In this sermon, the speaker discusses the importance of analyzing and learning from the stories in the Bible, even those with unhappy endings. He emphasizes the need to seek truth and not just reinforce our existing beliefs. The sermon focuses on the story of a king who made destructive choices and lost a significant portion of his kingdom. The speaker encourages listeners to learn from negative lessons and to be open to correction and guidance from the Holy Spirit.

A lot of years ago, I was invited to go overseas on one of the first trips I made overseas. And I prayed about it, felt like God wanted me to do it, and I went. And some odd things happened in this sense. I was a lot, lot younger and less experienced. And I preached, and God seemed to add a blessing to my ministry in that country. But I saw things that didn't not only make sense, it turned me off. I saw things going on among the ministers and the spirit of the thing, which so bothered me, that I got alone, and I prayed, and I said, God, did I miss you? Did I say yes to something I shouldn't have said yes to? Because this stuff is right up here in front of me, and this doesn't sound right. It's not for me to correct it. I wasn't in that place. But it's not right. And it felt like the Holy Spirit, alone one day, said this to me. No, I brought you here, and do you see this? Look at it closely, and never do it as long as you live. Because some lessons in life are negative lessons. God lets you see things. How many are with me so far, right? God lets you see things and says, see that? Never do it. Now, the name of this message is blowing up your house. And it's the story, it could really be called the man who blew up his house. Because there are several stories, many stories in the Bible, which are not like have a happy ending, but God puts them there so we could analyze them, and God says, saying to us, analyze this, think about it. Never do this as long as you live. I don't want anyone to blow up their house. How many wanna build a good house? How many wanna build a good family, a good life, and get to our heavenly house, which lasts forever? So, in 19 verses, you're gonna read about a king who blew up his house. He blew up his house. Listen to this. He's gonna lose more than 80% of his kingdom. One of his most trusted workers is gonna get killed. He's gonna barely escape with his own life, and he's gonna live the rest of his life with a stigma over him as the man who blew up his own house. Now, the background of this man, whose name is Rehoboam, is his father is Solomon, and Solomon started out wonderfully. He was the son of David, the son of Dathsheba and David. Solomon started out, the Lord appeared to him twice. He asked for wisdom. When the Lord said, I'll give you anything you want, he ended up writing the Proverbs, Song of Solomon, maybe a psalm or two, but he had a weakness, a structural weakness he didn't deal with, and that was women. He didn't just have a couple wives. He went nuts and multiplied wife after wife, and God had warned him not to do that and any king to do that because God said, they will turn your heart away from me. They not only turned his heart away from God, but he started and spent the last decades of his life, it seems, at least the last decade of his life, building temples for the gods of all his wives, filthy gods like Molech, like Baal, like Asherah, whose symbol was the male sex organ in gargantuan size as a statue. Solomon, who the Lord appeared to twice, was building temples for all of this, and to build it, he taxed the people to the limit, high, high taxes, and he made them as slave laborers. He made everybody work because he had an agenda, and he died a sorrowful death, died sad. Imagine going out building temples for idols that God said are an abomination. Well, his son now, his oldest boy, was gonna succeed him. His name was Rehoboam, but there was unease in Israel. The 12 tribes were all together, but there was unease because Solomon, what are you doing? Like, all right, he's gone now. Maybe we'll have a better situation with his son, and here's the story of the man who blew up his own house. Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all the Israelites had gone there to make him king. They were gonna make him king. When Jeroboam, son of Nebat, heard this, Jeroboam was a leader among the people who Solomon had gotten jealous of, and he had to go in hiding, but Jeroboam was still around, and when he heard this, he was still in Egypt where he had fled from King Solomon. He returned from Egypt. So they sent for Jeroboam, and he and the whole assembly of Israel went to Rehoboam and said to him, but before we say that, let's get our name straight. The one who's gonna be king is Rehoboam. Everyone say Rehoboam. And the man who's kinda leading the people in their appeal is Jeroboam. All right, Jeroboam said, your father put a heavy yoke on us, but now lighten the harsh labor and the heavy yoke he put on us, and we will serve you. That's reasonable. Rehoboam answered, go away for three days, and then come back to me. So the people went away. Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. How would you advise me to answer these people, he asked. They replied, the elders, if today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants. But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him, and he consulted the young men who had grown up with him, the posse, his homeboys, and were serving him. They were serving him, and they grew up with him. He asked them, what is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, lighten the loke your father put on us? The young men who had grown up with him replied, tell these people who have said to you, your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter, tell them this. My little finger is thicker than my father's waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke, I'll make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips, I'll scourge you with scorpions. There's some wonderful advice. Three days later, Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, come back to me in three days. The king answered the people harshly, rejecting the advice given him by the elders. He followed the advice of the young men, and said, my father made your yoke heavy, I'll make it even heavier, how about that? My father scourged you with whips, I'm better than him, I'll scourge you with scorpions. So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the Lord, to fulfill the word the Lord had spoken to Jeroboam, son of Nebat, through Ahijah, the Shilonite. When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king, what share do we have in you, in David? In other words, the throne, the successors of David, what part in Jesse's sons? To your tents, O Israel, look after your own house, O David, so the Israelites went home. But as for the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah, Rehoboam still ruled over them. So now we have a division, Judah and Benjamin, a little tribe, stayed with Rehoboam, but the 10 other tribes said, later for you, we're out of here, a civil war started, and now the country was divided for the next hundreds of years. King Rehoboam sent out Adoniram, who was in charge of forced labor, but all Israel stoned him to death, lost a good man. King Rehoboam, however, managed to get into his chariot and escaped to Jerusalem, just stayed with his own skin. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day. Imagine that, there's gonna be crowned king, and when it's all over, he's got nothing, he's lost 80%, a great man has been killed, he almost lost his own life, and now he's got the stigma for the rest of his life on his children and his children's children, the guy's a loser. Rehoboam's a loser, blew up his own house. I don't wanna blow up my own house. Pastors don't wanna blow up their own churches. Women don't wanna blow up their own lives, their marriages. So what's the lesson for this? How did this turn of events happen? Your father Solomon, he wrote all those Proverbs, how could you be so dense? So let's analyze it, because God put it in the word for our learning. First of all, the first thought that comes to me is, my, my, my, what repercussions happen and result from decisions we make and words we say? Rehoboam made a decision, had a situation, had people come to him, analyzed it, listened to it, listened to the wrong counselors, made a decision, and whammo, blow up, hydrogen bomb, 80% of your empire, your kingdom lost to you. Lose a good man, almost lose your own life. Decisions we make, even the ones that seem insignificant, everyday decisions, they have repercussions. For every action it says in physics, there's an equal and opposite reaction. For every word we say, there's an effect, for the words you say, there's an effect on the decisions that you make. We make decisions, then you get repercussions. What a man sows, he will also. In other words, all of us everyday are making decisions, some we call little, some we call big. They make a decision, they're going to Kentucky, they've prayed about it, they feel led by God, that's gonna be repercussions, and in their case, it's gonna be blessing and good things are gonna happen. But all of us say words, and the words just don't dissipate. The words go into people's heads, and then there's reactions from those words. The way you talk to your children, there's repercussions. What you feed your children, what you're gonna get from your children. You curse at your children, your children will probably grow up and curse at someone else. If you're an unworthy father, most likely your kid will grow up and be an unworthy father. There's repercussions. We don't live in a vacuum, you can't put your head in the sand and say it doesn't matter, that's just who I am. No, no, what you say and what you do will come back to bite you or bless you. Biting or blessing, that's a name of a good, I should write a book, biting, fresh bite, fresh blessing, something like that. So there's repercussions. Lesson number two, it's obvious it's staring at