The title of my message tonight
is Biblical Separation. Biblical Separation. What on
earth is that? Is it separation from sinful
people, living apart from other people as many religious groups
do in communes or even individuals do, isolating themselves from
society? I think not our Lord Jesus was
commonly found in the company of publicans and sinners. Harlots
and publicans were comfortable in his presence, far more so
than the religious people among whom he lived. His biblical separation
avoiding the way the people of the world dress, dressing kind
of funny like, oddly, strange way, so that you don't look like
people in the world. I think not. Our Lord and his
disciples obviously wore the common attire of their day. The
disciples were fishermen. And you wouldn't be surprised
to see them out fishing, standing, gathering their nets with nothing
on but a loincloth. It's biblical separation, avoiding
places where ungodly, unbelieving people go. And I don't much think
so. No indication of that anywhere
in scripture. was found on Mars Hill reasoning with folks. That's
about as ungodly as you find. I recall many years ago, back
in 1972, I was over here at a Bible conference in Lexington, and
I was walking down the street with Brother Dave Collier, Brother
Brant Seekers, myself, and some other preachers, and I acted
like I didn't know what I was doing, but we walked Somewhere
downtown, somewhere down close to Rupp Arena, I forgot what
was down there then, but I wanted to get a Coke, so I walked into
a place, got a Coke, and everybody, all the preachers stood out on
the sidewalk, and when I came back out, you would have thought
I had done something horrible. I mean, they looked like, what
have you done? I'd gone into a pool hall and
bought me a Coke. And I said, what's wrong? And
they said, that's pool hall. I said, I just went in to get
a Coke. But it's a beer joint. I just went in to get a Coke.
But that's taboo, because you shouldn't go such places as that.
Is separation, avoiding the entertainment that other people enjoy? Playing
card games or watching television or going to the movies? No indication
of that anywhere in scripture. Is separation? Avoiding what
other people eat and drink. Certainly not. Our Lord Jesus
and his disciples commonly ate what was set before them and
the Apostle Paul teaches us to do so. Is it then avoiding talking
the way the people do? I take great care and I have
all my life as a believer not to use profanity, I just don't
do it. But that's not what separation's
all about. If you have to use profanity
to express yourself, your mind's pretty weak. You don't have much
of an argument. But that's not what this is all
about. What is this biblical separation? Is it living in such a way that
people look at you and say, boy, Jimmy is really a godly man.
He's a holy man. He's a man devoted to God. What
does the world know about godliness, holiness, faith, or devotion
to God? Now, I know we, Brother Lindsey
read back in the office in Matthew 5, our Lord tells us to walk
before men, let a light show, shine before men, that they may
see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven. They ain't
gonna glorify him till they're converted. That ain't gonna happen. They're not gonna look at what
you do, Our president, Mr. Bush, the former and the latter,
said, I always preach the gospel, sometimes I use words. You can't live good news, you
gotta proclaim it. That's not what this is, that's
not what this is. We preach the gospel and devote ourselves to
the preaching of the gospel. And as a result of that work,
when men are converted, they glorify our Father in heaven,
but not until then. Well, what is biblical separation? Does the Bible teach anything
about it? It does indeed. The scriptures teach us that
God's people are to be a separate people. In fact, the Bible declares
plainly that all who are born of God, all who trust the Lord
Jesus Christ, are separate. They are separate people, separated,
and separating themselves from all others. In Leviticus chapter
20 and verse 26, the Lord God declares that we who are His,
we who are His, we are His because He separated us from all others. You got your Bible there? Exodus
or Leviticus 20 verse 26. Ye shall be holy unto me for
I the Lord am holy. and have severed you from other
people, that ye should be mine. God separated us, severed us
from all of the people, making us his peculiar people, peculiarly,
distinctly his people. By sovereign election, by blood
atonement, by the special work of his providence, by irresistible
grace and calling, by his preserving us in Christ, God has separated
us from all of the people. Now, let's look and see what
he says about this. Our text this evening will be Leviticus
20, verses one through 27. So just hold your Bibles open
there. But this section of Leviticus
actually begins back in chapter 18. In chapters 18, 19, and 20,
the Lord God commands his people Israel to walk before him in
the land of Canaan as a holy people, a people separated and
consecrated to him. He is commanding us, we are God's
Israel. to live in this world today as
a holy people, a people separated and consecrated to him. In these
first five verses of chapter 18, we're given the foundation
and the motive for all that's required in these three chapters.
Turn back to chapter 18 for just a minute. The Lord spake unto Moses saying,
speak unto the children of Israel. and saying to them, I am the
Lord your God. After the doings of Egypt, wherein
ye dwelt, shall ye not do? And after the doings of the land
of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall you not do? Now that word
doings is not talking about the way they eat, or the way they
sleep, or the way they dress, or the kind of houses they live
in. We know that because of the very next line. Read on. Neither
shall you walk in their ordinances. He's talking about their religion. The things they do and call it
worshiping God. The things they do and call it
worship. Their doings, their ordinances. Verse four. Ye shall do my judgments
and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein. I am the Lord your
God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes
and my judgments, which if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord. Throughout scripture,
the Lord God constantly calls for you and me to live in this
world for his honor, for His glory to live in this world in
such a way as to honor Him in all things. His appeal is irresistible. His demands are completely reasonable
and His authority is unquestionable. His appeal is this, I am the
Lord your God. I brought you out of the land
of Egypt and I'm bringing you into your land of inheritance
into kingdom. I loved you, I chose you, I redeemed
you, I called you, I saved you, you're mine and I made myself
yours. That's his appeal. The demands
he makes is most reasonable. What could be more reasonable
than that you and I who are gods should live our lives in this
world in constantly renewing consecration to God our Savior. The most reasonable thing in
the world for you and I to do is to live day by day in constantly
renewing consecration to God our Savior. Present your bodies
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable under God, which is your reasonable
service. The most reasonable thing in
the world. The most reasonable thing in
the world. For a believer to utterly devote
himself to God. every day, all the time, in everything
he does. The most reasonable thing in
the world. Redeemed by blood and saved by
grace, I am no more my own. My life, my love, my all I give,
Savior, to you alone. The Lord's authority in this
matter is unquestionable. He's God. He's given us his word,
and his word is absolutely, totally authoritative in his house. In
this book, if you read things such as Leviticus 20, and the
giving of the law throughout the five books of the Pentateuch,
and you see how God expresses himself, nowhere is there any
indication that it was expected that the Egyptians should obey
what God said in the word. Not an indication of it anywhere.
Nowhere is it implied that the people of Canaan would obey God's
word or would be expected to. The law wasn't given to them.
It is not expected that the unbelieving should obey God's word. That's
not expected. Don't expect this world to behave
as we ought to expect ourselves to behave. but his people, God's
people are expected to do so. Not only that, he sees to it
that his people obey his word. I know we live in an age of such
ignorance and degradation that the whole world denies there's
any such thing as authority or anything that's unchangeable
and unmovable as a standard by which we must determine what's
right and what's wrong. I watched some of those hearings
when Judge Kavanaugh was being raped over the coals by that
slanderous woman from California. If you believed what she had
to say, you need to have your head checked. That was not credible
from the start. But did you pay any attention
to how the various politicians spoke about that stuff? Well,
she has her truth, and he has his truth. So truth doesn't matter. Truth
is whatever you think it is or whatever you want it to be. And
that's just exactly how folks are taught to think in our day.
There's no real truth. There's no real error. There's
no real right and no real wrong. God says otherwise. This book
is God's word. It is absolutely true. It is
written of this book by God, the Holy Spirit, who wrote this
book. All scripture, all scripture,
Old Testament and new, all scripture, the minor details and the large
portions, all scripture is given by inspiration of God. And all
scripture is profitable, profitable for you and for me, profitable
for doctrine. You wanna know what to believe?
Read the book. Profitable for reproof. You want to have your
sins, your thinking pattern, your ideas about things corrected?
Read the book. For correction. You want to be
corrected in your misjudgment, your misunderstanding of things?
Read the book. For instruction in righteousness. If you want to know something
about righteousness, read this book. that the man of God, the
person who is born of God may be perfect, complete, complete,
throughly furnished. I love that old English word,
throughly furnished. Furnished through the totality
of his being and his life. Throughly furnished unto all
good works. Now with that as the background,
I want you to just hold your Bibles open on your lap at chapter
20. In these 27 verses of inspiration, God our Savior tells us precisely
how we are to live in this world for his honor. The chapter gives
us God's own instruction to his people about separation. This
is biblical separation. First, look at verses 1 through
6. How thoroughly our God knows the perverse imaginations of
our evil hearts. the vile thoughts of our wicked
minds, and the readiness of our vile hearts to do evil. In these
first six verses, God speaks with unmistakable clarity as
he gives a warning to idolaters. Now, I may not get past this
if I don't let it be all right. Let's look at these first six
verses. Perceiving that which his people would soon face, Before
he brings them into the land of Canaan, he forewarns them
of the evil of idolatry, and he does it with words of stern
condemnation. The Lord spake unto Moses, saying,
Again thou shalt say to the children of Israel. He repeats himself,
chapter 18, chapter 19, now chapter 20. Whosoever he be of the children
of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that
is, the proselytes who come and join themselves with the children
of God, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech. This is the
first time you find the name of this heathen god, Molech. But you find it all the way through
the scripture up to the book of Jeremiah, chapter 32. Any
that give any of his seed to Molech, he shall be put to death. The people of the land shall
stone him with stones and I will set my face against that man
and will cut him off from among his people because he has given
his seed to Molech to defile my sanctuary and to profane my
holy name. And if the people of the land
do any ways, hide their eyes from the man, that is he going
over to worship Molech. He's going over to sacrifice
to Molech and you just act like there's nothing to that. That's
all right, he'll be all right. He's just going out to have a
beer. When he giveth his seed to Molech and kill him not, then
I will set my face against that man and against his family and
will cut him off. and all that go a-whoring after
him to commit whorem with Mulloch from among their people. And
the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits and
after wizards to go a-whoring after them, I will even set my
face against that soul and will cut him off from among his people. Lord God here declares that he
will use the people of the land to be the executioners of his
justice, though the execution of his justice is his work, a
work over which he presides. He said, they shall stone him
and I will cut him off, setting my face against him. Now the
sentence seems extreme. It seems cruel. It seems barbaric
in the minds of men who imagine that they are more compassionate
and more wise than God. The idolater was to be stoned
to death, stoned to death by the people of the congregation
of Israel. Every man and every woman in
the congregation to take stones and stone him to death. Why? What was the crime that demanded
such a sentence of death from the judge of all the earth who
always does right? The crime that demanded such
fearful punishment was idolatry. It's the worship of Moloch. Now
let me tell you a little bit about Moloch. He was the fire
god of the Canaanites. I find it always interesting
when you read history and you read about the various gods that
men have had through history, especially our brilliant Gentile
forefathers. They're always monstrous. Isn't
that something? They're always horribly dreadful,
monstrous gods, gods that people feared terribly. I mean feared
in the sense they were afraid of them, afraid of them. The
gods that men make are always that way. Moloch was such a god,
the god of the Canaanites. As is the case with all thoughts
religion, Moloch worship was horribly cruel. Let that set in, I want it to.
All Christless religion is horribly cruel. Horribly cruel. Moloch was an
image of red, hot, glowing brass. Men and women, in order to appease
this worthless idol. He's just a piece of brass. That's
all he is. Just an image of brass. He can't
see. He can't hear. He can't move.
Well, he can if you pick him up and move him. He can't do
anything. The only fire he has is the fire that they made for
their God and kept fueled for their God. But he's a God of
red, hot, glowing brass. Men and women, to appease this
worthless God, laid their living children in his arms and watched
as their God of fire, their God whose fire they kept going. It
was their fire, but it was Bullock's fire now. They watched as that
fire consumed their own children. Everything was savage. and demonic
to the extreme. The Canaanites invented and the
Jews accepted a hellish fiend of hatred in preference to the
Lord of glory. Isn't that astonishing? These folks who had been on Mount
Sinai, these folks who had seen Moses come down from the mount
with God's love, these folks who had seen God do wondrous
things, these folks who had seen and experienced God's mercy,
chose a hellish fiend of hell in cruelty over the God of glory. The toleration of idolatry, led
these people to murder their children, even their babies. Their idolatry was to be destroyed
and the idolaters destroyed. What a contrast Moloch was to
Jehovah. God is love. His everlasting
arms of omnipotent mercy take up little children and bless
them, saves them. His heart is never satisfied
until the object of his love knows his love to them. Rather
than casting us into the fiery pit of hell that we so fully
deserve, our great God, Jehovah Jesus, stretched out his hands
upon the curse tree, exposed his side to the spear, and took
the holy wrath of God into his own soul. Rather than requiring
satisfaction from us, he made satisfaction for us. That, in
essence, is the difference between Jehovah and Moloch. Moloch is nothing, Christ is
everything. Moloch does nothing for his worshipers
without their contribution. Christ did everything and does
everything for us without any contribution from us. Moloch
makes his worshipers pay and pay and pay and pay. Christ paid everything for us. Moloch stands in the book of
God as a representation of all false gods and all false religion. The worship of Moloch stands
as an obvious representation of false religion. Now, just
in case you missed my point, just in case you're wondering,
how does all this talk about Bolek apply to anybody today? I lay this charge with thoughtful
consideration. I don't do so thoughtlessly.
I lay this charge against every false, idolatrous misrepresentation
of God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Any representation of
God that in any way requires satisfaction from the sinner.
Any misrepresentation of God that makes God's work to depend
upon man's work. Such a worthless, cruel, useless
God is worse than Moloch. The God that's worshiped right
over yonder. Can I be more specific? Any place where God's free grace
is not preached. The God that's worshipped right
over yonder is worth far less than Moloch. At least you could
melt him down and sell him for some bread. A useless God, a
helpless God, a God who waits on you to do something before
he can do anything is no God at all. You may as well make
you a image of Moloch and set your coals in his arms and keep
the fire going. Those who chose Molech and those
who choose Molech in preference to Jehovah prove themselves to
be in a state of utter, complete enmity against God. By their
pretended worship of Jehovah, they defile his sanctuary. They
stand in the house of God, calling themselves the people of God
while worshiping another God. That worship is nothing but an
expression of contempt for God. Utter contempt for God. It's
contempt. If you imagine that I'm overstating
this, And I don't think any of you do, but if you imagine, and
I'm overstating this, you find the most religious person you
know and take him a copy of any message I preach concerning God's
work, God's salvation, God's sovereignty, God's character,
and just see how welcome you are in the house. They hold God
in utter contempt. Their choice of Molech as their
God is the constant defiling of Jehovah's name. rather than
worship God in his true character, they make a God with no character,
a God that's nothing and call it God and prefer the burning
tortures of Moloch's frowns that must be appeased to the sweet
enjoyment of God's grace. Some of you have come from such
religion, religion that's painfully torturous. requiring that you
do this and do that and don't do that, and if you do, boy,
if you do, you're in trouble. Men prefer that to finished redemption,
immaculate mercy, immutable love, unconditional free grace, because
men love themselves. The phrase Hortum with Moloch
is intended to show the utter contempt of man for God's mercy
and grace in Christ. By every invention and act of
idolatry, by every invention and act of free will, works,
religion, men show their contempt of God. In verse six. The Lord God continues
to condemn idolatry. But here he speaks of another
form of idolatry. Verse six condemns every form
of wizardry, witchcraft, sorcery, palm readers, fortune tellers.
But there's more than that going on. in this passage. It's more than just going to
a psychic or a palm reader or reading your horoscope in the
newspaper or watching Harry Potter, abominable as those things are.
This idolatry is far more common than we like to acknowledge.
And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits
and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my
face against that soul and will cut him off from among the people. The message of this sixth verse
is clear. We who are gods must never go
to counselors who don't know God. We who are gods must never go
to counselors who don't know God. Our God's name is wonderful
in counsel, wonderful counselor. He has wisdom enough to counsel
us and direct us. He has grace enough to counsel
us and sustain us. His love revealed to us in Christ
ought to be sufficient to make us perfectly content to leave
that which we don't know in his hands. But we're all like Saul. We're all prone to run to the
witch of Ender whenever we perceive things that make us uncomfortable.
But it is written, he that believeth shall not make haste. Still we
hastily run off to Ender's witches, never finding peace when peace
is to be found for all who bow to God on his throne. When your
heart's heavy and your soul is troubled, you've got some choices.
Children of God, listen to me. You can either go whining to
a counselor who doesn't know God, or you can worship the counselor,
Christ our Savior. You can either go sniveling to
a man or snuggle up to the Almighty. You can either paste the floor
and bite your nails or bury yourself in God and His word in submissive
faith. Most of you are unaware of this.
My wife is aware of it. She may be the only one. When
I was in the hospital several years ago, if you had come in
and talked around me, about anything for hours. I could hear and understand
everything you were saying, but unless you spoke to me, I couldn't
say anything. If you spoke to me and asked me a question, I'd
answer any question you had, but I don't know what was wrong,
but I couldn't say anything. And the doctors were concerned
that I had been too long on a ventilator and maybe had brain damage. And
they were talking about sending me to the funny farm over in
Lexington, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream. I was screaming
inside. Pull the plug first. Don't so
dishonor God as to put me in that place. No, no. Why? I believe God. They finally brought a What was
that fella called? Neurologist? Neurologist. He
had a doctorate. And he came in, asked me half
a dozen questions, sat in the foot of the bed, closed his clipboard
over, and said nothing wrong with him. He'll be fine as soon
as all this stuff gets out of his system. And I was relieved I
wasn't going to the funny farm, to go to somebody who doesn't
know God to try to tell me how to handle difficulty. I can't
imagine anything more debasing to a believer. Then in verses
seven and eight, the Lord gives us a call to sanctification. Sanctify yourselves therefore
and be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God, and ye shall keep
my statutes and do them. I am the Lord which sanctify
you. He calls for us to sanctify ourselves
and be holy. That is not suggesting that we
make ourselves holy, but rather he is calling for us to live
in this world and worship him by this book. That's all, that's all. You would think that the children
of Israel would have no problem with these words from God. You would think that Don Fortner
and Rex Bartley would have no problem with that. Oh, what a
problem we have. What a problem we have. In verses
nine, down through verse 21, the Lord God gives us a dark,
dark scene of dismal corruption. He sets before us a display of
depravity. It's as chilling as it is true. It's a scene of blackness and
darkness that runs all the way through verse 21. Here is a people
who've lost all natural affection. For everyone that curseth his
father or his mother, shall surely be put to death. He hath cursed
his father or his mother, his blood shall be upon him. Those
words more perfectly describe Adam's fallen race than anyone
imagines. I don't know that I've heard
this said or read this from anyone. This is what Adam did in the
garden. And this is what man does by
nature. All the days of his rebellion,
he curses God. Curses God. Curses his father. Curses God. Wishes him damned. Wishes him dead. Wishes him to
be no longer in existence. The son had become a prodigal. The son, who was nourished by
his father, despises his father's house and runs into a far country
and wishes to erase the memory of his father's house. Jeremiah,
speaking of the rebellion of our race and of our nature, says,
be astonished, oh ye heavens, and be very desolate. Read verses
10 through 21, and we're about to read them, and I'll be shocked
if you're not embarrassed by them. And the man that commiteth adultery
with another man's wife, even he that commiteth adultery with
his neighbor's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely
be put to death. And the man that lieth with his
father's wife hath uncovered his father's nakedness, both
of them shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon
them. And if a man lie with his daughter-in-law,
both of them shall surely be put to death. They have wrought
confusion. Their blood shall be upon them.
If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with womankind, both
of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death.
Their blood shall be upon them. And if a man take a wife and
her mother, it is wickedness. They shall be burnt with fire,
both he and they, that there be no wickedness among you. And
if a man lie with a beast, he shall surely be put to death,
and ye shall slay the beast. And if a woman approach unto
any beast, and lie down thereto, thou shalt kill the woman and
the beast. They shall surely be put to death,
their blood shall be upon them. And if a man shall take his sister,
his father's daughter, or his mother's daughter, and see her
nakedness, and she his nakedness, it is a wicked thing. they shall
be cut off in the sight of their people. He hath uncovered his
sister's nakedness, he shall bear his iniquity. And if a man
shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover
her nakedness, he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered
the fountain of her blood, and both of them shall be cut off
from among the people. And thou shalt not uncover the
nakedness of thy father's sister, for he uncovereth his near kin. They shall bear their iniquity.
And if a man shall lie with his uncle's wife, he hath uncovered
his uncle's nakedness. They shall bear their sin. They
shall die childless. And if a man take his brother's
wife, it is an unclean thing. He hath uncovered his brother's
nakedness. They shall be childless. What sins? What wrath? Put them to death. Their blood
be upon them. Burn them with fire. Cut them
off in the sight of the people that all may see in fear. Cut
them off from among the people. Drive them out of the holy fellowship
of my people. they shall die childless, standing
as living monuments to the wrath of God upon men, to be seen of
all like a leafless tree stricken by lightning, so that men might
quiver as they anticipate that day when God makes his bow quite
naked. These horrid sins, fornication,
adultery, incest, sodomy, bestiality, the murder of one's own babies.
If you read the chapter as we have just read it, you cannot
avoid understanding that all of these things become common
wherever men worship themselves. Wherever men worship the work
of their own hands, wherever men and women set themselves
up in the house of God, ascribing to themselves power that belongs
only to God. It's called free will works religion. In a word, everything on earth,
including the dearest relations of men, are used only as fuel
for the raging lust of depraved hearts. And it's done even in
the name of God. I've read this book a few times.
I've read this chapter a few times. In private, I read it
with a blushing face. And I never dreamed in my life
I would hear things that I hear and see things I hear in my day.
Just, we tend to ignore what God says til it's right in front
of you. One night, just last week, one day, I forgot which
it was, one of the fellows running for president, I won't call his
name, he's from Indiana, he's a queer, a sodomite, a hellion,
a beastly, vile, wretched man. He was getting very popular.
stood before a microphone with a crowded room and said, my God
made me this way, you live with it. Men claiming to be worshipers
and servants of God, while they live to their own lust and would
destroy the nation with their lust. But what he said and did
is no different than what goes on commonly every day all around
us where we live. But here's grace. Oh, what grace. There's that land of Canaan,
try to picture it. Here are these sodomites. Men
and women who practice bestiality. People who, in the name of their
God, ripped babies from the womb and murdered them, worship them,
sacrifice to their God. There's Canaan. Why wouldn't
God destroy that land? Why wouldn't he destroy it? instead
of destroying that land like he did Sodom and Gomorrah. By
Sodom and Gomorrah, he testified, this place deserves my wrath. But instead of that, he peopled it with another people,
a chosen people, a redeemed people, a people called his Israel. And
by that, he gives us a token. of his purpose for his creation.
This world, so enraged with hatred for God, he will not utterly
destroy, but rather he will rid it of all evil and people that
are new with a holy nation, a people loved of God, chosen of God,
Redeemed by blood, saved by his grace, whose hearts and natures
and lives, I speak this of every man and woman in this building,
including, especially including the one talking to you, is just
as vile as what we've read. But you're washed. But you're
justified. But you're sanctified. in the
name of our God, through the blood of Jesus Christ His Son,
by the power of His Spirit. Then in verses 22-26, we read
that God declares here, His elect must be a separated people, a
people who diligently, determinately separate themselves from the
doings and the ordinances of the religious world that hates
him. This is what Paul refers to in
2 Corinthians chapter seven as perfecting holiness in the fear
of God. You shall therefore keep my statutes
and all my judgments and do them that the land whither I bring
you to dwell therein spew you not out, and ye shall not walk
in all the manners of the nation which I cast out before you.
For they committed all those things, and therefore I abhorred
them. But I have said unto you, ye
shall inherit their land, and I will give it unto you to possess
it, a land that floweth with milk and honey. I am the Lord
your God, which have separated you from other people. Oh my
God, how I thank you for your free, distinguishing grace and
mercy. Verse 25, ye shall therefore
put a difference between clean beasts and unclean. Between unclean
fowls and clean, ye shall not make your souls abominable by
beast or by fowl or by any manner of living thing that creepeth
on the ground which I have separated from you as unclean. ye shall
be holy unto me, separate to me, consecrate to me, devote
to me. For I, the Lord, am holy, and
have severed you from other people, that you should be mine." And then in verse 27, God demands
reverence to Himself. a man also, or a woman, that
hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be
put to death. Here he's not just repeating
what he said in verse 6, now he's talking about the witches and
wizards themselves. They shall stone them with stones,
that their blood shall be upon them. God alone is to be honored as
God. And every rival to God put away
from you. No, we are not to take up stones
and swords and guns against men. But in God's house, there is
no room for anyone who worships a false god, none, none. I get calls frequently from preachers
who are looking for somebody to give them some money to go
to the mission field and destroy men's souls. And for one thing,
I don't pay any attention to folks who say God's called them
to do something and they have to go beg for money. That's not
much of a God. But my first question is usually
the last one I have to ask. And what do you preach? And what
do you mean? And I will say to them, do you
preach predestination and election and limited? Oh, no! I said,
why are you going? Go shine shoes and do something
useful. No, I've got no use for you. No use for you. How come? Because no wizard or witch is
to be honored as God. We worship God alone in his character
as he is. Pastor, you're preaching to the
choir. We don't have any problem like
that. My days on this earth are numbered.
My time as your pastor is limited and growing rapidly to a close.
I'm fully aware of it and I'm concerned for you. I'm concerned
for you and for other churches that I have any influence over.
I have seen many in my short lifetime who were faithful, faithful,
faithful congregations with faithful pastors who instructed them well. who no sooner had God removed
the pastor than the church was gone and jumped into every kind
of foolishness in the world. Westminster Chapel in London,
England, where Martin Lloyd-Jones pastored for so many years, called
a fellow from down in Tennessee, he'd been Lloyd-Jones' assistant
for a long time, right after Lloyd-Jones retired. And it turned
the place into a Pentecostal madhouse. It's even worse now than it was
when he was there. I'm like that. Because we all tend toward idolatry
and all the evils idolatry spawns. Over in 2 Kings 18, a young king
by the name of Hezekiah found something in Israel. It had been
cherished since the days of Moses in the wilderness. cherished
all the days of the judges, cherished all the time Samuel was prophet,
cherished through the days of David and Solomon, cherished
until Hezekiah came. And the children of Israel took
that thing out, that brazen serpent, that serpent of brass. And they
burned incense to it and called it worshiping God. Old men don't do things like
young men do. Oh, God give us some young men with some gumption.
Hezekiah said, grind that thing up, mix it with some water, drink
it, and get rid of that worthless piece of brass. Every rival to
God, just a worthless piece of brass. And see to it you never
forget it. Amen.