in a world of conflicting values, when questions are more common than answers. God's Word provides everything we need to live a God-centered, truth-driven life. Now, here's the Word for Life broadcast, brought to you by Brookside Baptist Church. Well, good morning. Thank you for joining us on our last broadcast for the month of November already. Pastor Ken and I were just commenting that life is certainly a vapor and November has flown by. I think about 2023, man. I mean, we're staring 2024 if the Lord parries to come and take us home. Yeah. Man, already looking at a new year. Incredible. Yep. That's for sure. Well, we are working our way through Chapter 17 of Judges and looking at a man named Micah, who has just found a journeying Levite and has given him a job with benefits in his house to become his personal priest. All of this in a violation of what God had ordained for the Levites. But Pastor Ken, continue to take us through this. Well, we're leaving off with this Levite, I mean, he was a wandering Levite, he wasn't where probably he should have been, he's jobless, and I don't know, maybe he'd kind of forgotten his important position. And in Israel, the priesthood, the Levites, represented the nation's relationship to God. And if you've been with us in the study of Judges, you know, man, it is just falling apart here because they've really forgotten God and and have gone on their own way. You know, the priests ministered as the representatives of the people. Their lives, the priest's lives, were to symbolize the purity and the holiness of God, and the primary function of the Levitical priesthood then was to maintain and assure, as well as reestablish, the holiness of the chosen people of God. This is one of my sons coming in today, He was talking to me about kind of going through Leviticus, and he said, Dad, wow, Leviticus, you know, a lot of people want to get hung up and go, man, that's a boring book. And as we were talking, we both discovered, really, if you want a great book on the holiness of God, read Leviticus. I mean, it's almost like God says, don't do this, and you can almost hear the child answering, why? and it's almost in between the lines, you can see God saying, because, and then you do read, I'm the Lord your God, almost like that's why, all right? And the Levites were to keep that in front of the people. And so, they had an important significance there in the land, the concept known as first fruits. The designation of a tribe of Israel for special service to God grew out of an unusual concept of the Hebrew people known as first fruits. According to this principle, the first part of the crop to be harvested was to be dedicated to God. And this principle even extended to the firstborn child in a family. If you remember, again, the plagues that hit Egypt, just before the exodus from Egypt, when God sent the death angel to kill the firstborn of every Egyptian family, he instructed the Israelites, you better also put blood on the doorposts, that your firstborn might be spared from death. Because of this, the firstborn of every Israelite family became God's special property, dedicated to Him as a memorial. But this changed from the firstborn to the Levites as a whole after Moses returned with the Ten Commandments, and the Levites voluntarily returned to the Lord's side, showing great zeal for God's honor. And so when the firstborn outnumbered the Levites, God instituted a five-shekel tax, and you can find that in Numbers chapter three. The principle being, God wants the best. And what a sad picture for us today. We don't have very many training for ministry to preach the Word of God. I mean, one of the highest callings is for one to be called of God to preach His Word. God is still wanting the best. However, we must ask ourselves this question, are we in the habit of giving God not our best, but what's left over? You think of the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke chapter 10. You probably remember that story. Jesus insisted that true worship consisted of doing good to others. We've been talking, Pastor Mark, even in our last staff meeting about, you know, are we making the invisible God visible? And really, that picture of the Good Samaritan is exactly that. It's demonstrated, that story is demonstrated by a lowly Samaritan traveler who stopped to help a wounded man. The parable depicts the strong contrast between the Samaritan's compassion and the hands-off approach that a priest and a Levite, both of whom passed by on the other side. During the long period of the Old Testament history, the Levites had times of being hot in their devotion to God, and they had times when they were cold in their devotion to God, just like the rest of the nation. If the Levites were presiding over a form of worship that had lost its warmth and concern for God and His people, the nation always suffered. Observe, I want you to observe what happened when these two men who had no principles got together. Pastor Mark introduced them to us at the beginning here. Micah and this Levitical priest, this Levite, he wanted a job. So suddenly, the Levite is an ordained member of the clergy, and it was not God's clergy here, but man's clergy. And you have a young Levite without a place, he needs food and clothing, and Micah says, today is your lucky day. Have I got a deal for you. You're going to be the priest right here in our family and look what I'm going to provide for you. So, it goes back to Micah and his mom, I mean, that was a wealthy family. You look at the Levite's salary. Why don't you read that again for us in verses 10 through 12, Pastor Mark, of what Micah says, hey, this is your day, look what I'm going to give to you. Micah said to him, Stay with me, and be to me a father and a priest, and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, and a suit of clothes, and your living. And the Levite went in. I mean, you