1 Thessalonians 5 is where I want you at to begin with. And at the end of 1 Thessalonians 5, there's a list of verses here, some of my favorite verses in the Bible, just some real short admonitions at the end of the book of Thessalonians. to a church that really Paul does not rebuke or approve a whole lot. In fact, if you read Thessalonians, he actually commends them, and it seems like they're a church that's growing, loves the Lord, and is doing well. And so to these people, he begins to make some admonitions. If you look at verse 16, he says, rejoice evermore. A little one-liner there. 17, he says, pray without ceasing, and he gives these little things here. Verse 19, quench not the spirit. And the one that I'd like to talk about to you this morning about is verse 20, where Paul says to a bunch of saved Christians, he says, despise not prophesying. Despise not prophesying. I'd like to preach to you about that a little bit here this morning. Now real quick, he says, despise not prophesying. So let's just figure out what he's saying there. because I think the first thing that you and I think of when we hear of the word prophecy is we think of the YouTube people who talk about who's gonna win the election and where the stock market's gonna be a year from now, and God came to me in a dream and showed me these wild, tremendous things, and that's kind of where our heads go, but what does the Bible actually say that that is? Because what he's saying is to not despise prophesying. What is to despise something is to disdain something. It's actually a little bit more than disliking something. You may dislike vanilla ice cream. I think that you're crazy. Vanilla ice cream is better than chocolate ice cream. Vanilla is a superior ice cream. But you don't despise vanilla ice cream, you just don't like it, right? And this thing is a little bit higher than that. If you remember in the Bible back in the Old Testament, there was a time where David was bringing the ark back to Jerusalem and he was like dancing and making a fool of himself. He was running the bases, you know, woo, praise the Lord, you know what I'm saying? Like hooting and hollering and they were playing with the band. And his wife, Michael, was up in the window of the castle there. And she looked down and seen her husband. You know, this is Saul's daughter. You know, he put on a real religious show for people and he really cared about appearances. You know, you know, I don't know if you remember, but Saul one time said to Samuel, please don't go. What will the people of Israel and the elders of Israel think if they see you walking away from me? And he and he forces Samuel to stay back and worship with him in front of everybody. That's that's his daughter. Right. And his daughter looks out the window and sees all that hooting and hollering, you know, And she says in her heart, she says, the Bible says, and she despised him in her heart. She despised him in her heart. And so whoever's, whatever's going on here, he says, despise not, don't dislike or disdain what's going on here. And so you say, well, what exactly is prophecy? And I want to make this clear. Look at Amos chapter three with me. Because prophecy is, it is telling the future. But it's not the same thing as the YouTube people with the presidential elections and all that, and all the odd stuff that you think of. It's not that at all. If you look at Amos 3 and come down to verse 8, the Bible says here, the lion hath roared, who will not fear? He says this, the Lord hath spoken, who can but prophesy? Who can but prophesy? Now hath the Lord spoken, okay? The Lord spoke, and someone wrote it down in a book. Okay? And we have it right here in front of us. It's the Word of God, I think we call it. Amen? The Bible is not just the writings of man, but as it is in truth, the Word of God, which you effectually worketh and you also that believe, right? And so we have the spoken Word of God written down for us. And the Bible says, the Lord has spoke, who can but prophesy? When someone is quoting the Bible, they're prophesying to some degree. And if you think about it this way, instead of thinking about some guy having some weird vision of Jesus showing up and telling him these future events, how about just think about the fact that if I say to you right now today, I'm going to heaven, well, what did I just do? I just prophesied. I just told the truth. Hey, if you reject Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and trust your works and trust your church membership or trust your water baptism, you're going to hell. Well, I just told the future, did I not? There's coming a day and age, as we talked about in the beginning service this morning, where all nations shall gather themselves around Jerusalem and fight against God Almighty Himself. That's out in the future. You know what I just did? I just prophesied to you. So he says here, despise not prophesying. Prophesying are, in effect, having God reveal something and then quoting it. Look at chapter two with me of Amos. Look at chapter two. He says in verse 11, I raised up of your sons for prophets, and of your young men for Nazarites, is not even thus, O ye children of Israel, sayeth the Lord? But he gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not. The prophets were given the word of the Lord, and they quoted it to other people. So any preacher standing in a pulpit, quoting from the word of God, is, in effect, prophesying. Okay, so what I'm going to tell you 1 Thessalonians 5 is saying here, he says, despise not prophesying. He's essentially, if I can make it as simple as possible, he's telling you not to despise preaching of the Word of God. That's what he's saying there. Now isn't that a wild thought to think that he's telling a church? full of saved people who probably got saved by hearing the preaching of the Word of God, amen, to not despise preaching, to not despise