Turn with me again tonight to
Judges chapter 10, if you would please. Verse 6. And the children of Israel did
evil again. The children of Israel did evil
again in the sight of the Lord, and served Balaam, and Ashtoreth,
and the gods of Syria, and the gods of Zidon, and the gods of
Moab, and the gods of the children of Ammon, and the gods of the
Philistines, and forsook the Lord and served not him." Israel served Balaam. Now, Balaam
simply means Baal in plural. Various forms of Baal worship. They served Ashtaroth. Ashtaroth
was a female moon goddess. After all God had done for Israel,
they serve a moon goddess. False religion and false worship
has a strange attraction to men and women. I talk to you often
about false religion, not to bash false religion, but to warn
you of its subtleness And it's deception. You might ask, well, why preach
concerning or against false religion when it really doesn't concern
those who worship in spirit and truth? Because the wisest of
men, like Solomon, are prone to wonder. Let me show you that. Turn with me to 1 Kings 4. or excuse me, 1 Kings 11, verse
4. I want you to see this. 1 Kings 11, hold your place and
judges, we'll come right back to it. In verse 4 we read, for it came
to pass when Solomon was old, His wives turned away his heart
after other gods. And his heart was not perfect
with the Lord, his God, as was the heart of David, his father. For Solomon went after Ashtoreth,
the goddess of the Sidonians, that same moon goddess. and after Milcom the abomination
of the Ammonites. And Solomon did evil in the sight
of the Lord and went not fully after the Lord as did David his
father. Then Solomon built a high place
for Chemosh and the abomination of Moab and the hill that is
before Jerusalem and for Molech. the abomination of the children
of Ammon. And likewise did he for all his
strange wives, which burned incense and sacrificed unto their gods. And the Lord was angry with Solomon,
because his heart was turned from the Lord God of Israel,
which had appeared unto him twice, and had commanded him concerning
this thing, that he should not go after other gods. but he kept
not that which the Lord commanded. And wherefore the Lord said unto
Solomon, for as much as this is done for thee, and thou hast
not kept my covenant and my statutes, which I have commanded thee,
I will surely rend the kingdom from thee, and I'll give it to
thy servant. Solomon, the Lord, restored Solomon
unto him before he died. But what a warning this is to
us. And that's why we talk about
the falseness of religion today. Because even the wisest of men. are prone to wonder. Prone to
wonder, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. God warned Israel over and over
and over and over again. And the scriptures warn us through
them. Now verse 6 plainly tells us
that after the deliverance of seven judges, been through seven
judges now, each time the same story, you know it well. Israel
began to worship false gods and idols and God, and they'd cry
unto the Lord, and the Lord would send a judge, and the judge would
deliver them, and the judge would die, and they'd start right all
over again. Will we ever learn? And you know,
friends, that's the story of my life, it's the story of your
life. Prone to wonder, aren't we? Israel did evil again and
again and again in the eyes of the Lord. It's every believer's
story. But it does have a good ending.
We know how the story ends. Israel served the gods, plural,
of Syria. They had several. They served
the gods, plural, of Zion. The gods of Moab, the gods of
Ammon, and the gods of the Philistines. Just like the men of Athens on
Mars Hill, they had them all covered. They worshiped them
all. As a nation, they served them
all. But the worst part in worshiping these false gods is this. It
says they forsook the Lord and served not Him. No man can have
two masters. No man can serve two gods. You'll
cling to the one and do away with the other. You'll hate the
one and love the other. You can't serve God and man,
and you can't serve God and idols. And it's evil to serve any god
but the true God, because you can only serve one. If you serve
a god of your imagination, You cannot serve God, and it's called
evil. Someone might say, I serve God.
Well, is your God the God of the Bible? People have asked me, why do
you always have to distinguish God? Can't you just call him
God? Well, it depends on who your
God is. Is he the God that this book
declares? If not, then your God's an idol.
He's a false God. David said, my God's in the heavens
and this is how I know he's done whatsoever he's pleased. He's
not trying, he's not wanting to do something. He doesn't need
man's help. That's an idol of men's imaginations.
May not be a silver and gold something graven out of a tree
stump, but that's a God nonetheless. One that you imagine right here.
