Drifting Away

Speaking of peace and harmony, I hope we all do find that in our relationship with God the Father and Jesus Christ. We find that through our prayers, we find the solace in reading the Bible and being in His presence. And I hope as you come to Sabbath services each week, you find that peace and that respite from the world. When God says that we are at rest on the Sabbath day, He doesn't just mean that He certainly means ceasing from our work and our everyday activities. But we come, and if we have really put the world out of our lives during that time, there is peace and solace in it. And we feel that when we're with God. And I hope whenever we feel tense or upset or unsettled, we know to go to God. Because it's there and from His Holy Spirit and our relationship with Him that we will find that peace even in times of trouble. We've all been through a hard time here during this COVID crisis and the other crises that have faced the nation and probably yet to face the nation of the days and months ahead.

But you know, we can find these times trying, but through it all, we have to remember to get closer and closer to God. You know, as we've been going through the book of Hebrews and the introductory chapters, we're reminded here, and those of you who have been on them, this is kind of a repeat, just how important our calling is. And if we would take the time to realize it is God the Father, no more supreme being in the universe that has actually called us to become part of His family and His body. I don't know that we all appreciate that and that we take it into consideration when we make choices that we make and things that we do. No more supreme being in the universe than God the Father. And Jesus Christ, who is our salvation, who died, you know, that we might have this opportunity to live eternally and to serve God and Him forever. That there is nothing more important, nor nothing more important than that calling of what we do. If we go back to Hebrews, you know, we went through chapter one, we got through most of chapter two in this last Bible study, but I paused on Hebrews 2, verse 1, because I do want to talk about that today because as you go through the book of Hebrews, you will see five warnings to Christians. And as we talk, this book is as much for us today in the times we live. It was for the people in the 60s A.D. when it was written. In chapter two of Hebrews, in verse 1, you know, after God reminds us, do you get your calling? Do you know who it is who has chosen you, who has invited you into His family? If we do, if we get it, He says in verse 1, therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away.

You know, God and Jesus Christ, as they speak to us and as the words are there, they use word pictures to kind of get our attention so that we can kind of put in our human terms, which we need to see sometimes, to understand what He's saying.

And so here in verse 1, He says, pay even more attention. No, just look at that accent that He puts in that. Pay even more attention to it, lest you drift away. Now, we all, when we think of drifting away, there's a picture that comes into your mind. You know, you think of water and you think of an expanse, a lake, a pond, an ocean, or whatever it is in there. And we've all seen, or probably even experienced, where something we would put in the water and our attention would get distracted for some reason and boom, there goes a little kayak floating away from the dock, or there goes the float that the kids are playing on drifting out into the ocean. And we have to swim and catch up with it because we got our minds off of something for a while and they would just drift away.

You know, for a number of years, we lived in Palm Coast and we lived on a saltwater canal there. And most people there had a boat. And we had a next-door neighbor that was next to us. And he only, his wife only came over about once a month. It was more of a vacation home to them, I guess. And as I was talking to him one day, I noticed he had a boat but was always in the garage, never on his dock, he never took it out.

In the 14 years we lived there, I never once saw him take that boat out. And so I mentioned that to him and he talked about what a hassle it is to clean it up and they got tired of it. But he said, you know, one day when we had some people over, I took the boat out and it was tied up and I thought I had tied it up to the dock. We went back in with the people that were there.

Didn't really think much about it. He goes, a couple hours later I got a call from someone in the neighborhood and they said, I think your boat is drifting down the canal and it's about to enter the main canal that leads out to the Intracoastal. And he thought, he said, I thought, well, that can't be. But he walked out the window and sure enough the boat wasn't there. He ran outside and sure enough it was just sort of drifting there about ready to enter the main canal out there. So he said, you know, he had to kind of stop what he was doing, swim out to that boat, get it back again.

But the sense he gave is that was about the end for him. He was in a way funny when he talked about it, but I also tell it was a little embarrassing to have your boat drift away like that. And you just didn't have it tied securely. That's drifting away and sometimes we just don't pay attention to things and they can kind of get away from us.

Hopefully they don't get totally away from us. You know, as in too long ago that we had a Hollywood actress who took her boat or rented a boat for her and her four-year-old son, if you remember. I think I've got the name right. It's doing it from memory. Naya Rivera, I think, is what her name was. And after she rented the boat and didn't come back, they found the boat drifting in this lake in California.

And the four-year-old son was on it, but she was nowhere to be found. So after a search in the ocean, they finally found her body. And I don't know how they can tell all the things that they do from autopsies. But apparently, as they pieced it together, they said they could tell she had called out for help. But apparently, they had taken a swim out in the lake.

Whether she had her son with her or not, they don't know, or if she left him on the boat. But apparently, the boat wasn't anchored. The boat drifted away, and she just couldn't make it back to the boat. Just by drifting away. Just by not paying attention to what was going on. So drifting away can be embarrassing. It can cause some problems, or it can be deadly.

It can be deadly. So when the author of Hebrews here says, give even more attention to the things that you've heard, lest you drift away. He's talking about a time when there are so many things that can get our attention and take our attention away from the calling that we have, the focus that we should have, that we could find ourselves drifting and not even really recognize it.

