A Double-Minded Man

[Music] like to say greetings to oh there's the camera back there all of the people out there and in cyberland or wherever it is you are watching agreeings to all of you especially those of you who uh because of circumstances of your own that you would are not able to attend services regularly here but uh also i suppose there are a few others that were here this morning that are tuning in as well uh just as some of you probably tuned into the service this morning the telecasts have been doing extremely well mr jacob hall who gave the sermonette is i guess he is our lead editor now and he has others that are helping him so i don't want to take away from any of them but the responses that we're getting have just been terrific uh we've had uh the one i had on i can't even remember what it was a couple weeks ago about sixty seven hundred and something responses the one by mr ames will be well over six thousand we don't know what the final is on that but it's going to be well under the six 000 plus it was for short and we didn't have all the international areas recording and the one on end of america what a what a timely topic by mr smith from what i've seen so far it should be well over six thousand it might even reach seven thousand i don't know but it's uh it's produced a good strong response for the first day that's so i look at the record there and it doesn't tell us the it doesn't tell me the internet responses but the telephone responses have been very strong and uh so we're looking forward to that you know god seems to be doing something right now uh with his work uh things that we cannot explain things that we're not doing on our own i know that we've put forth a lot of effort we've improved certain things we have gotten on more stations but god is the one that can magnify our efforts and he seems to be doing that and even this last week we received information i'm not going to go in the details of it but we received some information about a very large sum of money that will be coming to the work uh this year apparently uh part of it has to be logged for last year so we're going to have extremely good year from last year you know we used to talk about the 15 increase and we're going to see much greater than that you know last year and this and the year to come i think uh we can't predict the year to come but uh i think that we we just need to realize that god is doing something and we're trying to figure out what it is we're saying here's all this this money that's been coming to the church and the regular ties and offerings of co-workers and donors then some of these special uh you know either estates or in this particular case royalties from past programs that were aired uh in addition to what we we contracted for those we contract for a station for a certain time and then they have slots that they have to fill and when they do that that's a bonus for us and then they have to pay us to do so and it's it's just really remarkable how much that that accumulates too the god is trying to do something through us at this time and it's not a time to think oh we're rich in increased with goods you know back in days worldwide they talked about 30 increase and everybody thought that's wonderful if we talk about that somebody said oh where you laid us in your you know you're rich and increasing goods well we don't think we're in need of nothing we are as dr meredith said about half peanut shell in the middle of the pacific ocean we are so tiny we are so small the world is so great and getting the gospel of the world we need to pray that god will open up the right doors we don't want to throw money out there after anything we want to use the resources god has given to us wisely but we need the prayers of all of you that god will open doors that he'll show us what it is that he wants to do what he is working out there may be something coming up in the this year that we could never foresee but one thing we know is that within the last year or so this world has taken a a jump in the direction of the end of the age and god is providing for his work in a way that we never would have imagined so brethren let's uh be sure to be praying about all these things but i hope you'll watch the telecasts that are coming out i think that they have continued to improve the quality of them and people are noticing that and occasionally we get notes from people that they're noticing the quality of our program speaking of the editing specifically and we do appreciate that god is is working something there for us you know scriptures use some interesting expressions in the hebrew and the greek languages that we're not always able to understand in the english language there are words that and phrases that are difficult to translate into english and so sometimes not knowing the hebrew not knowing the the greek language we may miss some little thing now i don't think that we're missing anything that's really big and important there are things like uh words for hell or hades that are important for us to understand or so there are some of those things that we have recognized historically in the church but there are other things that may be a little bit minor in comparison uh and sometimes we can learn from things and sometimes we don't know it and it doesn't really matter in the long run because we're getting the big picture when you read through the book of acts there are a lot of details that we we don't know about luke is very sparse in his words he just gives us the bare necessity and doesn't explain everything but he gives us enough god gives us enough that we get the message that we need to have but i'd like to cover uh two scriptures one in hebrew one in greek one is old testament obviously the other is new testament the expressions are separated by the better part of a millennium and yet these messages are very closely related and the first one is found in first kings 18 21 the other one is in james 1 and verse 8. so today i'm going to show the relationship of these two passages the message that they contain for us today uh and in them we'll find a powerful lesson especially for those of us living at the end of the age and i used to not be much for titles mr ames always wants us to have a title uh the the specific purpose statement is always tells