Looking in All the Wrong Places

Welcome

Call to Worship

“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and you shall find rest unto your souls” (Matt. 11:28–29 KJV).

*Praise                    # 275            We’re Marching to Zion

*Invocation (Lord’s Prayer)        Almighty God, giver and sustainer of life, remind us that our worship is a moment of time lived in eternity. Open our ears that we may hear you. Soften our hearts that we may receive your Truth. Reveal yourself to us here and now that we may learn to find you everywhere.  Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.  And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.  For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever.  Amen

*Gloria Patri (Sung together)                 

*Psalm for Today                 unison                           Psalm 139:1-6 NRSV

1     O Lord, you have searched me and known me.

2     You know when I sit down and when I rise up;

you discern my thoughts from far away.

3     You search out my path and my lying down,

and are acquainted with all my ways.

4     Even before a word is on my tongue,

O Lord, you know it completely.

5     You hem me in, behind and before,

and lay your hand upon me.

6     Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;

it is so high that I cannot attain it.

JUST FOR KIDS

Our Offering to God            “God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them” (Heb. 6:10 NIV).    

*Doxology         

*Prayer of Dedication            Father, as we bring our gifts before you, remind us that they are to be given cheerfully and with glad hearts. May we understand our stewardship as a way in which we participate in sharing your love with persons everywhere.

*Hymn of Prayer         # 437        I Must Tell Jesus

Pastoral Prayer             Our gracious and loving Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior. We come, not as strangers or foreigners but as your children. We thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you, Lord, for all you’ve done for us, but most of all we thank you for who and what you are. So help us, Lord, to put first things first.

Help us to keep our priorities straight. Help us to seek first your Kingdom and righteousness and let the other things fall into their rightful places. Help us to make the right choices that will count for eternity. We pray for the needs of our people today. We reach out to you, and we know that you’re already reaching out to us. We pray for many different kinds of physical needs and financial needs, and there are those with emotional needs. We pray for our community. We pray for our government officials and those in rulership over us. We pray for divine wisdom and the ability to lead justly and wisely. We pray for our president and those in our national government. We pray for a revival of godliness and righteousness and holiness in our country. We pray for your Word, as it is preached around the world this very day, and for those of our brothers and sisters in countries that don’t enjoy the freedom that we have. We pray that we may all have open and obedient hearts. in the name of Jesus.—Paul Meeks

Scripture Reading                                        Matthew 12:22-28 TNIV

22Then they brought him a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute, and Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk and see.23All the people were astonished and said, “Could this be the Son of David?” 24But when the Pharisees heard this, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons.” 25Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand? 27And if I drive out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges. 28But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

*Hymn of Praise          # 310        Under His Wings

Scripture Text                                      1 Kings 22:51-53; 2 Kings 1:1-17 NLT

51 Ahaziah son of Ahab began to rule over Israel in the seventeenth year of King Jehoshaphat’s reign in Judah. He reigned in Samaria two years. 52 But he did what was evil in the Lord’s sight, following the example of his father and mother and the example of Jeroboam son of Nebat, who had led Israel to sin. 53 He served Baal and worshiped him, provoking the anger of the Lord, the God of Israel, just as his father had done.

1 After King Ahab’s death, the land of Moab rebelled against Israel.

2 One day Israel’s new king, Ahaziah, fell through the latticework of an upper room at his palace in Samaria and was seriously injured. So he sent messengers to the temple of Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether he would recover.

3 But the angel of the Lord told Elijah, who was from Tishbe, “Go and confront the messengers of the king of Samaria and ask them, ‘Is there no God in Israel? Why are you going to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether the king will recover? 4 Now, therefore, this is what the Lord says: You will never leave the bed you are lying on; you will surely die.’ ” So Elijah went to deliver the message.

5 When the messengers returned to the king, he asked them, “Why have you returned so soon?”

6 They replied, “A man came up to us and told us to go back to the king and give him this message. ‘This is what the Lord says: Is there no God in Israel? Why are you sending men to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether you will recover? Therefore, because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on; you will surely die.’ ”

7 “What sort of man was he?” the king demanded. “What did he look like?”

8 They replied, “He was a hairy man, and he wore a leather belt around his waist.”

“Elijah from Tishbe!” the king exclaimed.

9 Then he sent an army captain with fifty soldiers to arrest him. They found him sitting on top of a hill. The captain said to him, “Man of God, the king has commanded you to come down with us.”

