Shock Them With The Truth! - Part 2

The message this morning shocked them with the truth. Shocked them with the truth. The Prophets Part 2. Who is wondering where Part 1 is? Well, you weren't here Wednesday night.

You've got to make these Wednesdays. So fortunately though for you, it's on YouTube and Rumble. I would encourage most people listening to go to Rumble.

Who knows how long YouTube is going to... they keep removing videos it seems like every week. We didn't meet their community standards. Whatever that means.

Yeah, good, exactly. So, shocked them with the truth. The Prophets Part 2. Make sure to listen to Part 1 from Wednesday night because I talked about my favorites, Isaiah and Jeremiah.

And we also talked about Lamentations, what that was about, Jeremiah lamenting Daniel and Ezekiel a little bit. And then now, what we're going to do is we're going to get into those were the major prophets. Wednesday today are the minor prophets.

And we're closing out the Old Testament series this morning. The minor prophets. It doesn't mean they were less significant.

It just means their writings were much smaller. And instead of talking about all 12 of them, because I don't think you want a two-hour sermon, I narrowed it down to six. Six of the prophets.

Fortunately, they're all kind of saying the same thing. So you're not going to miss out too much. But let me just tell you a few things that I mentioned on Wednesday.

Some of the prophets did miracles, like Elisha, Elijah. But many of them did not. Some of them wrote books of the Bible, but others did not.

So God would use them differently. And believe it or not, the greatest prophet who ever lived, how do we know he was? Because Jesus said he was. John the Baptist never healed anyone to our knowledge.

I mean, could have, I guess, argument of silence, but never healed or did any miracles. Why was he the greatest? Because he was preparing the way for the Messiah and preaching repentance. Repentance.

Anytime you want to know what's important to God, look what's mentioned in the Bible. But the role of the prophet is so important. They were statesmen.

They were statesmen. Let's say that one more time. They were statesmen.

Why is this so important? Well, I guess God thought politics was important. Because for every king, there was a prophet. Do you realize that many of the prophetic books were written to leaders? About political issues? Now, of course, I'm not going to take this on a rabbit trail and try to make it into something it's not, but leadership matters.

The influence of leaders matters big time. And so the prophet would go, not to the simple man, the farmer. He would go to the leaders.

We can go down the list of prophets. Many of them would go to the leadership. They were statesmen.

They were reformers. They were authors and they were preachers. That was the role of the prophet.

They would also spark passion. They would rebuke sin. They encouraged surrender to God and they offered hope.

And so God, to me, it's like an important tool in your toolbox. God would say, okay, what do we need now? Let's open the toolbox. I don't need the Crescent Wrench.

I need the prophet. Go send Jonah to Nineveh. Go send Nahum.

Go send Habakkuk. And Zephaniah and Zechariah. And go send these people.

And warn the king Jeremiah and Isaiah. They would warn the king. So, when I get into the book of Acts, I'll talk a little bit about this because it's important.

What does that mean today? Because there's a lot of confusion in this area, isn't there? Prophets such and such. Apostles such and such. I've had people leave the church because they don't like my view on this.

They believe in calling people apostle, calling people prophet. To me, it's just so arrogant and not needed. God will call a person and people will identify that calling.

You don't need to walk around with it on your business card and on your book cover and all these things. It's self-exaltation. In many cases, women apostles, women prophets.

I mean, just walk in your calling and be humble, right? But today, it is different because Jesus actually said, I gave some to the church. If you ever heard the five-fold ministry, that's where this term comes from. Jesus said, I will give to the church prophets and apostles, pastors, teachers, evangelists.

And a healthy church operates really in all five of those areas. The apostle would be the church planter. The word means sent one.

So, I don't know why people get all worked up about this. You know, sent one. It's somebody sent to an area to plant churches or multiple churches in other areas.

They are sent ones. They have an apostolic calling. That's different than the capital A apostles.

They're not authoritative. Their views don't go with Scripture. And then God would raise up a prophetic type voice.

They might be a sent one, correct? But they also might be a little edgy, a little rough, a little hard. And God uses those prophetic voices so we don't view them as prophets saying things that are equal to Scripture, but we do understand there's a different calling, a unique calling to where it's sandpaper on the wood of the church. That's a little different than the evangelist.

It's different than the pastor-teacher. So, we see the role still playing out and God uses different voices for different things. But I think it's important because there's a lot of confusion in this area.

And many of you probably don't know about it, but there's a documentary out there called The American Gospel. And they recently are releasing things on NAR, National Apostolic Reformation, whatever it's called. But the reason is there are some churches such as Bethel and Reading and some other ones where this apostle is elevated.

You know, they're the apostle of the church. They're kind of like the main dude, the CEO, and what they say goes. And that's not healthy.

It's not biblical. And so they're calling out this National Apostolic Reformation, and rightly so. The problem is, though, they usually throw all charismatics into that group.

And we're all part of the NAR if you're charismatic. And that's not true. That's not very scholarly of people either.

And so that's out there as well. It's because self-proclaimed apostles and prophets and they're doing weird stuff on YouTube and a lot of things that aren't biblical and their character doesn't match their calling. So more again in the book of Acts, but that's what the prophetic voice was then.

And God still uses the voice now. Although now it's not equal with Scripture. It's not Scripture.

They're actually preaching what is already in Scripture. Big difference there. They don't write the Bible.

They're not equal to the Bible, but they have that burning, that John the Baptist calling in their heart. And here's why God sent them. The verse from 2 Chronicles, the Lord, God of their fathers, He sent warnings to His people.

