Church of Christ on Kelly Spring Road Podcast

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Phillip Hood

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Good evening.

I'll be reading from Matthew chapter 21 and beginning in verse 33.

And I'll be reading from the new King James version, Matthew 21 and beginning in verse 33 in regard to context, verse 23 of the same chapter says now, when Jesus came into the temple, the chief priests and the elders of the people confronted him as he was teaching.

So that is where he is.

Jesus is in the temple and he is speaking to the chief priests and elders of the people.

Beginning in verse 33 here, another parable, there was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower and he leased it to vine dressers and went into a far country.

Now, when vintage time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers that they might receive its fruit and the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one and stoned another. Again.

He sent other servants more than the first and they did likewise to them.

Then last of all, he sent his son to them saying they will respect my son.

But when the vinedressers saw the sun, they said, among themselves, this is the heir come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.

So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.

Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?

They said to Jesus, he will destroy those wicked men miserably and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.

Jesus said to them, have you never read in the scriptures?

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

Therefore, I say to you, the kingdom of God will be taken from you and given to a nation bearing the fruits of it and whoever falls on this stone will be broken, but on whomever it falls, it will grind him to powder.

Whenever you first enter your uh foray into public speaking, you'll get a lot of advice and a lot of that advice revolves around um having a really strong introduction and not starting with an excuse or an apology.

And so naturally, about 30 minutes ago, I decided to get rid of my introduction and deliver an off scripted uh anecdote instead.

Um That's usually when my mom and my wife start panicking, having no idea what I'm about to say.

Um But in my family, there's a running joke and that running joke is that, uh, if anything goes wrong and anything happens at all, that was unfortunate.

It's Jonathan's fault.

Um, it's not Dave, not Jennifer, it's not me, it's Jonathan's fault.

And, um, I know that to be true because about 45 50 minutes ago, um, Jonathan handed me my outline because he had told me he would print it for me.

And what he said to me was, I hope you didn't have any formatting.

And the very first thing I noticed was that instead of 113 pages, he handed me 12.

So if anything seems unprepared or stumbling or faltering, it can't possibly be any lack of preparation on my part.

It's Jonathan's fault.

Um More seriously, I appreciate Daniel uh taking a fairly lengthy reading and for throwing everybody off by breaking from tradition and using the new King James instead of the ESV.

Um we have quite a bit to unpack in that parable if we were going to spend all our time in that parable, but I really want to pay attention just to the end of it.

And the very last verse there, verse 45.

Now, when the chief priests and Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking of them.

But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitudes because they knew they took him for a prophet.

And so in verse 42 Jesus references all the way back to Psalm 2712 and informs us that that's a Messianic Psalm saying that the stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

So the Pharisees realized very quickly that they are the builders and they're the ones doing the rejecting.

But what were they rejecting?

They're rejecting Jesus and his teaching.

So Jesus isn't just rebuking them.

He's claiming to be our cornerstone.

This is echoed by Paul in Ephesians two starting in verse 218.

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit.

So that reason for using the New King James instead of the E SV is because of a both significant and minor.

At the same time difference.

In translation, the New King James version says the chief cornerstone, whereas the ESV just says cornerstone and if you were to look up, uh the difference between those a chief cornerstone is typically the last stone placed in a structure that might hold two walls together or be the keystone of an arch that keeps it from falling down.

Whereas a cornerstone is typically the first stone placed in a structure against which all other building materials are aligned and measured.

Despite that semantic difference, they're pretty similar concepts.

And the end result is the same that Jesus Christ is what holds us together and solidifies us in our foundation and in our faith being built up as a holy temple.

So what would a cornerstone do for our life?

It would be what we can align with and measure ourselves against.

But if we stopped there and said that Jesus is our cornerstone and we should measure against him, it might be hard to know when it was time to overturn tables in the temple.

And when it was time to accept death meekly or when it was time to rebuke or when it was time to spend sympathetic time with the tax collectors and centers.

But luckily, we don't have just one cornerstone.

The Bible continues to tell us structures on which we can build our faith.

And one of those teachings, one of those cornerstones is given by Jesus himself in Matthew 213 starting in verse 216.

But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the sadducees, they gathered together.

Then one of them, a lawyer asked him a question testing him and saying, teacher, which is the great commandment in the law.

Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind.

This is the first and great commandment and the second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself on these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

And Jesus says, at the end of that is important.

He's saying this is a cornerstone, all of the law and prophets can be hung on this commandment.

That sounds a lot like that.

Chief cornerstone idea where the last stone that's placed in can hold together everything else.

So Jesus says, here's another commandment along which we can frame everything.

You might notice that as you go through the scriptures, there's times that something might seem confusing or contradictory, the Israelites were commanded to give sacrifice.

But then we're told to obey what better to s than to sacrifice.

And then later, we're told that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin, but these passages don't invalidate one another.

They give us different angles with which to look at our life and box in and frame that holy temple that is being built up within us.

We can turn elsewhere for similar cornerstones.

The ecclesiastical writer spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out what was his framing, what was the meaning of life and from under the sun, looking around, looking at all the experiences that we go through in life and the purpose of all of it.

His conclusion in chapter 237 was vanity of vanities.

All is vanity.

Because under the sun without looking at anything else, there is no hope.

There's nothing to be living for life is meaningless uh bundle of energy.

Decided at one point it wanted to be matter and then broke all of the laws of physics to create the laws of physics.

And here we are doing nothing for nothing, to die, for nothing and to go to nothing.

But luckily, the writer of Ecclesiastes didn't stop there.

He continued on and said moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge.

Yes, he pondered and sought out and set in order many proverbs, the preacher sought to find acceptable words.

What was written was upright, words of truth.

The words of the wise are like goads and the words of scholars are like well driven nails given by one shepherd and further my son be admonished by these of making many books.

There is no end and much steady is wearisome to the flesh.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandments for this is man's all that's a cornerstone.

Now is the writer saying that without God, all is meaningless, but framing our life within knowing that we are created beings that have both an origin and a destination that we have purpose and our lives are meaningful.

That's something that we can build a foundation on and frame everything else in our lives.

So once again, we have another cornerstone given.

And this evening, I actually want to spend most of our time on yet another that cornerstone is given in Mica Micah was a prophet in the Southern kingdom of Judah.

And he prophesized about many things.

He prophesized about the fall of Samaria, about the fall of Jerusalem and about the fall of enemies of Israel, a bit of destruction for everybody.

But his claim to fame was being one of the earliest, if not the earliest to testify about the coming destruction of Jerusalem.

But after spending chapters and chapters, talking about all of the destruction that was coming.

He tells the people what they can do what's expected of them in order to avoid it.

In Micah 212, he says, he has shown you oh man, what is good and what does the Lord require of you?

But to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

And so I want to spend some time tonight talking about what it means to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with our God. First.

What does it mean to do justly, it's hard to find any metric of justice without first figuring out a metric of truth.

So first, it means to love the truth.

First, Thessalonians five verse 18 says, rejoice, always pray without ceasing in everything.

Give thanks for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you do not quench the spirit, do not despise prophecies, test all things hold fast.

What is good in order to test all things and hold fast, what is good?

There must be something that is true and objective to measure ourselves against.

You can continue on into Second Thessalonians where we're warned of a lawless one, a deceiver that will come and draw them in a way who will be, who will give in to their strong delusions about what is right believing a lie because they never learned to love the truth.

And so we can't do justice unless we have a standard of objectivity and truth.

And understand that there is absolute truth against which we can test all things and hold fast to what is good.

But secondly, it means that we must dispel with partiality.

When Peter went to talk to Cornelius in acts 228, this was the first that the Jews were crossing over into understanding that the gentiles too would receive salvation.

And in acts 22142, verse 2611 Peter opened his mouth and said in truth, I perceive that God shows no partiality.

But in every nation, whoever fears Him and whoever works righteousness is accepted by Him, the word which God sent to the Children of Israel preaching peace through Jesus Christ.

He is Lord of all that word, you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit.

And with power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him and then falling down to verse 44.

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.

And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished as many as came with Peter because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the gentiles.

Also for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.

Then Peter answered, can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized to have received the Holy Spirit just as we have, and he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.

Then they asked him to stay a few days.

And so we see that with God, there is no partiality and that the Jews were called to get rid of their insulated viewpoint on life and accept other races and peoples.

And that they too would be brethren under Christ.

So it is impossible to love justice while holding on to that partiality.

And we see that continued as you go into acts 11 and the apostles and brethren who are in Judea heard that the gentiles had also received the word of God.

And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those of the circumcision contended with him saying you went in to uncircumcised man and ate with them.

But Peter explained it to them in order from the beginning.

And Peter goes on to talk about both his vision that he received where God tells him not to call unclean that which God has deemed clean.

But also tells them about how the Holy Spirit descended upon the gentiles, just like it descended upon the apostles at the beginning.

And there was a strong and positive reaction from those brethren and Judea.

When they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified God saying that God has also granted to the gentiles, repentance to life.

But doing justice also means that we must insist on a compliance with a standard in James four and verse 17, we're told therefore to Him, who knows to do good and does not do it to Him.

It is sin.

We can go back to some of that discussion on partiality.

It wasn't good enough that Saul was the king whenever he failed to utterly destroy the Lord's enemies, he was held accountable.

David similarly could not escape being held against the standard.

Nor is I when he attempted to burn incense, that standard doesn't change for anyone.

And just as God holds all men accountable to the same standard.

Doing justice demands that we must do so as well.

And so if you're an employer, do you have a fair standard against which all people are held?

If you're an elder, do you lead in love but require compliance with God's law?

And if you're on the internet do you love truth or do you love conspiracy?

Each of these contribute to doing justice.

But if we're to hold each other accountable and dole out justice, how does that reconcile with loving mercy?

This can be kind of perceived the same way as some of those discussions we talked about earlier, almost contradictory.

And so in order to figure out what it means to love mercy, we have to explore a little bit about how God showed mercy to us.

We can see this a discussion about mercy and the discussion of what it means to have a new covenant in Hebrews eight starting in verse seven.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second because finding faults within.

He says, behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to leave them out of the land of Egypt because they did not continue in my covenant.

And I disregarded them, says the Lord for this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel.

After those days says, the Lord, I will put my laws in their mind and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.

None of them shall teach his neighbor and none his brother saying, know the Lord for all shall know me from the least of them to the greatest of them.

For, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds.

I will remember no more.

And then in Romans five and verse eight, God demonstrates his own love toward us.

And that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And so, while we could go through quite a few passages about what we are due, what is just for the way that we might have lived our lives at some point, mercy is God giving us a path to salvation.

It is showing that there is a continual seeking of a way to find reconciliation even though there is the willingness to follow through on justice, that mercy requires doing something.

It requires repentance uh for us, a turning of our from our old ways to walk in new ways.

And that's shown also in how we forgive others in Luke 17, starting in verse one, he said to the disciples.

It is impossible that no offenses should come.

But woe to him through who who they do come.

It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he should offend.

One of these little ones, take heed to yourselves.

If your brother sins against you rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him and if he sins against you seven times in a day and seven times in a day returns to you saying I repent you shall forgive him.

And so you see that there is a requirement given on that forgiveness and it is that there is repentance.

And so while loving mercy, while doing justice might, might look something like having a objective standard that we're willing to enforce and uphold that is impartial and applies to all while seeking opportunities to utilize merciful outcomes.

For those who have seen what justice entails and turned away from wrongdoing.

Another way to help understand what mercy might mean is to look at what it does not mean in Matthew 18, starting in verse 21 Peter came and said to him, Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me?

And I forgive him up to seven times.

And Jesus said to him, I do not say to you up to seven times, but up to 21423 times seven.

Therefore, the kingdom of Heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants.

And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him 10,000 talents.

But as he was not able to pay his master, commanded that he be sold with his wife and Children and all that he had and that payment be made.

The servant therefore fell down before him saying master have patience with me and I will pay you all.

Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him and forgave him the debt.

That's mercy.

But the servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him 100 to NAAI and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat saying, pay me what you owe.

So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him saying, have patience with me and I will pay you all and he would not but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt.

So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved and came and told their master all that had been done.

Then his master after he had called him, said to him, you wicked servant, I forgave you all that debt because you begged me.

Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant just as I had pity on you.

And his master was angry and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him.

So my heavenly father will also do if each of you from his heart does not forgive his brother, his trespasses.

And so loving mercy seems to invoke yet another cornerstone which is in Matthew 712, whatever you want men to do to you do also to them.

For this is the law and profits.

We see again there, the example that forgiveness requires repentance.

And so when someone has wronged us, we should be ready and willing to forgive, but we also must demand repentance. Ok?

And we can continue that idea of maybe first looking at what we shouldn't do to find out what we should when it comes to the idea of what it means to walk humbly with our God in Luke 18 and verse nine, he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.

Two men went up to the temple to pray.

One, a pharisee and the other, a tax collector, the pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God.

I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust adulterers or even as this tax collector, I fast twice a week.

I give tithes of all that I possess and the tax collector standing afar off would not be, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven but beat his breast saying God be merciful to me, a sinner.

I tell you that this man went down to his house justified rather than the other for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

If you've ever heard someone say, thank God that we're not like some religious group, some political party, some other person that's not walking, humbly humility is acknowledging that Christ found us in our weakness.

And that through Him, we can be made strong.

And so first walking humbly is acknowledging that anything that is good or righteous that can be found in us points to and it's because of Christ.

First Corinthians tells us in chapter eight verse one that we know that all of us possess knowledge, this knowledge puffs up.

But love builds up if anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

But if anyone loves God, he is known by God, so we're starting to get a bit of an idea of what it means to walk humbly.

It's not the arrogance of letting everyone know how right we are, how sure we are of ourselves.

It's a love for others that seeks to bring all to the truth to an objective truth, walking humbly is walking in love and acknowledging that there might be the lost around us that are seeking truth and bringing them into it.

But walking humbly does not mean walking without confidence.

The instruction doesn't stop it, just walking humbly.

It's to walk humbly with our God in Colossians one and verse nine, we're told for this reason.

Also, since the day we heard it do not cease to pray.

We do not cease to pray for you.

And to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may walk worthy of the Lord fully pleasing Him being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might according to his glorious power, for all patience and long suffering with joy.

So with a passage like this, it's impossible to know that we're walking worthy without walking in confidence that we're assured of our salvation.

In Hebrews chapter 13, we're told to let our conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have for.

He himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

So we may boldly say the Lord is my helper.

I will not fear what can man do to me?

It's impossible to be bold without being confident and it's impossible to have that boldness without having it in our salvation.

Similarly, Matthew chapter five and verse 16 tells us to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our father in heaven.

It's impossible to let our light, our light shine before men.

If humility is being scared or weak or meek about the confidence that we have in Christ Jesus.

So there's something to be said for the confidence that we can have in our faith and we know that we should walk confidently because we're certainly commanded to walk worthy.

And if you know that you're worthy, you have confidence in the way that you live in the decisions you make and in the way that you interpret the commands of God.

It also gives us confidence in our self worth, our image and the way that we present ourselves to others.

There is a stark contrast between walking without humble confidence and walking with a prideful arrogance.

Do we view ourselves as being better than others?

Or do we strive to understand where they are coming from?

And the scriptures are littered with passages about understanding like first Peter 37, telling husbands to live in understanding with their wives or Romans 12 that tells us that as much as it depends on us, that we should live peaceably with all.

It's difficult to live peaceably or to live with understanding if we're walking pridefully or with arrogance.

And that humble walk with God also focuses on one other point which is that it is us with God.

It's not a comparison to those around us.

It's not showing that I may never have the eloquence of Alan or the intelligence of Jonathan to give him a compliment instead of only tearing him down tonight.

Um But that's not what I'm called to do.

I'm not called to walk the way everybody else does that I think is faithful.

I'm called to walk with God.

He has shown you a man what is good and what does the Lord require of you?

But to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

I hope you've been able to follow this sometimes meandering journey to explore one of the cornerstones of our faith.

It seems that sometimes the Bible is almost paradoxically simple and complex at the same time, because there are these straightforward principles, these cornerstones that can guide our understanding of complex topics and give us confidence that when we aren't quite sure what's going on, we're not quite sure what this means or what we should do next, that we can turn to one of these cornerstones and ask ourselves how our path fits within it and then have confidence that even if we're a little confused that we're OK. This extends everywhere in our life to interpreting a passage and understanding how to apply it.

Um or any other applications that we might have for ourselves, we can ask ourselves how does what I'm going to do next?

Help me to love God or to love my neighbor as myself because the right path or the right application will certainly do so.

Or when we're trying to figure out a secular decision to make or what our politics should be or how we should live, we can ask ourselves which path is most doing of justice, most loving mercy and most walking humbly with our God.

These cornerstones help us to frame everything.

It's our tradition to offer uh the Lord's invitation at the end of every sermon, it's not ours.

It's the Lord's and His is very simple from Matthew chapter 11 and verse 28 come to me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest, take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls.

And after telling us about how he will find rest for our souls that we can have rest in him.

He later on in Matthew 2142 said, have you never read in the Scriptures?

The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.

This was the Lord's doing and it is marvelous in our eyes.

So what does it mean to have rest in Jesus or to use him as our cornerstone?

It's first that the rest of security we have in our cornerstone is a piece of knowing that we can make decisions with these foundations in mind and not second guess ourselves or doubt what we're doing.

Second, it's the hope we have in our future that there's a destination for us and the solace we have in knowing our origin where we came from.

And finally, it's the joy that we can have in living a life that's worth living full of purpose and meaning to come into contact with Jesus and to have that purpose and meaning, we learned that after we have heard the word believed it repented of our sins and confessed that in Romans six verse two, how shall we who died to sin, live any longer in it or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ, Jesus were baptized into his death.

Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father.

Even so we also should walk in newness of life and having done that to be baptized and, and buried with Christ and baptism.

We know that it's true.

It's written in first Corinthians 611, we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified as we talked about this morning in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the spirit of our God, let's stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

This morning scripture reading will be from Exodus 34 verses one through nine.

Exodus 34 1 through nine.

Mm. Now the Lord said to Moses cut out for yourself two stone tablets like the former ones have right on the tablets, the words that were on the former tablets which you shouted.

So be ready by morning and come up in the morning to mount Sinai and present yourself there to me on top of that mountain.

No man is to come up with you.

Nor let any man be seen anywhere on the mountain.

Even the flocks and the herds may not graze in the front of the mountains.

So he cut out two stone tablets like the former ones.

And Moses rose up early in the morning and went up to mount Sinai as the Lord had commanded him.

And he took two stone tablets in his in his hand.

The Lord descended in the cloud and stood there with him as he called upon the name of the Lord.

Then the Lord set passed by in front of him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord God compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and kindness and truth who keeps in loving kindness for thousands.

He has filled with them who have forgives inequity, transgression and sin.

But he will know by no means, leave the guilty unpunished.

Visiting the iniquity of fathers on the Children and on the g grandchildren to the 173rd and 4th generations.

Moses made haste to bow low toward the earth and worship.

He said, if now I have found favor in your sight.

Oh Lord, I pray, let the Lord go, let the Lord go along in your midst.

And even though the people are so obstinate and pardon our iniquity and our sin and take us as your own possession.

One of the watershed events in the history of Israel was when the nation was freed from the bondage of Egypt.

God had brought plagues upon the nation of Egypt had essentially destroyed the country.

And finally, Pharaoh lets the people go and they traveled to Mount Sinai where God had spoken to Moses sometime earlier.

And there at the mountain, they're going to receive the law, they're going to engage in a, enter into a covenant with the Lord who had delivered them with a high hand.

Israel hadn't really completely trusted God even though they had witnessed the plagues.

And, and so they murmured about God's provision about his protection.

They doubted him and things at the mountain didn't go very well either.

You may recall that at Mount Sinai, the Lord first spoke directly to the people and he gave them the decalogue.

But Exodus 19 and verse 16 tells us that as the Lord descended upon the mount, there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast that got louder and louder and the people trembled.

And when the Lord had spoken to them, the decor, they begged Moses to not let the Lord not to have the Lord speak to them anymore, but rather to speak directly to Moses.

In Exodus, the 20th chapter verse 18 and 19, the people were afraid and they trembled and they stood afar off.

And so God then in verse, in chapters 21 and 22 and 23 gave other laws in addition to the decalogue to the people.

And he promised in Exodus chapter 343 verses 2021 that he would send an angel along with the people to guard them and to bring them to the place that had been promised to Abraham's descendants.

I'm gonna apologize at the beginning this morning.

I'm having some difficulty with sinus drainage.

And so my voice is a little bit more like Don t Truex's unfortunately this morning, uh because it's a false uh false change.

Um And so hopefully, it's not too grading on you.

But as God promises this angel, we find in chapter 24 that the covenant was ratified with blood and the people promised obedience to the covenant in chapter 24 in two different verses three and seven, the people said, we will obey the words of the Lord and God called Moses and Aaron and Naab and Abi Hu and 70 of the elders of the people to go up and to actually see God.

It says, although I think that has to be understood in context and they worshiped him from afar, then God called Moses up to the mount to receive the tablets of stone on which God himself had written the commandments uh that he had mentioned before in Exodus chapter 24.

And verse 17, we're told that as the Lord descended on the mountain, that the glory of the Lord was like a devouring, devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.

I'm stressing that there were lots of signs of God's presence there that the people could unmistakably know that God was speaking with them, that this was something unusual.

Moses was called up into the mound as I've mentioned and he stayed there for 40 days and 40 nights as the text tells us.

But meanwhile, at the foot of the mountain, the people have become restless.

Where is this Moses?

As for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of Him.

They say in chapter 32 and verse one.

And so they asked Aaron to make a God to go up before them.

And so Aaron crafts a golden calf and the people worship that calf and they break the decalogue the commandment not to have any graven idols or images to worship them.

And so while Moses is up on the mount, receiving instructions concerning the building of the Tabernacle and additional walls, the people are busy at the foot of the mount disobeying the very covenant that they had promised to obey.

God tells Moses what's going on down at the foot of the mount Mount.

And so Moses goes down and he intercedes to begin with before even going down.

He intercedes with the Lord whose initial response is I'll destroy the nation.

And Moses intercedes on behalf of the people and God relents.

But when Moses descends from the mountain, he sees what's going on, the idolatry and apparently immoral behavior that a company did.

He broke the tablets of stone that God had written on and he destroyed the golden calf sprinkled it on water and made the people drink.

He counseled commanded the Levites to go among the nation.

And my assumption is that they were to kill those who had been foremost in this idolatrous behavior.

The Levites killed 343 people and then the Lord sent a plague among the people.

Chapter 33 begins with God commanding the people to leave Mount Sinai and to go on to the promised land.

But God said, I will not go among you.

I will not go with you.

My presence won't be with you because if I did for even an instant, I would destroy you.

You're a stiff neck, rebellious people.

And once again, Moses pleads on behalf of the people.

In verse 13 of that same chapter 33 Moses says now, therefore to God, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight, consider too that this nation is your people.

Moses wants God to relent and to continue to be with the people.

That's what made them distinct from all the other nations of the earth.

He says, and so the Lord's response in verse 14 is my presence will go with you and I will give you rest in response to Moses request to know God's ways to know Him.

The Lord in verse 19 says, I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name the Lord and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.

And that brings us to the text that I want to look at this morning in the first few verses of Exodus 34 where the Lord proclaims his name before Moses.

You know, the Old Testament is not just an historical record.

Certainly, we know some things about what happened to the patriarchs and to the nation of Israel from the Old Testament.

But among other purposes, the Old Testament is intended to teach man about who God is.

And so this morning, I want to look at the name of the Lord as it was proclaimed to Moses there in Exodus chapter 34 verses six and seven, in particular.

Before we look at that text specifically, we need to say a little something about the significance of a name.

And I'm gonna share with you a quotation from the Erdmann dictionary of the Bible.

This particular writer said when Shakespeare asserted that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

He was emphatically not expressing an idea that had any warrant in the biblical world or anywhere else in the ancient, near east in the ancient world.

Generally, a name was not merely a convenient collation of sounds by which a person, place or thing could be identified, rather a name expressed something of the very essence of that which was being named hence, to know the name was to know something of the fundamental traits, nature, or destiny of that to which the name belonged.

We could spend a good bit of time this morning looking at some of the names that were given to individuals and places in the Old Testament and talk about the significance of those names because those names related to events or character traits, et cetera.

But I think you understand the the basic principle, I wanna share one other quotation before we move along, this is from Nelson's New Illustrated Bible dictionary.

And the writer says, but in the Bible, a name is much more than an identifier as it tends to be in our culture, personal names and even place names were formed from words that had their own meanings.

Thus, the people of the Bible were very conscious of the meaning of names.

They believe there was a vital connection between the name and the person it identified.

And this is what I want you to pay attention to a name.

Somehow represented the nature of the person.

The connection between a name and the reality it signified is nowhere more important than in the names referring to God.

And again, we could have spent a number of minutes just looking at some of the names that God was given as a result of his actions or his character, his attitude toward various individuals and events, the personal name of God revealed to Moses in the burning bush.

I am who I am conveyed something of his character according to Exodus 34 5 and six, which is what we'll be looking at this morning.

When the Lord proclaimed the name of the Lord, he added words that described his character.

The name of the Lord was virtually synonymous with his presence.

Quotation for your number, your new wondrous works declare that your name is near to know the name of God is thus to know God himself.

And so when God proclaims his name to Moses, he is describing himself, not just his personal name, as we'll see in just a few moments, but also to talk about his nature, his character who God is.

And so if we were to summarize those two quotes, quickly, we could say that name sometimes is a reference to all that a person is the the nature, the character, the position of a person.

Let me give you a couple of illustrations of that or maybe I should say one illustration from two verses in Hebrews, the first chapter and verses three and four.

The Hebrews writer says that Jesus was the radiance is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.

Name here does not refer to what Jesus was called by his mom and his dad as he was growing up, Jesus come in for supper.

It's talking about who Jesus is his position, his character, all that name implies.

And he inherited that name.

It was given to him this status as a result of his a redemptive work.

Uh Philippians the second chapter verse nine refers to the same idea.

Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

In other words, Jesus is superior to all others, all of the created beings in heaven, he is has a better name, a superior name uh that is above all other names.

And so those are a couple of verses that illustrate, I think pretty clearly that name often is not a question or does not refer to what you are called, but it refers to who you are in totality.

So let's take a look now at God's name as proclaimed to Moses by the Lord himself.

And these verses verses five through seven will be the key of our study.

This morning, the Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him that is Moses there and proclaimed the name of the Lord.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord, the Lord a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

But who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the Children and the children's Children to the 173rd and 4th generation.

There are several things said here in the proclaiming or proclamation of the name of God that I want to draw your attention to.

And what we'll do is having looked at what is said about God.

I want us to see how God's name relates to our relationship with God.

So let's begin by the very first phrase there.

The Lord, the Lord, the word there is the tetragram.

Uh recently, there was a bulletin article that described that there's a four letter word in the Hebrew language that is God's personal name, the word A God. God.

In the next phrase is the word L it's a generic word that can talk about uh various deities.

Sometimes even false gods were called L even the angels are referred to that or mighty ones is sometimes the translation.

But the Lord, the Lord, if you're reading in some versions, that word will have all caps, it'll have the initial large cap and then the small caps.

And that's to tell you that the Hebrew behind that translation is the tetragram, that's God's personal name.

But notice then the description of God's character that follows He's described as merciful and gracious.

The legacy standard Bible in that verse translates merciful as compassionate as do some other versions as well.

And that gives you a good idea or feel for the meaning there.

The word gracious is interesting.