preaching? And I think that's kind of a weird thought. Why would Paul warn Christians not to do that, especially when you think about what has been said about the Word of God by other people in the Old Testament? I'll read you some verses here. David and some other psalmists, they said, how sweet are thy words unto my taste. Yeah, he's sweeter than honey to my mouth. Have you ever just gone to church and just had, you know, Lord willing, it's happened here every once in a while, amen, God help me, but just heard the preaching of the word of God and thought, yeah, that's right. Amen. That's good. Yeah. Oh, that was yeah, that's right. Amen. Jesus is Jesus is king of kings and Lord of lords. Amen. Jesus is coming back on a white horse. I like that. Oh, yeah, I am saved. I am going to heaven. I will walk on streets of gold someday. I like that. Amen. They're just sweet. I was I was I have a pastor buddy down in California who likes to go gold panning and I bought me a gold pan here like a year ago. And when we go down to the river, I'll just play around a little bit with it, you know. And I was watching this video, apparently down in South Josephine, like just southeast of Cave Junction, still in Oregon, in Josephine. There was a place down there where back in the 1800s, this outlaw was living. And he was hiding from the authorities, and he was living down there in the wilderness. And he was walking out there with his dog one day, and he was just looking around in the snow, and he's seeing something gold sticking out of the snow. And he reached down and he picked it up, and it was a gold nugget. And he called his father, his father-in-law over, and they began to look around. And up the hill some ways, one of them moved something out of the way. And sticking out of the earth on the side of this mountain was a golden slab that was six foot long, three foot wide, and an inch thick of solid gold, just a slab of gold. And boy, in the story, apparently, because it was so heavy and it was in the middle of nowhere, they took axes and they cut that golden slab into pieces, man. Ah! You know what I'm saying? Like, don't do that! Right? So that they could carry that thing out of there. And they probably sold it and bought a house or whatever, bought a brand new Ford F-150. I don't know what they did with the thing, but they went and sold that thing. I was thinking about that. Could you imagine laying eyes on that? And just how rare that would be on this earth? And at the same time, one day you and I will be walking on streets made of gold, where it's something that we just step on. You know, these guys are peeing their pants over this thing, and you and I are gonna rub our dirty shoes on it, amen? And something about hearing that, just, ooh, that's nice. Sweeter than honey, amen? In the Bible it says, thy law is my delight. Thy testimonies are my delight. I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved. I rejoice at thy word as one that findeth great spoil. My soul hath kept thy testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. How sweet are thy words unto my taste." I agree with that. I agree with that. I've sat in many preaching services and thought, man, that was just what I needed. I was dealing with this. I was dealing with that. I was struggling with this. I have this problem. I have this sin. And what that man just said from the word of God, those prophesying there, they were just what I needed. And they filled me up. And I just feel like a million bucks walking out of here. Amen. Amen. And it's because of the word of the Lord. It's because of the word of the Lord. Jeremiah says, Thy words were found and I did eat them. And thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart. Ezekiel says in one place, Moreover, he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest. Eat this roll. He finds a scroll rolled up there and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth and he caused me to eat the roll. I'm not telling anybody to do that in here this morning, amen. But he ate the roll, and he said unto me, son of man, cause thy belly to eat and fill thy bowels with this roll that I gave thee. Then did I eat it, and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. That's what it's like having the word of God given to you. That's why we say, man, I just, you know, when I pray in the morning, As I'm coming in here and Lord willing it happens every once in a while for you But I pray Lord help me feed your people here this morning. Help me feed them the Word of God This may not be the fanciest looking church building in town This may not have a giant glass, this may not have a backdrop of giant glass windows with a mountain in the background that folds up like a garage door, amen. We may not have an arcade in the basement, amen. But what I hope at least is that this is like that little diner cafe on the side of the road. in some podunk small town where it doesn't have the fanciest things, but when you go in there and you order from the menu, it's the best meal you can get in town, amen? That's what I'm hoping this place is like, right? I hope that this place is something where you can come in and get fed the word of God. And so, you know, it should be the case, and I would think that be so, that like, you and I as Christians, we should like preaching. We should love preaching. I like preaching, amen? I'm not saying I like to preach. I like to preach, amen, but I also like to be preached at. I like it. Here in August, I think if we can get away and everything works out, I'm gonna try to go up to Linwood, Washington, and there's a preacher's conference up there where they preach at preachers specifically. I'm looking forward to that. Rip my face off, man, you know. Feed me the Word of God. Give me something, whether it's a reproof or a rebuke, whether it's exhortation. I just want someone to stand somewhere and