Spiritual Ditches

Jesus makes a statement in the Sermon on the Mount. Let's go to Matthew 7. Like so much of the Sermon on the Mount, He'll make these little statements and He'll realize they're broad. I mean, they have huge different meanings and different things that we need to learn from these statements. But in verse 13, He says, "'Enter by the narrow gate, for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate, and difficult is the way which leads to life.

And there are few who find it.'" Now, we read that. You've read that many times, and you've heard it explained, and you've thought about it, and you say, okay, the way of God is a narrow path. Now, think of a path. You're walking someplace, and you're walking up. It's not a path that's six inches wide. It's wide enough to walk on. In fact, it's wide enough that everybody can move just a little bit in terms of individual decisions we make.

But on both sides of that path, of that narrow way, are two ditches that we can just slide into and end up not being on the path. And sliding into those ditches can be a gradual experience, a gradual way of doing things, a gradual way of making decisions, and we just slide into one ditch or the other. That's what we're talking about today. These two spiritual ditches. I'm not going to talk about going off and just becoming a reprobate or going out and killing somebody.

Okay, now you're just going to go out and steal and lie and cheat. Overtly do that. And yet, if you get off in these ditches, you will end up, if you're in there long enough, in a spiritual place that you would think was impossible for you to be in.

So the first ditch, I want to explain in a story that's in the Scripture. Let's go to 2 Chronicles 18. 2 Chronicles 18. So this is just a general sermon. Sometimes I get into nitty-gritty. This is a general sermon, but I do during the Bible study, I want to talk about some of this. I want to open up and discuss how we can do this in certain ways in our lives.

What we have here is the story of Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and Ahab, the king of Israel. And the people of Judah still had, at this point, a semblance of obeying God. So they still had some worship of God. There was still a temple there. There still would have been certain things that they would have done as a community, as a nation that was still worshiping God. But they were gradually moving away. Israel, on the other hand, had just gone off into the ditch. And they weren't in a very good place at all. So this is about the story of the interaction between these two kings. So let's go to verse one of chapter 18.

Jehoshaphat had riches in honor and abundance, and by marriage he had allied himself with Ahab. This is common in the ancient world. In fact, it was common in Europe up until the First World War, when you had monarchies all through Europe.

They would make alliances by marrying off different members of the family to each other. And that's why when World War I started, the Tsar of Russia, the Kaiser of Germany, and the King and Queen of England were all cousins. They were all cousins. Because they'd all married off so much to each other in making these agreements.

So here we have the King of Israel, the King of Judah, had made a pact, and they had sealed this pact with a marriage between family members. After some years, he went down to visit Ahab in Samaria, which was the capital. And Ahab killed sheep and oxen and abundance for him and the people who were with him and persuaded him to go up with him to Ramoth Gilead.

Ramoth Gilead was a city that was on the border of Syria today. And it was a people as a city-state in which they oppressed the people of Israel. They wore with them all the time. So he persuades Jehoshaphat, bring your army up here and we will go against them together. They can't defeat us if we take both armies. So Ahab the King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, will you go with me against Ramoth Gilead? And he answered him, I am as of you are, and my people are as your people, and we will be with you in the war.

He said, yes, really we're the same people, and this is a problem that needs to be fixed, and we're bound together by this marriage, and we need to we will support you in this. And Jehoshaphat said to the King of Israel, please inquire for the word of the Lord today.

So the King of Judah says to Ahab, the King of Israel, but before we do anything else, we need to find out what God wants us to do. Let's find out what God wants. Now, once again, Judah still had some worship of God. Israel had moved away into, literally, they were into paganism. Then the King of Israel gathered the prophets together.

Now, he said, let's inquire of the Lord. The word there is the God of Israel. YHVH. Let's inquire of the God of Israel to see what we should do. The King of Israel gathered the prophets together, four hundred men, and said to them, Shall we go to war against Ramoth, Gilead, or shall I refrain? Should they say, Go up, for God will deliver it unto you into the King's hand? But Jehoshaphat said, Oh, well, he had four hundred prophets of God.

