The Deceptive Heart

Well, good afternoon, everyone. Very good to see all of you on a very pleasant Sabbath day. I have to say I appreciated Mr. Delimator's sermonette. Really appreciated the special music, too. I think both of those are getting us in the mode for Passover and the time that we're coming into, and I think that's very good for us to be reminded of that. Let me welcome those who are joining us on the web as well today.

As I was listening to the special music, and it of course comes from Psalm 139, whenever I hear Psalm 139, I think of verse 23, which is one of those Passover examination sermons where David says, search my heart. Search my heart and let me know what's in my heart and see if there's any wicked way in me. And it is something that we should be doing as we approach Passover. What is in it? Because none of us are perfect. All of us have things that we need to be looking at.

And that's what I wanted to start the sermon with today, anyway, is reminding ourselves who we are naturally. So if you'll turn with me to Romans 8. You know, Mr. Delimator was talking about God calling us. Sometimes we can forget that without God we are completely different people. And Romans 8 reminds us of who we would be and who we are without God's Holy Spirit. We look at the world around us and we see attitudes and we see the way people treat each other, the way people speak about each other, the things that they do.

And we think, how could that be? But we would be that. We would be that. In Romans 8.7 we're reminded, because the carnal mind, that's the mind that you and I have, because the carnal mind or the natural mind is enmity against God. It's not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. You know, that enmity means hostile. We would be hostile to God, just as the world around us is. You know, they don't want God. They don't want what He has to offer. They don't want to obey His laws. I was looking in the Vines dictionary on this word, enmity, and it says that that enmity, that word, it's the opposite.

It's the opposite of agape love. And you know, God's called us to develop that agape love. It's the first list of the fruits of the Spirit, and we can't possibly know or develop that agape love without God's Holy Spirit. So the world doesn't understand what it is, but you and I do. You and I are learning it, and we learn it throughout our lives. And as we were called out of the world, we should be doing things the opposite, the opposite of the works of the flesh that we'll look at a little bit later in Galatians 5.

If we look at Jeremiah, another one of those verses that remind us who we are and the heart that's in us, we find in Jeremiah 17, you know, these are memory verses, and sometimes when things become memory verses, we can kind of just take them for granted. They roll off of our lips. We don't even have to look at the Bible. We don't look at the words, but we have to be reminded of who we at our base nature are, and realize without God, this is who we are. Verse 9, Jeremiah 17, the heart, that's all of our hearts, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

You know, many times I mention, God will use these adverbs, right, on something that's like we should really pay attention to. And he says, our hearts are wicked. They're desperately, desperately wicked.

Who can know it? We can't even know ourselves sometimes. We don't even recognize what we're doing. So when David said in Psalm 139.23, search my heart, I don't even recognize things. I need you to let me know. What am I thinking? What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Because the natural line is always going to go the opposite direction of what God would have us do. Verse 10, then, God says, I, the Lord, I search the heart. I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.

You and I have been called to kind of know what is going on, to understand that our natural self can't be that way. Mankind in the world, mankind, you and I, without God's Holy Spirit, awful. Look around. It would be any one of us. Pick any of those things that you see people do, and you think, how could they live that way? That could well be us, because the unchecked, deceitful heart gets worse and worse and worse. You know this word here that's desperately wicked, deceitful?

It really is talking about it's incurable. Mankind can't control it. In Jeremiah 30, we see the same word as God accentuates that word. We have an uncurably wicked heart. We can't control it ourselves. We can't heal it ourselves. Only God can heal us. In Jeremiah 30, verses 12 through 15, he uses the same word when he's talking about the sins of Judah.

When he is talking to them and saying, turn back to me. Stop going the way of the natural man. Stop going the way of the world. Verse 12, thus says the Lord, your affliction is incurable. Your wound is severe. There is no one to plead your cause that you may be bound up. You have no healing medicines. All your lovers have forgotten you. They don't seek you. For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one for the multitude of your iniquities.

Why do you cry? Verse 15, about your infliction, your sorrow is incurable because of the multitude of your iniquities. Because your sins have increased. I've done these things to you. Ancient Judah, ancient Israel didn't have God's spirit. They went the way of the world. They became increasingly wicked. And without God's spirit, they couldn't do what God has called you and me to do. But you and I, we have God's spirit. So when we read things in the Bible, and we see where God gives us examples of who we would be or who people in the past have been, He gives us those things so that we look into our hearts.

What are we doing? What are we up to? Are we doing God's will? Are we yielding to God's will? Are we letting, as you heard in the sermon, that God work with us?

