The Great Delusion

We'll grab your Bibles and let's go back to Zephaniah.

If you'll go to Matthew and go back four books—four short books of the Minor Prophets—you come to the prophet Zephaniah. Josiah became king. He was crowned a king at the age of eight, and he inherited a vile, rebellious, corrupt, and wicked nation, the nation of Judah.

There's been a split. Ten tribes went to the north called the Northern Kingdom, often just called Israel. Judah and Benjamin to the south considered the godly remnant.

They were called Judah, kind of—you could say Judah and Benjamin, but they were all always just referred to as Judah. And for 57 years before young Josiah became king, Manasseh was king. Two years later, Ammon, his son, was king, and they filled the land with the most ungodly things, particularly ungodly idolatries and false worship. Josiah becomes king at this very young age, and I believe that Zephaniah himself must have discipled Josiah, the king, and Josiah had a strong and unflinching commitment that he would reform the country, that he would cleanse the country of these evil and wicked practices and sinfulness, and he would reinstall true Jehovah worship. He did a great job at that, and so we have godly Zephaniah with godly king Josiah reforming the land. Of course, Jeremiah also was prophesying during those days, and you have, as the book of Zephaniah, a concise outline of the preaching that he did. Not the exact preaching he preached for many years, but a concise outline of his message to the backslidden and rebellious Southern Kingdom of Judah. Now we come to Zephaniah chapter 1, verses 4 through 6, and I purpose after this week to cover more territory, but I just couldn't pull away from some of these things, so we're doing 4 through 6 this morning. Zephaniah writes to Judah, So I will stretch out my hand against Judah and against all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place, and the names of the idolatrous priest along with the priest, and those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven, and those who bow down and swear to the Lord and yet swear by Milkob, and those who have turned back from following the Lord, and those who have not sought the Lord or inquired of him.

I use my first main point as my title, The Great Delusion. These folks had deluded themselves, convinced themselves of falsehoods to appease their conscience and make themselves feel comfortable in the deeply rebellious and sinful condition that they were in. So, Romans 1, I expanded out and said, The great delusion that election exempted them from judgment. That's where Judah was.

They thought, We're the southern kingdom. We're God's elect chosen people. He's covenant with us to keep us, so we'll not go through the judgment like others are going to go through the judgment.

Well, that was a delusion, the parallel for us. And by the way, everything in the Old Testament is for us. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and said it was written, or what happened to the Jews, rather, is written for our instruction. Everything centers in the church. It's the pinnacle, pinnacle, rather, of God's great work.

And so we can learn very, very much for ourselves. And as we are God's children, we do not need to deceive ourselves that God's strong corrective judgment is somehow not going to come to us if we are rebellious, if we are willfully indulging in sin and not humbly repenting and seeking the Lord. So we have the word Judah here right at the beginning.

Verse four, I will stretch out my hand against Judah. Well, God had told them through the prophet that he would always reserve a lamp stand, if you will, in Judah. For example, 1 Kings 11, 36, But his son, I will give one tribe that my servant David may have a lamp always before me in Jerusalem, the city where I've chosen myself to put my name.

So they would take that to mean we're just exempt. And they were wrong. God himself enthroned himself in Jerusalem. That was the center of his manifestation, his revelation. That's why it's called the valley of vision, that God would reveal himself to mankind through Israel, and Israel was centered in Jerusalem and in the temple that was there. So here these Judeans had the revelation of God himself to them. They had numerous and unique blessings no other nations had.

They had the prophets, they had the tabernacle, they had the temple, they had the law of Moses, they had the priest. But to whom much is given, much is required. That's what they didn't quite understand. To whom much is given, much is required. So when they continued willfully in sin, and this went on a long, long time, decades, they sinned against more light than any other nation even had a hint of having.

