Episode Transcript
We are in 2 Kings chapter 17.
2 Kings chapter 17.
Good to see all of you here.
I'll remind you just to quieten your noise making device if you brought one.
God sent the lions to the new inhabitants of Samaria and some of them were slain.
And the reason these Gentile occupiers were slain is clearly stated at the end of the verse we're studying, which is 2 Kings 17 verse 26 if you've just tuned in.
And it says at the end of verse 26, when it comes to the reason these Gentile occupiers were slain because they know not the manner of the God of the land.
These words came from messengers who had written, it says they spoke to the king of Assyria.
So these were Gentiles speaking to a Gentile king about the judgment of God.
And I think it's very instructive that even the Gentile Assyrians recognized that it was God who sent the lions to slay the occupants of Samaria.
Now this doesn't mean that the Assyrians acknowledged Jehovah as the one and only true God.
But they acknowledged by their words that there was a God over Samaria.
You see in the doctrine of pantheistic religions or religions that have a lot of gods, more than one god.
For example the Hindus, over 300 gods as far as I know.
One for this and one for that.
Roman mythology and Greek mythology were full of false gods.
This god is over the sea and this one here is over this part of the universe.
So it's no strange thing that the Assyrians would say, well there's a god that's over that land and the people in Samaria have done something that shows us they don't know what his manner is.
And furthermore what's also instructive is that the blame has been put on the people in Samaria.
In other words they have done something to bring the judgment of the god of the land onto them.
That's uncanny because these messengers were not Christians and this king was not a Christian.
But they're talking about things that a Christian ought to know about.
The manner of the god of the land and what happens if you don't do after his manner.
What happens if you displease your god?
In the Old Testament the word judgment is used more often, much more often than the word manner.
They are from the same Hebrew word.
So we may accurately conclude that the new inhabitants of Samaria, these Gentiles, were slain because they knew not the judgment of the god of the land.
Now that's a real problem isn't it if you don't know.
How could the Gentiles know how to be saved from the lions or from death which the lions certainly brought?
How could they know how to be saved from that if they did not know about the judgment of the god of the land?
For them they must know who god is, they have to know what he said about himself, about man, about sin, and about how to be righteous and what happens if you're not.
Those things for any religion that believes in some sort of a supreme being, those things have to be present somewhere in their doctrine.
And all religions except for the one true religion hope that there's something they can do with their hands, with their feet, by their lives that will appease their god.
And they spend all of their life hoping that they've done enough, but never knowing for sure.
So how could these Gentiles know the manner of the god of the land?
How could they know the judgment of the god of the land?
Well the same way everyone else knew.
By listening to what the prophet said, perhaps you remember that when the children of Israel were delivered from Egypt, there came out with them a mixed multitude.
There were Gentiles who came out with them, a mixed multitude.
And Jesus, or Isaiah speaking of Jesus, in chapter 42 verse 1, listen to what he said about this matter.
Isaiah 42 verse 1, Isaiah is prophesying about Jesus.
He said, "Behold, my servant whom I uphold mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth.
I have put my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
" That judgment is the same word for manner.
So Isaiah prophesied well before, seven or eight hundred years before Jesus came onto the scene in a human form.
Isaiah prophesied that, and he was speaking as though God were speaking.
That's why you see the possessive pronouns, "my, behold my servant.
" Jesus wasn't Isaiah's servant, we know that.
So he's speaking on behalf of God.
He's writing inspired text here.
He said, "I put my spirit upon him.
He shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles.
" So where are the Gentiles of any age going to receive their instruction about the manner of the god of the land?
The same way everyone else does through the word of God.
From the prophets, the apostles, the preachers, evangelists today, the same way.
We don't say, "Now, how many of you in here are Jews?
" We've done that before just to show that as far as we know, we have nobody who is racially a Jew, which is fine.
But let's say we did.
Let's say we had a really large congregation in a city that was kind of a melting pot for all cultures, and we had 50 Jews, and then we had the rest Gentiles.
We wouldn't say, "Now, we have a class for all the Jews where we're going to teach you a little something different.
" Nope, we're all under one umbrella here.
It's the gospel.
It's the word of God, and we're going to teach you the same word of God as we teach the Gentiles.
Makes no difference.
So Jesus was prophesied to bring judgment to the Gentiles.
