Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 06 – Sep 1986

 

Get Off The Fence

 

Sermon by Rev. W. Wiersma on 1Kings 18:21

Reading: John 6:53-69

Singing: P.H. 188, 350, 407, 484, 188. 12367

 

Dear congregation of God's people who bear the sign of God's Covenant.

How was it that the Israelites, who as you know were God's chosen people, how was it that the Israelites got involved with Baal worship which was directly contrary to what God had taught His people in His Word?

And how was it that these Israelites, these people of God, actually thought that they were worshipping the Lord their God by way of this Baal worship?

How was it that they, using Baal, thought that they were worshipping the Lord God who had brought them out of the land of Egypt, and into the Promised Land?  How is it, in other words, that the people of God can get involved with ideas and practices which are directly contrary to the will of God and still think that they are doing God's will?

And there are thousands of people like that, who sincerely believe they are worshipping the Lord God while at the same time involved with ideas and practices which are clearly contrary to the expressed will of God.

Now in the case of Israel, in the time of Elijah, the slide into idolatry is not hard to find or to trace.  You see, what happened to Israel was that, after Solomon, the great king who built the temple under the direction of his father David, after Solomon had died, the kingdom of Israel split into two.

Rehoboam the son of Solomon got the southern part of the kingdom which was made up of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.  And that also included the city of Jerusalem.  Another fellow by the name of Jeroboam got the ten northern tribes.  And obviously, they were removed from the temple.  So Jeroboam built two other temples one in the extreme north of the country, in Dan, and one in the extreme south of his part of Palestine, in Bethel.  He set up two golden calves there where the people were encouraged to worship the Lord God, their God.

So, the people of the northern kingdom were cut off from the true temple worship and were therefore cut off from the true teaching of the Word of God which was so powerfully displayed in the true temple rituals.

And so one of the major factors which played a part in the downhill move of Israel's religion was their ignorance of God's word.  They did not know their bible.  They did not know the Word of God.  They did not know what the Lord had taught his servants to pass on to His people of every age.

And that has always played a major role whenever the church has gone downhill.  When the church moved away from the worship of God alone and tried to combine that worship with the worship of the world, a major factor has always been an ignorance of the Word of God.  There are many people who are in the church today, who have been members of a church for 20 years or more, who have never once read through the whole of the Bible yet.

Again and again, I come across people who say to me, I didn't know that was in the Bible.  Now I realise that we are all forgetful.  And I realise that we can read a passage three times or twenty times and then come along a next time and we say, Hey, I never knew that that was in it.  So there is also such a thing as growing in knowledge.  Of course there is growing in insight.

But I think we should all be aware of what the Bible teaches, both in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament.

Because if you are ignorant of the Word of God you are open to all kinds of temptations as far as taking you away from the Lord is concerned, and you will go into other religions.  The other day, somebody remarked, and I think he is quite right, how come that so many people leave the church and go to sects and what have you?  It is because they are ignorant of their Bible and they get bowled over by the sects.  Because these people come along very confidently and say, you know this.  and you know that, and our people scratch their head and say, I am not so sure about that and, O yes, I remember vaguely.  And they can't pick where these people are denying the most central truths of Scripture, like, for instance the Trinity or the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ.  And they still go along with them because they are such sincere people, and such well-meaning people.  You are open to the words of death if you do not know the words of life.

So that was a major factor in the downslide of the Israelite people, the chosen people of God, the covenant people.  Their ignorance of God's word and of God's promises.  Of course, there was also another factor.  And that was the pressure of the world.  That pressure which came specifically through one person, that was through Queen Jezebel.

Now she must have been some honey.  I reckon she really impressed the people of Israel as something real hot.

Anyway, she had a great influence on her husband Ahab.  You know when the Bible sums up the life of Ahab – and we find that in 1Kings 16 (I am reading the verses 30-33) it says:

"Ahab son of Omri, did more evil in the eyes of the Lord than of those before him.  He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nabat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Eth Baal king of the Sidonians."  (Now Eth Baal was a king but also the high priest of Baal worship in Sidon).  "And Ahab began to serve Baal and worship him.  He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria.  Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him."

You see, Solomon had also had his foreign wives.  He had also intermarried in order to gain political power: to make political alliances.

And he had built little temples for his many wives, from Egypt and all over the place.  You might say he gave them religious freedom.  Now I am not trying to say whether that is good or bad, that is not what I am talking about now.

But he gave them religious freedom and they enjoyed that freedom, and nothing happened.  I mean they kept that within their own private little circle.  But Queen Jezebel, who also had that privilege, Jezebel, was not content with that freedom.  She wanted the whole of the Israelite nation to turn to her religion.  She wanted to impose her religion upon the people of God.

‘Sounds very modern doesn't it.  The church does not persecute non-believers, and so there is religious freedom for all kinds of people today, although the Christian church had a tremendous influence on the nations up to some time ago anyway.  And there was freedom.  But people are not content to have that freedom, they want to impose their godless way of life upon everybody.