Well, Jehoshaphat said, Is there not still a prophet of the Lord here that we may inquire of him? Well, these are prophets, but these are all prophets of pagan religions. I don't want to talk to all these pagans. I want what God wants. Is there not anybody in Israel that's still a prophet of our God? So the King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, verse 7, There's still one man by whom we may acquire of the Lord, but I hate him because he never prophesies good things concerning me, but it's always evil. And he is Micaiah, the son of Imla. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the King say such things.

I mean, Jehoshaphat is just like, How can you say you hate the prophet of God? He said, Oh yeah, there's one prophet here still of the God of Israel, but I hate his guts. All he does is tell me I'm wrong. That's all he does. That's why I have the 400 pagans over here, because they'll tell me I'm right. And of course, Jehoshaphat is saying, No, no, no, I don't care about the 400 pagan priest. I want to know what this prophet of God says, the real God.

And then the King of Israel called one of his officers and said, Bring Micaiah, the son of Imla, quickly. And the King of Israel and Jehoshaphat, King of Judah, clothed in their robes, sat each on his throne, and they sat at a threshing floor at the entrance of the gate of Samaria, and all the prophets prophesied before them. Now think of how this looks. I mean, you have the Kings, these two Kings, they're on their royal clothing and have their crowns on and their soldiers and attendants all over the place.

And there's 400 pagan priests dancing and singing and doing sacrifices, doing all this stuff. I mean, it's a big thing going on. And they're sitting there looking out over this. There's probably thousands of people that have gathered as these two Kings are, you know, putting on a show for the people. Verse 10, Elzethikiah had made horns of iron for himself, and he said, Thus says the LORD, with these you shall gore the Syrians till they are destroyed. So, okay, here you have one of these pagan priests. He makes big horns, you know, maybe goat horns or something. And he brings them up.

Maybe it's like a helmet or something. He says, Here, with this you will destroy your enemy when you go against them. That's pretty big showmanship here. There's a lot going on. And all the prophets prophesied so saying, Go up to Ramoth-Gilead and prosper, for the LORD will deliver it to the King's hand. They all said the same thing. Then the messenger had gone to call. Micaiah spoke to him saying, Now listen, the words of the prophets with one accord encourage the King.

Therefore, please let your word be like the word of one of them and speak encouragement. He said, No, no, no, no. This is a messenger of the King. Now saying, Look, they're all saying the same thing. Let's just be encouraged by that and let's go fight our enemy. We'll have the entire army of Judah with us. We can't be defeated. So everybody is now encouraging these Kings to do this. And Micaiah said, As the LORD lives, whatever my God says, that I will speak.

Then he came to the King, and the King said to him, Micaiah, shall we go to war against Ramoth, Gilead, or shall we refrain? And he said, Go and prosper, and they shall be delivered into your hand. Now, I don't know how he said that, but we know that Jehoshaphat, or Ahab, knew he was being sarcastic. Because what happens next? Oh, yes, go, go forth like all your prophets are telling you.

Go out there and you'll win the battle. So the King said to him, How many times shall I make you swear that you tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD? He says, Okay, okay, you're being sarcastic. How many times have I said, When you talk to me, you have to tell me what God really tells you?

He knew by his voice, he knew by the way he said it, that he was just being sarcastic. Oh, yeah, go do what they say. Yep, you have a grand victory. It'll be amazing. He said, Okay, tell me what God really said. And he said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains, as sheep that have no shepherd. And the LORD said, They have no master, let each return to his house in peace. And the King of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you he would not prophesy good concerning me but evil?

Did I tell you all he tells me is this stuff from God that's bad. But you know, the 400, they tell me something better. What's interesting in this story is that Ahab decides to follow the 400 false prophets. Because it's what he really wanted to do. Deep inside his heart and mind is what he wanted to do. He knew he wasn't supposed to do it. He knew it when Micaiah said, Go do it. No, that's not what God told you. He knew it then. But it's what he wanted. It's what he wanted to be famous.

He wanted to take down these people. He wanted their city. He wanted their property. He wanted their goods. He wanted to win a battle with him and Judah together. What's really amazing here is Jehoshaphat decides, Okay, I'll go with you. So he brings up the army of Judah.

