Latest / HOTLCAST / [SERMON] 400 Yes-Men and the One Guy Who Told the Truth | Dungeons & Dragons

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[SERMON] 400 Yes-Men and the One Guy Who Told the Truth | Dungeons & Dragons · HOTLCAST

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we're talking about a series called Dungeons and Dragons because it's October, and in October we always do something a little bit weird and different because it's you know Halloween season and and so we try to pick some of the more odd stories in scripture that people don't often go to.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: We aren't talking about Dungeons and Dragons, the game.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um we do have a lot of people that play Dungeons and Dragons.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was growing up in church, I was at Nazarene church in the 80s, and um we weren't allowed to play cards, we weren't allowed to dance, we were allowed to watch movies, that kind of stuff.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: That was all gonna send you straight to hell.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Dungeons and Dragons definitely would send you straight to hell if you played it.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So my cousins played it, I wasn't allowed to play it because you know it was the devil's game and the devil's dice.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so here's the crazy thing.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have a lot of people play this game at church.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Every church I've ever been at has always had people.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: People kind of play it in secret because they because of the stigma that comes out of the 80s with it.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: But here's an interesting thing that happened.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Cody shared this with me when I was on my trip, and so I wanted to share it with you.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is from a letter written.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there was a fan letter written to the creator of Dungeons and Dragons, Gary Gygax.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Gary responded a month before he died, and this way he said, Thank you, Michael.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: All I am is another fellow human that has at last, after many wrong paths and failed attempts, found Jesus Christ.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Viacondios Gary.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, and then he ended it with Matthew 5, 16, let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Ryan sharing with you is because, like, the funny thing about the church and its position on different things over the years, Gary was uh a Christian seeking Christ when he created a fantasy game called Dungeons and Dragons that the church one kind of went crazy about.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And that obviously affected his faith journey up and down until the end, he landed on Jesus Christ.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: So there's always hope for all things, right?
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: When we come down to it, it's always our lives are hopefully always pointing us to Jesus Christ.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're still not talking about Dungeons and Dragons in that sense, but there are stories in the Bible about dungeons and dragons, and so we're gonna talk about those this month and kind of investigate what those mean.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought that was a fun little thing, Cody shared with me, so I'd share it with you today.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, we're gonna go to 853 BC.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Anyone remember that time?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: No?
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Let me set, yeah, let me set the let me set the kind of the background for this.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: In 853 BC, Israel, what we know to be Israel from David and Solomon, is now two countries, not one, because like anything, Solomon's kids got mad, wanted to split up the kingdom.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom, and they were allied together.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if we go all the way to like the time of Jesus, when Jesus goes to Samaria, that's the North Kingdom, where, you know, that's the north and the south.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So the Samaritan, you know, on the side of the road, and the woman at the well, those were like their adversaries at the time.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: But early on, they were allies, so the north and south worked together.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Later they became like uh, you know, cousins who didn't like each other very much at the end of the day.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But at this point in 853 BC, there's two kingdoms, Israel and Judah in the south.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Israel is at war with Syria.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so Israel and Syria had been at peace for a time after the war.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: They lost some territory, you know, there's all the Middle East has always been at war.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so they had eventually lost some territory to Syria, but there had been a period of peace.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: But King Ahab from the north wanted to reclaim a city, remote Gilead, which was a strategically important city still controlled by Syria.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, hey, we've been at peace, but let's let's shake it up a little bit.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go get this city back because one, trade routes, two, um, if you get the city back and it's strategically located, you can put a fortress there, you can protect your borders, they can't come and attack you again.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And just because I was in Italy and every town in Tuscany is on a hilltop, and we were in one called Montalcino, and you go up the hill, you get to the hill, there's a giant fortress, and the city is on the other side of the top of the hill.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot get to it without going through the fortress, so everybody lives protected.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it looks like to be strategically important.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: You protect the people, you get you can deal with battle and all those things, and so Ahab is trying to get this city back.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so he recruits his buddy, Jehosaphat, from the southern kingdom and says, Hey, I got a plan, I got an idea.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go to war, let's start a war, let's go get our city back that belonged to us and our lineage, and so we can protect ourselves for future wars and conquests.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what's happening.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so, can I get the next slide?
