Sermon Notes: Still Crazy After All These Years

Introduction

• Speaker shares personal experiences traveling to Chicago for the holidays, humorously addressing heightened expectations during holiday seasons.
• Reflects on nagging versus coaching, relating this to spiritual growth and God’s purpose for His people.

Main Theme

• God’s promises remain steadfast across time.
• Humanity’s recurring failure to trust and follow God despite His unwavering faithfulness.
• The title reflects Israel’s ongoing struggles to understand and embrace God’s ways.

Old Testament Overview

• God’s constancy: The same yesterday, today, and forever.
• Key events timeline:
  • 1,650 years between Adam and the Flood.
  • Abraham’s covenant and the formation of Israel.
  • The Exodus and Moses leading Israel to freedom.
  • Joshua bringing Israel into the Promised Land.
  • The era of Kings: Saul, David, Solomon, and beyond.

Solomon’s Reign

• Early success:
  • Solomon asks God for wisdom to govern wisely.
  • Peace and prosperity across Israel under Solomon’s leadership.
  • Construction of the Temple in Jerusalem as a symbol of God’s presence.
  • Dedication prayer emphasizing devotion to God.
• God’s warning:
  • Faithfulness required to maintain blessings.
  • Disobedience would lead to exile and loss of blessings.
• Downfall:
  • Solomon’s foreign wives introduce idolatry.
  • Heavy taxation for luxurious projects leads to division among tribes.
  • The kingdom divides into Israel (north) and Judah (south).

Recurring Themes

• Idolatry in the Bible:
  • Worship of false gods and misplaced priorities.
  • Solomon’s tolerance of idol worship marked a turning point.
• Lessons from the prophets of the Old Testament:
  • Prophets like Elijah called for repentance and warned of consequences.
  • Elijah’s dramatic confrontation with Baal’s prophets demonstrates God’s power.
• Unified worship:
  • Importance of worshiping God alone, as seen in the central role of the Temple.

Key Lessons

1. God’s Promises in the Bible:
   • God is faithful and always ready to forgive when His people repent.
   • His patience is evident throughout Israel’s history.
2. Obedience to God:
   • Halfway obedience leads to destruction; wholehearted devotion is necessary.
3. Unity in Worship:
   • Worshiping together in unity strengthens faith and fulfills God’s design for His people.

New Testament Connection

• Communion serves as a reminder of God’s ultimate promise: salvation through Jesus Christ.
• Jesus’ sacrifice fulfills God’s plan to reconcile humanity to Himself.

Closing Reflection

• Despite centuries of rebellion, God’s grace remains available to all who turn to Him.
• Encouragement to trust in God’s promises, avoid idolatry, and live in unity as His people.

Communion Observance

• Reflection on Jesus’ body and blood as symbols of His sacrifice.
• Reminder of God’s invitation to draw near through Christ’s atonement.

Call to Action

• This holiday season, prioritize God above all else.
• Worship with a whole heart, trust His provision, and live as unified followers of Christ.

Hebrews 13:8 (NLT)

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

1 Kings 4:25 (NLT)
“Throughout the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel lived in peace and safety. And from Dan in the north to Beersheba in the south, each family had its own home and garden.”

1 Kings 9:4-5 (NLT)
“As for you, if you will follow me with integrity and godliness as David your father did, obeying all my commands, decrees, and regulations, then I will establish the throne of your dynasty over Israel forever.”

1 Kings 9:6-7 (NLT)
“But if you or your descendants abandon me and disobey the commands and decrees I have given you, and if you serve and worship other gods, then I will uproot Israel from this land that I have given them.”

1 Kings 18:37-38 (NLT)
“O Lord, answer me! Answer me so these people will know that you, O Lord, are God and that you have brought them back to yourself. Immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, and the dust. It even licked up all the water in the trench!”

Deuteronomy 17:16-17 (NLT)
“The king must not build up a large stable of horses for himself or send his people to Egypt to buy horses, for the Lord has told you, ‘You must never return to Egypt.’ The king must not take many wives for himself, because they will turn his heart away from the Lord. And he must not accumulate large amounts of wealth in silver and gold for himself.”

