So the Bible gives us some clear bad examples, and it may surprise you who makes the list. I'm not saying people are unsaved. We're just saying that people, they instead of losing their life, maybe even part of their life they did really well, but then they took their life back. You can do that as a Christian, but you'll pay for it. And so just think about some people who had no consultation with God. We'll start with Cain. Cain offered an offering to the Lord. Isn't that good? Not if it's not according to God's word. Do you realize every time you give an offering and you're not giving it out of love for the Lord and because he's prospered you, you want to give back to the Lord. It's sin. You can bring a million dollar check and drop it in there, but if you give that million dollar check and it's for control of the church, as we were talking, some people give money to the church and want to control it, other people want attention, they want the building named after them or something, then that's a sin. The Bible says you're supposed to do everything by faith, and what is not of faith is sin. But if you give, an offering because you love the Lord, He's blessed you and you want to give back, God has respect for that offering. So Cain, he didn't consult God and he brought a salad. Abel, by faith, brought an animal and blood sacrifice. But even Abel's sacrifice wouldn't have been honorable to God if it wasn't by faith. But it was. Cain did not consult God when he brought his offering and he did not consult God when he killed his brother. And it was all downhill from there. Well, Abraham. Whoa, Abraham? Well, yeah. First of all, you think he consulted with God when he lied to Abimelech and said that Sarah was his sister and didn't mention she was his half-sister and also his wife? And he did, some people say, well, he benefited from that. Well, in some material sense, he did. But in a moral and spiritual sense, he did not. And so do you think Abraham was blessed whenever he didn't consult with God and had sex with Hagar? Yeah. Ishmael, what happened? He ended up having to send Ishmael off. And whether your kids leave by their own volition or you have to send them off, that's a severe grief. that Abraham suffered because he didn't consult with God. And there's other examples, but Jacob. Jacob and his mother did not consult with God when they tricked Esau. So what happened? Jacob had to leave and go to his uncle Laban to get a wife and he ends up with two. And there's more to that story, but he never saw his mother again. because they were using trickery. They didn't consult with God. They took matters into their own hands. Moses didn't consult with God and beat that rock when he was told to speak to the rock. So what happened? He didn't get to go in the promised land. Why? He didn't consult with God. He did what he wanted to do. Saul, King Saul, there's several examples. But a couple I'll throw out there is you remember when he defeated the Philistines but didn't kill everything that was in there and he kept some of the sheep and some of the cattle or whatever and one of the kings and what happened? Samuel steps in and takes care of matters. But Saul was rejected of God. And one thing leads to another, sin begets sin, and so what does Saul do? He calls out to the Lord over and over, and God's ignoring him. So what's he do? He seeks after a witch at Endor. And he ends up slain and falling on his own sword to kill himself in battle. King David didn't consult with the Lord when he eyeballed the naked Bathsheba on the roof. Didn't consult with the Lord when he had sex with her. Didn't consult with the Lord when he set Uriah up to be killed in battle. And just read the rest of the story over and over how David paid for that sin. Starting with the child conceived of that sexual union dying. People say, well, God let David get by. No, he did not. You need to read your Bible again. David didn't go to hell, but he sure had a lot of hell on earth because of it. Rehoboam. After Solomon died, his son Rehoboam takes over and instead of seeking counsel of the Lord, he gets his buddies together. They tell him to tell everybody that he's gonna be even more severe than his dad. It splits the kingdom. And it all went downhill from there. Josiah. Johnny, I believe you mentioned him a couple weeks ago. Josiah is my favorite king in the Bible. I mean, I love David, and I love all the other good kings, but my favorite, the one that when I'm reading, I'm like, yeah, yeah, you know? It's like, this is great, you know? That's Josiah. He, well, let's go look at it. Second Chronicles 35. Now, Josiah had become king, and Israel's completely an apostasy. But then they find the book of God, the law of God, a book shoved away and covered with dust like the Bible is in a lot of homes here in America. And they pull this thing out, blow off the dust, they start reading it, and they're like, we need to show the king this. So they take it to Josiah, and Josiah says, read it to me, and they start reading it, and he rips his clothes, and he calls for National repentance. And there's a great revival in the land. And