Taking Down a Nation-Part B

The only worship God accepts is the worship God directs. Do you recall that Jesus Christ said God the Father is actually looking for a certain kind of worshiper?

Remember? He says the Father is seeking those who worship Him in spirit and in truth. So we want spirited worshippers who put truth or the intensity of their own spirit into it, that's what it means, but also in truth. And the way we know truth is by the revealed Word of God. Jeroboam forsook the Word of God and followed his own heart.

The Bible tells us that those who cling to worthless idols forsake faithful love. When you turn from God, you not only disobey Him, but you also turn away from the good He has for you. Connect with Skip Heitzig today as he explores the tragic ways Jeroboam turned from God's Word and God's best for his people, encouraging you to cling to Biblical truth. Right now we want to tell you about a resource that can help you become more familiar with the Holy Spirit and how He helps you live in victory. Counselor, Comforter, Advocate, Helper. These are some of the names for the Holy Spirit found in the Bible. The Holy Spirit isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling or a vague cosmic force. He's a person who loves you, cares for you, and wants to empower you to be everything God calls you to be.

Here's Skip Heitzig. I think there's a lot of Christians who have heard the term Holy Spirit, obviously, but they have a very vague idea of who the Spirit of God is and what He's supposed to do in their lives. We want to help you better understand the Holy Spirit by sending you Expound, Holy Spirit, a DVD study from Pastor Skip. And for a limited time, we'll also send you a booklet by Lenya Heitzig called Empower, Discover Your Spiritual Gifts. These resources are our way to say thanks for your gift of $25 or more to help keep this Bible teaching ministry on the air, connecting you to God's life-changing truth.

Call now to request your copies of these resources, 800-922-1888, or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now, we're in 1 Kings Chapter 12 as we get into the message with Skip Heitzig. God made this king a very specific promise, which we haven't read yet. Before the event of him becoming the King of the North, the 10 northern tribes, God personally gives a message to him with a promise in it.

And I want you to see it. Go back one chapter, chapter 11. Look at verse 35. This is God speaking to Jeroboam by some means. God says to him, but I will take the kingdom out of his son's hands.

That's Rehoboam, son of Solomon. And give it to you, 10 tribes. So God says, I'm going to give it to you.

This is my gift to you. And to his son, I will give one tribe. That's Judah later on becomes two tribes. That my servant David may always have a lamp before me in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen for myself to put my name there. And so I will take you, and you shall reign over all your heart desires. You shall be king over Israel.

Then it shall be, now watch this, if, if you heed all that I command you, if you listen and you do what I say, if you walk in my ways, do what is right in my sight, keep my statutes and my commandments as my servant David did, then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house as I built for David, and I will give Israel to you. How's that for a promise? How's that for a blank check?

Hey, I'm God and I'm giving you a kingdom free. Here's the check, go cash it. You know, it's funny, if you were to come up to me and ask me to write you a check for a million dollars, I'd do it. Your problem would be when you go to the bank. I'd be happy to write you a check. If you want one afterwards, I'll write you a check. But you go to the bank, they're going to laugh at that and go, there's nothing to back it up. Insufficient funds, that's what it'll read on the computer.

Now, I know people who could write you a check for a million dollars and they have the money and more in the bank. God gives to Jeroboam a promise of an enduring kingdom. What was his failure? He didn't take it to the bank.

He didn't cash the check. He didn't trust the promise that God gave him. You can always tell how mature or immature a Christian is by how they treat the promises of God. Ask a person, what do you do with God's promise in the Bible? And if their best answer is, I underline it in yellow, you know you've got a problem.

If their answer is, I take them to the bank, then you know you've got something. A fearful, nervous believer filled with anxiety speaks volumes. They don't believe the promises of God.

A person who is calm and confident, that person also speaks volumes. I'm taking God's promise to the bank. Psalm 20, David writes, some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will trust in the name of the Lord our God. Jeremiah 17 verse 5, cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes the flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. Jeroboam's heart departed from the Lord and it is shown by his failure to trust God's promise. Which begs the question, if he failed to trust God's promise, what did he trust in? That takes us to his third mistake. He feared losing power, he failed trusting God.

