Did you ever see a “high contrast” photo? The black vs. white makes every line stand out distinctly. Believe it or not, it was God’s intention that a believer look so different from the world around him that people could pick out his life as something unique and special. Is that the way we appear? What distinct practices and attitudes in our lives would change if we were to live distinctly? What areas of life would be affected if we took this seriously?
Long ago, God gave a “high contrast” picture of two neighboring nations – Israel and Judah. Both began as believers in the Lord God, and as children of Abraham’s blessed position. Sadly, Israel was whisked away in captivity, and God took pains to explain carefully why (1 Kings 17). Yet, just a few miles to the south at the same time Hezekiah lived out another choice. Though he lived in the same times, with the same pressures, he made a choice to live distinctly -- and that made all the difference (1 Kings 18). Believers that compromise blend into obscurity and offer the world nothing.
Key Principle: Believers that live distinctly offer a high contrast difference -- a choice. God uses the distinct, not the compromising.
The Dark Side (2 Kings 17:21-40)
Our portion of Scripture enumerates four practices that caused the elimination of the nation of Israel from their capitol at Samaria:
* They chose leaders without character to lead them (17:21a).
* The leaders in turn moved them away from any real pursuit of God, culminating in idolatry (the chasing of an alternative to God (17:21b).
* The people popularized the idolatry and sinfulness until they compromised away any vestiges of their former history. With their former testimony a distant memory, God simply swept them away (17:22).
* The Lord sent prophetic warning to the people, but it was scoffed and their homeland was taken away from them.
As tempted as I am to apply these truths to a day like ours, I shall not. The point of the verses that finish the chapter is not how they got swept away, but what happened after they were replaced by Assyria’s relocation program. New people were imported to the cities of Samaria according to verse 24 “to replace the Israelites”. They came without any idea of who the God of the former people was (17:25). A pride of lions came upon the villagers and began to harass them – killing some of them. When the people of God failed to do so - God stood up for Himself, producing more fear and respect among these replacements than He had from his own estranged children in years! The people recognized the hand of God in the tragedy and called out to Assyria for help (17:26).
The Assyrian king ordered a now captive Samarian priest to be brought back to the people to teach them of the practices of the Lord of Israel. What an irony! The compromising priest of an estranged people who tolerated and practiced idolatry would become the lifeline to a pagan people to teach them of following God. Here is the heart of the lesson: We cannot give away what we do not have! We cannot call on others to follow a God we do not really follow. We cannot offer clear choices while living lives of deep compromise.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan said this about believers who are reluctant to commit themselves wholeheartedly to Christ: "When our convictions are yielded to Him completely, He is able to give Himself to us in all His fullness. Until that is so, He cannot trust us. How true it is that we often miss the joy and strength of our Christianity because, by withholding ourselves from Christ, we make it impossible for Him to give Himself to us in all the fullness of His grace and truth." (Today in the Word, April, 1998, p. 23)
It is no surprise that each group that was settled there simply added the Lord of Israel to their own cultic practices (17:29-33). People aren’t offended at the God of Israel as long as all their sinful practices aren’t made to appear as wrong. We can have the God of truth as long as He doesn’t invade the willful degradation of the society. Perverse sexual practices and the sacrifice of children were not to be stopped, nor commented on. God was supposed to be content with their occasional wink in His direction. The priest of Israel could not point out how wrong this was, since his own people had been doing the same for years! Here is the awful truth… as Israel surrendered their distinctiveness as followers of the God of truth, they lost any testimony that allowed Him to use them in the lives of pagans. They had no real testimony.
Observe for a moment the progression in the society as a warning for our own time:
1. The people served Saul, David and Solomon. They knew God and worshipped God. They built a great Temple in Jerusalem and “formalized” their faith into a pattern.
2. The form was seen as the center of their walk – not the faith as stated in the careful following of the Word of God. Because they were following a FORM, they simply moved the “worship” to a new place in Dan and Bethel. The songs and hymns were the same, the prayers rang familiar, but those who knew heart faith knew something, or rather SOMEONE was missing. What was wrong was simple: They were attempting to follow God but were divorcing themselves from truly knowing and following His literal Word.
