Religious Failure (Part B)

It's getting more and more difficult to find a church that believes that the Bible is inerrant, that the Holy Spirit fills his people, that sin is actually something God hates.

But there's always going to be a remnant too, and I hope we are all part of that remnant. Verse 20, seeing many things, but you do not observe, opening the ears, but he does not hear. Well, in the New Testament, Paul said it this way, always learning, never coming into the knowledge. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the book of Isaiah. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Now let's join Pastor Rick in the book of Isaiah chapter 42 with this edition of Cross-Reference Radio.

There were many distinctions made by God. We're supposed to be the same way, maybe not identical in form, but ultimately we are supposed to be a distinct people. How come you don't go to the bar with us? How come you don't do this?

How come you don't do that? Those are open doors to preach Christ. And I have found that many of those who do those things, they burn out on them and at some point wish they never did them. Not all of them. Some of them go to their graves happy sinners and that's a fact. Anyway, the way it says, who is blind as he who is perfect. Now that could be sarcasm, but I rather think it means that they were prepared, and I'll tell you why, I'll give you a scripture reference why I think that.

They were prepared for the work that they failed to do. And the church, she is perfect too. She has everything without spot or wrinkle Christ says about the church. She has everything she needs to do her job in the midst of a fallen world, which really irks Satan when the church does do their job because we are to Satan a bunch of misfits and competent carnal sinful beings. And when we turn the other cheek and we plow forward and we preach Christ, hell has no remedy, especially when we die at the stake.

There's nothing hell can do against that stuff. Israel did serve the Lord in the beginning as his instrument of judgment on the Canaanites, but they didn't endure. They did not persevere.

They failed to be his servants as instruments of light to the Gentiles. They have churches like this. They have churches that, you know, if you're not one of us, you're not saved. We're not giving you communion.

You have to be a member here to get this. I mean, it just, I mean, there may be some elements of sanity and particles of this, but overall the body of Christ is global. There is the universal church where I can meet a Christian that I've never met before in another state or another country and instantly there's a kindred spirit.

Then there is the local church where I invest myself to serve the Lord, base of operations that is so disrespected by so many. It's the body of Christ bought with his blood. Anyway, coming back to verse 19, Israel had the message and was capable of delivering the message, but in time refused to do it. Now here's what I mentioned, why I think he's, what Isaiah is saying, this servant is perfect, has all that she needs as opposed to, I don't think he's being sarcastic at this point. Romans chapter one, Paul writing to the Christians in Rome says, what advantage then has the Jew or what prophet of circumcision, you know, that standards that are higher and different from everybody else and better?

He continues. Much in every way, chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. Why were they perfect servants? They had the word of God. They had revelation from the throne of God and man did not have to guess anymore about who, about the identity of God. By the time we get to the New Testament, Jesus' own apostles, Philip, wanted to see more of God and Christ said, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father.

No difference. So there was no excuse for their failure and there is none for the church. The church has no excuse for failure. In fact, in time, look at the churches Smyrna, you know, the seven churches of Revelation, the remnant Smyrna in Philadelphia. Philadelphia thrived without persecution. Smyrna thrived in the midst of persecution. That they could pull it off without rebuke is a vital part of our understanding, that the church can succeed.

It can do her job. And many churches in history have. But the wheel that squeaks the loudest gets the most attention. It just takes a handful of apostates to make it all look bad. But in these end times, it's going to increase. There are going to be more and more apostate churches and we're seeing it happen right in front of us. It's getting more and more difficult to find a church that believes that the Bible is inerrant, that the Holy Spirit fills his people, that sin is actually something God hates. But there's always going to be a remnant too.

And I hope we are all part of that remnant. Verse 20, seeing many things but you do not observe, opening the ears, but he does not hear. Well, in the New Testament, Paul said it this way, always learning, never coming into the knowledge. And there are those that are going to Bible study at the Bible study, listening after, and they never get it.

They're still not getting it. And there are others that are going to the Bible study, and they are getting it. And I don't know, I think it comes down to motivation. What is your motivation? Is it to actually be a vessel of the Lord or is it to one up everybody else? Is it to demonstrate that you are the teacher? Because if that is your motive, it's going to be a disaster and you'll take out other people with you.