proclaim the inerrant, without error, infallible Word of God to me, and I want that to just wash and soak over my body and do something for me. I like preaching. I was in a church listening to preaching when I was convicted that I was a sinner on my way to hell and that I needed to be saved and born again and went down to an altar and asked Jesus Christ to save my soul from hell. I was in a church listening to preaching one day when I had a sin in my life that I was struggling to beat and God gave me victory, amen, by what I heard from the word of God. I like, preaching has done wonderful things for me in my life and I like preaching. So with that being said, it's like, Why is Paul telling these people who have been through all the things that I just explained to you and described to you that you and I have been through, why is he telling them, despise it not? Well, is it because they didn't have air conditioning? Is it because they didn't have comfy chairs? Is it because the preacher was a boring preacher, you know? I remember when I was a little boy, and I was getting into church, and I had just gotten saved, and they had the service for the kids, and I would go back there, and then for the next service, they would bring us into here, where this is happening right now, and I would tell Mom, like, I don't wanna go to the long talk. Is this the long talk service? To me, preaching was just someone talking for a long time, like, let's try to fall asleep right now. Is that why he's saying that? No, it's not why he's saying that. And so, real quick here, I just wanna give you some thoughts on this. Look at 2 Timothy chapter four with me. 2 Timothy chapter four. And I wanna exhort you this morning and encourage you to keep your love and desire for preaching, for someone proclaiming the word of God to you. 2 Timothy chapter four, look at verse one. Paul says to Timothy, a young preacher, he says, And here's the kicker here. He says, with all longsuffering and doctrine. And really what it boils down to as far as why it may be that someone wouldn't like preaching, it could be that there's some reproof and rebuke in there every once in a while. Now I don't know about you, but I like to listen to other stuff too. You may think I'm wicked for this, but I like to listen to like a sports podcast every once in a while. I like basketball. I like listening to, is LeBron James gonna get traded to Cleveland this summer? Is Kevin Durant being traded to Houston? Is this guy, this guy's getting paid 90 million a year? He can't even make a layup. He can't even dribble with his left hand. I like listening to that stuff. I like to listen about the playoffs. Now, I obviously do not wake up in the morning and begin my day with a podcast about basketball, right? I wake up in the morning and I pray and I read my Bible, and I kinda have this pact with myself where it's like, I'm gonna give God time before I give this other stuff time, just so you guys don't hang me up after service today for telling you that, right, okay? I kinda have this thing where it's like, I'm gonna read my Bible and pray and give God time before I give the things of this world any moment of time, right? But I like to listen to some stuff. I like some podcasts. Maybe you like to watch a movie every once in a while. I know definitely we all like to listen to gossip in the flesh every once in a while, right? You know, no one has ever come to you and said, now, don't despise gossip. Now, it's like, you don't need to tell me that, man. Everybody loves gossip. But isn't it interesting that there's all these things, the podcasts, the movies, the audio books. No one ever said to you, despise not audio books and podcasts. I've never been sitting there listening to a podcast and thought, how dare they? I despise this right now. I can't believe these podcasters are saying these things right now. You've never thought that. There's all these things that you could listen to for hours and hours and hours and hours. Listen to Ben Shapiro make fun of liberal kids at a college somewhere. You know, I could listen to that for days, right? I could listen to all these things for countless hours, and there's not an issue with me despising them. However, there is one thing that you and I listen to where there may be an issue with despising it, and that is prophesying, preaching the word of God. You say, well, why is that? There's a difference between a TED Talk, and preaching, okay? There's a difference between a podcast and preaching. A TED Talk has never been a reproof or a rebuke. A podcast, at least not the one I'll listen to about basketball or football or any sports or anything like that, is not set up to reprove and rebuke me. And that's completely missing from that. So the problem is not that we don't like to listen to things. In fact, shame on you if you have an easier time listening to a podcast than you do coming in here and listening to me preach at you for 45 minutes. I'm a pretty good boy, just so you know. Okay? We usually get out of here by 12, 12.05. And I don't know if you know about any of them, but there's some preachers who will preach literally for an hour and a half. Okay? Now, I'm not saying they're wicked for doing that. I just think they have a hard time saying what they want to say, and it just takes them a long time to say it, amen? I'm more impressed with someone who can condense the information to where you can digest it in a short amount of time than I am with someone who feels like it's not an adequate sermon unless it's an hour and a half long. Hey, if God gave you a 30-minute sermon, preach it for 30 minutes, amen? Well, no, it has to be 45 minutes. Well, man, I'd much rather give you what God gave me than try to add my two cents in there. Anyways, what the difference is, is what's going on with the prophesying is it's a spiritual thing. and it's a bit deeper than the surface level