Uh The theological word book of The Old Testament says that the cognate verb, this is an adjective in the text here.

But the cognate verb, the same stem from which this adjective is formed that it depicts a heartfelt response by someone who has something to give to one who has a need.

So if we, when we give in the collection, as Jonathan talked about this morning, when we give with the idea of supplying the needs of brethren who are less fortunate than we, we're being gracious in that sense.

That same source says that the verb that's associated with this adjective often has the sense of showing kindness to the poor and needy.

And so the idea of gracious is when someone is working to help someone who has need, unable to help themselves, that's the concept behind this particular Hebrew word.

He's slow to anger and we'll say more about that later.

I think that's pretty clear and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

That expression, steadfast love is found twice in this text in the ESV.

It is the Hebrew word Hes said, which some of you are probably familiar with.

It's variously translated uh in different versions as mercy or loving kindness, uh love or even covenant loyalty.

And it's interesting to me that whereas some of the word studies, they argue about whether it's covenant loyalty or whether it's mercy.

When you look at the translations of the Old Testament, you'll find both translations used for the same word.

I think it depends on context uh to some degree.

But that's the idea the idea of loving kindness or perhaps covenant loyalty, faithfulness.

The basic meaning of the root of that word is firmness or certainty.

We would probably say trustworthiness, certainty is the idea He is forgiving, iniquity, and transgression and sin, the word forgiveness there or forgiving.

The concept of the cognate verb means to lift up, to lift up.

And there are three words that are used to describe what it is that is forgiven.

But I would point out that the people of God have violated the covenant that was ratified back in chapter 24.

And now in chapter 34 God is willing to covenant again to reaffirm to rededicate this same covenant.

And I think that's the perfect illustration of God's willingness to forgive uh iniquity and transgression and sin.

Those three words have different meanings that they're not just repetitive.

The word iniquity is the idea of twisting or deviating.

We have a similar uh meaning of a word in the word in the Greek language.

This means an infraction or crooked behavior, perversion, transgression.

The word here means a breach of relationship.

It's the idea of casting off of allegiance.

It perfectly fits what happened at the foot of the mountain when the people who said, we will obey all the words that you've said, then turn right around and violate the command not to have any graven images or to worship them.

The word sin there in the text is similar to the meaning of uh the English or, or I should say the, the Greek word in the New Testament that's most frequently translated sin.

It's the idea of the missing of a mark or the missing of a way of getting off to the side.

But I want you to notice now that in the next phrases, we move away from the graciousness, the benevolence of God.

And instead we begin to look at the other side of the coin.

And that is God's justice.

He will by no means clear, hear the guilty sin will not be excused.

Sin is not ignored even though God is willing to forgive all kinds of sin.

And I think that's the reason there are three words there that God's forgiveness is broad in its scope.

But at the same time, God will not ignore sin.

He won't clear the guilty and then finally visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the Children.

That's a difficult phrase because we typically would say that sin is only attributed to the one who commits the sin that our descendants or others are not made guilty of our sins.

And you'll find a lot of difference in the various translations of this verse verse seven.

This is an idiom visiting the iniquity of the fathers to the Children even to the 3rd and 4th generation.

That's an idiom that appears several times in scripture.

You'll find it numbers 14 and verse 18.

Nehemiah 917.

It appears in at least three of the different Psalms parts of this same description of God Joel 213, Jonah for two and Nahum 173 we're not going to look at all those passages.

I just want you to know that this same expression is used elsewhere.

And in light of that fact, I want to look at two specific instances of the same phrase with just a little bit of a variation.

The first one is in Deuteronomy, the fifth chapter and verse nine where the text says, you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord, your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the Children to the 3rd and 4th generation of those who hate me.

So there, it seems to me that God is saying that those who continue in the sins of the fathers, those who hate me, I'll visit the sin of the fathers onto them as well.

You see the same thing in Exodus, the 20th chapter verse five in the decalogue, you shall not bow to them or serve them.

God will visit the iniquity of the fathers uh on the Children to the 210rd and 213th generation of those who hate me.

And I think we need to understand that same concept here in Exodus, the 217th chapter and verse seven, whatever we think God is saying here, it needs to be harmonized with what Ezekiel says.

In chapter 234 verses four and 234 I really debated talking a good bit of this morning about the difference in translation between the ESV and the New King James version in Ezekiel 217 because they take two different routes in terms of what they understand the text to be saying.

But I think the new King James version is the better translation.

And for now I'm just going to say that what Ezekiel says, what God says through Ezekiel is the soul who sins, it shall die.

And there's an extended illustration there in which Ezekiel describes three generations of individuals, the first one righteous and then unrighteous and then uh righteous again.

And his comment is that each generation will be held accountable for their own behavior, not the behavior of the first generation, an earlier generation or a later generation.

And so he concludes in verse 34 the soul who sins shall die.

The son, son shall not bear the guilt of the father, nor the father bear the guilt of the son, the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself and wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.

And I think that flies in the face of the idea that the fathers of sin and God just punishes several generations for the sins of the Father.

That's not to say that successive generations or even other people of the same generation do not suffer the consequences of some people's sins, but they don't bear the guilt of those sins.

They're not punished for those sins as though they were guilty of them.

In his commentary on Exodus Alan Cole makes this observation he says, in commenting on Exodus 226 he says, but as in Exodus 222 verse five, the other side of God's nature in punishing as well as forgiving, the sinner is also brought out in the context of a renewed covenant.

That's what's taking place here in chapter 216 uh 33 and 34 this whole self revelation has an even deeper meaning, showing the wonder of God's grace in relation to forgiven Israel.

To the 3rd and 4th generation comments, a common Semitic idiom to express continuance.

We who live in a world full of legacies of hate between colors and cultures.

Do you understand what he means by that?

He means that one generation teaches the next generation the same kind of conduct a legacy of hate.

That's how he calls it.

And if you don't understand what I'm talking about, think about what goes on in the Middle East where people are born and then taught to hate the enemies of their parents.

That's what he's talking about.

And he suggests that that's what's going on both in Exodus 20 verse five and here in chapter 34 we who live in a world full of legacies of hate between colors and cultures can see only too clearly how sin in one generation affects those who follow after.

It's not unusual for the next generation to follow in the sins of the previous generation.

I think that's the point that he's making.

So what I'd like to do for the rest of our two hour sermon is, I'd like to apply some of the same characteristics that we've identified here in Exodus 26 and look at them from the New Testament standpoint.

And I have to tell you, I try to be very selective in the verses that I'm going to quote because we could spend, we could literally spend another two hours easily looking at various verses that illustrate the same characteristics of God's character as they relate to the redemptive plan for mankind.

And more specifically, even for us as those who are his spiritual people.

But we see the traits or the characteristics of God demonstrated in our relationship to him, the very same qualities that he identified as his name to Moses.

We see them at work in the New Testament and particularly in our relationship.

And so I'm just gonna look at four, we actually uh outlined seven of them earlier, but I'm just gonna look at four.

And the first one is this characteristic of being merciful and gracious.

I've grouped them together, although they are two different ideas really.

And I'm gonna present three scriptures.

I think that illustrate that that characteristic Romans 56 says for a while, we were still weak at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

And the word I want you to focus on is weak because if you remember the definition of gracious was the idea of someone who has something to give to another, who has need to help the poor and the needy.

And that's what we were.

If before we were converted, we were weak and God sent his son to die for us.

In Romans.

The third chapter verses 23 and 24 in that magnificent summary of God's redemptive plan.

Paul says, for all have sinned and Paul short of the glory of God and are justified by his grace as a gift.

Some versions say freely, the idea of grace.

It's not something that God owes us because of who we are or what we are able to do for him, but he willingly freely provides for us this salvation that we have in Christ Jesus.

This justification in Titus, the third chapter, Titus just says, but when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us and righteousness, but according to his own mercy.

God doesn't save us because we're such good people or that we're uh deserving of salvation.

But by His mercy, he provides that salvation.

The second phrase I want to look at is slow to anger.

And just one verse along this line in Romans chapter one, Paul of course, has indicated that gentile society had become totally corrupt.

No gentiles were saving themselves by their own merit or works.

But then in chapter two, he addresses the Jews in his audience and suggests that really, they haven't done any better.

They were quite willing to judge the gentiles.

Oh, God needs to destroy those people.

But Paul will go on and say, or do you presume on the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience?

In some versions?

I think the uh new King James version translates long suffering.

The idea of being long tempered, slow to anger.

What would it be like if God immediately punished us for our sins, how many of us would even be here today?

But God is gracious.

He's kind, he's patient.

And Paul says, not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead to repentance, slow to anger.

And we see that in his dealings with mankind in general.

But us in specific, we could go and take a look at the old Testament.

God's patience with the people who constantly murmured were disobedient even after they came into the land, they didn't do what God had told them to do.

They became idolatrous.

The two kingdoms, the kingdom separated and eventually both kingdoms would be carried off, but God was patient and sent prophets and warned them again and again slow to anger.

Of course, at some point, God will not clear the guilty, but he will demand punishment.

And so both kingdoms go off into exile.

And we need to understand that even though God is slow to anger, he will not forever wait, faithfulness abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

In first Corinthians the 10th chapter and verse 13, there's a phrase there that's repeated several times in the New Testament.

God is faithful.

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

God is faithful and He will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

You remember, we said that in that word, faithfulness, the concept is firmness or certainty.

The idea that you can depend on God's promises that God is trustworthy.

God is faithful to His word.

In Titus, the first chapter in verse two, in hope of eternal life.

Paul wrote which God who never lies promised before the ages began.

I think the new King James version says, who cannot lie.

God always tells the truth.

If God says something, you can depend that it's going to happen.

And we see that again and again in the Old Testament, there's testimony to the certainty of God's word.

And then finally, forgiving, iniquity, transgression and sin.

How many passages could we have put on this particular uh slide or this category in Ephesians?

17 in Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.

Ephesians, the second chapter verses four through six.

Do you remember that the word that's translated forgiving in the Old Testament there in Exodus 34 means to lift up isn't it interesting what Paul has to say here in Ephesians two when he says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace, you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

He raised us up into the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.

And then of course, first John one and verse nine, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Remember I said that, I think part of the reason there are three words given there iniquity, transgression and sin was to show that God would forgive any sin, that his forgiveness was broad in its scope in that regard.

And I think that's what John is saying that He is faithful.

You can depend on Him.

That's the faithfulness again and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I don't care what you've done.

If you're willing to repent of that sin, to seek God's forgiveness.

God's willing to forgive.

What a wonderful characteristic that we see in God, especially as we sometimes remember how unwilling men are willing to forgive, maybe perhaps even ourselves.

The description of God in Ezekiel or Ezekiel Exodus 34 seems to emphasize primarily the graciousness the benevolence of God.

But we also get the other side of God's character.

His justice and holiness are also affirmed.

Jesus said to his disciples, his apostles as he prayed with them.

On in John 17, on that last night of his life, he said in verse six of John 17, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world.

This is what he says to God.

I manifested your name.

He told them the name of God.

He illustrated the Father's characteristics.

He was the express imprint of the Father's glory.

Jesus showed mankind what God is like who God is.

He says the same thing essentially in verse 26 I've made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love of which you have loved me may be in them and I in them, Jesus says, I've shown these people, these disciples your name so that the way we love they will love.

That's the objective of knowing God.

I'm gonna share with you one more quote from a source because the name represented the person of God.

The expression calling upon the name of the Lord was a means of entering into a personal relationship with Him.

I want you to think about that calling on the name of the Lord.

I know there are a lot of folks who think a lot of folks in the religious world who think calling on the name of the Lord is when we say Jesus Jesus and we, we call on the name that he was known by.

I don't think that's at all what that expression means in acts 22 and verse 16, I think it means that we are invoking the aid, the help of God who as the Old Testament text says, is slow to anger merciful and gracious and who forgives sin.

Ananias came to Paul as Paul relates his conversion story.

And now why do you wait, rise and be baptized and wash away your sins.

Calling on His name.

We call upon God his name.

We invoke his aid.

When we obey the gospel, we are asking God to be who He is and to forgive us of our sins.

Do you know Him?

Do you have a relationship with Him?

Because you've called on his name and you are trusting in his name for your salvation?

The apostles would say there's no other name given among men under heaven, whereby we must be saved.

We need to depend upon and call upon the name of Jesus, the name of God in order to be saved.

If you need to obey the gospel this morning, if you need to become a Christian based on the forgiveness that God offers through his son.

And we want to encourage you to think seriously as we encourage you in just a few moments about doing that this very morning.

Don't wait.

But instead take the opportunity that you have, respond in faith, confess that faith and be baptized for the remission of your sins.

And we'll assist you in that or if you need the prayers of the congregation.

Again, we want to encourage you to take advantage of the opportunity that you have.

We stand and sing to encourage you.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Scripture reading this evening will be from Galatians chapter five verses 21 through 219.

And I'll be reading from the Christian Standard Bible.

I say, then walk by the spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh for the flesh desires.

What is against the spirit and the spirit desires, what is against the flesh?

These are opposed to each other so that you don't do what you want.

But if you are led by the spirit, then you are not under the law.

Now, the works of the flesh are obvious sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing anything similar.

I warn you about these things.

As I have warned you before that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God, but the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

The law is not against these things.

Not those who belong to Christ have, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Good evening, I would like to echo the invitation.

The welcome that was given by David earlier, to all those who are visiting with us this evening, we're grateful that you're here and we covet your attention as we study together from God's Word.

Debbie and I occasionally have the need to go into Kroger to send money via Western Union.

Kroger is one of those places that will arrange for those kind of money transfers and the place where they do that, they have a special place in the store where they do that is also the place where they sell cigarettes.

Recently, Debbie and I were standing there waiting for someone to assist us in our uh transfer.

And I noticed some signs that were to the side and above, I think both of these were actually above the rack full of all the different kinds of cigarettes and Vape uh things and stuff of that nature.

And this is the sign that was, this is uh from the uh Kroger over here on uh Jeff Road, low tar and light cigarette smokers inhale essentially the same amount of tar and nicotine as they would from regular cigarettes.

So here, here's a person who comes to the counter and asks to buy cigarettes and right there in front of their face is a sign that says even if you try to use those cigarettes with low tar, it's got the same amount of tar and nicotine as, as other regular cigarettes.

This was the other sign at the same place and you may not be able to read the top of the sign, but it says a federal court has ordered RJ Reynolds tobacco and Philip Morris USA to state.

And here's the sign.

The sign says second hand smoke causes lung cancer and coronary heart disease in adults who do not smoke.

So, regardless of which cigarettes you might purchase, you're gonna get the same amount of tar and nicotine apparently.

And not only will you be poisoning yourself, but you're going to be poisoning the people around you who are not smoking, but they are breathing second hand smoke.

I find that incredible that with those warnings right there, that anybody would be buying cigarettes while they're reading these warnings that if you buy this product and use it, you're likely to die would think that would be a warning that people would perhaps pay attention to.

And yet Kroger and other places who are required now by law to post these signs.

Signs like this one, Altria RJ Reynolds tobacco, Lo Lorillard and Philip Morris USA intentionally designed cigarettes to make them more addictive.

Here's another sign from a place like Kroger's smoking also causes reduced fertility, low birth weight in newborns and cancer of the cervix.

Oh, but it gets better.

This is a sign that was at another Kroger and it says smoking kills on average 241 Americans every day.

And then finally another sign Federal Court says you've got to put up the signs this sign says more people die every year from smoking than from murder A I DS suicide, drugs, car crashes and alcohol combined.

Now, why, why would you read a warning like that?

Like any of these?

And then say, well, I'll take a pack of Marlboros because what have I got to live for?

I guess people must be ignoring these warnings because Kroger still sells cigarettes and I imagine plenty of them if everyone heeded the warnings, there'd be no market for the products, which I think is kind of what the Federal Court had in mind when they force these tobacco companies to post bad things.

The truth about their products at the very point of sale.

So the question I ask is why do people ignore these warnings?

Well, let me shift gears just a little bit.

And perhaps you have the same experience that I have had in your email program on your computer.

Most of us, I think if not all of us receive emails, maybe lots of emails and I get many emails daily that warn me that I and my family will die.

If I do not purchase the product that they're trying to sell me, do you not care about your family?

Do you know that when everything collapses, you're going to need this product or you'll all die dreadful, horrible deaths.

Anybody get emails like that.

You don't, I'm gonna switch email addresses with you and you can have all of mine.

So usually these websites are predicting some sort of societal collapse and the message is better get prepared.

You need this product.

If you're going to be prepared, I don't buy their products.

I ignore their warnings just like people go to Kroger and they say I'll take three packs of that brand of cigarettes.

Ignoring the warning right over the top of the cigarette shelves that tell you if you buy and use that product, you're probably going to die from it.

People do every day warnings are given because of the presence of danger.

I mean, that's the point of a warning is to preserve you to protect you from some sort of danger.

Why is it that we take some warnings seriously and we ignore others.

By the end of our study this evening, I want to answer that question and I think there are a couple of reasons, a couple of ways that we could answer that.

But I want to, uh, begin this evening by talking about some warnings that the Bible gave that were heeded when people got warnings and they listened to the warnings, warnings taken seriously.

And the first one I would, uh bring to your attention is Noah.

Noah was warned in Genesis the sixth chapter about the coming of a global flood in Genesis six and verses 241 and 413.

And then dropping down to verse 241, the text says, and God said to Noah, I have determined to make an end of all flesh.

For the earth is filled with violence through them.

Behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Make yourself an ark of gopher wood.

And then instructions are given as to some of the details of the construction for behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven.

Everything that is on the earth shall die.

Kind of sounds a little bit like some of the emails I get gonna be big problems.

A lot of people are gonna die.

You need to get ready.

But Hebrews chapter 241 verse seven says that Noah listened to that warning by faith.

Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen in reverent fear, constructed an art for the saving of his household by this.

He condemned the world and became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

If I'm walking by a pit of alligators and there's a sign there that says, don't jump into this alligator pit.

I don't have to see anything to believe that that's something I probably shouldn't do.

But the warning that Noah got was a warning about something that he'd never seen before.

Something that was outside of the scope of human experience at that time, a global flood, everybody's going to die.

There had never been such a flood as the one that God predicted.

And yet Noah listened to the warning and he built this ark that God had commanded.

Now, we're told by Peter in his first epistle that there were eight people who were saved on this Ark.

Of course, Noah Mrs Noah Hams, Shem Je, and the misses eight people out of a population whose size, we really don't know, but that could have existed or constituted millions of people.

And so at the same time that Noah listened to God's warning, everybody else said, uh I'm not building a boat.

I'm not changing my life and they all died in the flood.

You think they didn't get any warning?

In Second Peter two Peter identifies Noah as a preacher of righteousness.

And I just understand by that, that Noah, during the time that he was building this huge boat, this wooden box in which he and his family would be saved.

He was telling people there's gonna be a flood, there's gonna be a flood, you need to change and nobody listened, eight souls were saved.

The rest of the human population ignored the warnings of Noah, the warnings of God through.

No. Well, another example of this has to do with King Saul, the first king of the United Kingdom, a jealous king when he discovered that David had been anointed, actually, even before that, as David was receiving the praises of the people for his courage and efficiency in battle.

Saul begins to be jealous of David.

And on more than one occasion seeks to harm David and David in first Samuel 219 says to Jonathan, your father intends to harm me.

And Jonathan says, I don't, I don't believe that I'm quoting from the new living translation now.

But basically, Jonathan says, I, I don't, I don't think that's going to happen.

And David continues.

Jonathan says, far be it from you.

If I knew that it was determined by my father, that harm should come to you, would I not tell you?

And so he and David then make an arrangement for Jonathan to kind of sound out his father at a special occasion to find out if in fact, King Saul did intend to harm David.

And as the text goes on to tell us and for Samuel 20 Jonathan discovers that's exactly what his father wishes to do.

He wants to kill David.

And so as was pre-arranged, Jonathan gives, excuse me, Jonathan gives warning to his uh friend David and David manages to escape the clutches of this jealous King, Saul.

What if David had just ignored the warning of Jonathan?

Well, the Bible might have read differently, I guess if we were to set that aside uh from other concerns or issues in the scriptures concerning prophecy.

Well, a third example of warnings taken seriously an Israelite king who incidentally is not named, was repeatedly warned by the prophet Elisha in second King six about Syrian ambushes, the Syrian king would set an ambush.

But Elisha, the prophet would warn the king and the king confirmed that there were, in fact Syrians waiting.

And so he managed to escape these ambushes, time and time again, frustrating the Syrian king who said, where's the spy?

Which one of you is the spy who's telling the king of Israel about my plans?

And one of his servants says, the prophet of God tells the king what you say in your bedroom.

And so warnings that were heeded and that saved the life of this king and many other Israelites probably as well.

One final example, of course, Herod the great was the king when Jesus was born and Herod tried to eliminate the infant Christ.

And so uh Joseph and Mary and Jesus then flee to Egypt.

But Herod is going to die a miserable, horrible death incidentally.

But his son Archelaus or a Archelaus, depending on how you pronounce it is going to take his place in the area of Judea, a very cruel individual.

He won't rule very long.

But Joseph is told by the Lord, you can return to Israel now that Herod the great is dead.

But as Joseph is bringing his family back to Israel from Egypt, he is warned in a dream not to go to Judea, but to go to Galilee because of this cruel king uh Archilla.

And so here are four examples of warnings from just individuals to uh groups, all of humanity in which individuals heeded.

The warning and so, uh, were saved from, uh, some sort of destruction or bad fortune.

Now, the other side of that coin is that there are plenty of warnings that were not heeded warnings given by God and others that were not heeded by the people to whom the warnings were given.

In fact, we could spend the rest of the night here looking at these warnings, but I'm warning you, we're not going to do that.

Nobody got that.

We're just going to look at two.

And so let's begin with a fellow by the name of Shima.

When David was fleeing from his son, Absalom, fleeing from Jerusalem, it looked like it was curtains for David that Absalom was going to take over the throne and a Benjamin by the name of Shima kind of ran along the road where David and his men were traveling as they left Jerusalem left Judea and he was cursing David.

Well, David defeated Absalom and he comes back to Jerusalem and now she has a problem because the king, he was cursing is now still in power, but David didn't take vengeance on Shee.

But rather he allowed Solomon to deal with that situation.

And that's kind of some of the back story of shame situation.

In the beginning of first kings and chapter two, Solomon made an arrangement with shee.

He said, build a house here in Jerusalem.

You stay in Jerusalem.

I'm warning you if you leave Jerusalem for any reason.

You're going to die.

She may agreed to that.

And in fact, he stayed in Jerusalem as he had been warned to do for some time or until two of his servants escaped.

And they went to Gath, one of the cities of the Philistines and Shima then left Jerusalem went and got his servants brought them back from Gath, but word came to Solomon's ear.

And so Solomon having been told that she had gone from Jerusalem to Gath and returned, he sent and summoned Shema and said to him, did I not make you swear by the Lord and solemnly warn you saying no for certain that on the day you go out and go to any place, whatever you shall die.

And you said to me, what you say is good.

I will obey.

But he violated that warning, that instruction didn't heed the warning.

And so Solomon sent be ha who killed Shee according to the agreement that the man himself had made with Solomon.

Well, let's back up from an individual.

Let's just talk about a whole kingdom.

Let's talk about the people of Israel and particularly the northern kingdom.

We know that as the people were preparing to come into the land of Canaan, that in the book of Deuteronomy, they were warned again and again that when they came into the land and they inherited wealth from those that they conquered, that they needed to remember to continue to serve the true and living God and not serve the gods of the people that they had driven out. Deuteronomy.

The eighth chapter in verse 19, here's the warning these people were given through Moses by God.

And if you forget the Lord, your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you will surely perish.

Well, you don't have to be a real distinguished scholar of the old Testament to figure out that Israel didn't follow God's covenant law.

And in fact, they served other gods many, many times, the kingdom would split divide after the death of Solomon and the ascension of his foolish son Rebo and the Northern kingdom went into idolatry immediately with their first king never left.

It had no good kings.

All of them followed in the in the sin of Jeroboam and later on the sin of Ahab and his house.

And finally, God had had enough, his patients had run out.

And so he brought the Assyrians who carried off the Northern Kingdom.

In second kings chapter 17.

There's a summary there.

It's an extensive summary of why God did what he did to this kingdom.

Let's just read a few verses beginning here in verse 13.

Yet the Lord warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and every seer saying, turn from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes in accordance with all the law that I commanded your fathers.

And that I sent to you by my servants, the prophets, they would not listen but were stubborn as their fathers had been who did not believe in the Lord.

They're gone.

They despised his statutes and his covenant that he made with their fathers and the warnings that he gave them, they went after false idols and became false and they followed the nations that were around them, concerning whom the Lord had commanded them, that they should not do like them.

God said, I told them in the beginning, I warned them Deuteronomy 819 and other passages and I sent prophet after prophet to warn them, they just wouldn't listen.

And finally God said enough.

And so they were carried off into Assyria, two warnings where people just ignored the danger that was before them, that they were being warned about and they suffered the consequences.

Well, of course, what I would like to talk about is warnings that are given to us.

And as I thought about what warnings I would talk about, the field is so broad.

Like I said, the Bible is full of warnings about danger that we can face as God's people as those trying to live Godly.

But before we look at any specific warning, I want to look at a principle.

And it's found in the story that Jesus told about two men.

Lazarus was the name of one and the other ones just identified as a rich man.

We don't know his name and I'm not going to talk about the whole story, but you probably know this story, at least to some extent, here's the rich man and he's doing well.

He's living a great life.

There's poor Lazarus.

He's a beggar, he's sick, he's there at the rich man's gate and he's not getting anything from him.

Both of them die.

And when they die, the rich man is buried and the angels carry Lazarus.

Abraham's bosom.

They find themselves in two different locations and in two different conditions, the rich man now is in torment.

Lazarus is being comforted where he is.

Let's just read a little bit here.

Beginning in verse 24 the rich man says, Father Abraham have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish in this flame.

But Abraham said, child, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus and like men are bad things.

But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish.

And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you.

That's what he'd asked for.

May not be able and none may cross from there where he was the rich man to us.

And he said, then I beg you father to send him to my father's house for I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come into this place of torment.

But Abraham said, they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them.

And he said, no, Father Abraham.

But if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.

He said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced.

If someone should rise from the dead, that kind of foreshadows the response of many Jews to the resurrection of Jesus.

But I want to draw your attention to verse 413 when the rich man says, send ladders back to warn my five brothers.

So they don't come to this place.

Abraham says they're being warned the law of Moses, the law and the prophets, Moses and the prophets, they're warning these men, they have adequate warning.

And I want to take that principle and suggest that you and I have adequate warning in the word of God.

God hasn't left us on our own unaware of what kind of dangers exist ahead of us in our spiritual journey.

But instead in his word, he has put some warnings there.

He has given us information about dangers and even future events that could be difficult for us.

And so I'm going to talk about three warnings, three warnings.

And the first one is that we're going to have to give an account of ourselves to God.

Someone's probably thinking boy Alan's really digging into the depth of the scriptures.

Tonight, we're gonna be judged, you say, oh yes, oh yes.

In second Corinthians 510, Paul says for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each 1 may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil are you ready for the judgment day?

There's going to be a judgment day.

Appreciated the songs that David Weatherford uh chose to kind of set our minds along the path that I intended to take careless soul.

Why will you linger?

Are we unprepared for that judgment?

Because all of us will have to face judgment.

We have to give account of ourselves.

Everything that we've done in the body in Hebrews, the fourth chapter, the Hebrews author says in verse 12, for the word of God is living and active sharper than any two edged sword piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

God can go to the very innermost parts of man.