We want to be strong so that we can lift people up and not shove them down. That is one of the goals and the beauty of Christianity. You come to that very quickly with an honest reading of the Scripture. I don't know how you can have an honest reading of the Scripture and come away arrogant. How do you then reconcile when you have the Pharisee, Lord, I pray every day, I fast, look at me.

You impressed yet? And then you have the tax collector, so Lord, I can't even look at you, I'm such a train wreck. I can't even look at you, forgive me. And Jesus says, that's the one.

He's the righteous one. So yeah, you won't have an excuse. Bad Christianity has no excuse. They can't say the world put a gun to my head. They cannot blame the universities, they cannot blame the culture, the entertainment world. They have no one to blame and that's why they're going to be dealt with. So, and even the world can't stand a rotten church and that's why the Antichrist tramples the beast, kills the beast, slaughters the beast, he hates the beast.

Even the world hates hypocrisy unless it's, they're doing it, of course, double standard, right? But who wants a church that is rotten when it comes to their own articles? Verse 20, well, I read that already, did I not?

Anyway, in this condition, seeing many things but you do not observe opening the ears but does not hear. In that condition, there's no way Israel or the church can be used effectively by God. What can God do to someone who is willfully blind and willfully deaf, who will not see what God wants to show them, who will not hear what God wants to say? And that's why the Bible is outside of many churches, where they cherry pick verses. They'll only preach the verses they like, the happy ones.

They think it's happy. Thus says the Lord will always be vital to a faithful congregation. Thus says the Lord is paramount. Could you imagine coming to a church that's feeding you God's word? That's where the Holy Spirit works.

He takes those verses and he singles us out. Would you imagine going to a church and the pastor says, we don't need to hear from God anymore. Let's just do this, whatever it is. Man, I would just get up and leave and never look back.

But this is happening all over the place. I don't know how can you stomach this? Is something very wrong here? And how do you reach somebody who thinks that this is acceptable in love and gentleness? How do you reach them? You know, you play good cop, bad cop. One minute you're screaming at them. You're a blasphemer. And the next minute, listen, God's got to get you out of this. You're a mess.

I mean, how do you fix it? Well, if we could put it in a bottle, you know, we wouldn't have any problems. We just go pour out the contents of the bottle on the individuals. But it's not that way. We're in a serious war with evil. And you can be in a serious war with God. And that's how he's going to end this section, incidentally. He's going to say, you're fighting against me in war, and you're going to lose. Verse 21, Yahweh is well pleased for his righteousness sake. He will exalt the law and make it honorable. Why does he have to do that?

Why don't the people just let the law be honorable? Why does God have to, you know, flex muscles to get the right things done? Well, sin. And if God's people abandon God's law, God will find other people who will adhere to it and uphold it. Romans 11, 20, speaking of Israel. Because of unbelief, they were broken off. Now, speaking of the church, next clause. And you stand by faith. Yeah, the Jewish people dropped the ball. And now the church is here to be the servant that brings the light. And then Paul will go on, don't you think, don't you think for one minute you're better? Because you get stripped too. God has no respect.

He doesn't have double standards. So you've got to love where the scripture goes with these things. The thought of somebody doing what you're supposed to be doing is not a good thought.

If, you know, I've had my moments where, you know what, I'm just going to move away from here a long time ago, like 25 years ago. And just the Lord says, fine, I'll just get somebody. Oh, no, no, no, we're not going to have that. You're not going to get somebody else to do my job.

And that's how it should be, should it not? What if you're in the workplace and you never preach the gospel? And some new guy comes in and starts preaching to everybody.

Oh, man, what a rebuke. This is what happened with the old prophet of Bethel. You remember God sent the prophet from Judah to go into the northern kingdom to preach to Jeroboam and, you know, this altar is evil and he preached. And God said, when you go home, you go straight home. You go a different way.

Don't stop at anybody's house. And the old prophet of Bethel heard that God had brought up a man of God to preach the word because he wasn't doing it. And he lies to him. And he gets him killed. My point is the old prophet of Bethel should have been the prophet sent, but God had to bring one up. And then that didn't turn out good, all because of one man who could have made the difference.