10 But Elijah replied to the captain, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!” Then fire fell from heaven and killed them all.

11 So the king sent another captain with fifty men. The captain said to him, “Man of God, the king demands that you come down at once.”

12 Elijah replied, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and destroy you and your fifty men!” And again the fire of God fell from heaven and killed them all.

13 Once more the king sent a third captain with fifty men. But this time the captain went up the hill and fell to his knees before Elijah. He pleaded with him, “O man of God, please spare my life and the lives of these, your fifty servants. 14 See how the fire from heaven came down and destroyed the first two groups. But now please spare my life!”

15 Then the angel of the Lord said to Elijah, “Go down with him, and don’t be afraid of him.” So Elijah got up and went with him to the king.

16 And Elijah said to the king, “This is what the Lord says: Why did you send messengers to Baal-zebub, the god of Ekron, to ask whether you will recover? Is there no God in Israel to answer your question? Therefore, because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on; you will surely die.”

17 So Ahaziah died, just as the Lord had promised through Elijah. Since Ahaziah did not have a son to succeed him, his brother Joram became the next king. This took place in the second year of the reign of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat, king of Judah.

Message                       Looking in All the Wrong Places

If there is one thing that we can be sure of, it is that our children are always following our example.  Whether we like it or not, our children are watching what we do more than what we say. If our children see us put our trust in God, they will grow up putting their trust in God. If our children see us contented and grateful to God for His blessings, they will grow up to be contented and grateful to God. If our children hear us speak the truth all the time, they will grow up always speaking the truth.

But if our children hear us say one thing to a per­son’s face and then hear us slander that person behind his back, our children will become back-stabbers too. If our children see us steal from our employers and cheat on our income taxes, they will grow up to be thieves and frauds. After all, that’s the lesson they learned at home.

Let me show how this parent-child model explains one of the puzzling tenets of Scripture. When the Bible talks about generational sin, it is not necessarily talking about something genetic; it is talking about learned behavior. Abraham lied about his wife, Sarah, not once but twice. What did Isaac do? He lied about his wife, Rebekah, in the same fashion. And Abraham’s grand­son, Jacob, lied to his father in order to steal his brother’s inheritance. Lying became a generational sin in that family because children and grandchildren were watch­ing their parents and grandparents, and what the next generation saw the previous generation do was more influential than what they heard them say. /

After Ahab died, his son Ahaziah became king.  About two years later. Ahaziah fell through the lattice-work in an upper chamber of the palace.  (This would be like falling out of a second or third story window to the ground below.  The king was seriously injured.  So he sent messengers to inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether he would recover from this injury or die.

Like father, like son.            Ahab and Jezebel lived a godless lifestyle.  So did their children.  Ahab compromised his faith and remade Yahweh in the image of Baal, and his son followed suit. 

From more current history a story is told that after President Lincoln was assassinated, Mrs. Lincoln summoned Mr. Parker, the president’s bodyguard, to account for his failure to protect the chief executive.

“Why were you not at the door to keep the assas­sin out?” she demanded.

With his head bowed, Parker replied, “I have bit­terly repented of it, but I did not believe that anyone would try to kill so good a man in such a public place. That belief made me careless. I was attracted by the play and did not see the assassin enter the box.”

“You should have seen him. You had no business to be careless.” With this Mrs. Lincoln covered her face with her hands, and from deep grief said, “Go now, it is not you I can’t forgive; it is the assassin.”

Tad, the president’s young son, had spent that mis­erable night beneath his father’s desk in the executive office. After this dialogue between his mother and the bodyguard, he was heard to say, “If Pa had lived, he would have forgiven the man who shot him. Pa forgave everybody.”

It is obvious that young Lincoln had been watch­ing and listening to his dad. He knew that his dad was a forgiving man, because he had seen that forgiveness demonstrated over and over.

Like it or not, the real legacy we give our chil­dren is not money or material possessions. It is not prestige or fame. What we leave our children is the example of our walk with God; that is their godly heritage.

As young Tad Lincoln had seen his father’s example of forgiveness, Ahaziah had witnessed his father’s com­promise of his faith.

I cannot help but think that perhaps Ahaziah saw his daddy celebrating all of the Jewish holidays in pub­lic while he trusted Baal in the privacy of his palace. Ahaziah saw his father pay lip service to his Jewish heritage, but privately he talked more about Baal than Yahweh. Ahaziah observed how King Ahab had his own brand of religion, his own idea of God, his own morality and ethics. And so he followed in his father’s footsteps.

