Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Well, good morning village church east. It is good to see you this morning. Welcome to our worship service here at village church east. My name is Craig Harris. I'm the lead pastor here is great to welcome you in house. It's great to see some new folks venturing out Megan, and it's great to have you singing with us and doing the incident, the announcement. So I don't have to, uh, by the way, Megan, you should know, and those of you were watching at Bridgeway. You always remind me to tell Megan how special she is to you. So there you go, Megan, that is from all of our friends at Bridgeway. So there you go. She's what's that? You're all special too, but you don't get to stand in for oh, no, no, I'm sorry. Yes, Megan, you're special to us too. That's why that was good to see you all this morning.
Speaker 0 00:00:43 Uh, I am excited to do this message with you, uh, as we continue our conversation on decisions. I don't know if you've been listening to the podcast, but, uh, these are new. I'm going to reduce them down to one a week because it's, it's a little hard to keep up with two days a week. Uh, so I know that disappoints everybody, most of you haven't checked them out yet, but if you'd like to check them out, there's a, there's a slew of them that are on there. I've been enjoying doing them because they deal with culture. They deal directly with what's going on in our world today and how we can think through things with a biblical mindset. This message today is kind of a continuum of that project because the children of Israel now have gone free from Egypt. They've been let free and now they've made it they're way to Sinai.
Speaker 0 00:01:27 They've gotten the 10 commandments and now they get a slew of laws from Exodus 21 to 24 that are just talking about how these 10 commandments yeah. Out in real time. And we've dealt with already two of the situations protect those who are vulnerable. You're you remember that? And, and that now we're getting to the point where we are, uh, thinking about, uh, the influence that these guys are about to experience in the land, in which they're going to enter, and God prepares them for what they're going to experience. And, uh, there's a lot of parallels between them and us in our world today. So before we dive in, would you pray with me this morning, please, father give us grace so that we will look into your word. You can pull out things through the power of your holy spirit that we haven't seen before that we need to be reminded of.
Speaker 0 00:02:18 That would encourage us for those who need to be encouraged. That would compel us to those who need to be compelled. That would, that would prompt us to live the lives that we need to live in this ever-changing culture. I appreciate Beth's prayer where, uh, we, we sang this wonderful song, be that my vision, and it is difficult at times to figure out what our vision should be. So help us to figure out what your vision is for us. Teach us even this morning as we listen to your word and for all of the prayer requests that, uh, that have gone on named and for the ones that we continue to pray for. Lord, you know, each one may you intervene. And I love the fact father that you love, not only to hear our prayers, but to answer them. And so father, we thank you for that and ask that you would intervene on our behalf in every one of these unspoken requests, everyone that we continue to pray for at home.
Speaker 0 00:03:07 Uh, and thank you for the blessings that we have seen in DC on a regular basis. You have been very good to us. Be good to us again this morning, as we now listen to what you would have to say to us from your word. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Do you ever feel like you walk into a situation where somebody knows you don't now, typically for me, this is regular occurrence because I get invited to parties or bar mitzvahs or different events. I get invited to all these different events. And my first question is what is the dress code? Because I don't know what I'm walking into. And these days, you know, when, when 20 years ago, when you did a wedding, you always wore suit and tie. Now it could be a variety of different things. So I always want to know what I'm walking into and sure shooting I'll always end up either, either raising the bar too much.
Speaker 0 00:04:01 So I show up in a suit and tie people are like, Craig, you gotta lose the tie dude. Or I show up dress down and that's really bad because you can't fix that. Right? So I feel like that happens to me once in a while, when I walk into a situation that I I'm not prepared for it. Have you ever walked into a situation where somebody knew something about the situation that you didn't know? Sometimes that can be frustrating, right? It happened to me once when I bought a pair of x-ray glasses. Do you remember x-ray glasses? I was so excited about buying these x-ray glasses. I saved up my comic book, little tabs, you know, you had to save up a certain amount of comic book tabs, and then you had to send in a certain amount of money and then you'd wait for the mail because the mail was so much faster when we were kids.
Speaker 0 00:04:46 No, it wasn't right. You order something. Now it shows up on your doorstep overnight, but that's left the mail though. Is it the mail still? So anyway, uh, when I was a kid, I, I ordered these, these x-ray glasses and I thought to myself, it's going to be so cool. I can see through walls. I can see, I can see through it's going to be awesome. So I bought this pair of x-ray glasses and I waited three months until they arrived in the mailbox. And then finally they arrived and I, and I put them on and I, and I looked through them and I couldn't wait to see what I could see. Like I could see like molecules and little things through the walls and maybe I could see through the ground and see like gold underneath the ground. And so I put them on and I couldn't see anything.
Speaker 0 00:05:27 Not only could I not see through anything, I couldn't see through them because they were all painted these weird. Do you have the picture of there? These, these weird little squiggle things on the glasses and they sell them to little kids and they say, Hey, these are x-ray glasses. And I bought them and they didn't work. So I wore them around my friends, or you can throw it down there. I wrote for the Miranda, my friends, and I said, look, look at these x-ray glasses. Can you get them to work? Cause I can't figure out how to get them to work. And all of my friends said, uh, Craig, you, you can't see through those, those, they don't work like that. I said, gotta be kidding me. I saved up all my colleague book tabs. I put all this money in the mail. I waited three months for these stupid x-ray glasses and they don't even work.
Speaker 0 00:06:08 And they said, yeah, Craig, no, we, we knew they didn't work before you even ordered them. And I said, why didn't you tell me ever feel like somebody knows some things about some things that you don't know about. It's interesting in scripture that, um, unlike the x-ray glasses that everybody apparently knew was a scam. And I didn't, sometimes people feel like this. Uh, when it comes to God, I'm pretty sure of this. God knows everything about my life. Are you pretty sure of that? Why does he know stuff we don't know? And why doesn't he tell us they were walking in a situation where somebody knew something and you don't know and you just wish they would tell him. So you don't make a fool out of yourself.