Or are we maybe moving into sometimes when we look at what we're doing or thinking into the realm of, what am I doing with my life, as you heard, as opposed to what is God doing with our lives? Where does He lead us? And how does He lead us?

So today, I want to look at three examples of people, groups of people. You would know them well. And they were natural human beings, like you and me. They didn't have God's Holy Spirit. And as we look at these examples, they are the extreme. They're the extreme. They're the worst possible place that people could go when it was an unchecked heart, carnal mind, desperately wicked heart. But at some point in their time, they had the ruts, they had the beginnings of what they ended up being, but they didn't check it. They didn't arrest it.

And you and I, God has given us the ability to arrest it and to see what we're doing and to stop it. Let's go back. Actually, I wanted to turn to Romans 7 as well. Let's go to Romans 7.

You know, Paul, Paul certainly, you know, he served God when God opened his mind to the truth. He turned completely around, sacrificed his life in a way that you and I haven't been called to do. He suffered greatly all for the Word of God because he always remembered who he was.

But you know, just because he had the Holy Spirit and just because you and I have the Holy Spirit doesn't mean we're immune to the wickedness of the heart. It doesn't mean we're immune. We have to use the Holy Spirit. Paul shows us that here in Romans 7 and verses 18 to 25, where he's wrestling with self. Just like you and I wrestle, a thought comes into our mind and we think, and we let it harbor for a while. We let it percolate there for a while, and it comes a little further and it goes a little further, and all of a sudden things become out of control. Paul talks about this. You and I have experienced all of it. Let's remember this is us because as long as we're human, these thoughts will come into our mind. These things will come into our mind. If we don't check what we're doing, we could go far, far straight. Paul says, It's no longer I who do it, but it's sin that still dwells in me. All of us are there. I find then a law that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members. Ongoing battle. Constant opportunity to choose good and refuse the evil. Choose right and refuse wrong. Do the things the way God wants in attitudes, in thoughts, in words, whatever it is. Is this what God would have me do? Is this the direction that he wants me to go in my personal life? Are these the thoughts I should have? Is this the thought of what God would do? Or is this the thought of what I, the natural man, would do? Paul talks about the same thing that we've probably thought in verse 24. O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Only one way without God's Holy Spirit, right? Death. Only death. And so he says, thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with flesh the law of sin. So let's, with all that in mind, knowing who we are, every single one of us, prone to everything that Paul felt, everything that everyone has felt, let's talk about a few people. Let's talk about one group of people who we'll be thinking about as we approach Passover, who had direct interface with Jesus Christ. They were able to see Him, see what He did, hear the words that He had to say, and they were the Pharisees. They were people like you and me, they thought. They thought they were God's people. They thought that they were doing things the way God wanted them to do. They kept the Sabbath, they kept the Holy Days, they knew the Bible, they were the people charged with preserving the Word of God, and they copied it. And so they thought that's it, and they were waiting for the Messiah, the Messiah to come the first time, and thought they knew what to look for, just like you and I are waiting for the Messiah or Christ to come the second time to come to earth. But they failed miserably. They didn't recognize Him. They didn't like Him when He was there. They grew to the point that they couldn't stand Him, and that He had these little thoughts come into their mind along the way, like, who is this guy?

He's kind of telling us things we don't want to hear, really. And He's got people listening to Him. And we don't like that. Now, remember the Pharisees? They didn't have the Holy Spirit. They had the natural mind. They had the truth, or they had the Bible that they knew. But they didn't have the Holy Spirit to control where they were going. Should they have known that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, they should have seen the works. They should have seen what He was able to do. That no other man was able to do that, but they let the works of the flesh interfere in their lives. And so Mark 15, you don't have to turn there, Mark 15, verses 10 and 11, when Christ was brought before them, when they allowed this hatred and this envy of Christ to well up in their minds, they brought Him to Pilate with the purpose, kill Him.

We don't want it. We don't want what He has to say. In Pilate, it says in Mark 15, 10, He knew that they handed Him over. Why? Because of envy. Because of envy. It's kind of an amazing thing when you think about it. Again, they didn't have the Holy Spirit, and that's an extreme, extreme situation.

But when we look in our lives, you know, none of us would doubt Christ. We look at that and think, how could that ever happen? And it didn't happen on day one. They let it grow. And we've all been guilty of the same things as we've looked around us, and things have happened. I remember decades ago, you know, in church, and I would hear, you know, when someone got ordained, and I would hear talk.

I wasn't part of it, and many times I didn't even know well the person that was ordained, and it would be like, why did He get? Why was He ordained? Why did He? What about Him? Or what about me? I've been to the church longer than Him. And I would hear those things back then, and it's like, well, it didn't bother me at all. But it's like, it was just, that's kind of the things that happen.