And so Jezebel went to work by persuasion and high pressure.  She tried to convert the Israelite people to Baal worship.  Going so far as to kill the prophets, and the known preachers of God's Word.

You know that when Elijah came to visit Ahab at the end of the 3 ½ years of drought, that he met with Obadiah, one of the king's servants.  Obadiah, was a fellow who had hidden 100 prophets of the Lord in two caves, and had looked after them during the drought.

And so this Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord.  And she could only do this, of course, after first softening up the people of God.  And that was accomplished by the parts of her religion that appealed to the people's material instincts.  There was something appealing about the way of Baal worship.  What happened in Israel is what we see happening in our own world today.

I think they probably also had their motto, if you enjoy it, it must be good.  And Baalism had a lot of things going for it.  A lot of things that appealed to the natural likes of man.  Baal worship was far more exciting than the old fashioned way of worshipping God.

I mean, you could have some real good orgies.  Some real grand parties.  And you could live it up, man.  You didn't have all these narrow restrictions upon you as you had in the old religion.  Think of it.  They had temple prostitutes, male and female.  All in the cause of religion.  Good for you.  And to the honour of the gods.

You did not have to worry about truth and justice, like God taught in His Word.  Take the case of Naboth, that neighbour of Ahab.  Naboth had a vineyard which Ahab wanted.  You know the story don't you?

So Ahab says to Naboth, “Naboth, I like your vineyard, man.  I would like to buy it from you.  I'll give you a good price for it.”  And Naboth said, “No thanks.  I want to keep it.”  And Ahab agrees that that was the right of Naboth.  And Ahab goes home and says, “Drat, I missed out on it.”  And he thinks to himself I can't do anything about it, I just have to accept it.  But he does not really like it.  So he sulks.  And his wife, she was a cluey girl, she says to him, “What are you so worried about?  Is this the way you play at being king in Israel?  You are a king aren't you?  Well then, can't you get a bit of garden that you want for yourself?”  So what does Jezebel do?  She says to Ahab, “Leave it to me.  I'll fix it.”  And she hires a couple of fellows to say a few things about Naboth.  And what do they say?  Naboth is guilty of blasphemy.

There is a bit of irony for you.  Naboth is guilty of sin against the religion of God.  And in the court, which Jezebel had rigged, that is the verdict.  Naboth is guilty, and Naboth is executed.

And pronto, Ahab here is your garden.  Don't worry about the niceties of what is right and what is true.  Just use your position to get what you want.  Look after yourself.  Sound familiar?

Use your power, and the influence you have... and do what you like to do, get what you like.  And if you enjoy it, it must be good.

And if you have any pangs of conscience about it, just tell yourself that there is no such thing as sin.  There is no such thing as any wrong essentially, in itself.  Everything is okay.  The only thing that is wrong is in your mind.  You have a guilty conscience because your mind is sick.

I have a nice fat book at home called "Guilt Free".  Sounds a good title and you'd think that's a book about the Lord Jesus Christ, who has come to save sinners and take their guilt away.  And now Christians are guilt free people.  Aren't we?  Aren't you guilt free?  By the death of Jesus in your place, aren't you guilt free?

If you believe in Jesus that is what you are.  Yes!

But do you know what the book is about?  That book is about the idea that there is no sin.  You are not guilty of anything.  You never have been.  You've never done any wrong, you only thought it was wrong.

It is like people being told it is wrong to eat red cabbage on Mondays.  Because you are supposed to eat that on Wednesday.  So if they eat it on Monday they will have a guilty conscience.  Some people have been told drinking coffee is a sin.  So if you drink coffee you have a guilty conscience because you think drinking coffee is wrong.  But is it a sin?  According to the Bible?  No.  Neither is eating red cabbage on Monday.  That's the kind of thing they say.  "You say adultery is sin.  No, it is not sin.  Don't be silly.  Adultery is not sin.  It is good.  You need it or the other person needs it.  Needs your love!"

You see, you can explain everything away and you can try to kill your conscience.  And everything will be alright.

Not because everything will be alright but because you have closed your heart to the Word of God, to the word of life.

And that kind of attitude is very catchy.  Look after yourself.  Make sure everything will be alright for yourself.  Of course, you may have to make a few sacrifices.  And the Baal worship expected a few sacrifices.  And again, it struck me that even that sounds very modern.  You know what they did in this particular worship.  They sacrificed children, babies to Baal.

They had this idol.  And it had arms which extended out and in which they could fit a little baby.  And they heated the idol up and the baby burned alive.

So don't feel so sorry for those prophets of Baal who were killed later on.  They were murderers.  They were the butchers of the Baal worshippers.

And there are the butchers today.  They are the physical butchers who with the approval of the worshippers of the god Pleasure, rip unborn children from the wombs of their mothers.  All okay! – according to the religion of the world.