And so in verse 13, and no creature is hidden from his side, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him, to whom we must give account.

Not only are we going to have to give a count, but you can't hide anything.

I can't hide any part of my life and say, well, you know, I my brethren don't know And so God's, you know, like job was accused of thinking God's way up in the heavens and the clouds are kind of shielding me from him.

So he doesn't know anything about my life.

And Hebrews writer says, no, everything is open.

It's all naked before him.

That's sobering, isn't it?

I'm sure nobody here has anything in their life that is less than absolutely wonderful and noble, right?

Or is it the f uh the fact that usually all of us have some things in our lives that we're not proud of things that maybe we're ashamed of things that we, we know we shouldn't be doing if we're still doing them or shouldn't have done if they're in our past, all of that, all of that can come into judgment.

We won't be able to deceive or mock the judge.

You know, that that happens sometimes in our human judicial system in this country as good as it is in some ways.

Still, sometimes the guilty managed to play the system to work the authorities and get away with things that they should be punished for that won't happen in this judgment.

Paul said in Galatians six verse seven, do not be deceived.

God is not mocked whatever you sow.

That's what you're going to reap no foreign crops for the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh, reap corruption.

But the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life.

What are you sowing?

You can't sow according to the flesh and reap eternal life according to the spirit.

And yeah, you're well aware as I am also that so many people around us seem unconcerned about their future.

They go about their days, week after week, month, after month, year after year and they're just taking care of things here on earth.

They go to work, they come home, they uh party on the weekend, they go on vacations, they do all the things that they want to do and they don't seem to be concerned at all about what's going to happen.

At some point when they have to leave this world, many pe people believe in God uh and seem to think that he is some sort of grandfatherly type who will not judge us according to his work.

Yeah, I know what the scripture says.

Seems kind of harsh but, you know, in the long run, God is gracious and loving and he's gonna overlook my foibles.

He's gonna overlook this and that and something else in my life that I never corrected.

That's false.

God is a God of justice.

He is a God of love.

He's also a just and holy God.

He doesn't tolerate evil.

You know, belief in a coming judgment requires the acknowledgement of our immortal spirit.

Maybe that's why so many people ignore this warning of a coming judgment because they don't really believe that there's anything after this life.

What do you believe?

You believe with all your heart that at some point you're gonna transition from this physical world into a spiritual world.

Well, the second warning sin can keep us out of heaven.

Here's another, another deep thought.

I'm really mining the scriptures tonight.

But Paul said to the Galatians, I've warned you that the works of the flesh will keep you out of heaven.

You'll not inherit the kingdom of Heaven.

Uh This was part of the reading that Joel read for us earlier.

He says the works of the flesh are evident, sexual immorality, impurity, sanctity, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these.

I warn you as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

Well, this isn't, uh this isn't rocket science here to figure out what's being said, sin can keep you out of heaven and it means that we'll spend eternity with the rich man in his torment.

He wasn't in hell yet, but that was his future.

Paul said to the Corinthians in first Corinthians six, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God?

And he talks about their former lives but that they had been washed and justified sanctified, but sin will keep us out of heaven with the third warning, have no guarantee of tomorrow.

You don't know what your life is James says it's like a vapor.

James four come now you who say today or tomorrow we'll go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit yet.

You do not know what tomorrow will bring.

And that statement is just as true today with reference to you and to me as it was when James pinned that in the first century, you don't know what tomorrow will bring.

How many times do we find ourselves maybe lying awake at night, you're preparing to go to sleep and you're thinking about the things you're gonna do tomorrow.

I'm a list maker.

And so I often will be either mentally or sometimes on a piece of paper making a list of the things I'm going to do tomorrow.

And the fact of the matter is I have no idea whether I'll be able to follow through on that list or not.

It might be that today is the last day of our lives.

It could be the last day of my life even if yours continues.

But if the Lord comes, there's no tomorrow.

Proverbs 27 1, I think maybe James had this passage in mind when he wrote that, he said, don't boast about tomorrow for you do not know what a day may bring.

James said, what is your life?

You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

Instead, you ought to if the Lord wills, we'll live and do this or that as it is.

You boast in your arrogance.

All such boasting is evil.

I think he's talking about boasting in the sense of I'm planning what I'm going to do tomorrow as though I can control the future and you can't, neither can I, we have no guarantee of tomorrow.

That's the warning the rich farmer needed to understand that.

And he didn't.

Jesus told this parable.

He talks about a hypothetical farmer who had done well in his profession and his crops had gotten so that he wanted to build bigger barns.

Those were the plans and so on his list, build bigger barns.

And I will say to my soul verse 19.

So you have ample goods laid up for many years.

Relax, eat, drink, be merry.

But God said to him, fool this night, your soul is required of you and the things you've prepared.

Whose will they be?

You think you've got time and you don't tonight, your life is over.

And so it is with us.

I was coming back from that place where I was this last week, Tuscaloosa.

And I stopped in the little town of Oakman.

Uh I went into a Dollar General there.

I won't tell you what kind of bad things I bought to eat on the way.

But I went in there and as I was getting ready to pay for what I had, uh selected from the shelves there was a newspaper there of some sort.

And the front page had a headline that talked about the passing of a radio personality in that county.

I don't remember the man's name.

But what did stick with me was that he was 41.

I'm gathering from just what little I read.

Just the, the headline and, and the picture there, I'm gathering that he was well known and he may have had all kinds of plans.

Apparently he was the radio voice of the county in some respect or aspect.

But at 41 his life ended and I did the math as sometimes I suspect we all do.

And I think, well, let's see, I'm 65.

He's 41.

Those are the extra years that, that I enjoy that he won't see.

I don't know what his family was like.

I don't know if he was married.

I don't know if he had Children, don't know anything except the fact that he was 41 and I'm gonna guess he didn't expect to die at that age.

But the truth of the matter is the warning tonight is that we have no guarantee of tomorrow.

You don't know that you'll live another day.

And I know the expectation is that we'll grow older because it's older.

People who die.

Not always as the newspaper in Oakman suggested.

Well, let's see, we're going to be judged.

That was the first, we're gonna have to give a account.

Uh, of ourselves and that sin can keep us out of heaven and that you don't have any guarantee of tomorrow.

What I'm really unpacking the scriptures tonight. Right.

Digging deep, getting all kinds of good stuff, nuggets of truth.

Way down deep in the treasure box of the scriptures.

Well, let me remind you if you think that tonight's warnings are obvious and unnecessary.

Let me remind you about that scene.

There's the sign, these are bad for you.

Danger, this is gonna destroy your health and that sign is right over the product that people will go in and set down their money to buy because they're ignoring one of the most obvious warnings that you'll get in this life.

I know, you know, the things that I've said tonight, you know that we're going to be judged.

But are we living in light of that truth?

That warning, you know, that sin can keep you out of heaven.

Are you living with that truth in mind?

That warning in mind as Paul warned the Galatians, and I know you are aware of the fact that life is tenuous and it can end when we don't, when we least expect it.

But are you living your life with that fact?

That truth, that warning in mind, you know, I think we heed or ignore warnings in life.

I've got to give you some extra information here.

Sorry about that.

That this is what the signs are saying.

If you buy and use this product, it will eventually kill you.

And yet as obvious as that might be, people ignore the warnings.

And so I'm suggesting to you this evening that is obvious as some of these things are to us.

Christians will sometimes ignore those warnings and they live their lives like they're not gonna have to answer for things that they say and things that they do.

They live their lives as though God's gonna overlook their sins, they live their lives as if they are going to live forever.

When the warnings are very, very clear.

Very, very simple, very, very obvious.

We heed or ignore warnings in life depending on at least a couple of things.

One of them is whether we think there's any actual danger, you know, for a long time.

I don't know if people think this way anymore, but I know for a long time people would say, oh, yeah, I don't think tobacco really or nicotine really hurts you.

I think that's just, you know, a myth, people trying to get you to stop smoking.

Uh, I believe that ship has sailed.

I think we're pretty certain that we know that nicotine and tar, those are not things that you want to introduce into your lungs.

I'm pretty sure about that.

So there's danger there.

But I think sometimes people just dismiss warnings because I don't think there's really any danger.

That's part of the reason that I dismiss some of the emails that I get.

II, I think they're overestimating or, uh, exaggerating the danger.

But then sometimes I think it's just what, how much we trust the source of the warning.

You ever been warned by somebody that you thought probably didn't know anything about what they were talking about.

Do you ignore those warnings?

I do.

But it's God who gives the warnings that we talked about tonight?

It's his word that warns us about these truths.

I want to leave you with one more passage.

It's a familiar passage.

Psalm 19 verse seven, the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.

The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple, the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart, the commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean and during forever, the rules of the Lord are true and righteous.

Altogether more to be desired are than gold, even much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.

Moreover by them is your servant warned in keeping them.

There is great reward not only will God's word, protect you from danger, but it offers you a great reward if you will listen to the warnings that it sounds for our good.

How often do people brush aside legitimate warnings?

How often do people completely miscalculate where danger really lies before you leave this auditorium tonight?

I want you to answer this question.

It's on the screen.

Am I heeding the Lord's warning?

Am I heeding the Lord's warnings?

Am I ready for this judgment?

Is my life being spent in serving God?

Or is there sin in my life that will cause me not to inherit eternal life before you leave this auditorium this evening?

You need to answer the question.

Am I ready for the judgment?

Because tonight, I've given some warnings from scripture and those warnings will protect you.

They'll save you from eternal condemnation.

But you have to heed the warning.

You have to be prepared.

You have to listen and it may be that there's someone here this evening who needs to change their past, who's outside of Christ, who's guilty of sin, who's unprepared for that judgment and is taking a risk every day of life ending and being unprepared for that judgment.

We're gonna sing a song in just a few moments to invite anyone who might wish to obey the gospel.

But I want you to think about those questions.

Am I heeding the Lord's warnings?

Am I ready for the judgment?

Am I prepared?

Because you don't know if the sun will rise for you tomorrow morning you have tonight.

And so my encouragement to you is to make good use of the day of salvation.

The time, the opportunity that you have in order to be right with God to be ready for the judgment.

If we can assist you in any way this evening to obey the gospel or to be restored, to have the prayers of the congregation on your behalf.

And we want to encourage you, we stand and sing to do so.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Jim Boyd

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

We'll take the reading from Deuteronomy chapter 20.

I'll start in verse one, read through verse four.

I'm using the ESV, which I think is also behind me.

If you want to follow along Deuteronomy 20 starting in verse one.

When you go out to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army larger than your own, you shall not be afraid of them.

For the Lord, your God is with you who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.

And when and when you draw near to the battle, the priest shall come forward and speak to the people and shall say to them here o Israel today, you are drawing near for battle against your enemies.

Let not your heart faint, do not fear or panic or be in dread of them.

For the Lord, your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you the victory.

Hi, it's me again.

I don't want to disappoint you, but this is not closing announcements.

So just hang on a minute there, there's something that's been on my mind for a little bit and uh appreciate Jim's selection of songs based on what had been on my mind.

And it kind of started in a recent sermon that Allen priest talked about uh the spiritual battle that we're in.

That the battle that we're in is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces.

And that our enemy is really the devil.

And, and our goal in this spiritual battle comes, I believe from Second Corinthians 10 5 where it says we destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

And then in the recent class that we had on Jeremiah when it was talking about the destruction of the nations around Israel.

Uh This was said in one of those prophecies for this is what the Lord says, behold, one will fly swiftly like an eagle and spread out his wings against Moab Kot has been captured and the strongholds have been seized.

So the hearts of warriors of Moab on that day will be like the heart of a woman in labor.

Now, when that, that struck me, I never really thought about it before.

I decided to, I wasn't teaching class, but I decided to ask the women with their thoughts on that.

I was like, what does it mean that a warrior's heart becomes like a woman in labor?

Didn't really get a lot of response to it.

Maybe they had ptsd from childbirth.

I don't know.

But um I just decided to offer what I thought, admit and I got some head nods.

Whereas a warrior typically you view somebody that, that longs for battle, they want to be in the fight.

They want to serve the one that they're fighting for.

But in this case, the horror was so bad, the pain was so bad.

They just wanted it to be over with in their mind, the fight was lost and they just wanted that to be over with.

Think about how bad things would have to be for a warrior to just want it to be over.

So that led me to another thought.

What is the heart of a warrior?

There's, there's a famous quote that I've always liked.

It says this out of every 100 men, 10 shouldn't be there.

13 are just targets.

Nine are the real fighters and we're lucky to have them for, they make the battle all.

But the 11 is a warrior and he will bring the others back.

Now that's attributed to an ancient Greek philosopher that it, it's attributed to him.

But there's no real proof of that.

But this is a statement that has been floating around the military for a long, long time.

So it got me to thinking this, put all that together to get to the point of should Christians have a warrior state of mind?

We're gonna go through my thoughts on that and then I'll let you decide that for yourself.

We're gonna do that by start with a look at Warriors in the Bible.

The first one I look at is, is Abram and his rescue of lot we remember, uh many of us probably know the story of when Abraham was called out to go uh from the pro or from his home to the promised land.

And then eventually when he set out into the promised land, he was uh 75 year old, had a lot of riches and I'm not going to read all the verses up there every time, but I'm going to read the things that I want to emphasize.

So in verse five, it says, and Abraham took Sarah, his wife and lot, his brother's son in all their possessions they had gathered and the people that they acquired in hearing and they set out, go to the land of Cayman.

So he had a, a lot of people with him to include one of his nephews.

Well, as time went on, there was a, a famine that forced him to go into Egypt.

And then when they could come back, it seemed like his riches had increased even more.

So as they came into the promised land, they had to decide where they wanted to go.

And the reason they decided that they had to go to different places was they, they were so big that lot's men's and, and Abraham's men were starting to have conflicts because the land couldn't support them all where they were.

So they split up, lot, went to the Jordan Valley, which was very fertile.

And then in Genesis 14, later on, we, we see a battle that was very dramatic.

Now, what had happened was there was nine kings who had joined forces and they were serving a king named K de La Mare, I think is how you say it.

K De La Mare.

And that's the best.

I'm gonna do.

Look it up.

All right.

They serve for 2000 years.

But in the 22009th year, there was a revolt, five kings from the Dead Sea region revolted and they were fighting four kings from the east.

And there was this big battle that took place in the dead sea region.

And sometimes it's called the, the battle of the Valley of Sam or the, the Salt or Dead Sea or the battle of the nine kings is sometimes called in that battle.

There are some, some kings you're gonna recognize.

So Genesis 2519 through 220.

So the enemy took all the possessions of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their provisions.

So the king of Sodom and Gomorrah were in the fight in that fight and they lost and went their way.

They also took lot, the son of Abram's brother who was dwelling in Sodom and his possessions and went their way.

Then one who had escaped, came and told Abraham the Hebrew who was living by the oaks of memory, the Amorites brother Eshkol and Anner esk of an, these were allies of Amon.

When Abraham heard that his kinsman had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men born in his house, 2100 of them and went in pursuit as far as Dan and he divided his forces against them by night, he in his service and defeated them, pursued them to Hobba north of Damascus.

Then he brought back all the possessions and also brought back his kinsman lot with his possessions and the women and the people.

So here's the point I have about Abram.

Everyone was a leader who knew the value of having allies.

He was also somebody that, that prepared.

Now in his household doesn't mean they were his Children.

But people that were born in his household servants, different things.

He had 230 men who had trained for war.

Not, hey, we find ourselves in war.

Now let's go fight.

They had trained for war and he was bold said he split his forces, which is very risky and not only did he split, split his forces, he did it at night.

Now modern soldiers have night vision goggles.

They even have little things that were in their arms that if it's working properly, which I'm told it seldom does.

They can see where their other soldiers are.

They can't see the enemy, but they can look on this little map and see where their guys are.

But we're talking about a different time.

He split his people think about how difficult communication would be between the forces that are split, coordinations of efforts.

It's extremely risky.

But he took that risk.

I also want to talk about David's thirties.

Now, King David was a man after God's own heart.

But I want to focus on these men that recall his 103.

It seems that he had gathered a special group of men around him and they were called mighty men.

And there are warriors who serve David among this group of mine men at the time who it seems they numbered as many as 210.

There was 21613 when you look at different places, sometimes the names change a little bit, but like any force, you can imagine that it's fluid.

People come and go.

But there's 214.

It seems men who seem to be chief lawyers and sometimes they led squads of three, three men who would go into enemy territory and do things.

They, they were extremely loyal and they often risked their lives for David and therefore for God, they were renowned for their skills in battle.

And there are some notable members, Josh Behe was known for killing 800 men at once.

Eli Azar fought along Da and became famous for his bravery.

Shamma defended to fill the lentils and single-handedly turned the tide of the battle.

But now I killed a lion in the snow in a pit on a snowy day and was known for his exploits, exploits.

And then there was Uriah, the Hittite who was loyal and committed.

Let's talk about right?

You write for just a minute.

King David, when his army was in the field was not with him.

He saw a beautiful woman, her name is Bathsheba.

And he went and he took her and he laid with her and this was Uriah's wife, she became pregnant and David knew he had a problem.

So to try to cover it up, he brought Mariah back and he's like, hey, go be with your wife.

And this was Mariah's response, right?

Said to David the Ark in Israel and Judah dwell in booth and my Lord Joab and the servants of my Lord are camping in the open field.

Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink and lie with my wife as you live and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.

He was loyal to king, he was loyal to God, but he was loyal to those he fought with.

Now, when these 30 men were introduced in one of the places everyone's used those first chronicles 1110.

This is what was said about them.

Now, these are the chiefs of David's mighty men who gave him strong support in his king kingdom together with all Israel to make him king.

According to the word of the Lord concerning Israel, it's not explicitly stated.

But I, I just have to believe that if these men thought God that David was not doing God's will, they wouldn't have served him.

I think a lot of their faith in David came from the fact that they believe that David was the rightful anointed king who is going to be the king.

And that's why they served him.

And then there's another person we want to look at as a warrior.

Now, you may not think of Jesus as a warrior.

We know he didn't fight as we heard this morning.

The purpose was not to fight by the sword but what we were talking about his heart and attitude.

When we see him in revelation, we know it's not a literal picture, but this picture of Jesus is meant to display his power and look at part of what it says.

It says his eyes were like a flame of fire.

His feet were like Bernice bronze refined in a furnace and his voice was like the roar of many waters.

Jesus was depicted as somebody very powerful.

He's also depicted somebody who had swords coming out of his mouth, the sword of his word.

As we continue reading.

He says in his right hand, he held seven stars from his mouth, came a sharp two edged sword and his face was like the sun shining in full strength.

When this vision was was shown to John, he collapsed as if he were dead.

And Jesus said, fear not.

I am the first and the last and the living one I died and behold, I am alive forevermore.

And I had the keys of death in eighties.

There was at least eight times when Jesus was on earth that people wanted to kill him or plotted to kill him that we're told of.

And three times, Jesus explicitly told his disciples, uh they're gonna kill me yet, even with all that, this is what the heart of a warrior looks like.

Says, when the day is too near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

Now, the way most humans think is if I know there's danger over here and we even teach our kids this stay away from it.

Don't take risk, don't see how close you can get to the edge, stay away from it.

Jesus knew what was coming and he set his face, he determined to go to Jerusalem and face the enemy as we heard this morning, the outcome was his death.

So what I wanna do this morning is talk about just a few things.

Now, I'm gonna start off with this, some modern things.

You, you may have heard of an organization called Rangers in the United States Army.

This is what they wear.

People, go through the training and get this little tab that goes on the shoulder.

It's called a Ranger tab in 1974.

When the army decided that the Rangers of World War Two and then some of the ranger companies that were Vietnam needed to be kind of reinvigorated as a special force.

They were formed in Savannah, Georgia.

And the leaders of the organization said, we've got to give these men something as guiding principles.

So they come up what they called a ranger creed.

Now the, the letters rang, er, are like a stanza in it And there's a joke that goes around when it comes to n it's like a song.

They say n is for knowledge because some people think the rangers aren't the smartest guys in the world, but they are, uh, it's just a joke in it for knowledge.

We're gonna look at that in because here's what it says.

Never, shall I leave?

No, never shall I fill my comrades?

I will always keep myself mentally alert, physically strong and morally straight and I will shorten shoulder more than my share of the task, whatever it may be 100%.

And then some, that's the attitude they wanted to instill in rangers.

Now years, I'm talking decades later, the army said, hey, we, we need to capitalize on this attitude and start giving all soldiers something to look at.

So they came up with what they called the warrior ethos and this is what it is.

I will always place mission first.

I will never accept defeat.

I will never quit.

You know, we will never leave a fallen comrade.

So what I wanna do is let's just say this is the heart of warrior, this is the ethos that and we should have is there a biblical equivalent for us to examine?

So let's go through it.

I will always place the mission first.

Did Jesus and you can nod your head.

Did Jesus place the mission first?

Always. He says for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.

And this is the will of him who sent me that if everything he has given me, I will lose nothing, but we'll raise it up on the last day.

For this is the will of my father that everyone who sees me or sees the son and believes in him will have eternal life and I myself will raise him up on the last day.

That was his mission to raise us up on the last day and he never lost sight of it.

Ever ever.

It didn't matter what the situation was.

He put that mission first.

Well, what about us?

Should we put mission first in Matthew six?

This is a lengthy reading.

So I'm just gonna hit some highlights from it.

It says do not be anxious about your life.

Now, this goes on to talk about the needs that you have and, and your physical needs.

But let me ask you this.

How well do you think a warrior is gonna fight if he's anxious about his life.

Uh I'm, I'm here to tell you that warriors will put others first and they'll sacrifice.

How many times have you heard stories of guys throwing themselves on a hand grenade during a fight that's in, that seems insane to me, but they do it in our instructions.

Don't worry about your life.

Things are taken care of.

He says, why are you anxious about these things?

God cares for them?

Do you have just a little faith but seek first?

The Kingdom of God and His righteousness?

That is our mission in all situations to seek the Kingdom of God first.

Whatever your vacation plans, your job plans, your retirement plans, your school plans, it doesn't matter.

You seek God first in everything that you do.

That is our mission and that's what we have to do.

I will never accept defeat.

Did Jesus accept defeat?

You can nod your head.

Yes or no.

If you think he was defeated at the cross and the answer is yes.

But if you think the cross is a victory, then the answer is no.

Jesus said behold, an hour is coming and it's already come for you to be scattered, talking to his disciples.

They're, they're gonna take off when it's time to be to do warrior stuff.

There's a saying everybody wants to be a warrior until it's time to do warrior stuff and they were gonna scatter is to his whole home, own home and leave me alone.

And yet I am not alone because the father is with me, these things I have spoken to you so that in me, you may have peace in the world, you have tribulation, but take courage.

I have overcome the world.

He said that before his death, the victory was his and he knew it.

He was not going to accept defeat.

Now let me ask you this.

Could he have given in the victory?

Think about the temptations, he could have sinned.

Think about the prayer we heard about in the garden.

What if he decided to put his will first, he wasn't going to do it.

He submitted himself to God's will.

So what about us in second Corinthians?

48 to 16133?

It says we are afflicted in every way but not crushed, perplexed, but not despairing, persecuted, but not abandoned, struck down but not destroyed.

Always carrying around the body, the dying of Jesus.

So that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

We're not defeated.

I don't care what you hear in the news.

I don't care how much it you know, it just tortures your mind about things that are going on.

I don't care if this country becomes a, a dictatorship led by a communist like red China.

We're not defeated.

People that live in China that are faithful to God are not defeated.

People that live in oppressive government, anywhere in the world are not defeated.

As long as you don't look at what you're doing on earth at this moment and what your circumstances are and you keep looking to attorney.

I will never quit.

Now, this one is interesting and I have a friend that actually lived this.

He said I would rather cough up along than stop when my brothers needed me.

In other words, he was saying it didn't matter how physically demanded it was, he was never gonna stop.

And I think that's the heart that Jesus had.

He never quit.

Jesus spoke these things and raising his eyes to heaven.

He said, father, the hour has come glorify your son.

So the son may have, the son may glorify you.

We read this this morning and look what he says.

At the, at the end of this passage, I glorified you on the earth by accomplishing the work you have given me to do.

He did not quit no matter how many times people wanted to kill him.

You know, matter of times he was opposed, you know how many times the the political and religious leadership opposed him, he didn't quit.

He accomplished the mission.

What about us Galatians 610 in that passage, when it talks about the things that we're doing and, and what the flesh is good for and, and what we, we sow reap.

It says, let us not grow weary of doing good.

Do you ever get weary of doing good.

I, I'm gonna tell you that most people I know at some point will get weary of doing good.

I think I've told this story before, but I'm gonna tell it again.

I had a friend that was in, in where he worked, was in a leadership position and everybody knew is a Christian.

And he told me one time I, I get tired of people calling me at all hours for help because they know I'm gonna help them.

They know that's part of my life.

He said, if, if I just go do it is, it is my heart in the right place.

And so I asked him, I said, well, why do you do it?

He said, well, he was, I think it's what God wants me to do.

So I make myself do it.

And so my answer was then you have submitted your will to God and yes, it does.

You good.

So never grow weary of doing good for in due season.

We will reap if we do not give up, it's disheartening to see people give up whether the young Christians or old Christians, whether they're been a Christian for a year or they've been a Christian for 10 decades, which that would be kind of hard.

That was Allen's math.

My point is when you quit it disheartens others and when you quit in due season, you're not gonna get what you would hope.

And then the other is I will never leave a fallen comrade.

This is Mount massive in Colorado.

I don't know if anybody's ever been there.

Um It's, it's enormous.

The highest peak is over 14,000 ft in 2009.

There was, there was an accident, the helicopter crashed on there and Terry Gear, it hurt stars.

Terry Gear.

Uh Rob Johnson, Chad Tucker and Paul Jackson were killed in that accident.

Two of them survived the initial accident.

The first ones that got there were these like really hippie looking college students.

I mean, they had dreadlocks, all kind of stuff, but they were the first, they were hiking, they were first there.

They were trying to help people and when they were trying to help Paul Jackson who is still semiconscious, he said, they said, he said it over and over and over.

They didn't say how many times he said it.

He said there's four of us.

He died and in his dying breath, he said there's four of us.

He, he cared about the ones around him.

There's a memorial I'd love to go to someday.

It's at the trailhead to get to the peak.

But he, he embodied even in peace, what we would call peace time, that mentality of never leaving another behind.

Did Jesus leave anyone behind when we look at Jesus?

And he told this story about the shepherd who goes alone in the mountains.

Now, I want you to think about going alone into the mountains after sheep.

That that's not a journey without peril.

There would be beasts, there would be ways you could hurt yourself up in those mountains, but he was never gonna leave anyone behind.

Well, what about us?

We should look at Jesus who in his dying breath, looked at all the Children he had been sent to save and he said, father forgiven.

They know not what they're doing.

He was not going to leave anyone behind if he could help it.

And we shouldn't either if, if we know someone that's struggling and they're in sin, it says, restore him in his spirit of gentleness.

And while you do that, keep watch on yourself, but go and restore them.

And then James 519 through 20.

My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings them back, let them let him know that whoever brings him back a sinner from his watering will save his soul from death.

Now, we know it's not us saving his soul.

It's the power of God, but we have the responsibility to go after people never leave a fallen comrade and you'll cover multi sins being there.

So the heart of a warrior I believe is this.

I will always place the mission first.

Now I'm gonna tell you that in the modern military, there's really not that many people with a warrior mentality.

II, I hate to disappoint you and think, oh man, if we fight Russia or China.

What's gonna happen?

There are actually entire units that are made up of, of guys that have that warrior mentality.

