0:02 Heavenly Father, we come to you through the blood of Jesus. And Lord, I've prepared I think I know what I'm going to share. But Lord, if if it's not from you, then I'd rather be silent. Lord, we want to know your heart this morning. We 0:15 want you to speak directly to us. We trust you to do that. We trust you've heard us and we trust you love us and want to teach us your ways. We love you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen. All right, starting with the picture of 0:31 lots of bread. So, if you guys read, I sent out a couple passages, one from Mark 8 and one from Matthew 16. And I believe they're parallel passages, but in those passages, you find a lot of talk about bread and even a lot of 0:45 confusion about bread. And if you read them, you're you know, if you read the two passages, you know, you're like, okay, there's some clarity in it, but in a way, I'm still confused. And so in in in in Mark 8, that's kind of where we're 0:59 going to focus is Mark 8. And the reason the reason is the there's a parallel passage, but the the passage in Mark Matthew 16 focuses on one thing and the passage on um Mark 8 f seems to focus on a different thing. And so I want to kind 1:17 of mirror those up, but the whole conversation revolves around bread and if they forgot to bring bread and and all and all that. And and and again, Jesus says something that's kind of strange, honestly, in context. He says, 1:29 I'm not really even talking about bread. I'm talking about a component of bread. And we'll get into it. Before we do that, I want you to kind of think about this picture a little bit. And you know, there's hearts in the background. You 1:41 know, with AI, I could have done a number of pictures. The whole point is that when God gives us a warning, it is all within the realm of his love. I'm a father. I've got uh adult children now and I still when I talk to them I'm 1:57 like, "Hey guys, watch out for this. Watch out for this. Watch out for this. If I can think of anything, anything any warning that will protect them, I will give it cuz I love them so much." And you parents, I think, know what I'm 2:12 talking about. If you see your kid that's about to run out the street, hey, don't go in the street. Don't play in the street. Don't go near that. Don't do this. And so when you see warnings in scripture, I want you to also just 2:23 realize that that's part of God's love for you. That he loves you so much. You're his child and he's telling you this because he loves you and he wants to warn you. So whenever we read warnings, take it as his love and embrace it. Embrace the warnings. So I 2:38 want to look at a warning this morning. This is in the Mark 8 passage. And it says, "The disciples had forgotten uh to take bread and did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them." Now, they had they had baskets full of 2:53 remaining bread from feeding the uh you know, with from feeding the 4,000, I think it was. So, they had a ton of bread, but it's like, "Hey, who did anybody grab the leftovers?" Right? Anybody grab the leftovers? Like, no, I 3:05 thought you were getting I thought you were getting the leftovers. Like, no, no, no. I thought you got it. Like, nobody got it. and we only have one loaf of bread. And so this conversation starts and then it says Jesus, it says 3:14 he was giving orders to them saying, "Watch out. Beware of the leavenven of the Pharisees and the leavenven of Herod." And the first thing I noticed about this, I'll put some of this in bold, is that term giving orders. I was in the 3:30 military for a while, and if somebody gave you an order as a military guy, you followed it. I mean, one of we could send people to prison in the military if they disobeyed an order that they were given. And so, I noticed first of all that that comes 3:48 out, you know, it may not stand out to much as much to you because maybe you were never in the military and you never had to had to receive a given order or even never give orders. You know, I got promoted in the military. I got to a 4:00 point where I had to tell people, you will do this. And when I gave an order, I expected it to be followed because I too am a man under authority. So that stands out for me. And then the the next language, watch out. You know, I I've sometimes 4:15 yelled watch out before here and scared everybody. I'm not going to do that. But I want you to notice the exclamation point. There's a probably an intensity in the conversation. They're discussing leftover bread and suddenly Jesus says, 4:28 "Watch out." I'm not going to yell it, but imagine that. And he says, "Beware." And so you just get you got orders, you got watch out, and you got beware. And I think sometimes we read these the Bible so quick, we we fail to to grab the 4:44 intensity of what Jesus is saying. And I want us to to have that intensity this morning. Go, Lord, what are you saying? If you're so serious about this, if you're telling your child who you love to watch out, I want to watch out. 4:58 And if you read the parallel passage in uh Matthew 16, it doesn't talk about the leavenven of Herod. It talks about the leavenven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And it says even that the disciples understood what he was talking about. I 5:16 get it. He