But he was settled in his lease. Mary of Bethany demonstrated the antidote to apostasy without even trying. She just loved the Lord. She just wanted to be with him.

She wanted to hang on every single word he said. Luke chapter 10. This is when her beloved sister, Martha, and Martha is a good girl, she's a hard worker, but she's a different animal than Mary. Mary was more sensitive to spiritual things.

You know, Martha was a harder worker, it seems. Mary might object if she were here, right? Anyway, Luke 10, verse 22, when the sister says, hey, tell Mary to get herself in the kitchen and help. Jesus answered her.

But one thing is needed and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her. Oh man, Martha must have said, why did I open, I did it again. I put my foot in my mouth.

When am I going to learn to shut up? Anyway, the Lord is talking. Mary was sitting at the feet of the Lord listening to the Bible study. The word of God is paramount. Verse 22, but this is a people robbed and plundered. All of them are snared in holes and they are hidden in prison houses.

They are for prey and no one delivers for plunder and no one says restore. Their disobedience led to their suffering, the humiliation, the harm. Who wants to be on that team in verse 22?

A show of hands. Who wants to be robbed and plundered, snared in holes, can't even get out, hidden in prison houses. What a way to live, pray, and no one delivers. Now, truth is, and Hebrews points this out, there are times that Christians have been, or not only Christians, just the righteous, have been in similar situations because of their righteousness.

These are this way because of judgment. As Hosea rings in and says, my people, they perish for lack of knowledge. They're God's people as a race, not as individuals necessarily. Judas Iscariot opted out.

He forfeited his status, as many, you know, Caiaphas, you know, many of them forfeited their status, but others embraced it, such as Isaiah. Verse 23, who among you will give ear to this? Who will listen and hear for time to come?

So he challenges the people of his day and every other generation after, even to this day. The religion without Christ is bad religion. That's our view. Now the world has their, other religions say, well, you know, ours is better. One of you got to be right.

Which one's going to be right? Why am I not a Muslim? Why am I not a Hindu?

Because I've looked at their herd and listened to their positions, and it just starts somewhere, but not far back enough. It lacks the spiritual features. It lacks, compared to what I find in the scripture, it's got nothing.

It's not even a second runner up. There's a reason why I love the Lord. There's a reason why I believe his word is right, and you can trace it back. Not only can you trace back the generation to generation how we got the word, you know, some guy didn't come out of a barn one day with a piece of paper in his hand, God told me this, you better listen or we're going to kill you. That's essentially what some of the other religions are. Or my father's told me.

But where'd they get it from? It's sort of a religious evolution where it doesn't have any sensible beginning. But you look at Christianity, it has a foundation, and it's got in the middle of all these prophecies, so many of them already fulfilled. So accurate are the prophecies that scoffers come along and say, oh no, they must have added that later and found out, well, there are other writings that they respect that has those prophecies in it before the events.

How do you account for that? There's a reason why we believe that Christianity is the faith that belongs to God and the others are not. Yet, God in his mercy knows those who have, look, there's somebody, there have been people born in Yemen that have never heard the gospel and died. God will do the right thing with that. I don't know if that person's going to make it to heaven or not, but I do know this, he's going to do the right thing. He does every time.

My responsibility as a Christian is to preach it like I've been given it, and that's all of our responsibility. If Jesus says I want you to go into that town and I want you to tell them red shoes are no longer allowed, then that's what I'm going to do. He doesn't do that, and I'm glad, but I like red shoes on some people.

I like pink shirts, but not on men. That's how it should be. All right, well, I haven't said that in a while.

I need to brush up on it. Anyway, religion without Christ is bad religion. It is cursed, as was the religion of Cain, which was a prototype for all false religions. We are hated for pointing this out. We are hated for not agreeing that, well, there's something salvageable. Universalism.

One of the things, there were several things that irritated Charles Spurgeon in the 1860s and 70s, turn of the century almost. Anyway, there were those that were saying the Bible is flawed and not trustworthy. There were those that were saying that God is the father of everyone. That's universalism.

That is not true. Jesus said to the Pharisees who were attacking him, you are of your father, the devil. And that is a pretty clear put-down of universalism. So what do the universalists do? Well, they want to still be in Christendom and deny that verse. Say, well, we don't believe in that. Somebody added that.

