The Story - Chapter 17

As a boy growing up in church, reading the stories of scripture and hearing sermons about what God had done, it always puzzled me that the people of Israel would time and time again make the same mistake. I mean, you read those stories and they're one right after another. There's no time frame for them. And so it just looks like they get up from the supper table, go out and do the same thing over and over again, with terrible result coming to everyone. It seems to me like you would say, you know, if I was driving down the road and I saw a car ahead of me have a slick spot and turn around, I would slow down. Why would these people do the same thing over and over and over again? But that's exactly what happened to them. In the story you've been reading about this week, the story about the southern tribe, God had his people, he wanted them to come into the land of promise. He gave them all the rules and instructions. And the reason he gave them those rules, he said, I want you to live right in the middle of the world and I want you to live in such a way so that everyone will know by watching you what I'm like. You know what that means. You know, you see children growing up and people say, boy, that kid is just like his mom or just like his dad. What God wanted was for everybody to look at the people of Israel and say, those people are just like their God and their God is wonderful because look at how wonderful they are. But it didn't quite work that way. People of Israel settled in the land of promise. God gave them all the instructions as to what they were to do. And inevitably, they began to look around them at their neighbors, at the way the neighbors lived, and they began to imitate the neighbors instead of imitating God. It got so bad that God said, I can't have all of you together. There's one group of you I'm going to separate and put the other group in another place, and I'm going to deal with each one of you individually, and I hope that one of them can turn out to be the way I want them to be. So he divided them into two groups, the Israelites on the north, ten tribes of Judeans on the south, and Judah, two tribes, and the ones on the north, he separated because he wanted to work with them, I think, especially, but they just refused to listen. And they did everything opposite of what God wanted them to do. They rebelled against his authority. You know how that is when you have parents and they tell you what you're supposed to do. First thing you want to do is the opposite of it. We just have this instinct of rebelling against authority. And that's what they did. It got worse and worse and worse, and they became more and more like their neighbors until there was no way that people could tell the difference between God's people and their neighbors. So finally the time came when he said, okay, I'm not going to help you anymore, it's over. The enemies have surrounded them, captured their city, carried off their kings, and carried off all these people and scattered them across the country, and the ten tribes in the north ceased to exist. We don't even know where they are. They're called the ten lost tribes of Israel. Now the two tribes in the south of Judah, they watched all this. You would think this would have terrified them to see what took place by their brothers and sisters to the north of them. But in fact, it didn't. They took to doing exactly the same things that their brothers and sisters to the north had done. And they began to become more and more like their neighbors, who were not followers of Yahweh God, the creator of the universe, until their lifestyle and their character and nature became almost like that. The story that we read today is 130 years after the destruction of their northern brothers and sisters. This is like, you know, from after the Civil War about 1880 to today. Not that long, you see. We can remember that kind of time. Some people have been alive almost that long, you know. So they knew what this was all about. But slowly, step by step, they began to compromise what was happening in them. They began to act more and more like their neighbors and less and less like God told them they should act. He gave them all the instructions in the Ten Commandments and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy, three books of instructions as to how they were to live. But they ignored that. Instead they were attracted by what the other people around them were doing. Finally, God got to the point where he said, this is the end for you. I set you in this place, but because of your behavior, I can no longer allow you to live in this place that I prepared for you. In Jeremiah chapter 21, Jeremiah had been approached by Zedekiah the king, and he asked him to help him out because the army of the enemy had surrounded them. And Nebuchadnezzar came to capture Jerusalem, the prime city, and Zedekiah the king came and said, I'd like to ask you to ask God to do a miracle for us like he did for Hezekiah. For in the ancient days, years before this, Hezekiah was in the same situation, the king of Judah. He was surrounded by the army of an enemy, and he had no soldiers to protect himself. And he went to the temple and he laid the letter from the king who was attacking him before God. And he said, we can't do anything about this. I believe you're a God who can do anything in all the world. And I ask you to help us defeat these enemies that all the world might know what you are like. See his ulterior motive? His motive was the presence of presenting God to the world and his power. Zedekiah had no interest in following God. He was a very worldly king. He didn't have any interest in the spiritual matters of his kingdom. But he came because he was in desperate trouble and said, bail me out. Boy, I see a lot of people who get in that same situation, have no interest in God all their life, but then they come to disaster and they're saying, bail me out. Sometimes God does that, but there comes a time when he says, I'm through doing it. That's what happened here. But Jeremiah answered them, tell Zedekiah, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel says, I'm about to turn against you the weapons of war that are in your hands, which you are using to fight the king of Babylon and the Babylonians who are outside the walls besieging you. And I will gather them inside the city. I myself will fight against you with an outstretched