Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning.

Final Soul Activity message.

Today, examine the last part of the Greatest Commandment as we look at what it means to love God with all our strength.

“I think the greatest weakness in the church today is that almost no one believes that God invests His power in the Bible.

Everyone is looking for power in programs, a methodology, a technique, in anything and everything but that in which God has placed it—His Word.”

R.C. Sproul

In our culture, and throughout world history, strength is equated with power, strength is measured by power.

And, in a human understanding, power is found in our physical might.

And so, it stands to human reason that it is physical effort that accomplishes things.

And while that is true to an extent, its not the whole picture of what strength really is.

Conversely, the worst uses of power have been to oppress and to persecute different people groups for whatever variety of reasons.

As I read Scripture, when I observe demonstrations of strength, sometimes I see physical might, but mostly, I see physical acts and works that demonstrate the truth of God’s Word.

If you’ve got a Bible, you can open it to , we’ll read a portion of that chapter in just a minute or two.

While you turn there, here is what it means to love God with all our strength.

Loving God with all our strength means that we use our every action and every resource to demonstrate the truth of God’s Word.

This is distinct from a general demonstration of the truth of God.

Demonstrating the truth of God has more to do with the truth of His existence, demonstrating the truth of God’s Word is about the validity and authority of what God has revealed to us through Scripture.

You see, as I am learning, it takes all my strength to proclaim the truth of God with all that I do, and with my every resource.

Both publicly and personally.

Publicly, its one thing to say that God exists, but its quite another to proclaim that His Word is true, and not just part of His Word, the whole thing.

And if you don’t think God’s Word is truth and has power, just look at our nation’s reaction to its display.

We remove the 10 Commandments from everywhere we can, or at least we cover them up.

Christian prayer is prohibited in our schools, heck, we can’t even advertise a spaghetti feed if the food is made by a church.

And there’s many other examples, but the point is this: If God’s Word wasn’t truth, and if it wasn’t powerful, its presence wouldn’t convict people to the point that those who reject it have to keep it out of sight and out of mind.

Now, doesn’t it take all of our strength to proclaim the truth of God’s Word to world that wants nothing to do with it?

Personally, loving God with all my strength means that I must constantly keep a check on the things I do, because what I do demonstrates whether or not I believe that God is telling the truth in His Word.

For example, many people today battle sexual sin.

God has made it clear in His Word that He created sex to be enjoyed between a husband and wife in the context of marriage, and that any sex outside of that context is sinful, and therefore will do damage to you and others.

So, when we give in to our sexual desires sinfully, we are by our actions saying that what God said about sex isn’t true and we are going to procure our enjoyment the way that we want to.

Here again, does it not take tremendous strength to demonstrate the truth of God in our lives by the things that we do?

That our actions are illustrating the truth of God’s Word?

That’s what it means to love God with all our strength.

Loving God with all our strength means that we use our every action and every resource to demonstrate the truth of God’s Word.

Let’s pray as we come to God’s Word this morning.

The section of Scripture that we will read today is a narrative example of what loving God with all our strength looks like.

We are going to look at King Josiah in this example, and King Josiah was one of the few great kings in Israel’s history.

He was made king at age 8, and he served God faithfully during his time as king of Israel, bringing the nation back from pagan idol worship to a worship of the one true God.

So we are picking up the narrative just after Josiah has desperately lamented over Judah’s persistent wickedness and sin.

Josiah sent a team to a prophetess named Huldah to inquire as to the Lord’s plans for disciplining Israel.

And so we read:

Here was king Josiah, in a land steeped in rebellion of God and apostasy, who, as the Scripture literally says, turned to God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might, and set about to proclaim the truth of God’s Word through his actions, and he used every tool and resource available to him.

First, he led Israel in a renewing of their covenant with God.

Then, he got rid of all the shrines and monuments to their different idols that they had made over many generations.

Next, he removed the leaders who allowed such idolatry to become commonplace among the nation.

And these reforms led to the removal of pagan idols that had been installed by kings no other than Solomon himself in some cases.