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we don't want God's answer when we're making decisions.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: We want God to agree with ours.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: So, what Ahab decides, he makes a decision.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: We're at peace, I want this city back, I'm gonna do it.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't pray about it, doesn't ask God about it, he just makes a decision, I want to do this, recruits Jehosaphat, and says, Let's do this.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's oftentimes what happens in life is sometimes we don't want God to give us the answer that we don't want.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: We just want God to agree with our answer.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're gonna go to the Bible.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: This story is from 1 Kings 22, the whole chapter.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna skip around in it uh and skip a lot.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to read it for homework.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Check my story, read it.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's some details in here that I'm not gonna get to.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But we're gonna read, uh, we're gonna read from 1 Kings 22, verse 3.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: You guys read the yellow part out loud and proud.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It says this Do you know that Ramoth Gilead belongs to us, and we can keep quiet and do not take it out of the hand of the king of Syria.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh what's happening here is Ahab is conspiring his plan to go back and get this city.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: He's recruiting Jehoshaphat.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so Ahab had already decided what he wanted to do before he then goes to ask God what God wants him to do.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: In 1 Kings 22, 6, Ahab now decides, hey, I want to go get the city back.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't I check with God and see what God thinks about this?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So then the king of Israel, which is Ahab, uh, gathered the prophets together about 400 men and said to them, Shall I go against Ramoth Gilead, or shall I refrain?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, Go up, for the Lord will give it into the hand of the king.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So he's got his advisors, 400 of them.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Here's my plan.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do this thing, I want to do it.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: What do you guys think?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I what does the Lord think I should do?
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you know anything about advisors, they probably already knew that Ahab was gonna go ahead and do this because this was already conversations between two different nations, which means they had to communicate, they had to pass back people who were talking, which means they probably got around the the the the not the town, but the the the kingdom.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so these people who were his advisors probably already got the gist.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab's gonna do this.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So what do they decide to do?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, yeah, you should do what you want to do.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord says to do that thing.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so 400 people can agree, and when we find out the stories, they can still be wrong.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because just because Ahab wants to do it doesn't mean God was in it, and just because 400 people said that God was in it doesn't actually mean that God was in it.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as they're having this conversation back and forth between Ahab and his advisors and Jehoshaphat, the king of the southern kingdom, Jehoshaphat says in 1 Kings 22, 7, says this, but Jehoshaphat said, Is there not here another prophet of the Lorm of whom we may inquire?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: So something seems off to Jehoshaphat.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right, you got 400 people saying yes to Ahab, but something doesn't seem right.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: So Jehoshaphat says, Well, I know we got 400 people, but is there anyone else we can hear from that might give us any kind other advice?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Is there another prophet who might tell us what the Lord's saying?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so when everyone tells you exactly what you want to hear, you might need to hear another voice still.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because we all have people in our life, we kind of tend to surround ourselves with yes men and yes women, people who just say whatever we want to hear.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: If I ask them their advice, oh, they're gonna just tell me, go, yeah, go, yeah, yeah, do that thing.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do that thing.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people in life they don't like conflict and they don't want tension.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So they want to tell you something that might be hard for you to hear because they know you're not gonna like to hear it, so they just tell you whatever you want to hear.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds good.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do that.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, it's all that sounds great.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that can lead to your path into destruction because they're not actually giving you good advice, they're just kind of telling you whatever you want to hear to make you happy.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that we all have people like that in our lives.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: And some of us seek out people like that because we don't like to hear from people who don't, you know, who want to tell us the truth.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so this story continues on in 1 Kings 22, 8.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, This there is yet one man by whom we may inquire the Lord, Micaiah, the son of Imlah, but I hate him.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is Ahab responding to Jehoshaphat.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's saying, There is a guy.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jehoshaphat, I know a guy.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hate that guy.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that guy, I don't want to hear from him, but he for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: This guy's a jerk.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is basically what he's saying.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I don't want to go talk to the jerk.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: He's always mean to me, he's always saying mean things about me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we all have people like that in our life.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: The people that will say the hard thing, will say the true thing to you, but you don't like to hear it because you want to do what you want to do in life.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: You want to go your direction.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to hear that person.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you, you are, you are the Micaias, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's you.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: You're the hated person in your circle, right?