You know? Why not? Why not me? Right? I heard that in the sermonette. Why me? Why, or maybe the reverse of that is, why not me? No, we think of the Pharisees. Christ reminded us, you know, here's the lessons. Here's lessons we learned. They would talk about beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, their deceptive heart. Where did their heart lead them? It led them to a place that's awful to think of, and awful to think that any of us could ever be part of something like that.

It was so against everything that God would have us to do. The leaven of the Pharisees. Hypocrisy. Christ said, don't do what they say, just don't do what they do. And so the lesson for us is, make sure that what we say is what we do. When we preach the Gospel, when we live it in our personal lives, it should be reflected in the way we do things day and night, 24-7. Not just when we're in front of someone, not just when we're at church or in other people's presence, but day and night.

That what we do and what we preach and what the Bible says we do and make a practice to do all the time. He said their leavening was in their teaching. They twisted the Word of God for their purpose. Remember when he said, they have now made the traditions of men more important than the commandments of God. That was what they wanted to do. And when they were faced with that reality when he said it, they didn't like to hear it. But that's exactly what they had done. And sometimes we have to look and say, well, what's the most important thing to us?

Is that the way God does it or is that kind of what we want? It's never about our will. It's always about God's will, what he wants. So they had spiritual pride. And perhaps if they had the Holy Spirit, as you and I do, they would have caught themselves early on and realized, wow, what we're doing is going down a dangerous path. But let's look at Hebrews 12. Hebrews 12, verse 14, talks about these things that our heart can lead us into if we might have something come about that we just don't like.

Verse 14, he says, you know, the author here, inspired by God says, pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Pursue peace. Pursue peace. The ways of the flesh are the opposite of peace. The ways of the flesh, when we don't see peace and we don't see unity and we see factions and we see groups of this and groups of that, it's like, whoa, we're missing something. Somewhere the Holy Spirit, we've lost track of who we are and what the goal is.

Peace. Arresting self. Arresting self. Whatever the thought is, whatever it might be, that we sacrifice us for the unity that God has called us to be. That's who we are. That's what we must be. And as we look forward to the time of Jesus or the Passover, we think about those things. Am I doing that?

Am I doing that? Is that who I am? So in verse 15 going on, he says, looking carefully, there's one of those adverbs again, look at yourself, examine yourselves carefully, lest anyone fall short of the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness, those little things that happen, happen to all of us, every single one of us have a root of bitterness or a root that can be planted by who knows where from anywhere on earth because God sometimes will give us that trial.

Will you choose to have that root? Will you tear it out or are you going to let it grow and grow and grow? And eventually, out of any of the works of the flesh, cause death to yourself or something else, looking carefully, lest any root of bitterness, bitterness, bringing up, cause trouble, and by this, many, many become defiled.

Examine. What are we doing? What are we doing? What is causing some of this?

That might be in our lives, or that might be there. If we go back to Hebrews, let's look at Matthew 5. Matthew 5, in verse 21. Jesus Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, we talked about some of these things that are going to be. He didn't come to do away with the law. He came to fill it up. It's not just about physical adherence to the law, but also the spiritual aspect of it as well.

In verse 21, he talks about how we are to interact with each other, because the goal is always reconciled. It's always unity. It's always be reconciled to one another. And don't let things lead to any kind of issues. Verse 21 says, And then he goes on in verse 23, he says, You know when you're coming to Passover or coming to God, and you remember someone has something against you? Go and talk to your brother. My will is you become one. Work it out. Work it out. Talk about it. Don't let it harbor. Don't let it sit there. And create problems that should never happen in the Church of God, should never happen in our interactions with each other.

Talk it out. Do what God said. Follow his way. And you know, William Barkley, he looked at verses 21 and 22 there. Let me just read what he wrote, because he talks about those verses and what we do when we just follow our natural inclinations sometime, and we all do it.

Absolutely everyone does it. That's why we have problems between members in the Church. That's why we have problems in our families. Problems that can spread out of control because we simply don't do what God says. And here's how bad what we can do, you know, in God's eyes. William Barkley, the commentary says about verses 21 and 22, says, What Jesus is saying here is this. In the old days, men condemned murder, and truly murder is forever wrong. But I tell you that not only are a man's outward actions under judgment, but his inmost thoughts are also under the scrutiny and the judgment of God. Long-lasting anger is bad. The root of bitterness that can spring up, the left unchecked, can create problems. Long-lasting anger is bad. Contemptuous speaking is worse. And the careless or malicious talk which destroys a man's good name is worst of all. The man who is the slave of anger, the man who speaks into the accident of contempt, the man who destroys another's good name may never have committed a murder in action, but he is a murderer at heart.

