Transcript

Well, uh, grab your Bibles and let’s go back to Zephaniah. If you’ll go to Matthew and go back four books, four short books of the minor prophets, you come to the prophet Zephaniah. Josiah became king. He was crowned a king at the age of eight. And he inherited a vile, rebellious, corrupt and wicked nation, the nation of Judah.

There’s, uh, been a split. Ten tribes went to the north, called the northern kingdom, often just called Israel, uh, Judah and Benjamin to the south, considered the godly remnant. They were called Judah, kind of, you could say Judah and Benjamin. But they were always just referred to as Judah.

And for 57 years before young Josiah became king, Manasseh was king. Two years later, Amon, his son, was king. And they filled the land with the most ungodly things, particularly ungodly idolatries and false worship. Josiah becomes king at this very young age. And I believe that Zephaniah himself must have discipled, uh, Josiah the king.

And Josiah had a strong and unflinching commitment that he would reform the country, that he would cleanse the country of these evil and wicked practices and sinfulnesses, and he would reinstall true Jehovah worship. And he did a great job at that. And so we have godly, uh, Zephaniah with godly king Josiah reforming the land.

Of course, Jeremiah also was prophesying during those days. And you have as the book of Zephaniah, a concise outline of, of the preaching that he did. Not the exact preaching he preached for many years, but a concise outline of his message to the backslidden and rebellious southern kingdom of Judah.

Now we come to Zephaniah, chapter one, verses four through six. And I purpose after this week to cover more territory. But I just couldn’t pull away from some of these things. So we’re doing four through six this morning. Zephaniah writes to Judah. So I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will cut off the remnant of BAAL from this place.

And the names of the idolatrous priests, along with the priests, and those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven, and those who bow down and swear to the Lord, and yet swear by Milcob and those who have turned back from following the Lord, and those who have not sought the Lord or inquired of him.

I use my first main point as my title. The great delusion. These folks had deluded themselves, convinced themselves of falsehoods to appease their conscience, and make themselves feel comfortable in the deeply rebellious and sinful condition that they were in. So Roman numeral 1. I expanded out and say the great delusion that election exempted them from judgment.

That’s where Judah was. They thought, we’re the southern kingdom. We’re God’s elect, chosen people. He’s covenanted with us to keep us, so will not go through the judgment like others are going to go through the judgment. Well, that was a delusion. The, uh, parallel for us. And by the way, everything in the Old Testament is for us.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said it was written, or what happened to the Jews, rather, is written for our instruction. Everything centers in the church. It’s the pinnacle, rather, of God’s great work. And so we can learn very, very much from for ourselves. And as we are God’s children, we do not need to deceive ourselves that God’s strong corrective judgment is somehow not going to come to us if we are rebellious, if we are willfully indulging in sin and not humbly repenting and seeking the Lord.

So we have the word Judah here right at the beginning, verse 4. I will stretch out my hand against Judah. Well, God had told them through, uh, the prophet, that he would always, uh, reserve, uh, a lamp stand, if you will, in Judah, for example, 1 Kings 11:36. But his son, I will give one tribe that my servant David may have a lamp always before me in Jerusalem, the city where I’ve chosen myself to put my name.

So they would take that to mean we’re just exempt. And they were wrong. God himself enthroned himself in Jerusalem. That was the center of his manifestation, his revelation. Uh, that’s why it’s called the Valley of Vision. That God would reveal himself to mankind through Israel, and Israel centered in Jerusalem and in the temple that was there.

So here these Judeans had the revelation of God himself to them. They had numerous and unique blessings. No other nations had. Um, they had the prophets, they had the tabernacle, they had the temple, they had the law of Moses, they had the priest.

But to whom much is given, much is required. That’s what they didn’t quite understand. To whom much is given, much is required. So when they continued willfully in sin, and this went on a long, long time, decades, they sinned against more light than any other nation even had a hint of having.

I think it’s very true that if you’ve sat under my preaching for years and you deny the Lord and you push him aside and you Live in the world, you have a great accountability because you’ve pushed away a lot of light to live in that darkness. They were God’s elect nation, but they had perverted that doctrine.

They perverted what it meant. Election meant that they had eternal security and immense blessings in one sin. But uh, uh, election also meant they had great responsibility. They were to walk in God’s truth and be a light to the nations and thus bring glory to their one true God.

