sermon 8-8-10

Sorry I am so late in posting this.

The things that are going on in our nation these days are revealing just how big the divide is between those that base their lives on the Sovereign God and his revelation of himself to us and those that don’t. I want to make it clear that what is going on in our nation is not about Liberal and Conservative, nothing could be further from the truth. This is about being a servant of God or a servant of man. This is about belief and unbelief in every area of life: That is the divide of our times.

Judge Vaughn Walker drew a line in the sand this week when he overturned the gay marriage ban in California and said: "The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples." In doing so he might as well have said: the evidence also clearly shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for the belief that mass murderers are different from non-mass murderers, pedophiles are different from non-pedophiles, and bank robbers are different from non-bank robbers.

But his conservative opponents did not and could not prevail in court against such reasoning because they, more than likely, believed his reasoning to be 100% correct, even if they didn’t like the outcome. Why? Because unless you live your life in submission to the God of Scripture there is no other option for law: It can only be made up by the will of the people or the will of those with power. Right and wrong is nothing but an illusion forced upon people by someone stronger if the God of Scripture is to be ignored.

Until Christians stop playing salvation games and start thinking like Christians, in accordance with every word that proceeds from the mouth of God then we are no different at the core than Judge Vaughn Walker. The issue isn’t homosexuality. The issue isn’t abortion. The issue is: when is the church going to start thinking biblically about every area of life? When are we going to stop building our house on the sand and start building it upon the Rock of Jesus who was totally obedient to the law of God? That is the question. It is also important that you understand that a Jesus who throws out the law of God isn’t the Rock of our salvation: He is a cheap imitation.

Last week we talked about Daniel who had to go through the destruction of two cultures in his life time – Israel’s and Babylon’s. We must remember that cultures come and go, they do not last forever. Every culture that has ever existed has died at some point in time. Most of them don’t last very long at all. I shouldn’t say every culture because the culture of the Kingdom of God will grow until it fills the whole earth and then it will last for all eternity.

At the end of Daniel’s term of duty God raised up Ezra in the first year of King Cyrus of Persia. Listen to what Isaiah wrote in chapter 45 of his book about this Pagan King 200 years before he came into power: 1Thus says the LORD to Cyrus His anointed, Whom I have taken by the right hand, To subdue nations before him And to loose the loins of kings; To open doors before him so that gates will not be shut: 2"I will go before you and make the rough places smooth; I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut through their iron bars. 3"I will give you the treasures of darkness And hidden wealth of secret places, So that you may know that it is I, The LORD, the God of Israel, who calls you by your name. 4"For the sake of Jacob My servant, and Israel My chosen one, I have also called you by your name; I have given you a title of honor though you have not known Me. 5"I am the LORD, and there is no other; Besides Me there is no God I will gird you, though you have not known Me; 6that men may know from the rising to the setting of the sun That there is no one besides Me. I am the LORD, and there is no other; 7the One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the LORD who does all these.

What a powerful expression of the Sovereignty of God. He raises up leaders, even unbelieving leaders, for his own glory, to advance his own plan.

So while there is upheaval where Daniel is because Babylon has fallen to the Persians, the two hundred year old words of Isaiah are still true: God holds the conquerors on a leash. They go where he lets them go. Even if the leaders don’t know God he still controls their every action. We need to hear this for our day and age, just like Cyrus: Obama, Judge Walker and all the others in power in Washington are nothing more than shepherds in the hand of God. They do his bidding. They are not in control. Listen to me: If you don’t like what is going on in Washington – repent and call everyone you know to repentance. Because that is the only way that God will turn his shepherds to favor us instead of vex us.
I’ve started seeing signs that say II Chronicles 7:14 on them and then say: If my people will pray. But that is not the important command in that verse. The important part is if my people who are called by my name WILL HUMBLE THEMSELVES and pray. Until we humble ourselves before every word that comes from the mouth of God there is no point in praying. God refuses to listen to the haughty.

If we try to change our nation through political means then we have lost the battle before we begin. Anger will not change this nation. Conservativism will not save this nation. It will only make it have a slower more painful death. Our only hope is to be humble before our God and beg him to let us as individuals walk in righteousness.

You see we are so used to thinking like fools when it comes to politics, we’re so used to thinking like unbelievers that we forget that God is in control. We forget that we are in covenant with God and because we have despised and neglected to obey covenant we therefore DESERVE large government, debt up to our eyeballs, medicine controlled by the government, we deserve our families falling apart, and our children following after other gods, new diseases springing up, and natural disasters increasing and on and on and on. Those are all a part of the covenant curses. We the people of God have broken covenant, ignored covenant, and pretended that it didn’t apply to us anymore. And now, God is simply showing us that it does apply by giving us covenant curses.