us where to go but i've learned over a period of time that if you don't give a title whoever's recording that you have no idea what they're recording but usually it's something that is totally away from what you were trying to say so uh this is a double-minded man that's my title if you want a title uh for this today let's go to first kings 18. first kings 18 and verse 21. we'll start out there we'll we'll cover the first one first kings 18 and verse 21. now this is where elijah had called for a drought on the land for three and a half years and the king at that time was ahab ahab was not a very good king in fact let's just go back a couple pages here to the 16th chapter we'll we'll start there just to get a little bit of background about who ahab was and we'll begin in verse 29 it says in the 38th year of asa king of judah asa is a good king ahab the son of omri now omri was not such a good king but he was a very powerful king and our literature on the united states and great britain of prophecy talks about omri and how he had a great influence on the nation he says he became king over israel this is ahab became king over israel ahab the son of armory reigned over israel in samaria 22 years so these the northern 10 10 tribes he was there 22 years you know that's a long time for a ruler in in many respects you can do a lot of good or you can do a lot of harm in that period of time when you think about the last four years for for good or bad i mean you could whatever way you want to look at it it's been a long four years in a lot of respects hasn't it but think about 22 years in leadership position now ahab the son of omri did evil in the sight of the lord more than all who were before him he's a very wicked king and it came to pass as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of jeroboam the son of nebat that's where he changed the holy days and uh probably the sabbath as well you know from the feast of tabernacles to the eighth month and he set up idols in the north and the south to short-circuit the keeping of the feast for the people going down to jerusalem introduced idolatry and so forth it says that he this ahab followed the sins of jeroboam and uh also that he took his wife jezebel the daughter of ethbia baal king of sight the sidonians and he went and served baal and worshiped him so he introduced in a very big time way the worship of baal and he married this woman who is the son of really of a priest in reality bail worship and she was even worse than he was we think of jezebel we think of just about the worst kind of woman that you could possibly have there was another woman in scripture that uh also was uh known for her uh her wickedness but certainly jezebel was then he set up an altar verse 32 for baal in the temple of baal which he had built in samaria so he set up a temple there put baal an image of it an altar for baal and they have made a wooden image ahab did more to provoke the eternal god of israel to anger than all the kings of israel who were before him he literally provoked god to anger by the things that he did now understanding ahab is it takes a lot because a very complex individual a very weak individual and in many respects but at the end of his life he he repented and turned and and god uh was merciful to him but let's notice over in the 19th chapter and verse 1 says and ahab told jezebel all that elijah had done and how he had executed all the prophets with the sword this was after the context contest between elijah and the prophets of baal and the the prophetesses and so forth of ashura there are prophets of ashrae after that incident where called fire down from heaven then he went home and he told jezebel about it what he had done and how he had executed all the prophets with the sword now there's an interesting that you might want to check out a couple sermons there at our website lcg.org where uh mr carl mcnair who who died many years ago a couple sermons that he gave in the early 2000s early 2000s or thereabouts and very interesting when you look at the times in which we are living today from a political perspective he talks a little bit about what happened down in florida in the election there and we've seen a very similar situation in recent times here uh there may be differences but nevertheless he talks about that a little bit and he's also really referring to a time when there was a lot of confusion in the church first of all coming out of worldwide and then the uh situation between global living that occurred there and he doesn't necessarily mention all those things specifically by name he doesn't use a lot of names that way but you can read between the lines of some things that are happening but he goes into this passage here of elijah fleeing from jezebel because it says here that after ahab told jezebel about it ahab wasn't going to do anything about it but jezebel called out the army as it were and it says then jezebel sent a messenger to elijah saying so let the gods do to me and more also if i do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time and when he saw that and when elijah saw that he arose and ran for his life and went to beersheba which belongs to judah and left his servant there and then he went on from there knowing the character of this woman as mr mcnair explains and just go to the lcg.org website and they're they're right up close to the front there and and he talks about how elijah understood the character of this woman and going to judah was not far enough he went on from there he understood the danger that was there and i think he points out something very well that does this mean that elijah was a coward no elijah knew what was at stake there did he know god could call fire down from heaven of all people he certainly knew that but he also understood that the job that god had given to him at that point was was finished he wasn't sure exactly what was next but he was smart enough to recognize a danger to be prudent about the danger and get out of town just as jesus uh in john the seventh chapter understood the danger instead of stayed away from judah at the time or from jerusalem he did go down to the feast but he went down very quietly he didn't just show himself before that because he knew that his time was not yet and so both these individuals exercise a