If you'll turn with me to the book of Judges chapter 17, Judges chapter 17, and we're going to be looking here at most of the rest of this chapter because there's most of it, it has to do with the same thoughts. So let's begin reading here with verse, let's just read the chapter, and then we'll pick up some of the thoughts that go through here. And there was a man of Mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah. And he said unto his mother, the 1100 shekels of silver which were taken from thee, about which thou cursest and speakest of also in mine ears, Behold, the silver is with me. Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son. And his mother said, blessed be thou, the Lord of my son. And when he had restored the 1100 shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the Lord from my hand for my son to make a graving image and a molten image. Now, therefore, I will restore it unto thee.' Yet he restored the money unto his mother, and his mother took 200 shekels of silver and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image, and they were in the house of Micah. And the name and the man Micah had a house of gods, and made an ephod and a teraphim, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest, In those days, there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And there was a young man of Bethlehem, Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. And the man departed out of the city of Bethlehem, Judah, to sojourn where he could find a place. And he came to Mount Ephraim, to the house of Micah, as he sojourned. And Micah said unto him, Whence comest thou? And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehem, Judah, and I go to sojourn where I may find a place. And Micah said unto him, dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I'll give thee 10 shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and your food. So the Levite went in. And the Levite was content to dwell with the man, and the young man was unto him as one of his sons. And Micah consecrated the Levite, and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah. Then said Micah, now know I that the Lord will do me good, seeing I have a Levite to my priest. We'll stop there at the end of that chapter and we'll go back. I want to pick up a few things out of this chapter. Most of this is going to be considered as just one thought. You know, as I was considering this, I find that there's probably two major themes in the scripture about the subject of religion. This is one of them. And we find that this kind of religion never has a bottom to it. It never stops going downhill. It never ceases to go against the word of the Lord. And then we have what Christ does for his people. When he saves his people, his lost sheep, and gives them that much needed new birth in that great work of salvation and causes them to have biblical repentance and faith. They can never do what Micah did. They can never go back. They cannot re-adopt this. This is just so contrary to the salvation that God gives to his people, is to go back on it. So we're going to look into the scriptures at this, but the first thing I'd like to look at is, as we look at this about Micah, in verse five, it tells us these words. He had a house of gods. You know, as we follow this, there's just a general outline of how he went downhill. He has a house of gods. He made an ephod. He made a household special god to him, a This household God was, and I can just hear him saying, this one is much better than all my neighbors have. Now, most of his neighbors had household gods too, but this one was much better, you know, and he consecrated one of his sons as his priest. Now we find out in the scriptures that only God can truly consecrate a priest. Now he did it in type, shadow, and picture with the tabernacle and with the temple. We find that he spent a lot of time instructing Moses on the clothes that the high priest and the other priest were to wear. Spent a lot of time in consecrating that priest. And yet we find that those only represented the true high priest consider the apostle and high priest of our profession, Christ Jesus the Lord. So they just represented, they pictured, they typed, they shadowed this great one, the true high priest, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now we find here that Micah, a man, an Israelite, took his own son and consecrated him, which was so contrary to the word of God and contrary to the rules of God with regard to a priest. Now that same thing continues to happen today. We have people who will bow to a priest. You know, I know a lot of Baptist preachers that just love it when they're treated like a priest. Oh, everybody comes to them with their prayer requests. Everybody comes to them with this or that, and they just treat them like a priest. Well, our great high priest is Christ, and he's the only one that can take care of those issues that we need taken care of. A man cannot do anything for us in the sense of forgiving our sins, putting sin away, taking care of our prayers. or anything like that, so we find that that so often is just a sham that is put before us. And we find that this Micah, he consecrated his son, and not one of the steps that Micah did ever got him closer to God. Now we read there, and we spoke a little bit about it last week, about there was no God in Israel. Every man did what was right in his own eyes, because there was no God. Well, we found out that God was there, the true God was there, and he brought in judges and raised up judges and caused them to have their power and caused them to have their ability to overthrow the enemy at the time. So God was there, he reigned, he ruled and reigned, just like he does today. But to many people, it doesn't look like that is happening. It just breaks your heart when things happen in people's lives that cause crisis. And then you find out a little niche there about maybe this is the reason for a crisis. Well, that happens all the time. The reason for a crisis is our own betterment