stuff that you're hearing on other platforms. That should be clear to everybody, right? And we've made this distinction before. The Bible, the word of God, preaching, is like going into the gym to lift weights. And I don't know about you, if you've been in there, but nowadays, every wall is a mirror, right? And there's a lot more looking at yourself in the gym than there is lifting nowadays, right? These people who record themselves... Shame on you, amen? But you know what's funny is as you're sitting there lifting, you're looking in that mirror, and it's not lying to you about what you look like, right? And then here comes Haas, who lives there. It's like, are you always here, man? And he's walking through there, and his thighs are so thick that he's walking like this. It's not worth it, man. It's not worth it. I don't even like weightlifting because my shirt's quit fitting. I don't want to buy a bunch of new shirts, so I don't want to weight lift. I don't want to chafe. I don't want to do that, amen? But you go in there. I'm going to try and keep on track here. But when you go in there and look at the mirror, it's very plain and clear about what you are. There's no shroud there. There's no Snapchat filter to hide things, amen. I've seen some videos recently where you can literally, you can pull up a Snapchat filter and it removes zits from your face. It'll make your butt look bigger if you want it to, amen. Like, there's Snapchat filters for everything. Yeah. They are vanity ants, a good way to put it. But the thing is, the Bible does not have a Snapchat filter. And the Bible is very clear about what's on the inside. It pulls back the curtains and there's Mr. Oz sitting behind the whole show. Now look at a couple verses with me, Acts chapter five. Acts chapter five, and look at what happens. Here is the thing that no TED Talk or podcast has ever done to you. Acts chapter 5, verse 29, verse 29. Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom he slew and hanged on a tree. Oh, he's preaching now, ain't he? Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be Prince and Savior. I'm sure he's waxing eloquent right here. For to give repentance to Israel and a forgiveness of sins and we are as witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him. When they heard that, they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them. Something about hearing the word of God preached went beyond the surface, down into the inner man and cut them right in the heart and convicted them. Have you ever felt conviction before? Oh, I feel bad about that. Doesn't that kind of like right in here somewhere? Just, wish I hadn't done that. Oh, that's me. He said that and that's me. You're being cut right here. That's called conviction. And that's what's going on in this case. Look at chapter 7 of Acts. Chapter 7. Here's this great long chapter where Stephen is preaching to these Israelis. If you look at verse 1, Then said the high priest, Are these things so? And he said, Men and brethren, Chapter 7 verse 2 men and brethren the and father's hearken the God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he dwelt in Cairan said unto him get thee out of thy country the whole chapter is this long sermon the long talk amen About what happened to these Jews and where they are now if you come down to verse 36 Verse 36, he brought them out after he had showed wonders and signs in the land of Egypt and the Red Sea and the wilderness 40 years. This is that Moses, so forth and so on. So he goes from Abraham all the way to Moses. Now come down to verse 52, well, 51. Ye stiff-necked. makes application here at the end of the sermon, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost, as your fathers did, so do ye, which through the prophets have not your fathers persecuted. And they have slain them, which showed before the coming of the just one, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers, who have received the law by the disposition of angels and have not kept it. When they heard these things, they were cut to the heart, and gnashed on him with their teeth. They were cut to the heart. You know what they did? You know what that gnashing on him with the teeth is? That's when someone comes to this church and gets mad about what I said, and they go home, and they get on Facebook, or they get on Google Reviews, amen? And I wouldn't go to that church. You wouldn't believe what that church does. That guy said some mean things about me, and he didn't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's gnashing on the teeth is what that is. because they didn't like it. They despised the prophesying. Now let me say this real quick. If I get up here and I give you my opinion, that's a whole other thing, amen? Like any preacher who wants to give me his opinion about something can shove it. Amen. It's the word of God that matters. It's what God actually said that really matters. And so we just wanna make a distinction there. But notice there, in both of those cases, they're listening to not a podcast, not a TED Talk, but prophesying, and what do they do? They despise them. They do not react correctly. So what's going on here? Why is that the case? Well, the word of God is not always sweet. The word of God is not always sweet. I read you some verses there about Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It was like a sweet roll. Mm, yummy. Okay, but it's not always that way. Look at Revelation with me, chapter 10. I'm gonna have you flip to a couple of places here. Revelation chapter 10. And look at what John says. So John, he's up here and he's, experiencing or witnessing the great tribulation from heaven. And in Revelation chapter 10 in verse one, Bible says, And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud, and a rainbow was upon his head. And his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And he had in his hand a