Welcome to the Kerwin Baptist Church broadcast today.
Our family altars and false altars. I have enjoyed this series on altars and we're going to continue with it just a couple more weeks. I just first wanted to say thank you. Last week you recognized our 20th anniversary and we appreciate all the kind wishes and cards and things. Thank you for church gave us a couple days at an Airbnb this week to go pick up our son from college and so we are excited to take advantage of that. Thank you for that and we can't wait to have our oldest back on Sunday. I thought as we were dedicating little Savannah I thought man I remember this. Feels like yesterday we're dedicating Daniel and now we're going to pick him up in college. It goes fast.
It just does and I know that you parents know that. I also wanted to mention that in the near future we're running our connections class right now and it's going well. I was able to teach in there this morning and but in the near future we're going to be starting during our Sunday school hour a discipleship class. We just we have quite a few people that are interested in our one-on-one discipleship and it will keep it as a small class. We'll only have certain slots available but I'll be teaching that going through our discipleship what we believe why we believe it. A lot of Christians have sat in church their whole life and they really don't understand they don't haven't really seen the verses. They don't know why they believe what they believe and this discipleship helps people. It just does it helps the people to go through it helps the people that lead it.
It's just fantastic. It's worked well with our church. So many of our people have enjoyed it and we encourage you if you're interested in discipleship even if not in the Sunday school class but you say I'm interested we have some couples right now that are ready and willing to disciple you once a week. It's a good time of fellowship and it really answers a whole lot of questions.
So I hope that you'll let us know if you're interested in that because we would be glad to facilitate that. As we have been talking about altars for the most part they've all been positive of in the Old Testament especially as we are kind of bridging the gap of what altars meant in the Bible. Today I want to maybe talk just a few minutes about what can be the negative side of family altar. When we say family altar we just kind of automatically assume we're talking about something good. Family altar can be something good but for us to understand really what family altar means I think it would be good for us to just stop this morning for about 15, 16 minutes and let's analyze our family life. Let's analyze our home a little bit.
Some of you are like I don't want to do that. I just you know I have to do that 24-7. I don't want to do it at church but I want us just to stop and analyze some things this morning.
I think you understand what I'm talking about. Family altars in the Bible. A family altar is a place where you gather as a family to worship. It's kind of that simple but worship what? Do you know that we can set up altars in our family that worship God and teach our children and our family but you know that we can also set up some family altars to worship wrong things. You know we can set up family things in just a system in our family lives that are teaching our kids to worship other things. We're teaching our children to put other things in front of the Lord. Exodus chapter 20 is interesting because I have these verses on the screen you don't need to turn to it because you're in Judges chapter 6 but God comes to the children of Israel and he literally asked them each of them to set up their own family altars in chapter 20 verse 22 and the Lord said unto Moses thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel you have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.
I've communicated with you. You shall not make me gods of silver and neither shall you make unto you gods of gold. He says don't offer me something worldly and don't you worship something worldly. Look at verse 24 an altar of earth thou shalt make unto me and shalt sacrifice there on thy burnt offerings and thy peace offerings thy sheep and thine oxen in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee and I will bless thee and if thou wilt make me an altar of stone thou shalt not build it of huge stone for if thou lift up thy tool upon it thou hast polluted it. God says listen just take a stone make an altar but don't chisel it try to make it fancy because now you put man into the process.
Everybody get it so far? Now this is Old Testament we're New Testament but there is an application here and I want you to understand it. He says neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
What's the point here? He says you this ought to be holy to you it ought to be special to you. Just because you say you built an altar doesn't mean you built the right kind of altar.
Here's what I'm afraid is going on. Listen to me this morning. I'm afraid if we're not careful we have put up an altar to God on Sunday. And we have established altars to false gods the rest of the week. We're teaching our kids to put other things in front of God but on Sunday we want to erect our altar and say hey let's worship God today. But every other day of the week we're worshiping everything else. You say is this in a series on altars?
Yeah. A man named Gideon. This is an interesting story so just hold with me. Now listen quickly we're going to go through but you got to see the verses.
First today I want you to see this cracks me up. I want you to see the call of Gideon. In Judges chapter six is where this all takes place but you've got to get it all to understand what's going on here. In verse eleven it says and there came an angel of the Lord and sat under an oak which was in Oprah. Yes that came from the Bible.
That pertained unto Joash the Abzirite and his son Gideon threshed wheat by the wine press to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him the Lord is with thee thou mighty man of valor. An angel of the Lord just shows up and some believe that this might have been an epiphany I don't know. A Christophany some believe this was. Some believe that this was maybe one of the ark.
