Obstructed Glide Path
Restoring the Temple • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 1 viewThe Church is called to separate itself from the world; it cannot pretend to be Godly while lifting an altar to foreign gods.
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The Modern Church
2020 what a year… do we remember it still? The plandemic was in full effect and the church was shuddering.
One of the scariest part of it was, this was our opportunity to turn church around. Stop the charade, stop the consumer-centric behavior, turn from our ways and invite the Lord back into our empty buildings
Instead it appears most of us learned nothing as little to nothing changed.
Consider this for as an example…especially as we approach the Easter Holiday
2021- church puts on a massive play to attract the consumer back to the Church… The Lion King of Judah. Simba is crucified as Jesus filled with secular music and secular ideology… yes the church was full of people but… I wonder how full of the Spirit they were
2022-church puts on Joy Story now its Woody’s turn… again the church us full of people but I still wonder how full of the Spirit the people were
2023- church in OK puts on an Easter production for the ages… what a celebration
While some may say
“you know this for the people, because we need to bring the people back and be relevant to the world around us… besides what is wrong with using the world to coral the people into the kingdom of heaven”
“two can play at Satan’s game we take what he’s using and sanctify it…”
In other words lets take the things of the world put a Christian spin on it… That will help to bring people into the church. Never mind the roots, or the implications it will fill the church and we will be happy, and the people will be happy…
As it turns out… consulting the world for advice on Godly matters is not a good thing as it brings with itself destruction and mayhem.
There is one voice we need to hear and that is the voice of the Living God.
The Church is called to separate itself from the world; it cannot pretend to be Godly while lifting an altar to foreign gods.
The Church is called to separate itself from the world; it cannot pretend to be Godly while lifting an altar to foreign gods.
It is my greatest fear to believe that as Ahaz conducted himself we have done the same with God’s church.
Brief look at Ahaz to better understand the assignment for Remnant Church.
This is an exhortation to help us know just how great a task we have on our hands.
Turned Over to Our Own Devices
Turned Over to Our Own Devices
The letter to the Romans opens with a reason for the depravity in humanity… when mankind plays the hand of God it is given to its own devices…
We are not the first…
We are not the first…
Ahaz was twenty years old when he began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem. And he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord, as his father David had done,
He did not do what was right… At this stage in our humanity is near impossible for a pastor to say I didnt know how to teach well
Google
Mentor
School
OPEN THE BIBLE
We have a road map on how much the Lord values obedience to His voice.
We were not left to figure it out
Pagan Practices for Christianity
Pagan Practices for Christianity
but he walked in the ways of the kings of Israel. He even made metal images for the Baals,
and he made offerings in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the people of Israel.
And he sacrificed and made offerings on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.
Walked in the way of the Kings
command and authority
People would do what he said.
Made or brought idols into the temple
Baal - more in particular god of fertility, husbandry, agriculture
God was not enough for him
somehow this made up deity could save him
Gave offerings to dead deities.
Molech - god of fire and sacrifice
burned even his own children
So divided was he that he offered to competing deities.
Word of God says you cannot serve two masters…
V.5 given over to the King of Syria.
His action caused an entire nation to suffer
pastors will lead whole congregations to captivity
Their own kind slaughtered them and held them captive
this is why we cannot just rail against other churches we need to ask of the Lord how we are to care for them
The church was not called to look like the world. We are called out of the world…
the same letter that declares why we are turned to our own depravity tells of our posture in the world…
“Be not conformed to this world; be transformed by the renewing of your mind…”
When we look at the church and make it so pragmatic that it is weighted down by the world it begins to look just like the world sooo…
Turning to the World for Help
Turning to the World for Help
At that time King Ahaz sent to the king of Assyria for help.
the church is failing… the congregants are being led away captive to the world… many are being devoured by our own… so we turn to the world for answers on how to preserve our flocks? Make it make sense…
In the slaughter we welcome the enemy into our camp…
The Church has been humbled…
The Church has been humbled…
For the Lord humbled Judah because of Ahaz king of Israel, for he had made Judah act sinfully and had been very unfaithful to the Lord.
When the “men of God” have acted so sinfully… and the church looks more like the world what has besieged the church is done to humble the church
v. 20 instead of helping the king of Assyria inflicted more harm…
Surrendering to the gods of this world
Surrendering to the gods of this world
v. 23 “offering to the gods that defeated him”
total posture of surrender not to the living God
These are the practices we brought into the church that have crippled the church lets do it more maybe they will save us.
vv.22-25 an account of just how depraved he became.
gathered the vessels of God and cut them down to pieces
worship altar
teaching pulpit
offering altar
not just the equipment but the people
shut the doors of the house of the Lord
priests, no longer cared for the house; temple became irrelevant; study no longer needed; right worship replaced
Went from city to city opening church campuses I mean altars to make offering to foreign gods.
they were like starbucks…
one on every corner
It doesnt really matter what you order at the end its all the same.
coffee with lots of sugar
feel good church… after all you are saved
When King Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, he saw the altar that was at Damascus. And King Ahaz sent to Uriah the priest a model of the altar, and its pattern, exact in all its details.
He modeled the altar to the exact pattern as the altar to a foreign God.
business model
program centric
consumer focused
People do not come to worship they come to be entertained… they do not want to be preached at they want to hear how great they are and how they are already saved.
let the holy man go and talk to God and tell us what to do…
2020 should have been a wake up to the church… it should have revolutionized how we did church… instead we got in bed with the government who gifted the church with money
Look it up… if you’re upset with the funds given to Ukraine… the Christian Organizations received over 7 billion dollars in forgiven loans… all they were asked in return was to comply…
While we cry revival “God please empower the church, but wait the government has us covered… they will help us survive… it is only going to cost me the altar…”
Ahaz was getting his tail handed to him and instead of repenting he built a way a work around for the things of the Lord. Instead of leading people to the Lord he gave them a way to look, and sound like God’s people without actually having to enter into the Lord.
ENOUGH!!! I want revival for the church, not a government hand out, I wand His presence not a church full of people who only want to be entertained, I want to see His magnificent power on display, not the disingenuous empty flattery of a people who demand the church look more like they want over the way the Lord wants… I want the Lord’s will … there is no room to behave as Ahaz. That means we cannot turn to the world to help us grow a strong church much less for it to tell us what God wants unless we want to look like its god….