To throw off these duties and willfully walk in the pagan darkness of the other nations that surrounded them was the gravest of unfaithfulness and sin and it deserved the clear judgment of God. Amos, uh, points out how they were deluded in their thinking, that somehow election shielded them from the corrective judgments of God.

In Amos 5:18 he says, Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you? It will be darkness and not light. So they were thinking that uh, the day of the Lord, and that phrase is used throughout the Scriptures.

And typically when we think of the day of the Lord, we think of one aspect of it and that is the Lord returning in judgment. And that will be a prominent manifestation during the day of the Lord when Jesus returns the elect, the true children of God will be removed and then the day of the Lord will come.

But here Amos says, you Jews think the same type thing. You think the day of the Lord is just going to be a time of blessing and wonder and glory for you. But it’s not. As Paul said in Romans 9, 6, they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel.

They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. So all who sin will face the Lord’s wrath. God’s elect mercy and God’s elect grace, which was upon Israel was very real and very true. But they were mistaken that they could sin and indulge in carnal pleasure and get by with it.

Now election is always two pronged. You’re elected unto eternal salvation, that’s true, but you’re also elected unto service and devotion to God. As I used to say years ago when we began to clean up our membership roles, you know, we had, I think, uh, guessing three, 4,000 people on our roll, about a fourth of that came to church.

And so we began to address that. And so people came really unglued about that, got really angry about that. We had sweet little old ladies calling us all upset that their 40 year old child was going to be taken off the roll. M. Well he hadn’t been here in 10 years.

And you know, there’s two roles that are important. There’s salvation’s role, and the moment you’re saved, God expects you to put your name on the service role of a local church. That’s the way election is. You’re elected unto salvation. Yes, and elected unto service. Well, they love the salvation part.

We want to be under God’s favor and blessing, but they did not embrace the service and devotion part. Thus the corrective discipline that God’s going to bring upon them. One who claims to be God’s child, but willfully neglects service to him, should expect punishment and correction. As Paul said in 1st Corinthians 10, 6, 12.

Using the example of how God dealt with ancient Judah and Israel, Paul said, now these things happened, that is, to Judah and Israel as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil or evil things as they also craved. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were.

As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. Nor let us act immorally, as some of them did, and 23,000 fell in one day. Nor let us try the Lord, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.

Now, these things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Everything is centered on the church. He says all of these things happened to them, not that they were not important, but it was primarily to be a lesson for the church, us, uh, today.

Therefore, let him thinks or, uh, he stands. Take heed lest he does not fall. I think the idea there of let him who thinks he stands means if you think you’re one of God’s elect, you need to live like it. Don’t just think you’re going to stand because you prayed a prayer in vacation Bible school.

Has there been a change in your heart? Have you experienced a new birth? Is there a new purpose and pattern to your life?

We have again that sober reminder of Hebrews, chapter 10, verses 26 through 29. I’ll not read all of it, but it’s just, uh, the basic statement of whatever happened to the ancient Jews and the Israelites when they disobeyed God. How much more serious it’s going to be for those who’ve heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, looked at the things of Christ, maybe read about them, and listened to a preacher preach about them, and then decided, no, you know I think I’ll just take that kind of lightly.

That might be one of the little pie squares of my total life. I hate pie charts when it comes to Christianity because Jesus and the church are not a part of your life they’re the center of your life. I’ll just kind of give the Lord his place over here then.

He’s not the Lord he doesn’t have a place. It is his place.

Well how much more seriously it will be in the judgment for those who’ve looked and tasted the things of the Lord and kind of set him aside and did their own thing. So here we see the great delusion. The Jews were under this great delusion the citizens of Judah, the kings and all except maybe Josiah would be the exception because he seemed to get it because he’s doing these reformations and cleaning this stuff up the best he can but they’re under great delusion somehow being the elect of God means we are secure and.

And others are not. Now Roman Numeral 2. God’s personal involvement in judgment. There’s, uh, been a wave of liberalism that’s been around for decades and decades, and it kind of wants to teach that God is not personally involved in judgment. I’m sorry, but he is. Matter of fact, that’s what makes Hell hell is because God’s there.