Speaker 0 00:06:55 You sure God wants me to move in a direction, but I'm, I'm kind of unsure as to what that direction should be. When I was in college, I ended up doing, when I was looking for a college, I wanted to find out where God wanted me to go to college, sweat over this decision. I thought, oh God, I'm praying. I'm praying. Constantly show me what college. I should go to drop something out of the sky, write it in the clouds. What is the name of the call college I should go to? And I never got anything. So I had to do my research and figure out what I could afford. And I had to figure out, uh, what would give me the degree that I wanted to, to what that I thought in my youth, what I wanted to get. I, I did all my research, but in the meantime, I'm still looking for swirls in my coffee.
Speaker 0 00:07:37 I'm trying to figure out, okay, God make, show me a direction special verses in the Bible. Anything. I just need something to verify my decision. And finally, I made the decision based on what I could afford, what was logical for me to do. And I ended up going to this college where I met my wife and better than my degree, better than anything I've ever received in my life. I got my wife from that college. It's amazing to me. You get any cloud figures in the sky to get any swirls in my coffee. I got, I got no versus out of the Bible that said, Craig, go to blank college. None of that. And I beg God for some sort of a sign. Cause I knew he knew something about all this that I did. No, but he never told me. And now I find out that my decision to go to the college that I went to got me a wonderful wife and a beautiful family that I wouldn't have had otherwise.
Speaker 0 00:08:30 Wouldn't you just like for God to tell you what you're in for in life. When you just like for him to tell you what's around you, you see the corner up there. You just want to know what's around. It's like me. When I go fishing, pat and I have gone fishing before and you're in the water, you're in the stream and you're in this great hole and you're pulling trout out and it's exciting and everything. And then you look up around the corner and you think to yourself, what's around that corner. And so you make the track all the way up there. And sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's easy. And then you get around the corner and you find out it's garbage. There's nothing there. And you're just thinking to yourself. I wish I had known that 500 yards ago. Right? You just wish God would tell you what's around the next corner.
Speaker 0 00:09:08 What does God know that we don't know? The Hebrews are about to enter the promise, land, a land they've never been to before a land that nobody in their tribe has ever seen before. Only God knows what's across the border. Only God knows what's in that land. Now God has told them a little bit about the land. He said it is a land flowing with milk and honey. Oh, you know that, right? What does that mean? I don't know, but it's a land that's flowing with lots of cows and lots of bees. As far as I know, it flows with milk and honey, we know in the Hebrew, that means it is a luscious, wonderful, plentiful producing land. That's all they knew. They didn't know who lived there. They didn't know what those people were. Like. All they knew was this was the promised land and it was going to be great.
Speaker 0 00:10:01 And that's all they knew. They also didn't know anything other than how to be slaves. All they knew was how to be taskmaster, savvy, whatever your Egyptian slave master wanted you to do. You did that. Don't make any, don't pull any punches. Don't make any surprise decisions. You don't get to make decisions, whatever your master tells you. That's what you do. And the next morning, when you wake up, you do the same thing. You don't get to make long-term goals. That's all they knew. And now God is saying, I want to build you into a nation. You're going to create an, a nation all by yourselves. And he gives them laws to build this nation, uh, build this nation with, he wants it and he wants to give them laws. We talked about this to protect the vulnerable. He wants to give them laws on how to be a good neighbor. We talked about that one. You've got to be good neighbors. You've got to protect the vulnerable. God is setting them up for success. He's giving them laws that they needed to maintain in order to get there. But they needed to be aware of this one truth before they, before they crossed the border. And that is this, God will always know something you don't and you have to be okay with that.
Speaker 0 00:11:18 They had to learn how to trust him. These next few verses are instructions for how they were to live in this new land, carrying out God's commission for them doing things that they would not understand that they needed to do. So we pick up the story in Exodus 23 in verse 2021, verse 23. Here's how it goes when my 2323, sorry. When my angel goes before you and brings you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the parasites, the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Jebusites. Have you ever seen so many Heights in your life? God says I will block them out. These were all people, people, groups that were living inside Canaan, and God says, I'm going to bring you to their land and I'm going to eradicate them. Them. You are going to take over verse 24, shall not bow down to their gods nor serve them, nor do as they do. But you shall utterly overthrow them and break their pillars. There's in pieces. Now you look at this through the eyes of 2021 individuals caring, loving Christians who think to ourselves, why would God erratic educate people from a land and give it to his people? Well, don't forget. It's God's land to begin with. And God has promised this land to Abraham, uh, many years earlier, like 500 years before this, this is a promise. That's why it's called the promise land.
Speaker 0 00:12:48 And what you don't know. Maybe if you don't know, history is all of these groups that I just read. You were straight up evil, evil to the core. There was, they were doing human sacrifices in this land. It was normal. They were burning babies. So that rain would fall. That was normal. They were doing seances, witchcraft, sorcery. All of this was very normal. This was a culture of the land. One verse in scripture that said, God needed to allow this sin of the Amorites to completely up almost like a flood scenario. So that when he brought the flood in Noah's day, God said, I can't even see over the sin because there's so much of it. Same thing happened in Jonah's day when Jonah was sent to the Ninevites. God said, I got to send me to the Ninevites because there's so much sin. It's actually piled so high.
Speaker 0 00:13:42 I can't even see over it. It's the same kind of situation here. There's so much evil in this land. And when you, you think idol worship don't think like idol worship, like coming to church on Sunday where you may, or you may not spend some time. And then it's you come in, you do your time and it's over. No, I don't worship as much different than that. When you think of idol worship, I think Satan worship, this is satanic devil worship. In other words, God knows something about this country, this land that the Israelites do not know, and they would need to be vigilant in their task. That's why God begins this whole section with these verses verse 18, you shall not permit a sorceress to live. Whoever lies with an animal shall be put to death, whoever sacrifices to any God, other than the Lord alone shall be devoted to destruction.