I don't know I'm just there's a lot of debate a lot of things and I have my own opinion. But the angel of the Lord shows up and here's Gideon just a hard working man and the angel shows up and says listen mighty man of valor. God is calling you. Now that is the call of Gideon but secondly I want you to notice the frustration of Gideon. Look at his response in verse thirteen I love this and Gideon said unto him oh my Lord. I love that an angel appears out of nowhere God's called you oh my Lord.
What is going on? Notice what he says oh my Lord if the Lord be with us why then is all this befallen us and where be all his miracles which our fathers told us of saying did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt. But now the Lord hath forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. And the Lord looked upon him and said go in this thy might and thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites have not I sent thee. I'm going to tell you something you've got to give it to Gideon at least he was honest. Angel of the Lord shows up and says listen God's calling you you're going to be a mighty man of valor and Gideon says oh God's called me?
Oh really? If God's real? If God's for us then why has all this happened to us?
You ever asked yourself that in your life? You know if God loves me so much then why did he allow this to happen? He says wait a minute he says if God's so great why did he deliver us into the hand of the Midianites? And boy God is patient at least Gideon's being honest.
God said listen you go and I'm going to give you the power and I'm going to help you defeat the Midianites instead of complaining what you about what you don't like why don't you get a hold of God and let God help you change it? So third Gideon wasn't sold yet so now we see the sign that Gideon requested you got to hear this whole thing. So God comes to him say hey I've called you Gideon says oh my Lord he says I don't you know you haven't you say you call me you're not helping me and God says listen I will be with you we're going to defeat the Midianites I'm going to use you you're going to be a mighty man of valor. But Gideon needed a sign he needed to know for sure so look if you would at verse 16 and the Lord said unto him surely I will be with thee and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man and he said unto him if now I have found grace in thy sight then show me a sign that thou takest with me. Gideon said if this is the case I need a sign. Look at verse 19 and Gideon went in and made ready a kid obviously a young animal and unleavened cakes of an ephah flower and the flesh he put in a basket and he put the broth in a pot and brought it out unto him under the oak and presented it and the angel of God said unto him take the flesh and the unleavened cakes and laid them upon this rock and pour out the broth and he did so then the angel of the Lord put forth the end of the staff that was in his hand touched the flesh and the unleavened cakes and there rose up fire out of the rock and consumed the flesh and the unleavened cakes then the angel of the Lord departed out of his sight. Wow Gideon says I need a sign so he puts food down and he says put that food on the rock puts the food on the rock angel puts the staff boom fire consumes it all immediately there's your sign.
Like Jeff Foxworthy would say here's your sign. Notice I love this after God gives him a sign notice the family altar that Gideon built. Verse 22 and when Gideon perceived that he was an angel of the Lord Gideon said alas oh Lord God for because I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face then Gideon built an altar there unto the Lord.
Isn't that something? And he called it Jehovah Shalom. Now you say preacher what in the world does all this mean?
Jehovah Shalom means God is my peace. We find Gideon putting that Gideon put in this altar but this altar wasn't just for him it was for the generations after him but we have a problem. So far so good he builds this altar and not only that I wanted you to notice God comes to him and God gives him another command.
This is what we're gonna talk about and we'll be done today. I want you to see the family altar that Gideon tore down. We see the family altar that Gideon put up God's my peace and by the way God is your peace.
You're only going to find peace through God. But God comes to him look at verse 25 and it came to pass the same night that the Lord said unto him take thy father's young bullock even the second bullock of seven years old and throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath and cut down the grove that is by it. You see Gideon's family already had a family altar.
They were captive to the Midianites. He had heard all the stories how God had led them out of Egypt but they were in captivity now and the people that had them captive worshiped Baal and so now that had kind of taken on and a lot of the children of Israel were Baal worshipers. And Gideon's dad had a family altar. It was where the whole family worshiped but it wasn't a good altar.
It was an altar to a false god Baal. And as God comes into Gideon's life and he calls Gideon and he says Gideon I want to do some great things in your life. When Gideon gets to sign and realize this is real, this is from God, Gideon put up an altar to the real God. But God says Gideon we can't go any further. Thank you for putting up this altar but we can't go any further till you tear down that false altar.
So what does Gideon do? This is his dad's altar. So verse 26 God says and build an altar unto the Lord thy God upon the top of this rock in the ordered place. Take the second bullock and offer a burnt sacrifice with the wood of the grove that thou shalt cut down.
Here's what he said. God said listen you go tear your dad's altar down. Your dad has an altar that the whole family and you have worshiped at. It's a false altar. It's a false god and there is a grove. There's trees that have grown up by that altar. I want you to tear down that altar and I want you to cut down every bit, every tree out of that grove and then I want you to get the wood from those trees and you build another altar, a correct altar, an altar of faith to God and you do that.