So a modern day preacher with a prophetic calling is probably going to be warning the church, warning the nation. And that's what they do. They warn.

And God rose them up early. He sent them because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But what did they do to the prophets? Prophets are very popular today when we read Isaiah, Jeremiah, but they were not popular back then.

They did not like the prophetic voices, so they mocked the messengers of God. They despised His words. And they scoffed at His prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against His own people until there was no remedy.

That's before the fall of Jerusalem. And of course, we see the same exact thing today. The Olympics mocked something, didn't they? And they hate those... You can be the most loving Christian on planet earth, filled with the Spirit, and I just picture this little old lady, and she's, I just love you, but you've got to repent of your sin.

They will hate her. They'll think she's the devil. Because they don't like the truth.

They don't want to be confronted with it. And so that's why they'll look for pastors and teachers who will tell them what they want to hear. And they'll tickle the ear, and these people will build large audiences.

And that's why you have to be careful. Nothing wrong with mega churches if God blesses a ministry, a person has a unique calling. I mean, usually all these are located in cities with millions of people populated.

They'll have more people. But a lot of times when these people will, they're just charismatic, they're good speakers. And they have $1,000 sneakers.

And there's something on Instagram, have you guys seen it? You know, pastor's preacher sneakers or something. All these guys wearing $1,000 sneakers. Mine were about $40 at Skechers, in case you're wondering.

So, well, the shirt's six years old, the pants were $25. Okay? I remember, I asked her this morning, didn't I wear this in family pictures like five years ago? But, so you just tell people what they want to hear. You throw a little Jesus in there.

You know, so you're credible. And man, did you hear the worship? That was incredible. They had smoke screens.

They had LED screens. They sounded like a professional rock band. And even when I was walking in, they had Eminem on the speakers.

And it was just, man, so cool. And that guy, he just made me feel so good. And then they bring friends.

And you can build a real big church that way. But you start to really convict the people. And that's why a lot of the big churches, they catch heat.

T.D. Jakes, Stephen Furtick, Andy Stanley. People are like, why aren't you preaching the Gospel? Well, I'm just preaching. You know what, I'm just keeping it easy here.

Because you start really digging in, you're going to run half your crowd out. Because who wants to hear that when they're living in sin? Alert, alert, alert. People don't want to hear about God and repentance when they enjoy their sin.

It's a very hard calling. Very hard calling. Why do many people despise the preachers today? Those who have been called to preach, much like the prophets in the Old Testament, will confront compromise, they will condemn moral digression, and they will powerfully denounce sin.

Why? In the hope of reconciling man to God. They speak the truth in love. So let's say there's a thousand people.

You're delivering a hard message. Ten people come forward later and they want to give their hearts to the Lord. You convicted them, but then a hundred aren't going to return.

Why is that? Open hearts versus closed hearts. The world and carnal Christians despise them because they challenge the sin they enjoy. How many of you have ever had this wake-up call? Me and my wife had this wake-up call when we first got married.

I'm on fire for God now, right? And I'm assuming all Christians are. No. No.

Correct, right? It's like, man, you're too, you're too, we don't, don't challenge me. Hey, why, you're going to go to Vegas for the weekend? You're going to have wine tasting at your Bible study? I don't, you're watching Harry Potter series? I mean, guys, and Shane, oh, you're too, you're too extreme, brother. You're so heavily minded, you're no earthly good.

No, I think I just convict you. Now, let's not be self-righteous, right? Because we all have cracks in the armor. But you realize, oh, not everyone's on fire for God.

Hey, fasting, all night prayer meeting. Oh no, man, I went to church three weeks ago, I'm good. Am I not just telling the truth? When you want to pursue God, carnal Christians who are stuck in their carnality will not want to do that.

They will not want to pursue God. It's a little too much for them. Because it does take you out of your comfort zone, doesn't it? I mean, pursuing God is not comfortable to the flesh.

So those who want to be comfortable do not like the pursuit, the pursuing of God. They trouble people. The prophetic, the prophets would, they would trouble the people, upset them.

And I love what King Ahab said to Elisha when he saw him. Do you know what he said? Is that you, you troubler of Israel? Is that you, you troubler of America? Why don't they shut up at West Side Christian Fellowship? They are troubling America. Be quiet, you troubler of Israel.

They'll never understand because their hearts are not right. Leonard Ravenhill was forced to proclaim many years ago that we need more prophets in our churches and less puppets. Their key calling is what the Lord says that I must speak.

What the Lord says that I must speak. There's no way around it. As the famous Puritan Richard Baxter said, I preach as a dying man to dying men.

And you would see these prophets, they would often say, well, even Balaam was kind of a false prophet. Jesus referenced him. He would come back to the king and say, whatever the Lord tells me to speak, I must speak.

And Jeremiah, Isaiah, they would say the same thing. Okay, well, how do you know what God wants you to speak? Well, first, you have to just get completely to the end of yourself and say, Lord, not my will, but Your will be done. I'm emptying myself before You.

I don't want my agenda. I need to hear from You. I want to speak to Your people.

I need Your Word to come alive. I'm repenting of pride. And you empty yourself in order to be filled.

I think his name was Samuel Chadwick, I believe. I think his book is called Pentecost Fire. He said, it wasn't until I threw all my sermons into the fire, all my nice, three-point, perfect, theologically astute sermons into the fire and said, Lord, You preached through me that he came alive.

Because he was resting on his ability. He was resting on his theological education. Which is good, don't get me wrong.