Both armies march out. When they come to the city, the king of the city told his soldiers, What we're going to do is look for the king of Israel and just drive a wedge into their army and kill him. If you kill him, the army will disintegrate. So it was a very simple strategy. The whole army was to see where he was and just attack through the other army so they can get to him and kill him.

Ahab, knowing that that's probably what's going to happen, told Jehoshaphat, You dress up in all your kingly attire. I'm just going to battle as an average soldier. And sure enough, when they saw the king, they was the king of Judah, that spear-tip, they came right at him. That shock force came right at him. And then Jehoshaphat said, cried out to God, I made a mistake here.

This is good. And they recognized, wait a minute, that's not Ahab. So they actually withdrew. And it says that an average soldier, just at random, picked a guy to shoot an arrow at, and he hit Ahab and killed him. Ahab went in in disguise so no one would take a shot at him. And just a random shot killed him. And Jehoshaphat went home and said, you know, we shouldn't have anything to do with Israel anymore. They don't follow God. In fact, he goes back and has a revival.

We need to get back with God. We as a people need to get back with God, because what we experienced there with the Israelites was very good. So Judah has a sort of a little bit of a revival. The point in this story, and it's a long story, it's a fascinating story, you can read all of it. But the point of the story is, when we look at Ahab, is that Ahab tells us what one of these ditches is.

One of these ditches is that we compromise. And why do we compromise? You know, in his case, it wasn't because there was pressure on him by other people to compromise. What was the pressure? It's what he really wanted, trying to find a way to sort of skirt around what God wanted to get what he wanted. And that ditch, we're always on the edge of that ditch, not always, but we move to the edge sometimes, because, well, I know, but this would be so good for me if I just compromise, and I'll make more money, or have a better job, or whatever.

And so we start to compromise with God's way, until we fall into the ditch. And we're living a lifestyle of compromise. Now, we all have to compromise in relationships with each other, right? You're with some people tonight, and you say, do we want tacos or pizza? And everyone wants pizza but you, so you say, okay, I'll eat pizza, right? You compromise. That's not a spiritual compromise. Husbands and wives compromise together all the time, right? What color couch do you want, or what kind of car do you want to drive? And, you know, you compromise because they're not important enough to have conflict over. But we're talking about compromising with what God wants in our lives.

But God knows his best. We compromise with his law, we compromise with his principles, and we compromise with his virtue.

And as I've said before, it's our compromising with virtue sometimes that gets us the most. We're not stealing, but we're not being generous. So we're not compromising with the law, technically. By being stingy, we're actually compromising with virtue. So we just go into the ditch. We don't steal, but we never help anybody either, in which case we've compromised. The motivations for compromising. Once again, this is a general sermon. These are just general principles today. Let's go to 1 John 2. 1 John 2.

Scripture you probably almost have memorized. John says, do not love the world. This is where we compromise. We slide over. We think it's better. It's better to do it that way. Our lives will be happier. Our lives will be more fulfilling. If we can just compromise in these areas. You know, it's... I've seen so many... I've seen people think, if I could just...

I mean, you can fill in the thing. If I could just cheat on my taxes. If I could just be dishonest here. If I could just have this boyfriend or this girlfriend. If I could just have... You fill it in the blank. And they slide into this compromise, and their life gets really messy. It gets really messy. Because it seems like it's what I want, so it must be good for me. You know, children do that all the time. As adults, part of being a mature adult is realizing what you want isn't always what's best for you. And that's where you have to trust that God actually knows what's best for us. Because what we think we want many times actually leads to some of the greatest heartaches of life. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So this is a very strong statement. The more we slide over into compromise, the farther away we get from the love of God. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.

