Episode Transcript
Good morning.
It's 10 o'clock.
Let's start Sunday school.
Second Kings chapter 17 verse 29 is our text.
Second Kings 17 verse 29.
Last week we read and partly expounded upon the first part of this verse that said, "Howbeit every nation made gods of their own.
" And we learned that that was the response of the Gentile occupiers of the cities of Samaria to the instruction they received from the Jewish priests who taught them.
Remember that the Assyrian king was told by his messengers that the reason these Gentile occupiers in the cities of Samaria were being eaten by lions was that they knew not the manner of the God of the land.
So this priest was sent down there to tell them the manner of the God of the land and how that they should fear the Lord.
And so their response was to make gods of their own.
They were rebellious toward the teaching of God's word.
So we looked at a passage in Genesis chapter 19 to see that same reaction by Lot's sons-in-law when he told them that God would judge the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and they needed to get out of there.
And the key part of that passage concerning the response of Lot's sons-in-law was this, "But he seemed as one that mocked unto his sons-in-law.
" And Lot was a shallow Christian, so his sudden interest in proclaiming God's warning of judgment sounded like mockery to his rebellious sons-in-law.
But let me say this, if the most hypocritical, sinful, even unsaved preacher reads God's word to you, you'd better listen to what he read.
You may not agree with what he says about it, but you better listen to what he read.
And he may seem as one who mocks to you, but truth is truth.
You don't have to attend his church or tune into his broadcasts, but God's word is to be believed and obeyed no matter how it comes to you.
Now let me tell you, I went to a funeral yesterday, a dear brother in the Lord who I used to serve with at another church, and he was elderly and he preached his own funeral throughout his life, so it didn't make the pastor's job very hard.
He just served the Lord his whole life.
He's a wonderful, wonderful brother.
And the pastor kept it pretty short, but he read some scriptures.
And then what he said about some of those scriptures I didn't agree with all the way.
But when he read the scriptures, let me tell you, my ears were listening, because he was reading God's word.
Now he did not seem as one that mocked.
He was a sincere man, and he seemed like a nice man and probably taught some good things at that church.
But nevertheless, we tend to dismiss the message of God's word when we dismiss the messenger, and we have to be careful about doing that.
And so these sons-in-law of Lot and these Gentile occupiers in Samaria all had the wrong response to the teaching of God's word to them about judgment and about why they were being judged.
And in the eyes of the Gentile occupiers of Samaria, perhaps this Jewish priest was nothing more than a second-class citizen to them, a prisoner of war.
He was that.
A lackey whose God allowed them to be captured by the Assyrians.
Maybe that's what these occupiers thought.
Perhaps they thought, well, who is this man that we should listen to him?
We're in charge around here.
Well, our king has sent us to these cities, and we're now in command.
But it's not who he is, it's who God is.
That's why they should listen to God's word.
You know, the Apostle Paul dealt with this same sort of thing in Philippians chapter 1 verses 15 through 18.
Philippians chapter 1 verses 15 through 18.
And he gave us a warning about viewing the person who is teaching the Scriptures and not letting that get in the way of our enjoyment of the truth.
And here's what he said in those verses.
"Some indeed preach Christ even of envy and strife.
" In other words, their motive is impure.
They preach it of envy.
Now, if you could imagine, I remember a New Year's Eve service.
Oh, it's been 25 or 30 years ago.
New Year's Eve service.
And the pastor of that church said, "We're going to have a preach off.
" Well, that doesn't sit well with me having a preach off, like a contest, I guess it was.
And so we were to draw a name or draw subjects out of an offering plate that kept it baptistic instead of using a hat.
We drew those subjects out of the offering plate.
And we had five minutes to study and get up there and preach something.
Well, I don't like doing that.
If I already don't know what I'm talking about, then I want to study.
I need more than five minutes, by the way.
It takes me a lot more than five minutes to study.
It takes me that long to turn on that cheap computer that I bought from Best Buy.
And so we got up there and wanted preaching, and then the other one would preach.
And you know what tends to happen?
You get in the flesh.
You thought, "Well, that last guy didn't holler loud enough, so I'll holler louder, and he did when I'm preaching.