And the Gentiles then, remember, we're looking at these Assyrians, and in all the Gentiles from the countries that Assyria was over, like Babylon and all of that, we're looking at how they would know the judgment of the God of the land.
And the Gentiles then, just as the Gentiles now, would look to Jesus to know the manner, the judgment of the God of the land.
Those who came before Jesus was born looked forward through the Old Testament prophets and the ordinances and the law.
They looked forward to what all of that prophesied, and that was that one would come and die for the sins of the people.
And those few who actually saw it, they saw it happen in their lifetime.
They got to look forward to it, watch it, and look back to it all in one lifetime.
That's amazing.
And then we look back at what already happened.
But every person of every age looks to the same place to know the manner of the God of the land, to know the judgment of our God.
And to those Gentiles who looked to Jesus from any age, that judgment of God upon them would not be unto condemnation but eternal life.
Again, Isaiah speaks of that day in chapter 11, verse 10.
Isaiah 11, verse 10.
And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse.
Now if you follow, if you look in the book of Luke and also the book of Matthew and the very first, I think it's Matthew 1 and Luke 3, or Matthew 3 and Luke 1, but there will be the genealogies, the family tree of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And you'll see that Jesse was David's father and through David was the Lion of Jesus Christ.
So the root and offspring of Jesse, that is not referring just to King David, that's referring to David as a type of Jesus Christ and therefore to Jesus Christ who came from that line.
That may be all reviewed for you, but it's worth saying.
So here's what it says, "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign like flag of the people.
To it the Gentiles shall seek and his rest shall be glorious.
" We saw a foretaste of this grace that was given to the Gentiles all the way back in Exodus when God gave the children of Israel the ordinance of the Passover.
He said this is how you're going to do this at a set time every year.
And in Exodus chapter 12, I'll read from verses 48 through 49, you're going to hear the word stranger, that's the Gentile.
And when a stranger shall sojourn with thee or travel with you and will keep the Passover to the Lord, let all his males be circumcised and then let him come near and keep it.
And he shall be as one that is born in the land.
You see that?
The Gentile and the Jew are the same.
For no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof.
One law shall be to him that is home-born and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you.
The law was the same for the Jew and the Gentile.
The only difference physically was the Gentile males had to be circumcised because that was a token of the putting away of the filth of the flesh before they could take that Passover.
So as you look at the verse we're studying in 2 Kings, don't forget that God at this time in history had already shown the Gentiles his judgment, his manner, well before the text that we're reading.
But just as there were unbelieving Jews who rejected God's judgment, who rejected his manner in that day, there were also unbelieving Gentiles who did the same like the ones we're reading about.
And some of those Gentiles became lion food in Samaria.
That's what happened.
God sent them to eat.
Now the king of Assyria knew that the people in Samaria could only be saved one way.
And that was by hearing or knowing and doing according to the manner of the God of the land.
He didn't list a whole lot of possibilities there did he?
In verse 26 the messenger said they're getting killed because they don't know the manner of the God of the land.
They didn't say, "Or it could be this or it could be that or it could possibly be this other thing.
" They said, "That's the reason they're dying.
It's not because the lions happen to just be marching through and said, 'Hey, that looks like a city full of tasty morsels.
Let's go over yonder and feast.
'" God sent them there.
The scripture clearly tells us that.
So if only Israel, Samaria, would have been diligent enough to perceive the same thing that the king of Assyria and his messengers understood, then they would know, they would consider what it would take for God to deliver them out of the lions of this world as well.
Now they were captives.
They were captives.
Their house had been swept out and now the Gentiles came and lived in their house.
They did worse.
We'll see here in a few moments.
Now another thing that stands out to me here in verse 26, speaking of these men who spoke to the king of Assyria about what was going on in Samaria with the lions and the people.
Another thing that stands out to me is that the king of Assyria and these men who wrote him as we will see, did not seek out the prophet Isaiah or the prophet Micah or other prophets who had warned Israel in those days.
But instead these messengers sought out the Gentile king who didn't know the Lord.
In fact, you can say he was a Gentile both racially, he's a non-Jew, and spiritually he was not saved.
And today people seek spiritual Gentiles, meaning they're not saved, to answer the most important questions of life and death.
You can go on Facebook and for every 10 posts there's somebody giving life advice to you, telling you what you ought to do, telling you what you ought to think about God, writing these, sometimes these little devotionals.
