94-33 – The Grapes of Wrath – Part I

This sermon is Part I of the series "The Grapes of Wrath" by Dr. Chuck Betters.

There will always be a struggle between good and evil in our lives. The godly kings of Israel allowed compromise in their lives which resulted in a downward spiral through generations. The consequence of their sin is seen in their children and grandchildren. Are you willing to confess, renounce, and turn away from little areas of compromise in your life? The lives of your children and grandchildren may be at stake.

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Welcome to In His Grip with Dr. Chuck F. Betters, produced by Mark Ink Ministries. Each In His Grip message is designed to help turn your hearts toward Jesus and equip you to walk by faith. Let's join Dr. Betters as he preaches today's message.

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I am going to begin a sketch of this wonderful, wonderful book of the Old Testament. In fact, one of the most important books of the entire Old Testament is the book of Isaiah. At the time of the writing of Isaiah, Israel is divided into two states. A northern state, which was simply in the scriptures referred to as Israel, with its capital city in Samaria, and a southern state, which was called Judah, with its capital city in Jerusalem. What happened to the people of God prior to the beginning of Isaiah's ministry was a gravitation away from the centrality of Jerusalem, away from temple worship. In fact, the distinctive feature of the temple and the distinctive feature of the city or the holy city of Jerusalem was something that Israel was moving slowly away from. And we see a migration of some of the tribes into a northern kingdom, and the division of this kingdom into a northern and a southern state was something that the prophets spoke against. But nonetheless, it was something that happened. Now I want to give you an outline by way of this mini introduction to the book of Isaiah. And I know some of these details are going to seem somewhat superfluous to you, but as you study Isaiah, and I hope we'll be able to do that in the weeks and months ahead, as you study Isaiah, you'll remember some of these terms and you'll see why certain chapters are written the way they are. Let me give you a picture or an overview of the international politic that surrounds or encompasses the book of Isaiah. It gives you a frame of reference in which you can see how Isaiah was preaching and what he was preaching and in what environment he was preaching in. On the international scene, there was a political force that was beginning to rise. That political force was Assyria, a rising power that was bent on world domination. Now, under Tiglath, a very interesting character of history, who ranged from about 747 to 727 BC, Assyria was rebuilt. He won the support of Babylon and marched west, bringing Israel in the north into tribute, with his sights set on Judah in the south. So you have this power-hungry, this war-monging political leader of Assyria teaming up with Babylon that had been weakened by that time and bent on the destruction of both states of Israel, that is, Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Now his son would besiege Samaria in the north for three years. For three years, Samaria experienced what Bosnia is experiencing now, and severely weakened the northern capital of Israel. Now his successor, a commander who usurped power and usurped authority, ultimately claimed victory over Samaria, and the city itself was destroyed in 722 BC. So you see this rise of world power. His son, Sennacherib, then invaded Judah in the south. The northern tribe is in captivity. The city has been destroyed, and now the sights are set on the southern state or Judah, and all of Judah's fortified cities were captured. In his own chronicles, he wrote of King Hezekiah, who was the king of Judah in the south. He said, or Sennacherib said, Hezekiah the Jew, a prisoner in Jerusalem, his royal residence, like a bird in a cage. So here was Hezekiah and the people of Judah in the south, literally surrounded by Sennacherib, with his sights set on the destruction of the holy city Jerusalem. But he could not take Jerusalem. And the reason he could not take Jerusalem was because God intervened. He was forced then to retreat back to his city, which was Nineveh. And it is under that kind of a cloud that the ministry of Isaiah can be seen. Well, now let's move from the international scene to the domestic scene. What was going on inside of Judah? Early on, there's great prosperity. As the book of Isaiah opens, there's great prosperity, especially in the north, and equal prosperity in the south. Isaiah began his ministry mostly to the events and the kings of the southern kingdom. So when you read the book of Isaiah, he primarily is ministering in the south. The northern tribes of Israel, there are other prophets that are there. You'll see that he's a contemporary of Amos and Hosea and Micah. The four of them were prophets together, ministering both to the southern tribes and to the northern tribes. Now, as you go through the book of Isaiah, you're going to see there's a great, great distinction between his early ministry and his later ministry. During the early years, Israel is enjoying peace and prosperity. During the later years, they are virtually in exile. His preaching ministry spans nearly 60 years. Early on, there's great wealth, great prosperity, great social stability, along with some very strong faith. But later, as you see the book unfold, Judah is in decay. Judah is being oppressed. Judah is experiencing poverty. Now, after King Isaiah's death, under King Ahaz, things began to greatly deteriorate. Hold your place there in Isaiah chapter 5, by the way, and go back to 2 Kings chapter 15. Let's get a picture of the church and the state of the church just prior to its demise. 