and our own spirituality and our own trust of Almighty God. So he goes on here and we find that what he had to do was absolutely contrary to what the Bible had to say. Turn with me if you would over to the book of Exodus chapter 20. The book of Exodus chapter 20. In Exodus chapter 20, the Lord is sharing with Israel, and Micah is one of those. It's generations later, we understand that. But here we find in the book of Genesis, or excuse me, Exodus chapter 20, Exodus chapter 20, and there in verse four, Exodus chapter 20 verse four, the scriptures share this, thou shall not make unto thee any craven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me." So do not make any image whatsoever. And here we find that he has gone from one image household of images, a special house image. He has made an ephod, he has made a teraphim, and now he invites his son to be the priest. There is no stopping in this direction. There just goes down and continues to go down. And the final part that we read about was that he had a Levite come and visit him. Now he's not out looking for a Levite when a Levite happens to travel in his direction. But before we get there, the law is not our rule of faith. It's not our rule of life. But the Holy Spirit will never ever lead us contrary to the law. He will never ask us to bow down to an image. He will never ask us to go to another priest besides our Great High Priest. He will never ask us to do anything and lead us to do anything that is contrary to His Word. The Holy Spirit is bound by his very position, by being God, to lead his church, his people, in the way that is spiritual. So he didn't lead Micah to do this. He did not lead him to make an idol. He did not lead him to make several idols. He did not make him build an altar for these idols. He had nothing to do that. We find out that Micah was doing that from a natural state. And we just find out by nature, we are led to worship anything. Now there was a whole bunch of people in Israel that worshiped a small G-O-D, even under Moses. There was a whole host of people that we find that they died in unbelief because they were worshiping a small God. They were not worshiping Jehovah. They were not worshiping God of the heavens. They had not seen him. They did not hear him. from a spiritual context. We find that as we see here that Micah expected a special blessing for hiring this Levite. Did you notice, going back over there to the book of Judges chapter 17. In Judges chapter 17, did you notice that last verse? Judges chapter 17 and verse 13, Micah is sharing with us that he believed that there was a special blessing that he had. What's it say? Then said Micah, now know I that the Lord will do me good. What was this Levite priest to him? A rabbit foot. That's all he was. And what was the temple, excuse me, the tabernacle to a whole bunch of Israelites when it came time to go to war? Surely if we take this tabernacle, not the tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, surely if we take the Ark of the Covenant into battle, God will honor us. Well, God didn't honor them. And he's not showing any mercy to Micah. Micah assumes, now know I that the Lord, and that's that word Jehovah again, will do me good seeing I have a Levite to my priest. Now he is saying, probably I would not have received this kind of blessing if I had just kept my son. This Levite came, and he is a Levite, was the tribe that these priests were to come out of. So we have this man, Micah, is bragging on and thanking God for the Levite that he has, and he has no interest in worshiping the God that the Levites represented any time. To many religious people, They elect a president. You know, it's amazing that a religious group would elect a president, and most people have more respect for that president of their religion than they do of God himself. I was looking today online. You can find anything online. But the Islam people, who do they worship? Muhammad. They worship a man. This guy, Micah, was worshiping a man. Now that man was his image. And you know, it's interesting as we study about idolatry in the scripture, that everybody wants to worship someone that represents them. A man. They want a man to do this. And we find that that king that we read about last Sunday, Manasseh, he had his children represent him. as he went through sacrifices. He had human beings represent him. And how natural man wants somebody to represent them, even though they are not a true believer, they don't have any idea what the gospel is about. And we go to Japan and we find out there's a man by the name of Buddha, then they worship his image. So they want men. We have this natural instinct not only to have idols, but to have a natural person. a being, a being like us. And that's what God had against Israel. I am not like you are. I'm not a man as you are. I don't think like you do. I don't do as you do. And we're thankful that the God of heaven has revealed himself as almighty God and that his ways are past finding out. and that he does not represent us as a man in the sense that a sinful man. He represents us as the perfect man. He's the one that went to the cross, the perfect man, without sin, without anything. And so that's who God's people worship is this perfect man. We notice that in the scriptures, turn with me if you would to the book of John. As we think about this, the examples that are found in the scriptures that are much like Micah. Micah was an Israelite. Micah knew something about worship. Micah had relationship with people that had worshipped. And he goes downhill from his position. He goes downhill and continues to go downhill. And he thinks he's doing himself and God a service. And he recognizes the fact that God will really bless him now because he has a Levite as his priest. Well, turn with me, if you would, to the book of John chapter 6. In John chapter 6, we have these words about those who were believers. Same word is used here as we find in other places about believer. In the book of John chapter 6, but a believer, one