Well, how convenient. Every time you get to a verse in Scripture you don't like, you just say it's not God. You become the creator. That's idolatry. And idolatry, we hear the word all the time, it is the worst sin of all. You shall have no other gods before me. That's the first commandment. Because if you mess that one up knowingly, then there is really, you've rejected this Holy Spirit. You've blasphemed the Holy Spirit and said, you know, I'm not listening to you.

I'm going to do it this way. Cain was neither an atheist nor, or should I say nor, a worshiper of a false god. Think about it. He came to the true God. He believed that there is a God. But he came his way, not God's way.

That has the disconnect, and it was a grand disconnect. He was a false worshiper of the true God. That is bad. Cain, incidentally, was sincere. But in sincerity, sincerity does not make up for disobedience. Saul, you know, Saul tried to do that number. You know, yeah, I've done everything God said to do. Then Samuel said, then how come Saul doesn't kill all the sheep?

Because this is not a looting party you're going on. This is an act of judgment. And I want it very clear that I am not sending my people to pillage.

This operation is a judgment. And Saul decides, well, I'm going to keep the good sheep and the good oxen. And he tells his bold face to Samuel, the prophet of God, like Samuel's some sort of dummy that just woke up yesterday or something. And he says to Samuel, I've done everything God has told me to do. And Samuel said, really? Then what's the meaning of the bleating of the sheep, the lowing of the oxen?

Why do I hear this? And then he says, listen, it is better to obey than to sacrifice. Very powerful point in scripture.

Once you read it one time, you've got it forever. Just because somebody is sincere does not mean God accepts them because sincerity does not make up for disobedience. Now, we who love the Lord, we sincerely try to obey. And we fail sometimes.

There's a big difference. There's a big difference between being sincerely trying to obey and sincere about doing things that are outside of obedience. And that's what Saul did, and that's what Cain did, and that's what countless multitudes have been doing through the ages. Verse 24, and some people are irritated by this.

I don't get that. Why are you disturbed that there's a right way and a wrong way? Why are you disturbed? What you're really saying is I'm at war with God's authority. So is Korah, and I'll come to him in a little bit. Verse 24, who gave Jacob for plunder and Israel for robbers? Was it not the Lord against whom we have sinned? For they would not walk in his ways, nor were they obedient to his law. You notice he inserts himself, he says, I'm part of the Jewish race. This is my people, and we are sinning as a people. But he wasn't guilty of what they were guilty of, not the idolaters. God is blameless and he's no pushover. This judgment that they have, it's not like, God, you're meanie pants. And on the other side, it's like, hey, we can do anything and get away with it. No, you can't.

You just may buy time. Their suffering was neither random nor was it common. And no people on earth have ever suffered collectively through the ages as the Jewish people. People have had their moments of misery. Nobody's come close to what the Jews have gone through. And God is saying through the prophet, the judgments you incur are judgments because of your iniquity.

They're not random. They're like, what's happening to us? God promised the opposite if you would obey. But failed religion is man's version of life, man's version of God. Cain, Balaam, and Korah are the poster boys for this. Jude, verse 11, woe to them. He's talking about people who come into church against authority. Woe to them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, have run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the rebellion of Korah. They defied God when they defied God's authority on earth. Korah, he's the one that said, you know Moses, Moses, you and your brother Aaron, you think you're the answer. You think that, you know, you're it.

None of us are righteous. And he started this rebellion. It came to a conclusion when the ground that Korah was standing on opened up a sinkhole and swallowed him and 250 people just swallowed them up. And everybody that was watching said, ooh, that was the end of that rebellion. And so Jude says, yeah, might have been the end of that rebellion for that guy, but we've seen this over and over.

And I'm just going to let you know, it's just as dastardly now as it was then. They thought Balaam who was greedy for money, prosperity teachers, Cain who just wanted to do religion his way, they thought half religion was somehow acceptable to a pure God. They thought that truth was, you know, debatable. There are no absolutes. You know, mathematics teaches us that two plus two is four and there are no exceptions. And everybody's fine with that. Just can't do that with God. I'm glad we were able to spend time with you today. Tune in next time to continue learning from the book of Isaiah with Pastor Rick right here on Cross-Reference Radio.