2 Kings chapter 15. I've entitled this message The Grapes of Wrath. And you're going to see that there are some very interesting parallels between the setting of the church under the ministry of Isaiah and the way in which the church appears today. I think we are ripe for judgment. I think the church is ripe for two things to happen. Either there's going to be great judgment, or there's going to be great revival. And there may be great judgment that brings us to the point of great revival. But I believe the church is ripe because the conditions are very similar to what we see happening in the book of Isaiah. But let's look at the description in 2 Kings chapter 15. Azariah, that's another name for Uzziah, that's the king who died, and then Isaiah's call to the ministry takes place right upon his death. Azariah or Aziah, son of Amaziah, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 16 years old when he became the king. And he reigned in Jerusalem 52 years. His mother's name was Jekaliah. She was from Jerusalem. Now watch this. He did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Isn't that a wonderful thing to say about somebody? Just as his father Amaziah had done. The high places, double underlined this, the high places, however, were not removed. The people continued to offer sacrifices and burnt incense there. Now, isn't it interesting in that verse? It tells us that he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, except. And it's underlined for us, it's almost as though it jumps out of the pages. It sets the stage for what was to follow. Here was a man who basically led the people of God the right way. However, he allowed little pieces of compromise, little deterioration of his value system, drifting away from the laws and precepts of God to affect the way in which future generations would have to live. So he wasn't concerned so much with what his children and his children's children were going to experience as much as he was what he was experiencing. So the stage is now set for something very dramatic to happen. Now he fought some very successful battles against the Philistines. He developed a well-trained army. He built towers to strengthen the walls of Jerusalem. But later on in his life, Uzziah violated God's principles of worship, and he was struck with leprosy. He was then excluded from the temple, was forced to put the palace in charge of his son Jotham for the last ten years of his life. And in 740 BC, he died in the very same year that God raised up Isaiah to be a prophet. Jotham, his son, reigned just as his father did. You have that 2 Kings 15? Look at verse 34. Jotham, that's he, he did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, verse 34, just as his father Isaiah had done. Now watch this, like father, like son. The high places, however, were not removed. Now that's the second time in that passage God says that. The high places were not removed. The people continued to offer sacrifices and burned incense there. Now it then goes on to tell you about one of the great accomplishments. He built the upper gate of the temple of the Lord. Now his son Ahaz, Jotham's son Ahaz, the Bible describes as a wicked man. That wickedness took two generations to fertilize. Two generations, and now Ahaz becomes the king. Is it any wonder why? After two generations of compromise, the seed of evil comes into its full bloom. Now what do we know about Ahaz? We know he burned his own sons alive. As offerings to the very, listen, to the very same pagan deities his father and his grandfather refused to remove. He burned his children alive, sacrificed them on the very altars that his father and his grandfather refused to tear down. He was absolutely obsessed with fear of the Syrians. He refused to listen to the counsel of the prophets, to have faith in God, especially Isaiah. He was especially bent on turning a deaf ear to the prophecies of Isaiah. He would even seek help from the pagan Assyrians against the Arameans and paid tribute to them in spite of the fact that Isaiah warned him against doing so. He actually would go and bring an Aramaean altar into the temple itself at Jerusalem, and eventually he closed down the temple and set up altars to the foreign gods on every street corner in Jerusalem. That's Ahaz. Look at 2 Kings chapter 16, beginning with verse 2. Ahaz was twenty years old when he became the king, and he reigned in Jerusalem sixteen years, unlike David his father. He did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God. He walked in the ways of the kings of Israel, and even sacrificed his son in the fire. Following the detestable ways