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're the person, I'm gonna speak truth, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't want to hear truth.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: They want to hear, yes, do whatever you want, right?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: They want you to just kind of make them feel good and let them do their thing.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what's happening.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab knew which prophet would tell him the truth.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: He knew Micaiah would tell him the truth.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: He just didn't want to hear the truth.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was fine with his 400 advisors, yes men, who would tell him whatever he wanted to do, because that's that was the plan.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in 1 Kings 22, 11, it says, now Zedekiah, which was another uh kind of prophet in the circle of the advisors, the son of Shenah, made for himself horns of iron and said, Thus saith the Lord, with these you shall push the Syrians until they are destroyed.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: So Zedekiah, while all this is happening, he goes and gets these horns.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: They make these horns of iron.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You can take these, and we can blow these horns, and it'll be loud, and it'll be awesome, and we'll go to battle, and we'll we'll take over uh Remote Gilead and we'll have this great victory.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord says we're gonna do it.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so they're creating this whole giant spectacle of what God is saying, and he's bringing all these other things in to say it not only is this gonna be a victory, it's gonna be awesome, and there's gonna be music, and there's gonna be the horns, it's gonna be amazing, and we're gonna celebrate.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But spectacle is not the same thing as spirit, because the spirit of God and his truth is way different than just blowing horns and blowing nonsense, right?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, we got a lot of people around us in life that just blow their horns.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they toot their own horns, they toot our horn, right?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: And they tell us to do whatever we want to do, but they're just trying to make us happy, and they're just trying to be yes men and yes women when they're really not trying to tell us the truth.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 14, it says this But Micaiah said, As the Lord lives, what the Lord says to me, that I will speak.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they they they went and found Micaiah.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Micaiah comes, he's like, Listen, I know you don't like me very much, Ahab, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll tell you the truth.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he was outnumbered 400 to 1.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a hard one.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Truth wasn't.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the reality.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: If if you all told me today in all three services, I'd be like 400 and some people, if you all said Michigan is a really good football team this year, I would have to be I'm the one person to tell you you're wrong, right?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I'll stand against you on this.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: I love Michigan, but they were bad this year.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of the what it would be.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: So Micaiah's coming in saying something completely opposite of what everyone else is saying to Ahab.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: They're all yes men, because they want to keep their jobs.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you go against the king, you can go to jail, you get thrown in the dungeon, you can be killed, you could have your job, you know, basically be fired, sent out the into a life of poverty and hardship.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: These guys didn't want to mess with it, so 400, I'm just like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds great.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: God's with you.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: This could be great.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so Micaiah is called upon.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what happens first is Micaiah comes in and he's like, uh, there's another guy in the story, and he's like, hey, just go in and just tell him whatever he wants to hear.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab hates you.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just go in and say, Yeah, I'm in agreement with the 400.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so Micaiah comes in originally in the story, and he's just like, and Ahab's like, what do you think?