Josiah restores temple worship, restores the Passover. A Passover they hadn't actually celebrated the like since Joshua. And it was still around. Been a long time. And so Israel... They're starting to prosper as a nation, everything. Happy days are here again. Josiah was like, he's the man, we love Josiah. There was a little prophetess named Beth Moore telling everybody to reject Josiah because it's a sin. But there were some prophets who were against him. But Josiah, he's doing so good. Then look what happens. After all this that I just summarized, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Necho, king of Egypt, came up to fight against Carchemish by Euphrates. And you say, well, what's that got to do with Israel and Josiah? Nothing. That's the problem. Look at what it says then. And Josiah went out against him. At no point, and this is accounted for twice in the Kings and Chronicles, there's no mention of him consulting God. He just gets the big head and goes out to take on the Pharaoh. And the Pharaoh, verse 21, but he, the Pharaoh, sent ambassadors to him saying, what have I to do with thee, thou King of Judah? I came not against thee this day, but against the house wherewith I have war. For God commanded me to make haste. Now isn't that something? Your history books and history channel and all that will lie to you and tell you that the Pharaohs were all pagans. None of them recognized the God of the Bible, and that's false. And originally, Egypt knew the God of the Bible, and then when Joseph went there, reintroduced the God of the Bible, and by the time Josiah's there, Israel's influence is still being felt by Egypt. And he knew who the Lord was. And he says the Lord told him to do what he's doing. And the Bible never says he didn't. He says, for God commanded me to make haste, forbear thee from meddling with God. So not only did Josiah not seek God and went out, but when he was told this, he wasn't a Berean. He didn't follow Acts 17 11 and go to the Lord and say, Lord, did you say this? So what happens? Well, Pharaoh says, forbear thee from meddling with God who is with me, that he destroy thee not. And like I said, Josiah did not consult with God. In verse 22, read that with me. Nevertheless, Josiah would not turn his face from him, but disguised himself that he might fight with him, and hearkened not unto the words of Necho from the mouth of God, and came to fight in the valley of Megiddo. So there you have it. It says right there, the Bible says that Pharaoh Necho was telling the truth. This was from the mouth of God. And so what happens? Well, verse 23, and the archer shot at King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, have me away, for I am sore wounded. His servants therefore took him out of that chariot and put him in the second chariot that he had, and they brought him to Jerusalem, and he died and was buried in one of the sepulchres of his fathers. And all Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah. You say, well, you said Josiah's your favorite king. That didn't end well. Well, the reason he's my favorite king is because he shows what'll happen when you obey God, but also, even as a believer, what'll happen when you don't obey God. And really, he wasn't even disobeying God directly. He just was simply not consulting the Lord. And that's why he's my favorite. He reminds me. You don't know how many times that I've thought about things and I'm thinking about decisions like, I need to pray about this because I do not want to end like Josiah. I wanna be like Josiah was up to verse 20. Verse 20, things went wrong. Before that, Josiah was wonderful. And I look forward to meeting Josiah. And I'm gonna tell him, I'm gonna say, you were my favorite king except for that last part. Johnny? Yeah. Who knows? According to this it says he was 39 years old when he died. Think about that. If he'd lived to be 80. He might have lived to be 80 if he'd listened to the Lord. And what good could have come of that? So with that laid down, if any man will come after me, I'm sorry, for whosoever will save his life will lose it. And what Josiah did was he took over his own life. Instead of letting God rule in his life, there at the end, Josiah took it back. Before that, Josiah had lost his life to the Lord, and the Lord controlled Josiah. And then it says, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. And that's flipped, describes the life of Josiah. Because up until verse 20 in 2 Chronicles 35, He had totally lost his life for the sake of the Lord, and he, in doing so, had saved his life. Now, this contradicts the self-esteem, self-love stuff. I'm not ever telling you to hate yourself. I'm telling you, you already have an inclination to make too much of yourself. The key is to stop doing that and make much of Christ. Make much of His Word. Fill yourself not with your own opinions. Practice not saying things like, well, to me, well, I think, well, if you follow up, well, I think based on the Word of God, that. That's a better way of saying it. But your standalone opinions when it comes to... Now, if we're going to talk about what type of