That we just get so involved in this, or that, or anything else it would be. It could be the affairs of the world, could be what's going on in our personal lives, but the things that are there that can distract us, and before long, we just drift, and we drift. You know, there's one thing about drifting away.

It doesn't scream at you. It isn't immediate. It just sort of happens silently, little by little. It could be standing right there on that dock, talking to someone, and then turn around and see, you know, whatever it is floating away and think, how did that happen? I just wasn't paying attention. And so the author, you know, in the book of Hebrews, I mean, tells us who the author is in the first word of the book, God, tells us pay more attention.

Now, the other thing he says there is, pay attention to the things you heard. You know, he could have said, pay attention to the things that you read, but he said, pay attention to the things that you've heard.

And that should tell us something about God's calling and how we relate to him. Yes, we read the Bible. Yes, we study the Bible. Yes, his spirit gives us the understanding. But we hear the Bible. We hear it preached. Don't ever forget Romans 10, 17 that says, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And as we read this verse, you know, we can think of those type things and the word picture that God paints for us. As we're here in, you know, 2020, you know, with all the things that have gone on in life, you know, COVID, COVID disrupted our schedules. We're still, we're still dealing with it. We've had, you know, locally here, the renovation of that hall that has distracted us a little bit as we're in temporary locations. We've had a presidential election that was contentious. It's almost tiring just to think about what's going to go on over the next few months as we think about everything that's going to happen that's going to dominate the news. We can't let that ever allow us to distract us from our calling and keep us from focusing on God and what His calling is and when these things do attract us or distract us, that we need to keep our focus on God and pray even more fervently for His kingdom to come.

You know, I look about this pandemic and the other things that have gone on and the other things that will go on because I do have a feeling that from here on out, life is going to be one distraction after another that we can worry about or think about, whatever it is that, you know, people would have us have us look at.

But Peter, you remember the time when Peter walked on water? You know, it's a miracle that we've talked about many times. As Peter, as the cow's lungs, he kept his eyes on Christ. As long as he kept his eyes on Christ, he did the physically impossible. He walked on water. The minute he got distracted by the winds and the noise and looked around at the world around him and what was going on, he began to sink.

There are so many lessons in that one miracle that we need to keep in mind. We aren't people who should sink. We have God's Holy Spirit. We aren't people who should drift away. We need to keep our boats tied very safely to that dock. We need to keep our vine, our branch, very closely attached to the vine that is Jesus Christ, as we're told in John 15.

Because if we don't, if we don't, it could be the spiritual death sentence for us.

During the lockdowns, as I think about these things that happened to us, we were forced to not come to church for weeks and turned into months that we just couldn't meet by the regulations of the land. We still look at that, and we have no idea what's going to happen in the months ahead regarding that. In other words, a time that we were apart. That was a time that I think we bound together as a people, maybe closer during that time.

But then as the weeks went on and the weeks went on, I have to wonder what drift occurred. What drift occurred? I've seen it, and maybe you've seen it with some people. It's at times like that when we can't be together that we need to take more opportunity to be together. Emails and phone calls are great. We have to remember that God called us to be part of a body. We have to be tied to Him, but our strength comes also from being with each other. He called us into a body, and it's that body that provides some very real advantages and benefits to us, actually necessities to us, to stay together. Through the pandemic, we could say there are so many things that happened, and it occurred to me not too long ago.

Something that happened before the pandemic. I've been thinking about that, and it's been on my mind, but I remember coming home one Wednesday evening, and it was around 8 or 8.30 at night. Not far out from where we live here in Orlando, there's a non-denominational Christian church.

I drive right by. It's got a big attendance on Sunday morning. Their parking lot is huge, and it's full. They park around the pond as they have their overflow crowd going. I was coming home that Wednesday night, and I looked, and I've driven by that before, but it caught my attention that Wednesday night.

Their parking lot is absolutely packed. Their parking lot is absolutely packed. I thought, wow, these people come out there every Wednesday night for a Bible study. Is it a once-a-month Bible study? It's not every other week. It's every Wednesday night. During COVID, they're not doing it anymore either, but that stuck in my mind, and I remember writing about that on one of my Friday morning letters. I look at that, and I think, well, where's our commitment? What if we had a weekly Bible study?

How many people would come to our weekly Bible study if we were able to do that every Wednesday night at our local church hall? I had a couple write and say, well, you know, I think that's expecting too much. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. And I thought, well, yeah, because even when we do Bible studies after potlucks, we have a good percentage of people who just don't even stay for those. I think they don't even stay for a Bible study then.

We tried Tuesday night Bible studies here in Orlando, and it started off okay. But when it got down to the point where it's an embarrassing attendance once a month on Tuesday, if we don't need to do that, this is more of an embarrassment to the congregation than it is to help. So I thought, yeah, we could never do that. But then through the pandemic, you know, we had something happen that I never thought of, but we had these Zoom Bible studies that occurred.

I never had heard of Zoom before. And then we did some services on Zoom, and then we started these Wednesday Bible studies. And it occurred to me, wow, God has given us an opportunity to be together every Wednesday. Every Wednesday, a Bible study. I didn't see that coming back in January or February when I wrote that.