certain prudence there now this is the the kind of individual that we're dealing with here in jezebel and with ahab let's notice also i'll just refer to it the dealings with naboth and his vineyard we're very familiar with that you can read of it in first kings the 21st chapter i'm not going to go there for for sake of time but you can check that out and you can see what kind of a person ahab was and even more so what kind of a person jezebel was who set up false witnesses to have naboth killed so that they could take over his vineyard so that ahab could have a vegetable garden and this is the the circumstance that we're dealing with here now with that background let's look at the 18th chapter and verse 21 where it says here in first kings 18 21 elijah came to all the people and said this is after the prophets of baal or or they've been brought together here and he proposes this context and he says how long will you falter between two opinions if the eternal is god follow him but if baal follow him you're faltering between two opinions now this is a an interesting expression here when you look at it in the hebrew and i i've talked about this before but i'm going to read a couple other commentaries on this as well this one is from adam clarks when it the expression how long halt you between two opinions it says literally how long hop you about upon two bowels two branches kind of like the the birds that were talked about in the sermonette here interesting i was watching some sparrows this morning i like to look out the window when i get up and then of course during breakfast we can look out the window and my wife had these uh what are they called butterfly plants and they're supposed to attract butterflies but they also attract hummingbirds and uh to a lesser degree than butterflies but the sparrows come in at this time of year and they they pick the seeds off because the seeds are left behind this is kind of an ugly plant this time of year but there's food on it and just watching them flip from branch to branch there and so how long hop you about upon two bows this is a metaphor taken from birds hopping about from bow to bow not knowing on which to settle perhaps the idea of limping through lameness in other words halt limping through lameness should not be overlooked they were halt they could not walk uprightly they dreaded it says here jehovah which we don't use that it's really a corruption of the tetragrammaton but nevertheless i'll just read it as his here in adam clarks says they dreaded jehovah or yahweh jehovah as they say and therefore could not totally abandon him they were afraid of god in a certain sense they feared the king and queen now that's why i gave a little bit of background why they would fear the king and queen because they were very bad people and therefore thought they must embrace the religion of the state the state religion which was baalism their conscience forbade them to do the former their fear of man persuaded them to do the latter but neither were they hardly engaged so they they could make up their mind between the state religion of baal that was being enforced by [Music] basically a woman ahab probably didn't have the guts to to deal with these things but he went along with his wife and yet they also knew something about yahweh or god the god of what we call the bible or creation that's from anna clark's commentary let's look at another commentary this one is jameson fawcett brown and that expression how long halt you it says they had long been attempting to conjoin the service of god with that of baal this syncretism of ideas this blending of it is that not what we see today and people supposedly worshiping the god of the bible but then they have christmas and they have easter and they have all these pagan ideas ideas about infant baptism because of a misunderstanding and thinking of the immortal soul and that we better save this baby who can't repent who can't understand what's happening it's foolishness when you really think about it we're all based on a false assumption they had attempted to conjoin the service of god with that of baal elijah proposed to decide for them the controversy between god and baal by an appeal not to the authority of the law for that would have no weight no wait with the people but by a visible token from heaven since fire was the element over which baal was supposed to preside he proposed that two bullocks should be slain and on whichever the fire should ascend to consume it the event should determine the true god whom it was their duty to serve the controversy therefore did not consist in a direct opposition between the worship of yahweh and that of baal for the latter party like the pagan in general tolerated the worship of other deities along with their own favorite idols now you see that in hinduism they have multiple gods you know very interesting we sold a vehicle uh in canada it was a uh the man that was in canada before i was wasn't able to get his vehicle across the border they stopped him there and so we traded vehicles and i had that vehicle and and uh when it came time to to uh turn in or to get rid of it we looked around and there was a a dealership that specialized in these vans it was a caravan of some sort dodge caravan or something along that line i don't remember exactly but this person would give us the best offer he was from india he was hindu and uh it was the best offer we had of any offers uh rather than trying to just sell it to private party and and so forth but it was getting real quickly and so i went down there and dropped it off and he invited me upstairs where they had these idols and images there we sat down and talked for a while and in the process of the conversation he said well when it sells i'll send you a gift and so i thought okay and it was months before it sold but all of a sudden we got or i guess it was months because it was months before i got a check in the mail i thought maybe send us 50 he sent us 700 but here was someone who respected the fact that i was a minister of christ but he had his hindu gods and various other ones and they would have their worship service up there upstairs above the the the floor room of this dealership every day or twice a day i don't know how often but anyway their employees would go up there and they'd