And then the next guy will try to outdo me.
" And all of that was in the flesh.
But Paul said, "Some will preach Christ, the dude of envy, trying to be better than someone, being jealous of the way another one preaches.
" As he told the people in one place, some of you say, "I'm of Apollos.
" Others say, "I'm of Cephas.
" And that's not who we are of.
We're all ministers of Christ.
And Paul said, "And some also of good will.
" In other words, some preach Christ of good will.
They want people to be saved.
They want God to be glorified.
The one preached Christ of contention, not sincerely.
So that is one who has an impure motive.
It's like he's joking around, mocking, as Lot was, "supposing to add affliction to my bonds, but the other of love.
" In other words, when he preaches Christ, he preaches of love, "knowing that I am set for the defense of the gospel.
" What then?
Notwithstanding.
Listen to this.
Every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached and I therein do rejoice.
Yea, and will rejoice.
So Paul said, "Regardless of the motive," and when you preach the truth, you better have a pure motive.
But if you don't, and you're preaching the truth, those who hear it better listen.
And they better rejoice that the truth is preached.
They don't have to rejoice that that pastor acted a fool.
They don't have to rejoice that he sounded like he was mocking or that some of the things he said were incorrect.
But they better rejoice in the truth that they've heard.
And that's what we need to do.
Don't throw it all out.
Take the truth and then let God burn the drawers off, Brother Doug.
That way you've got refined pure gold and silver, right?
You don't have all those elements of the world that creep into the preaching.
And these Gentiles in Samaria should have rejoiced when that priest, though he were a Jew, though he were a prisoner of war, when that priest taught them how they should fear the Lord.
They should have thanked God for his mercy in sending that priest to them.
God could have delivered every one of them to the lions.
There could have been zero survivors.
They were a people with no hope.
They lived outside the covenants of God, the Commonwealth of Israel.
They weren't part of that.
And yet God was merciful to send a priest to them to tell them how to fear the Lord.
That was the reason they were being killed by the lions.
Now a second passage, and we'll read this one today, dealing with people's rebellious response to God's Word is found in Nehemiah chapter 9.
And in Nehemiah chapter 9, the children of Israel in that day were testifying about the things that God had done for them, from the creation all the way to the time during which that passage took place in Nehemiah.
Now listen to what they said about how their forefathers responded to being taught to fear the Lord and keep his commandments.
It's found in verses 16 and 17.
Put a little "a" after 17, as we won't use the entire verse.
Verses 16 through 17, little "a.
" And here's what their response was.
"But they and our fathers dealt proudly and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments," that is to the Lord's commandments, "and refused to obey.
Neither were mindful of thy wonders that thou didst among them, but hardened their necks, and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to bondage.
" What would be another word we might think of for that word "captain" there based on what we've learned?
Spoiler, right?
A captain to lead them back to bondage.
Now Jesus doesn't lead us back to bondage, he leads us from bondage.
So these Israelites in Nehemiah testified that our forefathers received all of this truth, and the way they responded was to deal proudly, "harden their necks, and appoint themselves a captain to return to bondage.
" That's what the result of all that was.
You notice the word "proudly" in that passage.
It's also translated in the Old Testament as the word "presumptuously.
" And it carries the meaning of being arrogant.
You've seen somebody who's arrogant, perhaps you've been arrogant.
Well, we all have at some point about something.
Somebody tries to tell you something, you go, "Yeah, well, I've got my own way of doing that.
I know better than you do, and that may not be true.
" When God's Word is taught, and the person who hears it deals with it arrogantly or proudly, then hardening his neck and not harkening to God's commandments naturally come after that, don't they?
After all, you're not going to be arrogant and then decide to obey God's commands at the same time.
It doesn't work out that way.
When you hear truth, when you hear God's Word taught, and you respond to it by faith and obedience, you weren't arrogant.
You humbled yourself.
And that's what we ought to do.
You submitted yourself.
You placed yourself under the authority of God's Word.
Arrogance puts you outside of that authority.
Now, you're still under the authority.
You're still bound to it, but you've taken yourself out from under its authority, and therefore its protection and its promises.