of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites, he offered sacrifices and burnt incense at the high places, on the hilltops, and under every spreading tree. So sinful was Ahaz that when he died, 2 Chronicles 28, 27 tells us that the people refused to bury him where the other kings were buried. He was buried in Jerusalem, but not in the position where the other kings were buried. Why? Because he was so detestably evil. Following Ahaz, Hezekiah comes into ministry. Again, Isaiah is still preaching. So his preaching ministry is spanning all of these kings: Isaiah, Jotham, Ahaz, and finally Hezekiah. Hezekiah stands in sharp contrast to Ahaz. He was a great reformer. Chapters 36 to 39 of the book of Isaiah are devoted to his reign. He reopened the temple. On the very first month of his rule, he reopened the temple. He fought and rebelled against Assyria. And when Sennacherib invaded Judah in 701 BC, he was unsuccessful. God even extends Hezekiah's life for an additional 15 years in response to his prayers for deliverance. But here's something very interesting. His son, Manasseh, was even more wicked than any of his predecessors. So you see this struggle, this struggle of good and evil, of people who seek to be obedient to God, but allow the significant compromises into their lives that thwart them from that obedience. And for generations it comes, and you see this spiral downward, downward, downward until finally Manasseh is brought onto the scene. And tradition tells us he was the one who finally executed Isaiah. In fact, Hebrews chapter 11, verse 37, that talks about the sawing in two that the prophets endured is probably a reference to the fact that Isaiah was sawn in two by Manasseh the wicked king. Well, what about the man Isaiah himself? Isaiah is the Paul of the Old Testament. There's no other way to describe his great theological work. The book of Isaiah is a masterpiece of Old Testament theology. He knew, listen, he knew God intimately, and he obeyed him faithfully, even though the world around him was collapsing and crumbling, even though he saw the church slipping into dramatic apostasy and great evil. He understood God's will clearly, and he proclaimed it fearlessly, and eventually it cost him his life. He was a prophet, he was a prince, and he was the king of all the prophets. His father's name was Amos, A M-O-Z, not AMOS, making him King Isaiah's cousin, the first king. This means that Isaiah was from royal bloodlines. His cousin was King Isaiah, and so he began his ministry in his own family, prophesying to his own people. He was a great historian and would write the chronicles of both Isaiah's reign and Hezekiah's reign. He was a disciple maker. Chapter 8, verse 16 of the book of Isaiah would tell us that he would bind up the testimony and seal up the laws among my disciples. In spite of the very busy schedule that he kept prophesying up and down the land of Judah, he significantly made an impact on the lives of other people, his disciples. He was married with two children, and his wife was also a prophetess. We know that from Isaiah chapter 8 and verse 3. His son's names give us clues as to what the message of his book would be. The first son he names Shear Joshub, which means a remnant shall return. Now here's a picture of a people destroyed, all but a remnant. And that remnant shall return. The heartbeat of Isaiah's message would be the grace of God. That God, who could utterly destroy Judah, chose to bring them into judgment and captivity, and in so doing would preserve a remnant. He names his firstborn son, a remnant shall return. His second son's name was much more complicated, in fact, too complicated for me to pronounce here, but it means quick to plunder and swift to spoil. Now here's a picture of a two-sided God. A remnant shall return. Quick to plunder and swift to spoil. Judgment and grace. Judgment and grace. And that's the message of the book of Isaiah. Both of these themes will become evident in the book. The judgment of God and the preservation of a remnant, the triumph of grace. He would preach alongside of Amos, Hosea, Micah. So when you read those Old Testament prophets, you're reading of contemporaries of Isaiah. Just a little footnote for some of you more scholarly people. So if you study the books and you want a chronology, that's where you need to look. Well, how's the book divided? Well, the book's divided two ways chapters 1 through 39, and then chapters 40 through 66. In fact, so distinctive is that division that it has caused some scholars to say, well, Isaiah didn't write the whole book. He wrote only the first half of the book. Somebody else wrote the second half of the book. But you see, in chapters 1 through 39, we have warnings before Israel goes into exile. And the sequence of history that led to Israel's eventual exile and captivity. But then when you come to chapters 40 to 66, you have some very interesting things taking place. The prophet is looking down through heaven's telescope. He sees in chapters 40 through 55 the immediate return of the people of God. So years later, probably 40, 50 years later, the people who were returning from exile would read the prophecies, the later prophecies of Isaiah, and would receive great comfort from the