Never saw that. And, you know, it's so easy. It's so easy. You don't have to get in the car. You don't have to get dressed up. You don't even have to put your camera on. Right? And so even with that, even with that, some people just routinely and have never tuned into the Bible studies. And I look at that, and I think, you know, the same thing I thought that Friday morning when I wrote that letter, where is our commitment? Do we get what God is giving us the opportunity to do? You know, in the same book in Hebrews later on in chapter 10 when he said, don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together.

Yes, he's talking about the Sabbath day, but you know what? It takes more than just the Sabbath day for us to be together. You know, I could talk about the Sabbath day, too, right? In Hebrews 4, we'll talk a little bit about the Sabbath day when we get to it.

You know, even our attendance on Sabbath days. You know, I kind of look around and I think, okay, where are people? And sometimes I'll email and I'll hear excuses. And there are some who aren't here today, and they are legitimately, if I can use that word, ill and shouldn't be here. But others, when I call, it's like, well, you know, I've got an excuse. Well, I was just a little tired today, so I needed to stay home.

You know? And here in Orlando, we have services at 2.30, and I think, you know, I don't think of my life, and, plus, I've been really, really sick if I ever slept until 1 o'clock in the afternoon. But I think, okay, well, I get it. But I don't know that people realize God gets it. Pay even more attention to the things that you have heard. Pay even more attention to the things that He says to do. When there's a time when there's all this distraction and we can drift and drift and drift.

You know, drifting can be deadly, and we might not even see it coming. But the further we get away from shore, the harder it is to get back. The harder it is to get back, and some people just give up. We've seen it through the years, and we don't want to see it to happen to anyone today. Pay even more attention. I want to look at a couple of people in the Bible today, because even in the Old Testament, you see some people whose names you're going to recognize immediately. You know what? They were guilty of drifting away. One, well, God will be His judge what His ultimate income is. And the other one caught himself and was able to get back to shore and turn his life around and be committed to God. You know, as we look at these things and as we look at our situations, remember what it says in 1 Corinthians 10. It says there that these things that happen to them in the Old Testament are kept for us today, for examples, that we might learn for them us upon whom the ends of the age have come. And so let's look at a few people. You know, a couple weeks ago we looked at Gideon, and we learned something about Gideon. And what God is doing with us is He took a young man and said, you know, to Gideon, you're a man of valor, and looked at ourselves and think, you know, we might have looked at Gideon at the time that God said that to him and thought, well, he wasn't much of a man of valor at that time, and compared it to ourselves when He says, you're kings and priests. And we might look at ourselves and say, well, no, we're not kings and priests, but God brought Gideon along, and He showed him every step of the way. He was with him, kind of patted him on the back, kind of showed him signs of what was going on, and God will do the same thing to us as we do what He says, as we follow Him even more closely and do the things to Him, and don't put our own comfort and our own ideas and our own other things well or justify to ourselves that God is okay with that, because God is clear. Carefully and diligently, pay even more attention. Let's go back. Let's go back to 1 Kings 3. Let's look at King Solomon. King Solomon, you all know a lot about King Solomon, but let's look at him and see what happened to him.

Because you all know that King Solomon started off like a ball of fire. He was exactly who God wanted him to be. When David died and Solomon became king, you know, God looked at him and Solomon solidified his place on the throne. And when God asked him in 1 Corinthians, or 1 Kings 3, you know, he had exactly the right answer, and that answer came from his heart. Let's just read this. 1 Corinthians, or I'm sorry, 1 Kings 3 and verse 3.

Verse 4, verse 5.

But I'm a little child. I don't know how to come out, go out, or come in. See the humility that's there? I don't even know what I'm doing. I need you to train me. I need you to teach me. I need you to be there with me every step of the way. And your servants is in the midst of your people whom you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to be numbered or counted. Therefore, give to your servants an understanding heart to judge your people that I may discern, discern between good and evil, for who is able to judge this great people of yours. You know, Solomon, when he looked at it, and God appeared to him and said, What do you want, Solomon? What do you need? He didn't look at it as the, you know, magic genie moment. Whoa! Here's my opportunity to ask for riches and honor and all these other things that was about himself. Didn't even apparently enter his mind. Just let me serve you well. Let me learn what my father David learned, that I can serve your people well, that I can apply your principles into our life here in Israel, that I can judge righteously just like you did and he learned to do. You know, we can ask God the same thing in our lives. What do we ask God for? Do we ask him to teach us? Do we ask him to guide us every step of the way? Are our prayers just, Bless this, Bless that, or are they asking, Show me what I need to do so that you can bless my actions? Show me what the tents of my heart are, that they may change and they may be what you want, that you may bless what I'm doing. Well, God was very pleased, we see in verse 10, it says, The speech pleased the eternal that Solomon had asked this thing, and because it pleased him, God said, You know what? I'm going to give you even more. I'm going to give you wisdom and you're going to be the wisest man who lived, and I'm going to give you riches and wealth as well. A blessing. Now, we know Solomon's wisdom, apart from Jesus Christ, the wisest man who lived. Over in chapter 4, around verse 30 or 32, it says that he wrote 3,000 proverbs, did all these things and whatever. And people came from near and far to hear the wisdom of Solomon, because God gave it to him. It wasn't Solomon, his innate intelligence, it's God gave it to him. God showed him how to live, and God showed him how to judge these various things. He also gave him wealth. Also gave him wealth, but that wealth turned out to be a very distracting thing for Solomon.

