What's on the Horizon?

Hello again. Thank you, Mr. Williams. Thank you, congregation. I'm sure God is pleased with the songs of praise we offer each day, or each Sabbath. I want to paint a picture for you as we begin here this morning. Probably a picture that you have experienced at least once in your life as you've been driving.

I remember when I was young and we were taking a trip out west. There are parts of the west where you come over a hill and literally you can see forever, it seems. I mean, the road is as straight as an arrow, and you can just see for miles and miles and miles. I remember looking at that road and thinking, what a great view this is, but wondering, what's on the other side of that horizon? What's it going to be like when we get there? How long is it going to take there to get there?

What's it going to be when we see there? Whenever I drive back from Jacksonville, it's kind of nice because there's flat land along the coast on Interstate 95. I can always tell that I'm getting close to home because often the distance, usually five or six miles before I get there, I remember the first time we came down the Palm Coast when we were visiting my sister and mother at that time, that there was this speck way out.

You could just see forever and you see this little speck and you got a little closer and it was red, and then you got a little closer and it was a flag, and then you saw off the Palm Coast water tower. Today, when I come back, I pass six or seven miles before that and I see way up in the distance these little things, and I know what they are and I know I'm close to home.

I just watch it get larger and larger and larger as it comes at me. What's over the horizon? Sometimes the horizon is very welcoming because you know what exactly is there and it kind of beacons you to home. Other times, the horizon is just a question. What is it going to be? What is it going to be like when we get over that crest of the hill and all those miles down that way? How many or how long is it going to take to get to that destination?

Today, with the advent of little cell phone cameras and you watch the news and you wonder how do people even think about taking pictures of some things that are on the horizon and we're in tornado season, I guess, in the Midwest now, and you see pictures of tornadoes that are forming in the horizon and people know there's danger. There's danger ahead and when you see that, you run for cover or you do something. Or you might see someone at the end of the road or whatever that you've been waiting for and when you see that figure appear, your heart bleeds for joy.

Well, the horizon has always been something fascinating to people. What's on the horizon? What's over the horizon? And the Bible talks about horizons as well. And when I think about horizons in the Bible, there's two things that come to my mind right away and one of them is Elijah, the prophet Elijah.

You'll be turning back to 1st Kings. 1st Kings 18. You know, the prophet Elijah, he was involved in so many things. He he was courageous. He always did what God wanted him to do and he showed some human tendencies as well when things didn't go his way and he would run for cover, if you will. But of the many stories that are about Elijah, one of them that sticks out is the time when God enabled him to say there would be no rain on Israel for a number of years.

And we find that back in 1st Kings 16 when that's pronounced. But after Elijah says there will be no rain fall on Israel for three years, I believe it was, he disappears from the scene. And the king, the king, Abraham, who was over Israel at that time, he sent people everywhere looking for him. He wanted to get that prophet and he wanted him to reverse that prophecy so that the rain would come back again. They couldn't find him anywhere. And finally, the years later, Ahab or Elijah appears on the scene. He appears to a prophet by the name of Obadiah who says, everyone's been looking for you, Elijah.

But he does take him to the king. Ahab sees Elijah. And let's see, in 1st Kings 18, chapter 18, verse 17, there's just many interesting things in here in these encounters with the kings of Elijah. Chapter 18 and verse 17 says, it happened when Ahab saw Elijah, that Ahab said to him, is that you, O troubled of Israel? Isn't that just like a king? It's like, you're the one who said there wouldn't be any rain here, and so you're troubled in Israel. Well, Elijah has the right answer for him. He says, I haven't troubled Israel. You and your father's house have, and that you forsaken the commandments of the eternal, and you follow the bales.