Don’t think for a minute that these curses will bring everyone to repentance: Not at all. Our example of that is Israel. The book of Ezekiel reveals to us the hearts of many of those who were left behind in Israel after Babylon conquered them. In chapter 33 we read the following starting in verse 10 “Son of man, give the people of Israel this message: You are saying, ‘Our sins are heavy upon us; we are wasting away! How can we survive?’ 11 As surely as I live, says the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of wicked people. I only want them to turn from their wicked ways so they can live. Turn! Turn from your wickedness, O people of Israel! Why should you die? 12 “Son of man, give your people this message: The righteous behavior of righteous people will not save them if they turn to sin, nor will the wicked behavior of wicked people destroy them if they repent and turn from their sins. 13 When I tell righteous people that they will live, but then they sin, expecting their past righteousness to save them, then none of their righteous acts will be remembered. I will destroy them for their sins. 14 And suppose I tell some wicked people that they will surely die, but then they turn from their sins and do what is just and right. 15 For instance, they might give back a debtor’s security, return what they have stolen, and obey my life-giving laws, no longer doing what is evil. If they do this, then they will surely live and not die. 16 None of their past sins will be brought up again, for they have done what is just and right, and they will surely live. 17 “Your people are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right,’ but it is they who are not doing what’s right. 18 For again I say, when righteous people turn away from their righteous behavior and turn to evil, they will die. 19 But if wicked people turn from their wickedness and do what is just and right, they will live. 20 O people of Israel, you are saying, ‘The Lord isn’t doing what’s right.’ But I judge each of you according to your deeds.”

And then jumping down to verse 30: “Son of man, your people talk about you in their houses and whisper about you at the doors. They say to each other, ‘Come on, let’s go hear the prophet tell us what the Lord is saying!’ 31 So my people come pretending to be sincere and sit before you. They listen to your words, but they have no intention of doing what you say. Their mouths are full of lustful words, and their hearts seek only after money. 32 You are very entertaining to them, like someone who sings love songs with a beautiful voice or plays fine music on an instrument. They hear what you say, but they don’t act on it! 33 But when all these terrible things happen to them—as they certainly will—then they will know a prophet has been among them.”

After 70 years of captivity the people who had been left in the land of Israel were for the most part still unrepentant. But God has a plan.

I want to go back to the people who are in captivity and begin to look at the book of Ezra. When the time of the promised captivity had come to an end, just as he had promised through Isaiah 200 years before, God stirred the heart of Cyrus the pagan king and one of the most powerful men of his day to put this proclamation in writing and to send it throughout his kingdom: 2 “This is what King Cyrus of Persia says: “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth. He has appointed me to build him a Temple at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Any of you who are his people may go to Jerusalem in Judah to rebuild this Temple of the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives in Jerusalem. And may your God be with you! 4 Wherever this Jewish remnant is found, let their neighbors contribute toward their expenses by giving them silver and gold, supplies for the journey, and livestock, as well as a voluntary offering for the Temple of God in Jerusalem.” 5 Then God stirred the hearts of the priests and Levites and the leaders of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin to go to Jerusalem to rebuild the Temple of the Lord. 6 And all their neighbors assisted by giving them articles of silver and gold, supplies for the journey, and livestock. They gave them many valuable gifts in addition to all the voluntary offerings.

Let me remind you of what Paul says concerning Israel and their experiences: They were given to us as examples. The word translated example is typos, they are a type, a picture, given to us to show us how God works in the midst of history. Israel is a type or picture of the church. We are to learn from their mistakes so that we do not wind up without faith like they did, dead in the wilderness. At the same time, when we discover that we have behaved no better than Israel and find ourselves headed into captivity and under covenant curses we need to pay close attention to how God worked in the world in the past to deliver his people.

It makes no difference if we are already in captivity or we are getting ready to go into captivity the point is that there will come a time when the church’s captivity will end and when that happens we need to be ready to rebuild the temple, the church. In first Corinthians Paul reminds us that we, the church, ARE the temple of God. Personally, I believe now is the time to start rebuilding the temple of God. It is time that we stopped working for the church and began to understand that we are the church, we are the temple and we are in desperate need of repair and rebuilding so that God can dwell in our midst once again. It is time we stopped working on our buildings of pomp and circumstance and started to repair the real bricks and mortar of the church: its people.

Back in Ezra notice that God gave the church favor with the unbelieving nation. First, he gave them favor with the government. Second, he gave them favor with their neighbors. He gave them so much favor that the unbelievers FINANCED their return to Israel and the rebuilding of the temple.