motor oil is best used in a 2013 Honda Fit, okay, your opinion counts, especially if you've owned one, etc. We're not talking about those things. We're talking about anything God's word touches on. Well, how are you going to know that if you don't read it from cover to cover? And how are you going to know that if you won't sit under sound teaching and grow and learn? You're not. And you're going to make those mistakes. And so that's why there are people who can't come to church. Why? Because they can't lose themselves. They've got football going on, you know. At noon it's kickoff and you keep rambling on so I can't come there. and there's guys who can't do things at other times because of their golf game or their fishing or whatever. Well, that's your choice. It's a free country, but it'll show in your life. Now, there are people and we have people drive in from Timbuk3, and then we got people online. I'm not saying if you have a church that you can drive to within a reasonable amount of time. But if you don't, then you set aside a time on Sunday and either watch the live stream or watch it when it's reposted or whatever. That's the point. But there are people who, today, think about it. Even 20 years ago, if you missed church, you missed it. Now, you can miss church and catch it later and still people won't do it. But there are people, and I thank God for them. We hear from them all the time. We have a couple in the pews today who, you know, catch it online. We have people who come in and visit. And, you know, they come from way out of town. They just want to come in and be a part of the service once because they've been watching online. And we've had them drive in from out of state. Didn't even know they were coming. I was like, if you told me you were coming, you know, we could have at least, you know, planned a little thing. We had people flying from Australia one time. And beautiful, wonderful family. This was when we were still at Sharon Hall. And it was like, oh, I wish I'd known they were coming. But we're still glad to see them. But the point is that that family didn't have a good church in their area of Australia, so they made Bible Believers Fellowship their church on their little TV. So that's the point. You should just do that. What you're going to find is that the Bible is constantly going to contradict the indoctrination you're hearing in the education system, and on television, and even in Christian curriculum. Yeah. Amen. Even Christian curriculum. There are preachers who have left the Southern Baptist denomination because they insist that you use their curriculum, and they're like, we're going to use the Bible. Amen. They get in trouble with the denomination, so they pull out. Well, I agree with that. Amen. Use the Bible, especially if you've got the right one. There is a place for taking care of oneself. We're not saying, like I said, no self-abuse or anything like that. But people go a bit far with it. You know what I mean? People are all about themselves. And instead of losing their life for the Lord, they're always just thinking of me, me, me. Here's one example. I'm not really single. I'm dating myself. I take myself out to eat. I buy myself clothes. I love me. I'm awesome. He's also lonely. If that's how you think, you're going to be very lonely. Nothing wrong with a single person going out once in a while and spending a few dollars on themselves. But if that's what your lifestyle is, and you're just like, it's all about me. You're just going to be single the rest of your life. You might find somebody, but you'll be a statistic. But if you want a good Christian marriage, you had better be selfless. When that person comes along, both of you are constantly thinking of the other person. Constantly. I mean, I'm telling you, I just, I feel bad for people who don't experience that because I've had that now going in 16 years with Jenny. I mean, it's so great not having some self-centered nag in my house. She is the opposite of that. And it's great. And I just tell you, if you do things God's way, you can find that kind of spouse. But listen, until you do, you're better off alone. Don't go jumping into something because you'll be better off. You wish you hadn't. And some of us have also been there in the past. Self-centeredness results in isolation. When all you... I know so many people who, you know, they're just like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, me, and me, and me, and then they end up all alone. Why? They spent too much time looking inside and not outside, and thinking of ways they can serve the Lord and serve others. And Proverbs 18, 24 says, a man that hath friends must show himself friendly. And there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. Now listen, we've offered friendship of the local church variety, and there's been people who are lonely, but because they don't want to hear the word of God, and they want to continue in self-centeredness, they don't accept it, but we're still open arms. We want to be here for people, but we can't force them. That's why we joke about calling the church Horses to Water