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

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

The Bible warns us to guard our hearts, lest we turn away from the counsel of God. King Asa was faithful to God, except at the end of his life. Sadly, his finish line was marred by the consequences of a bad choice. Today, lessons we can take home from one man's failure to conclude his race of life well.

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, your teaching from 2 Chronicles chapter 16 about King Asa of Judah and his bad choice. And you know, Dave, the tragedy is that Asa died with that bad decision on his conscience. And of course, as we know, oftentimes people die with very terrible decisions, terrible issues that have not been resolved. How much better to resolve them when we are alive? And so what we must do is to encourage people to make sure that they are in fellowship with God at all times because we don't know the day of our death.

We here at Running to Win do all that we possibly can to help all of us as we run toward the finish line. I've written a book entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision, and I want to let you know that this is one of the last days that we are making this resource available to you. Here's what you can do.

Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the book Making the Best of a Bad Decision. Meanwhile, let's learn from someone who made a bad decision and died with it upon his conscience. 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-Haddad came against Baisha 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 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. Now before I conclude today, what I'd like to do is to just simply talk to you. This isn't so much a sermon as it is a counseling session.

Pull up a chair, pour a cup of tea or coffee if you need to stay awake. And let's have a little talk about these matters on a practical level. Because one of the things that we learn is this, that the farther we go down the wrong road, the more difficult it is to turn around. The farther we go down the wrong road, the more difficult it is to turn around.

But I want to help you turn around today, but it's hard. Back in 1974, my wife and I were in northern Wisconsin with some friends in the middle of winter. And they weren't too familiar with their new house up there, but they said that there's a restaurant we'd like to take you to for dinner. So Rebecca and I, and I think we had Lori with us, she'd have been two years old at the time, and the other couple, we set out in their big green Buick. And we were going to go out for supper, zero degrees outside, and they begin going on this road to the restaurant. Mile after mile, no one else had traveled the road before, clearly. It had snowed greatly a couple of days before. The big Buick was beginning to get into the snow maybe six inches and deeper and mile after mile after mile, out in the middle of nowhere. You say nowhere doesn't exist.

It does in northern Wisconsin in winter, I can tell you. What to do? Clearly we're on the wrong road. Finally, we knew we had to turn around, no cell phones.

If people would have come looking for us, they would have never gone there. I mean, because that's not the way to the restaurant. We finally came to a crossroad and we said, life or death, we're turning around here. So, you know, he goes in and then of course he tries to back out and that heavy car just sinks into the snow like that.

I remember he told me later if someone would have come along and said give me $10,000 and I'll get you out of the mess, he said I'd have gone for it just like that. What do we do? Well, we try to back the car up. Of course, you know, it's basically stuck. I do believe that we had a shovel.

We weren't dressed very well because we were on our way in this nice, big, warm Buick to restaurant, right? So what happens is then we shovel. It isn't helping much, but I remembered, I remembered back on the farm when we were stuck. What we did is at a time like that is we put boards under the back wheels and so what I did is I went into the forest and picked up as many twigs and branches as I could carry and we laid them under the back wheel and lo and behold the car lurched back about a foot or two and we said you know what? We have a method here that if we're patient we're going to turn this thing around. An hour and a half later we were turned around going back home.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. I learned some lessons that day about turning around. First lesson is this that when you're on the wrong road, when you're on the wrong road you lose time that may never be regained. You know actually we never got to that restaurant.

We had a bowl of hot soup that tasted so good and that's it. I've never been to that restaurant. I'm sure they have, but we've never been there. So you lose time that can never be regained. Secondly, when you're on the wrong road the ruts can mislead others. Now I have no evidence that someone was misled because of the ruts that we left behind, but it's certainly possible that somebody else thought oh here's a road that goes somewhere. Tragic stories that I could tell you even this past week of somebody who got off on the wrong road year after year after year and now they have come back to fellowship with God, but all their children and all their family are still on the wrong road. Oh the impact in the lives of others when we're on the wrong road. And then another lesson, the mistake can't be corrected by taking a side road. Some people going along and they say well this is the wrong road surely but you know maybe if I turn over here maybe this will lead somewhere.

Well probably not. We could have chosen a number of different roads I'm sure and they'd have kept leading us deeper into the wilderness because if you don't get back to where you're supposed to have been it just does not work to keep going in that direction or choosing some side road which is an alternate trip to nowhere. The most important lesson that we learned is this that there is no convenient place to turn around. There's no convenient place to turn around because every place you stop there's a reason why you say to yourself I'm just going to keep going there's no use turning around. Some of you are in predicaments like that aren't you? The woman in the medical community that I began this message with there's no good place to turn around you know here I am I'm part of the establishment too that is corrupt and I've benefited from the corruption and they said that they're going to destroy me if I'm going to be honest and so you know it's you know where do you turn? Some of you who are engaged in illegal activity and you're illegal and you say to yourself I can't turn around I just need to manage my conscience as well as I can because it's difficult to turn around there is no convenient time but here's what I want to tell you every mile that we went only went meant that there was a mile to come back and eventually we were a mile deeper into nowhere. What about you? Do you think that it's going to be easier for you to turn around next month or next year or five years from now?