I think it's very true that if you've sat under my preaching for years, and you deny the Lord, and you push him aside, and you live in the world, you have a great accountability because you've pushed away a lot of light to live in that darkness. They were God's elect nation, but they had perverted that doctrine, they perverted what it meant. Election meant that they had eternal security and immense blessings in one sense, but election also meant they had great responsibility. They were to walk in God's truth and be a light to the nations and thus bring glory to their one true God. To throw off these duties and willfully walk in the pagan darkness of the other nations that surrounded them was the gravest of unfaithfulness and sin, and it deserved the clear judgment of God. Amos points out how they were deluded in their thinking that somehow election shielded them from the corrective judgments of God. In Amos 5 18 he says, Alas, you who are longing for the day of the Lord, for what purpose will the day of the Lord be to you?

It will be darkness and not light. So they were thinking that the day of the Lord, and that phrase is used throughout the scriptures, and typically when we think of the day of the Lord we think of one aspect of it, and that is the Lord returning in judgment, and that will be a prominent manifestation during the day of the Lord. When Jesus returns, the elect, the true children of God will be removed, and then the day of the Lord will come. But here Amos says, you Jews think the same type thing.

You think the day of the Lord is just going to be a time of blessing and wonder and glory for you, but it's not. As Paul said in Romans 9 6, they are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. They are not all Israel who are descended from Israel. So all who sin will face the Lord's wrath.

God's elect mercy and God's elect grace, which was upon Israel, was very real and very true, but they were mistaken that they could sin and indulge in carnal pleasure and get by with it. Now, election is always two-pronged. You're elected unto eternal salvation.

That's true. But you're also elected unto service and devotion to God. As I used to say years ago, when we begin to clean up our membership roles, you know, we had, I think, guessing three, four thousand people on our roles. About a fourth of that came to church, and so we began to address that, and some people came really unglued about that, got really angry about that. We had sweet little old ladies calling us, all upset that their 40-year-old child was going to be taken off the role.

Well, he hadn't been here in 10 years. And you know, there's two roles that are important. There's salvation's role, and the moment you're saved, God expects you to put your name on the service role of a local church.

That's the way election is. You're elected unto salvation, yes, and elected unto service. Well, they loved the salvation part. We want to be under God's favor and blessing, but they did not embrace the service and devotion part, thus the corrective discipline that God's going to bring upon them. One who claims to be God's child, but willfully neglects service to him, should expect punishment and correction. As Paul said in 1 Corinthians 10, 6 through 12, using the example of how God dealt with ancient Judah and Israel, Paul said, happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.

Everything is centered on the church. He says, all of these things happened to them, not that they were not important, but it was primarily to be a lesson for the church, us today. Therefore, let him think or he stands take heed, lest he does not fall. I think the idea there of let him who thinks he stands mean if you think you're one of God's elect, you need to live like it.

Don't just think you're going to stand because you prayed a prayer in Vacation Bible School. Has there been a change in your heart? Have you experienced the new birth?

Is there a new purpose and pattern to your life? We have, again, that sobering reminder of Hebrews chapter 10, verses 26 through 29. I'll not read all of it, but it's just the basic statement of whatever happened to the ancient Jews and the Israelites when they disobeyed God, how much more serious it's going to be for those who've heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, looked at the things of Christ, maybe read about them and listened to a preacher preach about them, and then decided, no, you know, I think I'll just take that kind of lightly.

That might be one of the little pie squares of my total life. I hate pie charts when it comes to Christianity because Jesus and the church are not a part of your life, they're the center of your life. I'll just kind of give the Lord, you know, his place over here, then he's not the Lord.

He doesn't have a place, it is his place. Well, how much more seriously it will be in the judgment for those who've looked and tasted the things of the Lord and kind of set him aside and did their own thing. So here's the thing, so here we see the great delusion, the Jews were under this great delusion, the citizens of Judah, the kings and all, except maybe Josiah would be the exception because he seemed to get it, because he's doing these reformations and cleaning this stuff up the best he can, but they're under a great delusion that somehow being the elect of God means we are secure and others are not. Now, Roman number two, God's personal involvement in judgment. There's been a wave of liberalism that's been around for decades and decades, and it kind of wants to teach that God is not personally involved in judgment.

I'm sorry, but he is. Matter of fact, that's what makes hell hell, is because God's there. He's there in his wrath. You cannot not have God anywhere, God's omnipresent. He's there in his wrath, he's there in his displeasure, he's there in his retribution and judgment.