The impulse to satisfy physical desires. Sometimes we can just be driven. We've all known people that can't hold down a job, not because they don't have skills, but they won't work. They just don't show up. This desire for just being lazy, it's a physical thing, drives them into failure. And of course, we can apply this to anything. That's what makes addiction so difficult. You know, you take alcohol, it changes your brain chemistry, as does certain drugs. That's why it's so hard to get out of it. I mean, it's more than a physical or a mental addiction. It's a physical addiction with physical consequences. Physical consequences. The impulse to satisfy physical desires. The intellectual pride of having our eyes opened, so that we can have totally self-centered experiences. That is one of the great things that all human beings deal with. We all want experiences, and that's not bad. But the problem is, the more self-centered our experiences become, the more self-destructive they become. And the desire to be wise, because we can decide what's good and evil. We can decide what's good and evil. We know it. And that's what leads us into this compromise. And remember, we're driven by this because it's part of our nature. You say, well, I'm driven by it because it must be something good in me. No, there is an evil in all of us, in our nature. And it drives us, it motivates us towards that compromise. So that's one ditch. We talk about a lot. You hear that in sermons. You talk about it yourselves. So that's one. That's one ditch that we can go into. The other is interesting because it appears to be an attempt not to go into that ditch. I'm not going to go into this ditch of compromise. So you go in a different direction and you fall into a different ditch. Let's go to Matthew 23.

Matthew 23.

Like I said, we're just scratching the surface of how this can be used in a practical sense. Because this type of sermon has no real lasting meaning if we can't figure out how to make it practical. What does this mean in my everyday life? How do I not compromise? And how do I not go into the other ditch? Here Jesus is talking to the Pharisees.

And we look at the Pharisees and we think, how could they be like this?

One thing to remember about the Pharisees, they formed as a group because Israel had gone into captivity in Babylon. God had punished them for their compromise.

And when they came back, they decided, never again.

We will never compromise again with God so that He will put us into captivity. That's why they formed. And in doing so, they went into a different ditch.

Verse 1.

Jesus spoke to the multitudes and to His disciples, saying, The scribes in the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. Therefore, whatever they tell you to do, observe, that observe and do, but do not according to their works, they say and do and not do. In other words, okay, if they're teaching you from the Scripture, do it. But don't follow their examples.

Don't follow their example.

Therefore, whatever they tell you to do, I'm sorry, verse 4. For they bind heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on men's shoulders. But they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.

Verse 5 says, But all the works they do to be seen by men. This ditch is, I will make my righteousness so obvious that God and everybody else will know I'm righteous.

Okay? I will make my righteousness so obvious that God and everybody else will see and know my righteousness.

You know, every once in a while, someone will come to church, and they'll come from a messianic Jewish background, and they'll wear phylacteries. And they'll ask me, what do I think? And I'll say, we'll go back and read it.

They were told to wear phylacteries as a reminder because they couldn't remember the law.

God says, under the New Covenant, he writes his law in our hearts and minds, so we can remember it.

If you can't remember the law, you better wear phylacteries.

Most of the time, it's like a couple weeks later, they're not wearing them anymore.

Yeah, if you can't remember the law of God, you'd better wear them.

Now, the phylacteries were actually a command of God for people who couldn't remember it.

But sometimes what happens is people wear the phylacteries because it brings attention to themselves.

This is where a ditch we go into that we decide that the answer to everything is to create more and more and more and more traditions and laws to protect the law of God. Now, there's nothing wrong with traditions. We have traditions, right?

Usually three songs, a sermonette, a sermon, special music in between, and a song.

And that's great traditions. I mean, traditions give us a sense of sort of stability. But you know what? It's not commanded in the Bible. So it's okay, it's good.

But we can't think that, well, that structure keeps and makes us righteous. No, it's nice to have, but the structure of itself doesn't make us righteous.

I've known people that have 30 years sang the songs, listened to the sermonette, listened to the special music, listened to the sermon, sang a song, went home, and never changed their lives one bit.

But they felt very good about themselves because in this ditch, you feel righteous.