That wealth that should have been a blessing caused him to eventually drift away from God. Keep your finger there in verse Kings. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 17.

Deuteronomy 17, we have God's instruction for the future kings of Israel, because he knew that there was going to come a time when Israel was going to say, we need to have a king over us, just like the nations around us have a king over us. I'm not going to read through the entire instructions to the kings, but let's look at verse 17 and 18 as we go into the discussion about Solomon here. In Deuteronomy 17 and verse 17, it says, "...neither shall the king multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away." God knew what that distraction would be. "...let him not multiply wives for himself, lest his heart turn away. Nor shall he greatly multiply silver and gold for himself." That that would be his primary mission in life. How do I increase my riches? What do I do? God will bless, and it's a wonderful thing when God does bless us, but he said, don't let that become the primary thing you do. Also, it shall be when he sits on the throne of his kingdom that he shall write for himself a copy of this law in a book from the one before the priests, the Levites.

And it shall be with him, and he shall read it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the eternal his God, and be careful to observe all the words of this law and these statutes. So don't become so enamored with the world. Don't put these things in your life that will distract you from what your calling is, and you look at that word of the law every day of your life. Let it be in your heart. Carefully observe it.

Make sure your life is reflecting what God's will is, and that's a watered-down version of what God's will is. Because he's pretty clear when we read it. Through his eyes and through the lens of his Holy Spirit, what exactly God expects us in a physical way to do, and then, of course, as Jesus Christ said, and as his Holy Spirit leads us into the spiritual effect of those principles that he gives us to live as well. So with that in mind, let's go back to King Solomon. In verse 1 of chapter 3 that we were in, we see what Solomon was already doing.

He saw what David had done. He knew God's law. He had the right attitude toward God. And in verse 1, you know, we see this little dangerous thing that was part of his personality, I guess, or part of his way of doing things. It says, Solomon made a treaty with Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, and he married Pharaoh's daughter. And he brought her to the city of David until he had finished building his own house and the house of the Lord and the wall all around Jerusalem.

Now there, even as he did that, so as he looked at the world around him and thought, you know what, I need to have a treaty with Egypt. I'm going to marry Pharaoh's daughter. And God knew what he was doing.

And Solomon knew better. He knew what the words of the law were. But he still had this heart at that time that when God asked him, what can I give you, he had the correct response. But there was something there about Solomon. If we go over to chapter 6, we see that Solomon did the right thing. Now, as an attorney to chapter 6, let me remind you, sometimes we will look at Solomon and say, oh, he was a king, he had all these things.

What a wonderful life he had. You know, Solomon is not so much different than us. I think if Solomon came alive, you know, it's resurrected into the world we live in now, he would think, wow, do you guys have it so much better than what I did? I had no idea these things could even exist. Yes, I had the opportunity to look at animals and go out into the Mediterranean Sea and explore.

You can fly all over the world. You have an Internet that you can actually look at anything. You can be together in the way that you have. You have all these opportunities. You live in a land that's been so richly blessed. You have food that you don't even have to work for and go out and till the soil. You can just hop in your car and go to the grocery store and pick it up and cook it. I think Solomon would look at us and say, you know, I think you're more blessed than I was.

So never, never forget the blessings and the time that we live in and what God has said. So Solomon, we may look at him as a king. God is looking at you and I as kings. That's what he's called us to be. And we live in a time that he has so richly, richly blessed.

But as Solomon began his work, you know, in verse chapter 6 here, you know, he began to build the house for God. You recall David was denied that opportunity to build the temple for God. And he said, your son Solomon will do it. And Solomon understood that job. And as he became king, he began to build the house. It's the same thing that God has called us to. We have, he had a physical temple to build for God.

You and I have a spiritual temple to build for God. We're building it individually in our lives by the way we do things and the way we apply his law into our lives. And we're doing it as a church because there's this dual building of the temple. You and I have the same job Solomon did, and he did his job well. When you look at chapter 6 and we come down to verse 37, we see that he did his job really well. Verse 37 of 1 Kings 6, it says, In the fourth year, the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid in the month of Ziv.

And in the eleventh year, in the month of Bull, which is the eighth month, the house was finished in all its details and according to all its plans. See that? It was built exactly the way God said to build it. According to all its plans, according to all its details. Solomon didn't shortchange it. He didn't say, you know what, that wood's a little expensive or hard to get. I'll replace it with this. It'll be just as strong and just as good.

He did it exactly the way God said to do it. Exactly to the plan. Exactly to the specifications. Exactly what God asked you and I to do is we're building our spiritual house. Exactly to the plan. Exactly to the details. Not shortchanging it. Not replacing and saying, this is good enough and that's good enough. Exactly the way God said. If Solomon had shortchanged, if Solomon had changed the plans, God wouldn't have shown his glory in that temple, in that house. He was really pleased with what Solomon did.