us in the face, isn't it? What in the world set Rehoboam off on such a useless track? How could a man on the throne, ready to be crowned king, they came to crown him king, how could you blow up your own house? What set him off? Well, the people came to him under the leadership of Jeroboam and here's what they said, everyone. They said to him, listen, all due respect, but your dad was very unfair. Your dad taxed us until we had no money left. Your dad worked us like we were a bunch of oxen. So Rehoboam, would you lighten up and we will serve you, be reasonable. We're losing all our money to taxes. You're working us to build these silly temples. Lighten up. Ah, but it must have been the word that set Rehoboam off was your father. Would you just say, did you mention my dad? And that's where a lot of our problems lay and how we blow up our lives and our families. Instead of analyzing whether what they said was true, he just heard probably your father did such and such. You know how we get about family. Somebody else could do something, it's totally wrong, but if our family does it, we just look the other way. Or we defend something that's wrong. We know it's wrong, but if our sister or brother or father or mother did it or culture or island or race or political party, we look the other way and truth dies in the street. Because we're not objective, we're emotional now. We're partial. We're not looking at things the way God sees them. God is not very partial. He's no respecter of persons. Was your father nasty with the people? Was your father taxing them to death? Was your father abusing them in labor? Forget it was your father, is the thing true? It's either true or it's not true. If it's true, then listen to them. If it's not true, show them where it wasn't true. But that's how we blow up our houses. We're not in search of truth, we're in search of reinforcement of what we already believe. That's the way most of us are. I've been preaching now for 40 years and counseling tens of thousands of people and that's what I see over and over. See it in my own life. We don't look at things objectively the way God sees it. See, two and two is four or it's not four. The old thing they taught me in my philosophy class in prep school was the bug is on the rug. It's the first thing the guy wrote on the blackboard all those years ago. The bug is on the rug. Either the bug is on the rug or the bug is not on the rug, but both cannot be true. The bug is not on the rug, then the bug cannot be on the rug, you cannot have it both ways. But we're not like that when we search for truth. A lot of us are not looking for truth. We're not open to people saying something that's not convenient to us. The minute Rehoboam heard your father, he went, whoa, what, you're gonna talk about my father? Say that again, one more time. You're gonna say my father? Ain't that the way we are? Instead of going to God, instead of searching his word for what's right and wrong, we go by culture. We go by race, we go by island, we go by family. That's the way my family did it. Why would I be concerned how your family did it or how my family did it? When my wife and I went through a nightmare years ago with our oldest girl, my daughter was wayward for two and a half years longer than that. We went through a nightmare. My daughter was rebellious and my daughter was lying and my daughter was doing a lot of things. It was so, even though it was my daughter. I grew up in an alcoholic home. My dad was an alcoholic for 22 years. He beat my mother and turned my house into hell. That's right, my father did that. But Pastor Simba, don't you respect your father? Listen, we're always to honor our fathers and love our fathers, but our fathers can be wrong. Otherwise, if you're gonna defend the indefensible, then truth dies. If we're gonna cover for everyone who's connected to us, but then we judge other people who just do a little bit, and we jump on them, and they're wrong. I don't believe they did that, but if it's someone that you're partial to, oh, we look the other way. And what does God think about all that? When you face God one day, and he says to you, what were you defending? Or what were you espousing? The examples of this are everywhere. This is how churches blow up. Countries blow up. A lot of years ago, in the late 1700s, America became a nation. And the founding fathers wrote a declaration under Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence. We find these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, but they didn't really practice that. These are whole hundreds of thousands of slaves who are human beings, but were not created equal. We enjoy the blessings that there are in America, the freedom that's in America, and we're Americans if we're citizens. I was born here, I'm a citizen. But whether I'm a citizen of America, and whether I waved the flag on the 4th of July, that doesn't mean that that wasn't wrong. That was wrong. That was wrong. Those white people were wrong. Those Caucasians didn't have a clue. Even though they