His third mistake, he followed his own heart. Look at verse 26. Then Jeroboam said what?

You've got your Bible open, right? He said in his heart. Jeroboam said in his heart.

Stop right there. Here's a guy mulling it over in his own heart, in his own mind, thinking about what he wants to do. It's all inward. He said in his heart.

Then go down to verse 28. Therefore the king asked advice. Before he made the two calves, he's asking people. So he takes it out of his head, out of his little heart, he's kind of thinking what to do.

Now he takes it and he asks advice, not of the best people because he makes two golden calves. So he takes it out to them. Go down to verse 33. So he made offerings on the altar which he had made at Bethel. On the fifteenth day of the eighth month, in the month which he had, watch this, devised in his own heart. Listen, Jeroboam was doing whatever felt good to him instead of what God said was good for him.

You see the difference? How many times have you heard people say, well, you've got to follow your heart. You've just got to do whatever is in your heart to do. Can I just say that's bad advice. It's always bad advice. Why is it bad advice? Jeremiah 17, 9 declares, The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Who can know it? Doing what is in people's heart is what has caused all of the problems in this world. Everybody feels something different, does something different.

There's clashes and wars and I want this and the other person wants that. It just means a person does what he wants to do. The human heart needs to be steered by the divine will.

My heart needs his head, his headship, his direction. One of our favorite verses of scripture, you probably memorized it within the first month that you were a believer. Proverbs chapter 3, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. Well this is especially true in the area of worship. Because effectively Jeroboam changed the whole system of worship for the nation of Israel. And one of the most insidious ideas in the world is that we can worship God as we see fit. Because the only worship God accepts is the worship that God directs. God has told us who he is and God has told us how he is to be responded to and God has told us how he is to be worshiped. That's why he said I'm the Lord your God, no other gods before me, no images, etc. He spelled it all out.

The worship that God accepts is the worship that God directs. So he made three mistakes so far. He feared losing power, he failed trusting God, he followed his own heart and he did a fourth which always must follow the third.

If you're already doing the third you're going to do the fourth. And that is he forsook God's word. That is God laid out what he wanted, how to be responded to and he forsook it. He goes from divine revelation to human imagination.

He makes it all up. Notice he changes the object of worship. Verse 28, therefore the king asked advice, made two calves of gold and said to the people, it's too much for you to go to Jerusalem. Here are your gods, O Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt. Does that sound familiar? Have you heard that before?

You know what that sounds like to me? Exodus 32, guy by the name of Aaron. When Moses was up on Mount Sinai getting the Ten Commandments and he comes down there's this golden calf and Aaron said, this is the God, O Israel, that delivered you out of the land of Egypt.

Same thing, does the same thing. He moves from worshiping the invisible God, changes the object of worship to two golden calves, one in the middle of the country and one in the north of the country. Now here is always the problem with making an image of any kind in worship of God. There is no image that could ever be made that truly reflects the personality and glory of God. Can't do it.

There can't be done. As soon as you cast some image to remind you of some capability or some attribute of God, it only shows you that one, not the others. So why a calf?

Why this? Well, in Egypt they had worshiped Apis the bull, the calf god, which was a symbol of strength. So when they did that in Exodus and they did it again, the idea of a calf is that when you look at it, it would remind you of splendor and strength. You say, well, what's wrong with that? If when I look at an image and I'm reminded of God's strength, what's wrong with that?

Here's what's wrong with that. It tells you nothing of God's love, God's forgiveness, God's forbearance, God's acceptance. All the other moral attributes are hidden by an image. So an image of any, there's no artist alive that can capture God. So God just says, don't do it. Isaiah 40, to whom will you liken God? That's a good question. What are you going to liken him to? Or what likeness will you compare to him?

Answer, none. So he changes the object of worship. Notice also he changes the place of worship, verse 29.

He sets one up in Bethel and one in Dan, so the middle of the country, way up north. Instead of going to Jerusalem, the temple, there's two new worship places. Why does he do it? It's convenient, that's all. It's just easier, just easier. You don't have to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. You can stay home right here, which is interesting. Instead of asking, is it right, he asks, is it easy?