Words matter. Our thoughts matter. Work it out, God says. If there's problems in a family, if there's problems between members in church, go to do that. Think about that. Pray about it. Ask God, is there any of those things in our lives that we need to go to a fellow member because every once in a while I'll hear, people won't go to church because this person's a church. People won't go to this one because of this. And I think, really? I mean, we need to come to grips with it and be able to say and do what God says to do. Work it out. We are family. We have the spirit. God is looking for us to be one. And if we really intend to be in his kingdom, and that's where our heart is, we will work it out because his family will be one. They will be one. We will bury all these issues that are there that sometimes divide us. Only because we let things go. And sometimes we just need to ask God, help us. Help us and give us the strength to do it. Of course, the antidote to that is humility. We have to have humility. Philippians 2 verses 4-5 says, Esteem each other better than yourself. Recognize that it's God who gives us all the talents that we have. It's not about us. None of us are wonderful. As you heard in the sermon, he's called the weak and base things of the earth. If we were in the world, we would be absolutely nothing and probably worse than nothing. So, you know, it's very interesting when you think about some of the things we have. Let's go back to Genesis 4.

Very early in the Bible, God tells us how to handle some of the things. Adam and Eve, we'll get to them in just a minute. But they had an issue, a family issue, that was there. Two brothers who couldn't stand the other brother, much for the same reason that the Pharisees hated Jesus. He was envious. As you go through Genesis 4, you see these two sons of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel. And they would bring their offerings to God, but God expected the offerings of Abel, we're told, but He didn't respect the offerings of Cain. Abel brought it with the right heart, offering to God. Cain did it just out of a sense of duty. Okay, have to do this. Let me check off the box. So God is, He does look at our hearts. Why do we do the things? Do we want to do things? Is our heart desire to please God? Or do we just do it because we feel we have to? There is a big difference. Oh, we should do it. But our heart should lead us to it. So of course, you know the story there. And down in verse 6, after Cain takes it to the extreme and kills Abel, kills Abel, the first murder, all the way to the extreme. Verse 6, the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, won't you be accepted? Do it why I said. Do it with the heart that I said. And if you don't do well, sin lies at the door. Satan's always there to look for the opening on how he can get in to lead us astray, put a thought in our mind, do this, do that. Whatever it might be. If you don't do well, if you're just playing the game, if your heart's really not in it, if you really have an ulterior motive or letting something happen in your life, you know, that will cause a problem. If you don't do well, sin lies at the door. And its desire is for you. It wants to kill you. The spiritual you, it wants to kill. Its desire is for you. But God says, and words that we should always remember, but you should rule over it. You should rule over it.

We can't do that without God's Holy Spirit. The Pharisees couldn't do that without God's Holy Spirit. Cain couldn't do that without God's Holy Spirit. But God was teaching us, you should. You should know. You should watch. You should see what you're doing. You should examine the intents of your heart. You should ask me, what is going on? If there's anything going on in my heart that's apart from what your will is, show it to me and then rule over it. Not because you're strong, but because God is strong and he wants us to become like him. You should rule over it. They didn't do it.

The Pharisees or Cain.

If we go back and look at Adam and Eve here in Genesis 3. Again, you know the story of Adam and Eve right there at the beginning. You know, Satan was there. He put a thought in their minds. He's clever. He's very cunning. He's very deceptive. And over the course of time, you know, he convinced Eve, you know what?

Wouldn't it be nice if you were like God? That's what God is withholding you from. So it says, you know, verse 5 here, For God knows, Satan said, in the day you eat of that forbidden fruit, your eyes will be opened. You'll be like God, knowing good and evil. Well, that's an appealing thing. If you're a human, if you're Adam and Eve, I can be like God. That's what he's hiding from me. I could do this. You'll know good and evil. You'll set the law. Really? I can set the law? It can be the way I want it to be? That was what Satan was appealing to with Adam and Eve here. It can be the way I want it. I don't have to listen to God. I'll be like him. That's what he wants. That's what he's hiding from me. I'll be like him. And yet mankind and all the world's churches have adopted that same thing. What have they done? They have set the law the way they want it to be. They don't look at the law of God. They don't teach the same thing Jesus Christ taught. They don't do things the way Jesus Christ said. They don't know all the Bible. They just do it the way they want. They want to be like God. I'll set the rules. Listen to me. Do you see how what Satan said there, you'll be like a God? It's their perversion of what God has called us to be.