have their little worship service but he was quite okay with christianity and it is true that many of the pagans they they they they don't have loyalty to just one they have a multitude you look at the greek gods they worshipped all kinds of zeus and and uh you know paul remember that barnabas was one uh paul was another and they had the worship of diana which goes by a number of different names and you have all these different gods and goddesses they're fine worshiping a lot of gods but that's not the true god god does not want us to worship in that way so like pagans in general they tolerated the worship of other deities along with their own favorite idols so the children of israel had fallen into that attitude of mind that they could worship both they feared god but they feared the state religion and so they couldn't give up either one of them they hung on to both the new bible commentary revised which i've read before but i'll read it quickly here it says it seems to be literally till when are you hopping at two forks like two forks in the road the sin of the people had been not in rejecting the worship of yahweh in order they still worship god but in trying to combine it with the worship of baal such syncretism is always considered to be broad-minded whereas the other is narrow-minded but yahweh of israel left no room for other gods we've all seen these bumper stickers haven't we co exists and it has all kinds of different religious symbols for the letters for coexist you know that the t is the cross and i can't remember which ones all they all are but it tries to encompass all religions now we should treat people of all religions with respect but we don't embrace all religions do we because we know that god does not want that he doesn't accept that so here is an example in the old testament where the people were trying to split the difference they were trying to satisfy everybody at the same time when i say everybody essentially in that case it was two different groups but we have others who try to satisfy a lot of other people you know there are a lot of people in this world that know that christmas is a fraud but they can't give it up because of the children when in reality if they teach their children the truth their children will accept it especially if they go to the feast and do the other things they they accept that now you know kids like president we understand that but usually it's the parents more than it is the kids but we always blame well the kids i've got to do it for the kids lie to them for the kid's sake let's go over to the new testament james the first chapter james 1. and we'll begin in verse 6. james 1 and verse 6. he says well let me go back to verse 5. if any of you lacks wisdom let him ask of god who gives to all liberally and without reproach and it will be given to him but let him ask in faith with no doubting for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind for let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the lord he is a double-minded man unstable in all his ways the book of james has more to say about being double-minded but nevertheless this particular place that we're reading from adam clark has this to say about it he says the man of two souls now we're not talking about immoral souls but two two souls who had one for earth one desire for the earth and the another for heaven now we understand heaven in this context well you know their context is going to be different than our understanding of it but our citizenship is reserved in heaven in other words it's talking about one foot in the world and one foot with god and i heard a sermonette by a young man some years ago where he was talking in a heart to heart it wasn't a sermon that was a heart-to-heart uh speech at spokesman club where he grew up in the church and had one foot in the world and one foot in the church now as he saw it he had his foot in the church but he just had one foot there in the world just in case he was missing out on something and he had to realize that in reality he had one foot in the world and he had his toe in the church something along that line and he realized that he couldn't have it both ways this exactly what this is talking about being double-minded and how many of our young people and i'm not ragging on you young people at all i love young people i've spent many many years at the summer camp i'm really getting excited about summer camp this year i'm not not going to do it for very many years but at least one year because i want to see it going in a certain direction very positive direction that we think that we can bring into it and so i love young people but you have we i say you we all because we were young too we had to make up our mind which way we're going in life are we going to follow our friends or are we going to follow what we know is right and good i faced that when i left the worldwide church of god i had all these people calling me up because i didn't know where i was going for three weeks i was sitting out there trying to sort things out all i knew is i was no longer going back where the the church had gone totally astray and and so i'm out there and every day i'm getting calls from sometimes my friends sometimes people i know or didn't know but they were saying whatever you do don't go with mr meredith and at some point in time i had to ask the question am i going to follow my friends and these other people that i don't even know down a path where i do not know where it's leading because there wasn't that other church out there at that time but there was a lot of talk about it this was march 11th last sermon i gave in worldwide on 1995 and a much larger organization kind of rose up on may the 2nd of uh that same year so this is before that am i going to follow my friends or am i going to look at the facts where is the church that god is using to preach the gospel to the world and to feed the flock and i can see that dr meredith and those who are with him were going the right direction they were doing the right thing and so am i going to just follow my friends out here into who knows where or am i going to do it the other way and you know for a period of of a couple weeks uh i i i was i was popping from bow to bow i was trying to figure it out trying to sort it out and and it doesn't