That's why you don't want to face him like that. Satan and hell's not your problem, God's your problem. Praise his name somehow in the grace and infinite wonderful mercies of God, you can be saved through Jesus Christ and not go to hell and spend your whole eternity with God under his pleasure and his favor and his blessings and his loving kindness.

Amen. But God here is personally involved one of the aspects that led them to the delusion we were talking about a while ago was the fact that the 10 northern kingdoms that made up Israel, they had already been taken away in captivity, and Judah and Benjamin were left. So they, aha, you see, we're shielded, we're the godly remnant, so we're okay.

Well, they're not acting like the godly remnant, they're not acting like the people of God, they're not acting like the church of God, they're whoring after other idols and other gods and living in gross and wanton immoralities. Notice how he says it here in verse four, we're talking about God's personal involvement in judgment. He says in verse four, the first phrase, I will stretch out, here it is, it's an anthropomorphic expression, my hand against Judah. Now, God doesn't have a hand, but he's using that expression that humans would use to say, I want you to know I'm perfectly and powerfully directly coming against you in judgment.

God used these kind of expressions to show that he was for them personally and powerfully to bless them and secure them and deliver them, for example, in their salvation or deliverance from Egypt. In Exodus 3 20, the Bible says, his hand was stretched out to strike Egypt on their behalf. In Exodus 7, 4, I will lay my hand on Egypt. Exodus 9 3, the hand of the Lord will bring severe pestilence on Egypt. Exodus 13 3, Moses reminded the people that it was by powerful hand that the Lord brought you out.

Again, I was personally and powerfully involved in securing you and saving you and delivering you, but that's not what's happening here because I'm not going to be able to tell you but that's not what's happening here. Because of your willful decades of rebellion and sin, now I will bring my hand personally against you in judgment. So, a lot of these folks had grown just indifferent to the things of the Lord, that he's not personal anymore, you know, and isn't that true in our world today? I get so tired of hearing the Jesus of country music and the Jesus of the Republican party. It's just this little, you can't even hardly say mildly biblical because it's not biblical at all, it's just this warm sentimental feeling about Jesus.

Now let me say this, first of all, in balance. It's good that people who lead our country have a sense that there's one God and he has moral absolutes in the Bible. That's helpful, amen? But when they start talking about who Jesus is and what he would do, they miss it by a million miles. And basically what they're saying is we're just kind of indifferent to the things of God. We know he's there and we respect that, but it doesn't really have much to do with me in my everyday life. I just go along and do what I'm going to do.

Just kind of indifferent that he's out there. For example, in Isaiah 5, 12, the prophet emphasized how they thought in this way. He says, their banquets are accompanied by lyre and ark, by tambourine and flute, and by wine, but they do not pay attention to the deeds of the Lord. They like to have a good time, like to party, and that's not all bad.

Maybe leave the wine off, but that's not all bad. But do you pay attention to the deeds of the Lord? Nor do they consider the work of his hands.

You're just kind of indifferent to him, is what he's saying. The child of God can fall into a wickedness that is a wickedness of indifference. God is against that. These are the people that see God in creation. They can see him in history, but they're rather indifferent to God's activity in the world today, and certainly in their own lives today. So God is personally involved here.

You need to understand that. He's holy, he's not like us, and we struggle with the wondrous love and grace and goodness and long suffering and patience of God in Jesus. We get that. That's personal. That's that's wondrously personal to us. But that same God in holiness is a God of righteousness and justice, and he will personally bring judgment to bear against those who deserve it. And by the way, are you listening to me? There's nothing you can do about it.

You can just push it away and put it over the far recesses of your brain somewhere and try not to think about it. You cannot avoid this all-powerful, personal God. He's personally involved in their judgment. Well, they have a great delusion.

They think, well, we're elect. God's not going to deal with us. We can just keep indulging in this wickedness, and God will be okay with it. Secondly, he's personally going to come in judgment. Thirdly, God's particular targets for judgment we see in verse 4. So now he gets down to some particular things that have stirred his anger and his wrath against them. First of all, he talks about the remnant of Baal.

That'd be A in our outline. The remnant of Baal. I will cut off the remnant of Baal from this place.

