Smart People, Stupid Choices

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. Over and over again in the Word of God, the period of the judges, the most difficult time in the Word of God completely, and what did the book end with? In those days there was no king in Israel, and everybody did what was right in their own eyes. That's how smart people make stupid choices.

They do what's right in their own eyes. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. All these years of ministry have left me with lots of questions. Ironically, not questions about God, but questions about you. Very close to the top of my question list is why do smart people do such stupid things? Why do smart people, smart Christians, make such stupid choices? Smart people wreck their marriages. Smart people completely mess up their children.

Smart people get drunk, do drugs, drive their friends away. For the most part I've concluded the reason is that they're on the wrong road. Now they want to go to Emerald City, just as I've said in the previous messages, but they want to go a different way. And they don't want to follow the yellow brick road. You see, the yellow brick road is the road of truth.

Therefore, to get to Emerald City you have to be on a truth quest. But so many of us are not on that quest. We are on the happiness quest. That is the road that we want to be on is the road that makes us happy today. The problem with that, of course, is what makes you happy today may not and often doesn't make you happy tomorrow. In fact, you may find yourself living in the land of regret. Why?

Why is it that so many of us do what we want to do rather than what we ought to do? Open your Bibles to Jeremiah 17. Jeremiah is the most unpopular prophet in the Old Testament. His messages were never well received by anybody. Over and over again Jeremiah would prophesy to the people and to the kings.

He served under more than one and they didn't listen. The final king was Jehoiakim and he was an evil king. And Jeremiah prophesied and prophesied for him to repent for his people.

He would not. So Jeremiah kept prophesying and the people started to panic. So Jehoiakim threw Jeremiah in a cistern so no one would have to listen to him anymore.

But in 588 B.C. just what Jeremiah said would happen, happened. He told them the Babylonians would come in, destroy the country and carry them off.

And that's what happened. How could a smart man like that make such a stupid choice for his people? Well look at verse 5. Thus says the Lord, cursed is the man who trusts in mankind and makes flesh his strength. Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind. Verse 7, blessed or happy is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose trust is the Lord. And then he gets right to the heart of the problem in a very famous verse in verse 9.

Why does this happen? Why do smart people make such stupid choices? The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it? The heart. Every heart. Jehoiakim's heart. The people of Israel's heart. Jeremiah's heart. My heart.

Your heart. The heart, he says, is more deceitful than all else. When it comes to deceiving wouldn't you want to put Lucifer at the top? Wouldn't the devil be the great deceiver? I mean that's his name, deceiver.

He says, nah, not for you. Your heart is deceitful above all else and is desperately sick. One translation says beyond cure. Your heart is desperately sick, deceitful above all else.

Who can possibly understand it? You see, it's not just that your heart lies to you. Your heart's deceased. It gets you to believe the lie. It lies, but it makes you believe the lie. That's what your heart's able to do. In fact, it convinces you through the deception to come up with ingenious reasons why you made stupid choices.

That's where you see someone's heart. You've done it. You've heard it. You make a stupid choice and someone told you into account of it and then you give you reasons. And it's amazing. To you they make sense.

To everybody else it's like that's ridiculous. Oh, the difference between good sound reasons and reasons that sound good. You see the deception of the human heart. That's the warning here. Notice what happens then in verse 10, the trouble that it brings about. He said, I, the Lord, I search the heart.

I test the mind, even to give each man according to his ways, according to the results of his deeds. The Lord says, I see right through that. Make no mistake, you'll reap what you sow. Make no mistake, if you don't want to get on the truth path and you're on the happiness path, you will reap what you sow and likely you will find yourself living in the land of regret.

That's what's going to happen. You see, well, if I can't listen to my heart, what do I listen to? Turn to John chapter 8, Jesus Christ speaking. People have just come to him in saving faith. And in verse 30, John writes, and he spoke these things and many came to believe in him. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, if, and that's going to be up to you, if you abide in my word, then you are truly disciples or followers of mine and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.

You see, if you abide in my word, you will know the truth. And that word no doesn't simply mean cognitive. In fact, it infers more than that. It infers relationship. For example, Adam knew Eve and they conceived a son.

You see, they had a relationship. If you have a relationship, you abide in my word, he says. He says, you'll know the truth and that will make you free. You mean that's what the word does? Yeah, it makes me free.

Notice what it does. It puts me on a different road. I'm on a truth quest.

In fact, I'm back on the yellow brick road. Turn with me now to 2 Timothy chapter 3. And Paul gives us some of the credentials of the word of God.

The context in 2 Timothy chapter 3 is this. How do you live in the last days? Because Paul says that in the last days, things are going to go from bad to worse. Things will be worse than they ever were.