3. As generations passed and ignorance grew toward His Word, they swallowed more and more pagan practice and became thoroughly compromised. The laughed at the jokes of the world, read the world’s magazines, watched their movies, followed their gossip, celebrated their celebrities, and bought into one practice after another that would have made their parents and grandparents shudder in the march toward “progress”. The tolerated, they compromised and all the while they formalized their faith and felt ok about it.
4. Mixing God with other agendas they could no longer pick out truth and God could find no distinctiveness of His children in them, so He turned His face from their nation and swept them away into obscurity.
Francis Schaffer once said: “Here’s the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for them – namely, accommodation.”
* I am speaking to the church in a century where we are as indebted as our neighbors.
* I am prophesying to a church in a century when our divorce rates for those who know Christ at the time of their marriage are skyrocketing as we believe the lie that our prime directive is to be happy in life at all costs and at every moment.
* I am crying out to a generation that warehouses children through their formative years while we buy a second car, a better computer and a bigger house.
* I am burdened for a people that cannot see the need to translate the Bible into principles that affect the purity of what they watch on the television or in a movie house.
* I am broken for a generation that refuses to connect the dots between their Biblical ignorance and their fragmenting society.
* I will not stand silent as our freedoms are surrendered to the ease of our luxuries. The Bible requires that I not do so.
* We cannot accommodate. We cannot be lax about our sincere swallowing of Scripture into the veins of our choices. We must become an informed Christianity. We must become intelligent Biblical tacticians. We must surrender to Christ in every choice. Our nation is at stake. Our leaders have no scruples and our churches are offering feel good fodder. We stand on the brink and we must answer the call of our Father!
We can, and we must make a difference – one life at a time! In 1913 in the French Alps, because of careless deforestation, the mountains around Provence, France, were barren. Former villages were deserted because their springs and brooks had run dry. The wind blew furiously, unimpeded by foliage.A simple shepherd named Elzeard Bouffier, took it upon himself to do something about it. Each night he meticulously sorted through a pile of acorns, discarding those that were cracked or undersized. When the shepherd had counted out 100 perfect acorns, he stopped for the night and went to bed. By 1913, the 55-year-old shepherd had been planting trees on the wild hillsides for over three years. He had planted 1,100,000 trees, 20,000 of which had sprouted. Of those, he expected half to be eaten by rodents or die to the elements, and the other half to live. By the middle of the century something incredible had happened: there was a veritable forest, accompanied by a chain reaction in nature. Water flowed in the once-empty brooks. The ecology, sheltered by a leafy roof and bonded to the earth by a mat of spreading roots, become hospitable. Willows, rushes, meadows, gardens, and flowers were birthed. Where there had been only ruins now stand neat farms. Little by little, the villages have been rebuilt. (Hal Seed, Oceanside, California, Leadership, Spring, 1993, p. 48). What brought about the transformation? The Tenacity of one simple farmer. The tenacity of one that worked with diligence in HIS LIFE to deal with issues and become a tool in the hand of the GREAT FOREST GROWER.
Chuck Swindoll has been an inspiration to me over my whole adult life. As one lion of the faith has retired or gone to glory after another, I treasure every older man who remains faithful to the Word even more… Recently he preached an urgent message called his congregation to “grab discernment” as sons and daughters of Issachar (cp. 1 Chron. 12:32) called the “Disturbing Realities of our Time”. If you haven’t heard it, get a copy. The speaker is burdened prophetically, and his words were exceptionally well stated. It was a heavy message, but a timely one.
I mention it because he stated three things that he saw as an older preacher that were very much a part of our time. He says that without an ability to truly grasp the secret war the enemy is raging, we will be hopelessly confused by what is happening around us and deeply gullible of Satan’s schemes in the days we live in. He eloquently parses three issues that are the hallmarks of troubling changes in our time:
1) The blurring of the line between right and wrong – that which separates truth from error. It is becoming difficult for us to call anything WRONG. He says he was raised in a time when he knew what was right and wrong. Pulpits, Congress and even media noted right and wrong and were able to annunciate a wholesale standard of morality. Calling anything wrong brings now the wrath of the society, but it was not so a short time ago.