that God has given belief to, will not do what these folks did. God's people cannot go back. He has, as Mike mentioned on Sunday, grafted. There is a graft. We've been grafted into Christ. We cannot leave that position. We don't want to leave that position. We want that stability. So here in the book of John, we have a group of people beginning with verse 16. This whole chapter is filled with these things about Christ and who he is and who he represented himself to be before all those folks. And that's what they did not like. The children of Israel did not like a God that ruled and reigned. They wanted a God that could be manipulated, and that's the kind of God that we wanted in our natural state, and that's the kind of God that the world wants, is a God that can be manipulated. Now this God of heaven cannot be manipulated, and he's not gonna be bargained with. Here in the book of John, chapter six, verse 60, many therefore of his disciples. Now that's an important thing. Many of his disciples when they heard this, now they had been following Jesus and we know why. They liked his bread. They liked his fish. We know why. Physical blessings. This idea of the gospel that is prosperity is not new. Prosperity gospel is old. If you serve the Lord, He will take care of you. If you do this, God will take care of you. Well, these folks had been following. Now we know that there were at least 5,000, because that's the number of men that were following. And it says they were disciples. And when they heard this, they, this is a hard saying, who can hear it? What did he do? He preached Christ. That's all Christ was preaching was preaching Christ. Then Jesus knew in himself that his disciples murmured at it. He said unto them, doth this offend you? This great host of people that were following him said, this is a hard saying. And he said, are you offended by this? What and if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend up where he was before? It is the spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing. And we can just take that right over to Micah. It was not the flesh that gone to profit him. It's the spirit. The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you that believe not, for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were. Now out of the 5,000 men, he knew exactly who were his. He knows his, he doesn't have any trouble distinguishing his. Even his lost his, he knows them. His saved his, he knows him. The ones that have died, he knows them. The ones that are yet to be born, he knows them. He has no problem with that whatsoever. So he says, I know that a whole bunch of you don't know the first thing about what I'm talking about. Therefore said I to you that no man can come to me except he were given unto him my father. You know what he did for them? He took away all their power. He took it right away. They were just like natural man thinking they were in charge of their salvation, just like Micah did. He thought he was in charge. And when that Levi came to his door, invited him in, he says, no, my goodness, God's gonna bless me now. I've got a Levi. Well, these folks thought they were being blessed. And he says, no man can come to me except the father it be given unto him of my father." Salvation is in the hands of God. It's not a plaything. It's not just something laying out there that you pick up on the ground. It's something that's revealed. From that time, many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him. Did you notice his disciples? Those that had been following him. Now, you know what they did? They went and found their idols. They went and found their ephods. They went and found their teraphims. They went and found a Levi. They went somewhere else. They were not going to stick it out with the Lord Jesus Christ because they didn't know him. They are called disciples, but they were prosperity disciples. And as soon as the prosperity broke down, they left. Now, we're going to come back to verse 67 in a minute, but would you turn with me over to 1 John chapter two. 1 John 2. In 1 John 2, we find here that there are those who say they are of Israel, Christians, the church. They say that, but notice here in 1 John 2, the Apostle John sent out a warning. 1 John 2, verse 18, we find this, this is This is Micah there in the book of Judges. This is a whole host of folks that were in Israel at the time of Joshua and Moses and Aaron. This is a whole bunch of folks that have been down through time, that have named the name of Jesus, but have no idea who he is. They have a priest, a Levite priest. They have somebody that they go to, somebody that they bow down to. It might be their son, and it might be a Levite priest that came along. It doesn't matter. Here it tells us in the book of 1 John 2, verse 18, little children, it is the last time. And as ye have heard that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many Antichrists, whereby we know that it is the last time. It's the last time when there are antichrists. And we have had antichrists since this time. All down through time there have been antichrists. Now it tells us in verse 19 an issue. They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have no doubt continued with us. So we find that the Apostle John is led by the Holy Spirit to leave us a very clear message. You cannot go back unless you have never been there to begin with. if they had really known Christ. Now, it doesn't mean they had to like the preacher all the time, and it doesn't mean they had to like the deacons all the time, and it doesn't mean they had to like the things that were going on all the time, but nobody is going to leave over the gospel. They're not going to. It's not going to be a gospel issue. The gospel is so clear, so plain, and people who know the gospel are not going to leave over the gospel. It is not a gospel issue. Now here they left. They would no doubt have continued with us, but they went out that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us. So they left. Now, people may move