Oh, okay. Oh, it's not the bread. It's not It's not what he means. He's talking about the yeast or the leaven of the the fair. They're teaching. That's what he's that's what he's talking about. But in this passage, 5:28 when you get to verse 21, Jesus is still saying, "Do you understand? Do you understand what I mean?" And so, if we just focus on that first part, watch out, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, there's a lot. There's actually quite a 5:46 bit. If you read Matthew 23 and you and you ask the Lord, "Lord, what is the leavenven of the Pharisees?" I think you'll know. I mean, I think it'll be pretty evident to you. And there's a book, there's a little short book that Zach Punan wrote, 50 Marks of 5:59 Pharisees. Outstanding. Very short. You can read it very quickly, but if you take it seriously, it'll take you much longer to read it. I remember one time before I'd moved to Austin CFC, I remember I was part of a Bible study group and uh a 6:13 brother walked up to Cracker Barrel. I still remember vividly where we were. He walks up to Cracker Barrel and he goes, "Brothers, I started reading 50 Marks of Pharisees." and he said, 'I didn't make it till the first past the first one and I'm so 6:26 convicted. So the 11 of the fa Pharisees, there's plenty of resources. Matthew 23 and you can go to this book and you can meditate on what was it, you know, in the Pharisees that Jesus was trying to warn out that he say warn 6:40 about that he was giving orders and saying watch out, beware, pay close attention. You can go through that yourself and I imagine if you're honest with yourself, you'll be as convicted. So, I'm not going to focus on that this 6:53 morning, but I want to focus on this part, the leavenven of Herod. And you'll have to raise your hand, but how many how many of you know what the Levven of Herod is? Do you know? And do because if you don't know, then you probably have never taken 7:12 this commandment very seriously. >> I I didn't know. I'm being honest with like I didn't know. I had to I had to dig a little deeper. I I mean I could Google it now. We got AI. We got so many resources. Hey, what is the leavenven 7:24 Herod, you know, and I got some answers kind of like worldliness, you know, kind of a focus on the the material things like, you know, I I got an answer from AI. Uh but I I wasn't really satisfied with it. I wanted more. I've even heard 7:38 Bible teachers and I like I want to know more. So that's what we're going to focus on this morning. And first of all, you need you know the le the term levan we don't really use today or at least you know in my world we don't. We use a 7:49 term called yeast. And what yeast does is you put it in an uh you put it in your uh with your flour and your salt and everything. I I've I've baked bread before. I made rolls. My dad gave me a recipe uh you know and I I make these 8:04 rolls, but I got to put yeast in it. And I remember just putting I just put a packet of yeast and then it you know I put it I put uh put it in a bowl. I cover it with a a uh a rag, make sure it's covered. And then I wait for 45 8:17 minutes because that yeast needs to rise up in the dough. And if you've ever been to a restaurant where they serve yeast rolls, they're oh, they're wonderful. When in my younger days, I could eat so many of them because they're so light 8:28 and fluffy. And what that yeast does, it makes the bread so airy and tasty. Those bubbles, you know, make it rise and it's why breath bread is so soft and tasty. It's excellent, right? But it also is a picture that Jesus is trying to tell us. 8:42 And even in the epistles, all right, we're not going to go into the epistles, but there's a phrase, there's an alliteration. An alliteration is like where you use the same word at the beginning of each word of a phrase, 8:53 like Peter Piper pecked a pickle pickle. Yeah, you know that one. And then Sandy sells seashores by the seashore. That's alliteration. Well, there's a very important aliteration that I want you to hear is this one. A little leaven leavenvens the 9:10 whole lump. L L a little leaven leavenvens the whole lump and Paul used that in his in two of his epistles he used that exact expression and it's a very important expression and as we go further I want you to kind of keep that expression in 9:27 mind l a little leaven leavenvens the whole lump and again straight out of scripture go you know I'm going to go through a lot I'm not going to part of me wants to bog down each time we get to somewhere and go look at it I can't do 9:39 that today I need to do an overview today. But you can take any of those script- these scriptures and please go check me and tell me if you see something else. So, as we look at the leavenan or yeast of Herod, there's two 9:52 questions that I I want you to keep in mind. First of all is what is it? If you've never considered it or never been challenged by this, I want to do that today. I want to jump into it and say what is the 11 of Herod? Because why why 10:05 do I want why am I curious? The reason I'm so curious and why I need to know is because my Lord and Savior was so serious about it. That's why I care. I'm not interested in in digging in things that are just 10:22 trivial. But if my Lord says, "Josh, Josh, I need you