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he's or Joseph says it.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: Go do it.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Good do it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll win.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Be a great victory.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But they can feel that he's not being genuine, all right?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: He's being disingenuous.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they press him on it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: And when they press him on it, he's like, All right, you want to know.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: We find out in verse 19.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says this.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand on his left.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, So, like, let me tell you, I had a vision.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: I saw God on the throne, I saw heaven, and this is what he told me.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't good news.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's basically said that Israel is going to be scattered and dashed.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab, you're going to die.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to put lying words in all the mouths of these 400 people to get you to go, entice you to go, so you'll die.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's my that's my vision, that's my prophecy.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, even though Ahab thought he was running this whole shindag, this meeting, Micaiah had seen the real throne room of God.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Micaiah was in relationship with God.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: God was giving him through his spirit the truth, the real understanding of what was needed to be said.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: Micaiah was against the 400 because he was the only one that was actually in tune to listening to God.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else was just trying to kind of fluff Ahab's feathers and telling whatever he wanted to hear so that he could get his way and so that they could keep their jobs.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the reality.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Can I get the next slide, please?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then we go to uh verses 24 and 27.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna skip down the story a little bit, you can read it.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so then Zedekiah in verse 24 says this Zedekiah the son of Shanah came near and struck Micaiah on the see.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is happening in a room.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: There is a ton of advisors, there's a ton of people watching this.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: You got Ahab, you got Jehoshaphat, you got all these advisors.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so Micaiah comes in and says, Uh yeah, yeah, I think you should go.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then he's they're like, Well, well, is that what God's really saying?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: He says, No.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: He gives a disastrous uh prediction vision to Ahab.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so Zedekiah walks up and punches him in the face.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Zedekiah's like, no, you're not gonna do that.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're stealing my thunder.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I got these horns, right?
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go blow horns and have a great victory.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So he punches him in the face.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then a few verses later, Ahab says this.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab says, put this fellow in prison or the dungeon and feed him meager rations of bread and water until I come in peace.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's basically saying, Lock him up.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: This guy doesn't like me.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's a jerk, he's an idiot, he hates me, I hate him, right?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna put him in jail, we're gonna starve him out.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go have a victory, then I'm gonna come back and I'm gonna say, Told you so.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's is that is exactly what's happening in this story.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: We've all done similar.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'll show, I'll show them, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'll show you.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes obedience to God doesn't keep you out of the dungeon, it's actually what puts you there.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: Micaiah, he was gonna do the right thing.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: You ask me, I'll tell you.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is what God says.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna like it.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, doing the right thing, the hard thing, the obedient thing, it landed him in jail.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: It put him in a dungeon.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, what happens next is Ahab, he thinks, well, maybe there is a little truth to Micaiah.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Makiah's a jerk, he's always mean to me and says mean things about me.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe he's right.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so it says in verse 30 and the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, I will disguise myself into going to battle, but you wear your robes.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Jehoshaphat, it's fine.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: God didn't put a prediction that you're gonna die.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: You go wear your royal garments.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna disguise myself because I'm gonna trick God.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show him, I'm gonna show uh, I'm gonna show Micaiah that his vision's not real because I'm gonna hide myself.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: No one's gonna know I'm the king, so no one can kill me.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: God won't smite me, and it'll be fine.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna come back here and I'm gonna say, I told you so.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So Ahab believed God's warning enough to disguise himself, but he didn't believe it enough to actually just obey God and not go to battle against Syria.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: So in verse 34, the story continues on.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh, what happens is they go actually go out to battle.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they go disguised.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab is on uh chariots, just dressed as a normal person.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jehoshaphat's on his chariots, they go into war.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Things are going well, then they're not going well.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: They end up turning against Ahab, they start losing, so he begins to flee, dressed as kind of a normal soldier, right?
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then this happens in 1 Kings 22, 34.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: But a certain man drew his bow at random and struck the king of Israel between the scale armor and the breastplate, ultimately leading to his death.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can wear a disguise and hide from an archer.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: You can wear a disguise and look like you might not be the king, but you can't wear a disguise and hide from God and his plan for your life.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so, why are we talking about this?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: What does this mean for you?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is we gotta stop asking God to prove the life that we've already decided to live.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's the truth.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: We we do this in life.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: We try to convince people that we are essentially putting on disguise and saying, Well, I know what God says, and I'm gonna follow God, but yet I still want to do my own thing, right?