You better know your Bible before you start eating that stuff up because it'll lead you astray.
You'll start thinking, well a lot of people listen to this guy.
This pastor over here has a big old church.
None of that matters if they're spiritual Gentiles because they're not going to give you the truth.
And today, as back then, the answers those spiritual Gentiles give, and you'll appreciate this if you've been coming or watching on Wednesday nights, those answers are not from the mouth of the well of a righteous man, but from the mouth of one that's covered with violence and brings sorrow to the world.
That's all a spiritual Gentile can offer you.
It may sound good.
You may say, wow, that guy sounds like he knows what he's talking about.
He's very articulate, he's well-dressed, lots of people like him and follow him and all that.
Does it matter?
No.
If he's not teaching you the scriptures, turn it off, quit watching it, unfollow him, dislike him, whatever you have to do.
Now look in verse 27, back in your text in 2 Kings chapter 17, verse 27, "Now the king is heard from these messengers.
It says, 'Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, 'Carry thither,' or to there, to some area, one of the priests whom ye brought from thence, and let them go and dwell there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
'" Now they'd taken all the priests away, so now the king says, "I'll tell you what, we're going to let one of them go back.
We'll let one priest go back.
" He's going to be returned to Samaria, meaning to one of the cities of Samaria or to Israel, not necessarily to the city Samaria itself.
In fact you'll see that he was not taken to the city of Samaria.
And it's for the purpose of teaching the occupiers of the land to know the manner of the God of the land.
That's what that Assyrian king said.
The God of that land is different than the one over our land, and that is absolutely true.
The God they worshiped in Assyria is no God at all.
But the God over the land of Israel is the God of Israel, and His people are the Israel of God, not just because they were born Jews, but because they believe in the salvation of the Lord, the way He said it.
And there's so much we don't know about this priest, like what his name was, whether he was formerly a strong priest or a compromiser.
We know his assignment from the king of Assyria was to go to Samaria and to teach those Gentiles about the manner of the God of the land, about His judgments.
And based upon the following verses that we'll look at, and based upon the way that world rulers view Christianity, a couple of possibilities popped into my mind.
One is that this king of Assyria said, "Find me one of those milk toast preachers that doesn't really shell the corn.
He's not a straight shooter.
Send him over there just to kind of appease everybody, to appease their gods so he won't kill any more of those people because I need them to run that city.
I need them to do the farming and the working and the tax collecting and all that.
" That's one possibility.
After all, it would be against that king's best interest to send an Isaiah or a Jeremiah to these Gentile unbelievers in Samaria.
Because after the preaching of the gospel, they might turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and away from these Assyrian gods.
But then I got to thinking, when Isaiah and Jeremiah preached, most of the people didn't believe.
And they set the record straight.
When the Baptist preached, which was well after this time, the people generally didn't listen.
Only a few did.
So it wouldn't really matter who he sent except for this.
If he sent a priest, and I believe he sent a priest who shot straight, if he sent a priest who was a straight shooter who taught rightly divided the word of truth and those people refused it, that would be a stronger witness against them.
That would just aggravate their disobedience.
You heard the truth and you said no to it.
So let's continue looking at it.
Now another opinion might be that the king of Assyria sent the best priest he knew to keep the people from being eaten up by the lions.
And I think that's probably why he did that in the first place.
After all, he's a Gentile unbeliever.
He doesn't care a whit about their spiritual condition.
He just wants the killing to stop.
And in fact, support for that opinion would come from the words that describe this priest's ministry to the Gentiles.
It said, if you look in the text there in verse 28, it said, "He taught them how they should fear the Lord.
" He taught them how they should fear the Lord.
Now the inspired writer of this text would not have put those words there if they weren't true.
And to teach someone to fear the Lord, you have to tell them the truth, don't you?
You don't tell them part of the truth to teach them to fear the Lord.
So we can conclude based on the fact that God's word is inerrant, it's without mistake, that this priest taught these people how to fear the Lord.
Now back in 27, let's look at the middle of the verse.
It says, "Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from thence, and let them go and dwell there.
" Now who is this referring to?
Who are "them" and why do we have the word "them" when they only carried one priest?
Well let me help you with that.
That would refer to the people of Samaria who would go to dwell wherever it was this priest was taken.
So we'll read it again with that in mind.
