two. Therefore, you have no excuse. Oh, man, every one of you who judges from passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself because you judge and practice the very same things.

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Now, here's where I want to warn you. Because it's very easy to look at other churches that do these kind of things and condemn them and say, oh, they're there.

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We're here. Look at them. They're so horrible. But look at us.

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You don't want to do that. Okay. You want to look at them and have pity on them and then examine the areas of your own life and see where you in your own life don't line up to the scriptures.

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Because just because somebody is worse than you, that doesn't mean you get more reward. You're going to be judged based on what you do here and now.

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All right. So don't look at other people who are not doing what they're supposed to do and say, whoo, I'm better than them.

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You have to recognize and take inventory and account of yourself. We know that the judgment of God rightly falls on those who practice such things.

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I'm thinking of the LGBTQ, transgender, all these different things, gay marriage, mirage, right?

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All these different things that churches are promoting these days, right? Women in leadership, women as pastors, strictly forbidden by the, by the, by the new

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Testament. In fact, in Isaiah chapter three, it says as, as part of God's judgment, you will be led by young men and women.

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That's a sign of judgment upon the church. So is your church practicing such things and giving heartily, heartily approval to those who do.

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Maybe it's, maybe it's a, maybe it's a merchant and not a church. Do you presume upon, or do you presume upon the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

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So the churches that are flourishing doing this, that's God's kindness that should lead them to repentance.

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But because of your heart and impending heart, you're storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when

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God's righteous judgment will be revealed. Jude four, for certain people have crept in unnoticed.

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We went over this last year who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people who pervert the grace of God into sensuality and deny our master and Lord Jesus Christ.

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These are men who have crept into the church and who are now promulgating false doctrine and things that will tickle ears and things that would make your flesh happy.

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But guess what? Look, the creeping locusts. They are like creeping locusts coming into the church, ready to devour it from the inside.

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That's why the elders of the church and even yourself, we have to guard against false teaching. We have to guard against people coming in as like ravenous wolves trying to devour the flock.

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Be careful. We're called to guard our hearts for out of it flow the wellspring of life.

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So you have a personal responsibility to guard your heart and a corporate responsibility to not let false teaching come into the church.

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The verb meaning to sell merchandise to trade, that's what traders mean, means in its possible forms.

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It refers to a merchant, a tradesman or a female merchant, someone who sells merchandise, right?

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Is the church selling merchandise? We're going to get to that, right? Matthew 10, heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons you received without paying, give without pay, acquire no gold or silver or copper for your belts, no bag for your journey or tunics or sandals or staff for the laborer deserves his food.

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Okay? Sometimes we see health, wealth and prosperity guys charging for healing, right?

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Has the church become a business? Are there traders in the church? If so, you need to watch out for them.

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You need to know who they are. You need to guard yourself from falling into that. Think about what two major churches have done with regards to music.

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You have Bethel and you have Hillsong. They lead with good music, music that gets you motivated.

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And then they suck you into those churches that promote those, that music. And then you get fed bad doctrine and your soul ends up perishing because you were listening to good music.

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Do Christians sell miracles and healings, prophecy programs? How many times are you watching a

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TV show with a, with a guy says, oh, so a, so a hundred dollars seed and you're going to receive a thousand dollars back.

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I'd love to call the guy and say, listen, so me a hundred dollars seed, you'll get a thousand dollars back. It's so, so wrong for these guys to fleece the flock.

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And again, you can look at them and say, oh, that's horrible. We're a good thing. We're up here. We have to have pity on those people.

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They don't know what's coming or maybe they do, and they just don't care. They're about the here and now you have to ask yourself, where am

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I thinking about the here and now, and not concerned about the things of the kingdom.

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Do churches have a corporate ladder? And I put that little V it's a V and an upside down a right.

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Corporate ladder. Usually it's wide at the bottom and you try to climb your way to the top, right?

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The top is where you want to be the CEO, the president, right? In the kingdom of God, it's the exact opposite.

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You're trying to claw your way to the bottom to help other people, to sow into them, to die to self and help your brother prefer one another above yourselves.