So how am I going to live when life's like that? Well, the very end of the chapter, he gives us how. Notice in verse 14, he said to Timothy, you, however, continue in the things that you have learned and become convinced of knowing, he says, from whom you have learned them, that from your childhood, he says, you have known the sacred writings, which are able to give you wisdom that leads to salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. Then he says, let me tell you about the word of God. He said all scripture is inspired by God. And again, English becomes a problem because we think inspiring means some kind of motivation. But it doesn't mean inspired that way. It's theos pneumatos. It simply and literally says all scripture is God-breathed. That's what he says.

All scripture is God-breathed. OK. And he said it's profitable. This is to your advantage. What do you mean it's profitable?

It's profitable for teaching. Teaching me what? What's right? What's wrong? What's true? What's false? You see, what's good?

What's evil? It teaches me. Then it says for reproof. In other words, when it reproves me is what? Bill, your natural instincts here are wrong. Following your gut and your instincts are only going to help you if your gut and instincts are in accord with the word of God. He said all scripture is inspired by God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction.

Don't go there. For training in righteousness. Well, what do I get out of that? So that the man or woman of God may be complete, adequate, equipped for every good work. It makes a difference in my life.

It changes the way I live. Now, just go a few pages to your right to Hebrews chapter 4. And here the context is a little bit different but similar. The writer of Hebrews is writing to people who have decided they're not going to trust the word of God anymore, that they're going to go with their gut instinct and they want to get reabsorbed back into Judaism so they can get along with all their family and friends who are all Jews.

They decide it's time to go back. This whole epistle was written to say don't you dare do that. In fact, you can't. And so when he gets to verse 12, the writer of Hebrews writes this. For the word of God is alive. The word of God is living and it's active.

In other words, it actually can do something. He said it's sharper than any two-edged sword. What do you mean by that imagery?

He said piercing as far as the division of the soul and the spirit, both of the joints and the marrow. Now here's the key. And able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of what? Your heart. You see, it's able to do that.

It's able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of your heart. It even takes more than this, though. Turn a few more pages to write to James chapter 1. And here James is going to give us another facet of this truth. First of all, in verse 16 he said, Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.

Don't you be deceived. But notice verse 22. He says, Prove yourselves doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. That's what we can often be as Christians. We hear the word of God, we read the word of God, but we delude ourselves. He said for anyone who is a hearer of the word of God and not a doer, he's like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror. And for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he's immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.

Now if you think about that, the imagery is kind of funny. He's basically saying this but in a nice way. Do you realize how stupid it is to be a hearer of the word of God? I'll tell you how stupid it is. It's so stupid it's like a person who looks at their face in the mirror, turns and forgot what they saw.

That's how stupid. Then he says, verse 25, But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides in it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man is blessed in what he does. He's on the yellow brick road. Blessed means happy. He has a happy and a content life. He's not living in the land of regret.

He's living in the land of blessing. What is the difference? It's whether or not he lives by the word of God or he lives by his own gut instinct. That's where we get in trouble. You see what I noticed is over the years, almost all of you know right and wrong.

Knowledge is not your problem. Doing is the problem. What does it take to do the word of God? Submission.

That's what it is. I have to submit myself to it. In other words, if God has spoken, I have to submit me to what he has said.

That requires a tremendous amount of humility on my part. I have to submit to the word of God. It's said so many ways in Scripture. Turn with me back to Proverbs, chapter 3, verse 5. Here Solomon writes, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Notice he understands something here.

It's going to take all your heart. You can't nod your way through this one. And that word trust is really interesting in Hebrew. It's a little different of a picture. It literally means to lie helplessly face down in front of. That's what it means.

To lie face down helplessly in front of. That's what it means to trust. Very much a picture of worship.

He said, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and here comes the command. Do not lean on your own understanding. Why? Well, there's a way that seems right to you.

It's going to end in destruction. Why? Because your heart's deceitful above all things in order to deceive you as you go down the happiness trail. That's why, God says. Notice then the second half of the verse. In all your ways, acknowledge him.

That's a bad English word again. You see, when we think of acknowledge, we think of something almost insincere or something so shallow. To acknowledge God means to recognize God for who he is and then act accordingly. In all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. He will make the best path obvious. That's what he means.

You're back on the yellow brick road. When does that take? Submission, humility. By the way, I don't think you'll ever be smart enough to do it on your own without submission and humility. I just don't think.

I don't think enough knowledge will make a difference, not unless you submit to it. I want to give you the example of that kind of thing. Turn with me now to 1 Kings 3, one of the most unique experiences that ever happened to anybody in the Word of God. Verse 5, in Gibeon, the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream at night, and God said, Ask what you wish me to give you.

Now, how would you like to have that dream? This is God. Bill, what do you want?

Anything you want. Solomon said, You have shown great lovingkindness to your servant David, my father, accordingly as he walked before you in truth and righteousness of heart toward you, and you have reserved for him this great lovingkindness that you have given him a son to sit on the throne as it is this day. Now, O Lord, my God, you have made your servant king in a place of my father David. Yes, I am but a little child.