I don't think so I don't think so. See what the Holy Spirit has to do is to show you that today there is grace right where you are at to say I have to leave the path that I've chosen it's leading nowhere and I need to turn around specifically to turn to God. Something else and that is this the cost of continuing down the wrong road is greater than the cost of turning around. You see in the end the person in the medical community and I keep referring to that story in the end she may say to herself well you know I just need to become a part of this whole mess that I've been caught up in well the fact is this that it's terrible to live your life displeasing to God when the pleasure of God and God's pleasure should be your first priority no matter what it takes to get back on the main road. Yes of course what she should do is resign and blow the whistle to be in fellowship with God to be in fellowship with others and to no longer having to manage a conscience that troubles her 24-7. Pleasing God is more important than pleasing others. At the end of the day what you want to do is to have God's approval is it not? Finally the good news is that God stands by to help us when we truly do seek him. When we truly seek him we can take a page from Asa's life during his first 36 years rather than the page from his life during his last five years.

He died in the 41st year of his reign after 36 years of obedience. We can take a page from his life. We can say to ourselves I'm not going to die in stubbornness I'm going to be able to die in fellowship with God and respond to him and what does the text say as the prophet said to him 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. God is here today to give you strong support to do what is right. Now what I have to do you say well pastor Luther what should I do?

Well it depends who you are today because I'm speaking to two different classes of people. You've never come to trust Christ as your savior and rely on what he did for you at the cross if that's never happened believe it or not your first obligation is not to clean your life up. Your first obligation is to run to Jesus and become a child of God. That's number one it's always number one and when you do that Jesus Christ wipes your slate clean in terms of your relationship with God. Now there are other issues that will have to be dealt with in their time but the first issue is your relationship with God. Jesus died in your place so that you could be reconciled. I love to tell the story of a man by the name of Roger not because homosexuality is the only sin by no means but he was one who was deeply involved in that lifestyle and came to trust Christ as savior he had he estimated 1,500 different relationships his life had been a terrible mess but he came to saving faith in Jesus Christ and died very gloriously very gloriously what a marvelous testimony in fact I even took him to a studio to interview him to get his testimony it was so remarkable but I want you to visualize today that I have two books up here and let us suppose that this book says the life and times of Roger we open it up and it is filled with all kinds of impurity we don't even like to look at it. Let's suppose over here I have another book and it says the life and times of Jesus Christ we open it up and it is a life that is filled with beauty and obedience and loveliness and the pleasure of God rests on this life. When you come to trust Christ as savior what Jesus said is in effect says let's tear out all the pages from your book let's trash them and then Jesus tears out the pages of his book and he takes his pages and he inserts them between your covers and we look at it now and it says the life and times of Roger and we open it up there's nothing but beauty and holiness and purity in fact the book is so lovely that God adores it that is the gospel Jesus dying for us in our place to forgive us to reconcile us to God. Now once you've done that then of course what you do is you do what Asa did when you call on God and say God help me I don't know what steps to take to do what is right but now that I'm forgiven now that I have a legal relationship with you and the deck has been cleared and fellowship with you has been restored now I have to ask the question how do I live that out in terms of making the best of a bad decision how do I begin the process of making sure that my conscience is clear before God and before man and if you lay it before God if you genuinely take your hands off of it and say God this is yours you may be surprised at how God meets you. What does the verse say? The hand of God is strong toward all those who desire to please him.

Where are you at today? Let's pray. Father we pray please may we not be like Asa may we be like Asa in his first 36 years and then may we not be like him in his closing years. I don't know all the people for whom this message was intended but I know that they've listened and I'm praying that you will grant them the grace to receive you and to seek you. Before I close now what is it that you have to say to God today? What has God said to you? Not so much what I've said but what has God said to you?

You talk to him he's waiting to hear from you. Hear O Lord our prayers particularly for those who see no easy way out of a series of bad decisions. You know our helplessness you know our need but there's the promise that your hand is strong toward those who fear you. God I pray that this message may have impact tomorrow and in weeks to come. May those who heard never forget in Jesus name amen amen. Well this is Pastor Lutzer and you've heard me say it before that it is never too late to make a God honoring decision and today we come near the end of the series of messages entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision.

We've been talking about issues that are practical situations in which people have gotten themselves because of bad decisions but always emphasizing God's grace. Now perhaps you've missed some of these messages or maybe you know someone who desperately needs to hear these messages so that they might benefit from the entanglements of life. We are making this series of messages available to you for a gift of any amount and in a moment I'll be giving you some contact info but first of all I want to thank the many of you who do support this ministry. We have over 40,000 people who have downloaded our app onto their smartphones.

We continue to leverage social media, digital radio platforms and you've heard me say it before that running to win is heard in 20 different countries in four different languages all because of people like you. But we are making available as I mentioned the series of messages entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision in permanent form so that you can play them again and again for a gift of any amount. I hope that you have a pen or pencil handy because here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Now I'm going to be giving you that contact info again but remember to ask for the series of messages entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision.

Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Thank you so much for helping us get the gospel around the world. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Bad decisions bring with them bad consequences often in the lives of those close to us. Next time our final message probes what happens when we have hurt others. What to do with the messes we make in life. Don't miss our next program. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.