When You're In A Tangled Web – Part 1 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. What a tangled web we weave when first we purpose to deceive. Many people fear their secrets will one day be revealed.

Our deceptions entangle us with unintended consequences. Today, a story from the Bible of a faithful king who failed near his finish line, leaving Israel in a state of war. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, I think all of us want to finish well. It's sad to get close to the end of the race and only then stumble. Dave, that's very sad and yet it happens so often, doesn't it?

We think, for example, of the king that we're going to be speaking about, King Asa, but also I'm even thinking of Moses who struck the rock rather than speaking to it. And yet, in the midst of our failures, there is grace. That's why I've written a book entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision. The subtitle is How to Put Your Regrets Behind You, Embrace Grace, and Move Toward a Better Future. For a gift of any amount, this book can be yours.

Simply go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now let us learn from the past that we might not repeat it. Let's pray together one more time, shall we? Our Father, there are some people who are listening to this message, who will be listening, who have huge decisions to make. Decisions which humanly speaking, they will not have the strength to make unless you come, unless you be the enabler, unless you bring the transformation of heart, unless you grant the grace, they will continue on the path that they've chosen.

Would you help us? We are impressed, Father, by the depths of our sinfulness, but also impressed with the depths of your grace. Show us both, we pray, in Jesus' name, Amen. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Those are the words of Sir Walter Scott.

Today we're speaking on the topic of entanglements, the decisions that are involved in the tangled web of human relationships, where you've gone on in a certain pattern and it appears as if you just can't turn around. I think, for example, of a woman who spoke to Rebecca and me who's involved in the medical community, and she said that she was living with this terrible conscience because in her office there were illegalities that were happening, which is code for cheating, and she said that this was going on and of course we say to her, well, why don't you just become a whistleblower? But she said the situation isn't that simple. It's not that simple because she also has profited from the deceit and the dishonesty, and her boss already told her if you blow the whistle on us we're going to hire an attorney and he's going to go after you and we will destroy you. So for her to come clean it means really her whole life, that's the price she has to pay.

I think of those who have committed crimes or the man that I've told you about in a different context who illegally filled out a form so that he could get workers comp saying that the accident happened on the job and it didn't, it was deceitful. This pastor said don't you think that you should come clean? He said what do you think? You think that I'm that stupid?

Do I want to go to jail? The man who told a lie, he had stolen something and he called me and said you know I've stolen this and I lied and said I didn't, but if I tell the truth I'll be fired and I need the job. Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

I may be speaking to someone here and there's a secret affair that's going on in your life or a business deal that is very complex but you've bought into it, you began little by little and now suddenly the noose is around your neck and if you were to come clean goodness knows what would happen. Our story today that we are going to tell is found in the book of Second Chronicles. I know that the Old Testament is not that familiar to many of us and you may find it difficult to find Second Chronicles but it's there, it's right after First Chronicles.

And if you want to know where it is on the pew Bible I checked it this morning I think it's page 368. It's the story of an Old Testament king by the name of Asa. Asa was the third king of Judah and he came, he was born into this world with a very wicked father and a wicked mother.

In fact his mother, the queen mother apparently was actually sponsoring idolatry and he had to depose her. He was a courageous king. For 36 years he followed the Lord fully.

Chapters 14 and 15 of Second Chronicles are just a delight to read. Of course we'll only refer to a few verses and you can read the whole story for yourself on another occasion. But Asa first of all followed the Lord fully and wholly for those 36 years.

What did he do? First of all when he became king he took away all of the idols. It says in verse 2 of chapter 14, and Asa did what was good and right in the eyes of the Lord. He took away the foreign altars, the high places, and broke down the pillars and cut down the Asherim and commanded Judah to seek the Lord God of their fathers to keep the law and the commandment. You see what Israel was doing is they were buying into other gods and they would build these altars on the hills and in different places and then they'd go and everybody had his own God and could go to his own idol and his own temple to worship, his own worshiping place, let's put it that way. And Asa said enough already. We're the followers of the true God and in those days there was no freedom of religion so he went and he tore down the idols and he commanded everybody in my kingdom seek the Lord God who brought us here.

Something else that happened is that there was a war. The Ethiopians came against him and it says in verse 11 of chapter 14, and Asa cried to the Lord his God, oh Lord there is none like you to help between the mighty and the weak. Help us oh Lord our God for we rely on you and in your name we have come against this multitude. Oh Lord you are our God let not man prevail against you. So the Lord defeated the Ethiopians before Asa and before Judah.