hand and a mighty arm in anger and fury and great wrath. I will strike down those who live in the city, both men and animals, and they will die of a terrible plague. After that, declares the Lord, I will hand over Zedekiah, the king of Judah, to the officials and the people of this city who survive in the plague and the sword and the famine to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and to their enemies who seek their lives. He will put them to the sword and he will show them no mercy or pity or compassion. God had come to the place where he said, that is really it. Now, I think we ought to understand how easy it is for the people of Israel and the people of Judah to get in the same spot. For example, whenever you look at this country, you see that in the beginning people left the European world, came to New England and said, we want to find a place where we can worship God exactly as we want. So they came and settled cities and in those cities it was actually against the law not to be in church. So every community, every Sunday, everybody in the community had to be in church. It was the law. I don't know that it's a good thing to force people to go to church if they don't really want to go to church, but that was their community law because they all came wanting to have that opportunity. Times have changed over our country. I can remember, you know, when I was a kid growing up in Arkansas, it was not uncommon for the school board to hire teachers, but one of the requirements they often had was, I want to know if you go to church. And many communities would not ever hire a school teacher who didn't go to church because everybody in the community believed that having teachers in your school that attended church was a good moral influence on the children who were there. That's not the case anymore. No longer is it even proper to ask that question, much less does the community want you to ask that question. What we've come is a long way from thinking of how important the spiritual dimensions to life really are in this country. So a lot of people blame the court, they blame the president, they blame the congress, they blame the government, but the real problem is you and me. You see, what has happened over our time in this country is we've become more and more like the rest of the world. You know, the latest statistics that you can get, and it's really hard to get this information. One time we tried to call around the city to find out how many people were attending the churches in town, and when they heard it was our church asking them how many went to their church, they wouldn't tell us. So they kept it a secret, they didn't want anybody to know. So it's hard to find out exactly how many people go, and if you ask people if they go to church, they lie to you, they just don't tell you the truth. One time I was president of the Minister of Alliance in Pawnee County when I had the church in Larned with this one, and we did a survey of all Pawnee County, and we printed it up and gave it to the pastors, and as they were reading, they were all laughing at people who said they were members of their church. I've never seen this person as long as I've been pastor of the church, I've been pastor twenty years there. People don't tell you the truth, but as best as we can tell, on any given Sunday, about twenty percent of the people in this country are in church. It's a long way from a hundred percent. It's a long way from fifty percent. It's not that there's any reason for them not to, except they want to do something else. And the hunger for God's word and instruction about how to live their life is not a part of their nature. They're not hungry for that. They don't want to know what God tells them they should do. And so people inside the church adopt the same lifestyle as outside the church. They're interested in the ball game when it starts. I preached in Dallas one time, and the pastor said, I'll tell you what, you can preach as long as you want, but the people here leave at twelve o'clock to catch the Dallas Cowboy game, so it's up to you whether you want to have anybody in the seats at twelve o'clock or not. They're caught up in the very same things that are passionate about the rest of the world. We are church people. When you see it in so many different ways, I saw the other day an article that said people's giving who attend church is the lowest percentage since the Great Depression of 1928 through 1934. Church members give an average of 2.3% of their income to the kingdom of God and its purpose and its mission. And it's also true that churches in this country keep more and more of the money that they give to the church for themselves. We want nice air-conditioned buildings, we want a lot of staff to work with us. It was years ago that you didn't ever find two paid staff people on a church that had less than 500 people because so many people volunteered to do the work and to train, but that's not true anymore. It's just hard to get people to take volunteer service in the preschool, it's hard to get them to train to work in Sunday school, it's hard to get them to train or to work in any place in the church. We are all busy doing all the things that everybody else around us is doing. We are not prepared to say service to God comes first and so I must do some things that other people do not do and I must cut off some things that everyone around me does. It's a matter of sacrifice, self-denying sacrificial service to God has just escaped us. What we want to do is to make sure that our churches do the things that people want to have done for them. And so the average church gives .34% of its income to mission causes and charitable causes around the world. One third of 1% in the average church in this country is going for something other than the local church's own needs. Where is the great commission in all of this? Why do we do it? Well we want comfort, we want convenience, we want things like we want them. Self-centeredness, that's the story. It's the same story we find here in the Bible. The people of Israel said we want to do what we want to do. Jesus when he called his disciples said I'm asking you to say to yourself I am putting first what God wants. Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. And when the self-denial stops then the process of being a follower of Christ is over. And when the refusal to sacrifice for the kingdom of God stops then there is nothing Christian about the group. You may have a sign on it that says that and you may have Bibles in the church but it refuses to be qualified in God's eyes as his people. Our whole world is changing and the church has been caught up in all of those changes so it focuses more and more on itself and what it wants and what it needs and less and less on the call and command of God. When I was growing up my mother took me to church on Sunday morning, the preacher preached. We went to Sunday school, they taught the Sunday school lesson. On Sunday night we had Bible training, the preacher's service where you sat in there as a young child. You thought they'd never get through with that but that's where we were. And on Wednesday night you had another preaching service. By the time I got into college and took a test on the Old and New Testament, I went to a Baptist school, I'd already learned enough to pass two college courses in Bible. Now the surveys that are taken of our country say that this generation we are living in is the most biblically illiterate generation in our country's history. When people ask people on the street a question, what is the first book in the Bible? One guy said the Testament. People don't know. If you look at any kind of quiz contest where the Bible comes up as one of the categories in questioning, they never want that one. They can answer the most minute questions about all the things in the world but not the word of God. And it's not just the people who are outside the church but people inside who are biblically illiterate. And the reason is we're not hungry for that. It's hard to find a church that has a service on Sunday night and when you do find, there are not very many of the believers there either. We do not have a passion to know what God wants us to do. If you don't know the rules, you're not going to keep them. If you don't know the plan, you cannot follow it. Filling our heart and mind with the word of God is an essential part of living up to what God wants. We see this story written out in Jeremiah lived over and over again in every culture of the world in every age and it's being lived out here. You know where the heartbeat of the Christian faith is now? In Africa and China. Thousands and millions of converts are coming in those two continents every year. Africa is seeing less and less commitment to God, his word and his way of life. Now the warning for us is really very simple. Yes, you can point back to the great times of Hezekiah when God intervened and killed 185,000 soldiers in one night and rescued his people but he didn't always do it. And when Zedekiah came and said, oh, we need your miracle again, he said, brother, I don't know who you are but I'm through. Every church faces that. You look around any community that you go to, there are vacant church buildings standing. Once thriving churches with powerful witnesses and messages that are now empty. This is why. I hear your cry but I see what you're like. You're like all the other people around you. People don't see in you my nature and character and it's up to me to make sure that I erase you off the face of the earth so you don't give a false impression of who I am. And so he did. The story was not over with Jeremiah. Jeremiah talked to God about the people of Israel. And whenever all this was over, this is what he wrote. How deserted lies the city, talking about Jerusalem, once so full of people. How like a widow she is who once was great among the nations. She who was a queen among the provinces has now become a slave. Bitterly she weeps at night, tears are upon her cheeks. Among all her lovers there is none to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her. They have become her enemies. After affliction, harsh labor, Judah has gone into exile. She dwells among the nations. She finds no resting place. All who pursue her have overtaken her in the midst of her distress. It's what's happened all across our country. Churches that were once thriving and powerful, filled with the spirit of God, now are empty, vacant, and being used as condominiums or warehouses. God never intended it that way, but he has no patience when the people of God become like the pagans in the world around them. No patience. He waits on us, he tries, he does everything that he can, but in the end he will say, enough. Now we're not talking about all the other churches in the world, we're talking about ours. He will not tolerate that. And someday churches that thought they were always going to be powerful and influential in the world find themselves empty, vacant, with nothing at all to present to the world around them. It seems sort of like a hopeless thing, really, when you see this skid start toward the end of it. But God had another prophet, Ezekiel, that he brought to the people of Israel. He said this message for them, therefore, God said, say to the house of Israel, this is what the sovereign Lord says. It's not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I'm going to do these things, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations where you've gone. I will show the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, the name you have profaned among them, then the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the sovereign Lord, when I show myself holy through you before their eyes. God has not given up on what he wants. He wants each one of us to live in such a way so that the neighbors on our right and on our left and across the street from us look at our lives and say, that is what God looks like. And every day when you go to work, he wants through your life for people to look at you and say, this is what God is like. He wants his holy name to be lifted up in all the world so that everywhere we are, he is seen for who he is. God has not given up on that. And so every one of those churches that fold, God plants another one that's ready to say, we will do whatever you want, Lord, whenever you want, however you want, and we'll never stop. And there he shows in that group of people and in their lives who he is. Ezekiel was talking to people whose nation had been destroyed, and he had a very important message for us. The Lord did something unusual in his life. The hand of the Lord was upon me. He brought me out of the spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, son of man, can these bones ever live? I said, oh, sovereign Lord, you alone