He’s there in his wrath. You cannot not have God anywhere. God’s omnipresent. He’s there in his wrath. He’s there in his displeasure. He’s there in his retribution and judgment. That’s why you don’t want to face him like that. Satan in Hell’s not your problem. God’s your problem. Praise his name.

Somehow, in the grace and infinite wonderful mercies of God, you can be saved through Jesus Christ and not go to hell and spend your whole eternity with God under His pleasure and his favor and his blessings and his loving kindness. Amen. But God here is personally involved. Uh, one of the aspects that led them to the delusion we were talking about a while ago was the fact that the 10 Northern Kingdoms that made up Israel, uh, they had already been taken away in captivity.

And Judah and Benjamin were left. So they. Aha. You see, we’re shielded. We’re the godly remnant, so we’re okay. Well, they’re not acting like the godly remnant. They’re not acting like the people of God. They’re not acting like the church of God. They’re whoring after other idols and other gods and living in gross and wanton immoralities.

Notice how he says it here in verse four, we’re talking about God’s personal involvement in judgment. He says in verse 4, the first phrase I, uh, will stretch out here it is. It’s anthropomorphic expression, my hand against Judah. Now, God didn’t have a hand, but he’s using that expression that humans would use to say, I want you to know I’m personally and powerfully directly coming against you in judgment.

God used these kind of expressions to show that he was for them personally and powerfully to bless them and secure them and deliver them, for example, in their salvation or deliverance from Egypt. In, uh, Exodus 3:20, the Bible says his hand was stretched out to strike Egypt on their behalf.

In Exodus 7:4, I will lay my hand on Egypt. Exodus 9:3, the hand of the Lord will bring severe pestilence on Egypt. Exodus 13:3, Moses reminded the people that it was by a powerful hand, uh, that the Lord brought you out. Again, I was personally and powerfully involved in securing you and saving you and delivering you.

But that’s not what’s happening here because of your willful decades of rebellion and sin. Now I will bring my hand personally against you in judgment. So a lot of these folks had grown just indifferent to the things of the Lord that He’s not personal anymore, you know, isn’t that true in our world today?

I get so tired of hearing the Jesus of Covenant, country music and the Jesus of the Republican Party.

It’s just this little. You can’t even hardly say mildly biblical because it’s not biblical at all. It’s just this warm, sentimental feeling about Jesus. Now, let me say this first of all, in balance. It’s good that people who lead our country have a sense that there’s one God and he has moral absolutes in the Bible.

That’s helpful. Amen. But when they start talking about who Jesus is and what he would do, they miss it by a million miles. And basically what they’re saying is we’re just kind of indifferent to the things of God. Well, we know he’s there and we respect that. But it doesn’t really have much to do with me and my everyday life.

I just go along and do what I’m going to do. Just kind of indifferent to that he’s out there. For example, in Isaiah 5, uh, 12, the prophet emphasized how they thought in this way. He says their banquets are accompanied by lyre and harp, by tambourine and flute, and by wine.

But they do not pay attention to the deeds of the Lord. They like to have a good time, like to party, and that’s not all bad. Maybe leave the wine off, but that’s not all bad. But do you pay attention to the deeds of the Lord? Nor do they consider the work of his hands.

You’re just kind of indifferent to him is what he’s saying.

The Child of God can fall into a wickedness that is a wickedness of indifference. God is against that. These are the people that see God in creation. They can see him in history. But they’re rather indifferent to God’s activity in the world today and certainly in their own lives today.

So God is personally involved here. You need to understand that. He’s holy. He’s not like us. And we struggle with the wondrous love and grace and goodness and long suffering and patience of God in Jesus. We get that, uh, that’s personal. That’s wondrously personal to us. But that same God in holiness is a God of righteousness.

And justice. And he will personally bring judgment to bear against those who deserve it. And by the way, are you listening to me? There’s nothing you can do about it. You can just push it away and put it over in the far recesses of your brain somewhere and try not to think about it.

You cannot avoid this all powerful personal God. He’s personally involved in their judgment. Well, they have a great delusion. They think we’re elect. God’s not going to deal with us. We can just keep indulging in this wickedness and God be okay with it. Secondly, he’s personally going to come in judgment.

Thirdly, God’s particular targets for judgment we see in verse four. So now he gets down to some particular things that have, uh, stirred his anger and his wrath against them. First of all, he talks about the remnant of Ba’al. That’d be a, in our outline, the remnant of Ba’al.