Wow. Last night as I was rereading this I underlined the different places in my Bible word keeps saying that he sought God and he asked the children of Israel to seek the Lord and they began to seek the Lord and to and to seek his guidance and to seek his strength. That's going to have to be a sermon series sometime in the future. Seeking God. You see the average Christian thinks well I found God through Jesus so I don't have to seek him.

Oh yes. Even though you found God we must seek him nonetheless to know him better to rely upon him with more determination and to understand his ways. 36 years of following the Lord fully and chapter 15 has much of the same material. Now after doing that we come to another stage in his life and that is he follows the Lord halfheartedly not with a whole heart but with a half heart. That's chapter 16.

In order to understand what happened I need to give you a little bit of background follow this carefully or else what you are reading might not make a whole lot of sense. Now here's Asa he is ruling over the kingdom of Judah which is headquartered in Jerusalem. Think of your map of Jerusalem. In those days the kingdom even though there were all the tribes who were united they were all the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Even though that was true the kingdom was split for reasons that I will not explain here but it's interesting historically as to why it was split and there was a border just north of Jerusalem and then there was a king who reigned in the north from a capital called Samaria which is up across the way from Galilee and the king of the north which was called Israel the south was called Judah the king of Israel the king of the north his name was Basha and what Basha did is he had an agreement with a heathen king by the name of Ben-Hadad of Syria and therefore Basha felt very very confident and he began to hassle the border trying to hassle Asa and he would build fortifications across the border and pretty soon he cut off all trade and he cut off all communication and people couldn't go from the north to the south. What would we expect Asa being in Jerusalem to do? Well for 36 years he's done nothing but serve God. He's followed the Lord and he's called on God to help him and now after 36 years of faithfulness he doesn't makes a huge mistake which results in some entanglements. Notice we're in chapter 16 it says in verse 2 after verse 1 explains what is happening Basha king of Israel went up against Judah he built these fortifications Asa of all things how could you do this he took silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house and sent them to Ben-Hadad king of Syria who lived in Damascus saying there is a covenant between me and you as there was between my father and your father I'm sending you silver and gold go break your covenant with Basha king of Israel that he may withdraw from me and Ben-Hadad listened to the king Asa and lo and behold Ben-Hadad now attacks the one with whom he had a covenant because he breaks that covenant he attacks the north he attacks Basha and Asa has his problem solved that's it but Asa how could you do this why didn't you consult God you did it before God was faithful now you not only have a treaty with a heathen king that's bad enough but you robbed the treasures of God from the temple you took the gold and the silver from the temple you desecrated the temple to buy this guy off and to bribe him into your deal Asa what is this and if we had a conversation with him he'd say well I made a deal with the devil until I got across the bridge I needed to do this given the situation and you know what before you criticize me it worked okay all right Asa Asa crooning with Frank Sinatra I did it my way all right well God isn't too happy it says in verse seven at that time Hananiah the seer that means the prophet he came to Asa king of Judah and he had a speech these these prophets all how they would ruin people's day you know it's just like some preachers today they just ruin people people learn to live with their guilty consciences and then these preachers come along and they preach on topics like that and they stir up all this guilt and they tell people to seek God when they're perfectly content not doing so these people are really really miserable people these prophets these preachers all right now because you relied on the king of Syria and did not rely on the Lord your God the army of the king of Syria has escaped you that's true but we're not the Ethiopians and the Libyans a huge army with chariots and horsemen and yet you depended upon the Lord and God gave them into your hand verse nine for the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him you have done foolishly in this for from now on you will have wars you trusted in a pagan king rather than God if we were to talk to Asa and say why did you do it I know that he would either say would turn out probably to be either because of pride or despair either pride that says I can handle this on my own or else despair you know this business of calling on God and seeking him sometimes he's so slow to answer and furthermore what if God gives me an answer I don't like so what I'm going to do is I'm going to do it my way I'm going to do it quickly and it works well let's read how he ended because he followed the Lord with a whole heart he now follows the Lord with a half heart and finally he dies with a stubborn heart verse 11 the acts of Asa from first to last are written in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel in the 39th year of his reign he was diseased in his feet and his disease became severe yet even in his disease he did not seek the Lord but sought help from physicians well that might be okay to go to a physician but the emphasis on the text is he went only to physicians and wouldn't call on God he says I did it this way and I'm sticking with my game plan and he would not repent now why do you think that Asa having made his foolish decision when the prophet came to him why didn't he say I'm as guilty as sin I'm going to turn to God now I'm going to seek God I'm going to go into God's presence and say God really I need you forgive my stupidity and my sin and I'll do whatever