He's called us to become like him. Like him. Not setting our own goals, not setting our own ways, not setting the law for ourselves and determining what's right and wrong, but submitting to him, serving him, and doing the things the way he says to do it. Not the way we want it to be. Not our will, but his will. We may not like his will sometimes. It may not be the most comfortable thing for us sometime. We might have to sacrifice something sometimes, but we do it because we're becoming like Christ, who is willing to give up everything.

He never sought his own will. He never sought his own comfort. He never sought anything. He did it God's way, his will. And so that's what we do.

The opposite of what Adam and Eve did, the opposite of the way of the world, serve God.

Become like our Master. Become like him with all those fruits of the Spirit that are in Galatians 5, 22. Not taking it upon ourselves to become and set the law the way we want it to be. Letting God lead. Letting him do his will.

There's an extreme example of this in the book of Numbers, and I mean extreme. And it's almost unbelievable that this could happen. When God shows us examples, it's like, this is where you are without my Spirit. This is what happens in Numbers 16.

We meet this man, Korah. Of all people, Korah. His name is synonymous with something really, really not good. In verse 1 of Numbers 16, we are introduced to Korah. It says, Korah was the son of Ishar. He had these comrades, Dathan and Abiram, that were there.

In verse 2 it says, they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, 250 leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown. They had a good reputation. They weren't just a bunch of nobodies. People knew who they were. And they gathered together. They came against Moses and Aaron. And this didn't happen overnight. It's because a thought came in their mind.

Something happened along the way. They kind of thought, you know, Moses, how come him? Not us. We're good people. We have all the answers. And they come and they say, you take too much upon yourselves. Everyone, all the congregation is holy. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the Lord?

Wow. When Moses heard it, he was just kind of like a Paul. He says he just fell down like, whoa. Do you even know what you're saying? It wasn't about Moses. He wasn't offended. He was offended because they were talking against what God had set up. Moses didn't choose himself to be the leader of the people. He tried everything he could to get to talk God out of it. He didn't want to be there. He did it because he was serving God. And God worked through him. So when Moses, who was completely submitted to God, completely serving him and relying on him and trusting him, it was like, whoa. Where did this come from? What has happened here?

And so if you go down through here, you know, he talks about some things. And in verse 7, he tells them, well, you're taking too much upon yourselves, you sons of Levi. So we learned something about him. Cora and his band of people, they were in the Levitical priesthood. They did have offices. They were serving. But somewhere along the line, they didn't think that they should still be in that. They didn't want that role anymore. They didn't want where they were put. And so Moses says, well, wow, you're accusing me, but you're taking too much upon yourselves. And so verse 9, he says, is it a small thing? Really, do you consider that any role that God would give you is a small thing? Not good enough for you? It's a small thing to you that the God of Israel has separated you from the congregation of Israel to bring you near to himself, to do the work of the tabernacle of the Lord, to stand before the congregation to serve them. And so now you want the priesthood, too? An extreme example, but in local congregations, you've seen this happen. In work, you've seen it happen. In the offices of the world, when I worked there, I'd see this happen every once in a while. And this attitude would develop. And it's a dangerous thing. It's the way of the world. It's the works of the flesh. And it's a dangerous thing. You see, resistance is part of it. Moses, in verse 12, says, come on up here. They say, no, we're not. We will not come up. We will not come up.

Oh, they had the law of God. They saw God do all these miracles, brought them out of Egypt, walked through the Red Sea, gave them food, gave them water, in places that there was none. And yet these attitudes of resistance to God were there. And these factions grew up. When God brought them out as one people, as He has brought us as one people, whether it's in our families, whether it's in the congregations, and there's people who won't talk to each other, people who have something against another person that separates them. But if I have any of those things against someone, our responsibility is to go to each other and work it out and yield and submit to God. To become, it's those steps that we have to take to become the one that God wants us to become. And if we're not willing to do it, then we're kind of telling God, I kind of don't want what the kingdom is about. I kind of don't want that. I don't think any of us want to give God that message.

You know, you can write down Philippians 4. Well, let's turn to Philippians 4. I say you can write it down. Let's just turn there.

Philippians 4, verse 11. You know, Paul, a very good example, as all the apostles are, of the example that they said in their lives. You know, he says there in verse 11, the end of it, he says, I've learned in whatever state I am to be content. I'll do whatever God wants me to do. I'd rather be a watchman in the kingdom of God than have the highest office in the world in this world. That's where my heart is.

Whatever you want me to do, whatever you're preparing for me, it's okay. I will be happy and I will be content to be doing what God wants us to do.

You know, if we look at Galatians, Galatians 5, and in verse 19 there we have the works of the flesh.