I, uh, will cut off the remnant of Ba’al from this place. That’s an interesting phrase from this place because if you remember in our Christmas sermons about Emmanuel, the child motif, uh, if you will, of how God’s presence and assurance will come in the form of a child. And then in those texts he had this phrase.

This is Emmanuel’s land. God said in a very real and particular way, that land, that promised land that I gave you Israel, you were just a steward of it. It’s my land. And how dare you build shrines to Asherah, Chemosh, Molech and BAAL in my land. So what did you say?

I’m going to cut it off from the land, he says. A remnant, he said, I’m going to cut off the remnant of baal. That means Josiah and Zephaniah and Jeremiah had done a pretty good job of cleaning things up, but they couldn’t clean up hearts. Only God can clean up the heart.

And there were some little remnants of shrines and worship to BAAL still around out there. Now, BAALISM of the ancient world was the worship of a variety of gods to which they would typically build shrines to BAAL and temples to BAAL on high places. Now, what they taught in their doctrine was that baal, this male God, provided for the fertility of the land.

If you would please baal, then your crops would do better, your livestock would do better, your vineyards, your herds, etc. Now, Baal, the male God, had a mistress named Anat A n a t. And what they taught was that BAAL and Anat, his mistress, had to have sexual relations in order to bring fertility upon the earth.

Especially rainfall. They further taught that BAAL and Anat were not as faithful in their immoralities as they ought to be. So they would have temples built, and these priestesses would be in the temple, and these priestesses were nothing but prostitutes. And the men would go in there and commit immoral acts with these priestesses.

And that would encourage BAAL to have relations with Anat, and then that would bring about the fertility of the land. What a vile and evil and sinful doctrine. And of course, the people loving sin loved it. So the Bible says. So BAAL worship was centered in immoralities. And that gives us another lesson, does it not?

Listen to me. Listen to me. All unsound doctrine leads to unsound morality.

False doctrine leads to sexual impurity. Always is connected, but it’s really the other way around. A man embraces his immoralities and he wants to find a theology that justifies it. There’s nothing new under the sun. The stuff we see in today’s world and today’s professing churches and in Christendom, the same type stuff in spirit, is just old BAAL worship.

That’s all it is. But God’s anger and God’s wrath was against such sin and such perversion. That’s why he says, I’ll cut off the remnant from this place again. Evidently, Josiah had done a pretty good job of getting rid of most of it. There were still remnants of it in the land.

And what we’re seeing here, though, there’s a great revival and renewal and reformation. They had just gone too far before they got the reformation and revival going. And the hearts were not changed. And so God is intent on bringing the judgment. A lot of the externals were changed, and that’s important, but the heart was not changed.

If I might say a little something practical here, uh, being formerly, uh, a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, and by the way, some of the godliest people I know are Southern Baptists. Some of the godliest and best pastors I know are Southern Baptists. I’m not against them at all.

But the system, I think, is hopelessly broken.

Well, I’m not going to go there. All right, so BAAL worship remained in the lands. And, uh, you go back to the question, where did they get BAAL worship in Israel? Well, it came from Canaan. When they discovered the Promised Land, or God gave them the Promised Land, they go into Canaan.

And, uh, the people that the Canaanites remained in the land, and they were BAAL worshippers. So they were influenced by, by the corrupt influence, if you will, of the BAAL worshipers, the original inhabitants of Canaan. Remember, the Bible tells us and warns us in Proverbs 13:20, he who walks with a wise man will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.

Young people, you’re now over here in this section. Some of you. We moved them from over here because they’d be gone and it’d be a hole over here. And y’all have done a good job filling this up, by the way. I appreciate that. Y’all need to do a little bit better over here.

But the companion of fools will suffer harm. If you have buddies and friends who clearly don’t want to honor God, you got to be friends with everybody. But if you have, uh, your running buddy, the people you decided to get close to don’t want to honor God, then they will influence you.

They’ll corrupt you. And that’s exactly what happened to the Jews in Israel. They got to be buddy buddies with the Canaanites, and pretty soon they were following the Canaanite gods. Either way, it was more fun than their God. I mean, BAAL worship lets us get involved in all kinds of wicked fun.