Speaker 0 00:14:35 You wonder why those verses are there they're there because people were doing them. People were doing this on a regular basis so that it wasn't just the weird person down the road that sleeping with his cow is this normal. When you think of what's on in Israel, in Israel, when you think of what's going on in Canaan, think evil, it is a land devoted, not to God, but to evil, no Hebrew. We're used to this kind of life in Egypt, they were not ready for what they were about to encounter. They had never walked into this level of evil and debauchery. They've never seen this level of evil into battery in their lives. And they were about to experience some things that would shock them. At first, you can imagine how shocking some of these practices would be when you, when you walked through who I never seen that before.
Speaker 0 00:15:30 Some of these, some of these activities, and you can read about them all you want, but there's all kinds of crazy stuff going on in this land. And if you walked in on, you would go, oh, that there's something wrong about that. It's it's shocking, but here's the deal church given enough time, those shocking things become intriguing thing when you watch evil long enough. And at first you go, that shocks me to my core. If you allow it to continue, it will turn into an intrigue. You will wonder, how is this done? Why, why would people do this? And how, and, and, and it seems kind of different kind of, kind of an intriguing thing. And more time into this kind of culture would only pull the Hebrews toward this evil behavior. Then selves, you might be questioning like, how would this stuff tempt somebody, Craig, this kind of evil, this kind of debauchery that even in the only the three verses that we just read. And there's lots more, and I don't want to talk about them in a public setting, but I'm trying to dance nicely on these eggshells. There's stuff going on in this, in this land. God gives him the rules not to do the stuff because the stuff's being done.
Speaker 0 00:16:40 You might be thinking to yourself, well, how can this be tempting? How would something like that? Tempt anybody that's disgusting. I remember the first time I saw an, a Weegee board, I thought, so that's kind of weird. That's kinda kind of weird. And, and the more I know about the satanic realm, the more I know what that Weegee board stands for. It it'll come across. I remember one time I was a youth pastor for years and I took my kids to, uh, uh, one of those, uh, uh, activity centers where you get the tickets, you know, and if you get enough tickets, you win a prize. And I remember this was years ago. And I remember the first time I, I, I walked up there, they had like these, these cool guns or the, the, you know, the elephants or the, you know, the, for all of us that only get 50,000 tickets to get to the eraser to, or pencil or something like that.
Speaker 0 00:17:26 I mean, you got nothing out of these tickets, right? And then I remember one time I went in there and had saved my kids in there all the time, because we live in Chicago and you can't go outside all the time. And one time I walked in there and they're having a Weegee board right there and you could get it for a certain amount of tickets. It's intriguing. There's a pool to it. And I thought to myself, when I, when I first thought, when I first thought of it, I thought, oh, that's then I thought, how does it work? How does that little thing move? It is kind of intriguing. And I see it, I see things I get on using it, people using it on TV and things. And I'm thinking to myself, that's kind of an listen dancing with the devil. Always has it tone of intrigue to it always does.
Speaker 0 00:18:09 For those of us that are adults. We know this. I mean, we've kind of grown out of it to some point, but we've only replaced some of those intriguing things with other intriguing things. When you're, when you're young, it's just, there's a pull to it. There's an, there's an intrigue. There's a fascination with evil. I remember the first time I saw a guy on TV who could talk to dead people. I thought, oh, that's really cool. And he was saying, would it be surrounded by an audience? And he would be standing up front. This was years ago, but he had his own show. And I can't remember what channel it was on, but I would, I would watch it. I was thinking to myself, how does he know that? How does he know that about this, this woman's brother that was killed by a drunk driver last year?
Speaker 0 00:18:51 How would he know those things and the woman that he was talking to was going? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's right. I don't know how that happens. All I know is that to be absent from the body is to be absent from the body. There's no, there's no ghosts parading around. If you, if you're able to talk to somebody that was alive and is not alive anymore, you're not talking to some body. You're talking to something. Satan will parade them as an angel of light. Did you know that's in the Bible? Satan will parade himself as a name. Would you like to see an angel? It'd be wonderful. Right? I love the CNH dilemma, angel of light. You're going to show up in my bedroom. That would have been nice. When I was looking for a college, give me an angel of light Craig, you should go to university of Phoenix. Okay? I got an angel of light. Satan will do that. He'll come to you in any intriguing form. Um, you would like, but the end goal is not to give you a beautiful wife and a beautiful family. The end goal is to destroy you by getting you to trust what he says and stop having faith in what God is telling you.
Speaker 0 00:20:01 Those kinds of things are compelling. That verse, by the way, if you're looking for, as in second Corinthians, 11, 14, and 15 Satan and his demons disguise themselves in any way they want to so that they can lead everybody. Austrade actually, it says there to pull our minds away from Christ. So God warns the Israelites. You're about to go into a land where this stuff is normal beware because to you, you might look at some of these child sacrifices and think to yourself that is disgusting, but given enough time, it will turn into intrigue. And then it will pull you away from God, avoid all inclinations to dabble in whatever you're about to encounter. He goes on to say in verse 32, you shall make no covenant with them at all with them or their gods. They shall not dwell in your land less than you hear what it says.
Speaker 0 00:21:00 Now, sin against me for if you serve their gods, it will surely be snare to you. Do you see that? God knows something that they don't hear, whatever it is that they're about to encounter in this culture is going to constantly pull them away from God. It will become a snare. Do you know what a snare is? When I fish? I think I know all my illustrations, stair about fishing. All right. And x-ray glasses, but don't do them both at the same time. Cause you'll never see the fish when I'm fishing. I constantly think to myself, I wonder what's under my feet and I have to be careful. I'm thinking to myself, you know, did somebody leave an old bear trap out here? I think about that. Like ch and um, yeah. Then, you know, pray to God. Myself works. Pat coming rescue rate. Do you know what a snare is?