In this ditch, you feel righteous. Now, we have to be very careful because you'll swing from one to the other, right? Oh, I'm going to get out of this Phariseeism, so you swing in, then you go into compromise. Or I'm going to get out of this compromise, and you get back on, and you swing over into Phariseeism. We go back and forth between these two ditches. When I was preparing the sermon, I thought, why is this so familiar? I've never given a sermon on two ditches. Then I remembered hearing this sermon when I was a kid, and it made such an impression on me that it was still in my head. We go back and forth between these two ditches, and if you're honest with yourself and you look at yourself, you go into the one ditch because it's what you really want, and you're trying to find a way to get around what God wants. You go into the other ditch to prove to everybody, look, me and God, we're all right. And the rest of you, maybe not as much. In other words, it's self-righteousness. And in this ditch, you can look very good. To tell you the truth, if I would have lived as a Jew in the first century, I'd have probably been a Pharisee.

Give me as many rules as I can get, but that's not the way God wants us to be.

Look at verse number 25. This whole chapter, once again, is very important. If you remember well, some of you, about five or six years ago, I gave an entire sermon just on this chapter.

Verse 25, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, that inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. That's very interesting. That doesn't mean they were indulging in sex out of marriage.

It means they were indulging in their own sense of self-importance, their own lack of humility before God. And if you have no humility before God, you won't treat others' people in a humble way either. We treat other people humbly because we have a humility before God. That's where that comes from. So if you don't have that humility before God, you just get other people, and all you see is their faults, all you see is when they're wrong, and you're very good at seeing where they're wrong. You're very good at seeing their faults, and you're very good at saying, thank you, Lord, that I'm not like other people. Remember that parable?

Thank you, Lord, I'm not like them. I'm not like this person in the church. I'm not like that person.

And of course, it's so easy looking at the world, right? Now we've got to come out of the world.

Okay, I don't want to judge anybody. So you swing into the middle, and pretty soon you're under very compromised because, well, I'm not going to judge anybody. So I can't judge anything is wrong. Therefore, I accept all this wrong behavior. Even if I don't do it, I accept it. That's compromise. See how we go? We swing from one back to the other. It's a narrow way that we're on. He calls them hypocrites. Remember, that word in Greek means play actor.

They know the part. They play the part. They're very good at playing the part because they've convinced themselves that's who they are, but it's not. They're not seeing themselves as who they really are. So they play this part. So they're just an actor in a play, and to them, all of life is a stage where they're pretending. That's why it's so hard to get a hypocrite to change because they absolutely believe the part they're playing. Because you have to go inside the internal part of yourself to find out who you really are and to have God expose who you really are.

That's one of the things with the Passover coming up. With the Passover coming up, we all should go through an experience of, you know what? Inside of me is a messed up person, and that can be discouraging. And then the next thing is, but God doesn't do bad work.

God's going to change me. God's going to heal me. God's going to make me into his child. I just have to go along with it. I just have to submit to it. So, yes, Passover always brings this little bit of, well, I'm not there yet. Yes, I will get there. That keeps us on the straight and narrow.

It keeps us from going from one ditch to the other. That's why we're told to examine ourselves.

Once we examine ourselves, what are we supposed to do? Decide, oh, I shouldn't keep the Passover? No.

You should say, I need the Passover. I need a reminder of the price paid for me. I need a reminder of what God does in order to make me one of his children. We need that reminder.

But at the same time, we have to feel the need for the reminder.

And that puts us right in the middle. That puts us right where we're supposed to be.

What's interesting, if you go back to what we talked about in 1 John, the impulse to satisfy physical desires, intellectual pride by having your eyes opened so that you can now just unbridled selfishness. I know what's best for me.

And then the third one, to desire to become wise by deciding I know the difference between good and evil.

The same motivations that lead us into the ditch of compromise, or the same motivations that lead us into the ditch of Phariseeism, they're just manifested in a different way.

Both the centered on self, and that I get to decide instead of submitting to God.

Remember what Jesus says here in verse 23.

He says, Well, do you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may tithe and mint and anise and come in, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy, and faith.

These you ought to have done without leaving the others undone.

A while back, I talked about justice and mercy and faith. Of course, that comes from one of the minor prophets.

We went through that in great detail.

The concept of justice just isn't punishing people.

It's about the concept that law must be fair.

And whenever someone does something wrong, the punishment must fit the crime.

And then mercy is there's place for mercy. There's place for forgiveness.

There's place for repentance and reconciliation. That's all part of it.

And of course, faith.