And this passage in Nehemiah said that the result of that response was bondage, not freedom.
Now, that's an interesting concept for the unbeliever today who believes himself to be free from bondage because he's a free thinker.
He said, "I don't need all that.
I'm a free thinker.
" He said he doesn't need God's Word.
Many have said that, and many will continue to say that.
But the Bible tells us over and over that such people who believe they are headed toward freedom, believe they have appointed themselves a captain to lead them to freedom, have actually appointed themselves a captain to lead them to bondage.
Proverbs 14 and verse 12, and I believe these exact words are repeated in chapter 16, I think verse 15, but I'm giving you Proverbs 14 and 12, says, "There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
" So for these Gentile occupiers, for Lot's sons-in-law, and for anyone else who hears God's Word taught and then says, "No, I don't need that.
I'm arrogant.
I don't need to be under that authority.
I'm a free thinker.
I'm in charge of my own destiny.
" For that person, they believe that the end of-- or the result of that response is freedom.
The Bible tells us it's death.
The Bible tells us it's bondage.
Now, physically speaking, death is bondage.
Just think of the physical body for a moment.
Death is bondage.
Right now, each of us are alive and have chosen where we sit, how we sit, what we wore.
All of those things are choices we're making.
We get to breathe.
We get to digest our food from this morning, and our eyes are working.
All of these bodily functions are working.
Some, not as good as others, but we're sitting upright, aren't we?
However, when that body dies, it can't do any of those things.
My friend who passed away had some crippling arthritis, because he was hunched over, bad.
And still, he just outworked most people.
But he was bent over.
Now, for them to get him into that casket, they had to take his dead body, and as these undertakers do, make some adjustments in there so he could lay relatively flat in that casket.
You know, otherwise he would have been sitting up.
I'm not trying to be too graphic there, but in death, he had lost all freedom to make any kind of adjustments, and so somebody had to make those for him.
He doesn't breathe anymore in that body.
He doesn't move.
He doesn't sit anywhere.
He doesn't make plans.
None of those things happen in that body.
Death is bondage to the body, to the physical body.
And rather than growing, the body decomposes.
Rather than socializing with others, the body lays there motionless.
In fact, it's in bondage to the wages of sin, isn't it?
That's what the wages of sin are, death.
But the second death is a worse bondage than that physical death, by far.
The atheist, for example, hopes that his or her physical death will free him from bondage because in the atheist's mind, he will just cease to exist.
He will not be in any more pain, suffering, sorrow, disappointment, so on.
That'll just be it.
The light turns off, and that's it.
Only people's memories who are still alive will still be thinking about it, but he won't be thinking.
He's just not here anymore.
He's nowhere.
That's what the atheist in short thinks.
But the Bible tells us that rather than just ceasing to exist, that dead person has an appointment at a throne one day.
In Revelation chapter 20, verses 13 through 14, now we read this verse quite often to talk about the lake of fire and the second death, but there are some other things in there that we don't always focus on.
I want you to see here this appointment, and the sea gave up the dead which were in it.
Now, just stop right there.
Let's say the atheist died in the sea, body went to the bottom of the ocean, eaten up by the sharks and all of that.
Probably not the sharks, probably some bottom feeder, angler fish.
And so at some point, all of that dead person, wherever he or she is in the course of nature's decomposing process, is going to appear at a place of judgment.
So that atheist may think, well, once I die, if I die in the sea, or if I die on the land, or if I die in my bed, that's it.
I don't have to do anything anymore.
Yes, you do.
You're not done.
You are in bondage to death, and now you're going to be in bondage because there is an appointment.
It said, and the sea gave up the dead.
So the dead in the sea doesn't have the power to say, you know what, I'm going to cancel that appointment.
I'm going to get on mycharts.
com and say, I cancel.
I'm not going.
You don't get to do that.
Luke's probably going, Andy, that's not how that works.
It's not how my charts work, but it's just an example.
That dead person is not free from that appointment.
And it says, and death and hell were delivered up the dead, which were in them.
So death and hell.
The person says, well, when I go to hell, I won't have to go back to an appointment.
Yes, you will.
The Bible says you have an appointment, and you're going to be delivered to that appointment.