Speaker 0 00:21:48 A snare is something that's hidden. So it can grab you when you least expect it. That's what a snare is. Should I read the verse one more time? They shall not dwell in your land. Less. They make you sin against me for if you serve their gods, it will surely be, uh, what a snare to you. You won't see it coming. It is a pull of the human heart toward evil. God knows our tendency to put up with evil for all the prudent reasons we can think of. But in the end, it is dark Marcus in this land to call them powers of darkness up. There were dwellers in this land that would do all kinds of evil rituals. In case I didn't make this completely clear. One of these gods names was molec. Have you ever heard of molec before? Malek was a God that would be fired up.
Speaker 0 00:22:35 You'd always build a fire underneath of him. And he would be made of metal, some, some sort of metal that would heat up. And when you build a fire underneath molec, Malik's hands would be out like this, or there would be a hole in his belly. And the reasons is that's where you would give your sacrifice. Do you know what your sacrifice <inaudible> babies? You wouldn't bring a baby and put, put the baby in the hands or in the hole until the baby he died. That is how you sacrificed Tamala. Does that intrigue. You does it repel. You, you see whatever repels you now will intrigue you tomorrow. And you think to yourself, Craig, that would never happen. Maybe God knows something. We don't know. God warns us is people against these things. Constantly Leviticus, 1821 says this. You shall not give any of your children to offer them to molec.
Speaker 0 00:23:27 See you right there. Don't give any of your children to Malek and profane the name of your Lord. Your God, I am the Lord. You shall not go on further. Don't lie with a male. As you do with a woman that is an abomination. Did you know that was in the Bible and you shall not lie with any animal? Ah, like some of the stuff is even in our culture today. We're going, why is that there? Oh, I can understand that. No. Why is that there? Well, I can understand that. Can we do the same today? It's all in the same verse.
Speaker 0 00:23:57 So not lie with any animals. So to make yourself unclean with it, neither shall any woman give herself to an animal to lie with it. It is a perversion. Like we need somebody to tell us. Well, apparently we do. They did. And we do today. These guys were about to dabble in the occult in ways that would bring them to ruin. And that's why the occult had to be eradicated. They weren't sacrificing. The idols are sacrificing to the devil. Don't think idol, worship, think devil worship. He goes on further in verse 24. Don't make yourselves uncleaned by any of these things for, by all of us, the nations I'm driving out before you buy this, all of the nations have become unclean. They're all doing it. And the land became unclean. See what God is saying. Promised land. The land promised to Abraham has become polluted so that I punished it's iniquity and the land vomited out its inhabitants.
Speaker 0 00:24:53 Don't you love that picture. The land couldn't take it anymore. The land has had enough of this innocent blood flowing to the ground. The land expelled them. Now you might be tempted to say, Craig, only the silly and the foolish people would be involved in this. Like normal people would be able to see through this. Okay, let's play that game. Who's the wisest man in the old Testament. Come on now, you know this Dodger, who's the wisest man in the old Testament, Solomon, he asks for one thing from God. And what was that wisdom? And God gave it to him. He was the wisest man in scripture. We've been talking about some of his actions today because they're really, really amazingly wise decisions under him. The nation grew like crazy because he was such a wise leader. Listen to what the wisest man in the Bible did.
Speaker 0 00:25:47 First Kings 11 verse one. Now Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, EDA, mites <inaudible> and Hittite women. Solomon loved the women. You got it. All kinds of women, all different, all different backgrounds. He liked the women all from the nations concerning which the Lord said to the people. You shall not enter into marriage with him. Neither. Shall they be with you for surely. They will turn your heart after their gods. Solomon clunk to these in love. Love is never a bad thing. Is it? It was for the man in the world. And you might think to yourself, well, Craig, he only married them because he wanted to, he wanted to redeem them. He wanted to bring them out of their evil cultures and bring them into a culture of God. He wanted to be a good influence on them.
Speaker 0 00:26:35 He wanted to tell him, oh God, maybe that's why he did it. Do you remember the snare conversation we just had? You see, it's interesting. What evil will do? We want to redeem it, but evil has a tendency to suck us in faster than we can redeem it. So you want to know what happened to the wisest man in the world? Sure. You do verse six. So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord. As David, his father had done, then Solomon built a high place for KMOJ the abomination of Moab and for who? Church molec the abomination of the Ammonites. And he built it on the mountain in Jerusalem where that mountain is it's right. Where you see Jerusalem mountain today. He built an altar to Tamala. He built a God that would burn babies.
Speaker 0 00:27:35 Wisest man in the world. Solomon did not only allow for idol worship. He built temples so that it could continue. Why? Because evil is a snare. Listen, I don't think we give the devil enough credit. I really don't. I think there are. I think we think to ourselves, he was born yesterday and we're smarter than he is. He's very wise. He's been around quite quite a long time. He's played this game many times before with people just like us. He knows how to get to us. God knew something that Israel did not. The pool of evil would take over their drive to worship God alone. And eventually the intrigue that the Hebrews felt would turn into participation tomorrow. You see it went from disgust to intrigue, to participation and God knew something that they did not verse 13. He drives this even deeper pay attention that all I've said to you, God says, make no mention of the name of other gods. Don't let it be heard on your lips. Do you get it? It's like him. Whose name shall not be heard? What is it from that? Yeah. What is it? The, how do you say it? Right? I know it's Baltimore, but what do you say? What's the phrase.