Books and Articles

“The Promise Keeper: God of the Covenants” by R.C. Sproul

Explores God’s faithfulness and promises throughout Scripture.

Relevant to understanding the timeline of biblical covenants and their fulfilments.

https://amzn.to/3BfxHJw

“Counterfeit Gods” by Timothy Keller

A deep dive into modern idolatry and how to place God above all else.

Connects to the theme of turning from false worship to wholehearted devotion.

https://amzn.to/3OG1P3S

“Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts” by Jerry Bridges

A classic resource on trusting God during difficult times.

Reinforces the sermon’s message about faith and God’s provision.

https://amzn.to/3Zp65JY

Bible Study Resources

“The Prophets of Israel” by Rose Publishing

A detailed chart and study guide covering the Old Testament prophets, their roles, and timelines.

https://amzn.to/4ihSY67

“The Chronological Guide to the Bible” by Thomas Nelson

Helps readers understand the Bible in its historical order, with insights into the kings and prophets.

https://amzn.to/3OEKgkH

Online Tools

Bible Gateway’s Topic Search

Look up themes like “God’s Promises,” “Prophets,” or “Idolatry” for quick scriptural references.

Visit here

Blue Letter Bible Commentaries

In-depth commentaries on 1 Kings, Deuteronomy, and other books referenced in the sermon.

Visit here

*This contains affiliate links, and Sermons by Pastor Jim Brown may earn a small commission from qualifying purchases. All proceeds go directly toward supporting the maintenance and operation of the website. Thank you for your support!

Still Crazy After All These Years | God’s Promises in the Bible

 And find your seats. I hope that was helpful and gives people a chance in the back to get back with us. So we missed you Last week. We were in Chicago and brought back crud with us, the Chicago crud. I understand Edil Woolley crud has been going around too, so you’ll have to excuse me every once in a while if I have to turn aside. So anyway, yes, things in Chicago. Well, is there snow? There was a little snow. Yeah, there was snow. You’re headed out that way soon. What was I think more interesting than the snow was the 12 degrees, and that’s just the beginning of winter. Okay? They weren’t talking about windchill factors yet. But yeah, along with that comes all the family things at holidays, and that’s sort of what we did is we went there for the holidays and every time we do that, we say we’re never going back for the holidays. What is this? We go back there other times and it’s always more relaxed and we just seem to enjoy ourselves more. But at holidays it seems like expectations get heightened, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know why it is. Maybe is it just my family?

And you’ve got to ask yourself, well, what’s really the difference between nagging and coaching? Did you ever try out for a team or were ever on a team and you have a coach that just keeps on driving you, driving you, driving you or you’re wanting, you’re in a class and the teacher just keeps on pushing you to do better, pushing you to do better. And then you’ve got your mom and you say, what’s going on here? And you wonder what’s going on here? Is she nagging me or what? But a lot of it has to do with the receiving end. I think in those cases people are actually trying to help us grow. They want to see us do better. And so it can come across as nagging on the receiving end, but more often than not, it’s on the giving end. It’s something to help us.

And so oftentimes we have to change our attitude towards it, don’t we? And just say, what is it God? Do you want us to learn here as people try to help us grow? And that’s what God’s done throughout the years is he’s always stretched the people of Israel. And as we study the Old Testament, now we’re trying to take the overview of it. Remember not each, all these little details, but the overview that God hasn’t changed yesterday. He’s the same God today, and he’ll be the same God forever. So therefore we can look at the Old Testament the same as we look at the New Testament as we look at today, and we can look at eternity with him. He’s the same gracious, loving God and hasn’t changed. In looking at that. You might think, well the message still crazy after all these years. Where does that fit in with the Christmas season?

Like I said, we were just at the home for the holidays, right? And it’s still crazy after all these years things haven’t changed. Holiday seasons, things get heightened. We still have the same problems, same expectations, same issues we run into year after year after year, and not just at the holidays, but all the time. And then I began to look at the history that we’ve gone through with Israel over the past several weeks and the timeline up there. There we go. It’s a little hard to see, but you’ve got one in your bulletin there. But you can see what I started to do here is put in the years I looked at a lot of different timelines and they always have the numbering backwards because it’s before Christ. I don’t know how you do with math, but I have trouble enough counting forward. You get a loan backwards all the time.