But to truly hear from God, you must empty yourself, look at His Word, pour into His Word, and then let that Word come alive into your heart. And often, it's not what people are going to want to hear. That's why they said, whatever the Lord tells me to speak, that I must speak.

Did Nineveh want to hear 40 days? And God is going to judge you. 40 days, God is going to judge you. And even the king called a time of fasting and repentance.

So on this point, I don't think we have a slide for it, but it is important to mention true versus false prophets. True versus false prophets. And someone who is apostate, you ever hear that term? Apostate, and this is where we have to be careful because there are preachers that are drifting, but they are not necessarily apostate.

Apostate means they're not even believers. They are wolves in sheep's clothing. And they are heretical, they are dangerous, and they need to be avoided and called out.

Versus, you see pastors kind of drifting, like, and some of you have been coming, you know, you've come from other churches, like, they're just drifting. Not in a good direction. They don't talk about sin anymore, they don't talk about this, and that's different than apostate.

But sometimes we lump them wrongly into the same camp. And even the pastors I mentioned, when I mentioned, and I believe this without a shadow of a doubt, and when people say things publicly, it demands sometimes a public rebuke. You would see Rick Warren and Andy Stanley and Joel Olsteen and Steve Furnick.

I wouldn't call them apostate, but they are drifting away from sound doctrine. And I could do a whole sermon on how, why, where, when, and how, but Andy Stanley hosted a LGBTQ type conference where he had gay men speaking at it. That's drifting, if I've ever seen drifting.

And sometimes they have to be called out in order to wake up. But when you get into fame and money and success and millions of followers, who are you to tell me? Look at who I am. Look at what God is doing.

Look at the fruit. Oh, be careful. The fruit doesn't always validate the ministry.

Have you ever noticed it? How much fruit did Ravi Zacharias have before it came out? You see, any church, any pastor that's true will have fruit before they fall. So they can't say, oh, look at the fruit, look at the fruit, look at the fruit, because you can have bad fruit within the basket of good fruit. And I hear so many people excusing their actions and saying, look at the fruit.

Look at the fruit. Perfect example. Personally, we teach, I believe, our elder board, that we think women pastors shepherding men is out of order.

There's just no way around that one. If the Bible said it, I'd be cheering it on. We'd have like 12 women pastors right now.

We'd probably have six women pastors. If the Bible taught it, the Bible encouraged it. But it doesn't, and every time I bring this up to even women pastors, they get very defensive.

They're like, look at the fruit. My family has fruit, but it doesn't mean we're perfect. Right, some things are out of order.

So you can be out of order and still producing some fruit. We can't excuse actions just because there is some fruit. God in His grace gives us fruit.

In His mercy. I've seen people, I mean, I've heard of stories where they're at a Metallica concert. You know Metallica, right? Dun-nuh-nuh-nuh, dun-nuh-nuh-nuh.

Darkness imprisoning me. Can't get these lyrics out of my head from the 1990s. But anyway, so, and they're like so convicted.

Like, I can't be here anymore. I'm getting older. And they repent, like, they repent.

And that was the turning point. Look at the fruit. We must, that's our model.

Let's put on Metallica music every single time and see if that works. Right, so God can work fruit, but make sure that's not justifying wrong theology. And many of you know, in the news, a lot is Bethel.

They catch a lot of flack, and rightly so. There's some weird stuff that goes on there. But they say, look at the fruit.

Look at the fruit. Well, some fruit should not outweigh bad doctrine. You've got to get the doctrine right, and then maybe you'll have more fruit.

Okay, I will get out of that one. But true and false prophets. True, the true prophets, this was always the distinction.

This is what the Lord says, and it would always line up with the character of God. You've left me, you're apostate people, you're idol worshiping, you're making your own idols out of trees, and you're slaying your children on the arms of Molech, and you're worshiping in the high places. You've drifted from me, you need to return.

And the prophet would come and say, return to God, O backsliding Israel, and He will return to you. True prophet. The false prophet, during that same time, what would they say? Everything's good, guys.

Peace, peace. And God would actually rebuke them. Don't say peace, peace when there is no peace.

Judgment is coming. So false prophets do not warn the people. Basically, they do not call out sin, okay? You see all these Instagram, all these TikTok, and they've got their LGBTQ and their rainbow, and they're not calling out sin.

False, false prophet. Apostasy. People say, how can you say that? Because God's word's clear.

I'm not scared. I'm scared of going home and saying I was a coward. I'm sorry, God, I didn't say what you wanted me to say.

I'm a coward because I care about the opinions of others. That's one thing we love about West Side Christian Fellowship. It started with me, the loud mouth, saying these things, and people just came.

So I don't have to worry about what people are saying. There's no deacon board that hired me for pastor for hire. You better say this.

You better not upset our big givers. I have friends that work for deacon boards. And one of them, I said, man, I only get a two-week vacation all year.

I'm two-week vacation all year? That's it? Yeah, the deacons won't let me. I can't talk too much about politics. They don't want me to go there.

My goodness, quit and go find a place where you can speak the truth and love. And I realized that some things I say rub people the wrong way. I would never, you can ask my wife, I've never, ever, ever to date, 14 years here, 20 years of preaching, thousands of sermons probably.

I don't have to figure it out. I've never gave a perfect sermon. I've never spoke for an hour, everything I said was just perfect.

My demeanor, my attitude, my cockiness, I didn't say anything out of anger. That sermon was perfect. Why? I preach a perfect message about Jesus Christ, but it comes through an imperfect messenger.