promises of God. But then the book takes that telescope a little bit further. It not only looks at the immediate return of Israel from their captivity, but chapters 55 through the end of the book are what I call the eschaton. The eschaton is that section of prophecy where Isaiah peers all the way down to the end. All the way down to events that we haven't even seen yet. All the way down to the day of the Lord. So what you have in this great prophecy is a man with his eyes not only on the immediate situation that he was dealing with, but the situation of a generation to come and the situation that you and I will have to face someday. That is why there is so many great parallels in the book of Isaiah when we understand what happened to them in light of what we believe will happen to us. Learn these lessons. Now go back to Isaiah chapter 5, which is where we need to be. Isaiah chapter 5, beginning with verse 4. Isaiah chapter 5, beginning with verse 4. Now, one thing we know that the vineyard or the vine was a picture of Israel. The prophet Ezekiel would tell us that a vine is good for one of two things. It is either good to bear fruit or it's good for nothing. Good to bear fruit or good for nothing. There must be fruit. That's what the prophecies concerning the vineyard mean. There must be fruit. Fruit must be evident, or the vine is worthless and it needs to be taken out and burned up. Now at the Feast of Tabernacles, which is, I think, illustrative of the end times, at the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Cummation, the people would get together, they would gather their crop, and they would celebrate. They would sing, they would look at the grapes, they would look at the vines, they would look at the health of the vines and the fruit that was born. The vintage grapes would be gathered in because it was harvest time, the time of consummation. Well, what happened to the other grapes? They were destroyed. What happened to the unhealthy vines? They were burned up. So you have this picture of a vineyard producing vines that either are good vines or bad vines, vines that bear fruit or vines that don't bear fruit. And the people would gather together every year at the Feast of Tabernacles to celebrate the time of consummation, the time of harvest. I believe it was on that occasion that Isaiah chapter 5 opens. In Isaiah chapter 5, the prophet comes together for the purpose of singing a song. The first seven verses of Isaiah 5 are in song format. He says, verse 1, I will sing for the one I love. A song about his vineyard. Now you're sitting in the congregation. The prophet stands up and says, I'm going to sing a song. You've just brought in all of your grapes. It's the Feast of Tabernacles. It's a time of celebration. I'm sure there were people sitting there saying, Amen, sing it. I'm going to sing a song for the one I love. A song about his vineyard. That is about his church. I am going to sing a song about his church. And he says in verse 1, My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. Now, of course, the loved one is God. The vineyard is his people, his church. The hillside is where he has planted them in the world. My loved one had a vineyard on a fertile hillside. He dug it up, he cleared it of stones, he planted it with the choicest vines. He built a watchtower in it and cut out a wine press as well. Then he looked for a crop of good grapes. But it yielded only bad fruit. This song begins the grimmest section of this preface to the book of Isaiah, showing the inevitability of God's judgment to come. In chapter 1 and verse 8, you don't have to turn to it, the vineyard is a metaphor, and it is introduced to show us a remnant that God has preserved. But when you come to chapters 3 and chapter 4, we read that the vineyard has been spoiled. An enemy has come in and spoiled the vineyard. Yet God intervened to pass judgment on its behalf and against the spoilers. Now, however, the vineyard is beyond repair. This is a grim, hopeless section of total destruction that God announces upon his people. Even God Himself asks a rhetorical question that shows us the desperateness of the situation. Look at verse 4. What more could have been done for my vineyard? You see, now the loved one is talking, than I have done for it. When I looked for good grapes, why did it yield only bad? You know, when you read chapter 1, go back to chapter 1 of Isaiah. When you read chapter 1, as you're going through the book, you see sin blighted Israel's national life. Yet there was still hope. Even though there was sin in the midst of the people, there was hope. Look at verses 26 and 27. Here's the hope. I will restore your judges as in days of old, your counselors as at the beginning. Afterward you will be called the city of righteousness, the faithful city. Zion will be redeemed with justice, her penitent ones with righteousness. There's hope amidst judgment, there's hope. A hope for revival, a hope for renewal. When you come to chapters 2, 3, and 4, sin marred life's highest purposes for Israel. Yet offered to them was cleansing and a new creation. Look at chapter 4, verses 2 to 6. Even though their nation had been blighted, even though sin had marred their highest purposes, he says in verse 2 of chapter 4, in