Men and women make gods out of many things, but we have the
great judge. That judge that will never die. The one continually and forever,
who forever delivers us. And the idols, gods of our day
are like the idols of David's day. David said, they have a
mouth, but they cannot speak. They can't speak truth. They
have eyes, but they don't see men's sin. They have ears, but
they don't hear men's prayers. They have noses, but they don't
smell a sinner's foulness. They have hands, but they cannot
work redemption. They cannot come to seek and
to save that which is lost. They have hands, but they can't
work redemption. They have feet, but they cannot
seek to save. They have throats, but they cannot
express comfort. But our God does. David said,
they're like the men that make them. How's that? They're dead
and can do nothing to save themselves or give themselves life. A God
that cannot do whatsoever He wills is a dead God. He's a little
G God. God distinguishes in this book.
He uses that capital G when it's the God of the Bible and uses
that little G when it's an idol. Nothing more than an idol the
men have conjured up by the work of their own hands. whether silver,
gold, or a figment of our imagination. That's a God that is no God at
all, and He cannot save. That's why we declare the God,
the only true God. Look at verse seven. And the
anger of the Lord, the only Lord, was hot against Israel, and He
sold them into the hands of the Philistines, and into the hands
of the children of Ammon. Who did that? God did that. They weren't just unfortunate.
God did it. And that year they vexed and
oppressed the children of Israel 18 years. All the children of
Israel that were on the other side of Jordan in the land of
the Amorites, which is Gilead. And moreover, the children of
Ammon passed over Jordan to fight also against Judah and against
Benjamin and against the house of Ephraim. So that Israel was
what? Sword distressed. It's one thing
to be distressed. It's another thing to be sore,
distressed, pain, anguish. And the children of Israel cried
unto the Lord saying, we've sinned against thee both because we've
forsaken our God and also served Balaam. And the Lord said unto
the children of Israel, did I not deliver you from the Egyptians
and from the Amorites and from the children of Ammon and from
the Philistines, the Zidonians also and the Amalekites and the
Mayonites and did oppress you and you cried to me and I delivered
you out of their hand. Time and time again, did I not
do that? Yet you have forsaken me and
served other gods, wherefore I will deliver you no more. God once again sends bondage
slavery to Israel under a heathen nation because of their disobedience
to him in the worship of false gods and idols. Now in verse
10, the children of Israel cried unto the Lord. They said, we've
sinned against thee, we've forsaken our God, we've served Balaam. And he said, I'm done with you. But he wasn't. God has the right
to change his mind. But can we declare to the ones
that we love, I'm done with you? You have a child that you love
that causes you great grief. Can you say, I'm done with him?
You know this, I have a troubled son and I've threatened to be
done with him. And as you know, he's now in
the bonds of prison, but I love him and I can't be done with
him. But in verse 13, God said to
Israel, I'll deliver you no more. In other words, I'm done with
you. God reminds Israel of all the times that he delivered them. And in verse 14, he says, go
and cry unto the gods which you've chosen. Let them deliver you
in the time of your tribulation. Yes, Israel confessed their sin.
Folks still do today, don't they? but it's only to be delivered
from their trial and troubles. Like Israel, when deliverance
from their temporal circumstances was given, it was right back
to business as usual. They sinned again, again. See, they had no, folks had no
interest in serving God. It's nothing but what men call
foxhole religion. You've heard that terminology.
Oh, in the middle of battle when you're in the foxhole and bombs
are going off all around you, it's easy to believe God, trust
God, and ask for help, isn't it? Seems to me that just about
everyone gets religious when they're in trouble. I've experienced
that a great deal just recently. When someone gets sick, if someone
loses their job, if trials and troubles come their way, they
cry unto the Lord. Oh, brother, pray for me, pray
for me. And if and when the sickness passes or they get a new job
or their trouble diminishes, they forget the God they cried
unto. They have no interest in the
salvation of their soul. That's the issue. King Saul did
it. He told Samuel and David, I've
sinned against the Lord. And yet, It was not true repentance. Pharaoh did it on two occasions
when the hail destroyed all the Egyptian crops. And when the
Lord sent locusts to destroy the remaining, he said, I've
sinned against the Lord. And yet he just kept right on. His heart was hardened. He hardened
his heart because God hardened his heart. Judas did the same
thing before hanging himself. But his hanging himself was only
an attempt to atone for his sin. But there was no true repentance
found in any of these mentioned. And that's the case with Israel
here. And in verse 14, God says, go and cry unto the gods you've
chosen. Let them deliver you in the time
of your tribulation. The Lord is going to prove, now
listen, the Lord is going to prove the sincerity of their
repentance. And he does that with every wayward
child of God. He's gonna prove your repentance,
your sincerity. And he does so by saying to us,
if the God you're trusting in can help you, go and cry unto
them. See if they can, see if they
will. Over the years, people who've heard the gospel for the
first time, who attend a church that doesn't preach the gospel
often ask, well, should I leave the church that I attend? Well, this is where the proof
of true repentance comes. Can you stay and listen to folks
that lie on God? If you can, then you probably
should. I remember David Pleasure telling me one time, and he told
me later that he had someone tell him the same thing. But
men often ask, how do I know if I'm called to preach? And
he said, if you can do anything else, do it. But the issue is
that a God-called preacher cannot do anything else. And it's the
same with repentance. If you can sit under a false
gospel, then you probably should. But you can't if God has done
something for you. You can't hear it. You can't
tolerate it, can you? The one whom God has enlightened
and given repentance cannot and will not. If they can stay, then
true repentance hadn't been given. Many of you have left churches
for that reason. God says, if the God that you've
trusted in all these years can help you, go and cry unto them.