So sometimes a little of the flesh comes out. Sometimes a little of the anger comes out. What's going on? But you allow God's Word to penetrate the heart.

And I'm hoping most people realize that. So that's basically, you wonder, false prophets today are saying, peace, peace, everything's fine. God, basically, here's the big one.

God loves you just as you are, which is true, correct? But He doesn't call them out of their sin. So God is love. Don't judge me.

Who are you to judge? God is love. Be careful. That's a false prophet.

Now sometimes, I will tell people that. Hey, God loves you. We're not gonna judge you.

Just come and be fed. Let us help you out. I'm not gonna, they're already feeling condemned, right? You gotta know, you gotta be sensitive to what God is doing.

And by the way, this might be a big shocker. You guys ready for this one? How I talk to individuals is not how I preach. They'll even tell me, Shane, you're too soft.

You're too easy. You gave them too grace. Why didn't you go at them? Individual is different than preaching to the masses.

We forget that. I remember early on, I remember people like, Morgan, how can you be married to him? Is he always angry at home? And quoting Bible verses and like, repent, kids, repent, kids, repent, kids. I've been accused of the opposite.

Not being hard enough sometimes on my kids. Having fun. Do you know it's okay to laugh and have fun? I hope so.

I could, sometimes in the Bible reading, I could see Jesus messing with these people, just smiling and having fun. He's not always just walking down the room like this stern prophet. Oh, you have little faith.

And He would just, you know, you see that humanness come out of Him. Humanness, is that right? Okay, I don't know. Truth versus, so now you know the true versus the false prophets, correct? And you do have to be careful because some people do things on YouTube, but I don't know.

I mean, they want me to call people out all the time, right? But I just, I don't know their heart. It'd be great to talk with them. But we must read our Bibles like men searching for hidden treasure.

That's how you're really gonna discern the truth from the error. Most of you who come here read the Bible and you know what I'm saying, is it lines up with Scripture because you know exactly what it says. And if I say something you don't agree with, we'll ask about it sometimes.

I'll have a conversation. We don't get worked up on non-essentials, right? You'll see the big debates on the rapture. When is the rapture? Are you ready? That's the big thing.

Are you ready? And every time I talk about that topic, people send me books, right? Chuck Smith, Mark Hitchcock, Amir Safaridi, read this, read this. I've read them. I understand every view.

I'm just saying, we don't know for certain. We gotta be ready. You gotta be ready in any time and season.

The church and our nation desperately needs to hear the voice crying in the wilderness to awaken, to convict, and to restore. Praise God. On that note, and I just threw these in, there's no slide for it, but on false and true prophets.

And I mentioned a few weeks ago, George Soros' Open Society Foundation does influence Christian leaders. Those who are open to hearing what they have to say about abortion, homosexuality, and so we have to be very careful. Even like VeggieTales to Christianity Today.

They have drifted big time. Christianity Today founded by Billy Graham. They, man, they're not going in a very good direction.

They say love your neighbor. Love your neighbor to excuse a lot of kinds of sins. So just be on alert.

A genuine prophet was not soft. They called it out. They called it out.

So let me talk about these men for a minute. The minor prophets, six of the 12. Six of the 12.

Hosea. Now remember, they're written, I mean, Jeremiah, Isaiah. I think Isaiah was like 750 B.C. Down to Malachi, you know, 400 B.C. And so you've got 350 years there of prophetic writings.

Our nation hasn't even been a nation alive. We haven't been a nation that long. As long as the prophets wrote.

So God would send them in at very crucial times. Remember Isaiah and Jeremiah, they'd start to warn the nation because they'd broken up into northern, southern kingdoms and they were drifting from God. It was okay with Saul, Solomon, David, and then it broken up Rehoboam, Jeroboam.

It starts getting a little crazy. And these prophets would go and warn them. The prophets would go and warn them.

And then God's judgment after Isaiah, His judgment would fall 150 years later or so. Jeremiah was actually a prophet watching the fall of Jerusalem. He watched the fall of Jerusalem.

Jeremiah did. He wrote lamentations, lamenting. And then you see Ezekiel and Daniel were in captivity, captives, Babylon.

And then you see Amos and Obadiah and they were different times. And then Jonah's whole story. And Micah, and when he was there.

And then Joel, Joel was a very interesting time because God devastated the land with the crawling locusts, the consuming locusts, the swarming locusts. Have you ever seen a group of millions of locusts on film? Or you can watch it when they hit Africa or different areas, it's like, run for cover. There's like nothing you could do.

I never thought I'd run from a locust. But when you see that many coming, they devastated the whole land. And so God said, because of your sin, I'm bringing judgment to wake you up.

Joel, here's the remedy, okay? Call a sacred assembly. Call the people to the house of God and cry out to Me. Consecrate a fast.

Isn't it interesting how many prophets fasted and called the people to fast? Just about every one of them. That's why we're doing Run the Heavens in October. It's just the season to do that.

So, Hosea was a prophet who God used to convey a message of repentance to His people before the north fell. And what I mean by that is Israel was in the north. Judah was in the southern kingdom.

They were actually broken up into two different kingdoms. So much so that God would rebuke one and say, didn't you learn from your sister's mistakes? Look at your sister Judah. Or look at your sister Israel.

Are you going to fall and make the same mistake? The key verse, for I desire mercy, God said, not sacrifice. An acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings. Maybe some of you need to hear this this morning.