So I just put the number of years in here between different major events that we’ve looked at. So as you can see here in Genesis one through eight between Adam and the flood was basically 1,650 years according to the genealogies. Okay? That’s what a lot of people have figured. But then there’s other time in there that isn’t unaccounted for, but there it is. And then Babel and between Abraham and Jacob and so on, you can see there’s a lot of years piled up that throughout this time God was working with the people. And from Adam to Abraham, do you remember what some of his major purpose was there? It was to show the people how much they needed a savior, how much we have a tendency to continually get away from God. And then Abraham came along and he says, okay, I’m going to put a nation together under Abraham and that nation is going to show the whole world who I am and represent me.

And he made that promise to Abraham and then through Abraham and his sons and Jacob and so on, God built a nation. But the problem was that nation as he was building it kept on having trouble following God. They just kept on saying, I’ve seen you do the miracles. I’ve seen you do this. I’ve seen you do that, but how do I know you’re going to take care of me tomorrow? How do I know you’re going to do things the same way forever? They just didn’t trust God in his word based on how he had always shown himself in the past and what he was doing in their lives presently. So then at Jacob, they end up getting exiled into Egypt because they weren’t following God. And so that was a time they really grew as a nation. They really multiplied, which was a miracle in and of itself that a large family of several hundred could turn into a nation of millions in a period of 300 or 400 years.

And then they get out of Egypt, Moses delivers ’em, and they complain and they complain and they complain that God’s not going to take care of him, that he isn’t taking care of him even though he’s feeding them every day, even though he walked them through the Red Sea on dry land and there was a pillar of fire by night to guide them and all this stuff, they’re still not paying attention. And finally after Moses gets done with them, the light bulb comes on and Joshua leads them into the promised land. Things are really good that they have victory after victory in the promised land. God is just showing them how he will take care of them and he does actually lead them. Then we get to King Saul, all now the people demanded a king and God says, you don’t need one right now.

But they said, yes, we do, because Lord, we’re tired of trusting you. Basically we want to be able to have a king give us direction rather than God himself. Give them direction. So he said, okay, you can have a king turned out to be a bad king. He kind of mistreated the people. He got away from God and God’s word and God had to judge him. And he put David into place and David was a good king. And again, he brought the people of Israel up, brought him closer to God, he lived close to God. And then we get to Solomon, and that’s where we’re at today.

That’s the Old Testament. How did I do? So Solomon this whole time? What God really wants to teach to people is that he wants to have a relationship with them. He doesn’t want to just be that God out there in space, but he wants people to say, I love you God, I want to be close to you God. And in saying that, he will come close to us, but only until we want it. If we don’t want it, he’s not going to force himself on us. And that’s what he’s told the people of Israel over and over and over. I’m not going to force myself on you, but if you don’t follow my ways, you’re going to end up distant and you’re going to end up in trouble. Lots of trouble because my ways are right and my ways are good, your ways will always end in destruction.

And so they ended up in self-destruction, time after time, year after year. And all I can say is after looking at all those years, they’re still crazy. They’re still crazy. After all these years of seeing God work, they just haven’t got a clue. God desires us to worship him, not worship a lot of other things but worship him. Why? Because it’s good for us, not good for him. It’s good for us to acknowledge that there is an almighty God of the universe and that should be central in our lives throughout the Old Testament time, after time after time, God says, I need to be central. And everything else revolve around that. Not whatever you choose or your own life to be central and me be one of the several things that revolve around you or the other things that you choose as god’s. The repetition is deafening throughout the Old Testament over and over and over again.

But it’s not only in the Old Testament, these things happen. So a lot of you know, Raylynn and I have been on a missionary journey for the last 10 years in that when God brought us out of Chicago to the Pacific Northwest, we didn’t have a big idea of what we were getting into. We just knew God called us out here to help people be free in Christ. We didn’t know how that was going to be done. We didn’t know how it would be financed. We knew we had some money which got spent in the first 18 months. And then after that, God led us to be supported as missionaries, as people believed in our ministry, they would support us. He didn’t give us the freedom to go out and ask for money or explain the ministry in ways to ask for money to show how good it was.