And sometimes, you know, the world will do that. They blame the messenger. They don't want to look at themselves and see that they're the ones who brought calamity or any kind of misfortune on themselves. Sometimes we can blame other people, and we have to look at ourselves and say, what did we do to bring this upon ourselves? Well, it's in this incident that Elijah summons the prophets of Baal through the sacrifice that is consumed by God. He proves that God, the God of Israel, is the true God. And over in chapter 18 and verse 41, Elijah's going to lift the curse of no rain. Chapter 18 and verse 41, Elijah said to Ahab, Go up and eat and drink, for there is the sound of abundance of rain. They haven't seen rain for a long time. It has become a serious problem there in Israel. So Ahab went up to eat and drink, and Elijah went to the top of Carmel. Then he bowed down on the ground, put his face between his knees, and said to his servant, Go up now. Look toward the sea. Go look at the horizon. I want to know if there's any clouds that are out there. I prayed to God. He said the rain would bring rain. Go up and look and see if you see a cloud. So he went up and looked, and he said, There's nothing. And seven times Elijah said, Go again. And it came to pass the seventh time that he said, There is a cloud, as small as a man's hand rising out of the sea. Seven times, Elijah prayed. God had told him he was going to bring the rain back. Seven times he sensed his servant up there. Do you see anything on the horizon? I've prayed to God. I've asked him. Elijah could have lost faith after the first time he asked that he didn't see a cloud. He kept asking. He knew what should be on the horizon. He learned a little patience that day, but he kept looking and he kept looking. And sure enough, on the horizon, there was a little cloud. And he told, and he said then in the middle of verse 44 there, There's a cloud as small as a man's hand rising out of the sea. So he said, Go up. Stay to Ahab. Prepare your chariot and go down before the rain stops you. It was on the horizon, but it was coming closer and closer and closer. And Elijah knew what was going to happen. And it happened in the meantime that the sky became black with clouds and wind, and there was the heavy rain. And so Ahab rode away and went to Jezreel. So the rain came. But Elijah looked to the horizon to see that that was coming. It was a good thing for Israel. It was something that they would have prayed for, that Elijah had prayed for, that was coming. Here's another thing that I think of when I think of horizons of the Bible, and that's in one of the minor prophets back in Joel. Let's turn back to Joel. When I read the book of Joel, I think about what is on the horizon for the world, what's coming upon mankind, not because they've been good, but because of how mankind has treated God, that these things will come upon us, and they follow the way apart from what God has said. Let's pick it up in Joel 1, verse 6. Then as we read these verses, think about where we are today, and think about what's on the horizon as Joel was giving this prophecy. A nation has come up, Joel 1, verse 6, against my land, and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion. He has the fangs of a fierce lion.

Verse 11, Be ashamed, farmers. Wail, you dine-dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up. The fig tree has withered. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree. All the trees of the field are withered. Joy has withered away from the spuns of man. An army coming. The vintage gone. Verse 16, Isn't the food cut off from before our eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God?

The siege shrivels under the clods. Storehouses are in shambles. Barns are broken down. For the grain has withered. How the animals grown. The herds of cattle are restless, because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment.

O Lord, to you I cry out. Fire has devoured the open pastures. A flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field cry out to you, for the water brooks are dried up. And fire has devoured the open pastures. Did they see this coming? Did they see it on the horizon?

Chapter 2, Blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Eternal is coming. For it is at hand, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, like the morning clouds spread over the mountains.

A people come, strong and great, the like of whom has never been. Nor will there ever be any such after them, even for many successive generations. A fire devours before them. You see them in the distance. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the Garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing will escape them. Their appearance is like the appearance of horses, like swift seas, so they run. With the noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap, like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble, like a strong people set in battle array. Verse 6, before them, the people writhe in pain. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation, and they do not break ranks. They don't push one another. Everyone marches in his own column, a well-disciplined, a well-drilled army. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses. They enter at the windows like a thief. The earthquakes before them, the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness.

The Eternal gives voice before his army. For his camp is very great.

On the horizon, as people in that day see this coming, they see what's headed down the pike, and there's nothing they can do to stop it. They just watch it, and it gets closer and closer and closer, and looms larger and larger and larger, an ominous sight. In the right sense of the word, a fearful or a fearsome sight, as you see the ever-approaching time that Joel, too, is talking about. And we know that that time is coming. We know that there will be a time when the relative peace that we enjoy in this nation today will come to an end, and it'll be a stark contrast towards the time that we live in today. The land of plenty, the land that is the plied, the world and its nations with so much abundance, will no longer have that. The land will be desolate. Time will have caught up in the actions of the country, or the nation that is speaking of here will have caught up with it. One book over in Amos. God says this in Amos chapter 3 and verse 7. Now, let's look at verse 6. Amos 3 verse 6. If a trumpet is blown in a city, won't the people be afraid?