mean that it's wrong that we ever are in that situation maybe it should have been that i should have been you know spiritual enough that i would have known instantly what the right choice was but you get pulled in different directions don't you whether it's fear of the king in baal worship or whether you're just trying to sort out what do i do next and once i ask the question that question the critical question what am i going to do am i going to follow my friends or am i going to follow the truth it became very very clear instantly it became clear and i knew what i needed to do and that's you know that's a that's a struggle for for a lot of young people and we all at some point in time had to make those decisions whether we grew up in the church or that we didn't grow up in the church am i going to do what the bible and my creator the one who can give me life eternal or can kill me forever am i going to follow him in his ways i'm going to follow my friends i'm going to you know the crowd my peer group i'm going to go out in the world and just have quote fun which never quite turns out the way that one thinks it's going to turn out but so many people have to try it and prove it for themselves instead of learning from the heartache and suffering of others he says here the man of two souls who has one for earth another for heaven who wishes to secure both worlds he will not give up earth and he is blothed to let heaven go this was a usual term among the jews who expressed the man who attempted to worship god and yet retained the love of the creature a man of this character is continually distracted he will neither let earth nor heaven go and yet he can have but one i i was reminded of this the other day i actually gave a very similar sermon to this over in uh fayetteville last week and i uh i was reminded of many years ago actually it was during the 80s i remember the exact year but i was up in asheville north carolina i know nobody would know this person but there was a woman who lost her husband and she met somebody who was a lawyer very successful person in this world but he was not in the church and i remember counseling with her and trying to explain that she couldn't have both you want to follow god you want to follow you want to get married and and you know go out of the church she wanted both now sometimes people do marry like that and they still keep coming to church but it doesn't work out the way that they really think it's going to in you know 99 percent of the cases i'm not sure what they expect in those things but nevertheless she couldn't obey god because god's command is very direct that she free to marry but only in the lord so she would violate god's command so she couldn't obey god and have the other but she didn't want to give up either one she didn't want to leave the church she didn't want to she didn't want to disobey god and she made that very clear why i want to obey god but i want this and this is the the state that sometimes we find ourselves in and in this case a man of this character a woman of this character is continually distracted neither letting heaven go nor uh yet he can can have but one neither earth nor heaven in jail jamison fawcett brown it says again double minded is double sold the one soul directed toward god the other to something else not a hypocrite but fickle not a hypocrite but fickle now i i would take exception of that the person was a hypocrite because if the person's claiming to obey god there there is no other way but what the emphasis there is this person is is fickle wavering opposed to the single eye and it refers to matthew 6 verse 22 about your well let's just turn over there matthew 6 and verse 22. says the lamp of the body is the eye if therefore your eye is good or whole your whole body will be full of light but if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness if therefore the light that is in you is darkness how great is that darkness now it's a reference there but if you look at the two verses that go before it he says don't lay up for yourself treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy where thieves break through and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven verse 21 three verses actually for where treasure is there your heart will be also and then notice down in verse 24 right after the statement about the lamp being the uh of the body is the eye it says no one can serve two masters for he that either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other you cannot serve god and mammon it's really talking about the physical things of this world if your eye is single-minded as opposed to you know some people have the goal they want to be rich remember again so many lessons come back to me from just right up there in asheville they're seven years and i remember for the first time in the church of god i heard people talking about well my goal is to be a millionaire by the time i'm thus in such age and most people who are successful in this life that i know of didn't set out to be rich they set out to do something that they they loved and they wanted to do and they just did it better than anybody else and the money came as a a bonus it just came as a byproduct of doing the best they could at something that they loved but i was shocked that there were people growing up in the church that that was their goal to become rich that really should not be our goal because that's our goal and we just focus on that it's going to be distracting remember when mr armstrong talked in his autobiography about the clay project how he got so involved in this this clay that was you know had certain medicinal purposes and everything and he just got so involved in that and he fasted because he had been praying i think it was for his wife's healing at the time and and he fasted and he realized he had gotten distracted by this clay project instead of focusing on doing the work of god so when it says here that um a double-minded man it speaks of of how he becomes distracted listen notice james the fourth chapter because here's another reference in the book of james that talks about being double-minded james 4 verse 7 he says therefore submit to god resist the devil and he will flee from you we have to resist the devil in other words resist the poles of the devil