You're not going to be asked to show up.
You're going to be given a subpoena or jury summons.
You're going to be delivered up to it.
You're going.
And they were judged every man according to their works, and death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.
This is the second death.
Okay.
So death and hell were cast.
It doesn't say death and hell were asked to make their way to the lake of fire and knock on the door, make an appointment, make a number like McDonald's.
They were cast.
Does that sound like somebody who is free from bondage?
No, they were cast.
So from the time a person dies, the dead body is in bondage.
And if that person is an unbeliever, then their eternal soul and spirit are in bondage because they're going to be cast into the lake of fire.
They're going to be delivered up to the great white throne judgment.
They're going to be cast into the lake of fire, which burneth forever and ever, and they can't get out.
As we learned in the book of Luke about the rich man and Lazarus, so there's a great gulf fixed between, so that they which are here can't pass over here.
In other words, you can't say, "Well, I was a Catholic and I believe my Catholic church members have prayed me out of this purgatory.
I've been here 100 years and 6 minutes, and I'm going to go to the other side.
Don't get to do that.
" There's a great gulf fixed there.
So the second death bondage is worse because it's eternal.
This old body is just going to die, and then that's it.
I mean, you are alive one moment, and then you are dead the next, assuming that you're not resuscitated.
But you are dead the next, and then that's it for the body.
The body doesn't have to endure, truly doesn't endure any more sorrow and pain and aches and all of that.
But that eternal soul and spirit, the bondage continues.
So the dead given up by the sea were not just left in the sea.
The dead atheist's supposed freedom would keep them from being delivered from anywhere.
But God says they will be delivered up.
"That death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them.
" So there's no freedom from this delivery to a certain place.
And where is that place where the dead shall be delivered?
Well, if you look back in that, or if you think back on that text I read you in Revelation 20, 13 through 14, it said, "And they were judged every man according to their works.
" So the place to which the dead, the place to which the dead from the sea, death and hell are delivered is to a place of judgment because that text tells us they'll be judged.
So it's a place of judgment.
And remember, the ones who appear there, if you've not studied the book of Revelation with us or anywhere else, the ones who appear at that great white throne judgment are unbelievers.
There won't be any believers being judged at the great white throne judgment.
You know why that is?
We've already been judged in the person of Jesus Christ.
All of my sins were judged.
He took the judgment.
He took the punishment.
He took the hell.
He took the eternal damnation and separation from God and all that on Himself.
So I won't be there for that.
This is for the unbeliever.
And whether those unbelievers are atheists, or whether they say they're Christians but have relied upon their own works to save them, to be accepted by God, all of them will be delivered to the same place of judgment.
So one might say, "Well, I was an atheist.
" Another might say, "Well, I was a Baptist.
" "Well, I was a Catholic.
I was a Muslim.
" "Well, you're all going to be delivered to the same place.
" Because no matter what your religion was, no matter where you sat in a pew on Sunday or Saturday or Friday night or whatever your appointed day of worship was, it's going to be the same question, so to speak.
What did you do with Jesus, which is called Christ?
All of you have this thing in common, you rejected the gospel of your salvation.
You said, "I don't need that.
I don't want that.
" Or, "I don't believe in that.
" Whatever your choice was, it was to reject that gospel.
Now, let's stop right here and consider a practical example.
This is very important for you, I think, to know.
Perhaps if you're witnessing to someone who says, "As those did in Jesus' day, we're in bondage to no man.
" We have Abraham to our father.
What to say to them?
What to say to that atheist who says, "You Christians are always in bondage.
You've got to do this and you've got to do that.
" "I don't have to do anything.
I don't have a God.
There is no God," he says.
Let's consider a very practical earthly example.
When I arrest a person for manslaughter, I take him to jail.
Now, he's lost his freedom right there.
It's temporary, but he's lost his freedom.
He's lost that freedom only until such time as he can post a bond.
Let's say, whether he posts a bond or remains in jail, he is going to be required to be delivered to a place of judgment.
That would be the courthouse where he will be judged for his alleged crime.
Now, what if he refuses to show up?
He says, "Well, you know what?
I'm just not going to go.