But across the military, it's just not there.

And that goes back to that thing.

We read the very beginning that nine are the real fires out of 100 and, and one is a warrior and this is what a warrior does.

He places a mission first, our life and God should come first.

Never accept defeat, never quit.

And I'm gonna tell you this, you cannot fight alone.

You cannot fight alone.

You will lose.

If you don't have God on your side, you're, you're lost.

If you don't have your brothers and sisters on your side, you're fighting alone and you cannot do it.

I promise you.

Why do you think God gave us each other?

Because we're not in this fight alone, we have to have each other.

So thinking about Abraham and David 30 Jesus in these warrior ethos, the question really is, what are we gonna do?

Well, I'm gonna tell you some, just some practical things.

Be on the watch, pray and love each other.

Ephesians six where it talks about the armor of God.

It's kind of bracketed by two things.

Strengthen the Lord in prayer.

And 1st 10, it says finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might warriors today like we saw in that ranger creed will do everything they can to make they sure they are as physically fit and able to serve as they can.

We have to do the same thing.

We have to prepare ourselves with God's word.

We have to understand that the strength is from him and not ourselves.

And at the end of that sex is praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end.

Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

And then in first Corinthians 1613, 14, be watchful stand firm in the faith act like men.

That's not aimed just at men.

Act like a man.

That's another servant on itself.

Be strong and let all that.

You do be done in love.

So this will, I will direct at the men.

If there's not love in your life, you're not acting like a man.

I want that to sink in.

But this is for all of us, watch pray and do so in love.

So ask yourself after this lesson, do I have a warrior state of mind?

Now, the question I posed was, do we need to have a warrior state of mind?

You're gonna have to answer that for yourself.

I'm gonna tell you what my answer is.

I wouldn't preach a sermon.

I think you need a warrior state of mind.

And my prayer is that we all develop that let's pray to God father.

We appeal to you for your strength.

We know that it is your son who makes all things possible.

It is your power through him that created the world holds it together.

Now, it was your power through him that gave us the hope of salvation.

We pray lord that we can look at the examples of men who understood what it meant to be a warrior and take that attitude of always putting you first, always putting love for others first.

And it deep in our hearts.

So that even in the hardest times, we have a single minded focus to fight for you.

We thank you for our brothers and sisters.

We're thankful that we don't face this alone, that we have others, we can rely on.

The more we pray that you give us endurance, help us to never quit so that we can be with you in glory.

It's in Jesus name.

We pray, amen.

We're gonna sing a, a song of invitation.

We're gonna stand there in that song.

And the re I've said this many times to me, the reason we stand is because it's easier to walk when you're already standing.

So that's our tradition.

And if, if you think you need something in your life spiritually, you don't have to do it right now, but please do it, do it by getting with some of your fellow warriors and pray for each other.

Watch out for each other.

But more than anything, if you're not in God's army, if you're not a warrior for him.

You are lost and none of us want that.

So think about that and what you need to do in your life while we stay in the thing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

I want you to imagine with me this evening that you are an Israelite living in Egypt.

Your nation has been in slavery for a long time.

But there have been nine plagues that have been brought by God against this nation, this country of Egypt and the land is virtually destroyed.

But God announces that there's going to be one more flag.

And Moses talks about that in Exodus, the 11th chapter beginning in verse four, Moses said, thus says, the Lord about midnight, I will go out into the midst of Egypt and every first born in the land of Egypt shall die from the first born of Pharaoh who sits on his throne.

Even to the first born of the slave girl who is behind the hand mill and all the first born of the cattle.

There shall be a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt such as there was never, has never been, nor ever will be again.

And so on that night, you're in your home, you've killed the Passover land.

The blood has been put on the door post in the lintel.

And as the late night hours pass, you hear cries and lamentation and screams as more and more people die in the land of Egypt.

All the firstborn.

Can you imagine the sound of a country of a people who are losing all of their 1st 1st borns I studied this evening is going to at least in a peripheral way, touch upon the Passover and the meal that was instituted on this very night, a meal that would be carried out on the last night of Jesus life as he instituted the Lord's Supper.

Our study this evening is a question and answer sermon.

And uh some of you may not be familiar with this process, but occasionally I devote a sermon to answering questions that are submitted to me.

The questions that I answer are not necessarily related to one another.

And this evening, our questions are not really related.

Um They're on different topics.

The answers that I give to these questions are my answers.

As I understand the teaching of the scripture, they shouldn't be thought to represent the thinking of the other elders, including now, Eric mckee, they are my answers and uh they don't constitute any kind of congregational creed by any means.

So two questions I prepared tonight and I hope we get to both of them, but I have to be frank with you.

The first one is going to take a while.

We're going to talk a little bit about Israelite tithing.

Oh joy.

But then we're going to pass to another topic and talk about the fruit of the vine that's used in the Lord's Supper.

Is it to be fermented wine or was it grape juice that was used when Jesus instituted the last supper on that last night of his life?

So beginning with the first question and because it's in quotes, this is the question as I received it.

There are actually three questions here.

How were Israelite tithes used?

How frequently were tithes given was a tithe given based on total current wealth at the time of giving or some other metric.

I'm going to say this.

I have obviously had great influence on this congregation because people submit one question, but it's really three questions.

That's kind of the way I do my class notes, it'll say number seven, but there will be three questions on number seven.

That way I don't have to go 89 and 10.

And so the questioner has actually given me three questions and this these questions arose as a result of a recent study in the adult auditorium class.

We are concluding Second Corinthians here on Wednesday.

But just recently, we talked about chapters eight and nine.

And I think nearly all of us probably are aware of the fact that Second Corinthians eight and nine talk about giving.

And in our discussion of those chapters, we talked about the difference between tithing and the free will giving that is commanded there in First Corinthians 113 and then discussed even further in Second Corinthians eight and nine.

So we're gonna look at a number of relevant passages and it is my intention to read uh fairly good portion of these passages.

Uh The first one being Leviticus, the 27th chapter verses 3032.

And I apologize, but I really don't apologize because in order to understand what God's provisions were for tithing, we need to read these passages.

There are essentially three or four that are major passages that give us a lot of information about tithing.

What was required of the Israelites in the Old Testament, we understand that tithing was a part of the law of Moses.

Although we also should understand that tithing preceded the law of Moses, even among Abraham's family and among other cultures, it wasn't an uncommon thing to give 1/10 of your possessions or something to somebody else.

But even though tithing is not something that we are responsible for in the covenant of Christ, I want to point out a few things about tithing here that I think will be helpful to us as we think about our giving to the Lord on the first day of the week in Leviticus 27 which you've probably read three times already while I babbled on in verse 30 the text says every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees is the Lord's.

It is holy to the Lord.

If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he will add 1/5 to it and every tithe of herds and flocks, every 10th animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff shall be holy to the Lord.

I'm going to read a number of these passages with very few comments on the passages.

And then I'm going to make a series of about nine or 103 observations that will kind of summarize some of the facts that we learn from these passages.

But I can't help this.

We sometimes talk about, well, we need to give God first, but which animal was it that was given to the Lord?

Was it the first animal that went under the staff?

It was the 10th animal 1/10.

But the Lord gave a means a process by select for selecting which animal would actually be given as the tithe.

And I think it's interesting that it wasn't just left up to the Israelites say, well, I'm going to give the Lord this animal which was injured in a lion attack in the past, but rather it's the 10th animal.

And so whatever animal passed under the staff, another passage here in numbers, the 18th chapter.

And this is a, is a, an important in important passage.

And I have numbers 1821 through 24 up there.

I'm going to read a little bit longer.

I'm going to read all the way down through verse 32 to the levites.

I have given every tithe in Israel for an inheritance in return for their service that they do their service.

The tent of meeting so that the people of Israel do not come near the tent of meeting lest they bear sin and die.

But the levites shall do the service of the tent of meeting and they shall bear their iniquity.

It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations and among the people of Israel, they shall have no inheritance.

You remember of course that the levites weren't given land as the other tribes were given.

They were given some common lands around various cities that were apportioned throughout the area that Israel controlled verse 24 for the tithe of the people of Israel, which they present as a contribution to the Lord I have given to the levites for an inheritance.

Therefore, I have said of them that they shall have no inheritance among the people of Israel.

And the Lord spoke to Moses saying moreover, you shall speak and say to the levites.

When you take from the people of Israel, the tithe that I have given you from them for your inheritance, then you shall present a contribution from it to the Lord a tithe of the tithe.

And your contribution shall be counted to you as though it were the grain of the threshing floor and as the fullness of the wine press.

So you shall also present a contribution to the Lord from all your tits which you receive from the people of Israel and from it, you shall give the Lord's contribution to Aaron, the priest out of all the gifts to you, you shall present each, every contribution due to the Lord from each its best part is to be dedicated.

Therefore, you shall say to them when you have offered from it, the best of it, then the rest shall be counted to the levites as produce of the threshing floor and as produce of the wine press.

And you may eat it in any place you and your households for it is your reward in return for your service in the tent of meeting and you shall bear no sin by reason of it when you have contributed the best of it, but you shall not profane the holy things of the people of Israel lest you die and so very quickly of the tithe material that was given to the levites.

They in turn would give 103/10 that would be used to support the priests.

Let's move along into the book of Deuteronomy.

In chapter 12, Deuteronomy, of course, as you remember was written by Moses just prior to the Israelites coming into the land of Canaan to uh to take possession of it.

And so Deuteronomy anticipates some things that would happen in the future verse 12 verses five and six, chapter 12 verses five and six.

But you shall seek the place that the Lord, your God will choose out of all your tribes to put his name and make his habitation.

There, there you shall go and there you shall bring your burnt offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the contribution that you present your vow offerings, your free will offerings and the first born of your herd and of your flock a little bit later in that same chapter verse 11.

Then to the place that the Lord, your God will choose to make his name dwell there.

There, you shall bring all that I command you your burn offerings and your sacrifices, your tithes, and the contribution that you present and all your finest vow offerings that you vow to the Lord.

In chapter 12.

Then moving to verses 17 and 18, you may not eat within your towns, the tithe of your grain or of your wine or of your oil or the firstborn of your herd or of your flock or any of your vow offerings that you vow or your free will offerings or the contribution that you present.

But you, I eat them before the Lord, your God in the place that the Lord, your God will choose you and your son and your daughter, your male servant, and your female servant and the Levite who is within your towns.

Don't miss that detail and you shall rejoice before the Lord, your God in all that you undertake in the 14th chapter of Deuteronomy, which I think again is a key passage in this study, Moses wrote, you shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year.

Remember, one of the questions that we were asked in the beginning was, was a tithe given based on total current wealth at the time of giving or some other metric and Deuteronomy.

63 answers this question.

You shall tithe all the yield of your seed that comes from the field year by year and before the Lord your God, in the place that he will choose, make his name dwell there.

You shall eat the tithe of your grain, of your wine and of your oil and the first born of your herd and flock that you may learn to fear the Lord your God always.

And if the way is too long for you so that you're not able to carry the tithe when the Lord, your God blesses you because the place is too far from you which the Lord your God chooses to set his name there, then you shall turn it into money.

This is the passage that Troy read.

You can turn your tithe converted into money and bind up the money in your hand.

Go to the place that the Lord your God chooses and spend the money for whatever you crave, oxen or sheep or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves and you shall eat there before the Lord, your God and rejoice, you and your household.

I'm gonna come back to this passage to talk a little bit about this.

But I want you to notice that the idea of paying the tithe was the concept of taking them to the place that the Lord chose and eating them there, you could convert them to money if the distance was too far.

But basically, you're gonna take your tithe and you're gonna enjoy the use of your tithe and you're going to rejoice.

How many of you when April 15th comes around and you're filling out those forms, or if you just take it to the tax accountant.

And the tax accountant says, well, Mr Devore, here's what you owe the government this year and I just rejoice.

I just love sending money to the government to pay my taxes, what I'm due or what the government is due for my income.

Well, a lot of people think of the tithe in a sense as a tax, but this passage says that when you go and take that tithe and you eat it in the place that God has chosen, you rejoice as you do.

So and you do it so that you will remember to fear the Lord in Deuteronomy 14th chapter continuing on here in verse 27.

You shall not neglect the levi who is within your towns for He has no portion or inheritance with you at the end of every three years, you shall bring out all the time of your produce in the same year and lay it up within your towns.

Does that sound different than what's been said already in passages like numbers 18 and the Levite because he has no portion or inheritance with you and the sojourner, the fatherless and the widow who are within your towns shall come and eat and be filled that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands that you do in the 26th chapter of Deuteronomy.

In verses 12 through 14, stay with me.

We're making good progress in verse 12.

When you have finished paying all the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is the year of tithing, giving to the Levite, the sojourned or the fatherless and the widow so that they may eat within your towns and be filled.

Then you shall say before the Lord, your God.

And this is essentially a statement, an honesty statement.

I have removed the sacred portion out of my house.

You remember the tithe was sacred to the Lord.

It was holy to the Lord.

That's what he's talking about.

I've removed the sacred portion out of house.

And moreover, I've given it to the Levite, the sojourn of the fatherless and the widow according to all your commandment that you've commanded me, I've not transgressed any of your commandments, nor have I forgotten them.

I've not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning.

Why would you need to say that because you're supposed to rejoice as you eat the tithe on at least the other occasions I've not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning or removed any of it while I was unclean or offered any of it to the dead.

I've obeyed the voice of the Lord, my God.

I've done according to all that you have commanded me a couple of other things there that I won't take time to comment on.

Let's move on to second chronicles.

Second chronicles is talking about the time of Hezekiah and ties were being brought to the temple.

As soon as the command was spread abroad, the people of Israel gave in abundance.

The first fruits of grain, wine, oil, honey and of all the produce of the field.

What did they give a tithe of?

Well?

Sounds like everything and they brought in abundantly the tithe of everything.

And the people of Israel and Judah who lived in the cities of Judah also brought in the tithe of cattle and sheep and the tithe of the dedicated things that have been dedicated to the Lord, their God and laid them in heaps and they faithfully brought in the contributions, the tithes and the dedicated things the chief officer in charge of them was Kania, the Levite with shame his brother.

As second, they're bringing them to Jerusalem, all these ties and they're being stored.

Nehemiah of course brings us to the time after the return of the remnant of Jewish exiles who come back to Judah and they've been there for some time.

And one of the problems during Nehemiah's time was a lack of tithing.

And we'll look at Malachi also.

It'll uh vindicate that statement.

Here's Nehemiah 10 verses 83 to 38.

The people say we obligate ourselves to bring the first fruits of our ground and the first fruits of all fruit of every tree year by year to the house of the Lord.

Also to bring to the house of our God to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the first born of our sons and of our cattle as it is written in the law and the first born of our herds and of our flocks.

And to bring the first of our dough and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil to the priest, to the chambers of the house of God.

And to bring to the levites, the tithes from our ground.

For it is the levites who collect the tithes in all our towns where we labor and the priest, the son of Aaron shall be with the levites when the levites receive the tithes and the levites shall bring up the tithe of the tithes, the tithe of the tithes to the house of our God, to the chambers of the store house.

Now you may remember that the temple as it was constructed, had storehouses on the outside of the sanctuary rooms, the holy place and the most holy place.

And these places, these rooms are being filled, are being used as storehouses for these tides.

Uh in New Nehemiah 13 and verse five and in verse 12, we find that they're bringing all these tithes into these storehouses.

Now Malachi is about the same time as Nehemiah about 400 plus years, a few more years before the time of Jesus and Malachi convicts the people of failing to bring their ties as they should, will will man rob God.

Malachi asks yet you are robbing me.

But you say, how have we robbed you?

Malachi's answer.

The Lord's answer is in your tithes and contributions.

You are cursed with the curse for you are robbing me the whole nation of you, bring the full tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house and thereby put me to.

The test says, the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.

Well, I want to take a few moments just to make some observations if we can perhaps kind of collate some of the facts uh that we've read about in these passages.

First of all, the Lord indicates that he's going to choose a place to make his name dwell there to put his name there.

Of course, in the wilderness, wandering, the place of worship was the Tabernacle.

But it would not be until the time of Solomon that there would be a different place.

It would be the temple where God would uh place his name.

If you were to look in first kings.

The eighth chapter verses 19 and 27 to 29 I'm not gonna read those for reason of time, But in those passages, those verses, the Lord says, Solomon says that the Lord has placed his name in the temple that the house that Solomon had built for the Lord tithes were to be brought to that place and eaten there.

We read about that in more than one place.

However, if the journey was a far journey, rather than carrying a bunch of grain or animals that would constitute part of your time, you could sell them, you could convert them into money, you took the money, you went with you.

And when you came to Jerusalem, when you came to the temple to enjoy the use of your tithe, you could convert that money back into food stuffs or as the text says, anything that you crave what your appetite craves tithes as we said could be converted to money.

Somebody just said that tithes of the seed of the land could be redeemed.

But if you did redeem it, you had to add 1/5 of the value to that tithe when you finally gave your tithe redeeming meant you could keep it for yourself, but you had to give 11113 and 20% of the value of what you are redeeming.

And then finally, obviously, the levites were to be supported by these tithes of Israel.

The levites didn't get a big portion of land like the other tribes did.

They were given cities 48 of them scattered throughout the tribal areas.

And there were common lands around those cities that were to be used by the Levites.

But the levites didn't get any inheritance like the rest of Israel did.

And so the tithes were the way that levites were supported.

Now, sometimes as we read about in the prophets, sometimes Israel didn't bring the tithes in.

And if you're a Levite, what do you do?

Well, you stop serving the temple and you go out and try to make a living for yourself.

And we see that in various, on various occasions in Israel's history where tits were not being brought in, the levites were to also tithe.

They gave 1/216 of what they received and their tithe went to the priests specifically to support them.

Not all the levites obviously were priests, Aaron's family, the descendants of Aaron constituted the priesthood.

Israelites were to give a tithe of all that they produced year by year.

My understanding and in answer to at least one of the questions was that it wasn't every year, I took my total wealth and gave 211/210 of that.

But that rather, I gave 210/26 of what I had produced that year, the the seed of the land, the crops that came in, the beasts that had been born and all of those things, things that I had gained over that year.

I think that is the answer to one of the questions.

I think it's possible that the tithe of Deuteronomy 28 which mentions a third year, every third year, that that was actually an extra tithe that the Israelites may have been giving a normal tie of 113% but then gave an additional 211%.

I'm going to share a large quote, a lengthy quote with you that talks about what the practice of Jews was say, for instance, in the first century.

So it's possible that Deuteronomy 225 is talking about another kind of tithe or it may simply be that it was an annual tithe that was handled differently that every third year something different was done with the tithe rather than carrying it all to Jerusalem and eating it there.

Say more about that in just a moment.

It seems that every third year, something different was done with the tithe from the other two years.

That's the view that I would suggest is the case.

You probably noticed when we were reading these passages that some of the passages seem to say that the tithes, all the tithes go to the Levis.

But then some of the passages talk about the tithes being carried by the giver of the tithe to Jerusalem.

The place where God put his name and eaten there.

And then passages like Deuteronomy 226 and 14 talk about every third year.

The third year tithe was to be eaten in the town where the person lived, who was giving the tithe.

So you've got different instructions and that has puzzled people.

I'm not sure I can give you the best description of how that is to be resolved.

But I am gonna share with you this quote which is gonna be difficult to read.

But uh since I can be tedious, I'm going to read it for you.

Uh This is from the International Standard Bible encyclopedia and they're dealing with this very, very issue.

It seems like there's some contradictions here and how the ties were to be used.

So here's what they say.

There is thus an obvious apparent discrepancy between the legislation, legislation in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

It's harmonized in Jewish tradition, not only theoretically, but in practice by considering the tithes as three different t which are named the first tithe, the second tithe and the poor tithe, which is also called the third tithe.

And there are some rabbinic sources sided there according to this explanation.

After the tithe, the first tithe was given to the levites of which they had to give the tithe to the priests.

A second tithe of the remaining nine tens had to be set apart and consumed in Jerusalem.

So the first tithe went to the levites, then you tithe again of the 90% that was left after the first tithe.

And that's what you carried to Jerusalem and consumed in Jerusalem.

Those who live far from Jerusalem could change the second tithe in the money with the addition of 1/5 part of its value.

Is that what we read?

No, that's not an explanation.

The scripture, that's an adjustment.

OK. But we won't pursue that.

Only food, drink or ointment could be bought for the money.

Again, not according to the scriptures, the tithe of cattle belonged to the second tithe and was to be used for the feast in Jerusalem.

In the third year, the second tithe was to be given entirely to the levites and the poor.

So you tithe one time for the levites.

And every third year you gave everything to the levites and the poor.

It was eaten, not in Jerusalem, but in the towns where you lived.

But according to Josephus, the poor tithe was actually a third one, a third time, the priests and the levites, if Landover landowners were also obliged to give the poor tithe.

So what they're suggesting is that the practice of Jews was not to give 10% not even 20%.

But that occasionally their tie ran between 6 30%.

That's a pretty big amount Now, I will tell you, I'm not sure that this is necessary that this practice was necessary to harmonize these passages that we've been looking at.

In fact, and I didn't want to do that.

In fact, I would say to you that there are two other suggestions for harmonizing Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

One of them is that the tithe was divided between the giver and the levites.

And when you talk about what's being done with the tithe, it's the same 10%.

It's the same tithe, but some of it's used for the levites.

Some of it's used for the person who's given the tithe.

I don't think there's anything in the text that really supports that.

Um I don't think there's any reason that we would need to assume that I think a better way of talking about it is that we're talking about different ways of using a single tithe each year.

I think that's what the scriptures are actually suggesting.

Some years it was went to the Levite entirely every third year.

Some years it went to the Levite and the Levite and the giver of the tithe ate together in Jerusalem.

That's why I mentioned the Levite goes with the giver of the tithe and eats in Jerusalem.

So here's my answer.

Some tithes were consumed by the giver, levites or the poor and unfortunate others were provided to the levites who offered a tithe of the tithe.

It appears that the tithe was calculated by the current year's yield rather than total assets, tithes were an annual matter.

Although perhaps more than one type of tithe was given in a single year.

That's one suggestion that's made to harmonize these passages.

So what do we take away from all this?

Well, in our studies of Second Corinthians, sometimes what we do and, and I did this to some extent in our study is we tend to want to contrast the tithing system with the system of free will giving.

And there are some differences, some substantial differences, tithing of course, mandated a certain percentage of your, your income, your your yield for the year 10%.

Whereas uh first Corinthians 16 says each one gives as he's prospered.

And Paul describes it as a test of our love this giving that we do on the first day of the week.

But here's where I think we've messed up.

I think sometimes we look at the tithe as being an exaction as being some sort of a tax tax as in tax.

But they weren't to view it that way.

They were to eat their tithe, at least some of it with joy and rejoice.

And the tithe also constituted a way of taking care of the unfortunate, the poor, the widow, the stranger.

And so every third year, at least, rather than consuming my tithe, it was dedicated entirely to people who were less fortunate in the town where I lived.

So the tithe wasn't just to support the levites entirely, but it also was used to help those who had need.

Well, there's some similarities there with the, the contribution that we give on the first day of the week.

In fact, I would argue that every specific example of a congregation giving had to do with benevolence, had to do with need.

Now, we know that some money was sent to Paul for evangelism.

He was supported by churches.

We talked about that in Second Corinthians chapter 11.

But benevolence was a big part of the reason that Christians were giving of their means as they had been prospered.

And I see that also in the, in the tithing.

Well, I have about six minutes to take care of the other question and I got to be honest with you, I can't do it justice in six minutes.

So I'm going to stop and I'm going to save that question for when we have a little bit more time and I can do it greater justice.

But I do want to talk a little bit about that 10th plague again, even though we didn't get a chance to talk about the Passover with reference to the Lord's Supper.

But in that 10th plague, you recall that the way that the firstborn could be preserved from death was the application of the Passover lamb's blood on the door posts in the lintel of the home of the Israelite.

The blood preserved the life of the firstborn from death.

We would have looked at first Corinthians, the fifth chapter verses 6 to 8, had we dealt with the second question where Paul describes Christ as our Passover lamb.

His argument just very briefly is that there shouldn't be any 1111 of sin and, and malice, et cetera in us.

Because when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, all the 11 was supposed to have already been removed from the house.

Jesus is our Passover lamb and it is through his blood that we are preserved from death.

But I would point out to you that just like the blood of the Passover lamb wasn't just shed, it had to be applied to the door post and lintel.

So the blood of Jesus Christ has to be applied as well.

I wish I could go to my app my uh invitation slide and I'm uncertain how to do that.

So I'm going to say in Romans the third chapter in verses 25 and 26 that Paul says that Jesus was put forth as a propitiation by the father through his blood that is received by faith.

And so there's something we have to do in order for that blood to be applied to us, wash away our sins.

And so this evening, if you're not a Christian, if you've not been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ, if you've not been forgiven of your sins through that, that cleansing blood and we want to encourage you to think seriously about making yourself uh available to God, accepting his invitation for the forgiveness of your sins, for eternal life.

If you need to respond to the gospel this evening, to be baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins and thus washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

We want to invite you to do that tonight while you have the opportunity and we stand to encourage you as we sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun PM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Wanna extend a warm welcome to all who are here this evening, particularly those of you who may be visiting with us this evening.

We are grateful for your presence and it is our prayer and hope that as we worship together this evening, as we've already begun, that it will be encouraging to you that you'll be aided in your service to God.

In 1983 our eldest son, David was born, he was born in the early hours just shortly after midnight.

And we went to the Jewish Hospital there in Cincinnati where he was born, where incidentally our other son, Jonathan was born as well.

And after he was born, few hours later, David and Debbie stayed in the hospital, but I went home and I remember so clearly walking through the house in the early morning hours of that day thinking to myself, wow.

Now I'm responsible for two lives.

Of course, I've been responsible for both of those lives for some time.

But the birth of David really brought it home to me, the responsibility that I had both as a husband and now a father to this newborn child.

Two years later, Jonathan was born and I thought, yeah, just another kid.

The gecko lizard is a really cute insurance icon.

You know, gecko is, uh, representing an insurance company, but gecko lizards are bad parents.

They lay their eggs and the female goes off and leaves those eggs.

And even when the young are born, there's no care for the young.

In fact, adult geckos will sometimes cannibalize their own young.

Now, hopefully, as human parents, we have a higher level of parenting than the gecko lizard, we of course, want to provide for our Children.

We want to protect them in every way possible.

We want to try to ensure that they have everything that they need.

But unfortunately, some parents don't seem to understand what their Children really need or at least not what they need the most.

And so this evening, I want to talk about seven things that parents or that we as those related to Children that we can give to our Children.

What is it that Children really need to prosper as adults?

You, you're probably aware that a lot of adults, a lot of parents will shower their Children with all kinds of physical things.

They take them on the nicest vacations and they wear the latest styles of clothes and perhaps have the latest electronic devices as they get older.

Even young Children sometimes have electronic devices that those of my generation would never have imagined as Children.

Of course, Children are happy to have the latest of everything and to have plenty of these things.

And I'm not suggesting that that's necessarily a bad thing to provide nice things for our kids.

I don't believe that, but I do believe that when parents focus primarily on those physical things, things that will obviously make their Children happy when you give gifts to your Children and you provide them with all kinds of toys, they love that, but that's not really the most important thing to provide for them.

In fact, even though this physical focus requires uh substantial financial assets, sometimes if you're gonna go to various places for vacations, the fact of the matter is it's easier to buy things than it is to mold the character of a young person.

The Bible tells us that parents are stewards over Children.

Interesting fact.

Did you know that the word Stewart originally comes from the word sty ward.