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Jesus, what did he do? He climbed to the bottom to take our burdens upon him.

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He took on the cross for us. Is the church building the kingdom or building a ministry?

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How many people have these parachurch organizations that are making hundreds of thousands, sometimes even millions of dollars.

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Now I'm not saying a worker isn't worth his wages. If you're doing it correctly and you're tithing and you're, you're sowing truth into the saints.

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Terrific. But if you're fleecing the flock, that's horrible. You're going to stand before God for that.

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Our preachers and pastors supposed to be stars, famous, self -promoting. No. Now they are good guys who, who are, who get attention, not because they're self -promoting, but because they're promoting sound doctrine, right?

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We look at a guy like John MacArthur. We look at an RC Sproul. We look at a Paul Washer. These men are bonafide men of God and they're teaching and preaching sound doctrine, and that's why they're getting attention.

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There are other guys who are promoting themselves, writing every book that they write, they have a big picture of themselves on the front of it, right?

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That's self promotion. You're supposed to die to self. Self should not be in the picture.

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I must decrease so that he can increase revelation 21 16.

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It is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end to the thirsty. I'll, I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

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If you're in a church or you're, you're following somebody who's continually asking you for money, you have to question their motives.

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They may have pure motives, but they may not. You need to know the difference. And the day in which church growth has become a passing fad.

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Nahum's prophecy has something directly to say. The Lord is not impressed by numbers. David's sin of numbering the troops brought plague on the whole nation of Israel.

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These sheep, what have they done was a plant, a plant of the shepherd's heart that came too late.

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That word plant means a pounding of the chest, right? First Timothy six, teach and urge these things.

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If anyone teaches a different doctrine, it does not agree with the sound words of our Lord, Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness.

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He's puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and depraved of the truth.

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Imagining that godliness is a means of gain. Think about, he talks about teaching.

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Sound doctrine and then gets to the point where he's talking about godliness as a means of gain.

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He's showing that money and doctrine can have an effect on each other. If I teach an ear tickling doctrine,

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Ooh, I'm going to get a lot of people in. And you know what? These people like to give, I'll do a couple of messages on tithing.

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Keep tickling areas. I get myself a mansion, a jet, all kinds of stuff.

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Got to be careful. But godliness with contentment is great game, right?

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The shepherd needs to be content in his circumstance. Paul said, I learned the secret of being content, whether living in plenty or living in want, and think about what he said.

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I've learned the secret of being content. Contentment is not something that comes easy. You have to learn it for, we brought nothing into this world and we could take nothing out of the world, but if we have food and clothing, we'll be content with that, how many prosperity teachers teach you that if you, if you have food and clothing, just be content, you're good, they'll tell you that sin.

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Your father owns the cattle on a thousand Hills and you're content with just food and clothing. Yeah, I am actually.

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So you think it's a, it's a, it's a mark of spirituality when you're content with millions of dollars in the bank.

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Ooh, big deal. You're content with millions of dollars in the bank. That's easy. How do you be content living in want that's

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God, right? It's a spirit of man and the spirit of God. We cannot take anything out of the world, but if we have food and clothing, we'll be content.

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But those who desire to be rich fall into temptations, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

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For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

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Again, guard your heart. Do not look at all. Look at how bad they are. We're up here. Don't do that.

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I'm pointing this out because I think it has application in Nahum to America. America has multiplied its traders.

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And I think God is sending locusts in and is at one at a certain point, going to pull the monetary system out from under all those people.

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And it's going to affect us. And I think it's infiltrated the church as well. We have to watch out for creepers who have crept into the church.

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Your guardsmen are like the swarming locusts. Your marshals are like the hordes of grasshoppers settling in the stone walls on a cold day.

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Like swarms of grasshoppers or locusts that quickly fly away and disappear. Some of the leading men of Nineveh, who for a while had been very prominent, will flee at the appearance of an enemy overrunning the city.

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Scribes were probably a type of official, perhaps secretaries. The first two lines are closely parallel to each other in both structure and sense and both contain words of uncertain meaning.

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The Revised Standard Version renders your princes are like grasshoppers. Your scribes are like locusts.

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The words translated prince and scribes are probably both Assyrian words which Nahum has borrowed. He's using their culture, importing their words so that they'll know what he's talking about.

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I'm going to skip this right now. These men, the scribes and princes, properly represent important city officials and government of the vast empire.

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When things become dangerous, they run away. Riches, power and organization fall miserably as the nation collapses.

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The sign of a leader is what do they do when things are tough? Do they hightail it and run out or do they face it and fight it?

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OK, I have a feeling that the people, the leaders of the church who are fleecing the flock are going to hightail out of here.

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Once their God is gone, which is money, they will be gone with it. OK, the real leaders, the real shepherds of the flock are going to are going to grind it out with what?

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God's people, the true flock of the Lord. We're not hired hands.

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The guardsmen and marshals strip the people like a locust would and then stay cool out of the heat, out of the sun.

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They will flee in the face of trouble and hide out of sight. Just like the Pharisees who devour widows houses and for a pretense, make long prayers, they will receive greater condemnation.

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John 10, 13. He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.

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That's the difference between a hired hand and a true shepherd. And the Pharisees are religious people.

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How many people who are in the church are? Oh, that's a man of faith. Meanwhile, he's fleecing the flock.

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He could care less about the souls. He's concerned about the bottom line. He's concerned about the P &L statement and the number of people sitting in the seats of his church.

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Are we opening a new campus soon? Are we starting somewhere else? How does a pastor of a megachurch intimately know thousands of people?

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It's hard enough for the three elders here to know 110. Imagine thousands.

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And pastor is going to get to it in Hebrew soon. The elder has to give an account of those souls.

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So think about what's happening. They got megachurches and they're they're boasting, look at how big we got this campus, that campus worldwide.

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And God's going to say, OK, time to give an account for the souls. Let's start at number one.

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You got 10 ,000 people in your church, I want to hear an account of each one. So what you're going to have to give an account for those souls sobering.

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But our guardsmen, our prince is the one who remains with his people to the end. John 10, 10.

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The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I, Jesus, came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

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It's not material abundance. It's spiritual abundance. I am the good shepherd.

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The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and the sheep leaves, leaves and flees and the wolf snatches them and scatters them.

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He flees because he's a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me just as the father knows me.

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And I know the father and I lay my life down for the sheep. The shepherds, the elders, the deacons have to lay their lives down for the flock.

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You, as an individual Christian, have to lay your life down for the sake of the souls that don't know the

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Lord yet. All the while, everything is quiet and the guards are sleepy in Nineveh.

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But as soon as things begin to heat up and they are needed to defend the city, they move as fast as grease lightning.

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They're gone. They show what they're really all about. Unfortunately, unfortunately for Nineveh, neither could her commanders or captains provide relief.

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They, too, took on characteristics of the locust. Nahum's really working the locust illustration, right?

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Just like he worked the previous metaphors of the lion, the harlot and the drunk. The uncanny fact about the locust is that when their wings become cold in the evening, they grow stiff and lifeless.

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But when the warming rays of the sun come out and warm their wings, their strength reappears and they become airborne and flee once again.

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Consequently, there are two points of comparison between the locust and the Assyrian generals. Like cold locusts, the

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Assyrian generals were now inept, inert and powerless to save the city. And two, like locusts, which flee away and suddenly they suddenly as they come, these generals would also fly away.

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In other words, the leadership for Assyria in the face of the Babylonians coming in, they run for cover.

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We're not we're not as strong as we thought we were in the same way. The leaders in the modern

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American evangelical church are going to run when the when the rug is pulled out of them and they have no more money coming in.

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The action of stripping and flying away underscores the thoroughness of the destruction by the locust and the emptiness of what is left when

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God's instruments of judgment are done, left bare and exposed to the elements. Nothing remains of the long labors of the merchants of Nineveh.

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The multiplicity of leadership will do them no good. The prophet appeals to a phenomenon in the

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Near East, huddled in mass grasshoppers, coat leaves and branches along a hedge on a cloudy, cold day.

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But the moment the sun warms their cold blooded shells, they flee away. Their place is not known.