If they hear a trumpet, don't they know trouble is on the horizon? If there's calamity in a city, won't the Lord have done it? Surely the eternal God does nothing unless He reveals His secret to His servants, the prophets. God does nothing unless He reveals them to His servants first.

He lets us see what's on the horizon. He lets us see what's coming down the pike.

He opens our minds that when we read the pages of the Bible, we read prophecies, we understand what's coming, we understand why. And when we read those prophecies, it shouldn't be to make us fear, it should draw us closer to God, understanding that only through Him, these horrible things that we read about, will we be able to stand through.

Verse 8. A lion has roared, who will not fear? The eternal God has spoken, who can but prophesy?

A lion has roared, who will not fear? You hear a lion in the distance, you wonder what's on the horizon.

And so we live in a world today, but I want to talk just a little bit at the beginning here about looking at the horizon and seeing what's coming down the pike.

Let's talk about America a little bit. I'm looking for a verse here, and I see that the verse I'm looking at isn't the one that I wanted. In America, we can kind of see or begin to see what's coming down the pike, what's on the horizon. We look at a country that's different than the country that we knew even five years ago. We look at a country that has been ravaged by a series of wars.

First, we had the war on terrorism after the 9-11 attacks. And then we had a war on terrorism that continues to engulf the country and even the world, because terrorism pops up all over the world today, doesn't it? Even in places that you wouldn't think it would. We had the war on Iraq that staffed a lot of our resources, and people were glad when they saw us leave Iraq. It cost a lot of money to be in Iraq. And then in the aftermath of it, we've seen people go right back to the way that they lived before with the same problems that they had that's in their midst. It makes you wonder what we spent all the time and effort for. Right after Iraq, we moved into Afghanistan, and that has consumed a lot of time. It's consumed a lot of lives. It's consumed a lot of money.

And so, America finds itself engulfed in a continuing series of skirmishes that are just endless, that tap a lot of our strength. I see the verse I want. Same as 3 verse 11. I see the verse I want. Same as 3 verse 11. Therefore, thus says the Lord God, An adversary shall be all around the land.

He shall sap your strength from you, and your palaces shall be plundered.

We read that prophecy. We read that about the land that God is talking about.

And today, we see that happening right here in the good old USA. An adversary is all around you.

You're never alone. You can't escape the enemy. The shores don't prevent always the terror attacks, and it snaps a lot of our strength. So, when we look on the horizon and we see what's happening, we see a country that is following in line of the prophecy that God has given of what happens to a nation that turns from his way and begins to follow the way of other gods.

We have a nation that's made a lot of other changes as well.

Morality today is defined by the country and by the nation in so much different terms than it would have been defined even five years ago. Sometimes I turn on the TV and watch the news, and I'm amazed at what the news consists of today. And how people with a very obvious, sinful lifestyle can be glorified and held up as heroes is just kind of contrary to everything that everything that you can even think that you stand for. We see a country that is changing inwardly, too. America was founded on the principles of hard work, people coming over wanting to make a living for themselves, and a land that espoused freedom, something that was different and a change from what the empires and the kingdoms before America offered. They came here to make lives for themselves, have careers, work hard, develop their talents, develop their potential, and lately we see a nation that is becoming more and more dependent on government and people who are more and more interested in what the government can do for us than what they can do for themselves. You see a land where government was supposed to be small, supposed to be a service to the people in it, provide the necessary services that everyone needs. It wasn't supposed to be the all-consuming government of the kings of Europe and the other nations, but today we see a government that becomes bigger and larger and all-consuming. More taxes, more money, more power, more control over people's lives. We see in the last few years that government that can watch every move you and I make. They can monitor every email I send. They can hear every or record every call that I make on a cell phone. They can know everything about you and me, and that's been exposed in the last few years. Back in high school, there was a book that we read in 1984. Most of us remember that book in 1984. It seemed so futuristic at the time, and it had a big brother in there, which was big government, watching what you do. We thought, well, that could never happen.