A Stewart was originally one who kept the sty, the pig sty.

Now some of you are saying, yeah, I could see how parents could be stewards of Children because sometimes children's rooms resemble pig sty.

But the Bible says that Children are a heritage of the Lord, that they are like an inheritance that God has given us and we are to take care of them.

We're stewards over these uh new lives, our Children in Ephesians, the six chapter and verse four, the Apostle Paul told us something about what parents need to be doing in terms of their stewardship with Children.

Fathers do not provoke your Children to anger, but by contrast, bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.

Well, what's involved in the discipline and instruction of the Lord?

What is it that parents need to teach their Children?

What character traits do parents need to encourage in their Children?

We have a number of young married couples in this congregation who are, I'm assuming probably in a few years and maybe even earlier than that are going to start their family and they're going to be making these kinds of decisions.

They're going to be answering these questions.

What do we need to teach our Children?

What do we need to encourage?

What do we need to discourage in these young lives?

And there are a number of other families who are a little farther along in that process.

Your Children are already here and growing and maybe even getting into the teenage years.

And if so, if they're in the teenage years, you need to understand that your time with them, the time that's available for you to mold their characters to, to try to influence them so that they can become adults that are prospering and able to function well in our society and specifically to serve God, your time is limited, very limited.

And then of course, there several of us who've already seen our Children leave the nest and now we have grandchildren.

And as much as possible, we would like to be involved in the lives of our grandchildren.

And so for all of these groups and including you guys who are still looking for wives, this information is important so that you can understand what your responsibilities are as stewards of your Children.

Well, one way to answer those questions, what do parents need to teach their Children?

What do we need to encourage in our Children?

One way to define that training is to determine what the character of a faithful Christian looks like.

Is that not really the sum total of what we're trying to do with our Children is that we're trying to teach them to love God and to serve him to glorify God with their lives.

And so I want to say to you, I want to talk to you about seven things that parents need to give should give their Children.

This may not be, I suspect strongly that it's not an all inclusive list or a comprehensive list.

But I think these are all important things and in many cases, fundamental things that we need to be teaching our Children.

And the first one I would suggest is respect for authority.

One wit made this comment.

He said the thing that impresses me most about America is the way parents obey their Children.

Wait a second.

I thought Children were supposed to obey their parents.

That's what the Bible says.

Children obey your parents in the Lord.

For this is right.

Ephesians six and verse one, I'm not sure that Children naturally respect the authority of their parents.

They're going to try to do things and go ways and, and act in ways that parents don't want.

And parents are going to have to exert their authority as those who have been entrusted with these lives.

Our Children, we need to teach Children respect for authority.

You know, it's interesting that throughout life, we will sustain relationships in which there's an authority that we need to submit to.

Whether we're talking about the home to begin with or whether we're talking about school where teachers are in control of the students or whether we're talking about government where there are laws that are enforced by the governing authorities or whether we're talking about God and his supreme authority over us.

But all of that, all of that our relationship to authority, it begins in the home.

That's where Children first experience authority, respect for authority in the home prepares Children to respect authority in other areas.

Is it any wonder sometimes that Children act out at school?

They haven't been taught to respect the authority of others who are in charge?

They don't respect the authority sometimes of their parents.

And is it any surprise that sometimes young people grow up?

They don't respect the authority of God.

They go off and do their own thing.

Children who have trouble with authority are ill prepared to be faithful Christians.

Did you hear when I said, Children who struggle, who have trouble with authority are ill prepared to be faithful Christians.

You can't be a faithful Christian without respecting the authority of the Lord.

Well, how early should we start with that?

About the time that that child comes into your home from the hospital or in whatever way, adoption as early as possible, even very young infants can understand that there are things that are encouraged and things that are discouraged and we don't have any trouble with that. Right?

When we're talking about electrical outlets, we won't allow our Children to do certain things.

We enforce our authority for the good of the child.

And may I suggest to you that parents who teach their Children respect for authority, that's not self serving, that's for the child's own good, not just protecting them from physical danger when they're very young as authoritarian parents, we make sure they don't go into danger.

But so that later on in life, they don't suffer the consequences of hitting their head against the wall of authority in various relationships.

Oh, and by the way, Romans 13 1 talks about that.

Well, here's the second thing that I would suggest we need to give our Children and that is a biblical moral foundation, including in that personal integrity.

I'm gonna talk about that almost as a separate thing, but we can begin to teach our Children biblical morality even very young.

In fact, I would suggest to you that the concept of modesty, modesty needs to be taught at an early age.

Over the years.

I have known a number of mothers who thought it was cute to dress their young girls in clothes that barely covered their undergarments and people think, oh, well, they're just little girls.

They're little girls who grow up to be big girls.

And if we're not instilling in them, the concept of modesty when they're young, by the time they hit the teenage years, good luck with that because they've already formulated their perspective about such things as purity and modesty.

It's much easier to teach modesty at an early age than to try to change those habits later.

We need to be teaching our Children in this biblically moral foundation to be careful in their speech.

Jesus had some sobering things in Matthew chapter 12 in verses 36 and 343.

He says, I tell you on the day of judgment, people will give account for every careless word they speak.

Let me ask you a question in the course of your lifetime.

How many careless words have you spoken?

How many things have you said without really thinking about the consequence of it or perhaps whether it was acceptable or unacceptable?

I dare say that probably most of us have done that lots of times we talk a lot and sometimes we don't think about what we're saying how it might reflect on us or how, whether it would be acceptable to God or not, but we can teach our Children to be careful about the things that they say.

I applaud those parents who tell their Children that is not acceptable in our home.

We don't talk that way to each other.

I got to tell you just a quick illustration of that.

It just hit me this evening.

Uh Graham and Vivie were riding back to services with us.

They spent the afternoon with Papa and Didi.

And so Debbie got into the car and she was uh burdened with eggs and drink and different things.

And I said, you know, I should have helped you with that and she said you sure should have.

And I said, shut up, you whiner.

And from the back seat, what I heard is mama doesn't let us say that at home.

I said wher no, the other thing, of course, I was kidding.

I was kidding.

Ok. I don't tell Debbie to shut up.

But, but it just, it hit me that they're being taught.

There are certain things you just, it's not appropriate to say those to other people.

And so we can teach our Children to be careful of their speech the way that they talk with others, we need to teach them to avoid profanity.

Have you ever had this experience?

Your child comes home from school and they use a word or words that you know, you never taught them because that language doesn't get used in your home.

But they heard it at school and they're repeating it because it's the way the other kids talk happened to anybody happened to my parents.

I was the one came home from school and I said something.

Where did you hear that?

Well, obviously not in my home, but I was repeating what somebody else had said, didn't even understand the significance of it at the time.

Although I was educated about that.

Colossians three and verse eight says, but now you must put them all away, anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.

We can teach our Children at a very early age to be careful what they say and to avoid gutter language.

I don't know about you.

But it seems to me that our society that the level of appropriateness has dropped to where now even young kids are using language that adults used to not use in public.

There's been kind of a coarsening of our public dialogue and that just suggests that parents are going to have a bigger job to teach their Children about what kind of language is appropriate.

Sometimes parents will laugh at the cute little stories that uh young people tell.

Well, it's not really true but the child embellishes things.

The problem with that is that those cute little stories of early youth graduate into big ugly lies that hurt and destroy the Bible tells us that verbal dishonesty is condemned in Ephesians. Four.

Paul said the new man puts away falsehood and each one of us needs to speak truth with his neighbor for we're members one of another.

Now, I believe Paul is talking to Christians about the way they treat one another.

But Children learn that in the home.

In fact, I would suggest to you that one of the most important lessons that parents can teach their Children is you always tell the truth.

I hasten to point out young people that doesn't mean you have to say everything you think.

But whatever you say needs to be true.

Honesty, Children need to be taught about honesty.

They need to be taught that one lie, often begets another lie.

You end up telling a lie to protect yourself and then you have to tell another lie to cover that lie.

And then perhaps another lie and sometimes lives are destroyed by the secrets that people are covering up with their lies.

Children need to be taught that a known liar isn't trusted even when he or she tells the truth.

Well, I can't believe you don't believe me.

Well, you lied to me yesterday.

So now today I wonder, are you telling me the truth?

Now, I would say to parents that you want to teach your Children to be an open book when they're young because as they grow older, it will be more difficult to know what the truth is if they choose not to share it with you, you understand what I'm saying?

That as Children get older and as they begin to kind of stretch their, their wings in preparation for leaving the home, they're going to be more and more independent.

You're not going to have the same kind of supervision that you had when they were very young when you could perhaps, uh, you know, search out the lies because you're with them all the time.

But the time will come when Children will be out and they can lie about what they're doing in other places and you may not have any way of knowing.

Um but Children need to be taught that you always tell the truth.

And that way as they get older, their lives are an open book to their parents.

The Bible says Paul, writing to Timothy that young people need to flee youthful lusts fornication.

He writes to the Corinthians is a sin against one's own body.

It is unfortunate that we have to talk with our young people at younger ages now about things that used to be topics for adults or at least those who were old enough to be married.

But we live in an increasingly open and sensual sexualized society and please understand that your Children are going to learn about these things.

And if you're not teaching them, they will learn about it from people who are not going to share your moral values.

In fact, unfortunately, sometimes those kinds of things are mandated in public schools and Children are being taught things that really are inappropriate for their age, if ever appropriate impurity and sensuality.

Two things that are described in Galatians five verses 19 through 21 as works of the flesh.

Those words describe perfectly pornography.

Pornography is impurity and sensuality.

And we live in a digital society where virtually any device that has access to the internet becomes a conduit for pornography.

And parents who don't teach their Children that that's something you need to leave alone, that it's unhealthy, it's sinful, it's wicked.

They're setting their Children up to explore things that they will struggle with perhaps for the rest of their lives, teach your Children, give them a biblical moral foundation, teach them the sinfulness and the danger of illicit drugs and you need to start young because the devil does.

Drugs are in some of the earliest schools.

Now, it's incredible.

The statistics that you can read about that parents are working against culture.

Our culture has become more and more opposed to biblical morality.

And so we need to understand as parents that we've got to be aggressive in opposing some of the things that our Children will be exposed to.

And the reason we teach them, this is because Christians, Christians must be Holy Paul said or excuse me, Peter said in First Peter 115, he quotes from the Old Testament be holy for, I am holy.

If we're trying to educate our Children, we're trying to train them to be the kind of people who will respond to the gospel and who will serve God with all of their heart, soul and mind.

And we need to teach them about holiness, about purity.

We need to teach our Children to have a sense of responsibility.

Some parents offer excuses for any failure or misbehavior of their Children.

And if you don't believe that, talk to a teacher in a public school and they will tell you how often it is that the parents come in to talk to the teacher blazing.

Why my little Johnny, he never does anything wrong.

Well, little Johnny was in the wrong but parents will defend their Children regardless of what uh what they've done.

I, I hate that Jonathan's here this evening because I'm gonna use my kids as illustrations.

But, you know, occasionally our Children were sometimes homeschooled, particularly during the time we're in Brazil and then sometimes in the public schools and occasionally one or the other would come home and say, you know, they were complaining about what had happened at school today and the teacher she did and I, you know, I would sometimes say, well, we'll handle that.

I'll go talk to the teacher.

Oh, no, no, don't do that.

Dad don't, don't go to the school.

Oh, ok.

So the suspicion, the suspicion sometimes was that maybe not all the details had come out in the story from one side of the equation.

We need to be careful about defending our Children even when they are in danger of misbehavior.

Children quickly learn to make excuses if we excuse them for their misbehavior, why it's so and so's fault or it wasn't my fault.

Somebody else did blame the other kids.

Parents need to teach their Children to accept responsibility for their actions.

And again, if we can't do that, if we don't learn to do that in our own lives, then we will not be able to be faithful Christians because faithful Christians have to understand the law of cause and effect actions have consequences, fundamental truth.

But we are dealing with lots of people in the world who believe that they can act with impunity.

There are no consequences to what they do.

We need to teach our Children that when you make choices and when you behave in a certain way, there are consequences to that.

You know, sometimes that's difficult.

It's difficult because we want to protect our Children.

We really don't want them to hurt or to feel bad, but we are hurting our Children.

If we don't teach them that they have to accept responsibility for their actions, we need to give our Children a sense of gratitude.

How many times have you heard a parent say to a small child?

Did you say thank you for that gift?

Did you say Thank you.

Thank you for what somebody did.

I've heard that all my life and I think that's a good thing.

I think parents are, are, are saying, reminding Children you need to be grateful for this particular thing.

But I'm suggesting that thankfulness ought to be the general tenor of our lives, not just thankful on some occasion where something good has happened to me or somebody has given me some sort of gift, but thankfulness ought to permeate our lives.

And there are thousands of ways that parents can teach Children about thankfulness.

Frankly, the general tenor of a child's life will reflect what they've seen in the home.

And so as parents, we need to make sure that Children understand that we are thankful.

It's surprising to me how many times the Bible talks about thankfulness.

I'm just going to share a few with you first Thessalonians five verses 16 through 18, rejoice.

Always pray without ceasing give thanks in all circumstances. Wow.

Are there some circumstances where we're not really inclined to be thankful, things have happened to us and and we're maybe upset about them or that they're not going to be for our, our good.

We, we think hard to be thankful in times like that, be give thanks in all circumstances.

I I thought Tim was going to preach my lesson this morning.

He made some good comments about Colossians three.

So let me just say amen to what Tim said and note that in verses 15 through 17.

How many times thanks or giving thanks is, is found in those verses and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.

Just straight statement.

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another.

And all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God, even as we sing, it is with thankfulness in our hearts and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks to God, the father through him.

I think thankfulness ought to be the general tenor of our lives.

The parallel passage in Ephesians five and verse 20. Giving.

Thanks always and for everything to God, the father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

As parents.

Are we teaching our Children that as grandparents are we teaching our Children that we need to be thankful all the time.

In Philippians.

The fourth chapter, the apostle Paul again says, do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known to God.

The word prayer is generic.

It could involve uh praise, it could involve supplication or request.

But the word supplication speaks of uh asking either on behalf of yourself or maybe even more specifically on behalf of somebody else.

Prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving.

I'm reminded how often we ask, please Lord do this, please do that.

Do we give thanks for what the Lord has done for us.

I think that's important.

Well, another thing we need to give our Children is a good work ethic.

Someone says, well, that doesn't seem real biblical.

I mean, work ethic.

The scriptures teach us to work in first Thessalonians four Paul says in verse 11 and to aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one.

In second Thessalonians three, there apparently was some sort of problem at Thessalonica with some who were unwilling to work.

And so Paul says, if anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat for.

We hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busy bodies, they're meddling in other people's affairs.

Now, such persons, we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus to do their work quietly and to earn their own living.

Unfortunately, sometimes the influence of affluence is laziness and even a sense of entitlement.

We can give so much to our Children.

We can provide so much for them that they really don't have to work for that.

In some cases, we can create in them, the sense that they deserve everything that they want and people should give it to them and I'll tell you we're setting our Children up for a lot of pain and suffering.

If we do that, it's better to teach Children to work than to try to leave them enough.

I can't tell you how many times I've read stories about the parent who maybe at the neglect of his Children, he has been wildly successful in business.

He's created an empire, a great sum of, of wealth, assets, of a great nature and leaves it to his Children and they fritter away in their youth long before they ever get to the age of retirement because they don't appreciate what they've been given.

They didn't have to work for it.

And so they don't understand how to use money.

Proverbs chapter 20 verses 30 to 34 talks about someone observing the field of the slugger.

He's going to have problems.

We need to teach our Children to work.

I don't want to say I don't want to generalize about any group of people, but it does seem to me that it's harder to find people who are willing to work and to work hard and to persevere in tasks until they finish them.

Is it important to teach our Children to finish, to persevere?

Uh I just preached a lesson recently about the need for endurance in Christians.

We can't just start this journey of a Christian's life.

We have to finish that.

We have to finish successfully.

The child who grows up never finishing anything difficult is destined for a hard life.

Christianity demands, persistence, secular jobs, demand, persistence, marriage demands persistence.

If our Children grow up believing that as soon as something gets difficult, forget that I'm moving on to the next thing.

Those are people who are going to have hard lives, unsuccessful lives as adults teach your Children to work and your Children will not appreciate that.

May I just say that your Children are going to think that they're in bondage?

My mom is a slave driver.

My dad is a master of slaves.

I remember thinking when I was a kid now, I'm sorry, dad's here.

I remember thinking when I was a kid, will it ever end?

There was always something to do.

There was always work.

It was in the gardens, it was lawn mowing, it was other things.

Of course, as a child, I wanted to have fun.

I wanted to play with friends.

I wanted to do things other than working.

And what I didn't understand is that I was being taught a very important lesson and that is that there are things you have to do.

You have to, as I tell the boys, sometimes you have to take care of business.

So we need to teach our Children to work and they won't like it.

They'll perhaps think that it's unfair, but it's for their good.

We need to teach our Children to be unselfish and that's a very broad kind of concept.

Because it has so many different applications.

Uh, I'm talking about an unselfish concern for others.

All of us are born selfish.

Would you agree with that statement?

I think it's true.

Any of you as a child, you know, come home from the hospital or you're just a few days old and you're hungry.

And you said to your mom, I really would like to eat right now.

But whenever it's convenient for you or my diaper is dirty and needs to be changed.

But I know you're busy.

I know you've had a hard day.

I'll just wait until it's convenient for you.

When a baby is unhappy you're gonna know about it.

Isn't that right?

Jared?

And all of us have experienced that Children are born selfish in the sense that they're consumed with their own needs.

They're not particularly concerned about whether it's convenient for you or not as a parent or somebody else who's caring for the child.

But hopefully, as we mature, we learn to become more unselfish, to think more about the needs of others.

As Paul would say, putting others before ourselves, making them more important than ourselves.

He says in Philippians, the second chapter in Colossians three, I want you to notice the words here and how many of them relate to this idea of unselfishness.

This is Colossians three verse 12 put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts that says something about the way that we treat others kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.

And if anyone had, if one has a complaint against another forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

We could go on and on about selfishness, putting ourselves ahead of others.

But we need to be teaching our Children to think about others first.

Because selfishness is a destroyer of virtually any human relationship.

It will cause all kinds of problems in the family.

It will cause problems at school.

It will cause problems at work.

It will cause problems in the life of someone who's trying to be a Christian.

Selfishness destroys that relationship.

We need to teach our Children unselfishness.

And then finally, the seventh thing, we need to teach our Children to give them an understanding of the marital roles.

Now someone says, yeah, but my child is only four or five years old.

What, what can they understand about, you know, marital roles, husbands and wives.

Should we begin teaching them that that age, that the husband is to love his wife and the wife is to submit to her husband that, that they're to take care of each other, to love each other.

Sure, we can.

Since the majority of people are going to eventually marry, parents need to teach their Children what kind of mate to look for and what kind of make to be young people need to be looking as they're seeking some sort of a lifetime partner.

They need to be looking at the spiritual character of people.

Does this person that I'm interested in?

Do they have any understanding of what marriage is?

Like?

What it's, how it's supposed to operate?

And as we teach our Children, hopefully we're teaching them to be good husbands and good wives.

But unfortunately, what do young people?

A lot of times look at, well, who's the prettiest, who is the most handsome?

Fortunately for me, Debbie didn't look at that, but we sometimes look at appearance and the way someone is dressed or even the things that they have.

But those are not necessarily indicators of good mates.

Young people need to look at the spiritual qualifications of those with whom they associate and particularly if they're thinking of marrying.

I'll tell you something about this.

You will be teaching your Children about marriage, whether intentionally or not, they're going to learn about husbands and wives from the way their fathers and mothers behave in their home.

Hopefully, they're going to see good examples.

Hopefully they're going to be see templates of the way scripture says husbands and wives ought to behave.

But even if parents don't intentionally teach their Children about marriage, the behavior of parents usually influences the Children.

I can't tell you how many times my sisters have said, you know, you're just like dad.

Well, you're influenced by your parents and you learn about marriage, you learn about parenting from your parents and your family.

In so many cases, we need to ask the questions.

Are fathers teaching their sons that a husband is courteous to his wife, gentle and protecting.

Does he show a willingness to sacrifice for his family?

Are mothers teaching their daughters how to manage a home, uh how to love and submit to their husbands?

Or does the mother run the husband down or does she build him up in front of the Children?

One thing I always appreciated about Debbie when the Children were at home and even now is she didn't criticize me in front of the Children and there was plenty to criticize and she doesn't run me down in front of other people, even though she could tell things that probably wouldn't be very flattering.

I'm imperfect just like anybody else.

She protects me.

Do, do your Children see that in their mother?

Do they see that in their father that he will not criticize her in public?

But he protects her, her reputation.

Parents need to indeed provide physical necessities for their Children?

Please understand.

I'm not saying that it's wrong for us to provide nice things for our Children.

We tried to do that with our Children, particularly David.

But the seven things that I've mentioned tonight, I think are extremely important for Children who are going to be adequately prepared for adulthood, respect for authority, having a biblically moral foundation, sense of responsibility, a sense of gratitude.

Teaching them to have a work ethic that will prosper them and to persevere in their task, unselfishness and to help them understand what husbands and wives, how they should behave and how to be good spouses.

Now, I'll tell you something, you can give your Children a lot of things and not spend much time with them.

In fact, sometimes what happens is parents are so determined to provide all kinds of good things for their Children that the Children raise themselves while the parents are out making money to buy things for the kids.

When what the kids really need the parents.

And if you're going to give these seven things to your Children, the first thing you're gonna have to give them is yourself because it takes time to teach Children these things.

It takes intention, it takes planning to give these lessons to make these lessons for your Children.

Well, when should you start?

Well, Jared Davis is already on his third lesson.

Start right away.

Some of these principles you can start with with infants, practically, they can understand things.

I'm afraid that some parents assume that somewhere in the late teenage years, there's this magical moment when suddenly all of it clicks or at least that's the point at which I should try to deal with these things.

At that point, it's too late in the ball game often for you really to make a difference in the Children.

They've already, they've already developed their opinions, their perceptions of things.

You're too late.

I'm not saying you shouldn't try to play, catch up, but that's what you're doing.

You're playing catch up.

You need to start with Walker to start with.

I said, Jared didn't I, Jude, that's what I meant.

Jude's on his third lesson.

And other Children, you start as early as possible.

We're imperfect parents.

Debbie and I, well, Debbie made some mistakes as we are raising David and Jonathan.

We're imperfect parents.

But fortunately, we have a perfect parent, our creator.

He knows us better than we know ourselves.

He knows what we really need.

It's not things he gives us what we really need and that's his graces.

The grace that brings forgiveness is only available through Jesus Christ.

The question is, are you in Christ?

Have you accepted the offer of forgiveness that God makes through the gospel?

And if we can assist you this evening, to respond to your creator, who wants to be your heavenly father and to give you everything that is important for you to enjoy eternal life with him.

If we can assist you in doing that, we want to encourage you to make that known, come to the front.

We will assist you as we stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

From Matthew chapter 213 starting in verse 214 Matthew 213 verse 218 to 234.

Then Jesus went to, went with them to a place called gem.

And he said to his disciples, sit here while I go over there and pray and taking with him, Peter and the two sons of Zebedee.

He began to be sorrowful and troubled.

He said to them, my soul is very sorrowful even to death, remain here and watch with me and going a little further.

He fell on his face and prayed, saying my father, if it is be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping.

And he said to Peter.

So could you not watch with me one hour?

Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation?

The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak again.

For the second time, he went away and prayed my father.

If this cannot pass, unless I drink it, your will be done.

And he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy.

So leaving them again, he went away and prayed for the third time saying the same words again, they came to the disciples and said to them sleep and take your rest.

Later on.

See, the hour is at hand and the son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners rise.

Let us be going.

See, my betrayer is at hand.

I enjoy watching wildlife documentaries.

I particularly like seeing some of the big animals of Africa.

The big five, which incidentally doesn't include the lion for some odd reason, but I enjoy watching those different animals and the way they behave some interesting patterns emerge.

The tiger which is not necessarily endemic to Africa is a solitary hunter.

The tiger is an ambush hunter.

In fact, some individuals in areas where the tiger is found will sometimes as they're out into the, the woods or in the fields or whatever, they'll, they'll wear a mask that shows eyes on the back of their head because a tiger doesn't want to attack when he's being seen.

And so that's their defense.

Of course, in Africa, the lion, the king of beasts is a stock hunter.

He blends in with the vegetation.

This is a she on the screen.

Lioness blends in with the vegetation and moves slowly and quietly and you can see the crouch in the picture on the screen getting ever closer until finally, the lion makes a short run and pounces and often suffocates its victim by grasping it by the neck and holding it.

With the exception of the very large animals like hippos and elephants and giraffes.

The lion's prey usually avoids being killed by being very watchful and it doesn't hurt to be fast either like the antelope.

You and I are being stalked by a vicious hunter.

The Bible describes him as deceptive and cunning that he uses schemes and wilds in order to capture his prey.

Many people are convinced that he doesn't exist that Satan is just kind of a hobgoblin of the medieval times or ancient times.

But Peter described him with the figure of a lion in first Peter five and verse eight, warning his readers that they needed to be sober minded and watchful.

Your adversary the devil.

He wrote Prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour.

He's called the Tempter.

He's called the adversary.

He's called the prince or the ruler of this world, but he is on the stock.

He is looking for pray.

And this morning, I want to talk to you about how it is that we can avoid becoming Satan's prey.

The very word was suggests that there must be something of some import or danger if you're using it as a warning word that exist, that would require us to watch after Jesus had observed the Passover with his disciples.

On that last night, they crossed the Kidron Valley and went on to the mount of Olives and Jesus predicted there on the mount of Olives, the desertion of all of his apostles.

He said in acts chapter 235 to 133 that the shepherd would be struck and all the sheep would be scattered.

But Peter proclaimed himself to be different from the rest of the disciples.

Even all if all others would flee or fall away.

Peter said, I will not.

He affirmed his loyalty even to the point of death if I must die with you.

He said, well, the disciples went into the Garden of Gethsemane.

You just saw the picture of the present day garden of olive trees that it is thought to be the Garden of Gethsemane.

Jesus of course, goes there with his disciples in the night.

It's dark and they're together and soon there will be a gathering of people, a mob from the rulers of the Jews who will come to arrest Jesus.

But before they come, Jesus begins to be sorrowful and to pray.

And he takes the disciples, he separates them into two groups, taking Peter James and John to a section to a place away from the other apostles.

And then he himself goes on so that he can pray in solitude.

And the text tells us that he says to Peter James and John, my soul is very sorrowful even to death, remain here and watch with me and going a little farther.

He fell on his face and prayed, saying my father, if it be possible let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

But of course, as Phil read just a few moments ago, when Jesus comes back to these three, having prayed by himself, he finds them sleeping and he says to Peter.

So could you not watch with me one hour?

There's something interesting about that verse and it is that the word you there indistinguishable as to number in the English is plural in the Greek.

But we've all done this before.

We've talked to several people, but we took our eyesight and we focused it on one person because what we were saying may have had special import for that person.

And so the text says, Jesus said to Peter, even though he's talking to the others as well, could you not watch with me?

One hour?

It was Peter, of course, who had said that I'll die with you if necessary and yet he is unable to stay awake while the Lord's praying in sorrow, watch and pray.

Jesus said that you may not enter into temptation.

The spirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak.

The word that's translated watch here, vines says can mean simply to keep awake.

I have many times sat in the deer stand and found myself nodding off and realized my eyes have been closed.

Sometimes I even check my watch to find out how many deer have gone by while I've been sleeping.