Speaker 0 00:29:01 Thank you very much. Cody. You geek. That's right. It is he who is uh, Cody. Cody is a great guy. So Cody. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You saved me. He who shall not be named you. See God is saying, I don't even want you to talk about this kind of evil. Don't mention these gods names. Don't even talk about them because God knows something. These Hebrews do not know. They're about to take on the powers of darkness and they would need protection. Look at verse 20 behold, I'm sending an angel before you to guard you. Are you getting the idea? This is a warfare. There were about tender. Look at this. I'm sending you an angel before you to guard you in the way and to bring you to the place that I prepared, pay careful attention to him. This is the angel and obey his voice.
Speaker 0 00:29:44 Don't rebel against him for, he will not pardon your transgression for my name is in him. Now it's very hard to figure out what God is talking about here. Other than God's presence has been with his people this whole time through the cloud by day and the fire by night, they could always look out the flap of their tent and they could see there's God he's right in the middle of our tent. He has it in the middle of our camp. He hasn't left us. God's presence was always above the tabernacle. His presence led them. So there's an idea that when God, when these people came into the promised land, God would send the spiritual army in front of them and drive out. The inhabitants is just constantly referred to in scripture. And it's started to be referred to right here. It's an angel of God, some powerful angel that would take on the powers of evil.
Speaker 0 00:30:30 There is a spiritual battle going on in Canaan that the Israelites will not see, but this angel will lead the army against God takes care of his people. I would fight for them in the spiritual realm, as long as they live for him in the physical realm. Let me say that one more time because it's pretty good. God would fight for them in the spiritual realm. As long as they live for him, the physical realm, I will send my terror before you and throw into confusion. All the people against whom you shall come and I will make all your enemies turn their backs to you. Don't you love that verse. When your enemy turns their back to you, what are they doing? They're running, they're running away. In other words, God is saying, you're going to see success. Like you never believed before the spiritual battle. You're about to enter, but I'm leading the way. And I'm going to clear out the land in front of you. As long as you keep your commitment to me, just keep, keep up with the mission. Trust me. They'll run from it. They knocked over a hornet's nest. Look at verse 28. I will send, get this hornet's before you, which shall drive out to his visor, Canaanites in the Hittites before he had only 11. Have you ever knocked over a hornet's nest by mistake? What do you do? Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 0 00:31:51 What do you do when you knock over a hornet's nest? You run like there's no, tomorrow God would God saying there's a spiritual battle going on. That's good. That's never had it before. Cause Canaan has belonged to the devil and I'm bringing my army in there. There's going to be a battle taking place in the spiritual realm. You're going to carry on the battle in the physical realm, but I'm going to make it so that your enemies turn their backs and run from you. Like they kicked over a hornet's nest is that great. Little by little I'll drive them out. Verse 30 before you, until you have increased in possessed the land. In other words, God says, it's going to take a while, but it's going to be worth it. Keep going. Don't get tired. Don't get, don't get weary of listening to God. He knows something.
Speaker 0 00:32:29 You don't keep up with the mission verse 22. But if you carefully obey his voice and do all that, I say that I will be an enemy to your enemy, an adversary to your adversaries. Like the flood came and destroyed the Egyptian army. The Israelites would come in and destroy the armies of the devil and that great. They'd bring a flood to this land and they would cleanse it and turn this devil worship into worship of God. These Hebrews would be the catalyst to send up, set up a nation that no one on earth has ever seen before. And it's going to be amazing, but God knows this. The moment they get, even to temptation and temptation and stop removing the idols and purifying the land, they would be their own downfall. God knows something. They do not. And listen, because we read ahead. Guess who was right?
Speaker 0 00:33:24 Guess who was right? Are you surprised? See, we get to read ahead. We find out what happens next. Every major leader of God had to do one thing before they stepped out for God. It was clean. The idols out of their house. Gideon had to clean the idols out of his house. Samuel sons were idol. Worshipers. Samuel had to clean the idols out of his house. David allowed idol worship into his own home. Solomon built temples to false gods. Most of Israel's Kings had problems with idle worships worship and the ones who cleaned out the idols were the best Kings ever. And there was only a small handful. Every one of God's people, every one of God's leaders struggled with auto worship who saw that coming, who saw that coming church?
Speaker 0 00:34:11 God did. He knows something. We don't. This was a culture of land. And these Hebrews were sadly ignorant that they could dabble into culture and stay pure to God and stay on mission. The pull of the Canaanite culture and the temptation to apathy to, to stand for God was too great for them. Let me say that one more time, because this is where it starts hitting home a little bit, the pull of the Canaanite culture and the temptation to apathy to stand for God was too great for them. Satan got to these great men and women through their culture.
Speaker 0 00:34:53 It seemed normal. It was intriguing at first. It was, it was repelling at first, then it was intriguing and then it was a snare and God's people adapted to the culture of Cayman incredibly quickly, incredibly quickly. The last chapter of Joshua is a fascinating chapter because the first chapter of Joshua, Josh, sure it gets to the promised land and he starts dividing up all, all of these different tribes, Manasseh Ephram yeah. All these tribes, Judah, all these different tribes, they all had jobs to do. They all had sections of land that they were to for God, Joshua, all the whole book of Joshua. Joshua is fighting with them. They're taking the land, they're doing the mission of God and it's going pretty well. They hit some hiccups along the way, but it's going pretty well. By the end of the book, Joshua, they had taken so much of the land that it was time to divide up and conquer. So they divided up all the tribes and they said, now, while we've been doing all of these years, keep on doing, don't give up on the mission. Don't forget what we are supposed to do for God in this land. And they divided up.