I'll do what's easy instead of what's right. Well, Bethel is one place I do understand, because Bethel had already a rich spiritual history to it. Bethel was the place, you will remember, when Jacob was running from his house and he laid down at night and he slept and he saw this dream, this vision of a ladder going up to heaven, the angels of God coming down and going back up, and he was so overtaken by it, the next day he names the place Bethel, which means the house of God.

It's a great experience. So Jeroboam thinks instead of going to the house of God down in Jerusalem, we have the house of God here. This is the original Bethel, house of God.

We have our own heritage. So he changes the object and the place of worship. Notice also he changes the means of worship. Verse 31, he made shrines on the high places and he made priests from every class of people who were not of the sons of Levi.

Well, that's forsaking God's word, right? Because God's word said there's only one tribe where the priests come from, and that's the tribe of Levi. But he goes, why? Why can't anybody be a priest? Why do you have to belong to the tribe of Levi? Why can't anyone who feels led to be a priest be a priest? Now, the day he said anybody can be a priest, you've got to know that he made a lot of people happy who were going, yeah, why should the Levites have all the fun? Why did they get to hang out in the tabernacle in the temple?

Whenever you lower the standard for those who lead worship, for those who do ministry, for those who serve the Lord in any capacity, when you lower the standard, you will have all the unqualified ones pouring in. He changes the means of worship. And finally, he changes the time of worship.

Did you notice verse 32? He ordained a feast, watch this, on the 15th day of the eighth month, like the feast that was in Judah. And he offered sacrifices on the altar, so he did a Bethel sacrificing to the calves that he had made, and at Bethel he installed the priests of the high places which he had made. So he made offerings on the altar which he had made at Bethel on the 15th day of the eighth month, in the month which he devised in his own heart. Why did he do this? Well, he's competing with the feast down south.

The feast of tabernacles took place exactly one month prior, the seventh month. So he goes, well, I'll do it the eighth month. Why? I feel led. It's in my heart.

It's in my heart to do it. Now, on the surface we go, what's wrong one month is the same as another month? Which is true, unless God said, I want that month. So if God says, I want you to get together in October, and you go, now I'll do it in November, you disobeyed God, right? So if God says, meet every week on the first day of the week to worship me, and you go, no, Christmas and Easter is good enough, you've just disobeyed God.

He changed the times of worship. The only worship God accepts is the worship God directs. Do you recall that Jesus Christ said, God the Father is actually looking for a certain kind of worshiper, remember? He says, the Father is seeking those who worship him in spirit and in truth. So we want spirited worshippers who put the intensity of their own spirit into it, that's what it means, but also in truth. And the way we know truth is by the revealed word of God. Jeroboam forsook the word of God and followed his own heart.

And one always requires the other. There's a phrase in the Bible, if you read the Bible at all very much, you've seen this phrase about 80 times altogether. It's the phrase, it is written. It's one of Jesus' favorite phrases. When somebody comes to him or the devil attacks him at the temptation, he'll say, it is written.

It is written. 80 times it is written. Now, I can only think that when God repeats something 80 times it's pretty important to him.

And why is that one so important to him? He must believe that what is written, what he has superintended and preserved in this book, that we had to take our cues from that for everything in life. And I've always loved Billy Graham, as you know.

I came to faith by watching Billy Graham. One of Billy Graham's most famous phrases in all of his sermons is the Bible says. He said that a lot.

All of his great messages. And the Bible says. And the Bible says. And he'll quote it. And that's because there was a time in his life where he struggled with what the Bible says. And he was a young man wondering, should I believe it all? Is it all God's truth and God's word? And when he finally came through that wrestling match and said, I'm going to declare your word as being truth, that's when he saw thousands of lives changed. Jeroboam made these four mistakes and it led the nation to idolatry. Let me ask you a question. Do you think idolatry is just an Old Testament problem?

Certainly not. As I mentioned, 1 John 5, last verse of that book, John in the New Testament says, Little children, keep yourselves from idols. So the first commandment, I am the Lord your God. You will have no other gods besides me or before me. And John, little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Shows that it's a problem in every generation. Well, what is it exactly? What does idolatry mean?

Do you have a Skip bobble head? Is that idolatry? No, I don't think so. Idolatry means you place something in the place of God. That's what it means. That's the easiest way to think of it.