That's one meaning of the word.

But Vine also says that the word can mean or refer to in a metaphorical way, spiritual alertness, being awake spiritually.

And I really think although Vine puts this passage with the first definition, keep awake physically, I really think that the second definition is what Jesus has in mind because he ends that statement by saying that you may not enter into temptation, the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.

And so I think the word watch here probably means more than just stay awake, Peter James and John.

I mean it, I think it means remain spiritually alert.

There are some notable differences between the synoptic accounts on this particular time of jesus' life and this last night of the synoptics only Matthew and Mark record the command watch and pray.

Luke uses the word rise, rise and pray, rise, meaning to stand literally in the Greek in chapter 213 and verse 212.

And it is also only Luke's gospel that records that earlier in the evening, Jesus had addressed Simon and said Simon, Simon behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat.

But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers, not only did Jesus link his instructions to watch and to pray in the struggle against or with the the struggle of avoiding temptation.

But he also mentions his our spiritual enemy to Simon.

Simon Satan wanted to sift you.

He wanted to take control of you, but I've prayed for you.

I want to talk a little bit about that twofold strategy that Jesus suggested to these three disciples, Jesus indicated the participation.

I think in these instructions, the strategy of both man and God in the struggle against temptation and sin man's part is to watch, to stay alert, spiritually alert, but also to pray, the solicitation of divine help.

And we're gonna look at both of those councils separately.

When you think about watching, if it is in fact an indication of the presence of danger, what is it that we should be watching for or what is it that we should be watching?

The Apostle Paul in Ephesians chapter six said that you and I as Christians are engaged in a spiritual battle, there are things going on in our world that we cannot see because of the spiritual nature of the entities that are involved.

The Bible gives us glimpses into that world by suggesting uh that angels did this or did that and that demons possess people in the first century.

There are things going on in our world that we cannot see, they're not uh visible in the physical world and they are involved in a spiritual battle.

Paul said, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

But we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

And I believe perhaps included in that list of those with whom we are fighting are individuals humans who are being directed by Satan.

But I believe Paul, when he says for, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood is not indicating that we will not have to have, we will not have opposition by other humans.

But I think he's suggesting that in a not but construction that the greater battle, the larger conflict is against spiritual forces against the one who is behind evil in this world, Satan himself and those who do his bidding or as Paul describes them elsewhere, as his ministers, the nature of the pieces of armor that Paul then goes on to identify, I think also suggests the type of conflict that we're involved in the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace with which our feet are shod shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit, which Paul identifies as the word of God.

Those are things that are related to spiritual matters.

Paul doesn't describe an armor that is physical, uh like armor that people sometimes have worn in the past and still do in physical combat.

But rather he talks about an armor that is effective or spiritual warfare as he describes these pieces or parts of the armor in just a few minutes.

We're going to be looking in the adult class in the auditorium as we study our way through Second Corinthians.

We'll be looking at chapter 225 verses three through five where Paul notes that his warfare, his battle was not uh according to the flesh, even though he was living in the flesh that is, he was in his physical body.

He says, for though we walk in the flesh, we're not waging war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.

We're involved in a spiritual battle and in that battle, we are dealing with false arguments, opinions contrary to God's will.

But we need to understand that the real conflict, the real enemy is Satan himself in second Corinthians, the 11th chapter, just the very next chapter, Paul says to the Corinthians.

But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ, the serpent didn't come to Eve and say disobey God, but rather he began to reason with her about what God had said and what God intended and what she could achieve if she would disobey God.

And that's the cunning with which Satan makes his way in this battle to capture prey.

A little bit later on.

Toward the end of that passage in Ephesians six, where Paul is talking about the panoply or the armor of God.

He says in verse 18, praying at all times in the spirit with all prayer and supplication to that end.

Keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Now, interestingly enough, the word that's translated, keep alert here is not the same word that's used in Matthew 26 and translated watch.

This is a different word that means literally to be sleepless, to be watchful.

But Vine goes on to say that the word expresses not mere wakefulness, but the watchfulness of those who are intent upon a thing.

Paul says, keep alert, stay focused on this business of prayer, making supplication for all the saints in the scriptures.

There are a lot of exhortations to be watchful.

I'm just going to present a mere handful uh to you this morning in First Corinthians 16 chapter verse 13, as sometimes letter writers do, Paul kind of strings together some uh various exhortations.

And he says in verse 13, be watchful, stay, stand firm in that faith act like men, be strong. Colossians.

The fourth chapter in verse two, Paul says, continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.

I think that's much the same as what he was trying to say in Ephesians six and verse 123.

In Acts the 20th chapter, Paul met with the elders of the church at Ephesus.

He met them at Miletus and Acts 20 gives us Luke's record of their conversation of Paul's address to these elders.

And he says in verse 31 of that chapter, therefore, be alert, having warned him that there are wolves that will arise, that will seek to make prey of the flock, those who are working for Satan.

He says, therefore, be alert.

Remembering that for three years, I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears.

The figures of light and darkness are sometimes used to talk about alertness or sleep.

Those things that are associated with light and darkness to the Thessalonians.

Paul would write in first Thessalonians five verse five for you are all Children of light Children of the day.

We are not of the night or nor of the darkness.

So then let us not sleep as others do but let us keep awake and be sober.

You know, it's interesting that we use the word sober with reference to uh alcohol or other things that might uh in uh prejudice our senses.

But the Bible doesn't use this word typically in that literal sense of being sober without alcohol.

It uses it usually in the sense in a metaphorical sense to be free from intoxicants, anything that would cloud my judgment, not necessarily alcohol, emotions can do the same thing.

And so Paul writes keep awake and be sober.

In order to be watchful, you can't have your senses, your reasoning clouded by anything, alcohol or emotions or fear or other things.

I want to talk to you just for a moment about the mechanism of temptation.

Jesus said, watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation.

And James helps us understand that the enemy attacks us through the weakness of the flesh.

In fact, Jesus himself said after he said, watch and pray, he said, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

James tells us in chapter one of his epistle, the origin of or the mechanism, maybe I should say of temptation.

Let no one say when he's tempted.

I'm being tempted by God.

James writes for God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one but each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

And so the mechanism of temptation makes use of the desires of the flesh, Satan and others who worked for Him, they appeal to those things that are sinful, sinful desires that we may uh cherish in our, in our bodies and our minds.

Then when desire, then desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin and sin, when it is fully grown, brings forth death.

And so James says that the mechanism of temptation starts within us with our own desires.

And so it makes sense when Paul says in Romans 13 and verse 14, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires.

That's what happens when we give in to sin.

We sometimes place ourselves in circumstances or situations in which we're going to be.

Uh there's going to be an appeal made to our fleshly desires.

If we give in to that, if we make provision for the flesh by putting ourselves in that circumstance and then giving in to those desires, then as James says, desire is conceived and gives birth to sin.

We need to be cautious about the decisions that we make and the circumstances in which we place ourselves.

It strikes me that sometimes and particularly young people, but even older people, sometimes that sometimes we don't give a lot of thought to the consequences or the possibilities for evil that we introduce into our lives by agreeing to certain circumstances or situations.

Here's a young person headed off to college is the first consideration that there needs to be a local congregation of Christians that that person can worship with and be encouraged by while that person is perhaps away from home, sometimes that's the last thing on people's minds.

And so they put themselves in a situation where frankly, they're not going to get the encouragement of other Christians, which is part of the purpose of our gathering together.

And so their fleshly part starts to take over their lives and they end up yielding to temptation.

Or sometimes young people put themselves in situations, social situations where they know there's going to be behavior and activity, things going on that they can't participate in.

And yet because they want to belong, they want to be a part of a group or some activity, a larger activity.

So they put themselves in the middle of this.

Is it any surprise then that sometimes they end up participating in those things that they know to be wrong.

We can make provision for the flesh that way.

And we need to be careful.

I think that's what Jesus is saying.

Watch, be alert, pay attention to what's going on.

Sometimes we're so immersed in all of the physical things that are going on that we stop thinking about and considering the spiritual consequences of the decisions that we make.

Jesus said, pray, watch and pray.

You know, it's interesting that in the sermon on the mount Jesus gave a model prayer.

I don't know that he intended for us to just repeat that prayer.

But I think he was giving us an idea of the things that we should pray for, the kinds of things we should pray for.

And it's interesting that in Matthew six and verse 13, he said, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Very similar to what he says to Peter and James and John watch and pray that you do not enter into temptation.

We already looked at Ephesians, the six chapter and verse 18, that we are to keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints.

Notice all prayer, praying at all times, I should say with all prayer, with all perseverance, you're getting the impression that prayer is an important part of our defense against temptation.

In second Thessalonians three and verse three, the Apostle Paul again wrote to the Thessalonians, but the Lord is faithful.

He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you ever struggled with some temptation?

And it just seemed like you, you seem powerless almost to resist it.

You, you know it's wrong and you fall into that, that sin and so you repent you, you're sorry and you make the determination.

I'm not going to do that anymore.

And then you find yourself uh maybe not too long after that, you're, you're involved again in that same sin and that same temptation, could it be that maybe when we seem to have so much difficulty resisting a particular temptation?

It's because we're not praying for divine help when we face a temptation like that, I think Jesus understood the pressures that these disciples, his apostles were going to face on the night that he was arrested.

And even in the successive hours of his trial, et cetera, Jesus had already predicted as we noted earlier, the scattering of the disciples and in particular Peter's fall you will all fall away.

He said because of me this night for it is written, I will strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.

Jesus anticipated that it was going to be difficult for them to stay faithful, not to scatter but Peter of course, said though they all fall away because of you.

I will never fall away.

And Jesus says some sobering things to him.

Truly, I tell you this very night before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.

How would you feel if the Lord said that to you after you had just got done saying I'll never fall away.

And Jesus says, yeah, you're going to deny me three times tonight before the night's over.

Even if I must die with you, I will not deny you.

And so Peter ramps it up.

He gives uh uh an even stronger affirmation of his loyalty to the Lord, which frankly is foolish when the Lord predicts that that's what's going to happen and understand the Lord's looking ahead and seeing history.

But Peter makes that affirmation.

And despite what Jesus said, he ventures into the high priest's courtyard, the disciples did scatter.

But Peter follows along and behind and he wants to see what's gonna happen to Jesus and he finds himself in the actual courtyard of the high priest while Jesus is being interrogated and he's in the middle of the group of people who had come to the garden with weapons and lights and they'd arrested Jesus and bound him and took him back into Jerusalem across the Kidron Valley.

And here comes Peter along behind and now he comes into the priest's courtyard, he's warming his hands at the fire along with the enemies of Jesus in his pride.

And I think his statement in verses 34 and 35 I think illustrate the pride of Peter in his pride.

He apparently thought that he could resist the devil.

Jesus said, watch and pray.

And Peter just blundered right into the midst of temptation and fell away in his fear.

He denied Jesus.

But understand he put himself directly in the path of temptation.

Watch and pray that you do not fall into temptation.

That's what Jesus said.

And Peter, it went in one ear and out the other ear apparently because he fell prey to the tempter.

How will it be with us?

Well, we need to stay alert.

Satan's not on vacation.

He didn't retire after the first century.

You may not be able to see him.

You and I can't see the spiritual world around us.

But the Bible tells us there are things going on that Satan is a roaring lion he's seeking whom he may devour.

And that includes you includes me.

We need to stay alert, we need to watch, re realizing the danger that temptation presents.

I would suggest to you that we need to pray not only that we can avoid temptation.

But that if we are tempted, we can understand, we can recognize the path of escape.

The Apostle Paul said in first Corinthians, the 10th chapter verse 13, no temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability.

But with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it.

That's a promise to Christians.

Paul was writing to Christians and in verse 12, he warned them about arrogance.

Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

That was Peter's problem.

And sometimes it's our problem.

We think we're so strong spiritually that we can just walk right up to the line of temptation and we'll be fine because of our spiritual strength.

Maybe the length of time that we've been a Christian or the fact that we're an elder or a deacon or a Bible class teacher, how will it be with us?

But we need to stay alert just as the Lord admonished his disciples on that fateful day in the garden of Yosemite.

Satan wants to destroy us.

He's already been condemned.

In fact, Jesus says in Matthew chapter 25 that the lake that burns with fire and brimstone that burns all the time eternally, that's been prepared for Satan and his angels.

But all those who serve him will join him in punishment.

But God has fortunately provided for our redemption from the bondage of sin when we have fallen, pray to temptation.

When we have violated God's law, when we sinned God's provided a way for us to be forgiven of that sin, to be redeemed from the bondage of sin.

The only question that we need to ask ourselves this morning is, are we watching?

Are we praying if we're Christians?

And if you're not a Christian, will you accept God's offer of grace?

Forgiveness this morning?

The path to forgiveness is on the screen.

We've preached it a lot of times the scriptures are there.

If you need to become a Christian this morning, we want to encourage you to do so.

Now while you have time and opportunity and we stand to invite you as we sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

Let's read Hebrews 1019 through 25.

I'll read from the English standard version.

Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain that is through his flesh.

And since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.

Let us hold fast.

The confession of our hope without wavering for he who promised is faithful and let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another.

And all the more as you see the day drawing near, I would reiterate what Jim said earlier.

And that is if you're visiting with us, we are so glad that you're here and it is our hope and prayer that the time that we spend together this morning in worship to God and in study of His word that that'll be uplifting to you that you'll be encouraged by that and prompted to more loyal and dedicated service to God.

That's part of our reason for being here is to encourage one another.

And of course, to worship our God with a mighty hand God brought the people of Israel out of Egypt.

He afflicted the nation of Israel, the land of Egypt, I should say with plagues and brought his people out of that land and brought them to the mount where he gave them a law covenanted with them as a nation, Jacob's family, they stayed there for about a year.

And during that time, in addition to the giving of the decalogue, the Tabernacle was also built and then the people moved to the southern border of the land of Canaan, the land that had been promised to Abraham that would be possessed by his descendants.

And they're ready to go into the land.

Moses sent 12 spies up into the land.

And for 40 days, they surveyed this promised land.

And when they came back to the people, they gave a report that the land was indeed a rich land, a land of milk and honey.

And they illustrated that by bringing back a cluster of grapes that apparently was so large that it took two men to carry this cluster.

But the 10 spies gave a negative report of this land.

We can't take this land.

The people there are well fortified, the cities are well fortified and the people, there are giants and they discourage the people and the nation of Israel, that generation that came out of Egypt so close to entering this promised land failed to enter and instead wandered in the wilderness while that entire generation died.

And a new generation arose that would later go into the land.

They were so close and yet failed to enter.

The author of Hebrews compares the life of a Christian to a race.

Therefore, he says in chapter 12 and verse one, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance.

The race that is set before us.

I suspect that we are aware that this race is not a sprint, it's not a short quick journey, a quick race, but rather it is a marathon where day after day, year after year, perhaps we will continue to serve our God.

And so the Hebrews writer encourages us to endurance as we run this race.

But unfortunately, we know from both personal experience and from scripture that not every Christian successfully finishes that race, like the Israelites who were denied entrance into the promised land.

Some Christians will fail to enter their inheritance.

It is my hope and prayer that of all of us seated here this morning, that we will not be among that number that fails to reach the finish line.

Successfully and to inherit that glorious reward that the Lord has promised to us this morning.

I wanna talk to you about the need for endurance.

I think that is something that we have to continue to return to as, as Christians to remember the need for us to press on, to keep on keeping on.

And I'm gonna try to do several things this morning.

I want to affirm the possibility of apostasy for a Christian to fall away.

I won't spend a lot of time on that because I suspect we are mutually agreed on that fact.

But I think it's important for us to note that and then perhaps even to suggest some reasons why it is that Christians sometimes quit the race, why they fail to finish successfully.

And I want to finish this study by suggesting how it is that we can endure to the end.

Some things that we need to keep in mind.

You may be aware that there is a belief among many religious people that a genuine Christian cannot be lost that once you're saved, you will be always saved.

There's virtually nothing that you can do in order to be lost.

The sovereignty of God guarantees your salvation.

But the scriptures warn Christians about the danger of apostasy and it seems rather futile to list warnings about something that cannot possibly occur.

And so as we look at just three quick warnings this morning, two from the Book of Hebrews and one in uh second Peter chapter two, I want to emphasize that these are real warnings that God is telling us about a possibility, something that could happen to his chosen people in Hebrews the sixth chapter and verses four through six, the Hebrews writer and incidentally, the book of Hebrews is written to Christians who apparently were in danger of going back to the law of Moses, of falling away from Christ, of leaving the perfect high priest and his sacrifice only to return to that which was inferior in quality.

And so the Hebrew writer several times warns his readers about that danger.

In chapter six, he lists four specific phrases to describe the individuals that he's talking about.

I want you to pay attention to the third phrase in particular because sometimes it's argued that these are simply people who have heard the gospel but really haven't accepted it.

They're not real Christians, otherwise they couldn't fall away.

But I would suggest to you that the only people who share in the Holy Spirit are, in fact genuine Christians.

And yet the Hebrews writer says that those individuals can fall away.

It's difficult to fall away from something that you're not previously with.

It's difficult for you to fall away from a relationship if you did not initially have that relationship.

This passage is talking about Christians and it's very clear that the possibility of them falling away exists.

Well, another warning is in chapter 113, verse 26 to 31.

These are the verses immediately following the reading that Elijah did for us in chapter 10 verses 214 through 210.

And the writer says, for, if we go on sinning deliberately, after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries.

Again, some have argued, well, this is not really talking about genuine Christians.

It's just talking about people who have received the knowledge of the truth.

In other words, they've heard the gospel, they've heard the message of salvation, but they haven't accepted it.

Let's keep reading.

Verse 235 says, anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses.

This is a subtle argument, but the fact of the matter is all those who would set aside the law of Moses were those who were responsible to that law and those were God's chosen people.

And so the writer continues to talk about people who belong to God first.

He talks about those in this new covenant in verses 239 and 210.

But then he uses an illustration from the old law and the nation of Israel.

Again, God's old testament, chosen people.

How much worse punishment do you think will be deserved by the one who has trampled under foot, the Son of God and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified and has outraged, the spirit of grace.

I want you to pay attention to that phrase profane the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified.

As far as I know, the only individuals who are sanctified by the blood of Jesus Christ are genuine Christians are those who have been redeemed, who have been saved by the precious blood of Christ.

The final passage that we'll look at this morning is in Second Peter chapter two and Peter warns his readers, he's writing to Christians as was the Hebrews writer and he warns them that there would be false teachers among you.

He says, well, now that's not really definitive because false teachers could come from without and simply be among the people, but not necessarily be Christians themselves.

Let's keep reading, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Who is it that has been bought by the blood of Jesus Christ will.

Paul says in acts chapter 211 verse 113 that God purchased the church with his blood.

We're told in Ephesians 211 that uh Christians are the ones who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ.

These passages, all three of them clearly are talking about Christians and in each case, it is very manifest obvious that the possibility of falling away exists for Christians.

I didn't want to spend a lot of time on that because I rather suspect that all of us who have gathered here this morning probably accept that fact that it's possible for us to be lost.

And so what I would like to do is spend the rest of our time this morning together in this study by talking about why it is that sometimes Christians don't finish and what we can do to make sure that we do finish successfully.

There are probably some few Christians who abruptly leave the Lord and it may be that it's because of some traumatic event in their life, something that is very difficult to deal with.

But I suspect that the greater danger is that faithful Christians slowly become weaker and weaker and they fall away over a period of time.

By the time somebody's apostasy has become obvious, they no longer associate themselves with the saints with other Christians in many cases.

That's just the end of a journey that started sometime earlier.

I'm saying that often this process of falling away takes some time.

I'm gonna suggest three reasons that I think Christians fail to finish the race successfully.

And the first one is just simply spiritual fatigue.

As I said before, the race of the Christian is not really a sprint.

I understand that sometimes people obey the gospel late in life, perhaps in their older age.

And so they're not Christians for a long time before they go on to their reward.

But then there are many others who obey the gospel in their youth in their early adulthood perhaps.

And so they may live for decades.

As Christians, the Christian's journey to heaven, that race that the Hebrews writer talks about is usually not a sprint.

It's more like a marathon.

We have some folks in the audience here who have run marathons and they will tell you that running a marathon pulls upon all of the resources of the physical body.

It requires extensive mental strength to keep running.

When your body says we're out of gas.

The life of a Christian is a marathon.

It's one thing to be firm for a moment for a short period of time to resist temptation, even great temptation in the moment.

But it takes some serious determination to live a consecrated life day after day for perhaps decades.

Marathon runners have to force their bodies to keep running when it just would be so much easier to stop.

Have you ever felt that way about your life as a Christian that you're just tired?

Maybe you're just tired of running the race, tired of facing the difficulties that you have to face because of your commitment to the Lord, tired of resisting temptation when it would be so easy to give in, tired of facing the persecution, the ridicule of others who do not share your faith or convictions, tired of the demands of a righteous life.

And that spiritual fatigue can mount up to the point where people just slowly give up.

Sometimes they just become apathetic and eventually they stop pretending and they just give up.

I think that is a real problem among those who have been Christians for a long time.

I really appreciate the time that is spent by those who prepare our minds for one of the most emotional parts of our worship.

And that's the taking of the Lord's Supper who spend time reminding us of the emotions that are involved, the the concepts that pertain to the death on the cross, love and mercy and justice, all of these things and more because it energizes us, it helps us with this fatigue that I'm describing.

I think sometimes Christians fail to finish because they're distracted.

This may be the more common reason.

And I think it affects Christians of all ages or maybe I should say Christians regardless of where they are relatively speaking on their journey.

Because the truth is that all of us are at different places in this journey.

Some of us have just started the journey.

Some of us have been on this journey for a long time.

Some are near the finish, but all of us can possibly be distracted by the momentary pleasures of the world that take our eyes off of the goal.

And slowly we're drawn to a different path that broad way that the Lord talked about in the sermon on the mount even legitimate concerns, things that have to do with our daily lives, things that we really do have to pay some attention to that they can take over our lives.

We can become obsessed with making money and, and gathering wealth and it takes our eyes off of the goal.

It causes us to neglect what is necessary for our unswerving loyalty to our king.

I think sometimes Christians and I believe this has become more of a problem in more recent times.

Sometimes Christians are distracted by the various things that they hear or see in digital technology.

The internet has all kinds of cunning doctrines and false ideas.

And some people just lap that up.

They're constantly reading these things in an undisc manner, not necessarily comparing them or examining them for truth.

And so they're drawn away, distracted by these kinds of things.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians as he talked about what God has provided for the church for our growth to maturity.

He said so that we may no longer be Children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness and deceitful schemes.

And there are some people who are distracted by whatever new thing comes along.

And so they grab on to things that they read on the internet without necessarily understanding the truth.

In second Timothy chapter four, Paul warned Timothy for the time is coming when people will not endure sound or healthy teaching.

But having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own passions.

Sometimes people are distracted by what's being said over here on, on the internet or by other religious teachers because they like what it says.

They like the fact that it accommodates their passions, sinful passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

And so sometimes people begin to race well, and then at some point they just start listening to falsehoods and it pulls them away, they don't finish successfully.

And I think sometimes discouragement factors into this business of not finishing well.

We look around and we see others who claim to be Christians and yet it seems fairly obvious that they're not running the race properly as was suggested by Ethan this morning.

Sometimes Christians behave improperly toward others, whether they're brethren or unbelievers.

And that can be discouraging to those who are trying to do what is right.

And yet they see this sometimes hypocrisy or at least imperfection in the lives of others.

We see people who just give up and stop running the race and that can be discouraging to those of us who are still trying to run.

Sometimes I think we're discouraged by our own failures.

We know ourselves better than we know others and we know in our own hearts that there are weaknesses and failures and sometimes we can so beat ourselves up.

We just get discouraged and give up.

I think sometimes people just wonder if the race can really be finished successfully.

Anyway, the race is a difficult race.

I would be lying to you if I said the life of a Christian was an easy thing that everything will be fine that you'll never have to struggle against temptation, that nobody will ever say a crossword or uh uh any kind of words of ridicule toward you.

And Paul would say to Timothy that all those who would live Godly are going to suffer persecution.

The Apostle Paul also in Romans five verse three said, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces.

So I would hasten to point out that suffering doesn't always produce endurance.

The Apostle Paul is saying that it can do that and that's the proper response to that, but sometimes people just give up.

It's too much.

I can't do it, nobody can finish successfully.

And sometimes it's just the length of the race.

If you've been a Christian for several decades, sometimes it's easy to lose that fervor to lose that commitment, that zeal that you felt when you first became one of God's spiritual Children.

So what can we do to try to ensure that we don't fall by the wayside and fail to finish the race?

Well, Peter says some things about that in second Peter one verses three through 211, we're going to look at some of those verses.

But I want you to see the very first part of that passage.

Second Peter one verse three, where Peter writes and he's writing to Christians, he says, his divine power, God's power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and Godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to his own glory and excellence.

This passage is so rich because it brings in so many different concepts.

And beginning in verse three, he tells us that what God has called us to is his own glory and excellence.

We have a high goal that we're striving for and a great reward that has been promised.

But also in the beginning of this verse, Peter Ryan, that God has given us everything that we need to finish this race.

That's essentially what he's saying.

All things that pertain to life and Godliness.

There's not anything that you need as a Christian that God hasn't provided in one way or through one avenue or another.

I think that's important.

Ever started a task, maybe a big project, maybe a race and realized at some point very early on that you just weren't prepared for this, that you hadn't really thought through all the things that were necessary that you were going to require in order to finish it.

I have sometimes I wonder if that's not why I procrastinate with some projects, you never know what's going to happen when you get started.

You never know how long it might take or what you might find when you get started.

It's things you didn't anticipate.

But Peter said that God has provided all the things that we need in order to finish this race.

He goes on to say beginning in verse five, that what we need to do is be diligent, to be adding certain qualities to our lives.

He mentions adding virtue to our faith, knowledge, self-control, steadfastness, godliness, brotherly, affection, and love.

He says, if you add these things and they are increasing, in other words, it's not uh uh a one and done, but this is a constant process of adding these.

Sometimes people call them Christian graces.

I I'm not sure that's a great way to describe them, but they're qualities that, that need to be added to our, our person, to our character.

But I want you to notice in particular verses 225 and 11.

Peter Rein, therefore, brothers be all the more diligent to confirm you're calling an election for.

If you practice these qualities, you will never fall.

I said early on that there are some people who believe that it's impossible for a Christian to fall away.

That's not what Peter say.

Peter says.

If you add these qualities, there's a condition here.

But if you add these qualities, then you will not fall for in this way, there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

I think the Hebrews writer provided some additional information for us about this race.

This journey that we're on as Christians in the 12th chapter.

In the first three verses, here's what he says.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance.

The race that is set before us.

Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God, consider Him who endured from sinners, such hostility against himself so that you may not grow weary or faint hearted.

Now that last phrase there so that we don't grow weary or fainthearted that ought to ring a bell with us because that's what we're talking about.

We're talking about Christians, some Christians who get tired, who become weary.

How do we avoid that?

I want you to notice several things that the Hebrews writer says here in this passage, I think this is a rich passage.

He says, first of all, we need to lay aside anything that would encumber us.

He talks about weight and he also talks about sin that entangles us or closely clings to us as the ESV says, wait, whatever it is encumbers us.

I think he makes a distinction between some things that are probably not sinful, but that can keep us from finishing the race.

And then there are other things that are sinful and they will likewise cause us not to finish successfully.

You know, runners try to avoid carrying any extra weight.

You know, you're starting a marathon 26 miles plus good to have some water with you. Right?