We just went on day by day doing what God called us to do to help people be free in Christ and see God supply our needs. It was a white knuckle ride, it really was. But he always supplied. For 10 years we saw him supply. And there were times that things got kind of desperate looking only because we looked far in the future, but when those times came to pay those bills, they were always paid. We couldn’t always explain it. We never had enough monthly support in a sense to make our bills. We never did. We were always at least a third short in a commitment, but God always met our needs time after time. And I got together with some other missionaries and we were talking about support and things like that. And you know what we all concluded? We were all still looking for some sugar daddy to take us on.

Isn’t that sad? Seeing God supply our needs over and over month after month, time after time, miracle after Miracle, and we’re still waiting for that guarantee that somebody, some big wealthy Christian would come along and say, I’ll take you on. Don’t worry about a thing. When we had the God of the universe applying for us, the Book of Kings continues the account of Israel who saw God work time after time in their behalf, delivering them, loving them, directing them, providing it’s written to people, believe it or not, who are in exile. Now, this isn’t the same exile as in Moses time the Book of Kings was written to people that after several hundred years of having kings screwed up enough that they’re back in exile again. And that’s who this is written. It’s like in a sense, some people look at it as a history book, but it’s a lot more than history.

It’s a documentation of the spiritual condition of the time of kings. In Israel’s history, the author was a prophet. Most people feel it was Jeremiah, he was called the weeping prophet. His diagnosis comes with boring regularity. Here are some examples that go on in the Book of Kings. In one Kings 15 it says, talking about the different kings, he committed the same sins as his father did before him. His heart was not right with the Lord. One Kings six or 1626 says He followed in the example of ome, continuing in the sins of idolatry that ome had led Israel to commit. And then in two kings, it also says in 23, he did what was the evil in the Lord’s sight just as his ancestors had done. Now these are all talking about different kings, and it says this over and over and over again about each king coming into Israel just committing the same old thing over and over and over again.

So it’s not just a historical record, but a commentary on the spiritual condition of Israel and how they got to exile. Again, one kings has two parts in it. This is one Kings now has two parts. Part one is chapters one through 11. Chapters one through 11 is the rise and fall of King Solomon. That’s David’s son. And so he took over. And then part two is chapters 12 through 22, and it’s the early days of the divided kingdom. So you can see things didn’t go for very many generations before things began going downhill. King Solomon’s reign times were good. At first there was a lot of hope, a lot of anticipation. It was the Glory Days Book begins with Solomon coming to the throne and ruling over all of Israel. Chapters one and two show how he got off the kind of a rough start because King David, his father didn’t tell who was supposed to succeed him on the throne there.

And so there was some rivalry there as to who would be on the throne. But David finally settled the issue said, no, Solomon’s taken over. He’ll be on the throne. And then considering the potential for chaos, Solomon moved in and things went pretty smooth. He moved in right away. He offered a thousand sacrifices to God, a thousand burnt offerings to God. And God accepted it. He was well pleased with Solomon. And he said to Solomon, I can give you anything you want. Could you imagine that God’s saying I’ll give you anything you want? And what did Solomon ask for? He asked for great wisdom. See, he understood what a big responsibility this was to be king of Israel and representing as Israel represented God to the whole world. So he asked for great wisdom, not for himself, but so that he could judge and shepherd the people wisely and that they could follow after God.

In one Kings 4 25, it says, throughout the lifetime of Solomon, all of Judah and Israel lived in peace and safety. And from all the way to the city of Dan to Bathsheba, each family had its own home and its own garden. There was peace, there was tranquility in the land. And then David, his father, had desired to build a temple to God. And he said, no, you can’t build it. There’s too much blood on your hands, but Solomon, your son will build it. And so Solomon went on about a seven year multimillion dollar building program and he built a magnificent structure.