So I not only don't want you to get rid of that altar, I want you to get rid of everything that has been grown and fed by that altar. So now the Bible says Gideon was scared of this and he didn't do it during the day because he didn't know what was going to happen so he did it at night. Look at what you would have verse 30, the resistance that Gideon faced.
Let me share this with you and then I'm going to make a couple comments and we'll go. Verse 30, then the men of the city said unto Joash, Gideon's dad, bring out thy son that he may die because he hath cast down the altar of Baal and because he hath cut down the grove that was by it. And Joash said unto all that stood against him, will ye plead for Baal?
Will ye save him? He that will plead for him, let him be put to death whilst it is yet morning. If he be a God, let him plead for himself because one hath cast down his altar. Listen, Gideon is already starting to reach his family. Gideon tears down that altar to Baal. Now the city's mad at him and they come and his dad stands up for him. His dad is the one that had the altar to Baal and his dad said, listen, don't you come try to kill my son. Listen, if Baal is real, let Baal plead for himself. If he's a God, he'll take care of himself. Why do you have to come defend it? Why do you come because you're mad? If Baal is so powerful, let him plead for himself and it shut him up.
I love this. Look at the favor that Gideon received from God, verse 34, but the spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon. In Gideon's life it wasn't just about putting up altars, it was about tearing some down. We can't have altars built to the Lord on weekends and altars built for the flesh the rest of the week. For the spirit of God to have freedom in our lives, we have to do both. We've got to put up the right altars and we've got to tear down the wrong ones.
Now here's what's interesting. Anytime you try to get rid of an altar in your life that is worshiping the wrong thing, you're always going to have resistance. There might be a dad or a mom here today that just decides, you know, and I'm not getting into specifics today, but today you might think, you know, there's some things that need to change in our family. In our family we've allowed our boys to worship video games. We set up an altar, that's all they do all week long. When do they ever read the Bible? When do we ever sit as a family and read the Bible?
But they sure play video games hour upon hour upon hour upon hour. What are you teaching your kids to worship? They're like, oh my, now let me tell you something, these kids are ticked at me right now. But look at me, please get this, please get this. You start changing that, see how they feel about it.
You're going to get resistance. We have altars in our house, you have altars in your house that we set up and we teach kids that this is what's most important, sports are what's most important, TV's what's most important, this is what's most important, having things is most important, having entertainment is most important, God's house is set aside, the things of God are set aside, we don't ever read the Bible, talk about the Bible, teach the Bible, talk about God, but we show up Sunday and bless God, the church needs to do that for our family. And dear friend, all I'm saying is this, listen, if we can take all the good things about altars, we need to hear all the truth about altars. The spirit of God did not come upon Gideon when he put up the right altar. The spirit of God came upon Gideon when he tore down the wrong ones. All I'm saying is this, do you think maybe just because we've just grown accustomed that we can set up some systems in our family that we literally have some family altars, but they're not for the word of God. We've taught our children how to worship things, how to worship culture, how to worship. And I'm just here to say this, listen, we can build the good altars all we want to, but as long as there's still that altar there, as long as there's still that group of trees around there, that's still in our life, God's not going to have freedom in our life. Imagine what God could do with the church when we decide, you know what, we're going to tear down the wrong altars. What, what is the wrong, what is Baal?
Baal was a false God. How many of you know there's all kinds of false gods in our culture? We can teach our kids that your physical body is your God, but we give all the time for physical exercise and all the time we're going to go work out, we're going to go do this, but church is way on the back burner. What are you teaching? What are we teaching? We're teaching, we have an altar to worship this, an altar to worship that, an altar to give our time here, an altar to give all of our money to this and all of our effort to this and all of our attention to this. But then we show up Sunday and say, Hey, you know what? We're going to put up an altar. Let's worship God today. Is it almost done? I want to get to lunch.
I don't want to have to sit here and wait in line. Captain Toms is going to get busy. You all know I'm telling the truth. Can we all listen? I'm not, I'm not against anybody. I'm guilty. You're guilty. We're all guilty, but it's the truth. No, we don't have stone altar sitting in our house where we're worshiping to a false God, but we have false gods everywhere in our life.
And all I'm saying is this on a Sunday morning, you're like, Hey, this is all nice feely. Listen, this, this is about family. This is about Savannah. This is about our children.
This is about the next generation. What kind of altars are we going to have for our future generations? If all the altars we're setting up are to false gods, that mean we can enjoy life and enjoy things. You all know I'm not that kind of person. I mean, I enjoy life.
I'm saying, you know, I'm the kind of person that enjoys life and all those things. But here I am here to tell you, God said, Gideon, you're going to have to get rid of that false God. You're going to have to get rid of that false altar and you're going to have to cut down all those trees surrounding it. But here's what happened. Gideon obeyed. The spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon and the Midianites who they had been in captivity to for all these years, God miraculously gave victory through Gideon.