Let them deliver you. Let them take care of your present
trouble. If your trouble is health or
finances, then maybe the health and wealth gospel doctrine can
help you. But our real problem and trouble
is sin. All our problems and troubles
come from sin. Every one of them can be traced
back to that little three-letter word, sin. Only the true God
can grant true repentance for sin. It's one thing to, to be
sorry that you're having trouble, but it's a whole nother thing
altogether to be sorrowful for your sin. That's what Paul was
talking about in 2 Corinthians 7. He wrote, now I rejoice that
you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed. He said not that
you were made sorry. I'm sorry. Now I rejoice that
you were not Not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed
to repentance. There's a difference. For you
were made sorry after a godly manner. For godly sorrow worketh
repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. But the sorrow
of the world worketh death. You can be sorry, and yet if
you continue in your sin, it brings about death. Death is
sin's wages. So the question is, was the Lord
done with Israel? No. As we'll continue to see
in the study of Judges, He'll deliver them time and time again.
And at the same time, the Scriptures is very clear that God's Spirit
will not always strive with man. That's what He said before He
destroyed the world with the flood, with the deluge. God with some, after much long
suffering, leaves them to themselves. but not so with true Israel.
You see, he's always long-suffering with them that have a repentant
heart. The Lord here does not mean that
he was done with Israel, as we'll see, but what he's saying is,
if those gods can help you, then go to them. But you're gonna
find out they can't, not with the real problem, not with the
problem of sin. You know, if men, being evil,
know how to give good gifts to their father, how much more shall
your father in heaven give good things to them that ask? Ask out of a sorrowful and repentant
heart. Lord, help me. Lord, save me. Lord, give me Christ. No one
else can help me. The Lord said to His disciples,
will you leave also? Peter said, where else are we
gonna go? You have the words to eternal life. There's nowhere
else for us to go, no one else for us to turn to. Paul told the believing Thessalonians,
your manner of believing the gospel is proven in how you turn
to God from idols to serve the living and true God. That's the
proof in the pudding. Idols and man-made gods can't
help you. The little god of your imagination
that wants and tries to save, he can't help you. True repentance
of the heart turns to God from a false gospel and a false god. Now is your repentance worldly
or godly? Is your sorrow because you got
caught? Or is your sorrow for your sin?
That's how our repentance is tested. And this, my friends,
is the difference. It's the difference that God
makes. And He's the only one that can. Who maketh thee to
differ from another? What do you have you didn't receive?