to watch out here." Okay, Lord, you got my attention now. So, that's the first thing. What is it? And then here's the important question. Is there any of it in me? Lord, do you 10:37 see any leaven of Herod in me? I want to know. So to begin, we have a question. Which Herod? When I was a young Christian and I was reading my Bible and I would see, you know, King Herod and I'd be like, "Wait, wait, wait. Which one is this?" I got 10:55 confused. Like, which Herod are we talking about? We're talking about Herod the Great or I think there's some other Herod the Tetrarch or you know I would get confused like where are we at in time uh when I would read my Bible I'm 11:06 being honest with you and so what I'm going to suggest to you is that it's actually multiple Herodits and there's a deeper like remember there's a little levan there's a deeper yeast that we actually see through the entire line of 11:20 Herod and so the first possibility there's five that I want to look at there's there were actually many Herods just kind of like there were many pharaohs There were many Herods. And so the first is Herod the Great. And I want you to 11:33 know that according to history, he was an Edomite. And why is that important? Well, as we go through this, I think you'll see because I'm going to suggest to you that that levan of Herod runs much deeper uh in that line all the way back to Edom. 11:50 But who's Edom? Give me a second. So, it's possible that that Jesus was talking about Herod the Great. Remember Herod the Great tried to kill Jesus when he was a baby. That's the Herod. But it's also possible he was talking about 12:03 Herod Antipass. This was who the Herod, the current day Herod was when Jesus was talking. So it's possible Jesus meant oh yeast of or leaven of that Herod. Okay. But he could have meant uh Herod a grippa who is to come. We see that in 12:19 Acts. Oh, maybe he meant that Herod. And just so this helps me, but think of Herod the Great as the grandpa, right? And then his son is Herod Antipass. And there were other Herods too in that line. And then the grandson is Herod 12:34 Agrippa. So we got a a father, a son, but by but Herod Grippa is actually the nephew of Herod Antipas. So you got three generations of Herod. But don't stop there because you got this other guy named Doe who is also an Edomite. 12:50 Herod is an Edomite. So, one of Herod's ancestors from long ago, also an Edomite, is named Doe. And if you know the story, you might know what's coming. But if you don't, we're going to look at it today. And then finally, Edom himself 13:05 is Esau. Esau's name was Edom. And again, you can you can look up any of these verses and go fact check me on this. So, what so what do we have? What do these men have in common? remember our goal. We want to know what is it that Jesus is trying to warn us 13:22 about. So what what is possibly what do all these men have in common that Jesus is saying, Josh, make sure there's none of this in you. You got my attention, Lord. What what do you got? And if I had to pick one, and it's possible that 13:36 Jesus was actually just referring to one, it's probably this one. But even as we analyze the other four, I think we'll still see something common. And so let's dig into it. What do they have in all in common? They were murderers. 13:53 They were murderers. Let's look at it. Herod the Great. He killed babies that were under baby boys that were under two years old. And I think sometimes we lose the magnitude of that. We have a we have a little baby that's 14:09 almost brand new in the back there. And just imagine living in a generation where all little babies, all little baby boys were killed. Imagine the heartache and the sorrow. Again, the scripture kind of records it, but we read these 14:24 stories so fast that we don't understand uh how murder, you know, how how how hard that would be on everybody in Bethlehem. All right? So, there's a murder. You know, you know that Herod Antipass, he uh he murdered John the Baptist and he 14:39 wanted to murder Jesus. murder. Okay. What What about Agria? A Grippa murdered James. And then you had Peter arrested and probably would have would have murdered Peter if God hadn't intervened. 14:59 And then Doe, the Edomite, he was also a murderer. He killed 85 priests plus the women, the children, and the infants. And what struck me about this verse, it distinguishes children from infants. It's almost like, yeah, this 15:15 guy killed babies, too. Sound familiar? Like great grandpa Herod the Great or Grandpa Herod the Great. So, you see this guy killed a lot of priests and all their families. And then finally, Esau himself. And that Yeah, I don't have a 15:32 murderer here. I can't He never got to kill anybody. But let me ask you this question. Was the do you think the yeast or the leaven of it was inside of him? Look at what he says. Says, "Esau said to himself, the days of my morning for my father are 15:48 near. Then then what?" What's Esau going to do after the morning's over? I'd like to hear somebody say it. Okay, I just want to make sure you understand that he was he was ready to kill. 16:08 Soon as I have an opportunity, I will kill. And brothers and sisters, I know this is very heavy. It's very heavy to to think on. And and this is the time I remember I'd sit when I was a young Christian or even before I became a Christian, I would go 16:22 to church meetings and I kind of always feel good if I felt that the message didn't apply to me. Oh, this is for somebody else. This is for rich people. It's for leaders and and you could stop right now and go, "Oh, I thought I was 16:35 going to be convicted this morning." But he's talking about murderers and that's not me. That's not me. But I want to go a little deeper. And if you read the sermon on the mount in chapter 5, you have the words of Jesus. 