that day the branch of the Lord will be beautiful and glorious. Of course, that's referencing Messiah. And the fruit of the land will be the pride and the glory of the survivors in Israel. Those who are left in Zion, who remain in Jerusalem, will be called holy. All who are recorded among living in Jerusalem, the Lord will wash away the filth of the women of Zion. He will cleanse the bloodstains from Jerusalem by a spirit of judgment and a spirit of fire. There's the cleansing. Then the Lord will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night. Over all the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain. So you see in chapter 1, chapter 2, chapter 3, chapter 4, there's hope, even though these people had become so sinful, yet when you come to chapter 5, the hope is dashed. The hope is dashed. In fact, what we have in chapter 5 are Isaiah's grapes of wrath. The hope is taken away, and nothing is left but the gathering of darkness. Look at how chapter 5 ends. Look at verse 30 of chapter 5. This is a picture of the absolute despair in light of the judgment of God. In that day, they will roar over it like the roaring of the sea. And if one looks at the land, he will see what? Darkness and distress. Even the light will be darkened by the clouds. You see, he sings first of a friend who has made the best of preparations for this very special vineyard. He chooses the best soil, the choicest vines, carefully plants the crop, and he expected fruit. The crop was to produce fruit. So confident was he of the imminence of the fruit that he also builds a double wall to protect it from all its enemies. In fact, he builds a tower, a residence tower, where he himself would dwell in their presence so as to ensure the safety of the vineyard. The choicest vines, the best soil, the double wall, the watchtower, the presence of the gardener himself. And he expected fruit. He expected fruit. What more could he have done? Nothing. The question is: why was there no fruit? What is to be expected now that the crop is wrapped up in so much darkness? Look at verse 5. Isaiah 5. Now I will tell you what I am going to do to my vineyard. Now you don't think this applies to the church? We are called in Galatians the Israel of God. If this happened to Israel, it can happen to us. And it will happen to us. And the reason it will happen to us is because God is looking for fruit. Will he find it? This is what I'm going to do to my vineyard. I will take away its hedge and it will be destroyed. I will break down its wall and it will be trampled. I will make it a wasteland, neither pruned nor cultivated. And briars and thorns will grow there. And I will even command the clouds and forbid them to rain on it. Fruitfulness and security belong together. If only the vineyard had been faithful to the beloved's intention, no hand could have ever touched it. And as the result of their failure, the beasts from without and the external forces from without would be brought to bear, and even the owner himself, God himself, would become antagonistic to it by tearing it down and ripping away all protection and laying it to waste, even to the point of withholding rain, so that the crops will shrivel up and die. Look at verse 7. The vineyard and its stink crop is fully exposed. The vineyard of the Lord Almighty is the house of Israel, in case you didn't know that. And the men of Judah are the garden of his delight. And he looked for justice, but saw bloodshed. He looked for righteousness, but heard cries of distress. What a picture of God's total work of grace. What a wonderful picture of God's total work of grace. The Father who before the foundation of the world chooses the soil, chooses the vines, sets them aside, sends his son in the course of time to secure our salvation and inundates us with the presence and power of his Holy Spirit, who builds a double wall of protection and himself dwells in our presence as our watchtower. What more could he do? He is looking for fruit. And when the fruit is not there, he has no recourse but to judge. He has no recourse but to hand over his church for judgment, which may very well be the mechanism by which God brings revival. The grapes of wrath. Beginning with verse 8, we're only going to cover the first one here this morning. Here are the characteristics of the Church of Isaiah's day, which I believe absolutely parallel the church of our day. There is no doubt in my mind there are significant parallels in these six grapes of wrath to what we see and experience in the church today. The first one I call practical atheism. Practical atheism. Verses 8 through 10. Here it is. Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left, and you live alone in the land. The Lord Almighty has declared in my hearing, surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, and a homer of seed only an ethaph of grain. When life consists of the following of sin and denial of the living God and the reversal of his moral code, there is no stopping place short of complete devotion to self-pleasure. And that's what the church is today, devoted to self-pleasure. Isaiah's contemporary Amos would say it this way: Three sins of Israel, even four, I will not turn back my wrath. They sell the righteous for silver. They sell the needy for a pair of sandals. They trample on the heads of the poor as on the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed. Father and son use the same girl so as to profane my holy name. They lie down beside every altar on garments taken in pledge. In the house of their God, they drink wine taken as fines. Now here was the picture. Powerfully rich and influential people would annex the property of the poor. A man who had power and money and prestige in the church would look around at his neighbor who was poor and oppressed and would annex his property. Literally defraud him of his property, kick him out of the house so that he could build a bigger house. So that he could have an estate. All that mattered to them was self-advantage. The new squire would live in the middle of his estate alone in his land, while the struggling poor struggled more. Kick them out. They have nothing to offer. Kick them out. I gotta tell you something. It is not the wealth that Isaiah is condemning, it's how it was used. It is not the power that Isaiah was condemning, it was how that power was used. It is not advantage or privilege that Isaiah was condemning, but how that advantage and privilege was used. Note the end, by the way, of the land hungry. These land-hungry landlords, these power-hungry, money-grabbing landlords. Note the end, verse 9 and verse 10. The land hungry become hungry. The land that they annex doesn't bear any fruit. So they have these wonderful great big estates, but there's no fruit. They have all this property and all this power and all this position, but no fruit. You know, we have a glorious picture of that, a glorious illustration of that in the book of Revelation. Would you turn to Revelation, please? And look with me at chapter 3. A portrait of a church bathing in a lukewarmness that was rooted in what was most important to them. What do you think was most important to these landlords? themselves. Themselves. That's what was most important. Themselves. Revelation 3.14, to the angel or the pastor of the church in Laodicea, right? These are the words of the Amen. The faithful, true witness, the ruler of God's creation. I know your deeds. You're neither hot nor cold. I wish you were either one or the other, so because you're lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. Is this God talking? Is he speaking to his church? You say, I'm rich, I've acquired wealth, do not need a thing, but do you not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked? I counsel you to buy from me gold refined in fire so you can become rich. White clothes to wear, so you can cover your shameful nakedness, and salve to put on your eyes, so you can see. I want to tell you, I think that church reflected the mindset of the typical non-Christian searching for a church today. You know what a non-Christian is searching for in a church today? What is in it for me? What is in it for me? What can it offer me? But I got to tell you, I think they also reflect the mindset of many Christian people, some of whom may be sitting right here. What is in it for me? What can this church offer me? What can my faith give me? What can my God give me? What's in it for me? Me, me. Jesus would tell us in the parable of the talents that there's a price tag on this kind of thinking. You want to know what's in it for you? He says, take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents, for everyone who has will be given more, and he will have abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has, will be taken from him and throw that worthless servant outside into the darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. That's the price tag on me-centeredness. What's in it for me? Some experts say that the greatest curse on the church today is that 20% of the body do 80% of the work. Statistics show us that 10% of every church congregation, 10% of those people have the gift of evangelism. But what they fail to tell us is this that even though 10% may have the specific gift of evangelism, every single believer, every one of you who name the name of Christ are commanded, are demanded in Scripture to be a witness. Every one of you, every one of us. Where's the fruit? The failure has been that the church does not see the difference between being a witness and being an evangelist. And this has produced a guilt-ridden lukewarmness that has sickened God. And it must be addressed if we are ever going to see a revival. Let's look at some of those drops of lukewarmness. Me, me, me. Lukewarmness and the pursuit of holiness. That's one drop in that little fountain. Are you pursuing holiness? See, practical atheists do not pursue holiness. You know what a practical atheist is? A Christian who says there is a God but lives as though he doesn't exist. A believer who practically in his life acts as though God does not exist. He says he loves God. He says he wants to serve God, but practically the outworkings of his life bear no fruit. So either he's not a believer, or he's greatly deceived. Pursuing holiness. Do you know? I think it's time for adultery in the church to stop. I think it's time for gossip to stop. I think it's time for immorality to stop. The scripture commands us to pursue holiness. Christians are to