He paid attention, even more attention, to the detail that God gave him as he was building that house for God. And so it took him seven years. Seven years to build it. Even with construction schedules that are today, that's a long time to build a house. That's a long time to build a house, but he did it perfectly. And his heart was in it what he was doing. The same heart I hope that you and I have as we're building and remember that God has called us to build his house to the specifications that he has given us.

You know, well done, Solomon. You know, God told him that. He goes, in this house, I'll dwell. In this house, when my prayers come up, you know this prayer there in 1 Chronicles 7.

Chapter 7, verse 1. No chapter break in the original text between verse 28 of chapter 6 and chapter 7, verse 1. But whenever you see the little word, but, as I mentioned the other night, stop and think. Stop and think because there's something that God is going to teach. You know, well done, Solomon. It took you seven years, and you did it well, your house. But Solomon took 13 years to build his own house. So he finished all his house. Took the time, did it exactly the way God said to do it, to build God's house. But to build his own house, 13 years. Double the time. What was Solomon doing during that time?

You know, he was focused during those first seven years on God. Where was his focus during the next 13 years? Nothing wrong with building a house. Certainly God had blessed him, and he had all the opportunity to do everything that he wanted in that house. Where was his focus during the next 13 years when he was building his house? Was it still on God? What happened to Solomon during that time? Now, if we go over to chapter 9.

Chapter 9, and in the ensuing chapters, you read all about Solomon and his exploits. Of course, we read about those in Ecclesiastes, too, as he talks about those things. We see all the people that visited him, all the things that happened in Israel, as God richly blessed that nation during that time.

As we come to chapter 10 of 1 Kings 9, we see that now he's 20 years into his kingship. Verse 10, it happened at the end of 20 years. Verse 7, completely dedicated to God and doing his will. The next 13, a little focused on himself, a little focused on what he could do, a little focused on what was going on in the world around him. It happened at the end of 20 years when Solomon had built the two houses, and then it talks about what he had done and everything. Now, 20 years into his reign, if you will, Solomon was on the throne for 40 years.

Halfway through his reign, we see something different about Solomon after 20 years, and we saw at the beginning of Solomon's reign. And God notes that as well. We can pause and think of ourselves a little bit. How long have we been in the church? Where is our attitude today? In the first year, 2, 3, 4, when we began our walk with Christ, we were baptized, we received his Holy Spirit. How diligent were we in keeping everything that God had said? Now that we've been around for 15, 20, 30, 40, 50 years, do we give it the same diligence? Do we have the same commitment? Do we do it exactly the way we did back then, as John says in his epistles?

What you heard from the beginning continued to do, that Christ says in his message to the seven churches, you know, go back and rekindle the first love, do the first works, do what you learned in the beginning. Something happened to Solomon during those years. You know, in the book of Hebrews, as we're reading it, we mentioned that, you know, here are the Christians, the Jewish Christians, this was written in the 60s AD, here they are 20 and 30 years from the time that they were converted, and they were beginning to drift.

That's why it even talks about drifting. As the author there looked at the Christians in that time, and as they were headed into a time far, far different, that was ahead of them, when everything in Jerusalem would change, they began to drift. That's why it was saying, pay more attention, lest you drift away. And so, we're in the same time frame today for some of us.

Pay more attention, lest you drift away. Solomon did some things that weren't, you know, that weren't so great. If we look back here in 1 Kings 9, in verse 4, you see God reminding him of the blessings that he would give. He says, But in verse 6, a warning to Solomon, But if you or your sons at all, might underline that, at all, if you or your sons at all, turn from following me, and do not keep my commandments and my statutes, which I have set before you.

But if you go and serve other gods and worship them, I will cut off Israel from the land which I have given them, and this house which I have consecrated for my name, I will cast out of my sight. Israel will be a proverb and a byword among all peoples.

And as for this house, which you have so well constructed, Solomon, which is exalted, everyone who passes by it will be astonished and will hiss, and say, Why has the Lord done this to this land and to this house? And they will answer, Because they forsook the Lord their God. Because they forsook the Lord their God. Pay attention, Solomon, as you go into the next phase of your life, the next 13 years, the next, he didn't know it at the time, 33 years of your reign, pay even more attention. Don't get distracted. Do the things that you do, the things that we need to do, but don't lose focus.

Well, Solomon did lose focus. If we move over to chapter 11 here of 1 Kings, after God talks about everything that Solomon has done, chapter 11, verse 1, the very first one is, the first word is, what? But. But. Solomon did all these great physical things, but he loved many foreign women, as well as the daughter of Pharaoh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sedonians, and Hittites, from the nations of whom the Lord had said to the children of Israel, You shall not intermarry with them, nor are they with you.

Surely they will turn away your hearts after their gods. Solomon clung to these in love. He married those women. You know, we can marry some of the gods of this world. We can find ourselves tied to them. We just don't want to let go of them. And as we drift away from God, we may look at this and say, You know what? What the world has here, I'm going to cling to that a little bit. I'm going to look at that, because my faith and my trust isn't where it needs to be.