Solomon actually built the temple in Jerusalem. It was a big place. And actually in those times, it’s hard to believe it would only take seven years. But they built this and then it had an abundance of gold and silver and marble, fine woods. The temple was one of the wonders of the world. The high point in all of Israel’s history was right now, and in chapter eight of one kings, starting at verse 22, is the dedication of this temple. Solomon has a marvelous prayer to God and he says He’s giving this to God, he’s turning it over to him and never again does the nation have this unity that they’re all looking to God completely devoted to him. Both the king and the people were together in saying, God, you’re our number one. And he blessed them and bless them and blessed them. Solomon calls on God to accept the sanctuary as a house where prayers are answered and where mercy is granted. As a result, God again appears to Solomon this time it’s a little different. He says, I accept this temple of yours. It’s good. It’s good that you have done this, but you know what?

It doesn’t guarantee anything. In one Kings nine, he says, as for you, if you see, God says, if you will follow me with integrity and goodness and keep my laws and regulations, then I will establish you. I will establish the throne, your throne, and you will reign. Life will be good, you see? But then he adds in verse six, but if you or your descendants abandon me, if they disobey me, if they go do their own thing and just kind of push me off to the side or even try to replace me, then I’m going to uproot the people from this land. That temple’s not going to guarantee my presence with you. Just because it’s there doesn’t mean I’m going to hang out with you guys that you have got to be obedient. You’ve got to love me and follow me. But if you love other things more, you can do that. But you’re not going to do it in this land. You’re going to do it somewhere else. Has God changed?

Is that same God today that still wants to have that loving relationship with us? See, God makes it clear that he will not save Israel from judgment just because his temple is there and he says the same to us. He will not guarantee his presence with us just because we’re gathered here, just because we go to church, just because we give some money or just because whatever else it is. It’s this temple, the temple of the Holy Spirit within us that God wants to be clean and dedicated to him. He wants us individually fully dedicated to him, not a bunch of outside trappings.

It doesn’t take long, but by verse 11 and one kings is the downfall. And here it is. It says He had 700 wives and 300 concubines. And sure enough, they led his heart away from the Lord. See, ultimately all the blessings became a big disappointment. Solomon’s marriages with the foreign women led to spiritual downfall. He allowed them to go to the shrine of their choice to worship. Solomon introduced false gods false worship onto Israel soil where only the true God was to be worship. The women were finally able not only to worship themselves, but to turn him away to false worship. And then in Deuteronomy 17, so Solomon already knew because this was written years and years before by Moses. It said in Deuteronomy 17 that God warned that when there’s kings, they are not to multiply their horses, they’re not to multiply their silver and they’re not to multiply their wives.

Why is that? Because the horse was the basis of military strength. And God said, you don’t need a bunch of horses to protect you. I’m there. I’ll take care of you. If you get a bunch of horses, you’re going to rely on them. It’s sort of like with me, if you get this sugar data, you won’t be relying on God. You won’t be praying every night that your dad, your needs get met. You see? So if you have a bunch of horses and then if you have a bunch of gold and silver, you won’t need me anymore. You’ll trust in those things. And then the foreign wives, well the foreign wives, they’re just going to lead you astray. They’re going to take you to areas and different gods and things like that that you shouldn’t be going into all kinds of immorality, all kinds of impurity. And the devotion is going to be away from God and spread out to a bunch of other things. Now, Solomon didn’t quit worshiping God. He worshiped God among others. That was the problem. It wasn’t God and God only. So Solomon flagrantly violated all of those commands in Deuteronomy.

Also in one Samuel, God warned Israel that heavy taxation would accompany having a king. And this is another one of Solomon’s downfalls. In order for his huge government and his luxurious lifestyle and all of these things, he kept on taxing the people more and more and more. And for that, finally the 10 northern tribes of Israel, there were 12 tribes altogether, 10 northern tribes were taken away from Solomon’s reign and given to one of his servants, it wasn’t passed on to his son. So that’s where we begin the divided kingdom at the end of Solomon’s life, which only is about a half a chapter left because after the fall things went quick. You got the divided kingdom, you’ve got the northern kingdom.