2) The growing ignorance of Biblical knowledge. There was a time when Biblical understanding was a guide in the public square of our nation. If the Scripture said it, it was a guide to us.
· Thomas Jefferson: God who gave us life gave us liberty, Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.” (On the Jefferson memorial).
· “The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.” John Quincy Adams
· “..but for the book (the Bible) we could not know right from wrong.” Abraham Lincoln
· “…the Bible…is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and the spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation.” Woodrow Wilson
· “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” Calvin Coolidge
Today such thinking is considered “bigoted” and ‘out of touch”. There is a famine of Biblical truth. Churches are fast becoming entertainment centers and Biblical exposition is its first casualty. Swindoll adds these penetrating words: “Face it men and women, unless you are very unusual, you know less about the Bible than your grandparents knew.” He backed up this assertion. He shared that Gary Burge, Professor of Wheaton College studied the Biblical literacy of the incoming freshmen. “The students come from Biblical traditions, good evangelical churches. They use the Bible frequently to defend positions, but curiously, they do not know how the basic Bible stories unfold.” The average grade for sequencing major events in the Bible, was 50-55.
Other evidence, Jay Leno last year went out on the street to ask, “Name one of the ten commandments. After several could not, one man said: “God helps those who helps themselves”. Sadly, the crowd laughed. “Can you name one of the Apostles?” Nobody could name one. Then he asked, “Can you name the four Beatles”… everyone answered quickly with all four - no problem. “Who was swallowed by the great fish?” He asked. “Pinocchio!” was one man’s reply.
If you lack Biblical knowledge and the ability to relate the principles you are sunk. You are at the mercy of the next persuasive tongue that comes and offers to provide you with security and prosperity. An antichrist awaits such a generation to lead them astray.
3) The intensifying embrace of post-modernism: We have entered post-Christian America. Instead of life being considered honestly, it is considered emotionally. Do not underestimate the power of this on the lives of all of our children.
The Bright Side (2 Kings 18:1-8)
* It was the dark time we just described in the neighboring north (18:1a). I mention this to make sure we not somehow believe that it was somehow easier for King Hezekiah to choose a life of distinction of testimony.
* His family was compromising (18:1b). He had no support growing in becoming a distinct follower of God. Hezekiah was born in Jerusalem in 753 BCE, and lived in the "dysfunctional" palace of his father King Ahaz. His father was supposed to lead God’s, but he was far from it. Ahaz worshipped false gods, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, gathered all the furnishing of the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the temple so people could not worship God, and in turn he set up altars to other gods at every street corner in Jerusalem. If this was not "dysfunctional" enough Ahaz even took his own sons, Hezekiah’s brothers and he burned them as sacrifices to these false gods...It was only by God’s grace and through his hand of providence that Hezekiah survived...
“The Human Fly” (pp.18,19, A Treasury of Inspirational Illustrations, Earl C. Willer): Some years ago, a so-called “human fly” went to Los Angeles. It was announced that on a certain day he would climb up the face of one of the large department store buildings. Thousands gathered to watch him perform this seemingly impossible feat. Slowly and carefully he made his way upward, now clinging to a jutting brick, again to a cornice. Up and up he went. At last he was near the top. He was seen to feel to right and left and above his head for something firm enough to support his weight. And soon he seemed to spy what looked like a gray bit of stone or discolored brick protruding from the smooth wall. He reached for it but it was just beyond him. He ventured all and leaped for it. But before the horrified eyes of the spectators, fell to the ground and was broken to pieces. In his dead hand was found a spider’s web! He had mistaken it for a stone. What a lesson for those who will only stop and think. While human efforts are to be used and opportunities accepted and challenges met, it is equally true that no one knows, understands, or has meaning to his life if he ignores the only solid “Rock” that one can find—the God-man, Christ Jesus. We as a people need to stop grasping for things that are unstable and anchor ourselves to the God who has our destiny in His hands. Ahaz never got that, but Hezekiah did.