2nd Corinthians 6, 14, 15. Do not be bound together with unbelievers. What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness? And what fellowship has light with darkness? What harmony has Christ with Belial? And what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

So God’s TR. Starts with his sanctuary. God starts with Judah. I’m going to stretch out my hand against Judah first. Peter 4:17. For it’s time for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

I think that when the phrase says, uh, judgment begins with the household of God, I think the idea is, generally speaking, you and I in this church age are under God’s corrective judgments. But we will not face the eternal wrath of God in hell. It begins with us here and now.

But we don’t have to face the eternal wrath. Faith in God. He gives us severe judgments, yes, true punishments, yes, but it’s unto correction and repentance. It starts with us, but it’s going to be a lot worse for those whom seem to live this life and get by with it.

Have you noticed that a lot of times the ungodly, the wicked, the folks who don’t care anything about God seem to do quite well? Well, God only disciplines his own. I’ve never spanked any of your children. I don’t think, I don’t remember. But I did spank my own.

That’s the way God is. Well, again, Israel thinks they’re shielded from all of these things, but God says, no, I’m going to come down there. And all of you are still involved in BAAL worship. I’m cutting all of that off. King manasseh in his 55 year range reign rather went so far as to set up unto BAAL the BAAL idol in the temple in Jerusalem.

Can you imagine such a thing? So you have this syncretism. We’ll talk about that a lot. God brings it up a lot through the prophet here of bringing BAAL worship into the center of Jehovah worship in the temple. So they could say, ha ha, look, we still have the traditional orthodoxy of Jehovah worship, but at the same time they were actually coming because they loved the sensual pleasures of BAAL worship.

Well, b. Not only the remnant of BAAL is he going to remove from the place. He says, secondly, the idolatrous priests. Look at it there in verse four. And the names of the idolatrous priests he’s going to remove now, the idolatrous priests were different from the word priest that occurs right after that because the idolatrous priests were the BAAL priests.

Historians, uh, tell us that, um, the BAAL priest dressed in all black and they would have a brand on their forehead and that brand would have the word zealous on it. And their point was, we’re into this. We are devoted to this religion. I mean, we’re all out on this.

We’re foreborn to this. And God says, okay, I’m going to remove the name. The name on your. All that you say you are. I’m cleansing it all out of the land.

Thirdly here, not only the BAAL priests, but here’s the Levitical priesthood, also the Levitical priesthood. When he says there in the last phrase of verse four, along with the priest, he means the priest, the Aaronic Levitical priesthood that he established. These are priests that should have stood in the breach.

These are priests that should have forbidden all BAAL worship, but instead, they craftily manipulated and syncretized the holy priesthood and the worship of Jehovah to accommodate BAAL sensualities along with Jehovah worship. And when you mix anything, uh, unbiblical with God’s truth, you lose God.

So these priests, the true established priests of Israel, instead of forbidding such wickedness, they enabled it through this syncretism, this bringing together. That’s why I preached to you so much about the church has to be so careful of bringing worldly things in. That’s just old BAAL worship. Well, we got to do these things to keep people happy.

So did they. By the way, this worked great. They had huge congregations. They loved it. There’s only one problem. God hated it.

And he let them go on a long time in that wicked foolishness. As RG Lee said, former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, there’s a payday someday.

So they indulged under the leadership of the Aaronic priesthood. They indulged in sexual, sinful immoralities, all the while draping the outside with Jehovah worship. So wicked. Now, uh, let’s make an application for us today. Just some thoughts for us today about the church today, because these things are written for our instruction.

Paul said, BAAL worship is alive and well today in professing Christendom. Let me give you three thoughts here, maybe three ways that BAAL worship is alive and well today. It’s alive and well. When the Sunday quote, worship, end of quote, experience

our blessing, our excitement of the Sunday worship becomes the end in itself. Come to our church. Come to ours. It’s exciting. That’s not the end, brothers and sisters. We come here to get ahold of God again and love him again and treasure him again, that we might live for him afresh in the coming week.

That’s okay and fine. To be blessed during the worship. I’M not saying that’s wrong, but if that’s the end, if we can put on something on Sunday so that everybody thinks our thing’s the biggest thing as far as professing churches go in town, that’s BAAL worship. When the Sunday worship experience, its excitement becomes an end in itself.

Number two, when sexual immoralities are ignored and in effect accommodated by the church, that means there’s no efforts of church discipline or outward brazen, wanton immoralities. Let me say this. These things happen. And we are very private and very careful to keep things as private as we possibly can.