It isn't where it was in the beginning. And as I look at the world and the things around them, I might cling to this, and I might cling to that. And I might find myself drifting away, and all of a sudden, before I know it, I may be trusting more in this thing or this thing than God, whatever that thing might be. Solomon didn't regard God's command to the Old Testament kings and come out of the world.

Do we pay attention to what God's command is when he says, come out of this world? Well, Solomon didn't. Solomon didn't. And God takes him to task for it here. He disregarded that. Thought, it's okay. You know what? I can intermarry with the God women of this world. I can commit fornication, as it says in Revelation, with the gods of this world and what the nation of the world around me puts stock in. And I can do the same thing, and that would be okay with God.

Is it? Is that what he's called us to? Or does he called us to be completely faithful and loyal to him? Solomon clung to these in love. He just wouldn't let them go. He had drifted so far away through the things that he did, he just couldn't give them up. He just couldn't give them up.

Would Solomon, back in year 1, 2, 3, 4, have ever thought he would become who we're reading about here in chapter 11 and verse 4? He had 700 wives, princesses, 300 concubines, and his wives did turn away his heart. The same thing that can happen to you and I if our hearts are elsewhere.

For it was so when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart after other gods. His heart was not loyal to the Lord his God, as was the heart of his father David. He went after Asherith, the goddess of the Sidonians, after Milchem, the abomination of the Abonites. Solomon did evil in the sight of the Lord and did not fully follow the Lord as did his father David. He even built a high place for Kamosh, the abomination of Moab, on the hill.

What happened to Solomon? How could you do that? How could you ever have become that person after such a fine start? It didn't happen overnight. He didn't wake up one morning and say, I reject God and I'm going to turn against God. It happened slowly, slowly, slowly. He drifted, drifted, drifted. And all of a sudden, his ties to God were cut. His boat had drifted out to sea.

There was no turning back. He had gone too far. He did things he would have never imagined that he could do. Back in those first few years of his reign. He was distracted. He looked to the world. He got caught up in all those things. And at this point, God would say, you know what, Solomon? You've lost it all.

Those things, what you did, it spelled spiritual death to you. You drifted and you drifted and you drifted. I warned you back after the seven years, stay close to me. Walk in my paths, you didn't listen. You just kept going. You just kept not listening. You didn't pay more attention and the more earnest he'd. Instead, you paid less. So whatever, you know, to Solomon's credit, at the end of Ecclesiastes, after reviewing his life, he did come with the right conclusion and say, here's the whole duty of man.

Fear God and keep his commandments. That is the whole duty of man. You're on my duty. You know, whether Solomon repented, that's between him and God. Whatever his judgment is, that's in God's hands. Back in Proverbs, or forward in Proverbs, 21, as you read through Solomon's many, many Proverbs that he wrote in Proverbs 21.

Perhaps as he penned this one, he was thinking about his life. Or maybe God just put it in his mind. Proverbs 21, verse 16. A man who wanders from the way of understanding. You know, wandering is like drifting. A man who wanders from the way of understanding will rest in the assembly of the dead.

Don't wander. Don't drift. Pay even more attention in these times to what you have heard and what you have been taught and what God's will for us is.

Now, let's look at David, Solomon's father. A man after God's own heart. You know, we look at David and we think, you know, what a wonderful man he is.

But we know that in David's life he had many of the things. He committed sins that I would dare say probably most of us, I hope none of us in this room ever committed the sins that David did. You know, committing adultery with Bathsheba, another man's wife, having her husband killed. Those are not just small crimes, if you will. Those are pretty significant sins David should have known better.

David, who all those years when he was anointed king, he resisted Saul. He didn't act against Saul. He didn't try to kill him. He didn't try to take matters into his own hands. What happened to David? What was going on in his life at the time that he would do something like that was so clearly, he would absolutely know what he was doing was wrong.

Absolutely know what was wrong. Well, let's go to 2 Samuel this time.

2 Samuel 11 It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Job and his servants with him in all Israel. And they destroyed the people of Ammon and Bessige, Raba, but David remained the Jerusalem. This is setting the stage for the sins that David was about to commit. And there's things we can look at in that verse that we can relate to ourselves here. David was the king of Israel. In those days, the kings had physical battles. It seems like when you read or even watch movies or read history about kings, life was just a battle. It was just about war, it seems. You've got what I want, we're going to go to battle. Someone wants what I have, so we're going to go to battle. And it just seemed like life was an endless, endless feudal thing of nothing more than wars and everything. But here's David. He decides in the spring of the year, he's not going to go to battle this year.

He's kind of going to take it easy, let someone else do the work for him.

Now, you and I can think about ourselves. We're not going to battle every day physically, but what does God tell us that our daily life is like? Well, let's look at Ephesians 6.

Ephesians 6. And we say that spiritually, our lives are a battleground daily. There isn't a day to let down. There isn't a day to be off guard.