That's an interesting phrase, from this place, because if you remember in our Christmas sermons about Emmanuel, the child motif, if you will, of how God's presence and assurance will come in the form of a child. And then in those texts, he's had this phrase, this is Emmanuel's land. God said in a very real and particular way, that land, that promised land that I gave you, Israel, you were just a steward of it, it's my land. And how dare you build shrines to Asherah and Chemosh, Molech and Baal in my land.

So what did you say? I'm gonna cut it off from the land. He says a remnant. He said, I'm gonna cut off the remnant of Baal. That means Josiah and Zephaniah and Jeremiah had done a pretty good job of cleaning things up. But they couldn't clean up hearts.

Only God can clean up the heart. And there were some little remnants of shrines and worship to Baal still around out there. Now, Baalism of the ancient world was the worship of a variety of gods to which they would typically build shrines to Baal and temples to Baal on high places. Now, what they taught in their doctrine was that Baal, this male god, provided for the fertility of the land.

If you would please Baal, then your crops would do better, your livestock would do better, your vineyards, your herds, etc. Now Baal, the male god, had a mistress named Anath. And what they taught was that Baal and Anath, his mistress, had to have sexual relations in order to bring fertility upon the earth, especially rainfall. They further taught that Baal and Anath were not as faithful in their immoralities as they ought to be. So they would have temples built, and these priestesses would be in the temple, and these priestesses were nothing but prostitutes. And the men would go in there and commit immoral acts with these priestesses, and that would encourage Baal to have relations with Anath, and then that would bring about the fertility of the land. What a vile and evil and sinful doctrine. And of course, the people loving sin loved it so, the Bible says. So Baal worship was centered in immoralities. And that gives us another lesson, does it not?

Listen to me, listen to me. All unsound doctrine leads to unsound morality. False doctrine leads to sexual impurity, always disconnected.

But it's really the other way around. A man embraces his immoralities, and he wants to find a theology that justifies it. There's nothing new under the sun. This is the stuff we see in today's world, in today's professing churches and in Christendom, the same type stuff in spirit is just old Baal worship.

That's all it is. But God's anger and God's wrath was against such sin and such perversion. That's why he says, I'll cut off the remnant from this place.

Again, evidently Josiah had done a pretty good job of getting rid of most of it, but there were still remnants of it in the land. And what we're seeing here though, there's a great revival and renewal and reformation. They had just gone too far before they got the reformation and revival going, and the hearts were not changed, and so God is intent on bringing the judgment.

A lot of the externals were changed, and that's important, but the heart was not changed. If I might say a little something practical here, being a formerly a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, and by the way, some of the godliest people I know are Southern Baptists. Some of the godliest and best pastors I know are Southern Baptists.

I'm not against them at all, but the system, I think, is hopelessly broke. Well, I'm not gonna go there. All right, so, Baal worship remained in the lands, and you go back to the question, where did they get Baal worship in Israel? Well, it came from Canaan.

When they discovered the Promised Land, or God gave them the Promised Land, they go into Canaan, and the Canaanites remained in the land, and they were Baal worshipers, so they were influenced by the corrupt influence, if you will, of the Baal worshipers, the original inhabitants of Canaan. Remember the Bible tells us and warns us in Proverbs 13 20, who walks with the wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm. Young people, you're now over here in this section, some of you. We moved them from over here, because they'd be gone, and it'd be a hole over here, and y'all have done a good job filling this up, by the way. I appreciate that.

Y'all need to do a little bit better over here. But the companion of fools will suffer harm. If you have buddies and friends who clearly don't want to honor God, you got to be friends with everybody, but if you have your running buddy, the people you decided to get close to, don't want to honor God, then they will influence you. They'll corrupt you, and that's exactly what happened to the Jews in Israel. They got to be buddy buddies with the Canaanites, and pretty soon they were following the Canaanite gods. By the way, it was more fun than their God.

I mean, Baal worship lets us get involved in all kinds of wicked fun. 2 Corinthians 6 14 and 15, do not be bound together than believers. What partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, and what fellowship has light with darkness?

What harmony has Christ with Belial, and what has a believer in common with an unbeliever? So God starts with his sanctuary. God starts with Judah.