Unless we can’t. There’s always a graciousness in the purpose of covering sin when we can. But sometimes a person just brazen and open and willful, and their churches all over the land, they can’t even remember in their history, and there’s been a clear case of calling that to account and removing the person if they’re unrepentant.

You know what that is? Are you listening to me? That’s basically embracing the immorality. That’s basically old BAAL worship in Jehovah’s Temple. There’s nothing new under the sun. You think we’re better sinners than ancient Israel or, uh, lesser. Our hearts are the same as old, uh, listen, Alabama flesh is the same as old Judean flesh.

We’re just prone to the same stuff. We’re at a place at Grace Life Church today where if your elders did not deal with open, brazen immoralities, you would throw us out. And you should.

Some, uh, of these things are difficult and complicated from time to time. But, you know, I pastor a large church, but divorce in this church is become very, very rare. That’s how it ought to be. But it does happen. And we’re there to graciously support and help and love folks.

But when immoralities are ignored and in effect accommodated, that’s old BAAL worship. Number three, not only when the Sunday worship experience the excitement of it is the end itself, is that BAAL worship. Not only when sexual immoralities are ignored and in effect accommodated, is that BAAL worship. Thirdly, when psychological helps are more important than what is true, when psychological helps are more important than what is true, somebody said, well, that helps me when I go down there, they help me.

They teach me things about my children, about my marriage, and that helps me. Well, is it true?

The preacher of truth may preach things that you think that doesn’t help me, but it’s true. Because when God helps you it’s an overcoming. When psychology helps you, it’s a temporal coping and there’s a big difference. You see, listen to me. Overwhelmingly when you have a problem, there’s a sin that needs to be repented of.

Psychological helping doesn’t deal with the sin, the root issue. It just gets you through it a little better than maybe if you hadn’t heard the psychological, uh, admonitions. True truth preaching gets to the root and to repentance so you can get really set free. Churches that build themselves on where they help us Help you do what?

Help you feel better or help you be more holy. It could be that there’s seasons of times when to be more holy means you don’t feel good.

You see, only a regenerate heart can receive these things. I like what Bailey, he wrote a great commentary on Zephaniah. He was quoting Moiter and he said this, uh, concerning this thing of when psychological helps are more important than what is true, whenever the cult of what helps replaces the joy in what’s true,

then you have BAAL worship. Now, uh, you tell me, is there not the syncretism of BAAL worship in so many of our evangelical, even Baptist congregations today? I’m going to tell you from my experience as four plus decades of your pastor, it’s like all you can do to stand at the door and keep it out.

I mean you have to. As Paul told Timothy, pastoring is like blazing a trail. It’s like you just keep chopping and chopping and cutting and just keep cutting through the jungle, blazing a trail through it. You don’t ever get to rest because the moment you rest, BAAL takes on a little different form and comes banging on the door again to get in the church.

But that’s your pastor and elder’s job to keep it out

because God hates it. Well, we see not only that, but we see thirdly in our outline, not only the spiritual leader sins, but now we have the lay people. He deals with just the people of the land. And I’m trying to hurry on here. I’ve been down with some flu this week and my ears are stopped up and I didn’t think my voice would be strong, but it is strong so I can preach longer.

Verse 5. He talks about those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven. So he’s addressing the people now. And we have these folks who are worshipping celestial bodies. The roofs were flat and they’d go out at night because you can see the celestial bodies at night and they would bow down there and be astrologers, if you will, looking for the signs of the Aquarius, I guess.

And one scholar said, man, this is. This sin is as old as the Babylonians and as new as today’s online news feed. It has its little astrology section. God said, I’m going to judge you for that nonsense. They would go out at night and get on their flat roofs and see the stars, but couldn’t see the light.

God’s not found in the stars. He’s found in the Scriptures. He goes on to say verse five. And those who, um, bow down and swear to the Lord. Now that’s Jehovah. And yet swear. But swear by Milcom now. Swear to the Lord. Here we have syncretism again. He said, in one breath you’ll say you serve Jehovah, on the other breath you’re bound before the sun, moon and star gods.