" Does that mean he doesn't have a place of judgment to which he's appointed?
No.
What is going to happen whenever my fugitive guys catch him?
He's going to lose his freedom, and he's going to be taken to the place of judgment.
So there's never going to be a time where he's not going to be delivered to the place of judgment.
It may happen now.
It may happen in four years.
Some have been on the run longer than that.
One of the things that makes me the proudest of my fellow law enforcement agents is when they catch a 91-year-old man who thinks he got by with a murder he committed when he was 18, and they put him in jail, and they let him rot in there for the rest of his miserable life, because he got to live while everyone else in that family grieved and suffered.
He's not free from judgment even then.
People might say, "Well, he's an old man.
" Yeah, well, he wasn't when he committed that offense, and he shouldn't have drawn another breath after he committed a murder, but he did.
And he had kids, and he had grandkids, and he had a career, and he got to retire and go fishing and bowling or whatever he does.
But he'll have a judgment.
In either case, he's not free, is he?
He's not free.
Because if he doesn't show up for court, we say he is wanted.
That means the court wants him to be at that place of judgment.
And when the children of Israel disobeyed God and sought after other gods, in other words, they rejected God, God wanted them.
He wanted them to do his will, but he permitted them to do their own.
That's called a choice.
And when they disobeyed God and sought after other gods, they did not free themselves from God.
Instead, they were delivered into bondage.
And that bondage in our text is Assyria.
And when they obeyed God's word, he protected them from their enemies.
Now, the unbelievers of the world would say, "Why?
They had to obey a bunch of rules.
" Oh, yeah, but they were protected when they did.
That's what we're learning in the Proverbs, isn't it?
It's the good offset by the bad.
Here's the good thing, and here's what happens.
Here's the bad thing, and here's what happens.
And when we get.
.
.
In fact, you couldn't say it right now, but when we get done with the study of the Proverbs, you cannot say, "I wasn't warned.
I didn't know.
I didn't realize this would happen when I make this choice, that all of these things would fall out.
" Because I'm going to say, "Well, let's go back to these Proverbs right here that tell that very thing.
Were you here?
Did you listen?
Did you not believe that it was true?
Did you think this was just a cute little Bible study, something you do on Wednesday night to entertain yourself instead of watching gun smoke reruns?
" You put yourself in bondage.
And rather than experiencing the liberty that comes with obedience to the Lord, the heart of man then and now prefers a way that will lead him to bondage.
It's amazing.
And whether the people in Samaria thought this lone priest seemed as one that mocked, or whether they simply hardened their necks and put themselves in spiritual bondage, their response to the teaching of God's Word was for each nation to make its own God.
After all, if Samaria had its God of the land, then so would Babylon and Cuthon, Avon, Hamath, and Sephravaam.
And the next part of verse 29 tells us where these handmade gods were put.
Look down in verse 29 it says, "And put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made.
" Every nation in their cities were in the dwelt.
"They put them in the houses of the high places which the Samaritans had made.
Each nation had made its own God.
Some made more than one, as you'll see in a few verses.
And those gods were put in the houses of the high places the Samaritans made.
Those were their places of worship.
But they were not of God.
" So there's a takeaway right there.
Just because someone says, "I'm going to worship God," doesn't mean they're going to worship God.
Doesn't mean they're going to worship the true God.
Many are worshiping a God of their own making.
They may dress up and buy a really inexpensive suit like mine and go to a church that has a large congregation and auditorium and all that and say they're worshiping God and have their own God there.
Because our God, the God of the Samaritans or the Samarians, the God of creation despises those high places.
How often have we read that He told the people to tear down the high places or He said He'd do it Himself.
He despised the high places and He despised the false gods.
Did you know people put their gods in the high places which they make?
In fact, the average church is a high place to many religious people.
In fact, let's get even more specific.
This church could be a place of worshiping the one true God to one person but used as a high place to worship their own God to another person.
One thing we learned about the high places in our previous studies was that it was just part of man's rejection of God's Word and therefore of God's way.
One person may come here and praise the Lord for His Word, for His goodness to them, for His salvation through His Son.
And another person may come because His wife keeps bugging Him about coming to church or her husband says, "You really ought to come with me.