I'm going to stretch out my hand against Judah. 1 Peter 4 17, for it's time for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? I think that when the phrase says judgment begins with the household of God, I think the idea is, generally speaking, you and I in this church age are under God's corrective judgments, but we will not face the eternal wrath of God in hell. It begins with us here and now, but we don't have to face the eternal wrath. Thank God he gives us severe judgments, yes, true punishments, yes, but it's unto correction and repentance.

It starts with us, but it's going to be a lot worse for those whom seem to live this life and get by with it. Have you noticed that? A lot of times the ungodly, the wicked, the folks who don't care anything about God seem to do quite well what God only disciplines his own. I've never spanked any of your children, I don't think. I don't remember.

But I did spank my own. That's the way God is. Well, again, the Israel thinks they're shielded from all of these things, but God says, no, I'm going to come down there, and all of you are still involved in Baal worship.

I'm cutting all of that off. King Manasseh, in his 55-year range, went so far as to set up unto Baal, the Baal idol in the temple in Jerusalem, the Baal idol in the temple in Jerusalem. Can you imagine such a thing? So you have this syncretism.

We'll talk about that a lot. God brings it up a lot through the prophet here of bringing Baal worship into the center of Jehovah worship in the temple. So they could say, haha, look, we still have the traditional orthodoxy of Jehovah worship, but at the same time they were actually coming because they love the sensual pleasures of Baal worship. Well, B, not only the remnant of Baal is he going to remove from the place, he says, secondly, the idolatrous priest. Look at it there in verse 4. And the names of the idolatrous priest he's going to remove. Now the idolatrous priests were different from the word priest that had her curse right after that because the idolatrous priest were the Baal priest.

Historians tell us that the Baal priest dressed in all black, and they would have a brand on their forehead, and that brand would have the word zealous on it. And their point was, we're into this. We are devoted to this religion. I mean, we're all out on this. We're full bore into this. And God says, okay, I'm going to remove the name, the name on your, all that you say you are.

I'm clenching it all out of the land. Thirdly here, not only the Baal priest, but here's the Levitical priesthood also. The Levitical priesthood, when he says there in the last phrase of verse 4, along with the priest, he means the priest, the Aaronic Levitical priesthood that he established, these are priests that should have stood in the breach. These are priests that should have forbidden all Baal worship, but instead they craftily manipulated and syncretized the holy priesthood and the worship of Jehovah to accommodate Baal's sensualities along with Jehovah worship. And when you mix anything unbiblical with God's truth, you lose God. So these priests, the true established priests of Israel, instead of forbidding such wickedness, they enabled it through this syncretism, this bringing together. So why I preached you so much about the church has to be so careful of bringing worldly things in.

That's just old Baal worship. Well, we've got to do these things to keep people happy. So did they.

By the way, this worked great. They had huge congregations. They loved it.

There's only one problem. God hated it. And he let them go on a long time in that wicked foolishness.

As R.G. Lee said, former pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, there's a payday someday. So they let them go on a long time so they indulged under the leadership of the Aaronic priesthood. They indulged in sexual sinful immoralities all the while draping the outside with Jehovah worship. So wicked.

Now let's make an application for us today. Just some thoughts for us today about the church today because these things are written for our instruction, Paul said. Baal worship is alive and well today in professing Christendom.

Let me give you three thoughts here, maybe three ways that Baal worship is alive and well today. It's alive and well when the Sunday quote worship end of quote experience, our blessing, our excitement of the Sunday worship becomes the end in itself. Come to our church, it's exciting.

That's not the end. Brothers and sisters, we come here to get a hold of God again and love him again and treasure him again that we might live for him afresh in the coming week. That's okay and find to be blessed during the worship. I'm not saying that's wrong, but if that's the end, if we can put on something on Sunday so that everybody thinks our thing's the biggest thing as far as professing churches goes in town, that's Baal worship.