were quoting God, and mentioning the divine being, that's wrong. The Bible says that's wrong, to mistreat and be unkind to people, and beat their backs if they don't work, and send them out and have no consideration for them. Jesus says that's wrong. I don't care who did it, I don't care if my mother did it. That's wrong. So now, then before the Civil War, there were preachers down in the South pounding the Bible, and justifying slavery from the Bible. Justifying that nonsense. That's wrong. But Southerners didn't say it was wrong. They were partial because they wanted their form of society and culture, which was sitting on a porch, drinking some whatever, while the slaves were out in the fields, they wanted to keep that thing going. It was a cash cow. So you keep it going. So you look the other way, or you make up nonsense. It's not true, that's not true. What are you saying is true? Because you're partial, and you're blinded, and truth is dying in the streets. A major denomination. In the United States right now, took the wrong side of that slavery question. Sided with the slave owners. A Christian denomination. And it wasn't until about a decade or 15 years ago that they came out with a formal apology and said, we were wrong. Why, why you cover that up for decade after decade? Because it's us, we don't say we're wrong. We're all so proud, we can't say we're wrong. We're all so stinking proud, it's hard for us to say we're wrong. When I failed Carol and been a bad husband, you know, it's hard for me to say, you know what, forgive me, I was wrong. We all tend to cover, yeah, but how about you? Were you the perfect wife? When you're not a good parent, you know, we cover that up and say, you know what, I was wrong. When we say words we shouldn't say, we're gonna justify it. We're gonna find someone, yeah, well, you weren't there, they provoked me. Did you know that when Lincoln got shot in April of 1865, do you know that ministers down in the South said it was God's judgment on him for freeing the slaves? What Bible were they reading? How blind were they to the truth? That's Rehoboam. That's, I'm gonna cover my group, my culture, my family, I'm gonna cover my, and I'm blind to anything that's staring me in the face. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and World War II began for us. It had begun in 1939 in September, but it got serious for us. America entered the war in December of 41 when Pearl Harbor happened. Do you know that President Roosevelt, who did some good things as president, do you know that he gave an order that all Japanese who were living in America should be arrested, gathered up, and put in internment camps? Do you know that families lost their houses and children were taken out of school and ended up in internment camps because there was the scare that every Japanese person was a spy? That's wrong. I don't care if you're Democrat, Republican, white, Asian, black, that's wrong. That's wrong. But it's hard for people to say, I'm sorry, it's wrong, because you see, it was convenient for America. You work up a fervor, anti-war, anti-Japanese, they're attacking, and we did have to fight a war, and it was a horrible war, but everybody, you know, was just like, let's be quiet about that, that we interned all those people. Now our president has just come out and said same-sex marriage is legitimate. That's wrong. But listen, my friend Tony Evans, an African-American pastor in Dallas, and he told me, he got on CNN the next day and said it's wrong, and he said, all the ministers are in Dallas, they're all silent about it. No, that's our man, you don't criticize that. He's black. I wouldn't care if he was purple, that's wrong. Come on, how many are with me? That's wrong. That's wrong, truth. And now he told me he's getting some heat. No, you can't say that, don't go public with that. Did you know a major organization, which is made up of 75% ministers, they just endorsed the president's ridiculous position? They just endorsed it, 75, what are they? They're not reading any Bible, they're going by race. Like the fight, white folks go by race and the black folks go by race, and some of you, you know, just look the other way. You can't look the other way. Listen, Obama's not the man, Bush is not the man, Jesus is the man, come on, Jesus is the man. The Bible is the man. Something's wrong, it's wrong. Are you with me? The darkness is coming now, strong upon the earth, and now God is gonna shake everything that can be shaken, and you know what we're gonna find out? We're gonna find out who's cultural and racial, and we're gonna find out who's spiritual and New Testament. We're gonna find out white people, black people, all people. Are you locked into your culture and you're gonna defend it, or are you gonna lock into Jesus and say, I don't care, I am determined to stand for Christ. Come on, let's put our hands together, amen. That's the truth. And you vote for who you want. You never heard anything political from up here, and you won't. I don't care you vote Democrat, Republican, you