* But Hezekiah's life was not completely dark. There was a light in a man of God -- a prophet whose name was Isaiah (cp. Isa. 38:1ff) who made regular entrance to the king. He spoke powerful words of truth about life and about God, words that made Hezekiah’s heart race with joy, excitement and hope.
Because of the choices Hezekiah made, he was able to:
* Do right before God with the heart of David (18:3).
* Stand against the spreading of idolatry, immoral behavior, old time practices that honored religious life, but not God (18:4).
* He was able to TRUST God, and that made him different that ALL THE OTHER KINGS. Assyria was strong, and the vast empire bore down on him, but he trusted God (18:5).
* He was able to walk outwardly, publicly with God (18:6). He did this by knowing and obeying the Word of God. He unapologetically believed and followed God’s Word as truth. He didn’t just theologize it, he lived it practically. He DID God’s Word.
* God’s presence was obvious, and his progress was also obvious (18:7-8). Those who afflicted God’s people were driven back. There was victory!
He fought in a dark trench on the German frontier. A vicious firefight left the battle lines torn and bodies of men strewn all across the field before him. Night fell. Though he was commanded to maintain that position until reinforced, the cries of men from distant places haunted him. In the darkness of the night he left the hole where he hid to flee the scene. He stumbled across a ditch and felt the edge of a road. In a few feet he came upon on a road sign. So dark and so lost, he had no idea what the sign said. He could only hope that it offered him some clue as to where he was and what was nearby. He decided to climb the pole. Each movement hurt as his exhausted body slid upward against the force of gravity. When he got to the crossbeam, he held on to read the sign. Took out a match, lit it, and looked directly into the face of Jesus. He had climbed an outdoor crucifix! Stunned by what he saw, he realized the shame of his life. He was looking into the face of the One who had endured it all for him and had never turned back. The next morning, the soldier was back in the trenches.
Someone has said: "If you want to be distressed, look within. If you want to be defeated, look around. But - If you want to be delivered, look to Christ."
I am reminded of Patrick Henry, who was a famous statesman and orator of colonial Virginia. "In 1764 he was elected to the House of Burgesses where he became a champion of the frontier people, supporting their rights against the arrogant exercise of power by the aristocracy. In 1774 he was a delegate to the First Continental Congress. In 1775, before the Virginia Provincial Convention, which was deeply divided between those who supported England and those who desired freedom, he uttered his most famous words, "Give me liberty or give me death!" During the Revolutionary War he became commander-in-chief of Virginia’s military forces, a member of the Second Continental Congress, helped draw up the first constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was largely responsible for drawing up the amendments to our Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. He became Virginia’s first governor, and was re-elected four times. Then he retired from public life, but despite his strong objections the people went ahead and re-elected him Governor for the 5th time. But he meant what he said, so he refused to take the office. He was offered a seat in the U.S. Senate, and posts as ambassador to Spain and to France. President George Washington asked him to join his cabinet and become Secretary of State, and later wanted to appoint him the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Buthe refused all such honors and recognitions. Listen to these words from him: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians - not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." His Last Will & Testament was filed in the Brookneal County courthouse in Virginia. You read his will and you’ll see that he bequeathed everything to his children, just as most people do. But the last paragraph in his will is especially interesting. He wrote, "I have now given everything I own to my children. There is one more thing I wish I could give them and that is Christ. Because if they have everything I gave them and don’t have Christ, they have nothing." SOURCE: Melvin Newland, Central Christian Church, Brownsville, Texas.
Patrick Henry wasn’t just a statesman, he was a distinct believer who was living out his faith to the very end. Because of that, he made a difference. Believers that live distinctly offer a high contrast difference -- a choice. God uses the distinct, not the compromising.
Long ago, God gave a “high contrast” picture of two neighboring nations – Israel and Judah. Both began as believers in the Lord God, and as children of Abraham’s blessed position. Sadly, Israel was whisked away in captivity, and God took pains to explain carefully why (1 Kings 17). Yet, just a few miles to the south at the same time Hezekiah lived out another choice. Though he lived in the same times, with the same pressures, he made a choice to live distinctly -- and that made all the difference (1 Kings 18). Believers that compromise blend into obscurity and offer the world nothing.