And that book was ominous in what it was portending, and yet we live in a country that's become that today. What's on the horizon for America? What's on the horizon? What's coming down the pike? Where is this all going? What will life be like five years from now? What will be it like two years from now, the way things progress today? We see an economy that has become the god of the nation. It's a good economy that's no longer based on anything that's real, nothing that I learned back in college on how you value companies and how you would do any kind of stock valuation. It's all speculation. It's more like a giant roulette table. This company is here, hey, they sound good, we like them. We'll just bet on the fact that they are going to increase in value, and that's how we'll value them. I've talked about some of those statistics before.

The economy today is the house of cards. It can fall at any moment. The America today is not the America that the forefathers founded, not the America that we grew up in back in the 50s and 60s, but an America that, when you look at it and see what's on the horizon, isn't such a great thing. Isn't such a great thing.

I won't turn to Luke 21 and verse 24, but in that verse Christ talks about the times of the Gentiles. He says, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. The times of the Gentiles, times of the Gentiles, four world ruling kingdoms. Remember, it started with Babylon, went to Medo-Persian Empire, Freco-Macedonian Empire, and then the Roman Empire.

Those kingdoms are so much different than the world we lived in. When you read about the times of the Gentiles, the kingdoms of the Gentiles, they're cruel, sadistic people, they're tyrannical, they control every move you make. It's all about big government, it's all about glorifying the king.

And if you're not at the top of the heap, and if you don't agree with the king, then life is very, very, very difficult. There's no freedom of speech, there's no freedom of rights, there's no freedom of religion, there's state religion, it's your religion.

In our lifetimes, we've seen some of the times of the Gentiles. We saw, if we grew up in the 50s and 60s, communism. And we know, we heard the story about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic. People wanted to get out of there. They were never, they weren't allowed to be who they could be. They were never allowed to develop their potential. They were shoehorned into one area of life, and that's where they stayed as long as the government wanted to be there.

The government told them what they were going to do. The government told them the amount of money they would make. There was no development, there was no growth. It was all very oppressive. People were suppressed, they were held down, they never knew who they could be.

And the world lived under that type of regime through the Babylonians and through the Persians and through the Greeks and through the Romans. And in the time of Soviet Russia, and certainly Adolf Hitler's Germany had that in mind when they were ready to conquer the world.

The time of the Gentiles is not anything we ever want to live in. We haven't experienced it, but you go back and read some history books, read some accounts of what life was like back in the times of the Gentiles, and you will say, I don't ever. Mankind should never be subjected to that type of life again. And yet, the times of the Gentiles, the Bible says, is going to be before his return. It's the head of us. It's on the horizon. The last two or three centuries, the world has benefited from the fact that the times of the Gentiles abated. And it was the time of the English-speaking people. The English-speaking people, the British Empire, the American Empire, people who came in and allowed people to develop, allowed people to grow. With the advent of America came the concept of freedom, so people could develop potential. They could become who they had the talents to become. Hard work paid off. It wasn't a government that was suppressing it, it was a government that was encouraging people to be who they could be. And the world has benefited. In the last two or three centuries, you've seen the industrial age, you've seen knowledge increase, you've seen a world that the people who lived before it couldn't even imagine. And we can't imagine what the world would be like if we hadn't had the past couple centuries precede the time we live in today. When you compare the times of the English-speaking people, when they dominate, to the times of the Gentiles that were before, you would have to say, who would ever go back to the time of the Gentiles? How could anyone ever want the time of the Gentiles to come back? And yet, when you look on the horizon, and you see the attitudes in the world today, when you see the things that are happening, you see people that almost favor that time. People want big government. People want the government to take care of them. We see in society around us, where even the freedom of speech is no longer all it's cracked up to be. If you go out on the street corridor and you say certain things, you can guarantee you're not going to enjoy your freedom of speech very long.

What's on the horizon? What's on the horizon? Can we see the time of the times of the Gentiles beginning to re-emerge? When we look at Islam, it's nothing like our government. It's nothing like what we've grown up under. It's depressive. It's sadistic. It tolerates nothing. It shows no mercy.

The Soviet Union showed no mercy. And yet, we see on the horizon today, a man over in Russia, who very much would like to resurrect the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

You see a country in Ukraine that is just absolutely being a lesson in how a dominant king and tyrant would operate. Create confusion. Dispel the pro- or go ahead and disperse the propaganda and wait for the opportune time to bring that country under his sphere of influence. And then you look at Europe. You look at Europe, who has also enjoyed a nice time of abundance over the last century, and especially since World War II. And they're right on the face of what's going on. They see what's on the horizon. It literally is on their horizon. When they look east, they see a man that the world hasn't seen in the last 30 years. They see the resurrection of an empire that the world hasn't seen anything like it since the 70s and 80s.