16:53 And Jesus isn't just concerned on whether you ever commit murder or ever will commit murder. Jesus wants to probe into his children much much deeper than whether they commit murder or not. He says, "You've heard that the ancients were told, you 17:09 shall not commit murder, and whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court. But I say to you, Josh, I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court. And whoever says to his 17:25 brother, "You good for nothing?" shall be guilty before the Supreme Court. And whoever says you fool, you call somebody a fool, it says you shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. I don't want to go too much into this. I'll let you do that on your 17:42 own if you want to. But I encourage you to think about what Jesus is saying. One thing my dad taught me, I mean, we were never allowed to use the word fool in home. Don't ever call anybody a fool. My dad took this verse very seriously. 17:55 You know, we found loopholes. We could call people other things. We'd come up with other names, but we couldn't use that four-letter f- word. Couldn't say full, right? So, think about this. So, what I'm saying is it goes a little bit 18:08 deeper than you didn't commit murder. And this is watch out, beware. You know, these were his disciples he was talking to. And I hope every one of you have surrendered your life to the Lord. That word that Mike made sure to 18:22 get pointed out this morning. I hope every one of you have surrendered your life to the Lord and you want to be his disciple. And if you want his to be his disciple, these words are for you this morning. And so his disciples, those original 12 18:35 disciples, did did they heed the warning? Do you think do you think they listened? Here, consider this. There's a story in Luke 9 where they go to the Samaritan village. They're they're looking for a place to say and it says they wouldn't receive 18:53 them, right? They you know they were heading towards Jerusalem. They're like, "Hey, we don't want these guys staying here." And I don't know if you've ever experienced that kind of discrimination or whatever. You know, where people 19:04 said, "Oh, because of your race, because of your background, we don't like you here. You're not welcome here." Have you ever experienced that? I'm sure some of you have. I know some of you have. What was your reaction? How did you react? 19:19 Now, these two disciples of Jesus, James and John, here was their reaction. Jesus, they're not receiving us. Should we kill them? Should we call down fire from heaven and destroy every one of them? Do you think Jesus was serious when he 19:38 was telling his disciples, "Hey, make sure there's none of that inside of you. make sure there's not an ounce of Herod inside of you. And he he rebukes them. He says, "You don't even know what kind of spirit you're of. You know nothing of the Holy 19:56 Spirit. You have a spirit of Herod. You're wanting to kill because somebody didn't accept you for who you are." No. No, dear disciples. That's not what I want. This is Jesus saying, "That's not what I want for you." >> One more. 20:13 Peter, you know the story. It took a while. Peter heard the same warnings. Hey, make sure there's no levven of Herod in you. But when push came to shove and they were getting ready to arrest Jesus, Peter pulls out a sword and swings it at 20:32 a guy. Now, when I watch old westerns, you know, cowboys, you know, really sharp shooting cowboys, they could pull out a pistol off their hip and they could shoot. so accurately that they would shoot a gun out of somebody's hand. It 20:45 was amazing. Incredible, right? Impossible. But it would happen all the time in these old westerns, right? Nobody I was in the military. Nobody is that good a shot to come from the hip and and hit only the gun in the person's hand. 21:02 That's Hollywood. That's fiction. What? So what what's it have to do with this? Peter wasn't aiming for his ear. He was aiming for his head. He missed and hit the air. I don't know how he swung. I don't know from what direction. But brothers and sisters, I 21:18 think he wanted to kill that guy. Did he listen to his his savior? Was there some yeast in him? One of the things I want to point out to you that should give you some encouragement, James, John, and Peter were Jesus's closest disciples. I don't know if you 21:38 ever noticed that. These were the ones that were were allowed to come up to the mount of transfiguration with him. These were the ones that when somebody was sick, he kicks everybody else, all the other disciples out of the room and let 21:49 these three stay. These are the three that at Gethsemane, he said, "You three stay with me and pray." The closer you get