We have a good time there.
" Perhaps someone else may come because she's anxious, troubled, depressed, feeling lonely, and knows that a church is a place where there are people who are loving people, who are warm people, generally accepting people.
And that's certainly true, but when a person comes for those reasons alone and then turns around and rejects what God teaches about how to be accepted by Him, then this church is nothing more than a high place to them.
And like the Gentiles in Samaria, such a person has brought his own God into the high place because this is a high place to them, whereas it is a holy place to us.
And you may ask, "Well, who is their own God?
" After all, we don't see anybody bringing their little idols in here and putting them up on the pew in front of them or saying, "Hey, preacher, can I set mine right up there, or can I put it back here on the Baptist?
" We don't see that.
We certainly wouldn't allow it.
Are you ready for this?
Some people are their own gods.
They are of their father, the devil.
Now, that's where we all are before we're saved.
So don't ever think, "Well, I'm glad I never was.
" Yes, you were.
Every one of us were.
But to the lonely person, yes, we want you to come to this house of worship where the people are warm and loving, and you're going to get a hug and a handshake and an encouraging word, probably more than one.
But come and learn about God who saves you through His Son and who's promised to never leave you or forsake you so that when these people in your lives leave you and forsake you, you can say rightly, "But God will never leave me or forsake me.
I'm not lonely.
I may be lonely among men, but He will never leave me nor forsake me.
" And to that depressed person, please come and learn about the love of God through His Son and how He will encourage you through the promises of His Word and how He'll never fail you like the world does.
Your friends, maybe even your family, have failed you.
But if you don't know that God has those promises, then how will you handle being depressed?
You'll rely upon yourself, won't you, on your own expectations of people, and you won't turn to the Lord.
What about that anxious person?
We want you to come too.
We want you to hear about the Lord who invites you to cast off all your care, all your anxiety upon Him, for He careth for you.
But to all of those people, to the lonely, to the depressed, to the anxious, to the angry, the guilty, the hen-packed, whatever you are, don't simply come here to be accepted by the people in the auditorium and not care how you can be accepted by God.
We don't invite people here to teach them how to be accepted by their fellow man.
We do not do that.
We invite people here to teach them how they can be accepted by God.
And then when they believe that message, they become Christians, we teach them how to, by God's Word and His grace and by His Spirit, go out into the world, to first of all encourage one another, and then go out in the world and encourage the people with the gospel, to tell them, "It doesn't have to be like this.
It doesn't have to end like this.
" If you're not saved, the problems you have now, the anxiety, the depression, the loneliness, the anger, the guilt, the trauma, all of that are small in comparison to the ones you're going to have in eternity because these will stop one day.
There will be a day when a person dies that they're no longer lonely, they're no longer depressed, their body doesn't have any of that.
They don't hurt anymore.
Oh, that'll all go away.
But for the unbeliever, those problems just get worse and they're eternal.
Over the decades, our pastor and I have spoken with people about their problems, and we've run into a common result with many, thankfully not all.
Some of you are testimony that not all people respond to God's Word with rebellion.
But these people bring their life problems to someone who they believe is a man of God, a preacher of God's Word.
And so they lay out their troubles, and sometimes it takes an awfully long time to lay out their troubles.
And so we take them to the Scriptures for the solutions.
And do you know what we often hear?
The average person will use the word "but" when we tell them the truth.
Now argue about why God's solution that we just showed them.
They didn't come to an engineer for engineering advice.
They didn't come to a coach for football advice.
They came to a pastor, to a Bible teacher, because they have problems and they believe that what I say about them or what the pastor says about them is going to help them.
And it will, as long as it's from here.
Any humanistic advice I give them is, well, first of all, I'm not qualified to do that.
I have a bachelor's degree in psychology, a bachelor of arts.
You know what that means in psychology?
That means absolutely nothing.
If you don't have a master's degree above, you can't counsel an aunt, much less a person.
But even if I had a PhD and our pastor has a doctorate of divinity, he's got an advanced degree, a lot of study, very intelligent.
But do you know what he does?
Both he and I.
Brother Doug, you don't have a college degree, right?