If you get to prophetic times, you saw where Russia's even talking to Cuba about their strategic initiatives, just like back in the 60s. What will Europe do? What will Europe do? Will they, who haven't had an army but have relied on NATO in America, will they decide? And will this be the catalyst that puts together an army for them as they say, we're not going to have the time of the Gentiles back among us again?

What's on the horizon? What's going on? Let's look at one verse. I just wanted to, back in 1 Kings 20, I was speaking of governments that are cruel, and if you don't agree with them, there's no tolerance for your belief. If you read back through the book of Kings and you, you see the nature of the house of Judah and the house of Israel, you see similarities to what we what we live today in many places, if you really look into the verses. And as they came across to people from Syria and Assyria, and as you read about what the Assyrians did to people they took captive, it really can make your hair stand on end, as they say. Let's look at 1 Kings 20 in verse 31.

Here at the end of verse 30, Ben Haedad of Syria says, fled and went into the city into an inner chamber. And the servant said to him, Look now, we've heard that the kings of the house of Israel are merciful kings. Let's put sackcloth around our waist and ropes around our heads and go out to the king of Israel. Perhaps he will spare your life. And so they did that and asked for their lives. I read that in some other verses in the book of Kings, but you know what I see?

I see America. I see a merciful nation. When we go out and we are engaged in war with a country, we spare them. It's a good thing that we've done. When we conquer a nation, we don't make them our servants and our slaves. We don't stifle them. What we do is build their country back and give it back to them. One of the hallmarks of the people of Israel is they're merciful. They're kind.

They're kind-hearted. And the kings of Israel back then, even the evil kings, had that quality of mercy about them. Now, Ben Haedad wouldn't have returned the favor to the king of Israel. They would just stay off with his head. Or, in many cases, a quick death isn't even good enough for them. Make it an agonizing death, because that's what enemies should have to endure.

And we see that same attitude in the world around us today.

Seems impossible when we would have looked around us 10 years ago.

To see how the prophecies in Amos and Joel, Daniel and Revelation might come about not so hard today to see what's on the horizon. We don't know exactly how it's going to come about. We don't know exactly what's going to transpire. But we see an attitude shift in the world that would lend itself to everything the Bible said is going to happen ahead of time.

It's on the horizon. And those of us who God has called, those of us who have chosen to follow Him and who have received His Holy Spirit, we can see these things. The world around us wants to bury its head. No, it isn't so. Feed us more about what our favorite entertainer did. Tell us more about what happened with this isolated incident down in Florida when a scuba diver had an accident. But keep us away from all these things about the world. We just don't want to hear about it.

But Christ said we should be paying attention because if we're paying attention, we can see what's on the horizon. And when we see what's on the horizon and when we see prophecy and when we see it developing in our lives, it should create something in us.

It should motivate us to do something. Let's turn back to 1 Peter. 1 Peter 3.

Sorry, 2 Peter 3 and verse 11. 2 Peter 3 and verse 11. Peter writing, he says, Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, matter of factly, he goes, you know what it's going to be. You know what God said. We believe what's going to happen. The plan of God will carry out. Jesus Christ will return to earth. He will establish his kingdom. People will live for a thousand years. Satan will be released. Some will rebel against God. The white throne judgment will occur. An eternal life will be given to the rest of humanity that didn't have the opportunity for salvation in this lifetime. And then eternity will occur. And then the physical heaven and earth will be burned up. It'll be dissolved.

The plan and the necessity of a physical heaven and earth will be passed up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved. Since you know these things, since you see the process going along the way. Since you know what the end results of these are, and you know what's over the hill as you look down that long straight road. You may not know how many miles it's going to take to get there, but you know that if you keep traveling it, if you keep living, you're getting to that hill, and you're going to get over that hill. And we know what's on the other side of that hill.

Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? Looking for and chastening the coming of the day of God The coming of the day of God. Think about the horizon. What's on down the road?

Now let me flip a switch. Let's change our thinking. Still want you to think about a horizon.