I got this little, it’s not just something you tease the cat with, right? This is the real purpose for one of these. Did anybody know that this is what this was designed for originally? But you got the northern kingdom in the southern kingdom. The northern kingdom, when they broke away called themselves Israel or were continued to be called Israel. The southern kingdom was Judah. They each started out with different kings. First northern had ome, and Southern had, EMBO was the son of Solomon, and he was to be the fourth king originally over all of Israel. But the people in the north said, we’re only going to support you if you cut our taxes. This is really getting outrageous. And Rebo very irrationally refused their request. And so the 10 Northern tribes chose ome for their king in the southern kingdom. Rebo proved to be an evil king. He’s very self-centered. He was not smart. He didn’t have the wisdom of his dad, and he didn’t judge the people rightly so. The glory of Solomon’s days began to fade rather quickly, not because Ray Obama was such a bad person, but because of what his dad started. His dad started to introduce other things as being as important as God. Not necessarily more important, but just as important as God.

So in the north you got Jbo leading. And although there was a political division now among the people, there was a real problem. The problem was that the two nations were still united religiously. Jerusalem was the official place of worship. And Jarome didn’t want to support that. He didn’t want his people in the north going to the south to worship. So he came up with an idea. He figured that he would not be able to maintain that political division as long as there was religious unity. And he set up two separate places to worship in his own territory in the north and in the south. And among all things he chose calves. Remember back in Moses day, okay, he chooses the same thing, sets up a calf in the north, sets up a calf in the south and says, okay, you guys, you can worship here.

Now, he wasn’t saying these calves were a different God. No. He was saying, these calves represent God. Okay, slight departure, but it is a departure. That’s not what God said. He said, no, I’m in the temple. That big temple that was built, that was for me. So he wasn’t saying, no, I’m changing God’s on you. I’m just saying we’re going to represent that God a little differently. You would think he’d at least try to build a big temple or something. But he didn’t even do that. He went with these two bulls, two golden calves and said, let’s do this. Let’s worship these and keep our focus on the true God. Well, that didn’t work too well. And from that point on, that pollution brought the religious system step by step by step farther and farther and farther away from God. And then during this time, all this time, there were 14 prophets that came and went, and their writings are dispersed between the books of the major and minor prophets.

So when you read the major and minor prophets, sometimes there’s a little confusion as to when they were and what they were. But they were talking about this time, some of them were more assigned to the north, some were assigned to the south. Some kind of talked to both of them. And so people associate the words of prophets oftentimes with some sort of supernatural insight or maybe a prophecy about the Messiah or some future event. But really what the job of the prophets was, the main job for a prophet is to call people the repentance, to show them where they’re sinning and say, you’ve got to go back to God. You’ve got to go back. He will forgive your sins. He’s not telling them they have to live perfect lives, but he’s saying, acknowledge the fact that you’ve sinned so that God can forgive you and you can go on with God’s blessing. That’s all. And that was the job of the prophet.

Well, the future events were important because they showed that the prophet was really from God because only God knows the future. So that was just a verification that they were really from God. So among the drama of the Old Testament and all this stuff going on there, there’s one prophet that I really enjoyed, and that is Elijah. And if you remember, Elijah faced the 400 prophets of Baal. Now, Baal was a God that was, Ahab was deciding to make the official God of Israel, and his wife was the queen. She was a foreigner. Her name was Jezebel. And she says, I want my God to be the official God of Israel. Kick your God out. And Ahab says, okay, we can do that.