little book open, and he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot on the earth. And so he has this little book there. Look at verse eight. The voice which I heard from heaven spake unto me again and said, go and take the little book which is open in the hand of the angel which standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel and said unto him, give me the little book. And he said unto me, take it and eat it up and it shall make thy belly bitter, but it shall be in thy mouth sweet as honey. So you're gonna take this and it's, ooh, it's so sweet as honey. And then once it gets down into the belly, it's bitter. And he says, and I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it up. And it was in my mouth, sweet as honey. And as soon as I had eaten it, my belly was bitter. And he said unto me, thou must prophesy again before many peoples and nations and tongues and peoples. You know, the word of God is sweet, but have you ever heard somebody say this? That's a hard, that's a hard truth. In my flesh, naturally, there are some truths that just, I don't, I don't like. I just don't like. I don't like what they say. I don't like that that's the truth. I wish it was another way. There are some truths that really go against the grain of this world, against this world system, the spirit of this world, the flesh. And then when I read it in the Bible, I'll just be honest with you, there's some places in my Bible when I read it and I think, man, that's really tough, right? And that's the way it has to be, apparently. There's some sweet spots and there's some bitter spots. It's a hard pill to swallow, I guess they say. It's a hard pill to swallow. When I was a kid and I got sick and I needed some medicine, I was always happy to see them pull out the cherry-flavored Tylenol. Y'all ever had that? And literally you can feel the grains of sugar in the syrup as it goes into your mouth and it's like grainy. It's like, this is like, this is 75% sugar to make a little kid feel better. And then like 25%, whatever else, right? Just give the kid some sugar and they'll be better now, right? Sometimes, sometimes like my stepmom was a registered nurse. And sometimes she would have medicine that she would bring in and feed us that was like the foulest tasting stuff you've ever had, right? Any of y'all during COVID, did any of y'all take some of that ivermectin, the horse paste? Okay, maybe it was just me. All right, whatever. That was some nasty stuff, some nasty stuff. Some medicine, though it's good for you and good for me, is not easy to swallow. is not easy to swallow. And so because of that, there's a tendency every once in a while, when a hard truth comes, for us to despise or not like what's being said to us. So I want to say this, we need to be very careful about how we listen to preaching. I think that you should genuinely be excited to come to church and hear preaching from the Word of God. I think that you should be excited about that. And I also think that you should pray for me, that I do a good job of it. Please do not ever just expect me to have everything lined up and just assume that I'm just this man of God without sin. Please do not ever do that. I have my problems, I have my burdens, and I need everyone in here's prayers that I would say the right things and stay in line with the truth and preach what God lays on my heart. I really covet your prayers in that because that's very important. You should be praying for that. But man, you know, we need to be listening to preaching, we need to be very careful about how we listen to preaching. Now let me say this, I've been saved for, I got saved when I was seven, I'm 32, so 25 years now, okay? To this day, to this day, there are times where when I hear preaching, every once in a while, I can feel it in my heart, maybe you're familiar with this, but I'll think, I don't like how he said that. I don't like that at all. I think that he took that too far. You say, surely not, Pastor Gus. He would never feel that way. Let me tell you something. I've listened to preaching here in the past month that I thought, what in the world? How could you say that? You took it too far. I feel that way sometimes about preaching. This may be a newsflash to you, but I have that tendency, and you know what? I have to think every time I think, now hold on a second, why do I feel this way? Why does that offend me? Why did what that man just said from a pulpit, and obviously he had the word of God in front of him, why did that bother me so much? And you know what normally the case is, is I have a problem with that. I mean, like, I have a sin problem, and he touched on it, and nobody had touched on it for a while, and it was like, hmm. And instead of saying, I need to repent and get right, I thought, no, it's the man. He's just an old jerk. He's just a crooked old man who's just mean. And that's why he said that. It's not because he's right. I've had that go through my mind before, amen? And you know what I've noticed when I have that happen to me? It's because I'm backsliding that I feel that way. It's because I have something I need to deal with that I feel that way. Normally, when I despise preaching, when I think afterwards, I think, oh, it's because he actually touched on something that I need to fix. That's why I despise it. And what's really interesting to me is back in our text, he says, despise not prophesying. He knows because he himself, Paul, as a Christian, has experienced it just like you and I have, that every once in a while, we start to backslide a little bit. Amen? And we hear something at church that we don't like. And because of our condition at that moment, instead of saying, I need to repent, I need to get down on the altar and get this thing right, we say, no, it's the preacher. No, he abused the text. No, he misused it. No, that's not what that text actually means. No, that's