Ephesians 6, verse 10. Paul writes, Not once in a while, but every day, put on that armor and then he finds what that spiritual armor is. For we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Daily we realize we go to war. Daily we realize there's that spiritual battle that we face. The things that confront us daily. We have to have our guard up because all those things can take us by surprise. This dark comes from here. This arrow comes from here. Someone's shooting at me from that direction. I don't even know where it is. How do I stand through all of it? The way we stand through it is we are always ready, always aware, and we put on the armor of God daily.

We study daily. Remember who we are daily. We pray daily. We have faith in God daily. We enhance and ask God for more faith and to teach us in those ways daily. That's the way we stand.

David, when it was his time to go to battle, he said, not this year. You know what? I'm just going to kind of relax a little bit and let someone else fight my battles for me.

We'll see what's going to happen to David here. And I think we see what happens to us if we let our battle gear down. If we let our armor down and think, you know what? I'm just taking a little vacation. I'm not going to do this and I'm not going to do that. And it's okay. I'll just rest for a while. I'll just coast for a while. I'll just drift for a while. What harm can that be? Well, we'll see what happens with David. And you know, like David, you and I, our kings in training, never forget that. When we read about these kings of Israel and Judah, you and I are training for kings. We should look at those kings and look at the things that happened to them and look at those examples. Look what they wandered into. Make sure that we don't do the same thing. So David was there and he decides, I'm just taking the spring off. I just need a little bit of relax. I don't need to do what kings did in that day this year or in this season. And it says here that he just decided to remain at Jerusalem. So David was alone. David was there in Jerusalem. All his army, all his generals, they were out fighting the battles. And David was home alone.

And as he was home alone, he goes up on the rooftop one night, he sees Bathsheba bathing. He does what David would have never thought, I don't think. Years before that, that that could happen, that he would do that. But he had drifted. He was spiritually weak. He wasn't ready for that temptation and so he filed prey to it.

There's a scripture back in Genesis 1 when God has created man. He says it's not good for man to be alone. Remember that back in Genesis 1, 26, 27, 28 in that area? We always look at that and we look at marriage and we say, yeah, it isn't good for man to be alone.

God did create that so that we would have each other to go through life together, to help each other. Our wives are helpmates to us. We're helpmates to our wives. If we're together in the church and we're living in the church and we're both spiritually, we should be helping each other to become what God wants us to be, binding together as one. But that is a wider sentiment because when you look at what God has called us to, He really did mean it's not good for man to be alone.

You know, there are no lone wolf Christians, you've heard us say. It's not good for man to be alone. God put people in His church, in His body. It's not good for man to be alone. And just like husband and wife help each other, we help each other. We're there to encourage each other, exhort each other, help each other, stay on the track, inspire each other. When we come to Sabbath services, it should be an inspiration to us. It should be something that lifts us up, that makes us feel even more close to God and ready to go out to battle in the days that we're apart from each other.

When we come together on Wednesday night and we don't forsake that opportunity to assemble ourselves together, it should spur us on. God gave us that opportunity. He planned it. Do we pay even more attention to the words that He said? But here's David. He's alone. He's alone. His support system is there. And sometimes when we're alone, we're just kind of separated ourselves from the body of God.

And we do this. We kind of drift and think it's okay. God's with me. I don't have to do this and that and whatever. And we lull ourselves to sleep. David did the unthinkable. Solomon did the unthinkable. David did the unthinkable. He not only committed adultery, which is a terrible thing, but he also killed someone to cover it up. Never occurred to him to repent. Never occurred to him during that time when Uriah was being killed.

Never occurred to him during all the time that baby, you know, was forming in Bathsheba's body. Never occurred to him. I need to turn back to God. I did something wrong. It never occurred to him. Do you see how blind we can get when we drift? Even David did that.

He just kind of put it out of his mind. Just a little further and a little further and a little further. Not overnight, but little by little by little. He found himself out to sea, floating further and further and further from his anchor, from his rock, from your rock, from my rock. And so, you know, David went on through this.

Finally, in chapter 12, he comes to his senses. Well, he doesn't come to his senses. God sends someone to bring him to his senses. You know, you know the story. He's there living in, you know, as closed his mind to anything that he's done wrong. He's not even seeing what should be so crystal clear to him. But then Nathan, the prophet Nathan, comes to him and gives him the story about the lambs. And David is incensed when he hears this story. And in verse 5 of chapter 12, it tells us, David's anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die.

How could anyone do this to this man and his sheep? And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity. Though he could see it in someone else when the story was given him. Now, Nathan took the opportunity, led by God. Nathan said to David, You are the man. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul.

I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping. And I gave you the house of Israel and Judah. And if that had been too little, I would have given you much more. I gave all this to you, David. And if you had asked, I would have given you more. If you needed more strength, if you needed more of the Holy Spirit, if you needed more understanding, whatever you needed, I would have given it. You never asked. You just drifted.

You just kept going away. What more did you need? I will be with you always. I will give you whatever you need. But pay more attention. Look at yourself honestly. Understand your calling. Understand who it is who has called you. And do the things that he says to do.

Would God say the same thing to us? Look at everything I've given you. 2020 Church of God, look at everything I've given you. But some are drifting. Some just keep getting further and further out to sea. Some compromise. Some justify. Some say, not that important. I'm okay with God. Some don't listen. Some don't hear the words. Will we wake up? God will help us.