Speaker 0 00:36:12 That's the last chapter of the book of Joshua. Do you know what the next book of the Bible is? Judges? Do you have any idea what happened in judges all hell breaks loose? You don't know why I didn't see that coming because when the tribes divided up to do the job on their own, they got apathetic. They started looking at the culture and saying, Hey, they're not that bad. I don't see, I would need to purge the land. Sure. They have some evil tendencies, but we can redeem them. Let's bring them in. Let's be a part of what they're doing. And it became a snare to them. And do you know how long their commitment to God lasted after Joshua ended in judges began, you know, how long lasted two generations, the children, the parents had. They did pretty well. The children they had, um, they fell.
Speaker 0 00:37:09 If you read the book of judges, it's a great read. Uh, you'll find, uh, there's 50 listings in there. There's all kinds of people in the land. And they're constantly warring with the Israelites trying to take their land back. And it goes on for, for hundreds of years in two generations, the work of taking the land for God stopped and the temptation to mirror the culture became too much. So enemies would attack can God would raise up a judge and the judge would lead armies and they would put down the other, the enemy have peace for a year or two. And then, and then another year army would attack and they'd have, they'd have another judge that would come along and he would, he would lead armies and they would put the Philistines down and they would have peace for 40 or 50 years.
Speaker 0 00:37:58 And that went on and on through 12 judges. And by the way, do you know how the book of judges ends? And he guesses, you think it went better or worse because they never completely finished the job. They would just put down the enemies and then they would go back to their old ways. Do you know what the last verse of judges is? Here's the very last verse of judges. Here's, here's what the outcome is. Judges 21, 25. In those days, there was no king in Israel. So everyone did what was right in their own eyes. That is the outcome.
Speaker 0 00:38:33 Why is God? So right off the bat, why is God? So demanding? The Hebrews eradicate the land of its of its inhabitance. I'm sure some of the Hebrews thought that I'm sure they did. They must've thought this doesn't seem fair. What's the big deal. Why can't I do these things? Like one of the things is don't boil a goat in its mother's milk. Like what is the problem in that? But if you do boil a goat in its mother's milk and invite my family over for dinner, we'd like to order in that was one of the laws don't boil a golden it's mother's milk. There were all kinds of weird laws like this. Why can't I talk to a sorceress? Why can't I have sex with whoever I want to have sex with? Or apparently whatever I want to have sex with because God knows something. These Hebrews do not know. And listen, church, God knows something about life that we don't know.
Speaker 0 00:39:24 Whereas he says before we judge Israel too harshly for this, we need to ask how much God's people today are compromising with the gods of this world, such as money, pleasure and success. God gives me directives on how to live my life too. Some of them don't make sense. Don't you think? How do we feel about the directives that God gives to us in life? You can go to churches where they'll change the Bible to meet whatever you want to God's directives to be in life. Or you can read God's word and just figure it out for yourself because it's right there. And in our church at village churches, this is what we encourage you to do. Please read anything. You want to crack it. Open any page, take a look because you can read it as well as I can, but you have to do some wild, crazy theological calisthenics to get the Bible, to say what our culture says.
Speaker 0 00:40:14 The Bible says, the Bible says lots of things to us. Bible says to turn the other cheek, don't even have a hint of sexual immorality among us. Forgive your enemies. Seek first, the kingdom of God. Pray for those who persecute you. Don't judge lest you be judged. How about every fruit of the spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness. How about all of those things? We are, we are told, this is the kind of life God wants us to live. And what is our reaction to that? That sounds kind of archaic. It sounds a little at a date, little traditional for me, our typical responses are, but God, that's not convenient for me, uh, by God, by God. If I do that, I'm going to make enemies. But God, if I do that, I'm going to stick out like a sore thumb. But God, I want to blank, whatever it is. But God, that doesn't make sense. But God, what is the big deal in church? Maybe God knows something about life in 2021 that we don't know. That's the whole point. Maybe he knows something we don't know.
Speaker 0 00:41:13 And in our rush to live in a world of tolerance, we have made Christianity tolerant, but God never did that. You see God gives us directives to live by whether we like it or not. Whether we understand them or not. Whether we appreciate them or not like who knows something about life. We don't know that parent pushes us off and says for God's sake, make sure you wear clean underwear, brush your teeth, keep your dorm room clean, whatever it is. Why? Because that parent knows something about life of somebody that doesn't wear clean underwear. I guess that the parent knows something about life. The child does not. God is waiting more than a parent church. He is a God of the universe. He might know something about life. We don't know.
Speaker 0 00:42:07 Maybe God knows something about my world. I don't appreciate fully. And maybe his goal is not to hurt me. Maybe his goal is to protect me like you did with the Hebrews. And maybe he gives me these rules to live by so that I can simply thrive so I can trust him. And it begins with that trusting God. Here's a few. So watch, these are quick. Number one, trust that God is preparing you now for a trial yet to come. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but God has given you direction just to live by. He gives you these directors in a variety of ways. You can read about them in scripture, but he also so lead you through his holy spirit at you ever did something you thought to yourself. I don't know if that was the right thing to do or not.
Speaker 0 00:42:50 That could be the holy spirit prompting you trusted. God is preparing you now for trials yet to come. Your greatest preparation today is unwavering obedience to what God says in his word to what God is leading us to do. There's no command that God gives us. That is not for our best and his glory. Let me say that one more time. That's a good one. You could tweak that. There's no command that God gives us. That is not for our best and his glory. He, he is in the next room, beckoning us through. He is around the next corner telling us walk forward. He is there before we get there. This is in our very purpose. As a church, we say, go grow and you see you can't overcome unless you're growing and you can't grow in this, you're trusting. You can't grow. Unless you look at God and say, okay, God, you might know something. I don't know. So I'm going to trust you do and obey you today. And if you, if you go and you grow, you can overcome.