And if you received it, why do you go as if you didn't receive
it? It wasn't anything you did. And that's the profession of
true repentance. Is that your profession? Now
look at verse 15. And the children of Israel said
unto the Lord, we've sinned. Do thou unto us whatsoever seemeth
good unto thee. Now we're making a little headway. Deliver us only, we pray thee,
this day. And we only make headway because
the Lord enables us to do. We grow in grace and in the knowledge
of the Lord, not by works of righteousness that we do. And
this is the believer's profession. Lord, we've sinned. We see that. They'd said that before. What
makes this time different? Well, this time they add, do
whatsoever seemeth good unto thee. Lord, have your way. Have thine
own way, Lord, have thine own way. I'm the potter, you're the
clay. I'm just a lump of clay. You
mold me and make me a vessel of honor, if it so please you. I need you to save me. I need
you to put my sin away. I need you to put me in Christ. This is a matter of the heart
and soul. Not just about the trouble that
I'm in. It's my sin that I need deliverance
from. Sin is the cause of all our trouble,
as I said. Man that is born of woman is
full of trouble. And man is full of trouble because
man is full of sin. Lord, if you take everything
else away from me, even my life, I need deliverance
from my sin. But whatsoever God has ordained
for us is not only right, friends, but it's good. All things work
together for the good of them, the world? No, them that love
God, who are be called according to His purpose. If you are in
that group, everything's good. Everything is good. to be found in Christ, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ. The Lord said, for I know the
thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of peace and not
of evil, to give you an expected end. What is the believers expected
end? The glory of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ. be found in Christ, not having
mine own righteousness, which is of the law, which is of doing,
but that which is through the faith of Christ. It's not our
faithfulness. We say this all the time. It's
not our faithfulness that saves us, but the faithfulness of Christ
that does. Faith is not the cause of our
righteousness. Faith is the result of God giving
us His righteousness. What really matters at the moment
of death? How much money you have? How
many material things that you possess? No. Do I know Christ? Do I have His
perfect righteousness? Is all my sin put away? Am I
perfect in the eyes of God? You know, I had an uncle that
I loved. He was just special to me. He came to all my ball
games as a kid. He used to get out in the yard
and play ball with me. And he was successful. He made
a lot of money, but he didn't know God. And when he was only
42 years old, he had a major heart attack. And my mother,
who was his sister, went to the hospital. and to see him, and
they were carrying on a conversation. And my mom told me this later.
And all of a sudden, he got this strange look. She said it was
like a look of terror on his face, and he died right there
and then. You know, I've often wondered
what he saw at that moment. Was it judgment? Was it eternal
damnation? I don't know. I've often wondered
what was important to him at that very moment. Was it his
money? Was it his possessions? Was it
how much he had accomplished? I can assure you that it wasn't.
What really mattered to us in the moment of death, the Lord
said to the children of Israel, you go and cry unto the gods
which you've chosen. Can they help you in the hour
of death? When you stand before the God, the only true God, the
living God, what can they do for you? The Lord Jesus answered
that question when he said, without me, you can do nothing. Without
me, you can't do anything. And they said, they can't help
us, only you can. You see, that's true repentance.
that we've sinned, we've brought this on ourselves. You're justified
in whatever you do to us. That's what David said in Psalm
51. He said, against thee and thee
only have I sinned and done evil in thy sight. And then he went
on to say, you're justified when you speak. When you speak against
me, you're right and you're just. You're clear, you're clear of
any wrongdoing if you would send me to hell a hundred times over. But please don't, we pray. That's
what they said. Deliver us this day. And then
they put some action with their words. Look at verse 16. And
they put away the strange gods from among them and they served
the Lord. And his soul, the Lord's soul,
was grieved for the misery of Israel. Faith without works,
faith without actions is dead being alone, James said. We're
not saved by our work, but our works do give evidence to being
saved. You remember what James wrote?
He said, If any man be a hearer of the word, and not a doer,
he is like unto a man, beholding his natural face in a glass.
For he beholdeth himself, and he goeth his way, and he straightway
forgets what manner of man he is. A sinner today, and tomorrow, everything's alright
with me and God. We've got a good thing going
on. but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueth
therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the word,
this man shall be blessed in his deed." Now listen, you won't have to
beg an enlightened sinner to come to Christ. You won't. A man drowning doesn't have to
be begged to grab a life preserver. If a man is drowning and you
throw a life preserver and say, OK, grab hold of it. If he's
drowning, he's going to grab hold of it. I had a friend who was a lifeguard
and he said that when someone is drowning, the biggest danger
to the lifeguard is them grabbing you and taking you down with
them. They're gonna hold on for dear
life, because you are their lifeline. You're a lifeguard. They're grabbing, they're clinging
on to you for life. That's what an enlightened sinner