God will be with us every step of the way. So, Nathan takes David to task. Verse 9, why have you despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in His sight? You've killed Uriah the Hittite with a sword. You've taken His wife to be your wife. You've killed Him with the sword of the people of Ammon.

And then He says you'll pay for it. Now you will be in battle all the time. Now you will experience what it is. You will not let your guard down again. David could have been incensed at Nathan, right? Like, who are you, Nathan, to come and call me whatever you're calling me?

I'm the king, off with his head, right? The king's had that authority. Off with his head. I don't want to hear this stuff. I want him to speak only things to me that I want to hear. But to David's credit, to David's credit, in verse 13, after he did all these things, after Nathan said these things, David had the humble spirit and he listened. I have sinned against the Lord. God could see this is from the heart. David got it. It's notable. Could God have gotten David's attention just by putting the thought in his mind?

Could God have gotten David's attention some other way than by Nathan? Maybe. Only he knows. But it's interesting that he uses Nathan, a person, to draw his attention to what his problems were. And David listened to him. He didn't close his mind. That's your opinion. I'll do what I want. He listened. And so we're told, even in the book of Hebrews and many other places, exhort one another, talk to one another, help one another.

If you see someone drifting, reach out. Don't hammer them. Don't go out and accuse them. But you might call. You might talk. You might email. You might send out a lifeline so that if we see someone drifting, and I dare say, there are some drifting after this coronavirus thing, there are some drifting. We need each other. And God sent Nathan. David listened. He didn't shut him off. He didn't shut him down. He listened and he repented. And from that day forward, David became a man after God's own heart. He didn't have Hebrews 2.1 to read, but he learned the lesson. Pay even more attention. Boy, I was drifting away.

I was about ready to have the tie cut from the rock. And that would have been spiritual suicide. Thank God. He sent Nathan to me to bring me back and that I could follow God and not drift away into oblivion.

Back in 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy 2.

And verse 20.

Paul, as he's writing, to a young minister here, he says in verse 20. 2 Timothy 2. In a great house, and never forget that God is building a house in us individually, and he is building the temple with us collectively, in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Or, so it's for vessels in these houses. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, notice where the responsibility is. God will give us whatever we need.

He made that crystal clear to David. He makes it crystal clear to us. But we have to take the action. We have to make the choice. We have to arrest self and put self behind and choose to do what God says. He is more than capable of making every vessel in every house a vessel of honor. But are we willing to let him do that? Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor.

You know, David did that. David had become a vessel of dishonor with what he had been doing during the spring of that year and the things he disregarded. But you read Psalm 51 and you see David's attitude. You see him turn back to God with all of his heart and all of his mind.

And you see David diligently and carefully following God's law from there after. He wasn't a perfect man after that, just like none of us are. But God saw his heart and knew that that's what his desire was. If anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the Master.

Isn't that what you and I want to be? Jesus Christ said, sanctify them, God the Father, in Jallian 17. Sanctify them by truth. Your word is truth. Set them apart. And useful for the Master? Aren't we here because we want to be useful to him? Aren't we letting him prepare us so that we can do whatever he wants us to do? It'll take some effort on our part. Sanctified and useful for the Master? Prepared? That's what our job is. That's what we're doing in this physical life. That's what we're doing here in 2020. We're letting God prepare us to be vessels of honor, useful to him, prepared for every good work.

David did that. David got it. Will you and I get it? Will you and I put forth the effort and the commitment to do what God calls us to do? Little by little, changing our heart and letting him change it. And I'll read... I'll look at verse 22 here. Just because there's two words I want to draw your attention to.

He says there in verse 22, flee useful lusts. Pursue righteousness. Pursue faith. Pursue love. Pursue peace. Words that should ring true to us. But the next two words. With those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Not alone.

Not sitting at home and thinking, I've read the Bible today. If I don't do anything else, do it with those. Part of his body that he has placed us into. Part of his body through which we grow and we're nourished and we're nurtured. Ready when Jesus Christ returns to be born into the spirit beings.

If we have, with God's help and with his Holy Spirit, become those vessels of honor that are useful to our Master. You know, don't neglect. Don't neglect God's calling. Don't ever take it for granted. Let's go forward here to Hebrews 2 and let me close with where we opened. In Hebrews 2 and read down to verse 3. Hebrews 2 verse 1, in light of everything we've talked about today and as Hebrews and God gives us this thing to kind of set our course.

That may be correct us, you know, and have us to come back to the dock and to the vine to which we should be attached. He says, Therefore we must give thee more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through, and that should be messengers, right? Through the prophets of old in the Old Testament, it says in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 1 and 2 there.

For the word spoken through, messengers, prove steadfast. There's nothing wrong with the law. That didn't get changed. The message that was broken then is still the same. For if the word spoken through, messengers, prove steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? If we just neglect it, and think, not that important, I'll take it for granted. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and then was confirmed to us by those who heard Him?

Let's not be people who will ever regret what we've done. Let's not be people who neglect. Let's make sure we are not people who drift away, but always remain tied to the dock, tied to our vine and our maker.