vote for who you want, but if something's wrong, you lift your voice and you say, no, that's wrong. You don't look away. Imagine if President Bush or President Clinton ever came out in favor of same-sex marriage. Are you kidding me? There would be marches all over this place. People saying, what an abomination. No, some of you are not saying amen, but I'll, Lord, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Amen. Well, of course they would, because they're not looking for truth, looking to cover your back. And Christians don't belong to any race. I'm not white. Don't you ever call me white. I'm not white, I'm not black. I'm not American first. I'm Christian first. Come on, how many believe in this first, the Bible, Christian? Truth is dying in the street, probably because they just said, your father, what? My father, what? What'd you say about my father? See, that's the way we all are. We justify stuff because it's about us. My family, my race, my church, my denomination. But that disqualifies you from being a blessing to other people now because you're not real. You're not real. God only uses real people. He can't use twisted judgments on. The Bible says in Proverbs, he hates unjust scales, where you weigh things differently depending on who's weighing them. Look, if something's wrong, it's wrong. I wouldn't care if my mom did it, and I love her. She's sitting right here, 98 years old. If it's wrong, it's wrong. It's wrong. Mom, you're wrong. Jim, you're wrong. Brothers and sisters, the humility we need. Think of all the things we've done and said that have no sense whatsoever. Can't you look back on your life and see the silliness in your life? Come on, am I the only person here that has said stupid things, held stupid positions? But that brings us to this. How do you find truth? The Bible doesn't say Rehoboam went to the Lord. It doesn't say he went to the law of Moses. He got counsel. Well, counsel has its place, but let's finish. The first thing you do is you get along with God and you find out, God, what's happening here? Save me from my family and my race and all that, my culture and all that nonsense. Save me from that. Help me to see things the way you see them. God, what is going down here? If my daughter's up to no good, show it to me. That's your daughter. I know, but my daughter could be up to no good. So could my son, and so on. And then you'll go to the word of God and we establish right and wrong, not from who's evolving into what position. That's ridiculous. We find out what's true from the Bible, not what you heard growing up, not what I heard growing up, not white Bible, not black Bible, this Bible. Whatever the Bible says is wrong is wrong. You read the New Testament, read the law of Christ, especially, and find out what's wrong. God says sleeping around is wrong. Well, no, pastor, come on, that's old. No, it's not old, it's true. It's not old, it's not new. I'm not into old or new. I'm trying to be into true. How many wanna be into true? Say amen. Because at the end, you're gonna face God. Do you think God's gonna care about your position? The judge of the earth is gonna say, what do you feel about it? Come on. How did you grow up? My goodness, how cultural we've become. How selfish, how egocentric. So the truth is found in the Bible. So you go to the Bible and say, does the Bible speak to this situation? Lord, give me a word what I should do. We go to God. But one of the good things we can go to is counselors. In the multitude of counselors, there is wisdom. Another Bible verse says, in the multitude of counselors, there's safety. And you can always tell someone who's off, going down the wrong road are gonna blow up their life because they won't listen to anybody. They know. Oh no, listen, they know. I won't listen to anyone. No pastor, nobody. I'm not listening to anybody. That's a sign the Bible says of a fool. A fool is the person who will not accept correction, will not accept rebuke. But the wise person loves correction, even loves a rebuke. The word there means sharp words. Why? Because they wanna be right. They don't wanna be reinforced. They wanna be right. Rehoboam did seek counsel. Here's another lesson. He sought counsel first from the elders, the men who had advised his father. Now when it comes to advice, you should always try to get advice from people who are older. Youth has a lot of advantages, but wisdom is not usually one of them because they haven't lived long enough and haven't made enough mistakes yet. How many remember when you were young and you knew everything like I did? How many remember those good old days? Lift your hand when you knew everything. Come on, you knew everything. Lift your hand up, admit it. You were a genius, right? And the longer you live, the more you say, help me Jesus. He went to the older men and said, would you counsel? But you know what the older men said? You talk about rubbing a proud person the wrong way. You know what the older men said? Yo, Rehoboam, you be a servant. You serve these people and you be