Still want you to remember and watch world events and see what's going on and to see where society's going. But I want you to think about another horizon now.

Your own personal horizon. Where are you going? What are the things going on in your life?

And where does that road take you?

Is the road and the hill at the end of it eternal life? Being part of the first resurrection? Being part of the kings and priests that God wants us to be, that he says in Revelation 1.5? Or is it a different hill that you're headed toward?

A hill that you don't want to head toward? What's your personal horizon? And are you looking at that horizon? We can look at America and we can see the signposts along the way and we can see where it's headed. Can we see where we're headed? Let's look back at a story of someone who couldn't see where they were headed. Back in 2 Kings 5 and verse 15.

We have the story of Eli-Shah, the prophet who came after Eli-Jah, the prophet, and he had a servant by the name of Gahazzeh. Now, one time you remember the story, the man by the name of Naaman from an enemy tribe, I guess you feel, not a tribe, another nation, came because he wanted to be healed of leprosy. And a girl in his kingdom said, if you go over there, the God of Israel can heal. And he came and Eli-Shah did heal him after Naaman did exactly what he was asked to do. And in verse 15, he says this, after he's made clean, he returned to the man of God, Eli-Shah, he and all his aides, and he came and lived before him and said, indeed now I know there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel. Now, therefore, please take a gift from your servant.

But Eli-Shah said, as the eternal lives before whom I stand, I will receive nothing.

It wasn't Eli-Shah who healed him, it was God who healed him. And Eli-Shah wasn't about to be rewarded for something that God had done. And Naaman urged him to take it, but he refused.

But Eli-Shah stood firm, and he didn't take anything. And so Naaman left. But Gehazi, the servant, was standing by, and he listened to this whole conversation and reasoned in his head.

Well, Naaman came prepared to pay for these services. Look at what has happened to him, from leprosy to healed. How do you ever repay anything for that? And Eli-Shah, you know, if I just do something with Eli-Shah knowing, I can enrich myself a little bit.

And so, Gehazi decides he's going to take matters into his hands. Verse 20, Gehazi, the servant of Eli-Shah, the man of God, said, as he came up to Naaman, as he caught him, as he was departing and down the road a bit, look, my master has fair name, and the Syrian will not receive from his hands what he thought. But as the eternal lives, I will run after him and take something from him. So Gehazi pursued Naaman, and when Naaman saw him running after him, he got down from the chariot to meet him, and he said, is everything okay? And he said, oh yeah, everything's okay. My master has sent me, saying, indeed, just now two young men of the sons of the prophets have come to me from the mountains of Ephraim. Please give them a talent of silver and two changes of garments. So Naaman said, take two talents. And the earnest have been bound two talents of silver in two bags with two changes of garments, and handed them to two of his servants, and they carried them on ahead of them. And when he came back home, flushed with these things that he had received from Naaman, he stored them away where Elisha wouldn't see them. Verse 25, he went in and stood before his master. Elisha said, where did you go, Gehazi? And he said, your servant didn't go anywhere. And he said to him, didn't my heart go with you when the man turned back from his chariot to meet you? Is it time to receive money and to receive clothing, olive groves and vineyards, cheap and oxen, male and female servants? Therefore, the leprosy of Naaman shall cling to you and your descendants forever. And Gehazi went out from his presence lepros, as white as snow. A troubling story. Swift punishment for an ill-conceived deed, for a sin, if you will. Did Gehazi look at the horizon and say, if I continue down that path, what's at the end of that road? Isn't something worth traveling for? Did he look at himself and say, this action, this what I have conceived in my heart, to go and take something that Elisha has clearly said, no, we will receive nothing, but I will just pursue it anyway. I'll walk down that road, maybe hoping that what was going to be at the end of it wasn't what it turned out to be.

Or did he even think down that road and that weakness that he had? Or did he just let a thought that came into his mind take him down a path and he never paid attention to where that path was leading? He never looked at what was on the horizon. He never looked, and at the end of the line was death. Not the happiness that he thought he would enjoy, not the pleasure he might have thought he would get from that money or those changes of clothes, but something far, far different than he ever bargained for. Let's look at another young man, Proverbs 7.

Proverbs 7, we have a young man with no name. He can be any of us, male or female.