look at Micah's proposal, he first of all said, I want you to be my companion, live with me. Give up your unsettled life, live right here. And this can be the true home that you're looking for. And all he says, be my companion, he says, be my father. I mean, father is a title of honor. During the monarchy, father serves as a title of honor for prophets. You see that in 2 Kings 6 and chapter 8, chapter 13. Then he not only says be my companion, be my father, he says be my priest. Micah invites the Levite to serve as his personal representative before God and to see that cultic activities are performed at his shrine on his behalf. Pastor Mark, can you see at all any insecurity here on the part of Michael's proposals? To the guy? Yeah. Yeah, he's just scrambling for a place and a position and the Lord in seeking his guidance is not found in here anywhere. No, I mean he's built his own shrine. He's installed his own shrine, he's arranged his own priestly dress, he's dedicated his own son, you know, here as his priest, and yet he's plagued by doubts. Instead of relying on a system of worship that God designed and guaranteed to bring fulfillment, his is a man-made religion. And that's why you have people today who are religious absolutely hoping for the best when they die. They can act confident, but they're fearful of death. We have a little track entitled, it's a little booklet entitled, How a Catholic Can Know They Can Live with God. It's written by a man who graduated from Notre Dame University, got his law degree, and was talking to the archdiocese's funeral, and he was talking to this priest driver, you know, for, that would drive him around. What's the word I'm looking for? He was his--. Was South Bend, Indiana or? No, he was his- Chauffeur. Chauffeur. I was looking for chauffeur. He was his chauffeur. And as he was talking to the chauffeur, the chauffeur said, man, he was petrified to death. He goes, you gotta be kidding me, man. He's one of the highest people in the, you know, in the whole church. And man, this fellow that graduated with his law degree started reading the Bible and found out, no, Jesus Christ and Jesus alone is the one who can save me. Religion, unfortunately, has made that so confusing today, Pastor Mark. It's sad. And many people are hoping, and hoping their good works will get them into heaven to live with God. But this, Micah basically sets up his own man-made religion here. Satan has always been into, You know, people being religious, but being religious by their own standards or whatever their religion is stating and not based on biblical instruction of how a person can live with God. And then what's crazy about this, too, is the Levite is satisfied. Here you have a man of God who is being the appointed priest of a wicked idolater purely for money. Listen to what Jesus's words are in John chapter 10 about hirelings. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he's a hireling and he does not care about the sheep. You ask what is wrong in America today? Someone said we, you know, have pastors that are into really, what can I get out of this? What can be my profit? Yeah. A lot of people refer to it as a job. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's not dangerous. Yeah, it's not a ministry. Yeah. We have men who have no moral principles in trying to teach God's Word because they're focused on their paycheck. A hireling is a professional in the ministry. He'll be the pastor who will forsake the needs of the sheep and will tell people what they actually want to hear. Listen to what this priest says in chapter 18 and verse 6. And the priest said to them, go in peace. The presence of the Lord be with you on the way. I'm really convinced that if we had a generation of preachers that would preach without fear or favor and preach with the power of God's Spirit on their life, that we would see changes in our churches. We need to stop as preachers trying to win the popularity contest and preach the whole counsel of God. God-hating sin would be a good place for us all to start. A hireling is committed to the one paying the salary. i liked uh... what john macarthur said he said i never want to know what anyone's giving my church but if someone lets me know that that person gives a lot he said you know i want us i want to be of service to him but i'm not going to go out of my way trying to impress them extra money your finances him you know that someone says i'm very thankful that you pay me and uh... and uh... so all but you know what you want to hear However, every pastor has to face the consequences of that kind of attitude because we're accountable to God and we will have, there's a higher standard for us as pastors. And I don't, you know, I know most pastors probably take that very seriously. Dr. R.G. Lee, great pastor in the mid 1900s said, I would rather be called cruel for being kind than being called kind for being cruel. Meaning in loving folks, he needed to tell them the truth. And folks, I trust you're in a church that your pastor is a godly man who is sharing God's Word in a great way, and I hope you'll be an encouragement and be praying for him as he serves the Lord. Well, join us in our next broadcast. We're going to try to finish out Chapter 17 here of Judges to actually, again, see how God is continuing to work in the lives of His people as He works in our lives today. We hope you enjoyed today's program. If you have a question we can answer, or would like information on the Word for Life, would like to donate to continue to produce this broadcast, or need resources for your Christian walk, contact us at Brookside Baptist Church, 4470 North Pilgrim Road, Brookfield, Wisconsin, 53005. You can also visit us at brooksidebc.org. That's brooksidebc.org. or call us at 262-783-6180. That's 262-783-6180. Thanks for listening today, and please tune in again as we bring the Word of God to your life.