When the Sunday worship experience, it's excitement becomes an end in itself. Number two, when sexual immoralities are ignored and in effect accommodated by the church, that means there's no efforts of church discipline or outward brazen wanton immoralities. Now let me say this, these things happen and we are very private and very careful to keep things as private as we possibly can unless we can't. There's always graciousness in the purpose of covering sin when we can, but sometimes a person just brazen and open and willful and there are churches all over the land, they can't even remember in their history and there's been a clear case of calling that to account. And that's why we're here today. We're here to protect and removing the person if they're unrepentant. You know what that is?

Are you listening to me? That's basically embracing the immorality. That's basically old Baal worship in Jehovah's temple.

There's nothing new under the sun. You think we're better sinners than ancient Israel or lesser? Listen, our hearts are the same as ours. Listen, Alabama flesh is the same as old church.

We're just prone to the same stuff. We're at a place at Grace Life Church today where if your elders did not deal with open, brazen immoralities, you would throw us out and you should. Some of these things are difficult and complicated from time to time, but you know, I pastor a large church, but divorce in this church has become very, very rare.

That's how it ought to be, but it does happen and we're there to graciously support and help and love folks. But when immoralities are ignored and in effect accommodated, that's old Baal worship. Number three, not only when the Sunday worship experience, the excitement of it is the end itself is that Baal worship.

Not only when sexual immoralities are ignored and in effect accommodated is that Baal worship. Thirdly, when psychological helps are more important than what is true. When psychological helps are more important than what is true. Some say, well, that helps me. When I go down there, they help me. They teach me things about my children, about my marriage, and that helps me.

Well, is it true? The preacher of truth may preach things that you think, that doesn't help me, but it's true. Because when God helps you, it's an overcoming. When psychology helps you, it's a temporal coping, and there's a big difference. You see, listen to me, overwhelmingly when you have a problem, there's a sin that needs to be repented of. Psychological helping doesn't deal with the sin, the root issue. It just gets you through it a little better than maybe if you hadn't heard the psychological admonitions. True, truth preaching gets to the root and to repentance, so you can get really set free. The churches that build themselves on, well, they help us.

Help you do what? Help you feel better or help you be more holy? It could be that there's seasons of times when to be more holy means you don't feel good.

You see, only a regenerate heart can receive these things. I like what Bailey, he wrote a great commentary on Zephaniah, and he was quoting Muiter, and he said this concerning this thing of when psychological helps are more important than what is true. Whenever the cult of what helps replaces the joy in what's true, then you have bell worship. Now, you tell me, is there not the syncretism of bell worship in so many of our evangelical, even Baptist congregations today? And I'm going to tell you from my experience, as four plus decades as your pastor, it's like all you can do to the world is to be a part of the church, to be a part of the church. It's like all you can do to stand at the door and keep it out. I mean, you have to, as Paul told Timothy, pastoring's like blazing a trail.

It's like you just keep chopping and chopping and cutting and just keep cutting through the jungle, blazing a trail through it. You don't ever get to rest because the moment you rest, bell takes on a different form and comes banging on the door again to get in the church. But that's your pastor and elder's job to keep it out because God hates it. Well, we see not only that, but we see thirdly in our outline, not only the spiritual leader's sins, but now we have the laypeople. He deals with just the people of the land, and I'm trying to hurry on here.

I've been down with some flu this week, and my ears are stopped up, and I didn't think my voice would be strong, but it is strong, so I can preach longer. Verse 5, he talks about those who bow down on the housetops to the host of heaven. So he's addressing the people now, and we have these folks who are worshiping celestial bodies. The roofs were flat, and they'd go out at night, because you can see the celestial bodies at night, and they would bow down there and be astrologers, if you will, looking for the signs of the Aquarius, I guess. And one scholar said, men, this sin is as old as the Babylonians and as new as today's online news feed.

It has its little astrology section. God said, I'm going to judge you for that nonsense. They would go out at night and get on their flat roofs and see the stars, but couldn't see the light. God's not found in the stars. He's found in the scriptures. He goes on to say, verse 5, and those who bow down and swear to the Lord. Now, that's Jehovah, and yet swear by Milcom. Now, swear to the Lord.

Here we have syncretism again. He said, in one breath you'll say you served Jehovah, on the other breath you're bound before the sun, moon, and star gods. Quit mixing this stuff together, God is saying.