This is important and I want you to understand something: money is not how you build the church. God is not concerned with how much money you have before he begins to rebuild the church. God is concerned with one thing and that is your heart: If we the church, the temple of God, the people of God will humble ourselves before God and his commands; then God will provide what ever we need to rebuild the church into a strong vibrant people once again.
Let me put it to you in the context of our day and age: if we were to walk humbly before our God and God put on our hearts a ministry opportunity that was out of our financial reach it would be nothing for him to turn Larry Collins heart towards us and have him open up his pocket book and give us what we need.
Now your first reaction may be but Larry Collins is, well, he’s tainted, he doesn’t follow the commandments, that’s dirty money. That may or may not be true but that is beside the point. Israel didn’t go to the wicked to try and convince them to finance their project for the good of the community. God moved upon the wicked hearts of the pagans surrounding them including Cyrus the king to provide for his people. In effect, God took their money away from them and gave it to his people.

We must remember Proverbs 14: 35 - The king's favor is toward a servant who acts wisely. But the reverse is also true his anger is toward him who acts shamefully. That later half is where we find ourselves today. Because the church has acted shamefully with regard to the commands of God we see the government acting in a hostile way toward us. In fact, our very existence is threatened more with each passing day. But if we put the blame on the government and those wicked people then we are exalting man to a position of power that he does not have. The government is nothing more than a tool in the hands of God. The blame for the anger of the government towards the people of God is on us, the people of God, who have acted shamefully.
You see the covenant blessings promise that if we walk in obedience God will give us the wealth of the wicked. That is exactly what we see in Ezra – the government commands the neighbors of the church to give to them.

Why am I pointing all of this out to you today? Because we are a people of unbelief who are used to operating the church in the ways and wisdom of the world. We are setting out on a huge endeavor, the rebuilding of the church, the restoration of the people of God and we have next to nothing. We have few people. We have little money. We have no power. We have no might. We are like ants in the midst of a land of giants. The wicked have everything that we lack. They have the power to do what they want. They have a seemingly endless supply of money.
But we have God and they do not.

That being said, I will be honest with you there is a part of me that is afraid to trust God because I’m afraid he won’t come through in the end. I have no reason to believe that he will act that way but that doesn’t make it any easier to believe. I was going to lay a big challenge before you today to test God and make him prove himself. But the closer it came to drawing the line in the sand the less confident I became. I became less confident because I became more aware of just how powerless I am. I mean if God is so big why does it seem like he refuses to intervene? These are real questions that need to be answered and none of us here can answer them. We are powerless to change anyone; even ourselves. These are the questions of doubt that try to assail me when I attempt to trust God to begin to move in our lives.

And yet at the same time, I am reminded of my own responsibility, my own call to persevere until God moves. I’m reminded of Jesus’ own words, in Matthew 17: A man came and knelt before Jesus and said, 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son. He has seizures and suffers terribly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 So I brought him to your disciples, but they couldn’t heal him.” 17 Jesus said, “You faithless and corrupt people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Then Jesus rebuked the demon in the boy, and it left him. From that moment the boy was well. 19 Afterward the disciples asked Jesus privately, “Why couldn’t we cast out that demon?” 20 “You don’t have enough faith,” Jesus told them. “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it would move. Nothing would be impossible.” Some but not all of the texts say: "But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting."

How serious am I about wanting God to move in our midst? How much time am I spending in prayer? When was the last time I seriously fasted? Do I really even want God to do anything in anybody’s life if it is going to cost me something? The question boils down to this how much do you want to be saved? I mean do you just want to be saved from inconvenience? Do you want to be saved so you can just do your own thing? How bad to we want it? If my own life and actions are the measure of that then the answer is not that bad. I haven’t lost any sleep or given up any meals begging God move in people’s lives.

If I’m not willing to do that for my own dear brothers and sisters, my own family, what does it say about my heart for the condition of the nation I live in?
I am learning that when it comes to salvation you have to want it to get it. The book of James tells us this: Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. 17 Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! 18 Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops.

I am going to challenge us all today. I challenge you to ask God to deliver us from our unbelief, to deliver us from our complacency so that we will begin to trust God to do things, real, visible, measurable things that everyone in our families and communities can begin to see. Until God allows us to throw off the shackles of unbelief that hold us back then we can do nothing but beg for mercy as the dark times come.

May God be merciful and deliver us from ourselves.

Let’s pray. Holy Spirit please intercede for us. Jesus please intercede for us. Father please hear our prayers and have compassion on us. Stir our hearts to press after you with a desire we have never known before. Cause us to desire after you in a new and deeper way. Have mercy on us oh Lord.