It says, "Carry there one of the priests whom you brought from thence, and let them go.
" So "them," that would be the Samarians, "carry them," or let them go to wherever this priest is going to live and let them dwell there.
So these people were to go wherever this priest landed and dwell there, and then he could teach them about the manner of the God of the land.
That tells you that's not a one-hit sermon.
That's not a five-minute witness at the doorstep, is it?
That is a series of doctrinal teaching because they were going to be required to go and to dwell there.
They had to stay there a while.
For him to teach them it wasn't going to happen in one day because he had to undo a lot of things that they believed if he was going to teach them to fear the Lord.
And then he had to build them up in the faith, build them up in the truth.
Whether they received it or rejected it, let them go and dwell there.
So there was one priest, there were many people.
And it makes sense to send the people to the priest rather than trying to get the priest to go to each city in Samaria and perhaps each house in each synagogue, or not synagogue, but place of worship and say the same thing over and over.
Why not just bring all the people to that one place and let them hear the same thing at the same time?
That's what we desire to do here.
I don't go to a brother's, Doug's house and teach him, Miss Sheila, and then come over to the Bragdon's house and go to Miss Alice.
We just all gather here and you hear me one time.
And if you re-hear it again, that's wonderful because of the recording there on Facebook.
That's why we have the people come to the church.
And then it says there to let them, at the end of verse 27, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land.
And so what do we conclude here?
We skipped ahead in verse 28 and we saw that he taught them how to fear the Lord.
Verse 27, he was commanded to let them teach the manner of the God of the land.
So right away we know that the manner of the God of the land is the judgment of the God of the land is that he should be feared, particularly by these unbelievers who put him on a level with all of their false gods.
They ought to be afraid to ever do that again.
Now there are assumptions that we see here, I believe, that were made by this king.
When this king said, "Let that priest teach these people the manner of the God of the land," there were some assumptions that this king made.
One, there must be something the people could do to keep the wrath of God from being brought upon them.
Two, there must be someone who knows this truth.
That's the priest.
And three, that someone must go and tell these people how to be saved from the lions or they will continue to perish.
By saying, "Let him teach them after the manner of the God of the land," this king actually understood more about the need for the gospel of Jesus Christ than you might imagine, even though he was an unbeliever.
What did Jesus tell some of those unbelieving Jews when he was here on the earth?
He said, "You're not far from the kingdom of God.
You're awfully, you got it, you got the principle down.
" It's still hard for me to wrap my head around how this Assyrian king could believe that the God of Samaria was powerful enough to send lions to kill some of the people, but not powerful enough to be the one true God over all the earth.
It's as though in this king's mind that the Lord was unlimited in power, but limited by geographical boundaries.
Hard for me to imagine how somebody could have that opinion, but that's my view is that is the assumption he made.
Now let's compare what we've learned about the king and his reckoning of this situation to what we know about the wrath of God.
God's holy and perfect and he does not change.
He hates sin, he loves righteousness.
To be accepted by God, man had to be holy, be perfect.
Man sinned in the garden, so death entered into the world.
God gave man a law, but man broke the law which brought death.
So both in the garden and under the law, man sinned and brought about his own death, but in the garden and under the law, God also taught man about a sacrifice.
Because his judgment, his manner upon sin was death.
He clearly stated in Romans 3, "For the wages of sin is death.
" He sent his son as the one and only perfect sacrifice, the substitute who could absorb all of the wrath of God that was due to us.
Now this is something missing from the Assyrian religions, wasn't it?
That takes your breath away just thinking of that right there.
Because the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away sin.
Those animal skins that God put on Adam and Eve after they sinned, those animal skins could not take away sin, only the blood of Jesus Christ could.
And that's where those animal sacrifices pointed, that's where all the sacrifices and the law pointed was to the cross.
The Gentile Syrians had none of that.
The spiritual Gentile today from whom many people, in fact most, receive their religious instruction don't have that story to tell.
They're afraid to point you to a holy God under whose wrath you are now condemned if you are an unbeliever and to say there is a way away from that.
There is one way and that is to put your trust in his son who died for your sin.
All the spiritual Gentiles aren't going to tell you that.
And if they throw that in, they'll say, "But now that's not enough.
You'll have to be baptized and then you'll have to continue to obey the gospel.
" That's what the Campbellites say, you've got to keep obeying the gospel.