Speaker 0 00:43:52 We're more prepared to overcome today. Tomorrow. If we live for him today, number two, trust that no law of God is frivolous. God. Doesn't sit back in his leisure chair and think about all of the ways to make our lives miserable. I'm going to take that away from them and I'm going to take that away from them and they're oh, they're going to hate this one. I'll take that away from them too. Some people think that's all that God does is he takes stuff away that we love. That's not what God does. He takes stuff that will destroy us and replaces us with stuff that is good for us. That will bless our families and bless the circles of influence in which we live. All of God's laws are intentional. They're all purposeful. There are all for our wellbeing. We may not like them. We may not like them at all. We may live in a culture that says you guys are way old fashioned everybody's come on. This is normal. Come on. It's time to pull the church into the 21st century.
Speaker 0 00:44:49 Sure. It is if God changes, but you got a major problem with that. See, the Bible says that God never changes. His mercies are new every morning, but he's not. His faithfulness is as, is as ready as the, as a sun moving across the sky. His faithfulness is constantly, but he never changes. His character is always the same. God reminds them of their original purpose for him when he gives him this verse. And I love this verse. You probably know Jeremiah 29 11 God says to us, I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans for what does it say? Church welfare and not for evil to give you a what church, a future, and a hope. You may look at God like a parent that wants to take away everything fun in life. But ultimately what he's doing is preparing you for things you may not know are coming or things that may hurt you, that you have yet to understand.
Speaker 0 00:45:54 Number three, trust that God knows more than we do. And we should listen to him. He just knows more than us. And that's kind of where this starts. If you're entering into a relationship with God, this is a point where you need to give up the most. You've got to say, God knows something more than I do. And I trust him. Are there areas of life? That's just seemed natural for you, but you have yet to ask God for his opinion, in those things you should ask for his opinion should dig it out of scripture. I preach every, every Sunday because I believe that the Bible speaks to this culture today. And it does just that some of the things we don't like to hear does God have the right to dictate every part of my life. This is the definition of following Jesus. By the way, when we say we're followers of Jesus, we are saying he has a right to dictate every part of my life.
Speaker 0 00:46:49 If you have a problem with that statement, you have a problem with following Jesus. You can't have it both ways. You either follow Jesus and give him that authority. Your don't somebody got to occupy the seat of authority. And if it's not him, it's probably you or somebody playing you. I wonder the two 60 years after Sinai, we come to the last chapter of Joshua. As I said, Joshua 24. He's been in charge since Moses had died, he's done a pretty good job of things. He is, by the way, one of the most amazing characters of his devotion to God is his sword on the battlefield. You do you the time when the sun stopped in the sky and he just said, God, I need more time to kill the enemy. Do you remember that? And the sun stopped him. If you've ever read that, read the book of Joshua, it is compelling.
Speaker 0 00:47:39 So the sun stops in the sky. Josh goes, yeah, let's go kill more. So he goes into battlefield and kills, kills more people. He was a hundred years old. When that battle occurred, this guy wouldn't stop. He was a spy that went into, into the promise land and said he came back and he was going, yeah, we can take, we can do it. You guys come on, let's go. It's sure they're giant. Sure. They got big, big arms and big, big feet. They're all little looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But God said, they're ours. God said the land is our let's go in. Joshua. Caleb came back and they said, let's go. And the rest of the guys came back and they said, oh, it wouldn't be prudent.
Speaker 0 00:48:19 And so for 40 years they wandered in the wilderness. And I can just imagine every morning, Joshua woke up and thought to himself, oh, I wish they listened to me wandering through this dust bowl while the land gets more polluted and stronger. So when Joshua gets to the border of Canaan, he's gone. Okay, Moses, you're dead. Hallelujah. Cause that has to happen by the way to fulfill prophecy. Let's get in there and they take Jericho first on the list. Isn't that a great story. Remember Jericho and the people are looking at Joshua going, whoa, look, these walls are, they got chariot races on the top of these walls. These are thick walls. How are we going to? And Joshua goes, don't worry about it. God will do it for us. We need to like to be led by a guy. I'm sorry. I'm not that kind of guy, but wouldn't you like to be led by that kind of a guy.
Speaker 0 00:49:09 So March around the walls of Jericho, what happened? Walls come down. And in the meantime, they got a handful of desserts from Jericho who were tired of the evil in the country and converted to God that happened all the time. You know, Caleb was not a Jew. God is bringing in all these people. He's bringing in refugees. He's bringing in anybody that would follow God. God brings in to be a part of Israel. He's not wiping them off. Without question. He's given them chances to, to bend and to bend the Nita to Christ. Rehab is one of the most popular out of Jericho. 60 years after Sinai, Joshua is about to die. He calls a big meeting together, brings all the tribes together. So the last book he says, listen, I'm about to die. I'm old. It's over for me. I need you to keep on mission.
Speaker 0 00:50:04 Don't get pulled in by the intrigue. Stop dabbling with the idols. It is devil worship. Cut it out. And the people said, yeah, we're on boarding. And Joshua said to them, I don't think you know what I'm saying. You can read about a Joshua 24 it's it's. It's amazing. There literally is an alter call. Everybody comes forward and Joshua says, everybody go back to your seats and then I'll go back to their seats. And Joshua said, you obviously aren't listening. This is going to take commitment. And they said their response was our commitment is on the backs of our children. We swear on their lives. We will commit to taking the land to generations. It's amazing what happens in two generations? Isn't it? Do you remember two generations ago?
Speaker 0 00:50:58 The speech that Joshua gives us incredible. You probably have heard of P piece of it. It's one of the most amazing speeches that we have in scripture. One of the most popular in the old Testament, this great meeting, everybody was there and like a parent warning, their children they're about to encounter. Joshua stands up. He says, Moses is not here. You will not have me around any longer bond mission. And here's what he says in verse 24, chapter 24, verse 14. Now, therefore you love this verse, fear the Lord and serve him in the sincerity and faithfulness of your heart. Put away. God's that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. And if it's evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day, whom you will serve. There's going to be somebody, all you slaves. You're used to serving somebody, whether the gods, your father served in the region beyond the river, or you ever catch this, the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now dwell.