So it wasn’t like Josiah was just going after the low hanging fruit that wouldn’t offend anyone, he went after things that the nation would have understood to be sacred, even though it was sinful.

Our nation today shares some similarities with Israel during the reign of Josiah.

Perhaps the most horrifying evil that was going on at this time is mentioned in verse 10.

The worship of the earth has become a nationally sanctioned religion.

And I am not talking about taking care of the earth as part of our responsibility given to us by God, but I am talking about how many in our nation today replace God with the earth, and then give earth the treatment and honor that is due God.

But worse, like Judah, we are sacrificing our children at the altar of personal gain at an alarming rate of frequency.

I don’t mean to eclipse the truth of God with current events, but at the same time, we cannot in good conscience ignore how easily our nation is embracing the murder of our children before they are even born, and now, we can do so up until the moment of birth.

First, let me tell you what went on at the idol of Molech

Picture of Molech here

Moloch was one of the false gods that Israel would worship during its periods of apostasy.

This false deity is associated with Ammon in , "Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon."

One of the practices of the cult that worshipped Moloch was to sacrifice their children.

Of course, this was forbidden by God's word:

says, "Neither shall you give any of your offspring to offer them to Molech, nor shall you profane the name of your God; I am the Lord."

(See also ; ; ; ).

In some passages the reference is clearly to a deity to whom human sacrifice was made, particularly in the Valley of Hinnom on the SW of the Jerusalem hill (; ) at a site known as Topheth (‘fire pit’ in Syriac).1

The ancients would heat this idol up with fire until it was glowing, then they would take their newborn babies, place them on the arms of the idol, and watch them burn to death.

I can't help but compare today's abortion massacre to the sacrifice of children by these ancient pagans.

In both, innocent life is destroyed for the gain of the parent.

And when we look at abortion in our country today, we find first, these statistics:

The most recent findings that are empirically, academically, and practically verifiable come from 2015.

The American Center For Disease Control accounts for 638, 169 legally induced abortions.

Their report says that the overall abortion procedures are going down.

BUT, the problem with verifying that claim is that states are not required to report their legal abortions.

California’s numbers for 2015, for example, have to be found through their own state’s independent health auditing numbers,

and in 2015, California’s abortion count was just under 188,000.

638,169 + 188,000 = 826,169 legal abortions in 2015

And that’s still not counting a handful of other states who do not report their numbers.

Since 2015, even fewer states reported than did in 2015, and so, the CDC’s number gets smaller, but the practice overall does not diminish.

Let me now show you the major causes of death in America in 2015:

Again, according to the CDC:

Influenza and Pneumonia: 51,537

Diabetes: 80,058

Alzheimer’s: 116,103

Stroke: 142, 142

Chronic Lower Respiratory Diseases: 154,596

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 161,374

Cancer: 598,038

Heart Disease: 635,260

Abortion: 826,169

Doesn’t it give you just a bit of pause to think that the number one reason for human death in recent years in this country has been abortion?

Now, I understand that there are so many mothers who have had abortions and the pain and regret is overwhelming for them.

It is not my intention to demonize anyone, whether they’ve had an abortion, or multiple abortions, or performed abortions, or not.

The intention here is to understand that the state of our nation is not unlike that of apostate Israel, and we have a responsibility and a command as Christians to demonstrate the truth of God’s Word through all that we do, and to use every resource available to us to do so.

And if you need prayer or counseling because abortion has touched your life in one way or another, please let us know.

We want to extend God’s love to you in every aspect of your life, the sunny places, and the dark places.

The argument for abortion is that it is needed in cases of the health and life of the mother, and/or the health of the baby.

So I looked over 30 years of research to find out if that is indeed true.

Maybe I’ve been wrong and maybe such cases are the predominant reason that we have abortions in this country.

But again, the research shows otherwise:

From the JohnstonsArchive.net,

we find an excellent compilation of research regarding the reasons for abortion between 1987 and 2016.

In summary, here are those reasons:

Rape: .3%

Incest: .03%