Idolatry is letting anyone or anything occupy the supreme, rightful place that only God should occupy as the one in charge of your life. By the way, that can be inward. It doesn't have to be outward. You can want something. You may not have it, but you want it. You want a person.

You want an object. Listen to Paul in Colossians 3, verse 5. He said, Check your members which are on the earth, like fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire.

Listen to this. And covetousness which is idolatry. Covetousness which is idolatry. If you want a person or a thing more than you want God, it could be a girlfriend, it could be a boyfriend, it could be the approval of people, it could be a hobby, it could be a number of things.

That can be idolatry. It always starts inwardly, but it always grows outwardly. So I want to close with two things. I want to ask you a personal question. I want you to ask yourself this question. And then I'm going to ask you to make a personal choice. Personal question, personal choice. Here's the personal question. What do you think about in quiet moments?

Mow that around. What do you think about in quiet moments? What does your mind naturally, when left alone, gravitate to when you're all alone? Because your mind is a lot like a compass. You can take a compass and jostle it around and move it around, but when you set it down on a desk and you leave it to settle, that needle always points true north, one direction. And your mind can be occupied by a number of things during the day like mine is, but when left to settle, what direction does it point to? Because the Bible says in Proverbs 23, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. That's who you are.

What do you think about in quiet moments? That's the personal question. Now for a personal choice. Jesus said no one can serve two masters. He'll love one and hate the other, hold to one and repudiate the other. No man can serve two masters.

Which one will it be? God or something else? Joshua said to the people, choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Some of you are thirsty, and I don't just mean physical thirst, like hurry up, finish the sermon so I can get a drink of water. That may be true as well, but I'm talking about that inward, nagging, unfulfilled vacuum that nothing or no one up to this point has ever been able to satisfy and quench.

Some of you are thirsty. There is nothing or no one who will satisfy you like the love of God, the love of, the sweet love of the living God. Are there any rivals in your heart?

That's an idol. Is there a rival in your heart? That's why you're restless. Augustine said, we are restless, Lord, until we find our rest in Thee.

If there's a rival in your heart, that's what's causing the restlessness. We opened up speaking about American Idol. I suppose if there were ever an American Idol, the quintessential American Idol would be none other than Elvis Presley.

I even had one person first serve and say, Amen to that. Okay, we have an Elvis fan. Yeah, I'm Elvis. I'm the king.

But do you know that Elvis was interviewed by a reporter six weeks before he died? And the reporter said, Elvis, when you began your career, you said there's three things that you wanted in life. Number one, you wanted to be rich. Then you said you wanted to be famous.

Then you said you wanted to be happy. Rich, famous, and happy. Elvis, are you happy? I know you're rich and famous. Are you happy?

Without any hesitation, he said, No. I'm intensely lonely. The great Elvis Presley, the American Idol, intensely lonely, not happy. In fact, those who knew him and were close to him would often say that's the attribute that stuck out the most.

He seemed so lonely. Are there rivals in your heart? Anyone competing for the love of God? Then choose this day whom you will serve, because no one can serve two masters.

That concludes Skip Heitzig's powerful message for you from the series Crash and Burn. Now we want to share about an exciting opportunity you have to take your knowledge of God's Word even deeper. Going to church is a great way to learn about God, but what if you want to learn more?

What if you want to go deeper? Calvary College offers classes in Biblical studies, classes like Theopoetics, Life and Lessons of C.S. Lewis. Learn more about God and the Bible on your schedule. Take evening classes on campus or online. An education from Calvary College will impact your spiritual life for the rest of your life. Apply now at calvaryabq.college. That's calvaryabq.college. The world is constantly trying to pull you away from God's will.

That's why we need God's Word as our foundation, and why we bring you these teachings to connect you to God's truths. And today you can help keep these messages coming your way and encouraging others through your gift of support. To give a gift right now and keep this broadcast going strong, just call 800-922-1888.

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Thank you. Come back again tomorrow as Skip Heitzig begins a series called Technicolor Joy about how God brings color to the most black and white moments of life and why you can always live joyfully in Christ. You don't want to miss it. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection, a connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.