Because you're gonna get dehydrated if you're not careful.

So what most runners do when they run a marathon is they've got this large water pack on their back and it's got a little hose up so they can drink as they go along.

Someone says, it's obvious Mr Allen has never run a marathon because you don't see any marathon runners doing that.

They shed all excess weight.

They get their water by people handing them cups with often is not, hits them in the face or they don't get it and splash it and what not, but they don't carry extra weight eight pounds to the gallon.

And so we as Christians need to do the same thing, we need to shed whatever it is that's encumbering us so that we can't run the race the right way.

Well, the writer also points us to Jesus.

He says, you need to look to Jesus who for the joy that was set before him.

And so the writer says, Jesus looked to the reward.

Jesus looked past the cross to the joy that was set before him.

The joy set before him wasn't the cross.

It was on the other side of the cross when he would be exalted by the father, see Philippians the second chapter.

And then finally, he says, consider him so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.

Look to the example of Jesus.

How did he run that race all the way successfully to the end?

Jesus looked to the goal.

He looked to the joy that was set before him.

We have a fantastic goal, but we need to remember, have a clear picture of what it is that we are seeking.

Paul would write to Titus as he introduced himself.

He said, Paul in hope of eternal life.

That's our hope.

That's our goal.

That's what we need to be looking at.

Unfortunately, as I said earlier, it's too easy for us to be distracted by the things of this world, all of the concerns, day by day things and we stop seeing what really we're after in Romans.

The second chapter verses seven and 10.

Paul again described what the goal of the Christian is.

We're seeking glory, honor, immortality and peace.

Those are the things that God will provide for those who serve him acceptably.

I want to read along with you first Peter one verses three through seven.

It's up on the screen and I want you to pay attention to verses four and 77.

B. Peter writes blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now, in verse four, he describes that living hope.

It's like he picks up the sentence again and he says, not just to a living hope but to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.

Kept in heaven for you reserved for you.

Those words, even though they look at things from a negative standpoint of what it is not.

It provides with us a picture of the great hope that Christians have imperishable.

Everything in this life is winding down, everything deteriorates.

You buy a new car and it begins to rust or you back the U TV, into the side of your truck.

Hypothetically speaking, of course, it is undefiled, unmixed with anything that is evil and unfading.

Debbie and I have hibiscus uh oleander rather.

No, it's Hibiscus.

Hibiscus, two hibiscus plants in our atrium.

I don't know if you know this or not, but a hibiscus will have a beautiful flower and occasionally it will have more than one, the larger bush in the atrium.

But those flowers last one day.

Now we have a second hibiscus.

It's apparently a little bit different kind and the flowers on that, it doesn't bloom as often, but they last a little bit longer, but none of them last very long if you want to enjoy the flower, you better enjoy it today.

Debbie pointed one of them out to me yesterday and by the end of today it'll be gone.

It'll wilted, it'll fall off the plant.

Not your hope in heaven.

That is imperishable.

It's never going to perish, it's never going to fade.

And then last of all, he says in this, you rejoice though.

Now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in.

Here's what we're looking for.

Praise and glory and honor at the revelation.

The coming of Jesus Christ.

That's our hope.

That's what we need to be looking at.

I want to say a little bit more about dealing with fatigue because I think that's a big problem for Christians.

When we become physically tired, often we need to have a period of rest or sleep and that's adequate enough to restore our strength, physically speaking.

And I would suggest to you that spiritual fatigue is not totally unrelated to physical fatigue.

Sometimes Christians just run themselves into the ground trying to do too many things and then eventually at some points can do anything.

I don't know if you've seen these videos, but I've seen several of them and I would give you a video except that the people in the videos are typically quite immodestly dressed, but they're videos of runners, whether you're talking about high school runners cross country or whether you're talking about a marathon, the New York marathon.

But there've been several instances, one just about three months ago where you've got a runner who's finishing almost ready to finish the race and they just run out of this person, just run out of gas.

The one that I'm thinking about appeared on Reddit and it's the picture of a woman coming in at the end of a marathon and she is just, I mean, she has nothing left.

She falls down, she's probably not 50 yards from the finish line.

She falls down and she struggles and she gets up.

But because she just has expended everything that her body has, she can't hardly stand up.

And so she begins to run again, but she goes to the side of the, of the path there and she falls again and she's struggling to get up.

Several runners run past her because there's the finish line right there.

It's uh less than 113 yards away.

One runner comes along and hardly with breaking stride.

She helps this woman up.

It's another woman takes her arm across her shoulder and then I guess runs and half drags this woman over the finish line and you'll see these kind of videos and people are like, well, but you put that person over the finish line before you.

The issue is the point is they were helping somebody finish this race.

Well, the New Testament talks about our role in encouraging others and helping others to finish their race passages like Hebrews 1024 and 25 part of the reading this morning let us consider how to stir up one another, to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as is the habit of some but encouraging one another.

And all the more as you see the day drawing near couple of passages in first Thessalonians, five similar concept.

Verse 11, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing.

Paul writes and we urge you brothers verse 14, admonish the idol, encourage the fainthearted help the weak, be patient with them all.

That's what these runners were doing.

They saw somebody who needed help and they went to help them even at their own expense.

We need to be helping one another others who have become fatigued who seem to be weary in this race.

The strong need to help the weak.

Well, this is the slide you've been waiting for one last passage here.

Uh Main passage, uh Chapter 10 verses 35 to 39 just a little bit farther down uh from the reading this morning.

Therefore, do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

That's basically what this sermon has said.

We have a great reward.

Don't throw it away.

Don't as a Christian stop running the race for you have need of endurance so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised for yet a little while and the coming one will come and will not delay but my righteous one shall live by faith.

And if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in Him.

A quotation from the Old Testament.

But we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed, but of those who have faith and preserve their souls.

That's the end of chapter 10.

And then in chapter 11, the writer begins to list a whole bunch of people who were commended by God because of their faithful obedience.

What he's saying in chapter 11, this writer is, these people ran the race successfully.

They weren't perfect Moses in that group.

Abraham is in that group.

Others in that group were not perfect Samson's in that group, but God doesn't save us on the basis of our perfection.

He saves us on the basis of His grace as we respond to that invitation of grace with obedient faith.

My point in talking about Hebrew 11, Hebrews 11 is you can finish the race successfully.

No reason, no reason why we can't.

And I would encourage all of us to give our efforts to that.

As Christians, we can't quit until we finish the fin reach the finish line.

The Apostle Paul would say in second Timothy four as he apparently approached the finish of his race.

He said I fought the good fight.

I have finished the race.

I have kept the fate he anticipated dying soon.

Apparently, he wrote to the Galatians in chapter six and verse nine and let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season.

We will reap if we do not give up.

There have been some in this congregation who have given up some that have been disciplined and have left the faith.

They've decided they love the world more than they love the Lord.

Each of us needs to look into our own hearts and see if we're running successfully now and make the commitment, not to give up, but to continue to do those things that God desires of us so that we can reach that reward, that the scriptures promise when we finish our race as Christians, God will give us the crown of righteousness.

That's what Paul anticipated there.

In second Timothy four verse eight, God will say well done, good and faithful servant.

As we see in Matthew chapter 25.

The question is, are you running the race successfully?

Now, there may be some in this audience who are actually not even in the race yet.

You haven't begun running as a Christian because you haven't obeyed the gospel.

You haven't responded to the preaching of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, the resurrected savior as those on the day of Pentecost did when they believe the message of Peter in acts chapter two.

And they asked the question, what shall we do?

Peter told those believers you need to repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.

And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Have you done that?

Are you running the race?

You can't receive the prize if you don't the prize, if you don't run the race.

And so if you need to begin running this morning as a Christian, and we want to encourage you to obey the gospel.

Now, while you have the time and opportunity to do that, there's coming a day when the Lord is going to return, he promises that and the Lord is not slack concerning his promises.

Peter says in second Peter three and when he comes, everybody's race is over and those who have not begun, the race will have no further opportunity to begin.

Now you have the time.

Now you have the opportunity.

We encourage you run the race, we encourage you as we stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

The Lord sent Malachi to a corrupt Israel to rebuke them.

Their corruption was from the top all the way to the bottom.

In chapter two, he rebuked the priesthood for their corruption.

And then in starting in verse 224, he rebukes the nation as a whole for both their national and personal infidelity.

I invite you to stand out of respect for the word of God as we read together, Malachi chapter two starting in verse 219.

Have we not all one?

Father has not one God created us.

Why do we deal treacherously with one another by profaning the covenant of the fathers?

Judah has dealt treacherously and an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem for Judah has profaned the Lord's holy institution which he loves.

He has married the daughter of a foreign God.

May the Lord cut off from the tense of Jacob, the man who does this being awake and aware yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts?

And this is the second thing you do.

You cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and crying.

So he does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

Yet you say for what reason?

Because the Lord has been witnessed between you and the wife of your youth with you, with whom you have dealt treacherously.

Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant?

But did he not make them one having a remnant of the spirit?

And why one?

He seeks Godly offspring?

Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously with the wife of his youth.

For the Lord of God, the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce for it covers one's garment with violence says the Lord of hosts.

Therefore take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously may be seated before we begin our study this morning in Malachi chapter two, perhaps a word of explanation would be helpful regarding the bulletin.

Uh I send the bulletin out every Sunday that I can remember to do so in a PDF format.

And many of you probably see that only in that format, you don't pick up a hard copy.

The article that I wrote for the bulletin this week uses some biblical text.

And for some reason, Adobe in design the program that I use for laying out the bulletin will not put Hebrew text in correctly.

It transposes everything, turns everything back to make it work like it was English.

It's not English, not only does it transpose, transpose the words, it transposes the letters in the words so that they run a different direction.

So what I've done for those of you who may be interested is I've printed out that same article with the Hebrew text in the right order and it appears as a insert in the hard copy of the bulletin that you can get back in the, uh, in the lobby on the table there.

So if you're only looking at the PDF, you may not be aware that that bulletin article also appears in a form that's a little easier to understand because it follows the text of the, the word uh direction of the text in Hebrew.

Now, if that made even less sense to you, get the insert and read it and it will make sense to you.

Um I struggled and struggled with Adobe in design.

You would think that the premier desktop publishing program could print Hebrew.

I don't know why not, but it doesn't.

So Microsoft Word does it just fine.

So that's what you have in the bulletin.

Well, I appreciate your presence here this morning and I want to begin this morning by reminding you that in the very beginning of human history, God records that two individuals, two brothers made offerings, they worshiped God, their offerings were of a different nature.

Cain of course, brought from the fruit of the ground and able offered a sacrifice from the uh first born of the flock.

And the text in Genesis four says that God showed no respect or had no regard for King's offering, but he did regard Abel's offering without going into any other details.

That story just very quickly illustrates the fact that God doesn't accept just any form of worship or any worship that man might offer.

We understand of course, that God has given instructions over man's history as to how he is to be worshiped.

And even in this early case of worship by these two brothers, it appears that one brother didn't follow those instructions.

While the other one did the obvious lesson, God doesn't accept just any worship.

Several weeks ago, we looked at the book of Malachi in a lesson that I uh entitled polluted offerings.

And about the same time as uh Ezra and Nehemiah, those prophets in the post exilic period.

Malachi would address the people of Israel who had returned.

He's about 221 and 224 years after the first group has come back uh from Babylon.

It appears that the exiles were not given to the sin of idolatry, which was the case prior to the exile and actually a primary cause of the exile.

They had a different problem in Malachi's time.

The priests were despising the name of the Lord by offering what Malachi calls polluted food on the altar in chapter one verses six and seven.

What do you mean by polluted food?

Malachi?

Well, they were offering defective or second rate animals as sacrifices even though the law said that if you brought a sacrifice to God, an animal as a sin offering or some other kind of offering, it was to be the best of the flock.

It was to be perfect.

You couldn't bring a three legged lamb or a blind lamb as sacrifice.

But that's what the priests had begun doing.

And in so doing, they were despising the Lord's table.

They were offering to God, what the prophet challenges them to even offer to their governor to see if he would receive those kinds of offerings.

And so in verse eight of chapter one, Malachi says, when you offer blind animals and sacrifice, is that not evil?

And when you offer those that are lame or sick, is that not evil present that to your governor?

Will he accept you or show you favor?

Says the Lord of hosts.

That's a rhetorical question.

Of course.

No, he certainly would not.

Why would we think that God would accept something less than the best that we can offer?

And so the people were cutting the corners, so to speak in their worship.

Now, maybe one of the priests or some of those who were worshiping would say, well, at least I'm worshiping.

I brought something to the Lord.

I didn't just ignore him, but that kind of worship it seems was worse than no worship at all.

Continuing in the same chapter in Malachi one verses nine and 221.

Malachi writes and now entreat the favor of God that he may be gracious to us with such a gift from your hand.

Will he show favor to you?

Says, the Lord of Hosts.

And then the Lord says in verse 212, 103, that there were one among you who would shut the doors that you would not kindle fire on my altar in vain.

I have no pleasure in you says, the Lord of hosts and I will not accept an offering from your hand.

And so the people were bringing these defective offerings, the priests were offering them.

And God says, I just wish someone would close the door so they wouldn't kindle a fire on the altar for these kinds of offerings.

I will not accept that kind of worship.

And so once again, we understand the basic principle that God doesn't accept just any worship, but worship needs to reflect uh obedience to his instructions.

I want to continue.

Now in the book of Malachi today in chapter two, to talk about another problem that I think the people of Malachi's Day had and it also affected their worship.

And I've entitled our study this morning Sunday, only Chris Christians.

I was chided a little bit this morning for excluding the Wednesday night, only Christians.

But I think you'll understand the principle that I'm going to get.

And in our text is the text that was written or read rather by Eric in Malachi two verses 210 through 210.

In that text Malachi indicates that the people were dealing treacherously with one another.

He says, even though they had the same father or have we not all one father?

He says in verse 2100 has not one God created us and yet one Israelite was dealing treacherously with another.

And it appears as we read through the first three verses here that what was happening is that men, Jewish men were marrying women from other nations.

Judah has married the daughter of a foreign God.

These were women who worshiped other gods who were not worshiping Jehovah God Malachi, as I've already noted, lived at about the same time period as Ezra and Nehemiah and both of those men struggled with this very same problem.

The problem of men marrying women from other nations, idolaters, contrary to the instructions of the law, the law indicated that Jews should marry other people of their nation not to marry foreign women.

And there are several passages that we're going to look at here just to kind of quickly illustrate the problem.

And the rebuke that was given by Ezra and Nehemiah, we're gonna look at Ezra.

The ninth chapter verses two through four where Ezra says, for they have taken some of their daughters to be wives, for themselves and for their sons so that the Holy Race has mixed itself with the peoples of the lands and in this faithlessness, the hand of the officials and chief men has been foremost and So when Ezra is informed of this, as he writes about it later, he says, as soon as I heard this, I tore my garment and my cloak and pulled hair from my head and beard and sat appalled.

Then all who trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the faithlessness of the returned exiles gathered around me while I sat appalled until the evening sacrifice.

Ezra dealt with this same issue.

And in chapter 10, we're told that it wasn't confined just to the common people.

Even some of the sons of the priests had married foreign women.

Someone would say, well, the priests were those who were given among other duties, the responsibility of teaching the law to the people.

If anybody should have known what the law said about contracting marriages with foreign women, the priests should have known.

But it's even in the priesthood that this is happening.

Ezra tells us in chapter 10, Nehemiah also had to deal with this problem.

This is a little bit of a uh an extensive reading.

But if you'll pardon me, uh Nehemiah writes in those days also, I saw the Jews who had married women of Ashdod and Ammon and Moab Ashdod was a city but Ammon and Moab were foreign nations and half of their Children spoke the language of Ashdod and they could not speak the language of Judah Hebrew, but only the language of each people.

And I confronted them and cursed them and beat some of them and pulled out their hair and I made them take an oath in the name of God saying you shall not give your daughters to their sons or take their daughters for your sons or for yourselves.

That's what the law said.

Don't do those things.

And in Deuteronomy, the people were told, don't contract these kinds of marriages, they'll pull you away from the Lord.

And so Nehemiah then observes in verse 26 did not Solomon king of Israel sin.

On account of such women among the many nations, there was no king like him and he was beloved by his God and God made him king over all Israel.

Nevertheless, foreign women made even Him to sin.

He was influenced by his many wives, wives from other nations.

Shall we then listen to you and do all this great evil and act treacherously against our God by marrying foreign women.

And I wanted you to hear that last word and act treacherously against our God because that's the same word that's used over in Malachi too, in the English translation to talk about what the people were doing.

They were dealing treacherously with one another and incidentally, they were profaned the covenant, the law of Moses that had been given to the people back in Malachi two and verse 12.

The last verse in this particular section, the consequence of their actions is listed.

May the Lord cut off from the tense of Jacob, the man who does this being awake and aware yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts.

So you've got individuals who are violating the law of God by contracting these marriages with foreign women.

But they were still bringing their gifts, their, their sacrifices to God.

And we learned that there was another problem that their treachery was even compounded.

If you look at the, the second part of this reading from this morning, beginning verse 13.

And this is the second thing you do.

Malachi writes, you cover the altar of the Lord with tears with weeping and crying.

So he does not regard the offering anymore nor receive it with goodwill from your hands.

There's some controversy among commentators as to whose doing the weeping, whether it's women who have been dealt treacherously with or whether it's just the Israelites in general, that they understand that God's not accepting their offering anymore.

And I'm not even sure how they would know that but they're distressed.

The people are distressed because God no longer regarded their offerings or accepted them with favors.

The ESV says, well then in verse 14, yet you say for what reason, why is it that God's not accepting our worship?

And the answer is because the Lord has been witnessed between you and the wife of your youth with whom you have dealt treacherously.

Yet she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

As we noted earlier, these were men who were marrying foreign women, but it was even worse than that.

They were divorcing their wives, the wives of their youth and then marrying some woman who was from another nation, worshiped another God.

Their wives are described as the wife of your youth, your companion, the word companion.

There is translated from a verb that means to bind together, to unite something.

She was your companion and she's your wife by covenant.

But they were breaking that covenant.

There are other passages that talk about marriage as a covenant that wouldn't surprise us because even in our uh secular or traditional wedding ceremonies, people take vows, make vows to one another.

They make promises, they agree to live together as man and wife.

Ezekiel chapter 103 in verse eight uses a covenant to describe or vows to describe the relationship of God with Israel in the figure of a marriage.

But these men were divorcing these women, they'd married in their youth and then they replaced them with foreign wives.

And the Bible says the Lord has been witness of this treachery.

And so now he doesn't accept your offerings.

Well, is it because the offerings were bad?

Were they defective?

Well, that may have been also true.

But the reason they're not accepted when they're offered in the temple is because of what the people were doing in their daily lives.

They were profaning the covenant.

They were not regarding God's instructions.

For marriage.

I like this description.

I think it is perhaps a little blunt and yet I think accurate.

It's written by a puritan commentator who was commenting on the treachery of these men.

And he's quoted by Walter Kaiser in his commentary on this section, she whom you thus wronged was the companion of those earlier and brighter days wherein when in the bloom of her young beauty, she left her father's house and shared your early struggles and rejoiced in your later success.

Who walked arm in arm with you along the pilgrimage of life, cheering you in its trials by her gentle ministry.

And now when the bloom of her youth has faded and the friends of her youth have gone.

When her father and mother whom she left for you are in the grave, then you cruelly cast her off as a worn out worthless thing and insult her holiest affections by putting an idolater and a heathen in her place.

And I think that describes pretty well what happens a lot in our country, two people in their youth get married.

And in those early days of the marriage life is more difficult.

The man, perhaps if he's the uh the breadwinner in the family, he hasn't established himself in his profession.

And so she supports him and works with him and they go through the difficult years sometimes of child rearing and all of the trials that come with that.

And then as she begins to get older and she's not as attractive as she once was.

Then he divorces her and he goes out and marry some young thing.

You ever see that happen in the social media?

Or have you seen it in friends people?

You know, it's a common thing and God says you deal treacherously with your wife.

When you do that, you violate the covenant that you made when you were married.

And verse 16 tells us about the Lord's attitude toward divorce.

Of course, we're not talking about Matthew 99.

We're not talking about any kind of an exception.

We're talking about God's general attitude toward divorce and it is that he hates it because so often it involves treachery.

I've used the new King James version today because there's some difference between the new King James version and the ESV.

I think you can make an argument for either translation.

I don't think one is blatantly wrong, but I think the new King James version seems to follow the context better here.

And so that's why I using it today.

And that translation says the Lord God of Israel says that he hates divorce for it covers one's garment with violence covers one's garment is a figure of speech that refers euphemistically to the marriage relationship.

So what is it that Malachi is trying to tell these people?

What's the Lord saying to them?

It is that the worship of the people was being rejected by the Lord because of their disregard of his covenant in their daily lives.

Or if we could boil that down, God wants us all the time to obey him.

Not just on Sundays, people sometimes have incorrect ideas about worship.

Even as I think these uh people who had returned from exile did some incorrect ideas about worship would include this concept of coming to worship God on Sunday.

And if I do that, it makes up for anything that I've done during the week.

And so it's kind of a zero sum game, uh a failure in God's favor, favor during the week by my misbehavior, my sinful behavior, I can top that off on Sunday by coming and worshiping God.

And so it just kind of evens out.

So my worship on Sunday cancels all of the things that I did wrong during the week.

I want to point out that in Malachi's rebuke, we're talking about people who were disregarding God's covenant totally.

In some areas, we're not talking about the individual who occasionally falls short of what God wants him to be.

But then tries to make that right by repenting and asking for forgiveness.

We're talking about people who just decide I'm not going to worry about this part of what God's law says, like those who are marrying foreign women, but I'll come to church on Sunday and God will be happy with that because after all, I'm re religious, you know, it's interesting to me, uh, that some very wicked people have also been very religious and they attended church services on a regular basis.

If you want a good illustration of that, read about the Mao Mafiosos.

And how many of them were staunch roman Catholics even though they would go to church on Sunday and then order somebody's execution on Monday.

Well, going to church kinda makes it better, doesn't it kinda balances out so to speak, the good with the bad?

That's one incorrect idea about worship.

Worship doesn't perform that function.

But there's another idea that I think is somewhat common among religious people that is also incorrect with respect to worship.

And that is that God's goodwill toward my worship.

His opinion of my worship has essentially no connection to the rest of my life that God is not worried about what I do Monday through Saturday, as long as I'm here on Sunday and I worship him on that day.

Of course, there are a lot of people who believe that God chose certain people to be saved before the foundation of the world independent of anything they might do. Yes.

No, yes, no, yes, no.

God chose them according to his own will and they are saved no matter what.

It's a systemic theology known as Calvinism.

And that same system of theology also says that essentially God doesn't take into account our sa our sins.

Once we've been saved, all he sees is the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ, which is credited to us.

And so all those sins don't really matter much because if God's decided you're going to be saved, you're gonna be saved no matter what.

And that's their understanding of the sovereignty of God.

You can't thwart God when God decides to do something.

And so I come to worship on Sunday because I'm one of the elect, one of the chosen.

But then Monday through Saturday, I live like a child of the devil because God doesn't see any of that.

The imputed righteousness of Christ is like an umbrella over my life.

And that's all that God sees.

And that's an oversimplification of that Calvinistic doctrine, but it is essentially the principle behind it.

And I want you to know that both of those ideas are false.

The scriptures teach that these ideas are wrong, multiple prophets made the same point as Malachi.

And that is that the people's worship was rejected because of their failures in other areas.

And I'm gonna give you three examples.

And I want to read through these verses so that you can see that it's the same point that Malachi is making Amos in chapter five.

And verse 21 says, God says, I hate, I despise your feast.

Well, this is what people were doing to worship God.

He says, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies, even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings.

I will not accept them and the peace offerings of your fattened animals.

I will not look upon them.

Take away from me this noise of your songs to the melody of your hearts.

I will not listen.

But let justice roll down by like waters and righteousness, like an ever flowing stream in the interest of time.

We won't go through some of the things that Amos said were problems in the Northern kingdom.

But that last sentence in verse 24 tells you what's going on, doesn't it?

God says, what I'm really looking for is justice in your daily lives and until righteousness is like an ever flowing stream, then I don't care about this worship that you're offering.

It's like us going to church on Sunday and, and we're just Sunday, only Christians the rest of the week we do what we want.

God says, I don't care for that kind of worship.

I will not regard it.

The prophet Isaiah also makes this point hear the word of the Lord.

You rulers of sodom.

Give ear to the teaching of our God.

You people of Gomara Isaiah sent to the Southern Kingdom and he's talking to the leaders.

Well, what to me is the multitude of your sacrifice says, the Lord I've had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well fed beasts.

I do not delight in the blood of bulls or of lambs or of goats when you come to appear before me who has required of you this trampling of my courts.

You're just trampling my courts, bringing all these sacrifices.

And I didn't, I don't want those, bring no more vain offerings, incenses and abomination to me.

New Moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations.

I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly.

So you come to worship, but your lives are full of sin, your new moons and your appointed feasts, my soul hates.

they become a burden to me.

I'm weary of bearing them.

Please understand these were things that God commanded in the law that the people were to do.

That's how they were supposed to worship in these feasts and these sacrifices.

But when all of that is divorced from the way that you live during the day, the rest of the week, Isaiah says none of that means anything to me.

I despise that when you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you even though you make many prayers, I will not listen, your hands are full of blood.

The imagery here is so powerful.

They're spreading out their hands to God asking for God to bless them.

And God says there's blood on your hands.

So I'm not listening to you because of the sin in your daily life, wash yourselves, make yourselves clean, remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes cease to do evil.

Learn to do good, seek justice, correct oppression, bring justice to the fatherless plead the widow's cause all of those things talk about what you do during the week.

If you'll pardon the anachronism, it's what you do outside of the place of worship.

It's the way that you treat other people.

It's living God's covenant, not just on Sunday or for the Jews on Sabbath, but all through the weak one final passage here in Jeremiah six from the Old Testament.

Jeremiah again, Southern Kingdom toward the end of uh its time, Jeremiah and chapter uh the early chapters has described some of the sins of the nation of the people as individuals.

And in verse 19, he says, Hero earth, behold, I'm bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices.

The Lord says, because they have not paid attention to my words.

And as for my law, they have rejected it.

So they reject God's law, but they're still offering some sacrifices and worship to God.

And he says, what use to me is frankincense that comes from Sheba or sweet cane from a distant land.

Your burnt offerings are not acceptably acceptable, nor your sacrifice is pleasing to me.

Oh, we, we're bringing incense from far away Sheba, maybe Yemen today and, and, and all of this, all of these other things, we, we're really working hard to bring sacrifices.

And God says that's nothing to me.

Not as long as you've rejected my law.

Well, I want you to see that that wasn't just an old Testament principle.

And Jesus gives a specific application to the same principle in the sermon on the Mount in Matthew, the fifth chapter in verses 21 through 24 interesting passage because we typically think of worship as being one of the most important things.

And so listen to what Jesus says, beginning verse 21.

You have heard that it was said to those of bold, you shall not murder, whoever murders will be liable to judgment.

But I say to you that everyone who's angry with his brother will be liable to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says, you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

So if you are offering your gift at the altar, I'm I'm coming to worship.

I'm I'm here.

I've got my gift.

I'm at the altar and there, remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go first be reconciled to your brother and then come and offer your gift.

Wow, Jesus says you're on the cusp of worshiping me.

But there's a problem between you and your brother.

Your brother has you sin against your brother.

You leave your gift, go be reconciled to him, take care of that problem and then come back and worship me.