kind to them. They'll serve you all the days of your life. In other words, be reasonable and serve them. Think about the people before your own ego. He did not want to hear that. What, wait a minute. I'm the king, I'm the throne, I'm gonna serve the people? No, I'm not doing that. The king gets bowed down to. The king doesn't serve anybody. Oh, I'm so happy. We have a king who washed the disciples' feet and didn't come to be served but to serve others and lay down his life for a ransom. So then he went to his posse, the younger people. And youth has a lot of advantages to it, but the cult of youth is an idol. The cult of everything's got to be young. There's an interesting book out now called The Juvenilization of America and of Churches. It's really, the book is written about churches, how everyone in church now is being reduced to like you're a child. Because it's the cult of, if it's young and new, it's hip and it's in. If it's old school, then, but when you need counsel, bring some old school influence in there. Get some people who have made a few thousand mistakes. Get some people who have seen a lot in life. Because if you're here today and you're 18, you're 20, you're 25, listen, seek the Lord, get all the wisdom you can, but we guarantee you, you will look at life differently when you're 50 years old. The leaders of the churches in the New Testament were called elders, not young people. They were called to the elder of the church, not to the kiddie church, but to the elder. Here's another lesson. He got that counsel and then he wanted some stroking. Now, if you want someone to agree with your partial preconceived notions, you can always find someone who will confirm your silliness. Come on, your prejudice, you can find, you're gonna find someone today. Whatever your position is, you can find somebody who will back it up, especially like these young guys, they were serving him, so their money came from King Rehoboam, so whatever Rehoboam, they were sizing him up, what does he wanna hear? And then there are friends like that. They feed you what you wanna hear. That's not a friend. You do not have a friend who feeds you what you wanna hear. A friend tells you the truth in love, but a lot of us don't wanna hear the truth because we got a victim mentality, so anyone who speaks the truth, they're already against us. I thought you were my friend. I am your friend, that's why I'm telling you that. So his posse told him this phenomenal counsel. Brilliant, I mean, who could have thought up something so wise? You tell those people when they come back in three days, listen, you thought my father was bad? My fingers thicker than my father's waist. How about that? He laid heavy burns on you? I'm gonna make them heavier. This is great psychology. This is just wonderful approach to how to meet and win friends to your position. And he beat you with whips? Guess what, I'm gonna beat you with scorpions. How about that? And his guys are behind him going, yeah, come on. And he's gonna blow up his own house. His house is going down. He's gonna lose everything, his children. He's gonna almost lose his own life. You think he knows? You think he knows? He doesn't know. Because when we're foolish, we don't know we're foolish. He told them that. That was the answer he gave. And he waited three days. He got both counsels, and the Bible says, in three days, they came back. So he had 72 hours to think that through. All right, let me say, when they come, I'll say, yo, my father, my finger is thicker than my father's waist. How will they, I wonder how they'll take that. The load is heavy now? Wait till you see what I'm gonna lay on you. Oh, he beat you with whips? Wait till you see the scorpion collection that I have just been making. Then I beat you down with scorpions. I wonder how they're gonna react to all that. I don't care if that's what my posse said. I'm gonna show them who's boss. Oh, brothers and sisters, when I look back on my life and all the wrong things I've said and done, I wanna hide my face. Because we're all rehabil. Are we not? I said, are we not? How many regret decisions and words that you've had in your life? Humble yourself, just lift up your hand gently. So the scripture is given to us for our learning so that we won't blow up our own house, that we'll go to God, that we won't be wise like what the world calls wise. We don't want AT&T wise. We don't want Apple wise. We don't want sports wise. We don't want culture wise. We don't want America wise. We want Bible wise. Because there is a wisdom that God has for all of us. Here's our choice today. Look, who is wise and understanding among you? Let him or her show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such wisdom does not come down from heaven. Oh, there's a wisdom, you're smart. But it's earthly, it's unspiritual, it's of the devil. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every evil practice. But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure, then peace loving. You meet anyone who wants to fight all the time and is screaming and fussing and fighting, that's a fool. Considerate, submissive, full of mercy. Oh God, make us full of mercy. And good fruit, impartial and sincere. But the wisdom that comes from heaven, not the earthly wisdom, it's first of all pure, it's peace loving, it's considerate of the other person's position and what they're going through. It's submissive to authority and truth. It's full of mercy, it doesn't want to judge people, it wants to help people. And good fruit, it wants to do good things. It's impartial, it doesn't care about color, doesn't care about age, doesn't care about anything. It's impartial. And it's sincere, there's no acting in it. You know what Tony Evans said? I thought it was profound. He said, we have a new kind of evangelical atheism where people high five the pastor and shout hallelujah and amen while he's preaching and then live Monday through Saturday like the Bible doesn't exist. He said that, not me. I thought it was good, wasn't it? I thought it was prophetic. We're developing church cultures that shout amen to truth but then Monday through Saturday, fussing, fighting, gossiping, partial, arrogant, no wisdom that comes from humility. You know what somebody needs to hear today? I got counsel for you. Come to the throne of mercy and grace. Come to the throne of mercy, the throne of grace. The Bible says, therefore let us come boldly to the throne of grace that we can receive mercy, that God can forgive you for the wrong things you've been doing and saying and acting. He wants to forgive you, he wants to do that. It's also called the throne of grace because God will help you what you're struggling with where you feel you're being overwhelmed. He will help you, that's what God is saying. Come unto me all you that labor and are heavy laden. I'll give you rest, I'll forgive you, I'll help you but just humble yourself and come. You know what sends people to hell? Is our stinking pride. We won't admit we need help from God. We cover for ourselves most of all, justifying every ridiculous thing. I know some people for 30, 40 years, I've never heard them say the word, I'm sorry. I want to say on behalf of all the pastors, we've ever hurt you, we've ever let you down, anything's ever fallen to crack, we apologize. We are all frail people and we make mistakes. Have mercy on us. But none of us as far as I know ever wake up in the morning wanting to hurt anybody but we need more wisdom. Do you need more wisdom? How about the wisdom that comes from above? You can be an executive in the business world and still be a fool even though you're making high six figures because it's not about money, it's about when God looks down and says, that's right. I want to represent Jesus Christ. I want our church to represent Jesus Christ in this growing darkness, spiritual darkness. I want us to, you know what bad thing about light? It shines brightest when things are dark. Don't you want to shine for him? I know this is hard for some of you. You're not either, well, you're just not demonstrative or used to that. Maybe you're not even a Christian and you don't want to do this but could we just all close our eyes and just lift our hands up gently? You don't have to lift them high, just lift them gently. Lord, forgive us for our Rehoboam days. Forgive us for being so cocksure we know everything. Having an answer for everybody. We know, we know and what do we know? We know very little. We humble ourselves and ask for mercy today. We want you to help us so that we can build great families, great lives that will bring glory to your name. Help us to be vessels of truth, Lord. Impartial, sincere, humble. Not white, not black, not Asian, not Latino, not West Indian, but Christians. Christians first, loving the word of God first, loving truth and if it means somebody gets mad at us, so be it. If they crucified you, how would everyone find us popular if we stand for truth? We love you today. We ask you to bind us closer together. Break down any barrier between any of us today, Lord. Make us so in love with one another through you that you can look down and smile and be able to say, look how my children love one another. If there's anyone here that needs to apologize to someone else, let it be. If anybody's been gossiping, slandering another member of the church, let it cease. Help us to support one another and build one another up, not tear anyone down. Anybody can tear down their house like rail bone, but it takes you working in us to build it. We pray this in Jesus' name. And now may the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us all day today. Change lives today. I know you've started changing our lives this morning through your word. I thank you for your word today. Come on, let's all thank God for his word. We thank you for your word today, Lord. We thank you. Thank you for this story, how not to blow up our house. And now, Lord, we pray that as we encourage one another, it'll be sweet and edifying and good. Thank you for this service in Jesus' name. Everybody stand. Thank you.