When Ahaziah got into trouble, what did he do? Did he go to Yahweh and ask for help? No. Did he say, “Let me find out if there is a prophet of God here to pray for me”? No. When he got into trouble, Ahaziah turned to a pagan god, Baal-Zebub. He turned to the occult for revelation about the future.

After the king was injured, he wanted to know whether he was going to live or die. The first thing he thought about was what he had learned from his daddy, who had always taken his wife’s gods and goddesses very seriously. So Ahaziah sent messengers to Ekron, where they worshiped a god whose name was Baal-Zebub, a god known locally as the god of the future. Instead of coming in repentance and asking God to heal and for­give him, Ahaziah went to inquire of Baal-Zebub.

Look with me for a moment to see what Baal­-Zebub is all about. He is mentioned in the Old Testament four times, all in this first chapter of 2 Kings.

Baal-Zebub is a strange and eerie sounding name, but he was considered to be a very powerful god.

The name Baal means “god” or “lord.” In the Hebrew language, zebub refers to a fly. In fact, the word is the same in Arabic and Aramaic. In its very ugliness, the name Baal-Zebub means “god of the flies.” Ekron, one of the five major cities of Philistia, was the center of worship of Baal-Zebub, this lord of the flies.

Flies have often plagued the Middle Eastern people. These plagues are like what you would see in a horror movie, where millions of flies swarm the homes and streets and farms of a community. There were no insect repellents back then, so when a plague of flies struck, the people were terrified. They believed that Baal-Zebub sent these plagues, so in order to appease him and beseech him to remove the flies, they would bow down and worship this false god.

Baal-Zebub was also like a storefront fortune­teller, dispensing advice about future events.

“It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this fellow drives out demons” (Matt. 12:24). (The variation in the spelling of the name here simply reflects the difference between the original Greek and Hebrew words. Baal-Zebub and Beelzebub are one and the same.)

The Pharisees accused Jesus of casting out demons by the power of Baal-Zebub, “the prince of demons” which is another name for Satan. Jesus rebuked their unbelief and told them that Satan does not cast out Satan. The point is this: Our Lord acknowledged the reality of that sinister demonic force, Baal-Zebub, the prince of demons.

So for Ahaziah to inquire of Baal-Zebub whether he would recover from his injury was the same as asking Satan himself. And when you are tempted to look up your horoscope, or to call the psychic hot line, or to con­sult with channelers or fortune-tellers, or to use a Ouija board or tarot cards for guidance about the future, you are dealing with Satan himself. And you will expose yourself to dangers that you cannot even imagine.

This is not a bit of harmless fun. This is playing with fire. You are tempting God and opening yourself up to satanic powers.

The Price for Consulting Baal-Zebub

How did God respond to Ahaziah’s reliance on Baal-Zebub? His response demonstrates just how seriously God takes it when His people dabble in the occult.

God told Elijah to meet the messengers Ahaziah had sent to Baal-Zebub. Elijah obeyed God and told the king’s men to go back and ask him, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you are going off to con-suit Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron?” (2 Kings 1:3).

It had been about ten years since the confrontation with Ahab over the murder of Naboth. Elijah was now ready to confront a second generation of godless lead­ership in Israel. So Elijah told the messengers on their way to Ekron exactly what the Lord had told him to say. “Tell Ahaziah,” Elijah warned them, “that because he has not sought the Lord, he will not leave the bed he is lying on. He will certainly die!”

The messengers went back to King Ahaziah and delivered the bad news. Imagine their wild tale about a strange prophet who had stopped them to give this dire message. Ahaziah asked the messengers to describe the man. When they did, Ahaziah knew it was Elijah. He remembered how Elijah was a pain in his father’s side, and now the old prophet had become a pain in his side too.

Have you ever noticed that when you live a godly life in the midst of unbelieving family members or business associates or neighbors, you can become a pain to them? Don’t go out of your way to become one, because you already are by the very nature of your godly life. You are both an intrigue and an irrita­tion to them, an enigma and a rebuke.

And eventually they will have to react in one of two ways. Either they will turn to God or they will become very, very angry. That is what happened here with Ahaziah. Elijah’s message and rebuke could have caused him to repent, but it didn’t. Instead, Ahaziah became enraged, and he rejected God altogether.