resist the attractions that the devil puts out there for us draw near to god and he will draw near to you cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double minded or doubled soul double sold where we are pulled apart in two different directions sometimes we have to make up our mind or at some point we have to make up our mind which is it that we want now there are other scriptures that teach us similar messages for example revelation the third chapter revelation 3. and we'll look at verse 14. i think we know where this is going but in reality we're dealing with people who are double-minded and verse 14 revelation 3 and the angel of the church of laodicea write these things says the amen the amen the so be it he doesn't say the amen and the a woman um that's so bizarre really uh you know you know that that's the he was the mayor of kansas city names emmanuel cleaver that's the prayer that he gave at the end most of you're familiar with that i think at the end of the opening of the 117th congress and he said amen and a woman now amen means so be it or something similar to that and yet he was trying to make a statement about pl you know politically correct we can't leave women out of this so i think we should refer to him as a woman you all uh won't because it's e man ul so we we need to add the w o there and when we talk about maintain uh well i forget how to spell that better on the top of my head uh but but mention uh we'll mention i mean we might as well put w o in front of everything that has m-e-n-m-a-n before it and then we'd all be politically correct wouldn't we now you talk about crazy here's a minister of jesus christ supposedly he's not really a methodist minister and he's going to add something to the prayer to be politically correct uh in in that age and of course he also prayed to brahma and uh various uh the gods of various other sorts he the prayer was very economical and that would be seen as oh this is just uh inclusive can you imagine mr smith getting up here and thanking god for you know all these things and mentioning brahma and vishnu and and buddha and various other gods i don't think he'd do that no he's he's very quick to shake his head no he wouldn't do that we know he wouldn't do that none of us would do that would we it is absolutely insane the way our world is going today but that's another story but here it says that the the latest sins uh these things says the amen there's the so be it the one that is not double-minded in reality the faithful and true witness the beginning of the creation of god i know your works here neither cold nor hot i could wish that you were cold or hot so then because you are lukewarm and neither cold nor hot i will vomit you out of my mouth now they're neither cold or hot in other words they're not turned off toward god they they worship god as we read in the 12th chapter they have the testimony of jesus christ and the commandments of god they keep the commandments and have the testimony of jesus christ but they're left behind to go into the tribulation because they're they're double-minded in reality neither cold or hot they they want this they they're afraid not to be keeping the sabbath in the holy days and in fact they may even quote love them but the problem is they love other things too and they don't have their whole heart in doing the will of god they're in that sense they are double-minded back in second kings the 17th chapter ii kings 17 there's a passage that confuses people sometimes we have to explain it to people and i think that in this context we we have the right explanation for it uh we've explained it this way but just not tied these other scriptures together with it but in second kings 17 and verse 24 this is after the house of israel has gone into captivity they've been taken out then verse 24 says then the king of assyria brought people from babylon kutha ava hameth and from sephiroth and placed them in the cities of samaria instead of the children of israel so they moved the israelites out of the northern area and then they moved the people where they're going they moved them into samaria and they displaced them and that was that that uh took away their you know a certain loyalty there were a lot of reasons for for doing something like that it totally destabilized the people and it says they they took possession of samaria and dwelt in this its cities now these were the people who became known in new testament times as the samaria samaritans and when you read ezra nehemiah you see the conflict that took place between the samaritans and the jews and you understand why there was so much conflict in the new testament there at that time but that's that's another story verse 25 and so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there that they did not fear the lord or the eternal so they came in they didn't fear god therefore the eternal sent lions among them which killed some of them and so they spoke to the king of assyria saying the nations whom you have removed and placed in the cities of samaria did not know the rituals of the god of the land they saw that various lands had different gods and that's why you remember that story where the uh the the general for uh uh azer hayden or whoever was the syrian took back a load of dirt uh to build a uh an altar there in damascus because he was taking part of the land of israel back with him he saw that god was in that land and so they saw it that way and they saw that well okay this situation is such that we don't know the the the mannerisms of the god of this new land that we've been moved into and so they asked the king to uh to help them that way and so the nations whom you have removed and placed in the city of samaria do not know the rituals of the god of land therefore he has sent lions among them and indeed they are killing them because i do not know the rituals of the god of land verse 27 so the king of assyria commanded saying send there one of the priests whom you brought from there let him go and dwell there and let him teach them the rituals of the god of the land so the children of israel went into captivity because of a corruption of the worship of god the true god and so now they're going to bring back one of the priests who had this corruption and bring them back and teach them that so