And as we've talked about the Pharisees, and as we've talked about Korah, I didn't even go to one of the verses there in Numbers 16. I think it's down there in verse 26 where Moses says, you know, when you see this, get away. Get away. Get away the rest of you from people like this.

This isn't what God wants. Help all of us, each other, to become who he wants us to become in unity. That's what we're here for.

But if we look at verse 20, when we forget the sexual perversity and the sexual sins in verse 19 for now, not that we should forget them because they are part of the character and the natural man that we are, we look and see some of the traits that are right there that led the Pharisees, that led Cain, that led Korah.

We have hatred. Oh, that's a work of the flesh. That's what comes naturally. We will hate each other for whatever reason it might be.

They wronged me. They said something against me. They did something I didn't like.

Hatred. Contentions. All those disturbances that entered our lives that are there.

Contentions. Jealousies. Now, the jealousies in envy in verse 21, and certainly we're there with the Pharisees, outbursts of wrath.

Those can be an indicator of our need to look at ourselves spiritually.

Selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, all those things. Those are the works of the flesh.

That's where we go without God's Holy Spirit. That's who we are.

Some to extreme degrees. So when we see these extreme conditions in the world, and as we look at the world around us and how things are being done, and what people do to each other, we think, wow, how did it get this way?

I think it's 2 Timothy 3.13 that says, evil. Evil will become worse and worse.

And so we see the end of this age. And the closer that Jesus Christ's return comes, we will see this in the world all around us.

It can't become us.

We have to be more and more on the lookout that we are doing things the way God says to do it.

Drawing closer to Him. Helping each other by pointing out some of the things that are there.

Because none of us are here, I hope, just for whatever reason, we are here to become like Him.

We are here because we believe in the Kingdom of God. We are here because we are growing in that culture of the Kingdom I spoke about a few weeks ago.

And that becomes part of our lives at home, at church, at work, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

None of us are there. It's a chore. There will be the things that come up, but we do it the way God says to bring it all together.

Let's look at one more. One more here. Let's go to 1 Samuel 15. Here's another man who we're very familiar with.

He even had. Let's go to 1 Samuel 10, first of all.

The first king of Israel, Saul.

1 Samuel 10. And we find out that when God anointed him as king, He did have the Holy Spirit.

So unlike Cain, unlike the Pharisees, unlike Korah, Dathan and Abiram and their men of renown, they didn't have the Holy Spirit.

And they weren't able to control it. Saul should have. 1 Samuel 10, verse 10, says, When they came to the hill, there was a group of prophets to meet him. Saul had already been anointed, and the Spirit of God came upon him.

Ah! It would lead him. It would guide him. And he prophesied among them.

But then we see Saul as he progresses through his reign of king. And God gives him a specific order. You know it well. But let's read it in 1 Samuel 15 and verses 1 to 4.

Samuel was a judge at that time. He was kind of like Saul's mentor. Samuel said to Saul, The Lord sent me to anoint you, king, over his people, over Israel. Now therefore heed the voice of the words of the Lord. Listen to him. Pay close attention to what he says.

Pay attention to every word he says.

Thus says the Lord of hosts, I will punish Amalek for what he did to Israel, how he ambushed him on the way when he came up from Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek and utterly destroy all that they have. Don't spare them. Kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.

Crystal clear. Crystal clear what God said, just like he makes it crystal clear when he gives us the spirit. Now we read the words of the Bible and how we are to be. So fall, gather the people together, number them until I am 200,000 foot shoulders and 10,000 of Judah. And so they come there to Amalek. In verse 7 Saul attacked the Amalekites from Havola all the way to Shure, east of Egypt. He took Agag, king of the Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag. They spared the best of the sheep. They spared the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and all that was good. And they were unwilling to utterly destroy them. We know what God said. We don't want to do it that way. We'll do it most of the way. God probably had something else in mind. And somehow they deceived themselves. That's okay. It's okay not to do what God said.

We don't like what God said. We want to do it more the way we want to do it. And kind of, as we'll see in a minute, think that we've done God's will. Fool ourselves into thinking we're doing God's will. But it wasn't what it was. So they spared them. And then in verse 11, when Samuel comes to see Saul, he says, here's what God told me, I regret. I regret that I've set Saul up as king. Wow. If we put ourselves in that place, and if one day someone said to us, God said, I regret that I called that person. I regret that I put my spirit upon them.