become like God. We are to pursue in our character a relationship with Him that each day makes us more and more and more like Him. Practical atheists don't do that. They're more concerned with power grabbing. What's in it for me? What's in it for me? The pursuit of holiness. Do you want to know what's in it for you? Sacrifice and testing, fire and purging, satanic attack and onslaught is part and parcel to the pursuit of holiness. Second drop. Lukewarmness in the pursuit of the Great Commission. We are called to engage our culture. And God has placed every one of you in a network of relationships. Are you building lines to the people in your life who are not Christians? Practical atheists don't. They leave the Great Commission for the 10%, failing to see that God has called every believer to build relationships with the world out there. You see, we are to be driven out of our comfortableness and out of our seclusion and out of our evangelical niches and into the communities in which God has placed us for the purpose of preaching and teaching them the gospel of Christ. Why? Because they're dying and they're going to hell. They need to hear the message of hope. Lukewarmness. Thirdly, in the pursuit of a godly home. I think God is sick and tired of these bad marriages. I can tell you for one, as a counselor, I'm sick and tired of the bad marriages. I'm tired of having to go back to the same people again and again and again and tell them this is what Ephesians 5 says. This is how a man is to love his wife. This is how a woman is to submit to her husband. I think it's time you get the message. And your children. Where we've allowed them to go and what we've allowed them to do and the drifting. I think it's time for God's people to realize fully that God will bring judgment to our homes if we do not submit to the mandates of holiness God has called our homes to live in. It's about time you do something about your bad marriage. It's about time you do something about your rebellious children. It's about time you young people submit to authority. And understand that God has a plan and a purpose. You don't like this kind of preaching, then leave. Go listen to the devil tickle your ears out there. Listen to him tell you women what you're supposed to be, and you men what you're supposed to be. But don't listen to the narrowness of this book. Let him devour you. Just as Ahaz sacrificed his own children to his gods. Some of you are sacrificing your children to your gods, and they're dying. Fourth drop. Lukewarmness in the service of the body. We don't know how to work in the church. We don't know how to work. When we do work, we moan and groan and complain. We develop critical spirits. We don't know how to sacrifice. You know, that whole mindset. It pervades our culture. Look at the rich athletes. I mean, here's a guy that gets three million dollars a year to pitch 30 games for some baseball team. And if he has a little ache or a little pain in his arm or his tendon, or if there's some little glitch in his body, he says, I can't do it. Can't do it. I don't know. I was raised on the generation where Whitey Ford went out there and pitched when he was half crippled. Remember that? Some of you middle-aged people. Tell that to Warren Spawn. We got primadonnaas, they're all primadonnas. You know what the problem is? Those primadonnaas are the role models to our children, and our children think that everybody owes them a living. And they come into the church and they see the same mindset in the church. What's in it for me? When was the last time your children saw you labor for the church without complaint? And engage the church without complaint. Lukewarmness in service to the body. A fifth droplet. Lukewarmness in the pursuit of worship. How many of you have cultivated a spiritual intimacy with God? And as the result of that spiritual intimacy, this worship means something to you. Or have you just come here doing your duty? I don't know about you, but I can't wait to get here on Sundays. And part of that, I think, is because he is teaching me how to develop a spiritual intimacy that has to be expressed, it has to be shared with other believers. You see, the work out there in the field can be very exhausting for many of you. The networking that you do in the field can be very painful for some of you. And it is this time of refreshment that has to be significant in your walk with Christ. Did you prepare to worship this morning? Did you prepare? What are your expectations? What are your expectations of the body? What do you expect from the people sitting next to you? What do you expect from me? What do you expect when you come here? See, what we need to expect is to encounter God. And let me tell you something. When you encounter God, when you come face to face with a living God, eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose with a living God, self must disappear. Self must disappear. There's no room in this spirit for self and the Holy Spirit. There's no room. And when we engage Him in worship, when we come prepared, did you prepare your money this morning? Did you prepare your heart? Did you prepare your wife, your husband? Did you fight all the way here to church? Some of you fight for seats.

unknown 47:47

Ha!