now you have a real mixture of truth and error but nevertheless that's what happened there and so they brought this priest back then one of the priests whom they had carried away from samaria came and dwelt in bethel and taught them how they should fear the eternal or certain things about the worship of god now to what degree he understood the true worship of god is really very very questionable here unless it was one of those that was really teaching the truth and you know was just taken away who knows for sure but it says verse 29 however every nation continued to make gods of its own and put them in the shrines on the high places which the samaritans had made every nation of the cities where they dwell the men of babylon made sukkoth binath the men of couth made nergal and the men of hameth made ashima or ashima and the avites and all these others made gods of their own now this helps us to understand what the new testament was dealing with with the samaritans with all their various gods there verse 32 this is the point so they feared the eternal and from every class they appointed for themselves priests of the high places from every class so obviously this is just a tremendous mixture of truth and error and yet by the time of christ they thought they were you know that they were worshiping god on mount what ebal or garris gears him up there that they looked at jacob as their father because a certain amount of the truth had slipped through to them but they really didn't worship god so they feared the lord and verse 33 they feared the eternal yet served their own gods according to the rituals of the nations from among whom they were carried away to this day they continue they continue practicing the former rituals they do not fear the eternal nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances or the law and the commandment which the eternal had commanded the children of jacob whom he named israel with whom the eternal had made a covenant and charged them saying you shall not fear other gods nor bow down to them nor serve them nor sacrifice them but the eternal who brought you up from the land of egypt with great power and an outstretched arm him you shall fear him you shall worship and him you shall offer sacrifice so in reality it says that they they they feared the lord and then another scripture says they didn't fear the lord in other words these were people of a double soul a double mind they they were afraid not to worship god as they had been told no doubt in a very corrupt manner but they did not want to let their god the gods of their upbringing and their nations go either so there was this syncretism between the worship of god and not and so it says well they feared god but they really didn't fear god because if they really feared god they would have gotten rid of all these other gods that's really what we're dealing with here it's not a contradiction at all it's just saying yeah they fear god to a certain degree but they really didn't fear god because they want to hang on to their gods and that's not acceptable with the eternal god is not pleased with a lukewarm double-minded hopping between two forks attitude he wants us to be convicted zealous and wholehearted in our relationship with him we are to love him with our whole heart that's what it says in matthew 22 verses 37 to 40. jesus said to them you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind we cannot especially as we get close to the end brethren now i mean always this is the case but especially in the world in which we live today we cannot afford to be double-minded we cannot afford to have one foot in the church and one little toe out in the world and the way that we entertain ourselves in the way that we communicate for example and i've talked about this quite a bit on the internet we can't be a part of this world we can't get caught up in all the conspiracy theories that are out there you know i've written an article i think maybe it's an article that i've written on this subject but those of us who've been around a little bit longer and been in the ministry i've seen these things come and go you know back in the early 70s mid 70s it was illuminati and that keeps cropping up from time to time the illuminati back in the 50s even the church allowed ourselves we were young you know with young ministers and and writers for the magazine and oh you know hitler didn't die he's alive in argentina someplace you know they had an actual article on that uh kind of immature in a sense we we understand we we make mistakes but all of these conspiracies now you've got this q and on boy i can step on some toes on that because there are people that believe in this stuff and yet when you just stand back and look at it this is so far beyond the pale you've got theories and ideas about you know i better not start mentioning names but certain certain bad guys are always out there and they're they've got all these plans and you know that coveted is is very real some people think it's just a big hoax it's not it's real we know people that have gotten or have died we know others who have been very very sick from it thankfully most people it's a mild case but they're real people dying from it are there individuals in this world politicians and media and people behind the scene that are exploiting this crisis absolutely never let a good crisis go to waste to promote their ideas but we cannot get caught up in all these things you know as one minister said there's somebody came to him about various conspiracies and said okay what if it's true what are you going to do about it our job is to preach the good news of god's coming kingdom and to warn this world that's our job so if some conspiracy out there is true what difference does it make what are you going to do about it do they want us to change and then start preaching that conspiracy because wow we're going to do something the world hasn't already been able to do we have a unique message it's not the message that is being brought up by the world is god going to reveal something that is so important to us through some nefarious source out here somebody you've never known before on the internet that somebody says well this person is really on target we cannot afford to get caught up in the things of this world at a time when