They defeated the Midianites and Gideon didn't even have to raise a finger to do it. That's what the spirit of God, look at me. You say, preacher, I can't help but it feels like you're being a little bit hard today.
No, I'm not being hard. If you've been around church, well, some preachers can preach hard. How many of you know I'm a friendly preacher?
I'm a nice preacher. But I will tell you this, listen to me, that's why so many times you come and you want to sit in office and things are going very bad in your family. Your kids are running here, kids are doing this, kids have no use for church, kids have, they don't want to be in gossip, they don't want anything to do with whatever.
They don't want this, they don't want that. And here's what I'm saying, dear friend, many times it's because of the altars we set up right in our family. And it's good for all of us to take inventory of our family and not, hey, do I have a good family altar set up? And I hope that you do. And I hope that you do read God's Word together as a family.
And I hope that you do come to church and be faithful. You're the ones that are here, we're not getting on you. I'm simply saying this, that if we're not careful we can think because we do this on Sundays, that our job is done.
That's not. Listen to this before we go. Just hear me out. There's some lessons that we need to learn. Number one is this, Gideon's story reminds us that we must always be on the lookout for idols in our lives. This reminds me that if I'm not careful, something can become my idol.
Brother Nick sings a song about this very thing. Even doing things for God can become an idol. Number two, Gideon's story teaches us that we must be willing to tear down these idols.
Not just find them, not just notice them, not just look for them, but get rid of them when they show up. Do you know good things in your life can become an idol? It can take the precedence of God. Notice number three, Gideon's story reminds us that we must eliminate all strongholds from the false idols.
What did he say? Tear down that altar, but at all the grove that surrounded it. If you don't, what's going to happen? I'm going to look over there and see that little barren spot where that altar was, all these trees surrounding it. And I'm going to remember all the good times we had sacrificing at that altar.
No, no, no, no, no. Get rid of all of it. Get it out. Notice fourthly, Gideon's story shows us that victory only comes when false idols are eliminated and pure worship is incorporated. You see what I'm afraid of? Sometimes we think, God, I'm here on Sunday. I'm worshiping you. Why aren't you pleased?
Why aren't you pleased? And God's probably thinking, well, because I get one day of your good altar and your flesh gets six days of the wrong altars. All of us need to look, make sure is my life clean?
Is my life right? We're going to bow our heads and all those that are getting baptized, they're going to start prepping for that. I'm excited about this baptismal service.
Um, it's awkward in here, but our staff's done a good job to make things look good and, um, I appreciate their work. Let's pray. And then they're going to let us know. I think, um, probably, um, let's get a song together.
If you don't mind, maybe brother Jimmy, if you've got a congregation or Jake, Jake, if you got one, we'll sing and then when they're ready, we'll do that. I'm going to ask you to bow your heads and close your eyes. I know what you're thinking. Pretty sure this was an awkward Sunday morning service.
Yeah, it was. All I can do is just tell you the truth. Notice I didn't do it to try to guilt you out of anything. All I'm saying is this, all of us are prone in our life to setting up idols. We've got to watch out for it.
We've got to look out for it. Listen, I love to play golf. I just don't get to play hardly at all. But there ain't nothing wrong with golf, but can I tell you something? Golf could become an idol if I let it.
I would want all my time to go to that. Nothing wrong with fishing, but fishing become an idol. Do you know spending can become an idol?
It's just this feeling we get from buying things and before long we're worshiping that feeling. A person can become an idol. Teenagers, I want you to understand that the greatest news that anyone can receive is the news of the free gift of salvation found in Jesus Christ. It is our desire for you to know him personally.
Would you take a moment to hear this today? Every man is born with the sin nature. Romans 3 23 says for all of sin and come short of the glory of God.
No matter how hard we try, we're not good enough to obtain God's glory or to get to heaven. Because of that sin carries the penalty of death. Romans 6 23 says for the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The wages of our sin or the payment of our sin only equals death and separation from God, but it's only through God's gift of salvation through Jesus Christ that we can accept him as our savior.
Jesus Christ paid for your sin debt. The Bible says in Romans 5 8, but God commended his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. All you have to do is receive Christ by faith as your savior. Romans 10 9 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead thou shalt be saved. Verse 13 continues for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. It's as simple as admitting that you're a sinner believing that Jesus is the only way and calling upon his name. The Bible says whosoever that's anyone can call upon the name of the Lord to be saved. Have you accepted Christ as your personal savior? There is no greater day than today to take care of this. Would you accept Christ as your savior? If you have any questions please give us a call at 336-993-5192 or visit our website at KerwinBaptistChurch.com or visit us at person at one of our three service times. We hope you have a great rest of your day. God bless you.