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They leave not a trace of their previous presence. So it is with human leadership now fallen from their kingly position of domination over the whole earth.

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Even the leaders among men have no more kingly bearing than the lowliest of earth's swarming creatures.

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Frozen, immobile, perhaps cowardly and indecisive. Nineveh futilely places its hope in human resources.

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Is the modern American church placing hope in human resources and not in the Holy Spirit? Nahum's term for the departure of the locust is locust horde.

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Elsewhere describes the flight of people from war, of men from battle, rulers and kings of armies.

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So the crowded and the captains of Assyria disappear in the heat of battle. They leave no trace of their existence.

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Consequently, their followers experience merciless mutilation by the enemy. Where are the pastors of the modern

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American church speaking out against the horrors of abortion? Where are the the modern

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American pastors speaking out of the horrors of gay mirage, of the LGBTQ and every other thing that's an abomination in God's sight?

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Where are the men of God standing up behind the pulpit and preaching out against this? Sadly, they don't.

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In fact, some even encourage it. Leading to lawlessness, but it also fills the seats.

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It brings the money in. Be careful who you serve. Isaiah 33, as the tumultuous noise at the tumultuous noise, people flee.

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When you lift yourself up, nations are scattered. Isaiah, for they have fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow and from the press of battle.

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Real leaders are going to engage in the battle. True pastors are going to stand up and fight back against the culture and where the culture wants to go.

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Hired hands are going to go with it and flee when they lose. They are afraid of battle.

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We're in a war. We're in a spiritual war. We need to be warring. As all your leaders have fled together without the bow, they were captured.

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The kings of the armies, they flee. They flee. The woman at home divide the spoil. Hebrews 1038.

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But my righteous one shall live by faith. And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.

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You go the way of the world and the way the culture is shrinking back. But but we we, the true church, are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve our souls.

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Hebrews 11. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth for people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

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OK, the reason I put this up is how many of us think we're going to reside here? I mean, how many of us are sowing into the kingdom on earth rather than the kingdom in heaven, trying to establish ourselves, our little kingdoms here on earth when we're supposed to be sowing into heaven?

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Now, when you sow into heaven, there is a correspondence with what happens here on earth, right?

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We're concerned with what happens here on earth. But our thoughts are towards a spiritual kingdom.

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Remember, I talked to you before about Abram, right? And we talked about your descendants are going to be more than the stars, the stars in the skies.

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Genesis 15. And he brought Abram outside and said, look toward heaven and number the stars if you're able to number them.

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Then he said, so shall your offspring be. All right. We think about looking up into the night sky and seeing all those stars.

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And like, oh, my goodness, could you imagine how he felt? Well, think about this. Go to verse 15.

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As the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. God brought Abram out in the middle of the day.

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He didn't bring him out at night. Look at the stars. He brought him out in the middle of the day.

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The sun was going down after God told him, brought him outside and said, look at the stars.

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What was Abraham looking at? He's looking at a blue sky. Your descendants are going to be as numerous as those stars.

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Everyone's like, I don't see stars. He knew the stars were there. He saw them last night and the night before and the night before that.

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What was God doing? Don't go based on what you see, go based on what

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I say. You have my word. Your descendants are going to be more numerous than the stars in the sky.

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You don't see them. You know they're there. Moreshaw, you have my word. You have the Moreshaw word of prophecy.

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When you look in the sky, when you look out at the world and you don't see the kingdom of God growing, you have

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God's word knowing that the church will not be defeated. Right. The gates of hell will not prevail against the church.

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Jesus says, I will build my church. You may not see it physically.

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There's a spiritual thing happening in this world. Remain faithful to God. Do not go the way of the world and build an earthly kingdom here and now.

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Remember, we're in a spiritual battle. Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

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For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers. The authorities against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.

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Friends, we're in a battle. It's a battle for our soul. Don't look out at the world. Don't look out at America and everything else that's going wrong.

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Look into your scriptures. Hear the word of God. Remember what Jesus says about the kingdom.

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It is not going to fail. We need to take an incremental long term approach to the kingdom and so into souls store for yourself treasure in heaven, not for the here and now.