the world is just about ready to explode this is going to be a fascinating year a fascinating year for those of us who survive it and none of us know who will and who won't but it's a fascinating year it's already started out interestingly but god is doing something something has changed in our world it's not the same as it's always been we're told by jesus you shall love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul not be double sold but all your soul and with all your mind now this love is shown by action by the way that we live not by what we profess or some feelings in the heart it's by how we act what we do whether our heart is truly in the work are we truly praying for god to open up doors are we praying for one another are we praying for the churches around the world the specific countries that are suffering you know we've had it pretty good here in north carolina got an email from somebody over in england they haven't met since march not allowed to meet uh in that part of england since last march this is already halfway through january be a year before very long people in california i don't know when last time they met there are people that are so locked down they they weren't able to keep the feast now i suppose some people say well you just go out and you keep feast anyway well where are you going to keep it you've got to have a venue and depending on where you live it's not always convenient to meet outside it can be very cold in some parts of the world and there are people who enforce these things with guns these laws it's not like here in the united states we have brethren that need our prayers we are also to love our fellow man in similar fashion but lesser in luke 10 27 it says and your neighbor as yourself jesus gave us a new commandment in john 13 34 to love one another as i have loved you you also love one another how are we serving one another are we looking out for one another are we giving somebody a call are we visiting somebody if we were able to visit them in a safe way or just giving somebody a call or skyping somebody and letting them know we're thinking about them we're caring about them brethren these are things that we ought to be doing and yet we have to put god before man as it tells us in luke 14 26. we must also love the truth wholeheartedly we can't mix truth and error we can't allow ourselves to go out here and and listen to people that god is not called to reveal his truth second thessalonians 2 verses 9 and 10 it says but they they did not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved there's coming a time when a powerful religious leader is going to perform false miracles that are so real that people are going to get caught up in it and if they're believing every other conspiracy or every other idea out there why wouldn't they believe that as well we must have zeal to do the work in john 4 34 jesus said that his food was to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work and we know that he had great zeal for the job that god had given to him we must have similar zeal you know life is made up of choices and when it comes to god he expects us to make a whole hearted choice he expects us to have both feet in doing his will both feet with him hopping between forks trying to serve two masters being double-minded or lukewarm will not satisfy god he's not going to be pleased that we worship him but then are halfway in the world or even you know a quarter of the way in the world we live in an age of distractions boy we live in an age of distractions i i find it difficult you're trying to do something and bing there's something oh i got to check that out you know i don't know about you i am easily distracted i'll confess that i find it very easy to be distracted and hard to focus at times but rather than we have to learn to focus and and when i say easily distracted i don't mean by all these ideas out there but i mean just on a you know minute by minute basis it's easy to be distracted live in an age of distractions satan has been a master at giving us so many things to get us off track takes genuine effort to stay focused on the big picture to which each of us have been called to do the will of god to do the work of god much of the key in developing a genuine much of the key is developing a genuine relationship with god that means that we have to take time for prayer for bible study for meditation for fasting occasionally we have to take the time to have that relationship with our creator that has to be right up front but also we must be willing to look in the mirror to look in the mirror and say okay what am i doing wrong what are my weaknesses what is it that i need to change where am i coming up short we can't just say i'm okay and everything's okay because it's not now i i don't mean to say that that all of you any more than myself and i mean we're all a bunch of uh reprobates and all you know straddling the fence on on various things i i don't mean to say that but i'm just saying these are the things that the potential that is there to distract us and to get us off track we have to have that relationship with god but we also must be willing to look in the mirror and say you know i'm addicted to this whether it be social media or whether it be something else i remember a woman telling us we were visiting with her because there were problems that were coming up on social media that she was sharing things that she shouldn't and we had to talk to her and she said whatever i do i will never give up my i don't know facebook or whatever it was that was chilling i will never and yet christ said if your right hand offends you cut it off if your right eye offends you pluck it out there's certain decisions we have to make how we respond to this challenge that we have will determine whether we are double-minded laodiceans or truly dedicated philadelphians the stakes could not be higher so i hope that we will think about these things i hope we'll look in the mirror hope we'll try to figure out what makes me tick and what am i doing and what are the choices that i'm making because our life depends upon it our eternal life depends on it as well as life in the near future [Music] you

Channel: Living Church of God

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Published: Fri Jun 25 2021