And so he went a step farther than he ever should have gone. And so Elijah had to, Elijah had to confront him. And as he did that, he says, okay, we’ll do a test. We’re going to test your God, Baal against Almighty God of Israel, Yahweh, and we’re going to have sacrifices set up on altars. And whoever lights their own sacrifices is going to be the real God, okay? And all the people said, yeah, that sounds fair. Why don’t we do that? So the prophets of Baal, 400 of them got together, set up this altar with a sacrifice, and they began to wail. I mean, it was a pitiful scene. These guys were cutting on themselves, gyrating, doing all this stuff, trying to get this dead God to light his sacrifice. And this went on all day and it just wasn’t happening. And to make things worse, Elijah couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

And he’s saying, well, what’s wrong with your God? Where is he? Maybe he went to the bathroom, maybe he’s out hunting. What’s going on? Try email and nothing doesn’t light. And then it’s almighty God’s turn. And Elijah makes it difficult. He says, bring in some water. Use this old altar here that’s all broken down. We’ll just kind of rebuild it with the 12 stones, put the sacrifice on there, and then pour 12 jugs of water over it and put a trough around it to catch all this water. So it was just soaked down. And then listen to Elijah’s prayer in one Kings 18. He says, oh Lord, answer me, answer me. So these people will know that you oh Lord are God, and that you have brought them back to yourself. See, even though the people have gotten away from God, he’s saying, God, show them that you’ll take ’em back. Show ’em that all that stuff that they’ve done, even allowing Baal isn’t making a separation here that you’ll take anybody back, anybody In verse 38, immediately the fire of the Lord flashed down from heaven and burned up the young bull, the wood, the stones, the dust, it even up all the water in the ditch. Could you imagine that scene?

Man, I’d like to see a movie of that one if only Israel would learn to follow the true God. Baal is disproven. But you know what? It’s not until many years, three kings and one prophet later that Baal is removed from Israel. That wasn’t enough for them. See, the author of Kings has given us a spiritual assessment for each ruler of Israel in the north and the south. As you read through it, you’ll see that he kind of rated kings, you know how we’ve ratings today? You have ratings for everything, ratings for sports teams. You got ratings for music, ratings for Asian food. We like Asian food, hint, hint, and we like Asian food. And you say one star, four star, that kind of thing. How hot do you like it? And well, that’s sort of how it was with the kings that he had this rating system.

And actually it was about a four star rating system that they could have. And there’s only two kings that received it out of all the kings of the north and the South, and that was Hezeki and Josiah, we’ll talk about them a little bit, but none of the kings of the north would repent of the sins of ome. And throughout the scripture, it says, this king was guilty of the sin of ome, and this king didn’t repent from the sins of ome. And you say, well, what is the sin of ome? Well, sin of ome, unified worship has to go. That was the bottom line that we are not going to worship together. You worship your way. I’ll worship my way. But it’s not important that we have a unified worship. And what is it say in the New Testament? And we keep on talking about here that unity is essential to the mission of the church, isn’t it?

We have got to honor it as much today as he had to honor it back then that we are unified based on who we are in Jesus Christ. Not because we get along and everybody has the same feelings about everything and the same ideas about everything. That’s not what keeps us together. The fact that we are the body of Christ here is what keeps us together in Jesus Christ. And we can’t allow all of our opinions on carpet color and music style and all these different things to separate us. No, he wants us unified in Christ. And that’s it. And then there were the sins of Canaan. What was the sin of Canaan? Well, dery and idolatry, basically. I’m going to shorten this, but debauchery is a degeneration of moral standards. It’s just saying, Hey, things are different today than they used to be.

We don’t have the same standards anymore. The world is changing. You know that. So morality is changing what used to be right a long time ago. Well, that’s no longer right today. What used to be wrong a long time ago? Well, that’s no longer wrong today. You see, that’s debauchery. That’s when you let the moral standards just continue to degenerate and accept them. Now, God will notice throughout the Old Testament when moral standards degenerated, if people repented of it and said, yes, this is wrong, he accepted them back, but they had to stop the cycle. And then the sins of Ahab, that’s the introduction of Baal who we talked about earlier as the official God of Israel. Now, this is a step further than idol worship. It’s actually saying that there’s somebody else who is the Almighty God. That the true God is not the true God that somebody else is. And that would almost be like in this country saying in Buddha, we trust in Muhammad. We trust in me. I trust you. See, it’s taking God out of the picture completely and putting somebody else in there.