This is so important. I desire mercy, not sacrifice. What does that mean? The people were living in sin and bringing their sacrifice to the priest to be covered, you know, the sacrifice would cover the sins, but they weren't willing to repent.

It's like, have you heard the term going through the motions? Yep, I'm worshiping Baal. I'm doing this, and I don't care. I'm bringing the sacrifice because I have to do it.

I have the law of Moses commands it. I'm going through the motions. And God says, I just desire mercy, not sacrifice.

I desire your heart to be right. Acknowledge God. Don't bring me burnt offerings.

And in Hosea, God used a rare example of using a harlot to convey healing to the land. He told Hosea to go and marry a harlot. Remember, some things in the Bible are not applicable today.

Okay, make sure you hear it clearly. Actually, I'll just get out of that one. So, maybe she was repentant.

I don't know. But, he married her. She continued to cheat on him.

And God says, that's the illustration of Israel cheating on Me. Powerful. And Hosea would say, come and return to the Lord.

He has torn, but He will heal. Some of you need to hear that this morning as well. Yes, He has torn.

He has ripped out. He has spanked you with His loving heavenly wood paddle. And you're going through difficulties, but He wants to heal.

He wants to bring you back. And I often wonder when people are going through so many adversities, do you ever just look at your life and like, this is happening, and this is happening, and this is happening, and this is happening. Could it be that God is trying to get my attention? No, disclaimer.

You can be doing very well with God in the center of His will and going through all kinds of chaos. I know that. However, I also know that God will convict, convict and show us, hey, this is, I think this is causing these problems.

I need to repent and I need to get back on track. And then Hosea, one of the famous verses, and one I love, is He told the people, and God actually told Hosea, this is what happened to the people. They became an abomination like the thing they loved.

Be careful what you love. What does that mean? They became an abomination because what they started to do is they started to love abominable things. They started to love, they were led astray by the people of the land.

They would go to worship at these high places, Astaroth and sexual sin and abortion and all these things, and they were worshiping and giving their life and hearts over to abominations. So God says, you have became exactly what you loved. Exactly what you worshiped.

And then Joel, who I just talked about, he prophesied about God's judgment in the coming day of the Lord. Their apathy and their wealth led them astray. Sound familiar? USA! USA! America, this is exactly... I mean, do you ever write in your Bible, America, America, America? Same.

Their apathy, spiritual apathy, and their wealth led them away from God. He also prophesied that God's people would be filled. Okay, you ready to get controversial? Okay, close your ears and eyes if this is going to offend you.

Non-charismatics. You ready for this? I didn't say it. I'm just reading the Bible.

Joel prophesied that God's people would be filled with visions and dreams and the power of the Spirit. I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy.

Your young men will see visions. Your old men dream dreams. And on My men servants and on My maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit.

Hosea. Hundreds and hundreds of years before it was actually fulfilled. And we're going to see the fulfillment in the book of Acts.

Remember, they're in the upper room. The Spirit of God comes upon them. There is a difference.

God's everywhere, but sometimes, I mean, in Cornelius' house, and another time in the book of Acts, they said, did you receive the Holy Spirit? When you believed, I didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. Okay, let's pray for you. Boom! They're hit with the Holy Spirit.

They start speaking in tongues. The upper room, the Holy Spirit came clothed of tongues and fire, and they start speaking in tongues the great miracles of God. And people said, look, they're drunk.

Look at this. And Peter said, no, this is that. This is that that Joel spoke of that in the last days, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh.

So, some of those guys you watch on YouTube that say God doesn't do that anymore, you might want to unsubscribe. Now, do we need to be careful? Yes. Do we live off dreams and visions? No.

We live off the Word of God. And then sometimes, God might speak to us in a different way. And it's funny, when people want to argue, like, but this is in the Bible.

Joseph and Mary, the wise men. We can keep going. Paul.

Oh, yeah, but that was back then. He doesn't do that anymore because we have the Bible. Okay, proof text for that? Where are you going with this one? Oh, well, there's no verse, but if you do here, if you pull from the church fathers, and then obviously this, and then this, and it's like, wow, I can't limit God? So that's the, and I'll talk about it in Acts, but that's the predicament I'm in, really.

It's hard because many of us are conservatives, right? We love the Word of God. We don't like weird stuff. We don't like people immature and acting weird that doesn't give God any glory.

It kind of gives the Holy Spirit a bad name. It's like, golly, stop. However, because of Scripture, I can't say God doesn't do this anymore.

Why doesn't He do it? I would like a dream to warn me. I don't know about you. Hey, Morgan, I had a very vivid dream.

I shouldn't take the mountain road this morning. Isn't that weird? Maybe I shouldn't take the mountain road. Right? But you don't live off that.

You're not looking for dreams. I'm actually very skeptical. But you can be open yet cautious.

I just think, as many of you, as a student of the Word, the Bible is very clear that God will use different ways to speak to His people. The Word is primary. Nothing comes above the Word.

Nothing replaces the Word. The Word, it comes alive. This is where we have our principles to live by.

But as we'll see in the book of Acts, God will use different things to get the attention of His people. Again, as long as it lines up with Scripture. And so He prophesied that this would happen.

Joel's pressing mission was to focus on convincing the people to return to the Lord before it was too late. And this is the verse I quoted already. I will pour out My Spirit on all people.

Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. Isn't that interesting? Joel said that hundreds of years went by and it wasn't fulfilled until Peter said, this is that that Joel spoke of.

This is it happening right now in the upper room, early church, right there. What's the difference? Why didn't it happen for hundreds of years? Because when Jesus came, He said, when I go, My Father is going to send the Helper. And that's why as believers, they had to actually go.