not the right application. No, we come up with all these excuses, and what's going on in our heart is we're despising what was said. Now, you know what we need to do when we feel that cutting of the heart, that conviction that comes? Let me tell you something. Nowadays, with how the world's going and the nature of man, I think it's a pretty wonderful and miraculous thing for us to even feel that, you know? You may go a couple weeks or several months or even a year where you don't even feel that. And when you feel that, you know what that means? That means the Lord is not the preacher. It's not his opinion, it's not his, the Lord is dealing with you about something when you feel that. Let me tell you something, when you get convicted and cut to the heart over the preaching of the word of God, it is possible that the preacher's being a jerk, that's happened before. But nine times out of 10, what's going on in your heart is you have gone above and beyond anything that's happening surface level right here, the mirror and the weight room. And God himself has sent his Holy Spirit to convict you about something that you need to work on. It's not a person, a person, a man, a man thing. It's something that's spiritual that's going on. And what you need to do is let conviction do its perfect work. You, listen, when conviction comes in, do not, I know it's possible. You know what I'm saying? You're not doing that physically, but in your heart, in your spirit, you're going, no, don't want to deal with that. Not, not now. Let me just enjoy it for a little bit longer. And then later on, you know, God hasn't smitten me or anything. What is that feeling? I know I'm okay to do this. You just kind of just like shove it to the side. You know what happens when you do that is next time you hear that same thing preached, it doesn't hurt quite as much. It doesn't have that same kick. You know why that is? Because over time, the more you reject that conviction, the more you throw away or toss aside or just set it aside, that conviction, the less it begins to have an effect on you. And the Bible says something about being numb to the conviction of the Holy Spirit of God, right? You familiar with that? The Bible calls sin, it says, bound with the cords of sin in one place. And I've heard a preacher explain it this way. Sin is like taking a string and wrapping it around your fingers. You know, you do it once or twice, the Holy Spirit comes to you and convicts you, and if you get it right right away, you can just break that string and you're free again. Right? But the more you reject that advice and the more that you oppose the conviction, the more that you set the conviction aside, the more you do it, you know what happens, the more times you wrap around your fingers, the harder it is to break. And that's why he says despise not preaching. He says you need to enjoy it, you need to do something about it, let the conviction come, and do its perfect work. Conviction is designed by God to bring forth repentance. That's the end result of letting it do its perfect work. And when you feel something in your heart, God help me too, I'm preaching to myself, amen? When you feel something in there, you and I both, it's time to do something about it. It's time for action. It's not time to set it aside and do it later. And instead of getting upset, well, he's just a stinking old blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the excuses you come up with, maybe it is God that's dealing with you, okay? That preacher, when I'm listening to preaching, did not sneak through the radio waves, okay, and reach into my heart and touch my heart. It was the Holy Spirit of God. It was the Holy Spirit of God, okay? So I get offended, and I think to myself, I'll quote you Psalm 119, 165. The Bible says, great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. So obviously, if I'm offended at what was said, I don't know if I have the peace I should, maybe I'm not loving thy law like I should. Now, just a couple of examples back in the Old Testament real quick, I wanna show you these and then I'll be done, okay? So come back to 2 Chronicles 25. 2 Chronicles 25. I think that Of all people, Christians should be able to take preaching better than anybody else. You know, you and I should be able to take a hit from someone telling us the truth. If you want to write it down, Proverbs 9, 7-9, the Bible says, get it to himself shame, and he that rebuketh a wicked man get it himself a blot. Says reprove not a scorner lest he hate thee, but he says this, rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. Give instruction to a wise man and he will be yet wiser. Teach a just man and he will increase in learning. You know, what I've learned over the years is I have some people that I like to listen to that preach. I'll get some old cassette tapes or I'll get some even new stuff. You know, I'm not saying that only old stuff is good. I don't like that idea. I think the Holy Spirit's working through the preachers nowadays just as much as he was working back then. Amen. But I listen to preaching nowadays and it's hard sometimes. And I'll, you know, okay. And I'll tell you what, like, I think, man, how hard would it have been to have had to have said that? How hard would that be? And something in me, it says, man, I really appreciate that guy. I'm really thankful that that guy was willing to stick his neck out and say the things that he said because it really helped me. And that's why it says there in Proverbs 9, it says, rebuke a wise man and he will love thee. I love a preacher who is willing to tell me the truth even if I don't like it. I'm thankful for the truth. I turn on the news and I get lied to, There's people in this world that I think I can trust a little bit, and they lie to me. Everybody's trying to lie to me. Amen? I was told, I was told when I voted that egg prices would go back