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna pretend like I'm following and be obedient to God, but I'm gonna just do what I want to do.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Ahab is essentially doing.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna still do what I want to do, but I'm gonna disguise myself so like I'm gonna heed God a little bit, but I'm gonna get away with what I want to do.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: We literally do this in life.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the the most famous example in the church of this would be missionary dating, where we are where couples date someone who's not a Christian, like a like someone will date someone who's not a Christian because they're gonna save their soul, right?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: This person needs Jesus.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if we if I if we become romantically engaged in a relationship, then I'll be able to introduce this person to my faith in Jesus Christ and they'll be saved.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: That rarely ends well.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you know this, it doesn't, it doesn't have a high success rate.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: And what it means is I know I want to obey God, that God says don't be unequally yoked, which someone who's not a believer, but I want to dabble my foot in like sin a little bit and like doing things that are my way.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna disguise myself that I'm listening and I'm trying to be a you know someone who shares the gospel, but I'm gonna do my own thing.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that looks like.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we see it over and over and over again in church.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when I was in uh Tuscany, there was a pool at uh one of the hotels we say that, and it was an outdoor pool.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we got all dressed up in our uh sulfur-covered swimsuits, and we decided to get in the pool.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: We got out of the pool, we put our foot in the pool.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was freezing cold, right?
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: We dabbled in it.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: But some of us, that's literally what we're doing with like sin.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this last series that I did before I left.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like there's this edge, this line of sin where we know we can stay far back from and be with God and be obedient to Him.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: But some of us we like to stick our foot in the pool, the sin pool.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, I want to do my own thing.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: I want to test, I want to test and see.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it feels nice.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, oh, too cold, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: Some of us we just keep going into life and doing our own thing, my own direction.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want to obey me and my wants, my desires, my lusts.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna just put my foot in there and dabble a little bit.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still I'm still not in the water, right?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still, I'm just I'm just dabbling, but some of us we dabble through life, doing our own thing, disguising ourselves as if we, you know, think God can't see what we're doing when really what we should be doing is just being obedient to Him, His will for our life, our career, our thoughts, our behavior, our attitudes, our actions, what comes out of our mouth.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that I put on Facebook the like videos about us being robbed is like I get up on stage and tell people I get uber positive when things get bad.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, it's annoying for my wife.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it really is.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know I'm annoying, and it's okay.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: But like the truth is, like, that's the reality.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many far worse things that can happen.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody told me today, I was like, Man, it's really great that you got your passports.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, not really, I could have said two more weeks in Italy.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So um, yeah.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that way I know some of you that have been devastating.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've been like, this is great.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So now nobody can be mad that I didn't come home.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: So like, yeah, that'd be awesome.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: So, because I kept telling Py, let's buy a house, let's buy a house.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: So now he's like, I got an excuse to work on that.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, but the truth is like you can, it's always perspective.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, optimism can be something that's really annoying for people, but the reality is what is God calling you into in the lifestyle of obedience to, in the in the thought pattern of obedience to, emotionally, physically, relationally, what what are you being called to be into that you're in obedience to that you're trying, but that you know what God says, but you're disguising yourself like you're listening, but you're not really listening.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: We do this all the time.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then we surround ourselves with yes men and yes women who will be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, go, go, go dabble in the pool a little bit.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: You still got time, right?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: You still got years on you.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, go enjoy life a little bit.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: You you should so.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Your sow your oats, right?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy your 20s and your 30s.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: You never got time.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I hear it all the time.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's like a broken record to me.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And then people say, Well, you know, I've got kids now, so we want to raise them up in church.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we really enjoyed our 20s and 30s and 40s, but now we got kids, and now we want to raise them to have good morals.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So then what?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Then they get 20s and 30s, you're gonna be like, hey, go sow your sin oats again, right?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Go dabble.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're just gonna teach them the same thing?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's wearing disguise.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing the Lord's way is better, but we want to just keep sticking our foot in the sin pool and seeing how it feels.