They were believers, I believe, because Jesus breathed on them, received the Holy Spirit. They're believers, they're waiting in the upper room, but they had not yet received the promise from the Father. They had not yet received that endowment of power from the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit came upon them, ah, now that the Holy Spirit comes upon them, now the old men will have dream dreams, the young men will see visions, and on my men servants and maid servants, I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. To me, second to salvation, that is the most important aspect of Christian theology, by far, pneumatology, the study of the Holy Spirit, because that's how you live out the Christian life. That's how you witness.

That's how you get through life. That's how your prayers turn into powerful weapons. That's how you lead by example, and you have good testimonies, and you love the Lord, and the Word of God comes alive, and you love worship, you love going to church.

Doesn't mean life's perfect. Actually, life gets more difficult sometimes. But it does mean now you've got the Comforter to go with you.

And then of course, the Sacred Assembly passage in Jewel. Call the Sacred Assembly, and fast, and pray, and cry out to God, and those are the dates we will be doing that, if you want to mark those down, in October. And I already explained, Peter said this is that.

It was a fulfillment. And then we get into Amos. He wrote during a time of relative peace and prosperity, but there was also neglect of God's laws.

Sound familiar? He spoke against an increased disparity between the very wealthy and the very poor. Sound familiar? The Bible is so applicable. His major themes were justice, and God's omnipotence, He's all-powerful, and His divine judgment.

The key verse, seek good and not evil, that you may live, then the Lord God Almighty will be with you just as you say He is. Hate evil, love good, maintain justice in the courts. So, because of their prosperity, the bribing in the court system, there's a separation.

In order for the wealthy to become very wealthy, that has to increase the poverty level as well. And there was a big divide. He was calling them to repentance.

And then Habakkuk, who likes Habakkuk? Who's never heard that name before? Anybody? Okay, that means starting tomorrow, you're gonna go through the Bible in a year. Habakkuk, he was very important because he tells us about the prophet's personal struggle to believe that God is good when there is so much tragedy and evil in the world. And it's funny, when God answered him, He gives him a vision.

He said, write the vision down, make it plain. Write it on tablets that he who reads it will run. And though the vision tarry, wait for it, for in the end it shall speak and not lie.

So God says, what I give you, what I tell you is going to come to pass. In the end, it will speak and not lie. So the key verse, how long, Lord? Who's saying that this morning? How long, Lord, must I call for help, but You do not listen? Or I cry out to You.

Violence, God, look around, but You do not save. This is America. This is California.

This is Los Angeles County right here. Is it not? Look at the violence. Look at what's going on.

When will this stop, God? What are You doing? And be careful, because if you do not vent your feelings and let God come in and soften you up, you will become very hard and callous and bitter. And there's something that can grow inside of you called a root of, root of bitterness. Who's ever had a root of bitterness? Well, not everyone's being honest.

Let's try this again. Something is growing, and we are discontent, we're critical, we're negative, we're bitter at what God is doing possibly or not doing, and it doesn't just stay there. What does it do? And one way to know how it's growing is how is your attitude? Cynical, critical.

Remember that joy that leaves. Some of you need to return to that first love this morning. And it's hard.

We're in a harder area. We're out in Texas or Florida or Idaho. We don't have the governor of Tennessee calling for a national day of prayer and fasting.

Lord, what's going on here? Instead, our governor puts up a billboard welcoming people to come abort your baby at nine months. And do you know what else it said on the billboard? Quoting Jesus or quoting the Bible, love your neighbor. Unbelievable.

And so we can cry out, Lord, how long? How long? Look at the violence, God. What is taking so long? And you do not listen. You do not listen.

However, we know that God does listen. So I like this prophet's rawness, if that's a word, right in his rawness, his transparency. And it gives us hope.

Lord, will You listen, please? And I know after Habakkuk did this, after he bared his soul, he began to experience freedom and joy, I'm sure, returned to his heart. It's okay to get things out with God. It's okay to wrestle in prayer and hit the floor.

Lord, when's my prodigal coming home? This is taking too long. What's going on? And through that confession, through that confession, hopefully there's repentance and that root of bitterness is being taken out. Often, you don't go in the prayer closet when you're bitter.

Bitter people do not pray. And then Zechariah, he had visions concerning the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple and the gathering of Israel back to her place. The triumph of Israel over her enemies.

The book culminates in prophecies of the Savior's earthly ministry and final return. And I believe this is one reason why a lot of people believe in the literal thousand year reign that we talked about in Revelation. Because there has to be a point where a lot of Scriptures are fulfilled.

And this would be one area. Key verse, "...Therefore say to them, thus says the Lord, return to Me, and I will return to you." Return. Isn't that so cool? God didn't require, well, they need to give Me 50%.

They need to do this for two weeks. They need to stand on their head and scratch their belly and do all these weird things. They didn't do any of that.

He said just return to Me and I will return to you. That tells me that when we run from God, we can reject His call. And as we're running from Him, He's waiting there for us to return and then He will return to us.

And then Malachi sums up what the whole Hebrew Bible has been pointing to. God's people cannot be faithful to the Covenant. They cannot be faithful to the Covenant.

They cannot follow the Ten Commandments. That's why they need a Savior. Here, Paul goes into lengthy detail, I believe it's Romans, that the law was given to be a schoolmaster, to point us.

You can't follow the law. It was given to point you to someone who can fulfill that law. And it says God will not abandon them.