Key Principle: Believers that live distinctly offer a high contrast difference -- a choice. God uses the distinct, not the compromising.
The Dark Side (2 Kings 17:21-40)
Our portion of Scripture enumerates four practices that caused the elimination of the nation of Israel from their capitol at Samaria:
* They chose leaders without character to lead them (17:21a).
* The leaders in turn moved them away from any real pursuit of God, culminating in idolatry (the chasing of an alternative to God (17:21b).
* The people popularized the idolatry and sinfulness until they compromised away any vestiges of their former history. With their former testimony a distant memory, God simply swept them away (17:22).
* The Lord sent prophetic warning to the people, but it was scoffed and their homeland was taken away from them.
As tempted as I am to apply these truths to a day like ours, I shall not. The point of the verses that finish the chapter is not how they got swept away, but what happened after they were replaced by Assyria’s relocation program. New people were imported to the cities of Samaria according to verse 24 “to replace the Israelites”. They came without any idea of who the God of the former people was (17:25). A pride of lions came upon the villagers and began to harass them – killing some of them. When the people of God failed to do so - God stood up for Himself, producing more fear and respect among these replacements than He had from his own estranged children in years! The people recognized the hand of God in the tragedy and called out to Assyria for help (17:26).
The Assyrian king ordered a now captive Samarian priest to be brought back to the people to teach them of the practices of the Lord of Israel. What an irony! The compromising priest of an estranged people who tolerated and practiced idolatry would become the lifeline to a pagan people to teach them of following God. Here is the heart of the lesson: We cannot give away what we do not have! We cannot call on others to follow a God we do not really follow. We cannot offer clear choices while living lives of deep compromise.
Dr. G. Campbell Morgan said this about believers who are reluctant to commit themselves wholeheartedly to Christ: "When our convictions are yielded to Him completely, He is able to give Himself to us in all His fullness. Until that is so, He cannot trust us. How true it is that we often miss the joy and strength of our Christianity because, by withholding ourselves from Christ, we make it impossible for Him to give Himself to us in all the fullness of His grace and truth." (Today in the Word, April, 1998, p. 23)
It is no surprise that each group that was settled there simply added the Lord of Israel to their own cultic practices (17:29-33). People aren’t offended at the God of Israel as long as all their sinful practices aren’t made to appear as wrong. We can have the God of truth as long as He doesn’t invade the willful degradation of the society. Perverse sexual practices and the sacrifice of children were not to be stopped, nor commented on. God was supposed to be content with their occasional wink in His direction. The priest of Israel could not point out how wrong this was, since his own people had been doing the same for years! Here is the awful truth… as Israel surrendered their distinctiveness as followers of the God of truth, they lost any testimony that allowed Him to use them in the lives of pagans. They had no real testimony.
Observe for a moment the progression in the society as a warning for our own time:
1. The people served Saul, David and Solomon. They knew God and worshipped God. They built a great Temple in Jerusalem and “formalized” their faith into a pattern.
2. The form was seen as the center of their walk – not the faith as stated in the careful following of the Word of God. Because they were following a FORM, they simply moved the “worship” to a new place in Dan and Bethel. The songs and hymns were the same, the prayers rang familiar, but those who knew heart faith knew something, or rather SOMEONE was missing. What was wrong was simple: They were attempting to follow God but were divorcing themselves from truly knowing and following His literal Word.
3. As generations passed and ignorance grew toward His Word, they swallowed more and more pagan practice and became thoroughly compromised. The laughed at the jokes of the world, read the world’s magazines, watched their movies, followed their gossip, celebrated their celebrities, and bought into one practice after another that would have made their parents and grandparents shudder in the march toward “progress”. The tolerated, they compromised and all the while they formalized their faith and felt ok about it.
4. Mixing God with other agendas they could no longer pick out truth and God could find no distinctiveness of His children in them, so He turned His face from their nation and swept them away into obscurity.
Francis Schaffer once said: “Here’s the great evangelical disaster – the failure of the evangelical world to stand for truth as truth. There is only one word for them – namely, accommodation.”