Thousands of such murders are carried out, literally, in this country every week.  And the people of God, on the whole, we are silent (pause).

There are the intellectual and spiritual butchers who rip young minds from their source of life, and fill them with the poison of materialism.  You can imagine it in Israel can't you.  The jeer of the prophets of Baal at the people of God.  Where is your God?  Where is the God of Israel?  What has he been doing lately?  Look at all the misery in the world.  And if He is really in control and He is a God of love, how come all this misery.  Why don't you join us?  At least there is something exciting about our lifestyle.

And the people of Israel and the people of our day who have forgotten what the Word of God is really about and who are not clear about what faith in God really means, turn to the religion of the world.  And they can now say, we are with it.

Just like the people of Israel said, “Isn't that Jezebel a trendy, and we being with her, we are with it!  Man, we are there!”  They even faked a Sidonian accent just to be a bit more like Jezebel.

And God looked down from heaven and He saw His people.  And His heart bled for them because He saw the emptiness which filled the hearts and the minds of His people under the influence of Baalism.  Under the influence of the religion of the world.

Yesterday I spent five minutes reading an article on Boy George.  Not that I am so terribly interested in Boy George.  But I did want to hear what he had to say according to his interviewer.  Well, it was a load of rubbish.  Because as a man, I think he is as insecure as they possibly come.  They reckon that he changes his mind every five minutes.  He contradicts himself constantly.  Says that he has slept with men and women.  And at the same time he says that loyalty is one of his favourite things.

Loyalty.  A man like that doesn't know what he is talking about.  And he is one of the 'greats' of our time.

The utter drivel of people who have forsaken the Word of God, if they ever had it.  And now spout forth their own ideas, under the influence of managers who can only see dollar signs.

Why are so many of them on drugs and drug trips?  Because they don't know who they are, where they are going or where they come from.  That's why!

And you want to serve them as heroes?  You want them to set a pattern for your life?

The Lord is grieved to see His people hoodwinked and duped.  And he sent the prophet.  One man!

And now you can see what God can do with one man who is prepared to lay down his life.  To stick out his neck in the name of the Lord.

And Elijah says, Right, we'll have a test of who is God.  And let us say, at the outset, if the Lord is God then follow Him and forget Baal.  If, on the other hand, it proves that Baal is God, then follow Baal and forget about the Lord.  That's the issue!

Don't think that you can combine the two and have a kind of syncretistic religion of Baal and God; of the world and the Lord, of Mammon and the Lord God.  And Jesus agrees with that.  He says: You are either for me or against me.  There is no in between.

And so they had this contest.  A very simple one.  The God who gives fire to the sacrifice that we prepare, he is God.

Well, you know the outcome.  After the Baal worshippers had been frantically trying to psyche their idol up, he still remained a stone or whatever he was.  And no matter how much we try to psyche up our money or any other material thing we have got, it will only remain a dead material thing.

We might expect everything from materialism and money, and from what money can do, but money can do nothing.  We do something with money.  Money is just like gold.  It is a dead object.  It has no life of its own.

Okay, you can do some exciting things with money, can't you?  And you can do exciting things with an idol, or in the name of an idol.  But who is God?

That is ultimately the basic question, isn't it?  And then follow your conviction.  If the Lord is God, then follow Him and forget Baal.

And if Baal is God then follow him with all your heart and forget about the fancy talk about the Lord.  Well, the outcome of the contest was that the Israelites said (and we find that in chapter 18:38f):

"Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stone, and the soil and also licked up the water in the trench.  And when all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, ‘The Lord, He is God, the Lord He is God.’”

God had showed them.  They were convinced again.  And they had to admit, the Lord is God.  And then Elijah said, Now prove that that is what you believe.  He did not allow them to go home just with a slogan.  He said: Grab the 450 prophets of Baal and execute them.  Get rid of these people who have misled you.  Get rid of your false practices.  Break with the lifestyle you have been involved in.

He put their faith to the test.  Because faith is not just an idea.  Faith is not only words.  Faith is obedience to the commandments of God.  Don't say, we believe in the Lord, while you go contrary to His will.

Look, if I would tell you something and you would believe me and then simply did the opposite of what I told you, would that show that you believed me?  Of course it wouldn't.  If I offered you a thousand dollars and you would go away, and not take any notice, I would say you don't believe me.

The thing is – do we believe God or don't we believe Him?  If we believe God then commit yourself to that faith and prove it by your life.  The people of Israel said they believed in God but they still worshipped the Baals.

And when the prophets of the Lord said: You are wrong.  They said: Hmm, but they went their own way.

What about you?

What do you think of Jesus?  Is he, or is he not the Son of God, the Saviour of the world?  If he is then follow Him.  If he is not, forget about him.  But you can't have it both ways.

So get off the fence.

Amen.