off. People may go to another church. I know this. that people that go to another church who say they know the gospel are going to find a gospel church. They're not going to find some hole in the wall that doesn't believe anything. It's an identification that they never knew the gospel. You cannot put up with that stuff. You can't bow to that stuff. You cannot have a Levite come along and say, oh, God's gonna bless me because of this. I'm gonna change the church from the inside out. It's not gonna happen, never will. And so here we have people that say they believe the gospel, here right here in the book of John. They left, but when they left, they didn't go try to find some place that believed the gospel. They left and started their own work. And you know what they did? They built them a shed and put some idols in it. Now they may not have been graven idols, but they found something that they could worship more than they could worship the gospel. Or they would not have left. They built a shed. They had their idols. They had their priest. Everything's going fine. We left them because there was only one thing they ever said. Is that all you're going to preach? You know, we're getting into Acts chapter eight. And you know, there's gonna be, this is breaking in on this Sunday's lesson. The persecution that went on under Saul of Tarsus, I cannot imagine it. I mean, people were terrified and left Jerusalem and were scattered all abroad. And you know what it says down at the bottom of that verse? And they preach Christ. They carried the word. So that's why that happened. Well, here we have those who left, but they didn't take Christ. They took their idolatry, they took their foolishness, and they went on. And the apostle John brings this subject up because it is a subject. If they leave and don't go to a gospel place, a gospel church, there is a problem. They never knew the gospel to begin with. Now we may go somewhere and we stay there for three or four months and find out, you know, this place isn't preaching the gospel. I thought they were, but they're not. I'm gonna leave this place. It just doesn't work. All right, turn with me if you would. to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8. Micah is just a representative of the thousands and thousands of people that were in Israel in his day. and the millions and millions that are in the world today, just a representative. And we're going on into chapter 18, 19, 20, and 21, representative of natural man, just religious, but having no relationship with the God of heaven. Here in the book of Luke chapter eight, Luke chapter eight, we read this, Luke chapter eight, verse 13. They on the rock, are they which, when they hear, receive the word with joy, and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away. Now, I didn't look up what that word temptation means, but when the trouble came along, and time of temptation, they left. Now, My uncle passed away years ago, just after Nancy and I were married, and Nancy and I went over there for the funeral, and Sunday we're going to a false church, I apologize. Didn't know any better at the time. And my mother's not getting ready. And I says, Mom, aren't you gonna go to church? Oh my, no, I couldn't go to church today, couldn't go. Uncle Henry just passed away and I, you know, I thought about that even in religion. If you can't go to church when you have a trouble, when you have an issue, when you have a problem, when someone dies in your family, then when can you go to church? Anyway, now the only group, if we back up the only group in this parable, that had any hope whatsoever was the seed that fell in good ground. God had already prepared it. God worked it over. God made it feral. God did all that was necessary. Someone preached the gospel and God did the work and there was fruit nowhere else in that parable, whether it's among thorns, whether it's on rocks, wherever it is. They had no interest in it and they all left because they had no, one verse there says they had no root in themselves. Well, I'm thankful that my root is not in myself. Now in myself, the root that I have is not anything, but the root we have in Christ is everything. John chapter six, let's go back to the book of John chapter six. In John chapter six, we read this. I told you we were going to go to this passage of scripture because the Lord Jesus immediately turns to his own disciples after the whole host left. I remember hearing a preacher said, you didn't see Jesus going after them because what we're going to miss that tithe. He'd let him go. He just let him go. All right, here in the book of John 6, verse 67, we read this, John 6, verse 67, Jesus then said, Jesus, unto the 12, he gets very pointed, the 12, his disciples, his ambassadors, and he says, will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. Now, they were just not infants. They'd been around the block and they had heard a lot of stuff in growing up. They had been to their Sabbath schools. heard the religious leaders of the day. And they had heard the Bible, the Old Testament read. That was just as common to have the Old Testament read to them and taught by somebody. But when it was appointed by God to save their soul by his grace and to reveal Christ to them, they had this, where shall we go? We can't go back over there. We can't go back to the temple. We can't go back to the Jewish religion. We cannot do that. You have the words of what? Eternal life. So they were convinced of this. And even though all their aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and friends left, they stayed with the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, even one of those, was appointed to say, it's not worth it, I'm leaving. And he did, but he was divinely appointed to do that very thing. In verse 40 of this chapter, would you turn with me there, verse 40? This is the promise that God gave to every one of his sheep. Here in the book of John 6, verse 40, and this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. This is the promise God gives to his people. Now, we find that the people, Christ's disciples, his church, cannot. Now there's going to be some that have the outward appearance of the church are going to leave, but his people cannot leave. They are grafted to him. They are tied to him. They are part of him, and he is not going to lose one of them. Now He's going to give them a mind to love Him. That's what part of the everlasting covenant is. They shall be my people. I shall be their God. They shall love me. Now there may be days that we say, I don't think I love Jesus like I should. Absolutely. But aren't you glad that He loved us before we first loved Him? And He takes care of that whole issue for us? Well, It goes on here in the book of John back up to chapter 5, if you would. John chapter 5. John chapter 5 and verse 24. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life. All right, we have to deal with a question. What about all those folks that we've known over the years that said they loved the gospel, and they loved the Lord, and when it came down to identifying themselves with it, they left. What about them? I am convinced that the Bible is very clear on what about them. I believe what John had to say in 1 John. They would not have left if they had have believed the gospel. And since they did not believe the gospel, they left. And it wouldn't have done any amount of encouragement to stop them. They had their mind already made up. And they left. In the book of Joshua, well, before we get there, let's go back to 1 John chapter 5. Somebody may say, well, you just don't know their heart. You just don't know their heart. Well, we know pretty much about their heart. If they don't love Christ, and don't love the Gospel, and don't want to be around the Gospel, then it's a pretty good indication that they don't know the Gospel. Alright, 1 John, chapter 5, verse 11. This is the record that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath life. He that hath not the Son hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God. And this is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us. When we come to him, Lord, in your will, we pray. He hears us, what a blessing that is. And now, going over to the book of Joshua chapter 24. Joshua chapter 24. Joshua's coming to the end of his life, and he's asking a question. Joshua chapter 24. Joshua chapter 24 and verse 15. He asks a question here about serving. Now the only thing he can answer for sure about this. He said in Joshua 24 15, and if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord. Isn't that interesting? if it's an evil thing to serve the Lord. Well, we get over there to the book of Judges and we find a draft of people found it is an evil thing to serve the Lord. So they worshiped their idols. They built their idolatry places, their sheds for them, got all the clothes, made their son a priest, came in, naya, naya, naya. And then lo and behold, a traveling priest came through, a son of Levi. What are you doing? I don't know. I'm just going around, wandering around, trying to find someplace to live. I'm homeless. And Micah said, you know what? I'll give you three cents a day if you come in and be my priest. And you know what that priest or that Levi did? Hallelujah. I knew the Lord would bless me. All right, here, if it seemed evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood. Now who is that? That's Abraham. on the other side of the flood, the other side of the Euphrates River. We find this earlier in his words. Served there on the other side of the flood are the gods of the Amorites. Who is Micah serving? The gods of the Amorites, Hittites, Hivites, Jebusites, all of those folks. And it brings it out in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, We will serve the Lord. Now, he can only truly answer for one person. We pray it for our family, but we can only answer it for one person. As for me, I will serve the Lord. And by the grace of God, Joshua served the Lord all the days of his life. You know why? He had another spirit. He had a regenerative attitude. God had given him grace. And then if you will turn with me, a child of God cannot apostatize. They're just impossible. There's several verses there in the book of 1 John and 2 John about if we are his, we will not sin. That really means we'll not apostatize. You just will never go back. You can't go back. Paul never went back and accepted the religion of the Jews again. In fact, he preached against it. He said, that's dumb. Well, here in the book of Hebrews chapter nine, Hebrews chapter nine, here's why. I could not tell you how many mamas have come to me and said, you know, my child made a profession of faith when they were, and they've just got away from the Lord. It's been 50 years. That's too long. That's just too long. No. Here in the book of Hebrews chapter nine and verse 26, A believer cannot apostatize. For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world. But now, once in the end of the world, hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. Now the people he put away sin for, he's not going to lose. He's too invested. A whole bunch of people are like Micah. I've got my religion. I'm happy with it. And that religion continues to go downhill. Oh, my. Bragging rights are given and everything else. I know. I've been there. I've been in it. I know what it is. I'm thankful to God Almighty that He revealed His Son in me, gave me faith, gave me blessings of salvation. And you know what? I can't go back now. I go to a funeral and hear it and I get sick. It just can't handle it. I just, I just don't go because I can't handle that stuff. I love to visit with folks one-on-one. about this. I was thinking this afternoon about a young man I got acquainted with here in town, a young preacher. And one day he told me, he says, Norm, I used to believe just like you do. But I found out it's wrong. And I said to him, you'd never believe just what I do. Because if you'd have believed it, you'd have never left it. Let's stop there for tonight.