to Jesus, you may you may discover that there's more and more of this inside of you, inside of your 22:06 flesh. And remember Paul said, "Inside of me dwells no good thing that is my flesh." And brothers and sisters, the closer you walk with the Lord, you may discover more and more murder than you could have ever imagined. And what I'm going to tell you is don't 22:21 get discouraged. It means you're drawn closer and closer to your beloved. You're getting closer to closer closer and closer to him, and he's revealing more and more of this filth inside of you. The three closest disciples of 22:35 Jesus had some levan of Herod inside them and he orchestrated the circumstances to expose it. So when things come into your life and it exposes these things, thank the Lord for showing you what's inside of you. Praise God for that. 22:54 I want to spend some time going back to the murderers, the five murders we talked about. I don't think any of them set out to be murderers. That's the interesting thing about murderers that I don't think anybody, you know, you know, I heard one of the 23:09 young girls talk about she doesn't know, you know, she's starting to think about her career and what she wants to do when she grows up, but she's pri prioritizing the Lord and what he wants. I don't think any human being has ever said, you 23:20 know, when they were a young child or maybe a teenager, like, you know, when I grow up, I want to be a murderer. I don't think anybody's ever done it. It has to come from somewhere else. So I want to go back a step because again 23:33 remember maybe we can't relate to murder but maybe we can go back a step and see how did the murderers become murderers. So let's look at the first one and here's what I see. I see I see a problem. 23:49 Car the great said I am the king of the Jews not Jesus. And I hope for each of you that was a turning point in your life. And if it's not, I pray that it becomes a turning point in your life where you say, "I am not the king. 24:08 Christ is the king." But if you don't agree with that, you will murder to preserve your kingdom. And that's exactly what he did. So it wasn't that he wanted to murder. He just didn't want anybody to knock him off the throne. 24:25 What about the next guy? How did it get to how did he get to murder? Well, first of all, he took his brother's wife as his own horrible. His brother, he steals his wife away. So, that's the 24:43 beginning. And then somebody comes preaching about it, telling him he's wrong, throws him in prison. He didn't want to he didn't want to murder John. That wasn't his intention. But one night, you know, having a drunken party with all his friends 25:00 there, this girl sensually dances and impresses him so much. She's so pleased with that moment of pleasure. One moment of pleasure. He'll give away half his kingdom. Up to half his kingdom. You can have whatever you want because I I so 25:15 delighted in this dancing. One moment of pleasure. And he says, "You can have anything you want. And she says, "I want murder." Oh, I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting that. Was he a murderer? Did he want to be a 25:37 murderer? He was more focused on pleasure. Pleasure was his priority. And I get that. I get that growing up in America. I get that growing up in a lot of the Christianity I experienced. It's all about entertainment and pleasure 25:55 and it gets you into situations where you're faced with a dilemma now. You promised this girl in front of all your friends she could have anything she wanted up to half your kingdom because you were so delighted in the sensual 26:08 dancing she was doing. You got yourself in a pickle because you were chasing after the world. And now you have a decision to make. And for those of us that did it, the decision can be you humble yourself. If you fall on your face and you repent, 26:23 you say, "I'm not going to be a murderer." Or you dig in even deeper and you care so much about what everybody thinks about you. The peer pressure is so great that you you don't want anybody to think less of you that you follow through with your promise to 26:41 preserve that honor. That's how you became a murderer. What about the next guy? If you read in Acts, Herod agria kills James and it was like, "Wow, this is gaining me some favor with the Jews. Let's go ahead and rest Peter as well." 26:59 Again, popularity. Popularity. We all struggle with it. You young you young boys and girls. Make your make it your priority that you want to be popular with Jesus and what he thinks of you and don't care what everybody else thinks about you. over 27:14 start seeking to overcome that now >> because you your parents struggle with that what will people think >> can I impress people if I do this will they think I'm cool if I do this and you see 27:32 you'll murder to stay popular really is there any of that in you and you say no no I don't know that they necessarily started out to want that in them either. This guy is very interesting. This is also an Edomite. Again, I I 27:50 think he had the same in him. This story is very interesting. Jesus refers to the story when he says, "What do you guys think about David and the showbread?" Again, we're back to bread. You know, if you don't know the story, it's in 1st 28:01 Samuel 21 and 22. And go back and read slowly. You got some homework here. But this guy is there. David is running away from Saul. And he goes to the priest and uh he says, "Look, you know, I got a bunch of guys with me. We need some bread. 