This king, like his father, did not repent at the word of the living God. Instead, he chose bitterness and anger toward the man of God. So he sent a cap­tain and fifty men to go and bring Elijah back, proba­bly intending to throw the prophet in jail or to kill him, as his mother had once vowed to do.

The captain was disrespectful to Elijah. He spoke in a contemptuous way to the great prophet of the nation. So Elijah said, “If I am a man of God, may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men” (2 Kings 1:10). And zap! Fire came down and consumed them.

Did the king repent after that dramatic but disas­trous attempt to get Elijah? No. He sent another fifty of his cronies. This captain did the same thing, and the same thing happened to them.

Stubborn and defiant, Ahaziah sent yet a third group. But the captain of this company had wised up. He must have been thinking, Even if the king is a fool, I am not going to be one. So he spoke in humility to Elijah, asking the prophet to please come with him, out of respect for his life and the lives of his men.

In response to the man’s humility, the Lord instructed Elijah to go with him to the palace. Elijah was no longer afraid as he had been when Jezebel had threatened to take his life. Why was he not afraid? Because this time he had waited on a word from the Lord. He was going in obedience to God. So he marched right into the bedroom of King Ahaziah, looked him straight in the eye, and deliv­ered the message himself: “Is it because there is no God in Israel for you to consult that you have sent messengers to consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because you have done this, you will never leave the bed you are lying on. You will certainly die!” (2 Kings 1:16).

The king still was not repentant, and he died in accordance with this word from God.

Be Careful Where You Get Your Advice

Ahaziah’s desire to shop at the spiritual storefront of Baal-Zebub, the prince of demons, cost him his life.

Because he turned to the occult rather than to God, he received a death sentence.

Hebrews 13:8 says that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And the way we see God working in Scripture should teach us what pleases Him and what does not please Him, what honors Him and what dishonors Him.

It may seem that God’s judgment against Ahaziah’s sin was swift and severe. But what happened to the wicked king was actually the fulfillment of God’s warning given hundreds of years earlier. The judgment of God is never arbitrary. God’s judgment culminates only after a whole lot of forewarning. And those who heed God’s warning and repent will not come under His judgment.

Three Types of Judgment

There are three different types of judgment described in Scripture. First, there is an internal judgment, which happens when you recognize your own sins and deal with them. Internal judgment is a private matter between you and God.

Second, there is an external judgment, which is in God’s hands. This is the kind of judgment meted out against Ahab and Jezebel. As I have said, we do not always see God’s justice carried out. But third, even when there is no apparent external judgment of sin, we can be sure there will be an eternal judgment of sin that will go on forever and ever.

The best judgment of all is internal judgment. When you judge yourself - you literally stop God from judging you externally. “But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment” (1 Cor. 11:31).

Is there something you need to judge in your heart today? Perhaps it is a relationship that does not belong in your life, perhaps you have possessions or money that should not be yours. Perhaps it is an unbridled greed or covetousness after something or someone. Perhaps it is anger that is eating you up.

Whatever it is, the Holy Spirit is able to tell you what area of your life needs internal judgment. It is the desire of our merciful, loving, compassionate God that we repent of sin the very moment we are convicted of it. You can measure your growth in Christ by how long it takes you to move from conviction to repentance.

If internal judgment does not take place, you will be judged externally.  And if that does not bring you to repentance, then you will face eternal judgment. Let the blood of Jesus Christ purify you from every sin.

I am not talking about renewing your commitment or another momentary decision you make under emo­tional conviction and quickly forget. I am talking about that phone call you need to make. I am talking about that letter you need to write. I am talking about visit you are dreading but you need to make.  I am talking about that restitution you need to pay. 

You have the choice whether to place yourself under internal judgment  or external judgment or eternal judgment.  It’s up to you:  Will you place yourself under God’s mercy or God’s judgment? ///

“Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists,” God had cautioned His people centuries earlier, “for you will be defiled by them” (Lev. 19:31). He also said, “I will set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to prostitute himself by fol­lowing them, and I will cut him off from his people” (Lev. 20:6). Mediums and spiritists are among the things the Bible says are “detestable to the LORD” (Deut. 18:11—12), and people who engaged in these practices were to be put to death (Lev. 20:27).  ////  Be careful where you get your advice!

The church of Jesus Christ must not go looking for spiritual guidance in all the wrong places.  We must get our guidance from the Word of God and the leading of the Holy Spirit – whose direction, will never contradict Scripture.

*Hymn of Response   #266         Softly and Tenderly

*Sending forth  

*Postlude