What If?

This title might be a little tricky sounding, but my title is called "What If?" You know, does God mean what He says when He gives commandments? Are we to do things our own way? Or are we to accomplish the tasks that He gives us to do? Do we follow exactly the way God says to do something? We know there are blessings and cursings if we do the right things and do the things that we're told to do or the way we should do them. If not, our lives can turn to be quite a disaster, couldn't they? It can affect us physically and spiritually if we don't follow certain instructions exactly the way God wants us to do them.

Like for an opener verse, let's go to Genesis 3. Most people are familiar with that. Genesis 3, verse 1: "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, 'Has God indeed said, "You shall not eat of every tree of the garden"?' And the woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, "You shall not eat it, nor shall we touch it, lest you die."' Then the serpent said to the woman, 'You shall not surely die, for God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of the fruit and ate. And she also gave to her husband with her, and he ate."

Wow, what do we see here? Did God tell them not to eat the fruit? And what happened? What do we see? We find out now that the animals are no longer tame. They had to be afraid of wild animals after that. The ground didn't produce the crops that it should. The weather turned bad. So, you know, they should have listened, shouldn't they? This is what happens when we go, "What if? Well, I'll do it my way."

I was watching Hillsdale on "Paradise Lost." Because here it doesn't say why Adam ate, but the explanation they gave I thought was kind of interesting. It isn't necessarily true, but, you know, Adam probably looked around and says, "Well, there's no other woman here. What else am I going to do? I'll lose her." So he probably ate the fruit, which isn't necessarily truthful, but anyway, I thought it was kind of a good explanation of why Adam might have eaten the fruit, because there are no other choices out there.

So what we see here is one thing: The God of this world, Satan the devil, is quite the deceiver and a liar, and he convinced Eve to eat of the fruit.

And there's another one — the Fifth Commandment. God has a promise. If we obey it, what did God say? He says, "Honor your father and mother that your days may be long upon the land that the Lord has given you." There will be tough times, but if we follow our parents, there is always good that comes out of it. You know, if we always listen to our parents, they're a little wiser than we are. It seems like once we hit 16, we're the wisest, and we're long ahead of Solomon even. But those older ages — everyone thinks they know better — but all they do is get themselves into trouble. Well, I shouldn't say all. I can only speak of myself.

So we can see the results also of Adam and Eve's actions. What went on. Everything changed. The mindset changed. Sin has entered. They didn't know what sin was, so maybe they didn't know that they shouldn't do that. I mean, how many people could stand around and do that in the first place? So that's a little different anyway.

Well, another one is "What if?" Naaman, the commander of the host of the king of Syria, was a great man, a man of valor. We can see that he was esteemed. He was respected. He was a man up high next to the king. But Naaman was advised to go see the prophet Elisha. He heard that he could be healed, and Naaman himself knew that he had leprosy.

So what if he didn't go dip in the river seven times? Well, maybe not six. Why not five? That should be good enough, shouldn't it? But God said seven, didn't He? He did this, and then the leprosy left him. He was healed. What if he only did five? His leprosy would have probably consumed him and he would have died. So there's reason why we need to follow and do the things the way God says to do it.

So the point made with Naaman was to humble ourselves before God, seeking His way and not our own.

For a third example, we can turn to Exodus 25, verse 14. And this is talking about how Israel was supposed to carry the Ark of God. The directives are how Israel was supposed to carry it. So we're cutting into the chapter here. And it says, "You shall put the poles on the rings of the sides of the Ark that the Ark may be carried by them. The poles shall be in the rings of the Ark. They shall not be taken from it."

So you see, God gave them specific instructions, did He not? On how the Ark was supposed to be carried.

So let's go to 2 Samuel 6 and see what happens if we don't follow those instructions. 2 Samuel 6, verse 3: "So they set the Ark of God on a new cart and brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. And Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drove the new cart, and they brought it out of the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill, accompanying the Ark of God. And Ahio went before the Ark. Then David and all the house of Israel played music before the Lord with all their might, with songs and harps and lyres and tambourines and sistrums and cymbals."

And so on. "And when they came to Nachon's threshing floor, Uzzah put out his hand to the Ark of God and took hold of it, for the ox stumbled. Then the anger of the Lord was aroused against Uzzah, and God struck him there for his error, and he died there by the Ark."

You know, how many of us, if we were going along there and something stumbled — you know, it's only a natural reaction. Well, the Ark's going to fall. We don't want that to happen. But it was because they thought, "What if we just do it any old way?" They didn't really think about it, did they? There were instructions on how to carry the Ark, so another person has lost his life because of it. You know, "What if?"

I'm going to name a few people. See if you recognize them. What if Steph Curry, a gifted basketball player, and what if Tim Tebow, an amazing, iconic football player, instrumental in helping the needy in third world countries? Andrea Bocelli — he's one of my favorite singers. In fact, some of his songs are going to be at my funeral. But anyway, he's one of the top amazing Italian singers. And one more: Steve Jobs, who is now dead, but he was a co-founder of Apple Computer.

There are more, but I thought that was all I'd mention. What do they all have in common? What if their mothers would have aborted them? They were advised — the mothers of these people, some of them were advised — to abort their children. Can you imagine what we would have missed out on? Maybe we wouldn't have Apple. Maybe we would have just been something else. But there's a lot of good, a lot of smart people, educated people out there. But what if the mother didn't abort the child? If they would have aborted, we wouldn't have had what they have to offer today. Their talents would have never been known if they were aborted. It would have been breaking, of course, the Sixth Commandment: "You shall not murder."

There are many examples one could go to, but we can see that God means what He says, and His instructions are to be followed the way He says to.

So maybe more ways to think about it — we look in Leviticus 23, where God gives specific instructions of how to keep his feast days, how to keep the weekly Sabbath. They are holy convocations. He wants his people to be at the meeting place. Sure, we know there are exceptions where people get sick or other reasons that some people may not make it. But many times a lot of people don't come because it's just simpler to stay at home and watch on the Internet. The excuses people use, I'm sure, are not probably acceptable by God on some of those.

What if we are not here? We lose out on important fellowship, face-to-face, where iron sharpens iron. Eventually, we'll just slowly start maybe not coming to services. It's just easier just to stay home, and pretty soon the Sabbath is something of the past. That's why God says to meet in a holy convocation. There are so many ways to go with that topic, but I don't have that kind of time.

But if you look at Deuteronomy 28, the blessings and cursings chapter. Deuteronomy 28, verse 1: "Now it came to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God."

Verse 3: "Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the country."

Verse 4: "Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks."

Verse 5: "Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl."

Verse 6: "Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out. And the Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways."

So we can see that if we do follow what God says, there are great blessings. And of course, the opposite of that will be the opposite of everything that God said is a blessing — it will be a curse to us. Because the ground will not produce, our enemies will overtake us. So God's word is true and right and moral. It's the way to eternal life.

So what if we don't follow God's law and turn from Him? Well, there is not a good ending. Eternal life, being in the kingdom of God, may and will not happen if not repented of.

So we see, when we go about our daily lives, brethren, when things come to our mind or actions we might want to take, we might want to say, "What if I do this? Is it right with God? Is this what God wants me to do? Or what if I should do it my own way?" Then we'll determine how the consequences might be.