SPEAKER_03 47:48

You know what I'm talking about. You fight for parking spaces. You fight for this and fight for that. Why? Because you're looking for what's in it for me. How do you know God hasn't led into this church, the last of the elect, to hear the gospel? They ought to be able to see and sense and feel that from us that we have been before a holy God and have come to worship him. Not self, him, not me, him. That we love him. And a final thought. Is there lukewarmness in the church in the pursuit of peace? Do you know how to resolve conflict? There is so much division in the body. So much division. I'm grateful that in this church there isn't that much. Not any that I know of. I'm sure there are people that are discontent with this, that, or the other thing, but primarily speaking, God has given us great peace here. But I'm talking about the body of Christ. There's so much division. The preachers are in competition with each other. I go to preachers' meetings, ministerial meetings, presbytery meetings. They're all in competition. Well, not all of them. Many of them are in competition. Big church versus small church, rich church versus poor church, young men versus old men. New wave of thinking versus old way of thinking, traditional service versus contemporary service. White versus black, and on and on it goes. There's so much division. The preaching's irrelevant. Doesn't speak to anybody's hearts. The saints are in disagreement. The buildings are not in use. The quality of ministry is second rate. And as the result, the community around us is unimpressed. Where's the Pentecostal fire? When there were no buildings, where's the Pentecostal unction of the Holy Spirit? Did a Presbyterian really say that? Yes, he did. Our focus is so narrow and so fixed on me, me, me, it makes God want to spit us out like sour milk. Why is there so much fracture? Because we have aimed our guns at each other, majoring in minors, doing it all in the name of Jesus. No longer does Satan hang us on crosses made by the enemies who stand outside the church. Instead, we hang each other on crosses crafted in meetings and gossip sessions where some of the greatest pain is felt by the saints at the hands of other saints that more than rivals the pain that the world can toss at us. I've had people tell me again and again and again I've suffered more pain at the hands of the church than I have in my conflicts with people who are outside the church. Do you have a vision for the church? Do you have a vision for where the church ought to be? I want to tell you, persecution's inevitable. Inevitable. We talk about the collapse of communism. Do you know what that's done? We think it's opened this wonderful floodgate of opportunity into Russia. What it has done is it has destabilized the Soviet states. So much so that they're looking for somebody to shoot. Listen to this. The need for trained pastors in the former Soviet Union has prompted Regent University to establish the Institute of Leadership Training this fall. Six-month course in Kiev. Now listen to what's going on. Personal testimonies, personal photographs, helps document the persecution that is going on against Christians in the Soviet Union. Brutal persecution of Protestants is increasing steadily in the former Soviet Union. A systematic cleansing of Protestants, similar to that experienced by all faiths under Stalin, could occur soon in the Commonwealth of Independent States. As order breaks down in Russia and the surrounding republics, strong men attached to the Muslim and Russian Orthodox establishments are filling the power void. In February, the Russian army formed an alliance with a million-member military organization with historical roots in the Cossack people. The groups pledged loyalty to Russian Orthodoxy and war against evangelical Protestants. The danger to foreign missionaries is great in Cossack areas. Protestantism is seen as the American plan to interfere with the sinister motive of stealing Russia from the Russians. One and a half years ago, this commentator says, I myself didn't believe this was going on. But as his organization, the Russian American Institute for Adaptation, uncovers increasing evidence of persecution, this horrible picture is forming. We have a very short time. Persecution. You've read about Rwanda? Rwanda's tribal wars has killed thousands of church members. Clergy, nuns, employees of religious relief groups have been shot, hacked, and bludgeoned to death. This month, decades old tensions erupted when Hutus acted to avenge the killing of the Hutu president of Rwanda and Burundi, whose plane was shot down. They went through the streets of Rwanda, killing, maiming, hacking, sawing people of religious conviction, people who were there serving as missionaries were hacked to death. Well, on and on we could go. I think it's time for lukewarmness to turn hot or cold. It's time for you to get in or get out. It's time for you to say, My cause is with my Jesus, or I am a child of Satan. And you need to make that choice. But you're not going to be able to sit in the middle. Notice what he said in Revelation. What did he say? I would rather you be one or the other. You are less offensive to God as an enemy of the church than you are as a lukewarm, quote-unquote, Christian. Will there be revival? Well, in Isaiah's day, they went into captivity. The grape of wrath of practical atheism was one of the foundational elements that led to their destruction. There were five more, and we'll address those in some future messages. Let's bow together in prayer.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Now may the grace of God, the love of our Lord and our Savior, Jesus the Christ, the very presence, person, and power of his Holy Spirit abide with each of you now until Christ comes again and forevermore. And all God's people said it.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

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