* I am speaking to the church in a century where we are as indebted as our neighbors.
* I am prophesying to a church in a century when our divorce rates for those who know Christ at the time of their marriage are skyrocketing as we believe the lie that our prime directive is to be happy in life at all costs and at every moment.
* I am crying out to a generation that warehouses children through their formative years while we buy a second car, a better computer and a bigger house.
* I am burdened for a people that cannot see the need to translate the Bible into principles that affect the purity of what they watch on the television or in a movie house.
* I am broken for a generation that refuses to connect the dots between their Biblical ignorance and their fragmenting society.
* I will not stand silent as our freedoms are surrendered to the ease of our luxuries. The Bible requires that I not do so.
* We cannot accommodate. We cannot be lax about our sincere swallowing of Scripture into the veins of our choices. We must become an informed Christianity. We must become intelligent Biblical tacticians. We must surrender to Christ in every choice. Our nation is at stake. Our leaders have no scruples and our churches are offering feel good fodder. We stand on the brink and we must answer the call of our Father!
We can, and we must make a difference – one life at a time! In 1913 in the French Alps, because of careless deforestation, the mountains around Provence, France, were barren. Former villages were deserted because their springs and brooks had run dry. The wind blew furiously, unimpeded by foliage.A simple shepherd named Elzeard Bouffier, took it upon himself to do something about it. Each night he meticulously sorted through a pile of acorns, discarding those that were cracked or undersized. When the shepherd had counted out 100 perfect acorns, he stopped for the night and went to bed. By 1913, the 55-year-old shepherd had been planting trees on the wild hillsides for over three years. He had planted 1,100,000 trees, 20,000 of which had sprouted. Of those, he expected half to be eaten by rodents or die to the elements, and the other half to live. By the middle of the century something incredible had happened: there was a veritable forest, accompanied by a chain reaction in nature. Water flowed in the once-empty brooks. The ecology, sheltered by a leafy roof and bonded to the earth by a mat of spreading roots, become hospitable. Willows, rushes, meadows, gardens, and flowers were birthed. Where there had been only ruins now stand neat farms. Little by little, the villages have been rebuilt. (Hal Seed, Oceanside, California, Leadership, Spring, 1993, p. 48). What brought about the transformation? The Tenacity of one simple farmer. The tenacity of one that worked with diligence in HIS LIFE to deal with issues and become a tool in the hand of the GREAT FOREST GROWER.
Chuck Swindoll has been an inspiration to me over my whole adult life. As one lion of the faith has retired or gone to glory after another, I treasure every older man who remains faithful to the Word even more… Recently he preached an urgent message called his congregation to “grab discernment” as sons and daughters of Issachar (cp. 1 Chron. 12:32) called the “Disturbing Realities of our Time”. If you haven’t heard it, get a copy. The speaker is burdened prophetically, and his words were exceptionally well stated. It was a heavy message, but a timely one.
I mention it because he stated three things that he saw as an older preacher that were very much a part of our time. He says that without an ability to truly grasp the secret war the enemy is raging, we will be hopelessly confused by what is happening around us and deeply gullible of Satan’s schemes in the days we live in. He eloquently parses three issues that are the hallmarks of troubling changes in our time:
1) The blurring of the line between right and wrong – that which separates truth from error. It is becoming difficult for us to call anything WRONG. He says he was raised in a time when he knew what was right and wrong. Pulpits, Congress and even media noted right and wrong and were able to annunciate a wholesale standard of morality. Calling anything wrong brings now the wrath of the society, but it was not so a short time ago.
2) The growing ignorance of Biblical knowledge. There was a time when Biblical understanding was a guide in the public square of our nation. If the Scripture said it, it was a guide to us.
· Thomas Jefferson: God who gave us life gave us liberty, Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.” (On the Jefferson memorial).