And then the last one is the worship in the high places. And that’s a failure to limit sacrifice to the temple in Jerusalem. And see, this isn’t the real disabling sin. A king could still be good like Phat or Asa, but still have this label on him, but it’s not really worshiping other gods. A lot of people think, oh, worshiping in high places, that’s other gods. No. It was worshiping the true God in the wrong place in the high places. They used to have high places that they go to worship God before they had the temple. And they’d go there and they’d worship God. And that was okay. But once the temple was established, God said, okay, now worship me in the temple. Bring it all together there. You can’t just go out in the woods and do it yourself anymore. No, I want you to do it together.

And so therefore, you need to be together, unified in your worship in one place. And so therefore, God did accept worship in other ways, sometimes in other places. If I really want to live for God and I can’t go to church today, that’s okay. But as a result, we will suffer. And that’s what happened here. And so we need to continue to work towards worshiping God. Also in our temple, I can say, oh, I’ll worship God by giving money to the church, or I’ll worship God by going to church or singing songs or doing this or doing that. But are we worshiping him with the temple of the Holy Spirit? Are we worshiping him here in our body, in our minds, and with all our actions? The idea of this last one, worshiping God in the Hyatt places. It’s really a matter of halfway obedience, just kind of following God, but not all the way, or maybe just worshiping him conveniently.

The average Israelite now who’s reading the Book of Kings, they’re sitting there in captivity. What do you think? Were they encouraged? It told them how they got in captivity again, it should bring them some hope. Should bring us some hope that God is a forgiving God. That time, after time, after time, he always said, I will take you back. So they can sit there in captivity and know that if they turn to God individually, personally, one at a time, God will take me back no matter what, as I turn to him and I repent to turn with our whole heart, God always keeps his promises. He promised to take the people out of Israel if they didn’t follow him. So look at all the years. There’s a lot of years there. They’re not all numbered on the bottom one, but there’s 500 years worth of kings. There’s 3,200 years on the top timeline, roughly.

It’s a lot of years to not get it. Isn’t it? Say, what? Are they crazy? If they’re all those years, they still don’t get it. They had lots of time to do it. Lots of time to get it right, lots of grace of God. A lot of times we’d wonder, why did you give ’em so much patience? Lord, why were you so patient with them? I mean, we can understand that they turned from God. They’d sacrifice their own children to other gods and then go on and on and on. And God still didn’t wipe ’em out yet. We’d say, God, you are so patient.

They had the scriptures to guide them. They had the prophets to warn them. They had hard times to remind them to turn to God, to turn to the one who loves them. And exile only came after God was very, very, very patient with him this morning. We have communion. It’s one of those reminders for us today on how God patiently waits for us, that Jesus patiently waits for us. It reminds us that he’s taken the punishment for our sins to fulfill the requirements of being in the presence of a holy God. That we don’t have to measure up to some high standard, that Jesus measured up to high standard so that when we sin, our sins can be forgiven through Jesus Christ. It provides a new way into a new kingdom, the kingdom of God, where we become His subjects and his children, those of us who know that we’ve had our sins forgiven through Jesus Christ, it’s open to us, each one of us, by his death, his burial, his resurrection, we escape eternal judgment of God enter into his presence for eternity.

The battle’s been won. The fight is over the contest. God came down with fire on Jesus Christ for you and I to be saved. So again, communion is open to anybody who believes in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So guys, come on forward and we’ll pass it. I ask that you as the elements pass, take it, hold it until we’re all served. And at the last supper, Jesus gave us his example and he said, thank you God for this bread, which is, and he broke it and he gave it to the disciples. He said, this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.

Next, Jesus gave the cup representing his blood, which was shed for many. So as we pass that meditate on what Jesus has done in order for us to be restored in relationship with Almighty God, and in the same way after they had finished eating, Jesus took the cup and said, this is the cup which is poured out for you. It is the covenant in my blood. Take and drink all of it. Heavenly Father, thank you for your presence here. We thank you. Your presence is here because it’s within us. I pray that as we go into this season of all the festivities, we won’t allow all the paganism, idle worship, the ways of the world to crowd you out. Lord, we don’t want you greatest among them. We want you greatest of all. They don’t even count, Lord, because you are most important to us. We love you. We praise you in Jesus’ name.

Original Sermon Date: 12/04/05

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