Okay, so where do you think Brother Doug's going to take you?
The same place I'm going to take you, the same place Brother Fulton's going to take you.
To God's word.
And we take them to God's word for those solutions, and they say, "That's not right for me.
" It doesn't fit my situation.
A lady with a problem managing her finances was given a scriptural solution about tithing and about being a good steward of the money that she has, most of which was money the taxpayers worked to give her.
But instead of just agreeing with God's word, she rejected it.
And that particular lady, I haven't seen her in a long time, but I personally don't believe she was saved.
It's not because of that.
It was some other thing she had said.
But if you're coming to a preacher of God's word, you think about these Gentiles in Samaria who went and the Bible tells us they dwelt in Bethel with that priest.
If you're coming to a preacher of God's word, then expect God's word to be what the preacher gives you to solve that problem, to solve any problem of life.
When you accept God's word, you're being humble.
When you don't, you're being arrogant.
And rather than the preacher's counseling session, we're talking here about somebody who rejects that counseling, rejects God's word, rather than that preacher's counseling session being a place where you learn truth about the one true God.
You've made it a high place to which you've brought all your problems, but you've brought your own God, and that's yourself, and the two cannot agree.
If you brought the God of your own expectations, the God of your own desires, and you let that God of your own making trump what the one true God says, then you've brought your own God.
That's who you came to see.
And let's look back in our text.
It says, "Every nation in their cities wherein they dwelled, these false gods were made by every nation, and they were put in every house of the high places in every city.
The old religion of the Jews was finished in that part of the world.
And the new religion of the Assyrians and the Gentile fellow nations was on the rise.
It was the new thing.
And this religion accepted many gods.
" That sounds great to the flesh, doesn't it?
Most of the world would say, "Hey, here's who my God is.
You okay if I bring that one in?
" And that preacher says, "Sure, come on in.
We accept everybody's beliefs.
" That's the kind of churches these were in Samaria.
They accepted many gods and had many places of worship.
Israel had one God and one place of worship in one city.
And in every city in the world today, there are false gods.
And those false gods are placed whether they're physical or whether they're figurative.
In every house of every high place, where their worshipers gather together.
And some of those houses of worship have the name Baptist and Christian and Catholic and temple, mosque, or other titles.
And their doctrines are a mixture of truth and error.
And they have many followers.
And everyone gets to go to the high place where his own God is served and worshiped.
And Samaria, for that reason, has turned into a religious quagmire and God is not in it.
And what I want to see and what I would like to continue to see at this church is this.
The ones who come to learn about God's Word will normally stay with us.
Now, I know there are some circumstances where people have to relocate.
But in general, what I said is true.
And the ones who come for some other reason will usually leave.
Although some of them cause a bunch of trouble before they do.
And some stay longer than they should have.
And those people have usually, not in every case, but usually brought their own God, hoping to find a place for it in our church.
And when the false doctrine of those people and of their religious beliefs is exposed by God's Word, what they should do is repent and believe what God says.
That's called humbling yourselves under the mighty hand of God, submitting yourself to his authority.
And some have, and some are still with us today.
Every one of us in here and the one you're looking at were rebels.
Did you know that?
We were rebels against God's Word.
But the others finally realize their false God, the God of their own making, has no place here.
So they move on and they take their God somewhere else.
That's what's sad, is rather than repenting and believing what God's Word says, they say, "Well, I'll just go somewhere else.
" Or they'd say it like I like it.
They preach what I want to hear.
They do what I want them to do.
Next week we'll look at the phrase, "The high places which the Samaritans have made.
" Let's pray.
Father, thank you for your Word.
Father, thank you for how, just like a sword, your Word cuts right down the middle.
It doesn't leave anything under the blade.
And we're either on the right side of it or the wrong side of it.
And so, Lord, as you help us to understand it and to apply it in our lives, we thank you.
We pray that you let us be a light to others, that they may see the good works that we do, that you enable us to do and glorify our Father which is in heaven.
We ask that you give our pastor the same liberty as he preaches here in a little while.
May our singing, our fellowship, our prayer be pleasing to you today.
That you may be glorified in all things in your church.
In Jesus' name, amen.