Quit mixing this stuff together. God is saying

now in verse five, when he comes to this phrase, those who swear by Milcom, that’s the new American standard. I think the NIV uses Molech. And there’s, there’s, scholars aren’t sure, we don’t know if it means Milkon, which translated means the king or Molech, which was an actual idol they bowed to.

Now we do know for a fact from 1 Kings that they were worshiping Molech in Judah at this time, literally taking their babies before Molech, an idol that had a, uh, great fire in front of him, and casting their babies into the fire before Molech in Judah.

They felt like for our well being we have to sacrifice our children and affirm the blessings of Molech. Isn’t that just like today’s abortion? We say this child’s in the way. For our own well being, we need to sacrifice this child. That’s exactly what it is. It’s old Molech worship.

The baby is the sacrament, the baby is the sacrifice which is going to appease the God who will assure our well being in life. I think the greatest, greatest evil perhaps that’s come upon our land is convincing our girls and our women that their greatest fulfillment and purpose is outside of the home.

Not saying it’s sin to do something outside the home. I’m saying from your heart. Are you committed? The home is the center of my most important purpose in work.

Now. The dominoes fall for the ungodly. And they even go as far as to say, I can’t have this baby getting in the way of my career, in the way of my advancement, like men in the culture. So just as they will sacrifice that baby as a sacrament to this God of Molech, if you will, for their own well being, so Christ our Lord came as a baby to be our sacrament, to be our sacrifice, if you will, the only one who truly can appease the wrath of the one true God for us.

So isn’t it interesting when you see these pagan religions, there’s nothing new under the sun. They only try to take what they teach, or rather they take what they teach and they pervert the true. They put a twist on the true, come up with these perverse things.

The belief that it’s good and acceptable to sacrifice our children. Now, you may not ever commit the sin of abortion, but you may be Sacrificing your children on an altar of getting ahead in the world.

The belief to sacrifice our children in order to advance ourselves is as old as the ammonite worship of Molech. Uh, and again, it was the syncretism. He says it very clearly. In verse five, you bow down and honor Jehovah, then you bow down and honor Molech. Or, uh, Milcom.

You pick either one. The principle is the same.

In verse six, he goes on to these folks who are indifferent again, those who have turned back from following the Lord, those who have not sought the Lord or inquired of the Lord, turned back from following the Lord. Means they’ve changed churches. Why, this true and holy Jehovah worship just ain’t doing it for me.

That’s not my kind of church. So they go down the road and they find a Jehovah, BAAL church. Oh, that’s more me now. And then they hop over to one that’s a little more Molech. Jehovah Church, whatever. Nothing’s different about that. Then as it is today,

when it says they did not seek the Lord, they’ve not sought the Lord, it means they are outwardly worshiping the idols, though they claim to be Jehovah’s worshipers, but they’re no longer people who has a lifestyle pattern seek the Lord. Then it also says they no longer inquire of the Lord.

In verse five, the, uh, Hebrew scholars say the word inquire has the idea of a state of mind and heart. The state of their minds and heart was not to inquire of God. In other words, what’s marriage mean to us? Well, let’s inquire of the Lord. How do we raise our children?

Let’s inquire of the Lord. How do we, quote, do church? That’s the phrase we hear a lot. How do we do church? Well, let’s inquire of the Lord instead of inquiring of the culture, the movement. Years ago. It wasn’t that many years ago, actually, that, uh, uh, Dr. Seale, we went to conferences, and at these conferences, they’d say, survey your community and ask them what they’re looking for in the church and design your church to make them comfortable.

I’ve been spending 40 years doing every thing I can design our church to make Jesus comfortable.

It’s not our church, it’s not our club, it’s not our organization. It’s Jesus Church, it’s Jesus bride, it’s Jesus body, and you need to keep your hands off the bride of Christ.

We’re only stewards. To be faithful. If that empties the building, it empties the building.

That’s the way pastors should be,

so they don’t inquire of the Lord with a new state of heart. It’s a whole lot like Romans 10:13, those who call upon the name of the Lord. That phrase, call upon the name of the Lord has been so misused in evangelical circles for decades, they’ve brought it down to some little superstitious, uh, uh, ritual.

One time you prayed this prayer that was called on the Lord. Now you’re saved. That’s not what it means. It means God’s changed your heart, and now you have become one who calls on the Lord. You’ve become one who has a pattern and purpose of your purpose and pattern of your life.