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: See, we have to stop asking God to approve the life that we've decided to live and instead live the life that He wants us to live.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Be obedient to His will, His plan for our life.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And we we have it.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's right here.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: He literally tells us in this book how to live.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: How to live.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: See, you can disguise yourself from the archer, you can put on a disguise and think no one will see me, no one's gonna be able to attack me, no one's gonna be able to hit me, everybody's gonna think that I'm on board with God because I'm disguised from them, but the reality is you can't disguise yourself from God.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's what Ahab figured out.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole purpose of this story.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: You cannot hide from God.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: He knows what he's asking you to do, and he knows if you're doing it.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: And you can put on a robe and you can pretend like everything's okay, and you pretend like you're listening, and that arrow, that random arch.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love that verse.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: That verse is a random arrow from an unknown person who doesn't matter.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Just some random person history just filed a random arrow of the sky, and bam, he killed Ahab.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because God knew who Ahab was, and God knew what Ahab was doing.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And all he had to do was listen to the one person that would give him the truth, the one person who would say the hard thing.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we all have those people in life, and oftentimes we don't like those people.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because like I'm not calling so-and-so, because you know, if I call Nana, she's gonna tell me the truth, right, Nana?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I know Nana, she will tell the truth to her grandkids and kids, right?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: But we've done it.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, I'm gonna avoid that person.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: We want to find the yes people.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I want the people just tell me my lifestyle is fine, the things I'm doing, but that leads us to destruction.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we see an example in 2000, you know, plus, you know, 20, what, 22, 3200 years ago?
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: How many?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: How many times do we do this now?
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we have the stories that show us this is not the way to live.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: We have to stop trying to find people who agree with us, and we gotta start living in obedience to God's will for you, for me, for us.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: How we do that, we've got to get in this.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: God makes it clear.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta get in the Bible, we gotta have a prayer life, because God speaks to us through his word, he speaks to us through prayer, through his spirit impacting us through prayer, and he speaks to us through other people.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta start listening to people in your life who are who are the Micaiahs and not the yes people.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: You need you need that person in your life who, although you may sometimes hate them, right, and be tired of the things they're gonna say, but you know they're speaking truth because they're in tune with the Lord, they're in tune with his plan, his will, and they're just trying to help you and speak into your life.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's frustrating at times.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: But you live better with God than without him.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Instead of trying to hide from him.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so when God speaks to us, obedience is the only right answer.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now we all we all wear disguises.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you're probably sitting here saying, Oh, I don't have any disguise on.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Here's here's how I know.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: When someone comes to me after church and they say, Oh man, that would hit me today.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you've been listening to my phone calls this week.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you preached that just for me.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: But does that actually do you change anything after that?
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Or you just go home like, well, I should do better.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: But no, well, that pool is nice and attractive, and I just want to get back in it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you just run off a cannonball on that thing before you even test it, right?
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's the truth.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: But when God is speaking to you through his spirit, do you actually make the change?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you listen?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you heed it?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do you say, you know what, I don't like that?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I know that's the thing I need to obey and be obedient to and follow.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we came back to the car and saw our windows broken, we could have been super mad.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: We could have been storming around the parking lot, we've been cussing up a storm, we could have done anything.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: I tried to search for, you know, I was like, well, if they open the bags up and see double X, right?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: They're probably wearing small, medium, schmediums here in Italy.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe they would just dump it in the park in the park right across the street.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Patty's figuring out that you're gonna call 112, which is their emergency number.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't go so hot.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so for us, we called them like five times.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but like ultimately we just kind of we just kind of laughed about it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: Patty shed some tears and we made the best of it.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you handle those moments in your life?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: Do you let God change and shape you or not?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: Are you obedient to his way, his plan, his lifestyle, who he calls us to be?