· “The first and almost the only book deserving of universal attention is the Bible.” John Quincy Adams
· “..but for the book (the Bible) we could not know right from wrong.” Abraham Lincoln
· “…the Bible…is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life, the nature of God and the spiritual nature and need of men. It is the only guide of life which really leads the spirit in the way of peace and salvation.” Woodrow Wilson
· “The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” Calvin Coolidge
Today such thinking is considered “bigoted” and ‘out of touch”. There is a famine of Biblical truth. Churches are fast becoming entertainment centers and Biblical exposition is its first casualty. Swindoll adds these penetrating words: “Face it men and women, unless you are very unusual, you know less about the Bible than your grandparents knew.” He backed up this assertion. He shared that Gary Burge, Professor of Wheaton College studied the Biblical literacy of the incoming freshmen. “The students come from Biblical traditions, good evangelical churches. They use the Bible frequently to defend positions, but curiously, they do not know how the basic Bible stories unfold.” The average grade for sequencing major events in the Bible, was 50-55.
Other evidence, Jay Leno last year went out on the street to ask, “Name one of the ten commandments. After several could not, one man said: “God helps those who helps themselves”. Sadly, the crowd laughed. “Can you name one of the Apostles?” Nobody could name one. Then he asked, “Can you name the four Beatles”… everyone answered quickly with all four - no problem. “Who was swallowed by the great fish?” He asked. “Pinocchio!” was one man’s reply.
If you lack Biblical knowledge and the ability to relate the principles you are sunk. You are at the mercy of the next persuasive tongue that comes and offers to provide you with security and prosperity. An antichrist awaits such a generation to lead them astray.
3) The intensifying embrace of post-modernism: We have entered post-Christian America. Instead of life being considered honestly, it is considered emotionally. Do not underestimate the power of this on the lives of all of our children.
The Bright Side (2 Kings 18:1-8)
* It was the dark time we just described in the neighboring north (18:1a). I mention this to make sure we not somehow believe that it was somehow easier for King Hezekiah to choose a life of distinction of testimony.
* His family was compromising (18:1b). He had no support growing in becoming a distinct follower of God. Hezekiah was born in Jerusalem in 753 BCE, and lived in the "dysfunctional" palace of his father King Ahaz. His father was supposed to lead God’s, but he was far from it. Ahaz worshipped false gods, offered sacrifices and burned incense at the high places, gathered all the furnishing of the temple of God and took them away. He shut the doors of the temple so people could not worship God, and in turn he set up altars to other gods at every street corner in Jerusalem. If this was not "dysfunctional" enough Ahaz even took his own sons, Hezekiah’s brothers and he burned them as sacrifices to these false gods...It was only by God’s grace and through his hand of providence that Hezekiah survived...
“The Human Fly” (pp.18,19, A Treasury of Inspirational Illustrations, Earl C. Willer): Some years ago, a so-called “human fly” went to Los Angeles. It was announced that on a certain day he would climb up the face of one of the large department store buildings. Thousands gathered to watch him perform this seemingly impossible feat. Slowly and carefully he made his way upward, now clinging to a jutting brick, again to a cornice. Up and up he went. At last he was near the top. He was seen to feel to right and left and above his head for something firm enough to support his weight. And soon he seemed to spy what looked like a gray bit of stone or discolored brick protruding from the smooth wall. He reached for it but it was just beyond him. He ventured all and leaped for it. But before the horrified eyes of the spectators, fell to the ground and was broken to pieces. In his dead hand was found a spider’s web! He had mistaken it for a stone. What a lesson for those who will only stop and think. While human efforts are to be used and opportunities accepted and challenges met, it is equally true that no one knows, understands, or has meaning to his life if he ignores the only solid “Rock” that one can find—the God-man, Christ Jesus. We as a people need to stop grasping for things that are unstable and anchor ourselves to the God who has our destiny in His hands. Ahaz never got that, but Hezekiah did.
* But Hezekiah's life was not completely dark. There was a light in a man of God -- a prophet whose name was Isaiah (cp. Isa. 38:1ff) who made regular entrance to the king. He spoke powerful words of truth about life and about God, words that made Hezekiah’s heart race with joy, excitement and hope.
Because of the choices Hezekiah made, he was able to:
* Do right before God with the heart of David (18:3).
* Stand against the spreading of idolatry, immoral behavior, old time practices that honored religious life, but not God (18:4).