to where they were. Okay? Now they've went down. but they're still about double what they were before, amen? That upsets me, okay? You lied to me. I was told when I was voting that the Epstein files would get released, amen? Hey, I ain't seen them yet, amen? You have upset me. Don't worry about you, who cares about Epstein? I care about Epstein, amen? Give me the stinking files, amen? You lied to me. I don't like being lied to. I like a man who will stand in a pulpit and tell me the truth and not lie to me and give it to me straight. I appreciate the truth. And you should too. We should all as Christians appreciate the truth. Look at 2 Chronicles 25. Look at verse 14. Verse 14, Now it came to pass, this is a king of Judah. that Amaziah was come from the slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children of Seir, and set them up to be his gods. The king of Judah, he brought their gods back, and bowed down himself before them, and burned incense unto them. Wherefore, the anger of the Lord was kindled against Amaziah, and he sent unto him a prophet, which said unto him, Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people? which could not deliver their own people out of thine hand. And it came to pass, as he talked with him, that the king said unto him, Art thou made of the king's council? Forbear, why shouldst thou be smitten? Then the prophet forbear and said, I know that God hath determined to destroy thee because thou hast done this and hast not hearkened unto my counsel. You know what that king said? He said, I don't like what you said. And that king no doubt despised the preaching right there. Isn't that interesting? He says, art thou made of the king's counsel? You know what that tells me about that king? He had surrounded himself with an echo chamber of yes men. who only told him what he wanted to hear, amen? And if I could just draw one quick thing out of that, that's the problem with not going to church and just watching YouTube service all the time. I can pick and choose whoever I caught and pick and like to preach to me. And it's not gonna be that guy because sometimes he says things that I don't like. So I'm listening to this guy, I listen to this guy because he makes me feel a certain way, blah, blah, blah, you've heard the whole story before. You know what people who don't go to church are like? They're like this king here sitting around, they've got their own council, they've got these people picked out, they're allowed to tell them yada yada. Instead of going to a local church and, amen, taking part, and taking what's dished out there. That's a huge issue nowadays. But notice there that he despised the preaching. Look at 2 Chronicles 24. 2 Chronicles 24. Here's another king. Look at verse 17. Just showing you a couple examples here. Yet he sent prophets to them to bring them again unto the Lord, and they testified against them, but they would not give ear. And the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest." By the way, if you read the rest of the story, when King Joash was a boy, his whole family was killed. Okay? And he was snuck off by his maid, or whoever it was, into the temple, and Jehoiada the priest raised this little boy in the temple until he was old enough to take over the kingdom. And now, later on in his life, he's forsaken the Lord, and the son of the man who raised him, filled with the Spirit of God, stands up to preach against what he's up to. And he says in the middle of verse 20, And said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God, Why transgress ye the commandments of the Lord, that ye cannot prosper? Because ye have forsaken the Lord, he hath forsaken you. And they conspired against him and stoned him with stones at the commandment of the king. That king despised that prophesying so much that he had that preacher killed. He had that preacher killed. Second Chronicles chapter 16. Now, for the sake of time, I'm not gonna go into this, but in every case here, I could show you how when these men despise the preaching, people around them get hurt. People die. Preacher gets killed. In this case here, some other people get oppressed. That's the fruit of despising preaching. Look at 2 Chronicles 16 in verse seven. And at that time Hanani the seer came to Asa king of Judah, and said unto him, Because thou hast relied on the king of Syria, and not relied on the Lord thy God, therefore is the host of the king of Syria escaped out of thine hand. Were not the Ethiopians and the Lubums a huge coast with many chariots and horsemen? Yet because thou didst rely on the Lord, he delivered them into thine hand. For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong on the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him. Herein thou hast done foolishly, therefore from henceforth thou shalt have wars. Then Asa was wroth with the seer and put him in the prison house, for he was in a rage with him because of this thing. And Asa oppressed some of the people the same time. What's the guy in prison for preaching the truth to him? Okay, so there's three kings, all right, that despised preaching. Now, surely you would think in the Bible that these three men were just the most foul, crooked, wicked men. But that's actually not the case. Now, I'd like to show you why that's not so here real quick. Look at chapter 14 of 2 Chronicles. I'll show you what the Bible says about these men, and I'll make a conclusion about that. 2 Chronicles 14, 1, So Abijah slept with his fathers, and they buried him in the city of David. And Asa his son, the guy who just imprisoned the preacher, reigned in his stead. In his days the land was quiet ten years, and Asa did that which was good and right in the eyes of the Lord his God. How about that for a statement? All these locking up preachers just down the road there. Look at chapter 24. Look at verse 1. Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he ran 40 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name also was Zibia of Beersheba, and Joash did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and a little asterisk mark, all the days of Jehoiada the priest. But still, the testimony is he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, at least for a time. Look at chapter 25 and verse one. Amaziah was 20 and five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned 20 and nine years in Jerusalem, and his mother's name was Jehoadam of Jerusalem, and he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart. Okay? My Bible's closed. Last place we turn to, amen? You say, well, what do you want to say about that? I want to say this. Those men did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. They had a good testimony. All right, and there came a time in their life when they were at their low point and they were backsliding, they weren't trusting God, they didn't like what God had to say, and they despised prophesying. What does that tell me about you and I? That means when I feel in my heart the desire to set aside that conviction, to despise what was said to me from the pulpit, from the word of God, I know where I'm at right now. I know where I'm at. I'm not in a good place, amen. I can look back at all the times where I've heard some really hard things and point out that I felt like I was on a good plane spiritually. My fellowship with the Lord was right. My fellowship with him was good where it was supposed to be. I was doing the things I knew I was supposed to do, right? And you could have said anything to me and it would just brush off of me, yeah. That is the truth, amen. You know what I mean? Great peace have they which love thy law, and nothing shall offend them. I was where I was supposed to be with the Lord, and you could have said anything to me. And I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. I was right with God at that point in my life, and it wasn't gonna offend me whether you tried to or not. You could call me anything you want. And then later on down the road, some things slip into my life, some sins that I wouldn't have done at that point in time. Now I'm allowing them, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. I've backslidden a little bit. And next thing you know, I'm sitting in a service or I'm listening to a sermon online and someone says something and I go, what? Right? What are you talking about, man? You old cranky old man. You know? And you know what that tells me about myself based off what I just read to you? That means I have some stuff I need to deal with right now. That means that my fellowship with the Lord is not where it's supposed to be right now. That means I have some sins that God wants to deal with me about. That tells me a whole lot about where I am and not where that old man is. That tells me a whole lot about my relationship with Jesus Christ at this point in time, and it does not tell me anything about how wicked and emotional and opinionated that old man is. That tells me about me. That tells me I need to get down to the altar. I need to get some things right. I need to repent. I need help. I am not where I'm supposed to be. If I were supposed to be here, I wouldn't be offended about that, but here I am getting all gruntled and disgruntled about this thing. And at that point in time, it becomes, okay, let's begin to mend this. God, help me. I like these sins. I enjoy them. They're a little pleasure for a season, amen? You know? And I'll be honest with you, Lord, I do not want to get rid of them. But I know that they're wrong, and I know that you can help me. That's how I get victory nine times out of 10. You know where I get problems, and I get bogged down, and I get worse and worse and worse and worse and worse, is I begin to ignore stuff and put it off, hide it from God, act like it's not a big deal, amen. That preacher doesn't know what he's talking about. He's just getting emotional and giving me his opinion. That's not even in the Bible, right? But you know where I get victory, is when I get honest with God. Lord, I just despise those prophesying. I despise that preaching. It's not that old man. It's me. And Lord, I have these problems. I have these sins. They're bogging me down. They're hurting me. I like to do them. They make me feel nice in the flesh. Amen. And if I don't get help from you, I don't know if I could beat them. I need some help. Amen. So that's where I get when I find myself in that place. So what is the lesson here? Can I give you one key takeaway? You and I should love preaching. You and I should eat it up like a sweet roll. And sometimes it is like the nasty medicine, just going down the throat, amen? That's fine. But when you begin to notice in your heart that you're despising, okay, the Word of God, I didn't tell you you had to like everything that I say, but if I give you the Word of God, and it's from the Bible, right? and you begin to despise that, that should tell you something about where you're at right now. That should tell you that your fellowship and your relationship with Jesus Christ is not where it's supposed to be, and that should help you to get some things worked out. I say this, one preacher said this one time, and I believe this, and I'll quote it to you all the time, but the most important thing in your life after getting saved okay, is your personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you begin to see in your heart that you're despising prophesying, let me tell you something, your relationship with him is not where it's supposed to be. It's not where it's supposed to be. So I hope that that's a blessing to everybody. Despise not prophesying, say amen. We should eat it up. And if you're not eating it up, all right, and you're despising it, that's a big sign that you might be backsliding and we need to get some stuff right.