Ministries, because you can take a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. But Jesus can be your best friend. And that's the way it ought to be. But he's not into selfish people. So a lot of lonely people will even say, well, I still have Jesus. And if you know them and you know how self-centered are, you're thinking, he's not really into you right now. Why? Because you're too self-centered. Jesus likes being around people who are selfless. Not self-centered. So you got people who are very lonely walking around with Jesus is my homeboy t-shirts on, but you watch these people, you'll find out they're very lonely. So let's close looking again at that, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall find it. If you want friends, if you want to be right with God, if you want to be happy, all those things, it's about sacrifice for the cause of Christ. See, you're not just doing these things meaninglessly or just randomly. You're doing things for the cause of Christ. You're serving the Lord. You want to be right with Him. And few professing Christians today lose their life for Christ's sake. Don't be one of those people. Just because the majority are like that, you don't have to be like that. So let's close by looking at Philippians 3. This was the Apostle Paul. What he's about to say contradicts most of what you've been taught when it comes to self-esteem, self-love, and all that. He says in verse 7, but what things were gained to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Read verse eight with me. Yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ. That's pretty rough if you think about what he just said. All the worldly things you're spending and wasting your life on is crap. That's what he said. Loving self is a mark of the end time Laodicean fake Christian. You're gonna choose in this, right now where you live, you're gonna choose to either be a Bible Christian or a Laodicean. I lied, 2 Timothy chapter three, I forgot, I thought I had it, the reference up there. 2 Timothy chapter three. I just want you to see this. We're only gonna read actually the first two verses. I just want you to see this. This whole self love thing. Love yourself. Self-esteem, all that. It's a mark of the end time layer to see in. 2 Timothy 3 verse 1 says, this know also that in the last days, how many of you don't believe we're in the last days? Then you're blind as a bat. In the last days, perilous times shall come. Now just read those next few words. For men shall be lovers of their own selves. Right there. You go on, it describes that, but that's it. Men shall be lovers, and that's mankind. That includes you women, by the way. Not you personally, but includes men and women. The mass majority shall be lovers of their own selves. Explain to me how the Bible can say that and yet Christian teachers are out there telling people to love themselves. Christian teachers teach this, let alone the world. Yeah, because they're wolves. They're wolves, that's right. Amen. What example did Jesus give us? First Peter 2.24, who his own self bear our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness by whose stripes you were healed. Jesus gave his own self to die for your sins. This should come to mind every time we see the baby Jesus. I'm not going to quote that. You know where it says, Jesus came to be the Savior of the whole world. All this holiday, most places it's Rudolph and Santa and all that. But every once in a while you see somebody with a nativity. Even the apostate Methodist church out here has a big nice nativity. And you look at that and you should remember, He came to die. He gave himself. He was not about self-esteem and self-love. He was about self-sacrifice. Amen. glory to the newborn King mercy my God and sinners reconciled joy for all the nations rise join the triumph of the sky with angelic hosts proclaim ♪ Christ is born in Bethlehem ♪ On the herald angels sing ♪ Glory to the newborn King On this great lyric, sing verse two. ♪ Christ by highest heaven adored ♪ Christ the everlasting Lord Oh God see heaven on earth three righteousness I born to raise born to give them second birth. Hark the herald angels sing, glory to the newborn King. Sing out on the last. Come, desire of nations, come, fix in us thy humble home. As the woman's concrete seat bruised in us the serpent's pit. Adam's likeness now he's faced, stamped thine image in his place. Second Adam from above, ♪ Give instead of sin thy love ♪ Hark the herald angels sing ♪ Glory to the newborn king ♪ All God's people say amen. ♪ Amen. let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing and heaven and nature sing joy to the earth In their song employ While fields and floods Rocks, hills, and plains Repeat the sounding joy Repeat, repeat the sounding joy Repeat, repeat the sounding joy For more than strength and song, For gold he'll cast the ground. He comes in the day, His blessings flow, For as the curses fell, For as the curses fell, For as, for as, for as the curses fell. He rules the world with truth and grace And makes the nations prove The glories of His righteousness And wonders of His love