you ask as far as possible to make things right why didn't he do that well a couple of reasons first it's difficult to repent of something that worked out so well after all it worked you know what happened Ben Haydad came against Basha and took care of him basically and Asa's at peace you can't argue with success yes of course there was deceit in this business deal but look at this the company is prospering and families are being fed because of the work that's there and so you have to look at the big picture after all it's working you remember Moses the second time God says Moses I want you to speak to the rock don't smite the rock and Moses was so angry he just said here now you rebels and he struck the rock and water came God says you know you disobeyed me you're not going into the land and Moses argued with God on a number of occasions about it and after all aren't you interested in getting water everybody the whole multitude thought that Moses was a hero everybody was drinking water you can't argue with that can you how am I going to repent of something that turns out so well sometimes in an overabundance of grace God will take even a foolish decision a sinful decision and some good consequences may flow from it another reason that Asa possibly didn't repent is he's thinking to himself you know this decision has ramifications beyond me what am I supposed to do now am I supposed to go to the king Ben-Hadad and say hey Ben-Hadad you know that contract we had hey it's over and then try to get this pagan king to give him the money back are you kidding pagan king isn't going to do that so you see it's so entangled it's such a mess it worked and it's a mess let's just let it go so he dies stubborn God says Asa I'm going to get your attention I'm going to give you a disease on your feet so that you you remember me up here you know I mean only desperate people pray I'm going to make you desperate but the text says that even though his pain was severe he repented not that's the way he ends on the pages of scripture now this is a difficult message to preach I woke up early in the morning thinking about it and saying you know the problem with it is this is a series of messages on making the best of a bad decision so I should have entitled this making the worst of a bad decision this is the worst that you can do when you're in a mess to maintain the direction you're going no matter what well you know this is Pastor Lutzer I have to tell you from my heart to yours that all of us wish that we would run to the finish line without tripping but the simple fact is so often we stumble in the Christian life and tragically as we learn today some people stumble near the finish line and even in the midst of that kind of failure we always have to point to God's forgiveness and grace too bad that Asa didn't accept that forgiveness and grace before he died but you and I can we're making available to you a book I've written entitled making the best of a bad decision now this book was written to show that you haven't made the worst decision that has ever been made that honor belongs to Adam and Eve but it discusses issues regarding marriage regarding finance regarding such things as your vocation but also giving you guidance to make good decisions for a gift of any amount this book can be yours and before I give you the info I want to thank you so much for the many of you who support this ministry it's because of you we are in more than 20 different countries in four different languages and continuing to expand well I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because you can write this down go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com or if you prefer you can call us at 1-888-218-9337 remember the name of the book making the best of a bad decision you may think that you don't need it but I'm sure that you know someone who would be blessed if they were to read it go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 thank you so much for joining us today and we trust that God will continue to help us as we help you run to the finish line. Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life accountants and executives are familiar with what if analysis making projections based on various variables one listener is concerned about a possibility that might occur in the life to come he asks did not God create Adam and Eve with the intent that they would live eternally but then they messed it up what if we get to heaven and somebody sins do we have to start all over again very good question I'm glad that God has given us human minds that try to probe all of these things couple of comments first of all yes I do think that if Adam and Eve hadn't sinned they'd have lived forever because you see death came as the result of sin so they'd have lived forever in paradise what that would have looked like I have no idea whether or not they would have had children apparently they might have and those children would live forever but we can hardly even get our minds around that the fact is they did sin and then they were barred from returning to paradise but with regard to your second question if when we get to heaven and somebody sins what happens then I don't believe that anyone is going to sin in heaven for starters we're going to have a new nature and that new nature will want to worship God it will not have any sinful desires furthermore it seems clear that the angels that did not sin were prevented from sinning because of a divine decree you know the apostle Paul speaks of the elect angels and we are the elect and because we are elect God will preserve us for ever so I don't think that you have to fear any sin in heaven but thanks for writing and God bless you thank you Dr. Lutzer if you'd like to hear one of your questions answered you can just go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337 that's 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us at running to win 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614 it's sad when our finish lines are marred by the consequences of bad choices next time lessons we can take home from King Ace's failure to finish his race of life well for Pastor Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.