He promises to redeem a remnant and sends a Messiah to fulfill His Covenant promises. And Malachi, ironically, he's the last prophet. He's the last prophet.

And this is the one who said, I hate divorce, says the Lord. Oh God, I hate divorce. Do you know how many people avoid this verse when they don't want to hear it? I know what the Bible says.

Don't quote the Bible to me. I know what it says. It doesn't matter if you know what it says.

You have to apply what it says. But thank God there is grace for those who have experienced divorce or those going through a challenging time and they don't know what to do but to seek God. He will show you.

He will show you. And then the second key verse, oh, oh, that one of you would shut the temple doors so that you would not light useless fires on My altar. God's basically saying, I wish someone would just close down church.

And I thought about this. The churches when they have the openly gay pastor with the flag and the banner and the LGBTQ colors, it's almost like God's saying, you know what? Just shut the doors. Just shut down the temple.

Because it's useless to light fires on My altar. An altar where it must be a pure sacrifice. It must be a people destined for repentance.

It must be those who truly want to seek Me. Don't come in and play church, church. He's saying, don't even open the doors.

It's a stench in the nostrils of a righteous, holy God. I am not pleased with you. I will not accept your offering.

Powerful. Don't keep the altar going. Don't keep the services going.

You are not worshiping Me. When churches are apostate and they're not worshiping God, who are they worshiping? You said it, not me. Oh, Shane, that's a little harsh.

Think about it. If you're not worshiping the one true and living God, there's not a neutral stance. Kingdoms are light and darkness.

There's no gray. Well, I'm in the purple kingdom. Light and darkness.

And if those liberal apostate churches go in and they mock God by their lifestyle, you might as well not even have church. Because see, when you're not having church, at least you're not blaspheming and mocking Him. There's something holy and sacred about coming into His temple.

So I want to give you a few takeaways. Remember, Malachi was the last prophet. Last prophet of the Bible.

Remember these five things. You will become what you follow. Remember, they became an abomination like the thing they loved.

Treat sin like sin treats you. Hoo, hoo. Boy, I could stay here a while.

I'm going to kick it to the curb. I'm going to spin on it. Aren't you? Right? How does sin treat you? It wants to destroy you.

Treat it the same way. No mercy. No compromise.

I think it was John Owen said, be killing sin or sin be killing you. No mercy. No mercy.

No compromise. Pride deceives. Pride deceives.

One of the prophets I had to remove because we still have six more. It's already time to end. I think it was, he was writing to the Edomites in the Clefts of the Rock, and he said, the pride of your heart has deceived you.

I remember reading it 24 years ago. I highlighted it even back then. The pride of your heart has deceived you.

Be careful, prideful Christian. It will deceive you. Pride will deceive you, especially the world.

That's why they're so deceived. Because of pride. I don't like that God you like.

I want to form my own God. And then another point, when we don't offend, we affirm. Get ready for this one in the upcoming days of our culture.

When we don't offend, we affirm. Silence speaks volumes. Silence speaks volumes.

And that's what I wish a lot of pastors and churches would understand. When you're quiet about all these important issues, you still speak. Correct? If I see something happening, somebody's getting robbed out in front of Walmart, and I walk the other way, am I not saying something? Am I not doing something? And so these men could not be silent.

Like Jeremiah, his word is in my heart like a burning fire. I'm weary of holding it back, and I cannot. It doesn't happen every Sunday, but I love those Sundays where I can't wait to get here.

And it's just like hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. It's like a burning fire. I know this is going to help some people.

Return to be renewed. The final point is so important. Return to God to be renewed.

If you need to be reignited in your faith, if your passion is dead, if church is boring, if you're just kind of going through the motions, you don't like reading the Bible, you don't like really the things of God, you need to be renewed in your spirit and return to God 100%. Fully surrender. Say, God, I want the passion.

I want the fire. I want what Joel spoke about. I don't know about you, but I want what Joel spoke about when he said, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, but you have to be that willing vessel.

And it's interesting, Malachi ended with repentance, the last prophet. Did you know there was 400 years of silence in Israel's history? From Malachi to the New Testament, the sound of silence, the sound of silence, 400 years. You can read the Apocrypha reads about, this is like Maccabees and different things that are not, we don't look at them as authoritative, but they talk about what happened during some of this time.

But to me, it's so interesting because you got the prophet saying repent, Malachi saying repent, return to God, and then 400 years, here comes John the Baptist. What's he saying? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent for the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus said, go and preach repentance. I love the love of God. I love the mercy of God, but folks, God is calling us to a place of repentance and renewal and restoration.

And then from that repentant heart, then I can go out and preach the love of God and the mercy of God. How can I tell a sinner caught in sin? Oh, it's just God's love. God is love.

He's a cosmic ball of love. He's a doting grandfather. The Bible says God is love, but it also says His name is holy, holy, holy is my name.

And calling the people to repentance. It's so important. So where did the prophetic power came from? The power in their message came from their passion and their pursuit of God.

When you pursue God, you become passionate. They're longing and they're waiting. They're longing for God and they're waiting upon God.

Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They were emptied of themselves to be filled with God's Spirit. Maybe God is convicting you of something this morning.

That's hindering, hindering that fullness of the Spirit. And God says on this one I will look. Think about this, the God who created the universe that is so mind boggling that scientists can't even explain.

Just when you think, you under, like billions of stars. Wait a minute, there's billions of galaxies. What? You know how big a galaxy is? How, what is this out there? Who did that? Who holds it all together? This little tiny planet.