Speaker 0 00:51:59 But as for me and my house, let's say it together. Church, we will serve the Lord. What a great speech you guys do what you want, but that's for me and my house, we will serve the Lord church. Our mission is the same. Our purpose is to stand out, not conform. God says, I'm going to light you up and nobody in their right mind, lights up a room and then covers it with a sack. I'm going to let you out, light you up so that you stick out. You're going to be salt. You're going to be light. You're going to be set ablaze on purpose because you're on mission. We take the culture, the culture, it doesn't take us conformity to the ways of this world will only get in the way of what God wants to do. So I invite you church to the great meeting. And I reiterate the words that this great leader Joshua said on this incredible life-changing day church. If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose you this day, whom you will serve, whether it's the God's your father served in the region beyond the river. Let's change that. Whether it's the gods, the world is throwing at you to bend your knee to, or the gods of the Amorites in land. You now dwell, or whatever's coming next that the world will tell you, you must form you do what you want.
Speaker 0 00:53:36 But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And that'd be great. If we had an army of believers that would memorize and quote that verse to their children and their children's children and live like they mean it. How many snares could we avoid church? How many scenarios could we avoid? Let's pray, father. I'm grateful for our chat this morning. It's been a tough one because it's so pertinent to where we live. Every one of us is involved with our culture. We have to be we're in it. You don't want us to eradicate the culture. You just want us to lead in it. So father give us the ability to stand up for you in a world that doesn't to appreciate your commands and clinging to them in a world that mocks them to be able to lead our circles of influence with unashamed authority, coming from your word and not conformed to this world where we are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 0 00:54:49 It is a power of God for salvation, to all who believe. And so father in a world that seeks to transform the gospel so that they can look more like the culture. Let us never be so brash as to think we need to redefine anything that is so redemptive. So powerful. And so life-changing thank you that you never change and where we may change the message. The mission is always the same, or we may change the method. The message is always the same. The mission is always the same. Thank you for making us ambassadors of yours for lighting us up so that we can stick out in this world. I pray that we would never get tired of it and never capitulate to whatever Satan would seek to feed us tomorrow. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.
Speaker 0 00:55:37 So we come to communion and this is how we finish our time together. Each Sunday, after Joshua gave that speech, you should know he built an altar. You can read about it. And judge Joshua 24, it's a great passage of scripture. He builds an altar. The reason he built an altar and had everybody participate is because he wanted their children and their children and their children to always come back to the of commitment, a place of remembrance. It would be walking on the banks of the Jordan. You would come across this altar and you might say to your father, say to your mother, Hey, what does that alter? Therefore, what is, what is, why is that out in the middle of a field somewhere? And your parents would tell you it's because Joshua had an altar call one day and he told us all, go sit back down.
Speaker 0 00:56:25 Cause he wouldn't take it. He wouldn't believe what we were saying. Here's what happened that day. We committed ourselves, Joshua. This great leader said as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And we're on board with him and Jimmy where you're, you're a part of this legacy. I love the fact that God gives us reminders, that we can revisit to pull our hearts and our minds back to the decisions we've made. And I want to tell you, if you come to this church, the only symbol that you will see in this church is that cross right there. That is our reminder of what it means to follow Jesus. That as I reminder of what it means for God to love us, that is our reminder to, to understand the extent of which God went so that we could have a relationship with him. When we come to the communion table, it's just a reminder of that same truth. You drink the juice, you eat the bread, nothing spectacular, nothing magical. We're not, we're not into any of that stuff. That's not what happens. It is a reminder to us. The juice represents the blood, the cracker, whatever it is, represents the body of Jesus. Both of these were necessary for us to have peace with God.
Speaker 0 00:57:41 The reason you do it every Sunday with us is because we want to constantly point you and your children and your children's children to the thing that really matters in life. And it's not a changing culture or whatever burgeoning because they feed us next. The thing that changes this world is there's a cross of Jesus. Christ always has been, always will be causes, will come and we'll go, but God will remain forever. The church will remain forever that cross or you know how people have tried to get rid of this. They've tried to eradicate the church multiple can't do it because that crosses our reminder of how much God loved us. If you're at home, we invite you to participate with us in the same way that we're doing here. Find a cracker. My kids use goldfish once in awhile, whatever you've got in your pantry, find some juice.
Speaker 0 00:58:37 We want you to participate with us so that you can remember through a physical act, a spiritual reality that because Jesus gave his life for us. We can be right with God. That's why we do what we do. You may be here thinking yourself. Well, Craig, I don't feel good taking communion all the time. You don't know what I did last night. Last week, whatever the purpose of communion is not to make you clean. If you know Christ as your savior, you're as clean as you can be. The purpose of communion is to draw your heart back to where it should be. You of all people should take communion to pull us back to the reminder of what life is really all about. So I encourage you to come to the table, get ready at home. I'm going to give you a moment. Silence. If you wouldn't mind and just take a moment, God, maybe, maybe God has laid something on your heart this morning.
Speaker 0 00:59:26 You need to just have a conversation with him about do that right now in the short little while, prepare your, prepare your mind and your heart and um, make sure you give him this, this next 10 minutes, like, like nobody's business. And then we're going to, we're going to come up and we're going to sing. Uh, I'm going to read a passage of scripture. Don't eat and drink yet. Hang on to it. If you'd come forward, grab the cup at the front and the cracker, hang on to it. And then I'll come up and read. We'll all take together. Reason we do that is because we're all in this together. She loved that phrase. It's getting a little overused, right? Uh we're. We are, uh, in this case, it's a spiritual reality. We're all in this together. We all need Jesus and only he can change this world, starting with us as for me and my house. Let me give you a moment of silence. You pray to the Lord.