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you just gonna go back to the way you want to live in every situation?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: In dating relationships, in your career?
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, or you just keep dipping in the pool of what I want to be obedient to, the sin I want to do, the lust that I have, the desires that I might want.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ahab wanted to go get a city just because he wanted it for strategic purposes.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't what God asked of him or wanted from him.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing in life that's for you?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what are you being obedient to?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's the that's the reality.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: See, when God speaks, obedience is the only right answer for us.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's the thing you gotta ask.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: What God, what are you asking me to do?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've got people in your life who are just yes people, get them out of your life.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite Bible verse is 1 Corinthians 15, 33.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: Do not be misled.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Bad company corrupts good character, good morals, depending on translation.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why it's my favorite is because I see people all the time get it wrong.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: They got 400 yes men and yes women telling them to just go and live their, live your truth, live your sin.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're in political season.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's telling you to, oh, our political party, we all have a plan.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just follow this plan.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: In our political party, we have a plan.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: Follow this plan.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: And they're just a cacophony of voices all saying the same thing.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: But is it true?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is it right?
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing we know is true, and the only thing that we know is right is this.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what's going to be speaking into our lives.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_00: But we get so lost in the cacophony of yes men and yes women on here, on social media, in politics, on TV, on the radio.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: We got so many voices that are pouring into us that aren't God.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: When God speaks obedience to him, that's the only right thing.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got to take your disguise off.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to quit pretending that you're you're listening and just listen.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then change.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_00: Change your life.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so our challenge is, although this is, I know this is an obscure story that many of you probably have not ever heard before.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to go read it.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a I think it's a fascinating story.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we're digging deep for dungeons and dragons in the Bible, so for this series.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: So hopefully there'll be things that every week will be different and new for you to hear and stretch you and your faith, but actually go and do something with it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Go and obey this week.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: Say, Lord, what do you want me to do different?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: How do you want me to be different?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: And get the people out of your life that are the yes people in your life.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately they don't care about you.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Being a yes person is one of the most unloving things you can be for somebody.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Just because you don't want conflict, just because you don't want drama, you just tell them whatever they want to hear to shut them up and move them on.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is unloving and unkind.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of times in my life where I'll tell other staff pastors and I'll tell our governance team members, hey, I gotta go have a hard conversation with somebody.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, they're probably gonna leave her church and they're probably not gonna have anything to do with me because I'm gonna go say the thing that everybody else needs to say to them in their life, but no one really loves them enough to say it.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that's what real friendship looks like.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what real relationship with God looks like.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: You need those people in your life that are gonna push you to be the best version of yourself.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: But do you have them?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it all starts here, and it flows to the people you surround yourself with.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: And our response to God should always be to obey.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, Lord, we just pray that we can be a church.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that we can be obedient to your word.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: We can be obedient to the plan that you have for our life, whatever that may be for each of us, Lord, whether it's something in our lives, our careers, our families, in our relationships, uh, in our emotions, socially, whatever that be, lifestyle choices we make, Lord, that we know, Lord, we're called to be obedient to your word, your way, your plan for us.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray if there's anyone here who, Lord, just right now, they know you're speaking to them in their heart, in their mind.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, they know they have not been obedient.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're living in a disguise, pretending like they're in and they're on board with you, Lord, but they're not.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: They keep dabbling in that pool of sin, their own selfish wants and desires, and they're not focused on what you want for them, Lord.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I pray, Lord, that you speak in a powerful way and allow us all as a church, as individuals, to do better and be better and be obedient to you and the call you've placed in all of our lives, individually and collectively, and as a church.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: We pray we can obey you, obey your word, and obey your plan for our lives.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we have the courage to live that out.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: We pray this in Jesus' name.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.