* He was able to TRUST God, and that made him different that ALL THE OTHER KINGS. Assyria was strong, and the vast empire bore down on him, but he trusted God (18:5).
* He was able to walk outwardly, publicly with God (18:6). He did this by knowing and obeying the Word of God. He unapologetically believed and followed God’s Word as truth. He didn’t just theologize it, he lived it practically. He DID God’s Word.
* God’s presence was obvious, and his progress was also obvious (18:7-8). Those who afflicted God’s people were driven back. There was victory!
He fought in a dark trench on the German frontier. A vicious firefight left the battle lines torn and bodies of men strewn all across the field before him. Night fell. Though he was commanded to maintain that position until reinforced, the cries of men from distant places haunted him. In the darkness of the night he left the hole where he hid to flee the scene. He stumbled across a ditch and felt the edge of a road. In a few feet he came upon on a road sign. So dark and so lost, he had no idea what the sign said. He could only hope that it offered him some clue as to where he was and what was nearby. He decided to climb the pole. Each movement hurt as his exhausted body slid upward against the force of gravity. When he got to the crossbeam, he held on to read the sign. Took out a match, lit it, and looked directly into the face of Jesus. He had climbed an outdoor crucifix! Stunned by what he saw, he realized the shame of his life. He was looking into the face of the One who had endured it all for him and had never turned back. The next morning, the soldier was back in the trenches.
Someone has said: "If you want to be distressed, look within. If you want to be defeated, look around. But - If you want to be delivered, look to Christ."
I am reminded of Patrick Henry, who was a famous statesman and orator of colonial Virginia. "In 1764 he was elected to the House of Burgesses where he became a champion of the frontier people, supporting their rights against the arrogant exercise of power by the aristocracy. In 1774 he was a delegate to the First Continental Congress. In 1775, before the Virginia Provincial Convention, which was deeply divided between those who supported England and those who desired freedom, he uttered his most famous words, "Give me liberty or give me death!" During the Revolutionary War he became commander-in-chief of Virginia’s military forces, a member of the Second Continental Congress, helped draw up the first constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and was largely responsible for drawing up the amendments to our Constitution known as the Bill of Rights. He became Virginia’s first governor, and was re-elected four times. Then he retired from public life, but despite his strong objections the people went ahead and re-elected him Governor for the 5th time. But he meant what he said, so he refused to take the office. He was offered a seat in the U.S. Senate, and posts as ambassador to Spain and to France. President George Washington asked him to join his cabinet and become Secretary of State, and later wanted to appoint him the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Buthe refused all such honors and recognitions. Listen to these words from him: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians - not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ." His Last Will & Testament was filed in the Brookneal County courthouse in Virginia. You read his will and you’ll see that he bequeathed everything to his children, just as most people do. But the last paragraph in his will is especially interesting. He wrote, "I have now given everything I own to my children. There is one more thing I wish I could give them and that is Christ. Because if they have everything I gave them and don’t have Christ, they have nothing." SOURCE: Melvin Newland, Central Christian Church, Brownsville, Texas.
Patrick Henry wasn’t just a statesman, he was a distinct believer who was living out his faith to the very end. Because of that, he made a difference. Believers that live distinctly offer a high contrast difference -- a choice. God uses the distinct, not the compromising.
Thanks to Mr. Guay for the encouragement and a deep personal thanks to Mr. Bockman for the gentle but needed correction. I appreciate you both! R
Posted by: Randall Smith | 30 July 2009 at 07:16 AM
Your scripture references are correctly labeled as being from 2 Kings in the title, but the section headers ("The Dark Side" and "The Bright Side") say 1 Kings. This is very confusing.
Thank God and people like you for providing so many good free Bible study resources on the internet!
Posted by: Thomas Stuart Bockman | 29 July 2009 at 11:33 PM
This is a powerful message. Thank you for standing with us in the Truth War. "Begin with me, Lord, to create an unmistakable contrast with the darkness of the world to radiate Christ and draw others to You."
Thanks for the GOOD Word!!
Posted by: Paul Guay | 07 July 2009 at 01:00 PM