Quit mixing this stuff together, God is saying. Now, in verse 5, when he comes to this phrase, those who swear by Milcom, that's the new American standard. I think the NIV uses Molech, and scholars aren't sure. We don't know if it means Milcon, which translated means the king, or Molech, which was an actual idol they bowed to. Now, we do know for a fact from 1 Kings that they were worshiping Molech in Judah at this time, literally taking their babies before Molech, an idol that had a great fire in front of him, and casting their babies into the fire before Molech. In Judah, they felt like for our well-being we have to sacrifice our children and affirm the blessings of Molech.

Isn't that just like today's abortion? We say this child's in the way. For our own well-being, we need to sacrifice this child.

That's exactly what it is. It's old Molech worship. The baby is the sacrament. The baby is the sacrifice, which is going to appease the God who will assure our well-being in life. I think the greatest, greatest evil perhaps that's come upon our land is convincing our girls and our women that their greatest fulfillment and purpose is outside of the home. Not saying it's sin to do something outside the home. I'm saying from your heart, are you committed?

The home is the center of my most important purpose and work. Now, the dominoes fall for the ungodly, and they even go as far as to say, I can't have this baby get in the way of my career, in the way of my advancement, like men in the culture. So just as they will sacrifice that baby as well as they will sacrifice that baby as a sacrament to this God of Molech, if you will, for their own well-being, so Christ our Lord came as a baby to be our sacrament, to be our sacrifice, if you will.

The only one who truly can appease the wrath of the one true God for us. So isn't it interesting when you see these pagan religions, there's nothing new under the sun. They only try to take what they teach, or rather they take what they teach, and they pervert the true.

They put a twist on the true and come up with these perverse things. The belief that it's good and acceptable to sacrifice our children. Now, you may not ever commit the sin of abortion, but you may be sacrificing your children on an altar of getting ahead in the world. The belief to sacrifice our children in order to advance ourselves is as old as the Ammonite worship of Molech.

And again, it was the syncretism. He says it very clearly in verse 5. You bow down and honor Jehovah, then you bow down and honor Molech or Milcom. You think we're the one.

The principle's the same. In verse 6, he goes on to these folks who are indifferent. Again, those who have turned back from following the Lord, those who have not sought the Lord, or inquired of the Lord, turned back from following the Lord, means they've changed churches. Why, this true and holy Jehovah worship just ain't doing it for me. That's not my kind of church. So they go down the road and they find a Jehovah Bell church. Oh, that's more me now. And then they hop over to one that's a little more Molech Jehovah church.

Whatever. Nothing's different about that then, as it is today. When it says they did not seek the Lord, they've not sought the Lord, it means they are outwardly worshiping the idols, though they claim to be Jehovah's worshipers, but they're no longer people who have a lifestyle pattern to seek the Lord. Then it also says they no longer inquire of the Lord in verse 5. The Hebrew scholars say the word inquire has the idea of a state of mind and heart. The state of their minds and heart was not to inquire of God.

In other words, what's marriage mean to us? Well, let's inquire of the Lord. How do we raise our children? Let's inquire of the Lord. How do we, quote, do church?

That's the phrase we hear a lot. How do we do church? Well, let's inquire of the Lord, instead of inquiring of the culture. You know, the movement years ago, it wasn't that many years ago, actually, that Dr. Seale, we went to conferences, and at these conferences they'd say, survey your community and ask them what they're looking for in the church, and design your church to make them comfortable.

I've been spending 40 years doing every that thing. I can't design our church to make Jesus comfortable. It's not our church. It's not our club.

It's not our organization. It's Jesus' church. It's Jesus' bride.

It's Jesus' body, and you need to keep your hands off the bride of Christ. We're only stewards to be faithful. If that empties the building, it empties the building. If that empties the building, that's the way pastors should be. So they don't inquire of the Lord with a new state of heart. It's a whole lot like Romans 10 13, those who call upon the name of the Lord. That phrase, call upon the name of the Lord, has been so misused in evangelical circuits for decades.

They've brought it down to some little superstitious ritual. One time you prayed this prayer that was called on the Lord, now you're saved. That's not what it means. It means God's changed your heart, and now you have become one who calls on the Lord. You've become one who has a pattern and purpose of your life, calls on the Lord for the totality of your life. Lord, what does my life mean now?