I do not know how to go out or come in. Your servant is in the midst of your people, which you have chosen, a great people who cannot be numbered or counted for multitude. So give your servant an understanding heart to judge your people and to discern between good and evil. For, he says, for who is able to judge this great people of yours? It was pleasing in the sight of the Lord that Solomon had asked this thing, and God said to him, Because you have asked this thing and have not asked yourself a long life, nor have asked riches for yourself, nor, he says, have you asked for the life of your enemies, but you have asked for yourself discernment to understand justice. Behold, I have done according to your words. Behold, he said, I have given you a wise and discerning heart so that there has been no one like you before you and shall no one like you arise after you.

There you go. He's smarter than anyone before him and anyone after him. He is Solomon, the great wise one, but he has a problem. He's not wise enough to submit in humility to God. Oh, he's a great king. He makes a lot of deals, but look at chapter 3, verse 1. Then Solomon formed a marriage alliance with Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he took Pharaoh's daughter and he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house in the house of the Lord in the wall around Jerusalem.

Now, that was even before that. Solomon said, I need protection. Egypt's the most powerful country in this area of the world. I'm going to ask Pharaoh for his daughter. Kings do that all the time, and now I'll have the protection of Egypt for my people.

That sounds good, doesn't it? Not if you're God's people. In fact, he's forbidden by God to marry outside of Israel, but he thought it was a good idea. In his own mind, this made a lot of sense, and so he did.

That's not a good idea. That's a great king making a stupid choice. Let me show you where this leads. We're in chapter 11 now of 1 Kings. Now, King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh, Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women. From the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, you shall not associate with them. There's God speaking. And here's Solomon not acknowledging him. He said, you shall not associate with them, neither shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.

By the way, if God says no, he always has a good reason. There was his reason. Solomon held fast to these in love. Notice Solomon. He had 700 wives, princesses, and 300 concubines, and his wives turned his heart away. For it came about when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods, and his heart, he said, was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. For Solomon went, he said, after the Asherah, the goddess of the Sidonians, and he said, and after Milkim, the detestable idol of the Ammonites. Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not follow the Lord fully as David his father had done.

What did he reap? His kingdom was divided. Israel was never again a great power. The tribes of the north and the tribes of the south, the tribes of the north had nothing but evil kings. Every one of them was evil. Jude and Benjamin to the south had some evil kings and some righteous kings. Israel never ever regained its former glory.

But there's even more than what happened to Israel. You read the book of Ecclesiastes, and when you read the book of Ecclesiastes, guess what you read? Solomon living in the land of regret. Vanity, vanity, all is vanity. Now here's the smartest man, the wisest man, bestowed with the supernatural gift of God, but he didn't submit to God at all. I feel it in my heart.

I love these women. He lied to himself, he deceived himself, and he ended up reaping what he sowed. Over and over again in the word of God, the period of the judges, the most difficult time in the word of God completely, and what did the book end with? In those days there was no king in Israel, and everybody did what was right in their own eyes. That's how smart people make stupid choices.

They do what's right in their own eyes. That's why you as a believer, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, a smart one, make so many stupid choices. The next time you face a major choice in your life, I'd like you to ask yourself these four questions. Number one, this may or may not do you any good at all. Why am I doing this? Why am I doing this? Now be prepared that you're actually going to deceive yourself into coming up with some ingenious reason that doesn't hold water with anybody but you.

The second question will help a great deal. Does God's Word speak to this? Has God said anything about this? Some of you live fractured relationships within your families. That is, you struggle within the context of marriage, or you struggle with your children, or you struggle with your parents, or you struggle with your siblings, and you have all of these broken relationships, and then you dread the holidays when they come every year because something is going to force you to be with them. What do you do? Usually what you do is you tell me, oh, Pastor, pray for me.

My brother-in-law is coming in town. Let me tell you what he's done to us. What does God say? Forgive them as Christ has forgiven you.

There it is. Forgive them as Christ has forgiven you. How's he forgiven you?

Over and over and over again. Unconditionally. He says, that's what I want you to do. Now, you can follow his word, or you can lean on your own understanding. You can follow your own heart. And regrettably, so many of you follow your heart.

I mean, if I even talk to you, it's amazing the things I hear. I can't do that. I won't do that. Not unless they do something first.

And all I want to say is show me and hear where it says that. No, that's just the way I feel. You can't trust your feelings. You can trust the word of God.

Why am I doing this? Does God's word speak to this? Am I willing to humble myself and submit to the truth?

That's the big question. Am I willing to humble myself and submit to the truth? If God says no, then I'm going to go with no, even though my instincts are saying yes.

If God says yes, then I'm going with it, even though my fears say no. And the last question, am I once again going to trust my own heart as I go down the happiness trail? You can do that. Some of you have. Some of you have T-shirts that said, I've been there. I've done it.

I've been on the happiness trail. But on the back of the shirt, it says, Now living in the land of regret. See, the choice is ours. You can choose His word.

You can choose your heart. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

At that website you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .