* A Defeated People [2]

“not as I will, but as You will.”  Matthew 26:39

God’s chastisement of the children of Israel by allowing them to be delivered into the hands of King Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon occurred due to their disobedience.  This was done after years of blatant disobedience and refusing to only serve the one true living God.  It never works out when we try to serve 2 masters.  God will not be underserved.  He had already let them know that they were to:

Destroy their altars and pillars, and cut down their sacred poles . . . He said don’t worship any god except for Me. My name is Jealous, and I am a jealous God.  Exodus 34:14

But they did exactly what God explicitly told them not to do.  If we go back to Hosea where God is grieving their backslidden state and look at Hosea 11:7. Look at these two phrases from that verse: 

And my people are bent to backsliding from me: though they called them to the most High, none at all would exalt him.

• “My people are bent on backsliding from Me and  
• none at all would exalt him.” 

Do you see the contrast? Hell bent on backsliding, hell bent on going their own way and doing their own thing, while at the same time presuming to call on the Most High for things beyond their control even though they refused to exalt God.  They, just like us today, want all the many benefits of God without wholly submitting our allegiance to Him.  We want all the promises without doing anything to get them.  That’s being presumptuous.  We’ll acknowledge Him in the church; stay in touch in case we need Him and, in the meantime, we’ll do things our way.  Happy as a lark; thinking they have the best of two worlds; serving 2 masters; forgetting all about the fact that God said "I’m a jealous God."
 
The church is doing the same thing today; has a justification for every single worldly standard they want to indulge in and the biblical standards they don’t want to indulge in.  Both then and now, they needed to understand what happened to their forefathers in the wilderness and now we too should take heed to that and the message God had for the church of the Laodiceans – He said: 

I know your works. You are neither cold with apathy nor hot with passion. It would be better if you were one or the other, but you are neither.  So because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.  Revelation 3:15-16

Truly we have a work of repentance before us. At Laodicea, we see a people complacent, and self-satisfied in their presumed relationship with God, and yet clearly, they were blissfully going astray - and like the nation of Israel before them, in danger of being cast out from the presence of God.
 
After a period of time God did eventuality deliver Israel from the Babylonian captivity.  That’s because as bad as things are, God is longsuffering for those who are willing to humble themselves and receive his counsel.   The church of Laodicea was encouraged to change their lukewarm, lackluster, lackadaisical ways and return fully to God.

But in the case of the Israelites of the Old Testament time; after all the warnings and little to no change, when no more could be done for them in the northern kingdom, God finally gave Israel up, and its people were scattered.  You’d think Israel’s captivity would have been a wakeup call for Judah; the southern kingdom, instead it was a lesson that fell on deaf ears and blind eyes, and in the course of time they sank to even greater depths of apostasy [in this case the abandonment of their loyalty to God] even more than what Israel did. 

And their sins back then could very well come straight out of today’s headlines.  All of the confusion, the false worship including sexual promiscuity, alternative sexual lifestyles, fraud; just throwing up any old thing to God and thinking nothing of it, the manipulation of the people and blatant disregard for others.  All of this going on today and guess what, I’m talking about in the church!  If you didn’t know better, you’d think we were talking about the world – but this is exactly what’s going on in the church!  Apostle Paul let us know: 
 
everything written in the days of old was recorded to give us instructions for living. We find encouragement through the Scriptures and a call to perseverance that will produce hopeful living.  Romans 15:4

We do well to learn the lesson. God said to Isaiah, 
 
"Cry aloud, spare not; Lift up your voice like a trumpet; Tell My people their transgression, And the house of Jacob their sins.”  Isaiah 58:1
 
Notice that despite their sinful state, God says: “Tell My people.” This is not a call to point fingers at others and tell them how bad they are. This is a call for preachers to speak plainly to the church; to their churches; stop sugar-coating God’s word and justifying sin. It’s a call-to-call sin by its right name and renounce it.

  
Prophet after prophet appealed to the southern kingdom of Judah as others had appealed to the northern kingdom of Israel. Micah, Isaiah, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Jeremiah and others offered pardon in exchange for repentance - but they preached to the wind.  God told Ezekiel:

"Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord GOD, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?'  Ezekiel 33:11
 
Who’s crying out today?  It’s time for the body of Christ to have a “come to Jesus moment”, get right with God and shed the light to this sin-sick darkened world. 

 

Whether the church or the world hears or not, we are still to present:

u      Christ Crucified, 

u      the living hope, 

u   the only power to turn from sin and death to righteousness and life. 

Just like the prophets of old, we may be preaching to the wind, but we’re still to lift up Jesus to the church and before a dying world, tell them that there is power in His blood to wash away all sin. Like Daniel and the 3 Hebrew boys, some will hear.  But to those who don’t, we can take a lesson from what happened to the southern Kingdom: 
 
And the LORD God of their fathers sent warnings to them by His messengers, rising up early and sending them, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised His words, and scoffed at His prophets, until the wrath of the LORD arose against His people, till there was no remedy. Therefore He brought against them the king of the Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary, and had no compassion on young man or virgin, on the aged or the weak; He gave them all into his hand.  2 Chronicles 36:15-17
 
When God “gives up” a person or nation it is not so much that God has separated Himself from them, but rather it is they who have separated themselves from Him.

Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.  Isaiah 59:1

God doesn’t leave us, we leave Him.  We disconnect ourself from him.  Our response should be repentance with godly sorrow; turning away from our ungodly ways and clinging to the only hope we have which is Christ Jesus.
 
What is the secret of staying true to God in a world where every influence that surrounds us screams for compromise?  How do you stay true to God in a world that is more than ready to rationalize away the truths of God’s word, and give us every reason or excuse we could ever possibly need to sooth our conscience as we slowly let go of God and embrace the world?  The bible says:

The one who faithfully manages the little he has been given will be promoted and trusted with greater responsibilities. But those who cheat with the little they have been given will not be considered trustworthy to receive more.  Luke 16:10
 
It's our faithfulness in the things that we most often consider to be small and trivial that is the true test of our character. If we’re not faithful in that which we consider to be a small matter - if we compromise on the little things in our life - Jesus says we won’t be true when the big tests of life come our way. It’s not so easy to change the course of our life when the crisis comes. The way we lived when things were easy is [more likely than not] the way we’ll go when the going gets tough.

The book of Daniel [Chapter 1, verse 1] began with defeat. God’s chosen people found themselves defeated and in subjection to a pagan nation, their cities destroyed, and they themselves carried away as captives into a foreign land. But it does end on a note of victory as God works behind the scene with some young men that stayed true to God.  In versus 3-4, we’re going to see Daniel’s role come to light; how he handled himself against the influences of the world.  I believe at some point, he must have read what Joshua said as they were settling in after their wilderness experience:

And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.  Joshua 24:15 

We all have a choice to make. Will we serve the gods of this world, or will we serve the LORD? Remember what Jesus said, 

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” Matthew 6:24

Which is the same as saying that we can’t serve both God and the world – we have to make a choice. The issue is not legalism verses faith. The issue is loyalty to God verses obedience to men and compromise for convenience sake. This is the time to say, 

“not as I will, but as You will.”  Matthew 26:39

- continued

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