They don't understand what that phrase means in the Bible, to obey the gospel.
And that's for another Sunday, perhaps.
But just as these Gentile occupiers of Samaria could escape the lions by knowing the manner of the God of the land so sinners could escape death, eternal death, by knowing the manner of the God of all creation.
Not just the God of Samaria, though he was, but the God of all creation.
And the manner of God was not only to judge sin by death, but thankfully to place that judgment for sin upon his son.
That's where the judgment for my sin is.
I know the manner of the God of the land, that I deserve death and hell, the lake of fire for all eternity.
But the manner of the God of the land was also that he sent his son to die for me so I wouldn't have to go do that.
He did it for me.
Why is it so hard for the average preacher to just say that?
I'll tell you one reason, it thins the crowd out.
It does.
And we don't brag because most of our church pews are empty, we don't do that.
We're not high on ourselves for that, I wish they were full.
But I know why they're not.
I've been around a long time and some of you have been around, in fact most of you have been around longer than I have, but you've seen it.
Yeah, I didn't look over there.
To show this manner of the God of the land, there's got to be somebody to go tell the people.
For Samaria, it was to be a lone Israelite priest.
For us, and you know that's another thing, I just, thank you Lord.
I just thought of that.
What was Jesus to be?
He was a Jew, he was to be a light to the Gentiles.
So what did this priest do?
He went to be a light to the Gentiles, didn't he?
That's good stuff, that's a foretaste of what Jesus would do for the Gentiles.
But for us, it was the prophets from Abel, yes he was a prophet, look it up.
From Abel, all the way to John, the Lord Jesus himself, all the apostles, every gospel preacher sent since then.
Those are all the ones who've told us about the manner of the God of all creation, not just the God of the land.
Now for the Gentiles in Samaria, and here's another point, it wasn't good enough for that priest who was sent to them to know the manner of the God of the land, but he also had to go tell it to them.
He couldn't just sit on it.
And we are to be witnesses of the gospel to every sinner.
Now I can't witness to every sinner in the world, neither can you.
But Jesus didn't give us a percentage to go talk to, did he?
He said go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, every one of them.
That's our mission.
So Jesus is telling us it's not enough for you to just know the manner of the God of the land, you need to go tell people.
Because that's how you heard it, that's how I heard it.
Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
And the Bible said in Romans 10, then how can we hear without a preacher?
How can they preach except they be sent?
How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel, glad tidings.
And they are.
But as Samaria, though they might hear the manner of the God of the land, and today though people may hear the manner of the God of the land, most will reject it in unbelief, but a few will not.
And they'll find out that that judgment, that manner of the God of the land is not just about wrath, but it's also about mercy.
And that's what will lead them to Jesus Christ for salvation.
What a hopeless religion it is that says you're going to die and you're going to pay the price for all the bad stuff you've done.
And just leave it at that.
Well that's a horrible life and it's an even worse death.
Ours doesn't have that.
Look at verse 28 now back in our text where it says, "Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel and taught them how they should fear the Lord.
" I love that this priest dwelt in Bethel.
Bethel means the house of God.
That's the translation, the house of God.
Now let's go back to, or I will go back to, you can write it down, the first time we see Bethel mentioned in the Bible.
And it's found in Genesis chapter 12 verses 7 through 8.
Genesis 12 verses 7 through 8 where it says, "And the Lord appeared unto Abram and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land, and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him.
And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west and Hai on the east.
And there he builded an altar unto the Lord and called upon the name of the Lord.
" So near Bethel, Abram built an altar to the Lord and he called on the name of the Lord.
Now what had these people in Samaria done at this time?
They built their own altars and they called on the name of their gods.
And it was on a mountain near Bethel where God appeared to Abram and gave him the promise that's also recorded in that passage if you read on in chapter 12.
And surely this priest was reminded of that.
That promise and the God who made it were exactly what Israel needed, Samaria needed, but the people of Samaria weren't there.
It was the Gentiles and yet God still sent this priest.
And it would be to the Gentiles, not the Jews, that the priest would proclaim the fear of the Lord.
He had the same message for them.
I think that's so merciful.
Listen to Genesis chapter 35 verses 1 through 3, also about Bethel.
Genesis 35, 1 through 3, "And God said unto Jacob, Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there.
" Now stop right there.
What did the king of Assyria tell this priest to do?