Oxygen, nitrogen and earth and sun. It's like He holds us in the palm of His hands. That God said, this is on the one I will look.

Not skin color, not gender, ethnicity, young, old, it does not matter. I will look on Him who is poor and of contrite spirit. Not money, not physical bling bling, spiritual bling bling.

The older folks won't know what I mean, but the kids do. No, my kids, dad, don't say that anymore. I know, I'm gonna hear it.

Don't say bling bling. I look on, this was dramatic. Now you guys just softened it up a little bit.

But I will look at Him who is contrite, broken, humble, and let's not miss this, because this is what we need to get back in our nation. This is what we are missing right now in most churches, okay? And He who trembles at my word, at my principles, thus saith the Lord. Because you can just say, oh yeah, I'm poor, and I'm contrite, and God, I'm just a worshiper.

But if you are lukewarm, and cowardly, and woke, and you don't really care about God's word, and you're redefining things, and like yeah, Paul, you know, I have a problem with Paul. He probably didn't mean that. And you know, that's old fashioned.

That's for them. Be careful, you need to tremble at His word. You need to get a good shock therapy of God's word shocking you back into spiritual resuscitation and saying, I fear and I tremble at your word, because it says the beginning of knowledge is the fear of the Lord.

And the fear of the Lord is what operates the successful church. Acts says, and they walked out in the fear of the Lord. Fearing and trembling at His word.

Repentance conceals and it heals. It revives and it renews. It changes and it rearranges.

Repent this morning. Repent this morning. I'm gonna borrow what Paula texted me.

Paula Agee, nobody can do this for you. You have to walk that path of faith and humility on your own. Wow, that just stood out.

Nobody can do this for you. You have to walk this path of faith and humility out. You need to get up out of your chair and possibly come forward.

You need to get up out of your chair and isn't it hard to humble yourself when going to the prayer room? I remember when I first came back to the Lord, my life falling apart. I got my hands in my pocket and I come up forward for prayer. I'm like, oh gosh.

Oh, it's so embarrassing. Tim, everybody thinks they got it all together. Man, they're gonna wonder why? What's wrong with Shane? Why'd he have to go forward in prayer? What's going on? And for weeks, I just, nope.

Nope. I haven't avoided baptism for a year. No, no, no, no.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's embarrassing. Boy, God will break you, won't He? How many of us know that believers also need to repent from time to time? Mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm.

That wasn't too encouraging. You're like, I guess so. Golly gee, I guess so.

But this type of repentance, guys, let me tell you, when we're in sin, we're not happy. We know what we should be doing and we're not doing it, so we're frustrated. We know God's not pleased.

We know it's affecting our marriage, our families. We know it's affecting our relationship with the Lord. We know there's so much more that we could have, the fullness of the Spirit.

And so what it tries to do is besetting sin. It wants to lock us in this position of, best explanation I've ever heard is what I gave you a few months ago. It's a certificate of non-operation, like the DMV issues.

Have you ever seen those? You can go get a certificate of non-operation for your Honda sitting out in the driveway for 14 years. And it can just sit there and do nothing, go nowhere. And that's what the enemy wants to do, is get us, if we're in a spiritual battle and we're soldiers in a spiritual battle, wouldn't you want to de-arm the soldier? Wouldn't you want him to go back and go home and cry and stay in his house? And that's what happens.

We get besetting sin comes into our hearts. We don't want to repent. We don't repent.

And we just stay there. We just stay there. We go through the motions.

Inside, we're dying spiritually. We have no passion for the things of God. That's why repentance is a beautiful word.

It's a beautiful word. Malachi, the last prophet of the Bible, his message was repentance, correct? Did you know that the Bible is silent for 400 more years? 400 years of silence. And then somebody comes on the scene by the name of John the Baptist.

What was his message? Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Jesus said, go and preach repentance to the people. Now that's repentance for salvation, I got it.

But there's also, in his Pauline epistles in Galatians and Ephesians, he's talking about writing to Corinthians, I'm glad that my letter upset you if it led you to repentance. There's a repentance that a believer needs to have. Repentance, Lord, I repent for destroying my marriage.

I repent for being arrogant in my marriage and being angry in my marriage. I repent for allowing this sin to come into my life and getting hooked to these things that are clearly, clearly taking my relationship away from You. Lord, I repent of these things.

I change my mind and I want to change my actions. God, I need Your help. I need Your fire.

I need the fire of the Spirit. That can happen this morning. That's why we get so passionate about this because we know it changes lives.

Repentance changes lives. It opens up the communication again between you and God. Have you ever kinked the water hose? Shut that water right off? You've got the Holy Spirit.

I've got a river of life flowing out of me. Makes a link. We haven't done that one in a while, right? But the Holy Spirit wants to move, but you kinked it.

It's stopped. Maybe a little bit dripping out. But repentance opens that kink, opens the hose, and the flowing rivers of living water, if you believe on me as a Scripture, say, out of your belly is going to flow rivers of living water.

And guys, I'm not preaching at you. I'm preaching to you. As someone who can quench and grieve the Spirit Himself, amen.

Pastors can do that too. Oh yeah, real easy. It's actually just as easy for us because any little thing, God says, nope, you gotta deal with that.

Nope, you gotta deal with that. You're a shepherd, you can't do that. I get jealous sometimes.

You guys can get away with so much. I can't go off on anybody on texting. I can't cuss them out.

I can't... Shepherd, right? But you guys can get away with so much. I'm joking though, right? Of course, Christians should be all for God's glory.