Calls on the Lord for the totality of your life. Lord, what does my life mean now? What is it about now? Then you’re one who is saved because God’s changed your heart, because you become one who inquires of the Lord. Look to the Lord for the totality of your life.

Which leads me to this conclusion. Oh, dear friend, are you one who calls upon the name of the Lord? Are you one who inquires of, um, the Lord? Have you turned from all modern forms of BAAL worship and all of its sinful and fleshly indulgences? Molech worship, which means to set aside the duties and responsibilities God’s given you, particularly of your home and your family, to chase the world and all the glimmer and glamour that the world promises you.

Have you turned from all superstitious foolishness, like celestial bodies? Worship. When I was in Memphis in graduate school, I witnessed to my next door neighbor. He was a single young man, and I shared the things of Christ with him. And he said, well, I believe in karma, just a silly superstition.

I believe if you do good, good comes back to you. If you do bad, bad comes back to you. Have you turned from all forms of BAAL worship and molech worship and celestial worship and all superstitious things? Have you turned from syncretism? Well, if I can find a church that’ll mix enough world in it to keep me excited, then I might go to that church.

I might become a Christian. That’s just old syncretism with BAAL worship.

But you boil it all down, you know what the one common denominator. Are you listening to me? When anybody ever tells me, well, you know, so and so he’s not a Christian, or, uh, she’s not a Christian because Intellectually they just can’t grasp it. It’s never an intellectual issue.

They can’t explain how electricity comes from that switch to make that light bulb work. But they don’t turn the light off until they intellectually understand it. It’s a million things in their life they don’t understand. It’s not an intellectual problem. If someone doesn’t believe on Christ, it’s a sin problem.

They know he’s the light and they know by the conscience God’s given them. They have a darkness and a sinfulness and they don’t want to come to the light lest their deeds be exposed as evil. It’s always a love of sin and a love of self. And I tell that to people all the time.

The only problem they have is they love sin more than they love God. Can I be just very frank and honest with you? In a sense, we all still love sin because we’re all still packaged in this old house of depravity. But we love sin less than we love God.

Are you with me? And we want to keep growing to diminish that self. Love and sin, love and grow in our love for God. That’s why we have each other, that’s why we have the church. That’s why we preach the word. That’s why we have our devotions. God help me keep loving you, keep finding more pleasure in you than in the corrupt things of this world that will only hurt and destroy me.

God’s not trying to keep you from pleasure, he’s trying to keep you from ruining yourself. It’s always a love of sin and a love of self. So as you live your life hiding from God, you know the first sinners did that. Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. They said, uh, we’ll just try to cover this up because we’re uncomfortable with this.

We don’t want to come to the light. So we’ll just cover ourselves with fig leaves. A lot of fig leaf religion out there, self covering. Instead of just coming like you are to Jesus and become one who calls on the name of the Lord. But please be careful. There are far too many and I think perhaps many are well intending who will give you a little hoop jump, Some little hoop jump to do.

Raise your hand, go to the aisle, go to this side, walk to the front, go to the magic spot down here as if we’re Roman Catholics. Like there’s an altar down here where God gets you. Matter of fact, you might fall through this and have to go to the hospital.

If you come down here and stand on this.

It’s only there because I’m afraid to preach without it, because I don’t want to fall that far.

Do something. Jump through a hoop. Repeat this prayer. That’s not all necessarily evil, but it’s not enough to know if you’re God’s.

They’ll put a sticker on you that says Christian and church member. And your salvation is about as substantial as the quality of that sticker on your chest. Have you been born again? Have you become one? Maybe not perfectly, but it’s in you and it doesn’t let go of you.

I want to inquire of the Lord. I want to call on the Lord for, uh, the totality of my life’s purpose and pattern and what life is and what it’s about, what I’m going to do with my life. Don’t just check a box, then run to BAAL worship. Check a box.

I said that. I did that, I repeated that. And then run to BAAL worship. Don’t do that. Cast your all on Jesus Christ. Just tell him the truth. Oh, God, I love sin. I love myself. And if you don’t save me and change me, I’m hopeless. That’s the kind of people he saves.

That’s the only kind of people he saves, because that’s the only kind there is. Come, you sinners. Seek his grace, whose wrath you cannot bear. Flee to the shelter of the cross and find salvation there. Let’s pray together.