What is it about now? Then you're one who is saved because God's changed your heart, because you've become one who inquires of the Lord. Look to the Lord for the totality of your life.

Which leads me to this conclusion. Oh, dear friend, are you one who calls upon the name of the Lord? Are you one who inquires of the Lord? Have you turned from all modern forms of fail worship and all of its sinful and fleshly indulgences?

Molech worship, which means to set aside the duties and responsibilities God's given you, particularly of your home and your family, to chase the world and all the glimmer and glamour that the world promises you? Have you turned from all superstitious foolishness like celestial bodies worship? When I was in Memphis in graduate school, I witnessed to my next-door neighbor, he was a single young man, and I shared the things of Christ with him, and he said, well, I believe in in karma.

It's a silly superstition. I believe if you do good, good comes back to you. If you do bad, bad comes back to you. Have you turned from all forms of bell worship and molech worship and celestial worship and all superstitious things? Have you turned from syncretism? Well, if I can find a church that emits enough world in it to keep me excited, then I might go to that church. I might become a Christian.

That's just old syncretism with bell worship. But you boil it all down. You know what the one common denominator is? Are you listening to me? When anybody ever tells me, well, you know so-and-so, he's not a Christian or she's not a Christian, because intellectually they just can't grasp it. It's never an intellectual issue. They can't explain how electricity comes from that switch to make that light bulb work, but they don't turn the light off till they intellectually understand it.

It's a million things in their life they don't understand. It's not an intellectual problem if someone doesn't believe on Christ. It's a moral sin problem.

They know he's the light, and they know by the conscience God's given them they have a darkness and a sinfulness, and they don't want to come to the light lest their deeds be exposed as evil. It's always a love of sin and a love of sin. And I tell that to people, the only problem they have is they love sin more than they love God.

Can I be just very frank and honest with you? In a sense, we all still love sin, because we're all still packaged in this old house of depravity, but we love sin less than we love God. Are you with me? And we want to keep growing to diminish that self-love and sin-love and grow in our love for God. That's why we have each other. That's why we have the church, and that's why we preach the Word. That's why we have our devotions. God, help me keep loving you, keep finding more pleasure in you than in the corrupt things of this world that will only hurt and destroy me. God's not trying to keep you from pleasure.

He's trying to keep you from ruining yourself. It's always a love of sin and a love of self. So as you live your life hiding from God, you know the first sinners did that.

Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. They said, we'll just try to cover this up, because we're uncomfortable with this. We don't want to come to the light, so we'll just cover ourselves with fig leaves. A lot of fig leaf religion out there, self-covering, instead of just coming like you are to Jesus, and become one who calls on the name of the Lord. But please be careful. If there are too many, and I think perhaps many are well-intending, it will give you a little hoop jump. Some little hoop jump to do. Raise your hand, go to the aisle, go to this side, walk to the front, go to the magic spot down here, as if we're Roman Catholics, like there's an altar down here where God gets you.

Matter of fact, you might fall through this and have to go to the hospital if you come down here and stand on this. It's only there because I'm afraid to preach without it, because I don't want to fall that far. Do something, jump through a hoop, repeat this prayer. That's not all necessarily evil, but it's not enough to know if you're God's. They'll put a sticker on you that says Christian and church member, and your salvation's about as substantial as the quality of that sticker on your chest. Have you been born again? Have you become one?

Maybe not perfectly, but it's in you, and it can't, it doesn't let go of you. I want to inquire of the Lord. I want to call on the Lord for the totality of my life's purpose and pattern and what life is and what it's about, what I'm going to do with my life. Don't just check a box, then run to Baal worship. Check a box, I said that, I did that, I repeated that, then run to Baal worship. Don't do that. Cast your all on Jesus Christ.

Just tell him the truth. Oh God, I love sin. I love myself, and if you don't save me and change me, I'm hopeless. That's the kind of people He saves. That's the only kind of people He saves, because that's the only kind there is. Come, you sinners, seek His grace, whose wrath you cannot bear. Bleed to the shelter of the cross and find salvation there.