28:18 We need some bread." And remember Jesus refers to David in the showbread. And you're like, "Well, have you ever thought like, what is Jesus talking about?" And I think Jesus is pointing to that story and asking a bunch of Pharisees, "What do you think? 28:31 Who's the hero in the story? Is it David? He desecrated the Sabbath. How is David the hero if he desecrated the Sabbath by eating the showbread which he wasn't permitted to eat? But also Jesus is pointing to that story and saying there's things deeper there 28:45 you guys need to think about. And this fellow Doe was there that that day that David showed up and David was was Saul's chief shepherd. So so Doe should have been loyal to Saul. And one of the things I was thinking about as I read this, if he saw 29:01 David there, why didn't he just go tell Saul, "Hey, saw David. Hey, you're the king, but I know something's up." And again, when you read the story, it says that Abarth abc a 29:19 >> Yeah, he was shaking. Everybody knew what was going on. So, why didn't Dogic just go to Saul and say, "Hey, I have a met. Hey, we found David. I saw him. You can go get him if you want." Why did he wait? It wasn't until Saul is having a pity 29:38 party and saying, "Oh, you Benjamites, you don't care about me. You're letting David run away and nobody's helping me out, telling me where he is, even my own sons against me, and none of you guys will tell me." And he says, "Won't I 29:50 offer you fields and vineyards and power?" And then do raises hand. Uh oh, I got something now that you mentioned it. Oh, this slipped my mind. But now that you're offering vineyards and fields and power, just it just came to mind. Just 30:08 thought of it. And again, maybe that's not quite what happened. Maybe you read something different, but again, it just kind of makes you scratch your head. And then so so they call the guy there. They call the priest there and say, 30:20 "Hey, you know, they have a they ask what Saul asks what what's happened." You know, there's some dialogue there. And Saul just says tells his guards, "Hey, kill the priest." And the guards have a fear in them. They say, "We can't do it. We can't do it. We 30:38 can't kill a priest." No. You don't tell a king, "No." Remember we talking about orders. You don't tell a king no. They had enough fear of God to not to tell the king no right there. But you know who didn't? Doic. So Saul turns to him. 30:55 Suddenly you're in a predicament. You know if you if you're going to live for fields and vineyards and pleasure and power, you'll get yourself in a bind. And a king will tell you, I want you to kill a priest. And dog executes a direct order. And he 31:12 kills 85 of them. and he kills all their families and everything. I mean, it's it's graphic. You can you can go read it yourself. But I never noticed that there's maybe something else that motivated him that led him to be a murderer. And then the 31:28 last one was, oh, there's some homework. I I didn't realize this. I guess David wrote a psalm for Doe. You know, when in the world, if you if somebody writes a song for you, especially if it's popular, you know, that's quite an honor. But this Doe 31:42 actually had a psalm written for him. And again, you can go read it on your own, but I think pretty impressive to have a psalm written for you, right? I've never had a psalm written for me. I don't know many people that have, but he 31:55 did. But again, go read it carefully in light of what we're hearing this morning. And finally, the last one, Esau. And again, when we enter the new covenant in Hebrews, it says, "Listen, listen, children, a final warning. 32:09 Make sure there's nothing of Esau in you. Who because of pleasure, who because the pleasure of one meal was willing to give up everything, his birthright, his blessing, everything for one meal. Think about that. And so I see 32:29 in this whole line I see what I think Jesus is trying to warn us about to make sure that there's none of this where you live for pleasure you live for things of now you live for current kingdoms and you'll hold on to those kingdoms so 32:47 tightly it might put you in a position of compromise or maybe you won't murder but you'll snap. And so I see the Lord warning us and telling us, hey brothers and sisters, there's a there's something inside of you. And I want to reiterate it as we 33:06 close. Remember, this is all about love. And God's love is so tremendous, he cannot leave you in that state. And even if you can't see it yet, he's not going to leave you there because he loves you so much. And so if he reveals to you a little bit 33:25 of anger or a little bit of uh idolatry where you're going after things of the world like the Herods go after and he says, "Dear child, don't do that." When he when something comes up and it reveals a a spirit of Herod or 11 of 33:41 Herod and he says, "Dear child, I don't want you to have that. I want you to have my Holy Spirit. Don't settle for that. put that to death by this. Ask me. I want to do it. I want to give you my spirit