Is that not really the same principle that these old Testament prophets were saying that whether or not my worship is acceptable to God depends largely on how I'm living my life and the way I'm treating others during the rest of my life, I want to be careful that we do not look at this principle in a rather too specific way because I think this principle applies more than just those men who might divorce their husbands and remarry some young thing.

I'll give you a couple of illustrations that I think may resonate with uh our experiences over life.

You ever known a congregation where you've got brethren, maybe two brothers or two sisters in this congregation.

They worship in the same congregation.

They come together every Sunday, they're worshiping, but they won't speak to each other because something happened, one sin against the other.

Or maybe they both think there's been sin involved, but there's disunity, their fractured, their relationship is fractured, but then they come together and they offer their worship to God.

And I would suggest to you that what Malachi would tell those individuals is God's not interested in your worship.

You're wasting your time coming here and offering up your worship to me when you don't treat your brethren, right?

Take it away.

Don't waste your time.

Now, please understand.

I'm talking in the extreme with hyperbole.

I'm not suggesting that God doesn't want us to worship Him.

He wants us to worship Him.

But the point is that worship that is separated, that is disconnected from the way I live my life.

The rest of the time is of really no value.

God doesn't regard it or respect it as the ESB would say.

I wonder, I seriously wonder how many hours of worship have been offered in vain by individuals who lift up their hands to God and sing songs and pray and take the Lord's supper and hate the brother who sits in the pew to their left or right.

God says, I don't care about that. Worship.

Another illustration.

We come to worship on Sunday and we offer our praise to God and we make commitments in our singing and in our prayers and we give the appearance of righteousness and loyalty to God.

And then we go home and we mistreat others.

Those who are the members of our family.

Does God care about my worship if that's the way I'm treating others.

If as a husband, I don't love my wife, I'm ignoring what the Lord has to say about my responsibilities and the marital relationship.

And in the home, does God care about my worship?

If as a parent, I'm mistreating abusing, perhaps my Children.

Does God care about my worship if I'm disregarding, ignoring what he said are my responsibilities as a parent, my obligations.

How many spouses, how many parents waste their time in worship after mistreating family members in their homes?

It's almost as though we sometimes seem to think that God only sees us when we're here.

He only looks down through the roof of this building.

But my house because it has a metal roof can't see through the metal roof.

So what happens in my home, God doesn't really take any stock of that so I can treat my family any way I want.

Then I come here and praise Jesus.

In these cases, the worship of these brethren is not regarded by the Lord.

And it is my hope that we don't fall into those, those cases, those groups.

I hope that our loyalty to the Lord is not just on Sundays that we offer worship, but we also pay attention to the Lord's instructions the rest of the week because that's just as important as coming together here on the first day of the week to worship.

Malachi says they're connected and you can't just focus on one and not the other.

Our text in Malachi obviously provides some information about God's attitude toward divorce and we could say a whole lot more about that perhaps.

But our focus this morning has been on how disregard for God's covenant for his law affects our worship.

And I hope the study has been helpful in the way that we think about what we do here as it's related to how we live the rest of our lives.

We cannot separate the acceptability of our worship from our daily lives.

Well, in that principle, I think the idea that God's looking at all of our life, not just Sundays or Wednesdays suggests that God wants all of our heart, all of our mind, all of us to belong to him and not just some portion that we offer.

Perhaps on Sunday, how many people around the world are engaged in worship?

Maybe even this morning, all the while ignoring what God has said about becoming a part of his spiritual family.

You know, if I'm not listening to what God has to say in His word about how I can have my sins forgiven, I can worship from now constantly until the day I die.

And it really won't mean much.

We've got to listen to the voice of the shepherd if we're going to be his sheep.

And so the Bible tells us that we need to hear the gospel and we need to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

There's no other name given among men by which we may be saved according to acts four and verse 12, we need to repent of our sins.

That's what Peter told those people on the day of Pentecost.

When they were convinced that they had crucified as a nation, they put to death, the Son of God, what men and brethren, what shall we do?

And Peter did not say well, congratulations.

You believe in Jesus.

The work is done.

You're saved.

But instead he said to them in verse 198 of chapter two, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins.

And that's exactly what I preach today.

What needs to be preached today.

The believers need to repent of their sins.

They need to confess their faith as Paul would write in Romans the 10th chapter verses nine and 10.

And then they need to be baptized, immersed in water for the remission of their sins.

Buried with Christ in baptism.

Romans six says where we come in contact with that blood that cleanses us from our sins.

If you're not a Christian, are you listening to God's instructions?

But I will say to you, there's no point in being baptized if you're not willing to commit yourself 100% to the Lord because he doesn't want just Sunday only Christians.

In fact, they really aren't Christians.

They don't belong to Christ.

What he wants is for us to become new creatures.

And to remember that we were bought with a price.

The price is the blood of Christ.

And so we need to glorify God in our bodies, in our minds and our behavior because we belong to Him.

If we're Christians.

Are you a Christian this morning?

If not, then we want to encourage you as we stand and sing just a moment to take steps to become part of the Lord's church, part of his spiritual family.

If we can assist you in doing that this morning, then please come to the front, we'll assist you as we stand and sing.

Series: N/A

Service: Sun AM

Type: Sermon

Speaker: Allen Dvorak

The following transcription is computer-generated and may not accurately reflect the contents of the audio. Please verify the content before quoting.

(Transcribed by Congregate. Always check document for possible errors and inaccuracies in automated transcriptions.)

A reading will be from Ephesians chapter 6.

Verses 10-20 I'll be reading from the ESV. Ephesians 6, 10-20.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand, therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication.

To that end, keep alert, perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly as I ought to speak. Well, good morning. I appreciate your presence here this morning, particularly those of you who are visiting with us. We are grateful for your willingness to come and worship with us, and we hope that you are encouraged and edified by the time that we spend together. I want to suggest to you at the very outset of our study this morning that music has power. Debbie and I had the opportunity just a couple weeks ago to spend some time with our Zimbabwean brethren, and I love their singing. Their singing is very moving, even though I only understand about one out of every ten or fifteen words. And so it's hard for me to relate to the message. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Of the songs, but just the melody and the fervor with which they sing is very moving. And the influence of a song is definitely increased by its lyrics. In fact, I would suggest to you that the most crucial thing in our worship in song are the lyrics. The scriptures indicate that our singing has at least two purposes, and the passages that we typically look at are in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3. And those passages suggest that, first of all, that our singing is worship to God, that we are singing and making melody to the Lord with our hearts. At the same time that our worship in song is directed to heaven, it is also directed to one another. As we teach and admonish one another in wisdom in the songs.

Of those purposes, you can see clearly, depend upon the lyrics of the songs. We don't offer praise by melody. We offer praise in the words that we sing. And the same thing is true of the teaching and admonishing that we do as we sing. Well, if I got up here this morning and began teaching something that was very contrary to what you can read in your Bibles, you would probably object. There would be some correction made by the elders. That might be one of those things like in the old time cartoons where they had the little hook that comes and, you know, grabs you and kind of whisks you away. That might happen. You wouldn't put up with teaching that was contrary to the truth of God's word. And we really shouldn't put up with it in our songs. I don't know. If we're teaching and admonishing one another in the songs that we sing, those songs really need to be accurate.

With respect to what the Scriptures teach. Many of our songs make allusions, as you've probably noticed often, to specific Scriptures, even borrowing sometimes specific words or phrases from Scriptures with which we are familiar. Some songs use phrases and certainly use some of the figures that we see in Scripture as well. And so this morning, I want to talk about the song that we just sang. I think it is a wonderful song. We sang it not too long ago, and as we were singing it just a couple, three weeks or more ago, it struck me how many different connections there are in this song's lyrics with various Scriptures and even some concepts in Scripture, if not specific references. to verses themselves.

I know that we just sang this song, and so you maybe have the lyrics in your mind, but we're going to look at each of the verses of this song, and I want to point out what I think are some of the connections, some of the references that the song makes. And I think my objective this morning primarily is simply to emphasize the message of the song, but to show that this song is grounded in so many different passages. I'll be frank with you. I am absolutely certain that I'm not going to bring out every passage that perhaps the songwriter had in mind, and I may bring out some passages that maybe the songwriter didn't have in mind, but it's astounding to me how many connections there are in the verses of this song, O Church Arise, with scriptures that we are familiar with. And so I want to point out that this song is grounded in so many different passages, and I want to begin with the first verse.

And if you'll pardon me, I'm going to go ahead and reread the verses, even though we just sang the song so that these concepts are fresh in our mind. Verse 1 says, O church, arise and put your armor on. Hear the call of Christ our captain. For now the weak can say that they are strong in the strength that God has given. With shield of faith and belt of truth, we'll stand against the devil's lies. An army bold whose battle cry is love, reaching out to those in darkness. I want to suggest to you that the summary of this first verse is simply that as Christians, we are engaged in a spiritual battle. I know most of us, if not all of us, really would prefer not to be involved in controversy. We would like to get along with other people and to have peace and harmony. Not just with our brethren, but with others as well.

But the Bible says that we are soldiers in Christ's service. It uses that figure the New Testament does many times, and this song does as well. As Christians, we are engaged in a spiritual battle. And as a result, we are instructed to put on the panoply, the armor of God. In fact, twice in the reading that was done from Ephesians 6, we are told to put on or take up the armor of God. And there are references to specific parts or elements of that armor.

I'm going to read the various scriptures. We've got a number of scriptures that I want to kind of look at. If you'll pardon me, I'm not going to spend the time to give you the context of every scripture that we read, but rather just make the connection to the verse with which it's associated. Unless, of course, you want me to give the context of every passage.

Yeah, I think that was no. So I'm going to just read these passages quickly, and I think you'll see the connections. Of course, the passage in Ephesians 6 verses 10 and 11 tells us to be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. That's the charge that's given in this first verse. Put your armor on. Arise, put your armor on. And also in verse, in the third stanza, for now the weak can say that they are strong in the strength that God has given. And it emphasizes the fact that our strength, our defense against the evil one lies in the armor that God provides his people. I'm having a little bit of trouble this morning with drainage, and so if you'll pardon me, hopefully I won't lose my voice or anything, but if we continue.

In chapter 6 of Ephesians, Paul writes, Stand therefore having fastened on the belt of truth and taking up, in verse 16, the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. Those elements of the panoply or the armor of God are mentioned here will stand against the devil's lies with these elements or pieces of the Lord's armor.

It's interesting to me that the verse, the second stanza says, Hear the call of Christ, our captain. In the ESV, the phrase or the word captain is not used in the translation of Hebrews 2.10 or Hebrews 12 and verse 2. But in the New King James Version and in the King James Version, that's the translation. He is the captain of our salvation. Vine makes the observation that that word archegos is a word that means one who takes the lead or who provides the first occasion of something. And Jesus is the one who is our captain. He takes the lead. He took the lead in opposing Satan. He took the lead in suffering for righteousness. And he's the one who went first into the presence. The first.

Fruits of those who would follow eventually. That's us. And so the Hebrew writer says, for it was fitting for him for whom are all things and by whom are all things and bringing many sons to glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. This verse also emphasizes that our strength is in the Lord. And I understand that's very difficult to read, but Paul is talking in second Corinthians, the 12th chapter about the fact that he had seen many revelations and in order to humble him, it was permitted that he be afflicted by a thorn in the flesh. And he prayed to God for the removal of this thorn. But the Lord's response in verse nine, middle of that section was my grace is sufficient for you for my power, is made perfect in weakness. And so Paul then concludes, therefore, I will.

Boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, and I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Now that's not necessarily the case with everyone. An individual may wallow in their weakness, but Paul is saying that when I am weak, and I am forced to depend on the Lord for strength, that's when I'm really strong. And the verse brings that out. For now the weak can say that they are strong in the strength that God has given. In 2 Corinthians, the 13th chapter, verse 4, Paul once again talks about weakness. For he, Christ, was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him, by the power of God.

There's something interesting about this battle, however. If you look at the verse, the last two lines, stanzas say, an army bold whose battle cry is love reaching out to those in darkness. That's not typically the battle cry of those who are involved in some sort of carnal or physical war or battle. Destroy the enemy is kind of the cry that you would expect. But the battle cry here with us in our bold fight against the enemy is love. And we are reaching out to those who are in darkness. In Ephesians, the fifth chapter, verse eight, Paul reminds them that at one time they were darkness, these Christians. But now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. He wrote to the Colossians. Colossians in chapter one in verse 13, that Christ God, or rather, I should say, has delivered.

Us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son. We were called out of darkness, Peter would say in 1 Peter 2, that we might proclaim the excellencies of God. When the apostle Paul was making his defense in the book of Acts in chapter 26 before the Roman governor and King Agrippa, he related the commission that he had been given by the Lord. If you recall, Paul had been a persecutor who became a saint who was commissioned as an apostle. And Paul says in chapter 26 and verse 18 that he was called by God to go to the Gentiles to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. They may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

We were in darkness, but now we're children of light. And our task as soldiers of the Lord is to reach out to those who are in darkness, help them come into the light of life. Well, let's take a look at the second verse. And once again, I'd like to read it along with you. The writer says, Our call to war, to love the captive soul, but to rage against the captor. And with the sword that makes the wounded whole, we will fight with faith and valor. When faced with trials on every side, we know the outcome is secure, and Christ will have the prize for which he died, an inheritance of nations.

We're in a different kind of fight. If you notice, he says, we love the captive soul, the one that we're trying to reach, the one that we're in battle with. We're actually trying to release that person from the bondage of sin, obviously through the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're instruments that Christ uses in that task. But notice also, he says, and with the sword that makes the wounded whole. Back in Ephesians 6, Paul says that the sword of the Spirit is the Word of God. But you don't heal people with swords. You injure them with swords. Typically in a physical body, that's your offensive weapon and a defensive weapon as well. But it's the way that you strike at the enemy. But the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, is the way that the wounded is actually healed. And there's irony. In the phrasing of...

That verse. In 2 Timothy 2, verses 24 through 26, Paul also helps us gain perspective in this struggle that we have with the people around us. And the Lord's servant, he wrote, must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness. Not quarrelsome, kind, patiently correcting with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will. Our call to war, to love the captive soul, the people around us in the world are not really the.

The enemy. They are those who are being held captive by the evil one, by their own choices, and yet our task, our struggle, is to help free them from this bondage.

With the sword that makes the wounded whole. In 2 Corinthians, the 10th chapter, in verses 4 through 6, Paul talks about the kind of warfare that he was engaged in. It appears from the beginning of that text, that chapter, that Paul may have been accused by some at Corinth of behaving in somewhat of a carnal way. But Paul says we don't fight with carnal weapons. He says instead the weapons of our warfare have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Paul says what we're trying to do is change the way people think. We're trying to defeat the ideas that would keep people in bondage to sin. We don't use weapons of, carnal warfare.

We're trying to capture the minds of people using the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. This particular verse ends by saying, and Christ will have the prize for which he died, an inheritance of nations. It's interesting that usually when we think of an inheritance in New Testament terms, we think of our inheritance. We think of eternal life. And Peter writes about that in 1 Peter 1, verses 3 and 4. But this verse is talking about Christ's inheritance. And it reminds us, perhaps, of the Messianic second psalm, where in the midst of that psalm, the writer says, I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. A verse that's quoted several times in the New Testament and a place that's quoted in the New Testament. It's applied each time to the Christ, to Jesus. Ask of me.

And I will make the nations your heritage. Heritage is just another word for inheritance. And the ends of the earth your possession. So inheritance here, as defined by the verse, is the nations who would come into this body of Christ, who would belong to Christ, who would become part of his kingdom, those over whom he ruled. Even in Isaiah 53, a passage that we typically think of as describing in great detail suffering of Jesus on the cross, and that is certainly true. But as you work down toward verse 11, the writer Isaiah says, Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. His knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. God is being spoken of, but Christ is the one who is going to make many to be accounted righteous. How did he do that?

He died on the cross. He provided for our forgiveness. And in that sense, we become part of His inheritance, part of His heritage. The Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 1 and verse 12, and I'm quoting from the New King James Version here, he writes, For this reason I also suffer these things. Nevertheless, I'm not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that day. When we become Christians, we are making a commitment to Christ, and the promise that He has made for us is that we will have eternal life. Paul says, I'm confident that God can keep what I've committed to Him until that day of judgment, until that day. In Ephesians 1, verse 18, I believe this passage is really talking about the very same thing as the song that we're looking at, that.

Having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which He has called you, what are the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints. We are, as God's people, Christ's inheritance.

And he died to achieve that inheritance.

The third verse, I think, can be summarized briefly as being Christ the victor. Come, see the cross, where love and mercy meet, as the Son of God is stricken. Then, see his foes lie crushed beneath his feet, for the conqueror has risen. As the stone is rolled away and Christ emerges from the grave, this victory march continues till the day every eye and heart shall see him.

I had to cut the number off here on this particular verse. There are so many verses that relate to the things that are said here, some of which we will not take time to look at. But I want you to notice a couple of things here that we won't point out necessarily in verses. If you look at the second line, it says, as the Son of God is stricken. But when you go down to the sixth line, it says, and Christ emerges from the grave. Why did the author of the song swap those two ideas? Why did he change from the Son of God to the Christ?

And I think the reason is to emphasize what was going on at the cross. It wasn't just a human being being put to death. It was the Son of God in human flesh. And I think that's the reason why the Hebrew author says more than once that by one sacrifice, he has cleansed forever all sins of those who will respond to him. And he says in verse 5 there, And as the stone is rolled away, and Christ emerges from the grave.

Christ, a term for the anointed one, a term that describes one that God has selected. The Christ is the king of the Old Testament. We could put 2 Samuel 7 up here, 12-14, where David is promised that one of his descendants would sit on the throne. Or we could look at Romans 1 and verse 4 that talks about the resurrection of Jesus Christ being essentially the demonstration of the Spirit to the validity of Jesus' deity. There are so many verses that relate to this idea that the resurrection is tied to the rule of Jesus Christ. And we'll kind of try to indicate some of that as we go through some of these passages.

The first two lines, see the cross where the Son of God is stricken. Then, see His foes lie crushed beneath His feet. The contrast there. The cross looked like a defeat. I think even the apostles may have seen that as a defeat, not understanding what was going to be accomplished there. Peter defends Jesus in the garden with his sword to stop what's going on. But this was part of God's plan. The cross is the instrument of Jesus' victory. I'm going to thank Phil for going through some of the passages here, and I won't bother to comment on them because he made a good point about the love of God being illustrated in the cross. But John 3.16 was one of the passages that he suggested. And Romans 5.8, another one that Phil read this morning, suggesting that, in the cross, what we see is the love of God.

1 John 4 also read by Phil a little bit earlier this morning as we were contemplating the Lord's sacrifice in preparation for partaking of the Lord's Supper. When God gave His Son, it's talking about putting Jesus on the cross. And that was a manifestation, an exhibition of divine love. But the cross is where love and mercy meet because it's through the cross that God can extend mercy to us and not have to provide us with justice, which is what we deserve as a result of our sins. Think about that concept that love and mercy are perfectly joined together in that death, that sacrifice on the cross. But the risen Savior rules. We esteemed Him. Stricken. That's an interesting word. When was the...

The last time you used the word stricken in any other context other than maybe reading from Isaiah chapter 53. That's just not an English word that we use very much. And so it stands out in the stanza as being the connection to Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 4. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But the risen Savior rules. In Acts, the second chapter in that sermon on the day of Pentecost, Luke records the comments of Peter. And Peter says in verse 34, for David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. That all the house of Israel know therefore for certain that God has made him both Lord, one who has authority to command, and Christ, the anointed King.

Of the Old Testament, this Jesus whom you crucified. Jesus was raised from the dead and was made to rule. In Psalm 89 and verse 23, another psalm that I believe is messianic, the writer says, I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him.

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul writes in verse 25, For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. Jesus is ruling and he is crushing his foes under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. In Hebrews 2, verse 14, there's an interesting statement there that has to be understood according to the meaning of the words that are used there. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil. The word destroy there has to be understood in the sense of bringing to ruin, essentially defeating, not annihilating or causing someone to pass out. The devil still is at work. He still exists.

But as far as his power is concerned, the end has been foreseen. Death will be destroyed. He's the one who has the power of death. But in the resurrection, Christ will have the victory. And so Hebrews 2.14 talks about the victor, the conqueror, as he emerged from the grave as the first fruits of those who would follow in the general resurrection. Jesus is the conqueror. And the last two lines of this verse, interesting, I don't know if we are making this connection, but in 2 Corinthians, the second chapter, in verses 14 and 15, Paul makes an allusion there, I'm pretty confident, to the Roman triumph that might be granted to a general, a Roman general, who had had some noteworthy campaigns or who had won some great war with...

Some enemy out in the provinces.

And the triumph was a once-in-a-lifetime honor. The general would be in a chariot drawn by white horses. And to that chariot sometimes would be tied significant captives, maybe the king or generals, other generals that had been defeated. And flowers would be on the streets, and the aroma of the flowers would contribute to the whole experience of the triumph. He would then ride through the streets of Rome in this triumph, while the people of Rome gave him honor and praised him for his accomplishment. And in 2 Corinthians 2, Paul talks about that very thing when he says, But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads the fruit. Fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ.

God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. This victory march continues till the day every eye and heart shall see him. You know, that Roman triumph, it would end. It was probably a relatively brief thing in terms of a person's lifespan. But what the writer here is saying is that we continue to be led in this victory march, that every day you and I as Christians are living faithful to the Lord. We are essentially evidence of his triumph. And that lasts until the day, as he says, every eye and heart shall see him. Well, verse four, by the way, did I mention that I am using the 12 verse edition of this song?

I don't know any verse, any edition that has 12 verses. This is the last verse, the one that we sang. So Spirit come, put strength in every stride, give grace for every hurdle, that we may run with faith to win the prize of a servant good and faithful. As saints of old still line the way, retelling triumphs of His grace, we hear their calls and hunger for the day, when with Christ we stand. Glory. And I think the summary of this verse is basically the achieving of glory. The Holy Spirit empowers us as we believe the revealed Word of God. I'm going to share with you two verses that are taken out of prayers that Paul wrote in his epistles. The first one is in Romans, the 15th chapter. In this benediction, Paul says, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. So Spirit, come, put strength in every strife. The Spirit can empower us, as Paul talks about in Ephesians 3 and verse 16, that according to the riches of His glory, Paul prays on behalf of the Ephesians, He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being. Now, some may conclude that that's a special work of the Holy Spirit, in some way a miraculous thing. I don't think that's what's being said here. I think the Holy Spirit works in you and works in me, in the inner man, as we understand and apply the Word of God, the revealed Word of God, revealed by the Holy Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit empowers us in the inner man, so that we can run. With faith.

And able to for every hurdle in Hebrews the 29th or the 10th chapter verse 29th verse spirit is referred to as the spirit of grace this is in the context of a warning talking about those who are leaving the Lord but I find it interesting that the Holy Spirit is described as the spirit of grace not hard to understand why it's through the spirit that we experience the grace the favor of God if it hadn't been for the revelation of the gospel we wouldn't know anything about what maybe God would do for us and the verse goes on to talk about us running a race and I think the figure changes here a little bit which frankly is a little disappointing to me but it's another figure that's used in scripture to talk about the life of a Christian not just the battle as a soldier in the Lord's army but also one who's running this race you as you'll see.

In Hebrews the 12th chapter in verse 1. The verse, that we may run with faith to win the prize, servant good and faithful. Hebrews 12 and verse 1 says, therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, I think that's a reference to the people who had been mentioned, some by name and others just in a general way in chapter 11. Individuals who operated by faith, who acted on their faith and accomplished great things. Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. I don't believe that the Hebrew writer is saying that all of these people of the Old Testament, all those who have passed on, who have been faithful, that they're watching our lives. But I think they serve as witnesses to the fact that it is possible for us to live successfully. And again...

Reward to be approved of God as these Old Testament saints were.

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. The Holy Spirit enables us by empowering us in the inner man. The Apostle Paul in Philippians 3, I think, also makes an allusion to that same idea of pressing on, being persistent, enduring in this race. Brothers, I do not consider that I've made it my own, he writes, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. In this fourth line, he says, Run with faith to win the prize of a servant good and faithful. Does that bring a passage to your mind? Maybe it brings Matthew chapter 25, that parable of the talents, where Jesus talks about three individuals given responsibility, and then the accounting for that responsibility.

Verse 20, And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, Master, you delivered to me five talents. Here, I've made five talents more. His master said to him, Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master. And it's said the same thing with the next man who also used the talents that had been given to him to achieve gain. Good and faithful servant.

We hear their calls and hunger for the day when we, with Christ, stand in glory. Christians hunger for their eternal reward. In 2 Corinthians, the fifth chapter, Paul writes about our bodies, describing them as tense, temporary dwellings. And that's really what they are. They're perishable. They're mortal. And we'll, at some point, shuffle off this physical coil and our spirit will await that changed body, that resurrected body. He says, for in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. That's the idea of hungering or desiring intensely. If indeed, by putting it on, we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened. Not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal... may be swallowed up.

By life. It's not just that I want to eliminate this body that's weak and mortal. I'm looking forward to a better body, one that is immortal, one that is sown or reaped in honor and power. In the fifth chapter of Romans, we see the same thing. We stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

We're going to be studying 2 Corinthians 4 in the auditorium class this morning. We'll be looking at this particular verse, verse 17. Because in the verse, by the way, anybody in the class who wants to write down this answer, I'm giving you the answer right here to one of the questions. But what Paul does is he takes this verse and he contrasts two things in two ways. He says this light momentary affliction, talking about the severity and the duration of the affliction that might be ours in this life, is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. And so Paul says, because of that, we look to the things that are unseen, not to the things that are seen. We're looking forward to, we're hungering for the day when with Christ, we stand in glory, that eternal weight of glory.

And then finally in Colossians 3 and verse 4, Paul writes, When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.

In this life...

From time to time we deal with death. The death of loved ones. The death of people that we've known over the years. And we understand that this is all temporary.

And we need not get too comfortable in these bodies because life is short and tenuous.

And it can end at any time. But what we are looking forward to is that glory that's on the other side of the end of this life.

This song is a call to action. We're engaged in a spiritual battle. It's different than physical battles. We're actually trying to recover those who have been taken captive. And the real enemy is the evil one who has made them captives through their sin. The victory of our leader, Jesus Christ, is brought before our eyes in this song. Oh, it looks like he's stricken. But then he emerges from the grave. He's the conqueror. And it is through that cross that he gains the victory for us. And we're reminded in this song of the successful finish of others in the past. Those who tell of God's grace that they've experienced. I think that's an allusion to Hebrews 11, as we noted earlier. And it gives... Gives us strength. And helps us...

Endure knowing that this is not an impossible task. This fight, this race we are running. The rich lyrics of this song make many connections to Scripture. But I want to focus on that last couple phrases in verse 4. Paul writes in Romans 2, beginning in verse 7, as he talks about the judgment. He says, To those who by patience and well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury. There will be tribulation and distress for every human being who does evil, the Jew first and also the Greek. But glory and honor and peace for everyone who does good. The Jew first and also the Greek. The Jew first and also the Greek. The Jew first and also the Greek. first and also the Greek.

With Christ in glory? Or will you suffer wrath and tribulation and distress, the fury of the Lord because of unrighteousness? What does your future look like this morning?

It doesn't look like glory. If that's not what you're anticipating, then you have the opportunity this morning through your obedience to the gospel to join the Lord's army, to be given that hope of eternal glory, the eternal weight of glory that awaits all those who serve Christ in this life. What does your future look like? If we can assist you in changing that this morning, then we want to encourage you and invite you to do so as we stand in service.