Faith is the requirement to walk humbly before God. Faith is the recognition that without God, you're nothing. Without God, you can't do anything. But with that with God, he can do with you.

What he wants to do is we submit to it, as we give into it.

Yes, we have to obey.

But we can't even obey if he doesn't open our minds.

Unless he opens our minds, how do we even know what to obey?

So we keep responding to God. We keep following God until His ways are written in our hearts and minds. So we love His ways. It's not just an external force.

It's inside of who we are. We can't play act. Play acting is when you act out. You put on the costume and pretend.

How many of you have ever gone to the Renaissance Faire?

I've always wanted to go as a knight or something.

Then I looked at the price of the costumes.

I saw what I really liked. I've only been to one. Oh, man, I like that. Was that a good idea?

I said, I don't know. I thought maybe $10, but I was, you know, $700. You know, you can play act, right? You can walk around. Although the last time when we were there, two guys can walk and buy in heavy metal armor.

And as they walked by, Kim and I, the one said to the other, I had no idea it'd be this hot in here.

Well, of course you're in an oven, man. You're under the sun in this metal armor.

But that's all play acting. And some of those people take it way too serious.

I mean, they're just not play acting. They actually try to get this persona and be this person. That's not healthy.

But that's what we do spiritually.

Are you laughing because you've done that? No, I'm not. Yeah, I can say, Tim, I can't ever see you play acting as a knight. You would go as an engineer. You would go as an engineer.

You would go as an engineer.

You can't be who you are. You are who you are. You can't be anything else, right?

I mean, our little grandkids, they would love to go and wear little costumes.

Because you play act when you're that age.

But he's saying here, don't play act through life. Be who God is making you into being so you're not in either ditch.

And faith is the humility to simply not to play act.

It's to be who you are before God and be humble before Him and be humble before Jesus Christ.

That's the opposite of being a hypocrite. Now, we say, well, someone does a sin, they're a hypocrite. Not necessarily. They may be weak.

That's not a hypocrite.

A hypocrite is pretending they're not sinning while they're sinning.

So, we have to understand the importance of this hypocrisy.

Now, we've covered this, but how do we break this down?

You know, he said, it's good to do these things, but you should not let the other undone.

Justice and mercy and faith.

What good is it to keep the Sabbath?

Now, if you're here, you love the Sabbath, right? You want to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath is part of what God's revealed to you. It's part of your life. It's part of who you are.

But what good is it to keep the Sabbath if your whole life is filled with self-righteousness and bitterness?

What good is it?

That's what he says when he says, you should have done this, but you can't leave this other undone.

He says, you can tithe, but if you're stealing and tithing, your tithing doesn't mean anything.

What good is our knowledge of prophecy, which we need to have if we're living our marriages as absolute rebellion or against what God says?

What good is prophecy if we're not living up to what God wants us to be in our marriages? Now, no marriage is perfect.

Some people, oh, we have this problem or that problem. Everybody has problems.

But I'm saying that the marriage has no spiritual function in it.

So what good is knowing prophecy if your marriage has no spiritual function in it? It's not doing what God wants.

Is God going to judge us on how much prophecy we know? Well, we're supposed to know it, but that's not what I'm saying. Is He going to judge us on how much prophecy we know or how much we live His way?

It's how much we live His way.

So I'm not putting down prophecy. You know, I get prophecy about once a month.

That's not the issue. It's part of the motivation we have. It's part of understanding God's way and God's plan and purpose. But that is not what we're judged on.

So what good is it to have one and not have the other undone?

So what we're going to do...

Okay, I've just brought out two concepts. That's all I wanted to do in 45 minutes. Just two concepts.

I want us to think about them, because we'll have our break, we'll have our potluck, and then afterwards, I want to bring out some real issues of life, and I want us to discuss how do we not go into one ditch or the other.

Now, when we discuss, remember, there is in this narrow path, we can make certain decisions within that narrow path.

We're not necessarily in a ditch.

So there's going to be slightly different approaches to certain things.

How do we keep out of the ditches?

How do we keep out of the ditches? So that's what we'll do. Try to make this a little bit practical when we get into the Bible study.