know. He said to me, prophesy to these bones and say to them, dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the sovereign Lord says to these bones. I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come on you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will come to life, and then you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded, and as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and flesh and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to it, this is what the sovereign Lord says. Come from the four winds, oh breath, and breathe into these slain that they may live. So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them, and they came to life, and stood on their feet a vast army. God has the power to close a nation, to shut down a church, and he has the power to take the most dead, decayed human beings in the world, and fill them with fire and life. We have a choice as to how we want to live. We can live like the people around us, buying into their values, their way of thinking, and their choices. And I know it's hard. There were times, you know, in the world when you didn't have to worry if you were going to a movie and hear the F word, it wasn't allowed. Now you have to make a choice if you don't want to hear that word. And some of us don't make those choices. We just have gone with the flow. What God wants are people who say, I want to think like you think. Would you watch this movie? Would you go to this place? Would you be in this party? Would you do these things? And I want you to ask me about that, and I want you to learn what I want you to do, and I want you to do it if everybody in the world makes fun of you. If you miss out on all that your culture has, I want you to choose me. And I'll promise you I'll give you a life beyond what you could ever imagine. But if you want to stay dry bones, you have that choice. As a church, we have that choice. They have passion for God. We would like to please you. We really would. All of us in the planning want to please you. But you know what? Pleasing God is far more important than pleasing people. And that sometimes is a decision we have to make. What does God want? If you don't know Him well enough, you'll never be able to figure it out. That's why reading the Bible is so critical. You know, a survey taken said 19% of people in the church actually read the Bible every day. In a world, you know what to do if you don't listen to God, but I'll tell you one scarier than that. A survey of 10,000 preachers, 38% of them said, I don't ever read the Bible except to prepare sermons. How do you know what to preach if you're not listening to God? You see, it just infects every single one of us. No one is immune from this falling into the trap of becoming like all the rest of the people around us. God has convicted me of two things in my life. He's telling me I need to change. And I doubt if a single person here doesn't have a need to encounter God and find out what He says in my life needs to change. And if we're not passionate about that, we're just like the people that slept in today. We want to do what feels good for us. We ought to learn from these lessons. God passes judgment and it is always deadly or He makes the most decayed and dead thing in the world flourishing alive, depending on what we say, Lord God, take my life. I will live from this moment on in obedience to you as best I can. And then all the power of the universe, the sun, the moon and the stars comes into your life and He guides you step by step and makes it flourish. Or you can say, I'd rather do the things I enjoy and like and everybody else around me does and you can die. It's our choice. Not just those people out there, it's us. Would you bow your heads please? So I want you to ask a question of God right now. God, is there anything in my life that you need to have changed? Now the way God talks to you is He puts thoughts in your mind. So pay attention to the thoughts that come to your mind. Because He's telling you what you're doing that He doesn't want in you. Now I'll tell you something about that. It'll be something you don't want to give up. It'll be something that's a part of your lifestyle. But you have to make a choice. You want life or you want death? And what I want you to do is to answer God. Whatever He said to you that needs to change in your life, I want you to, in your mind, tell Him yes or no. If you say yes to God about these changes, you need to admit that what He's told you is really wrong. You need to change it. You need to tell Him you need His strength and power to be able to change. And you need to tell Him you're going to read the Bible. You're going to be faithful in church. You're going to listen to His direction. And you're going to trust Him to give you the power to be different. So you can't do that on your own. You trust Him. You may feel like you need to come and say to me or someone else in your Sunday school class or your group or to Marla, God has told me something. I need to change. And I promise publicly and openly I'm going to do it. We don't need to know what it is. But you may feel that this will help you. And you'll know that because God will say, go down there and tell Him you're going to make this promise to me. I'm going to ask the instrument to play. And if you're going to be quiet, I'll be at the front. Marla's here too. You may just want to come and kneel if God's talked to you in that way. But this is the word of life. Do what God tells you. And God will tell you that it's not helpful. Okay. Father, we do have fears when we face people who evaluate us. Would you stand, please, for a moment to pray? The two things that you've talked to me about for several weeks now, I've made a promise to you to allow you to change those in my life. And both of them are beyond my ability to do that. And I know if you've talked to others here, they say the same thing to you. We're all in the need, Father, of wisdom beyond our own and power beyond our own to be different than we are. For none of us can be like you, except you take our lives and fill us with your wisdom, your knowledge, and your power. Help us to be smart enough to see from the history of others the future for ourselves. We ask that we might be a place where there's life and not bones. In the name of Jesus, we ask it. Amen. We will close with telling God how amazing we think he is with the chorus of Indescribable.