does. They grab on to Christ and they
won't let go. They cry, I don't care how, just
get me in the boat. And I don't care how, do whatsoever
you will. That's what Israel said. Get
me to safety, Lord. Deliver me and get me to safety. Help me, save me is their cry. What will a sinner give in exchange
for his or her soul? And what shall a prophet man
to gain the whole world and lose his own soul? The sinner says,
I'll stop trying to swim if you'll get me to shore. Man-made works
religion says keep swimming. Keep fighting. Pull yourself
up by your bootstraps. Give your heart to Jesus. Make
Jesus your Lord. Rededicate your life. I rededicated my life and was
baptized so many times growing up that I'm still chapped from
it. They've never learned that without
Christ they can't do anything. Nothing means nothing, doesn't
it? It doesn't mean something. If God's given you faith in you,
He's already given you life, and it's not by your faith, not
because you have faith, but by the faith of Christ. Christ's
faithfulness. Not what you do for yourself,
but what Christ has done for you. He is the one thing needful. There's only one thing needful,
that's Christ. And Israel put away the strange
gods from among them, and it says, and they served the Lord. But here, friends, we have the
gospel. I'm telling you, it's the gospel,
as clear as it can be. Look at the last part of verse
16. It says, and his, God's soul,
was grieved for the misery of Israel. I can't get over that. We grieve over the souls of our
loved ones. Does God so grieve for the misery
of his people? That's what it says. The reason that God shows mercy
to his people is not because of the sincerity of their confession. It's due to the depths of His
love and His compassion and His mercy and His grace. It's, Ezekiel chapter six tells,
I'm gonna turn to you there. He says, you'll remember me among
the nations whether, they shall be carried captives, because
I'm broken with their whorish heart, which hath departed from
me, and with their eyes, which go a-whoring after their idols,
and they shall loathe themselves for the evils which they have
committed, and all their abominations." The Lord said, I'm broken, my
heart's broken. God's heart's broken for his
people. It's not the cause of our repentance,
Why was God so grieved here? For the misery of Israel, his
people. This is the cause of our sorrow
for sin. It's the cause of our repentance. Sin. Deliverance from our sin. Listen to Hebrews chapter three,
verse 16. For barely he, speaking of Christ
the Lord, took not on him the nature of angels, but he took
on him the seed of Abraham. That means he became a man. Wherefore,
in all things, it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation
for the sins of the people, his people, not everyone in the world,
those that he came to save. Well, what about John 3, 16?
But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting
life. Christ died for those that believe
in Him. And He didn't look ahead in time to see if they were.
He predetermined it. He predestined it. What an amazing thought. The
Lord's soul was grieved for them. How many times do we read in
the Scriptures that Christ was moved with compassion? He was
moved with compassion on his people because they were like
sheep without a shepherd. Now God can by no means clear
the guilty. I know that, you know that. His
holy justice demands payment for sin. That's what we see transpiring
on the cross of Christ. The Lord Jesus is hanging on
the cross for my sin and for your sin, those that trust in
Him. And the holy justice of God is being executed on our
sins on Him. God will not clear the guilt
in His justice being executed, is being executed fully upon
the substitute. Our Lord's not without compassion
or feeling. You know, men say, oh, if you
believe in election, then you believe that God finds some enjoyment
in sending people to hell. That's not what God Himself said. He delights in showing mercy.
Depth of mercy, can there be? Mercy still reserved for me?
Yes sirree. He's plenteous in mercy. His
mercy endures for how long? Forever. In the garden, our Lord said,
my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death. He said, now
is my soul troubled. Our Lord has a soul and it grieves
over his people's misery and sin. People say, I need some help
to get out of this trouble. Well, only God can solve your
soul trouble. Our Lord Jesus made His soul
an offering for sin. Are you troubled in your soul
over your sin? Christ is that offering. He's
the only offering. Like Peter, we say, Lord, to
whom else shall we go? There's no one else to go to.
Thou hast the words. To what? Eternal life. By His grace, I've put away all
the strange gods that once ruled me. By His grace, I've committed
my soul to Him to do whatsoever seems good to Him. That's what
Israel said. Whatever you seem to be good
or you deem to be good, we'll bow to it. Did they? For a while. By His grace, my prayer was,
my prayer is, and my prayer will always be, help me, save me,
deliver me, I pray, this day, again today. And tomorrow, it'll
be the same. And the day after, the same.
Help me, Lord, save me. Not that I'm some spiritual giant
or a great man of prayer, but I often find myself walking through
the house thinking about things and just say, Lord, help me. He's revealed to me He's the
only one that can. And I can go back to all these
other gods in my imagination and seek help, but they can't
help me. I have great confidence that
in Christ, God always will. Don't you? Isn't that why we
worship the God that we worship, the God of the Bible? We've got
great confidence in Him. And we should, He's God. He can
do anything, He can do everything. And everything that He does is
for our good and for His glory. So again, I say in closing, may
God be pleased to make it so. for His glory, our good, and
most importantly, for Christ's sake.