He said go and dwell there.
He didn't say Bethel, but that's where the priest ended up, is to Bethel.
"And make there an altar unto God that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother.
Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean and change your garments, and let us arise and go up to Bethel.
And I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and was with me in the way which I went.
" All right, now that's Genesis 35.
So you've got Genesis 12, Genesis 35, and other passages too, but let's just take those two.
That right there is some good sermon preparation for this priest on his way to Samaria, because he came and dwelt in Bethel.
And in Bethel he could teach these Gentiles the significance of that place and what it represented, the truth that it represented about the God of the land.
And that priest must have known how God spoke to Jacob, telling him to go to Bethel, just as we read from Genesis 35.
And so the priest has done the first two things that Jacob was commanded to do.
He went to Bethel and he dwelt at Bethel.
And if he taught them to fear the Lord at Bethel, then we might correctly assume that he taught them to have no other gods before them.
That's part of teaching them to fear the Lord.
So fear God and have no other gods before me.
We might correctly assume that he taught them to forsake their idols, to put away their graven images, because that's what the Lord commanded the children of Israel in those Ten Commandments.
He correctly taught them to tear down their groves and their high places and to put their trust in the one true God for salvation, physically so the lions wouldn't kill them anymore, but spiritually so they wouldn't be cast into the lake of fire, which burneth forever and ever.
But what was their response?
Look at verse 29, "Howbeit every nation made gods of their own and put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities wherein they dwell.
" Howbeit every nation made gods of their own.
Now remember, the people living in Samaria were representatives from other nations, from Babylon and so there are several names, Sephravaim and others.
So that was their response to hearing how they should fear the God of the land as they made their own gods.
Now let's use this response by these people to examine how people respond to the truth of God's Word with rebellion.
And this is not an all inclusive list.
The Bible gives us a lot to think about on this subject, but here are a couple of things to consider because you see this in your day too.
In Genesis chapter 19, we read about a man named Lot who was Abram's nephew and he was trying to tell his family about the coming destruction and I mean the imminent, like happening right now, destruction of Sodom.
And in verse 14 of Genesis chapter 19, it said, "And Lot went out and spake unto his sons-in-law which married his daughters and said, 'Up, get you out of this place, for the Lord will destroy this city.
'" Now here's what their response instead of going, "Oh, we better leave," it said, "but he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.
" His sons-in-law didn't take him seriously.
They thought he was mocking.
They didn't accept him as a preacher, as teaching them God's Word.
The Bible tells us that Lot was just, meaning he was righteous.
You find that in 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 7.
So this wasn't Lot an unsaved person.
This was Lot a shallow Christian.
That's what he was.
If you remember by sight, not by faith, Lot chose the well-watered plains of Sodom to go live there.
Now Abram on the other hand said, "You pick where you want to go.
" Lot had already said, "Well, our herdmen are fighting with each other so we're going to have to split up," instead of bringing his herdmen under submission to Abram's authority.
Abram said, "Well, you go right, I'll go left.
If you go left, I'll go right.
It doesn't matter to me.
I left my land on faith.
God's going to deliver me somewhere and I don't know where it is, but I know that he's going to take me there.
" So Abram at that time went out by faith, but Lot didn't.
Lot went by sight.
So he chose those plains of Sodom.
He was a shallow Christian because he offered his daughters, his own daughters, to those wicked men who were trying to beat the door down to have sexual relations with those men, those two messengers who came to Lot's house, instead of him pulling those men in saying, "You wicked men get out of here.
" He was willing to give his daughters up to him.
So the takeaway from that is, let our lives be lived in such a way that when we teach people about the manner of the God of the land, we don't seem as those who are mocking.
We'll look at another example of that next week because our time is up.
Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your faithfulness.
Thank you for your word.
Lord, thank you for the way you teach your people through your servants.
And I pray as we meditate upon these truths, Lord, we'd find that they're in our best interest.
Lord, we know they grate against the flesh and the flesh doesn't like it.
The world's crowd thinks that we're silly or fanatic or whatever their adjectives may be.
And Father, we know that learning your truth is what you want us to do.
And so I pray you'd help us to continue to do it, give our pastor what to say the next hour and may our eyes, our ears, our attention be upon your word.
May our praying, our singing, our encouragement of one another be acceptable in your sight.
In Jesus' name, amen.