Why? Because they just didn't do everything God said. They kind of took most of it, but they didn't do the whole word of God. They kind of changed the law a little bit. They watered it down to fit more of what they wanted to do. And for reasons, Saul, well, if I spare this king, then you know, when my time comes, maybe that king will spare me. And all this sheep and all this, we have to, let's offer all these things to God. Certainly, he would want us to do these as sacrifices to him rather than just utterly destroy all those right? Isn't that right? I mean, can't we just kind of do it that way? We'll just use their sheep to sacrifice God. You can feel the human reasoning in it. Isn't God, wouldn't he be okay with that? We're kind of obeying what he had to say. I mean, we are utterly destroying everything else except those things. But it wasn't what God said. It was a watered-down command. And it was okay with them to just water it down a little bit. Mine's of Isaiah 30, where it says, you know, we don't want to hear what your word is. We want it smooth. Just tell us what we want to hear. Don't do what God said. You know, sometimes we might not like what we hear. Sometimes I don't like what I hear.

But we need to. What is God's will? What is His will? He has a commission for the church. It is to warn. It is to cry aloud. It is to spare not. It is to let the world know Jesus Christ is returning. And we have that job to do it. Life's like Jesus Christ did. Just like the apostles did. And just like Jesus Christ said, you know what? That may bring some ire on us. I don't say may. Will bring some. Christ said, if they hated me, they're going to hate you. We may as well prepare ourselves for that because if we're doing God's will, people will hate us. Pharisees hated what Jesus Christ said. They'll hate us. But that's okay. That's God's will. That's what we've been called to do to do His will. Whatever the personal cost is because we believe in Him and we're committed to doing things His way. Letting Him lead. Letting Him do the things that He wants to do in the way that He would do it. Down here in verse 17, verse 17 of chapter 15, Samuel goes on and he says, Saul, when you were little in your own eyes, when you were humble, when you first began, when you were trusting God, but somewhere along the line you've gotten big in your own eyes, about what I want, about what I want, I've got a better idea than God had. He says, utterly kill them all? Nah. Nah. I don't have to do that. When you were little in your own eyes, weren't you head of the tribes of Israel, and didn't the Lord anoint you king over Israel? Now He sent you on a mission and said, Go and utterly destroy the sinners, the Amalekites, and fight against them until they're consumed. Why didn't you obey Him? Why didn't you just do what He said to do? Why did you swoop down on the spoil and do evil in the sight of the Lord? You didn't do it the way He said to do it. You didn't let Him set the command, and you follow every word. And this all had an excuse. Well, really? But didn't I do that? Didn't I do it, He says to Samuel, and kind of like an amazing thing? But I have obeyed the voice of the Lord.

I have gone on the mission on which the Lord sent me, and I brought Agag back, king of Amalek, and I have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. No, you didn't, Saul. You didn't do what God said. You didn't do it with His way. You did it your way. You watered down what He said, and somehow you've convinced yourself that's okay. It is not okay. And then He blames the people. They took the plunder. They wanted to sacrifice. And then God gives us the words that we should remember as we go through life. And we think we, as long as we do it 80% or 90%, God's okay with that. No. God's okay with it when we do things exactly the way He says, paying attention to every word that He says. Not that any of us are doing that today. That's what we continue to live for, continue as God's Holy Spirit, that we see. And we understand more, and we yield to Him, and our lives change as we go through that to become more and more like Him, not more and more like the world, not more and more like the Pharisees, Korah, Cain, or Saul. So Samuel said, does the Lord have His great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? That's what He wants. Do it His way. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. We don't have to sit there and think we have to interpret it in our own way and pat ourselves on the back and think we're doing things when we're not. Behold, He says that to obey is better than sacrifice. To heed. Listen is what that means. If you listen to God, if you listen to what He's saying, and don't close your ears to it and think, hey, I'm okay, good enough. And to heed is better than the fad of ram. For rebellion, and that's what Saul did, that's what it's there, that's what may start out as a little. And if we don't catch it, all of a sudden we've guilty of something we never, we don't even see. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and adultery. And Samuel says, you've rejected the word of the Lord, Saul. You've rejected the word of the Lord. You didn't do it the way he said. You watered it down. Saul was setting an example of what Galatians 5.21 would call heresy. You read that in the works of the flesh, heresy. It's watering down the word of God. It's not doing things the way God said. It's leading people astray with what your idea is as opposed to what God's clear command is. Definition of heresy. An opinion. It says, especially a self-willed opinion, which is exactly what Saul did there. An opinion. Especially a self-willed opinion, which is substituted for submission to the power of truth. And that leads to division and the formation of sex. S-E-C-T-S. That's what it leads to. It doesn't have to be all-out defiance against God. It doesn't have to be all-out, you know, forget the Bible, throw it out the window. Certainly that's heresy, but if it's not saying things and doing things the way God says, that's our opinion, not God's truth.