more than you even want to 33:59 receive it. That is the solution. Whenever this is revealed to you and God loves you so much, he wants you to see it. And again, not on a Sunday morning when we're sitting here listening to message. He wants to show it to you as you go through your week. 34:15 And he'll show you little different things, little different irritations, little different leavenvens of Herod inside of you. And you say, "Thank you. Thank you for opening my eyes. I never even knew that I was like that, 34:33 but thank you that you want to change me into something that is not like Herod or not like the Pharisees or not like the Sadducees, but is exactly like Jesus Christ." And Lord, you're so good to warn me. Your love is so tremendous. And I accept the 34:52 correction that you just gave me. God bless you, brothers and sisters. Thank you, brother Josh, for 35:35 helping us to go back to really uh inspect this topic of levan and not just levan of Pharisees but levven of Herod never 35:52 have gone to see all the what herods have done um yes it's it may be interesting as historical account but what I took away and I hope you have was that 36:12 was the Lord revealing some sins or dangers in my heart or my daily life? Um, I could point fingers to Herod, who seemed so distant and could not imagine myself 36:30 being a Herod to the extent where you could kill babies and murder um, and seek for political power um, at the expense of many things. 36:47 But what started it was a little seed. A little seed. And Jesus is in the boat with us on Monday, on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And he's asking us, "Beware of the leavenven of Herod." He's telling 37:06 me, he's telling you, "Because if I don't, I'll be just like Herod." And that's what happened to even Peter who cut off the ear or almost tried to kill another priest or James and John who 37:23 want to bring fire into a massacre. Um it's also as we learn this morning about the memory verse. It's also when Jesus maybe may not be audible voice of Jesus 37:40 cry out from heaven. Beware of leaven. I see something in you. I see something in your life I'm not pleased with. I can get offended by that. It may come through another brother. It may come through another my spouse or it can come 37:54 my children. Even Romans 9:33, our memory verse, Zion, a stone of stumbling, a rock of offense. You know how I react to, how I respond to that. It's very clear today the anger, being 38:14 offended, and taking revenge and um seeking popularity. Even within church, you know, we do many things to seek popularity. We don't call it popularity. We to approve except approval from men, from the elders or 38:31 from whoever is watching. We do a lot of things to get accepted. Um I see also 11 little things like even watching movies that seem maybe harmless. You know I a lot of the action movies I think people 38:49 watch uh are all about revenge, right? It seems good because the evil is finally um judged by murder. But there's a lot of violence in there and it can bring up the sense of you think it's righteousness but a lot of anger it 39:07 brings up the revenge and spirit little even shorts YouTube shorts or anything pleasure. I want to see taste and touch and little things day to day. It's not so far from us. 39:27 I want us to take it to heart today when we go back um to really ask Lord are you warning me so I don't become someone like to where ended or Herod ended 39:46 Jesus inviting us come to me all who are we wear and heavy laden know it's easy almost too easy to accept accept Jesus Christ as savior because he promises us heaven not to burn in hell. I mean who 40:03 would not like that? But once we become a disciple he starts become personal in our lives. He comes to expose some of the things that I don't want to be exposed of. And at the same time he's asking come to me all who are wear and heavy laden. 40:20 It's easy to think that I'm wearing heavy laden because I'm stressed. I'm so tired of work, of the trials that I go through. But it's not just that. It's more. It's more my sins, my sinfulness, my unwillingness to obey the Lord in 40:36 many areas. If I'm sick of that myself, then I can come to the Lord. And he promises, I will give you rest. And he tells me, take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. He will teach me gently 40:54 in humility and gentleness and you will find a rest for your souls. So let's take that to heart this morning as we go to him. Let's pray as we close. Our father, we thank you that you're gentle and you're humble 41:14 and that you warn us and you discipline us in these areas. Lord, we don't want to point fingers at others. Want to point our fingers to ourselves. Lord, please reveal to us as your loving father the areas that I need 41:31 to that we need to as a church to to be watchful of to let all these influences little pleasure or anger pleasure popularity seeking the approval of others even within the church. Let it 41:49 not grow. Let us squish it when we see it right away. Thank you for the warning that you give us this morning. Pray in Jesus name. Amen. Thank you for joining us this morning. Thank you for those who are on Zoom. We'll conclude and we'll continue with 42:07 the fellowship. Please help us to prepare.