For the last couple of years we've been talking about speaking the same thing in the church. We're still talking about it. We still find things that aren't like out-and-out heresies, like do away with this and do away with that, but just little variations on what God's word is that as we work throughout the churches and ask people if you hear something, our job and what our will is just we're all speaking the same thing that God wants us to speak. Speak the truth in love and do things the way that he says. 1 Chronicles 10.

1 Chronicles 10 and verse 13.

We see the end result. We see the end result of Saul.

1 Chronicles 10 verse 13.

That little itty-bitty thing where he kind of convinced himself, I'm doing what God said, didn't I utterly destroy all the Amalekites except Agag? Didn't we kill all the sheep because we did offer some of them to you? We twisted it a little bit, but he thought that was okay. But it all started with that. But where did Saul's life lead?

Eventually he was consulting mediums. Eventually he was trying to kill David. He wanted David gone.

A little bit that starts very little, if unchecked by the Holy Spirit, leads to something much more dire.

Saul died for his unfaithfulness, which he had committed against the Lord because he didn't keep the word of the Lord. He didn't do it the way God said. He didn't say it and do it the way God said to do it.

All of us, me, the words we speak, are they the words of God? Are they what he wants us to do? Are we committed to that?

Do we make excuses for ourselves like Saul did?

He didn't keep the word of the Lord and he also consulted a medium for guidance. Look how far from God he fell.

By just a little root that led to what God called rebellion.

Just a little root, the little thought, that left unchecked can bring us to the same fate.

Saul experienced the same thing that the Pharisees did, the same thing that Korat did started out.

That was the end result of a whole bunch of stuff that went on before that as they worked on it and just let it grow and grow and grow.

I think we pray every day that I will be done. Do we mean it?

I ask myself that literally not every day, once, but several times. Is it your will we're doing?

Is it your will we want to that we should be doing? Or what is your will?

In our personal lives, in the church, with each other, we all need to be asking that.

The time is growing shorter. You look at the world around us and we know as the world becomes worse and worse, in a constant state of change, we need to be in a constant state of change.

Not looking more like it, but looking more like what God wants us to be.

That's the constant state of change. We go closer and closer to God, nearer and nearer.

As we have whatever it is, six or seven weeks until Passover, we should be examining ourselves. We should be doing it to see, are we letting our heart be deceived?

Are we letting a deceptive, natural heart that is still in all of us lead us astray, thinking it's okay?

And is that deceptive heart really following God, or is it following our will?

And somehow we've confused the two.

In Proverbs 3, verses 5 and 6, among many, many, many verses in the Bible, you know, God inspired these, trust in the Lord. Believe that He knows what He's doing. Believe that when He says things, we can do it, and we should do it, and we can do it with His Holy Spirit. Believe He knows what He's doing. He is in control.

Romans 13, 1 and other places, and Daniel 1, 22, I think it is, makes that very clear. God is in control. We don't have to guess, whoops, did He kind of mess that up, and we better correct it for Him? The world wants to do that, right? The whole political climate of the world is all about, we can do better. We don't want this one. We don't want that one. You know, kind of a complete waste of time when you look at it. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Believe He knows what He's doing. When Jesus Christ says, believe Me, He means, believe Me. Believe I am the way, the truth, and the life. Follow Me. Believe Me. Serve Him. Do His will. And yield to Him. Lean not, He says, on your own understanding. Lean not on your own understanding? That's a mistake soul made. That's okay. This is the way I understand it, and I've patted myself on the back. I've judged it, and I've got some people to agree with me, and I think that that's the way to go. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. Nothing about us, well, as Paul said, there is nothing good in any of us, me included, nothing good in us except God's Holy Spirit. Nothing. We are all no different than the people we've read about that God left us examples without His Holy Spirit. We're the same. Not because we're smart people, wonderful people, kind-hearted people. It's because God has put His Spirit in us. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. All your ways, not just a couple of them. It is God who prepares us, trains us, gets us ready. He wants us all to be in the Kingdom. He will get us ready if we let Him and get ourselves and our selfish ambitions and all the things that we read about in Galatians 5, 20, and 21. If we get that out of the way, just let Him do what He wants. Serve Him. Submit to Him. In all your ways, acknowledge Him. And you know when we do that, He'll direct our paths. Isn't that what we want? Isn't that what we said to God when He called us and we were baptized? We want you to direct our paths. You know the way. We are completely reliant on you. Direct our paths. Something we should think about every single morning and mean it, and not just say the words.

So, as we head toward Passover, maybe not the most pleasant sermon I've ever given, but something we really need to look at. The heart wants what the heart wants. We want. We want and we should want what God wants and not follow our own deceitful heart, but follow God.