What the road he was on was adultery in this case, but it could be any sin. As we look at his account, or this account here, think about the road he was on, the road he was traveling, the road that you and I could be traveling. Maybe not with this weakness, this fault, this sin, but with anything that does so easily beset us in our lives. Verse 6, chapter 7 of Proverbs, At the window of my house I looked through my lattice, and I saw among the simple, I perceived among the youths a young man devoid of understanding, passing along the street near her corner, and he took the path to her house, in the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night. And there a woman met him, a temptress, with the attire of a harlot and a crafty heart. She was loud and rebellious. Her feet wouldn't stay at home. At time she was outside, at times in the open square, lurking at every corner. Spin lurks at every single corner. It's loud, it's attractive to us in our flesh, and it's everywhere.

So she caught him and kissed him. With an impudest face she said to him, I have peace offerings with me. Today I've paid my vows, so I came out to meet you diligently to seek your face, and I've found you. I've spread my bed with tapestry, colored coverings of Egyptian linen. I perfumed my bed with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon. Painting the picture, it'll be so good if you just follow where I want you to go. Come, let us take our fill of love until morning. Let us delight ourselves with love, for my husband is not at home. We're not going to get caught. Don't have to worry about that. He has gone on a long journey. He's taken a bag of money with him, and will come home on the appointed day. There was a road he was being invited on.

He should have looked down that road, looked at what was on the horizon, and said, that's not the destination that I want to arrive at. With her enticing speech she caused him to yield. With her flattering lips she seduced him. Immediately he went after her as an ox goes to the slaughter, or as a fool to the correction of the stocks, till an arrow struck his liver. As a bird hastens to the snare, he didn't know it would cost his life. Going down the wrong road, not perceiving what was on the other side of that hill that seems so far away, not discerning what it is that our actions, our choices, the things that we make, where is it taking us? Do we see what's on the other side of that hill? Do we see what's straight ahead as we walk down that path? This young man didn't, and it led to his destination that he would have never chosen had he just looked and discerned what was on the horizon and then done the right thing. Let's look at one more.

I'm not. I act innate, not amislate, I'm sorry.

Acts 8. After the day of Pentecost, after the Holy Spirit was given to God's disciples, they went out, they preached the gospel, many people were baptized, many people repented and were baptized. And in verse 17 it says, the disciples laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. And when Simon, Simon the sorcerer, saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit.

Well, how converted was he? When that thought entered his mind, what road was he on?

Peter saw what road he was on and he said to him, your money perished with you because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Peter saw what was happening and he said, get off that road. You don't know what's on the end of that horizon. You don't know where you're going. Get back. Repent. Therefore, if you're a witness and pray God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. Peter saw Simon didn't. The young man in Proverbs 7 didn't see, but his father who was writing those things did. Gehazi didn't see where he was going. He let the thought of his heart take him away down a road from which he couldn't recover. James 2.

James 1.

2.

Blessed is the man, James writes, who endures temptation.

Where does temptation start? It starts in our head, doesn't it?

We see something. We may want it. We hear something. We may want to do something with that as well. We all have weaknesses. We all have, as it says in Hebrews 12, verse 1, just a couple chapters back, the sin that does so easily beset us. The thing that we have, the hardest thing, is to spend the rest of our lives resisting and rejecting and asking God to weed out of our lives.

We all have it. For some, it's more obvious than others. But we all have something. We battle the rest of our lives. Along the road of our life, Satan knows what that is, and he's going to spend that thought, just like he did to Simon the Sorcerer, just like he did to the young man, just like he did to Gehazi. Blessed is the man who endures temptation, who, when that comes into his mind, can look down the road and say, where I'm going, I don't want to go to that destination.

For when he's been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Verse 13, let no one say when he's tempted, I'm tempted by God. For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. See, that's the Spirit of God that you and I have. It can't be tempted. The Spirit that lives in you can't be tempted. But the Spirit of flesh, the Spirit of man that's in us, can be tempted. And that's still alive and well in us until the day that Christ returns and we're all crystallized, resurrected in the Spirit body where the flesh is no more. But you have the power in you to resist temptation because it's not of the Spirit. When we're tempted and when those thoughts enter our mind, it's the Spirit of man that's in us. And God allows Satan to tempt us.

Verse 14, each one is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desires and enticed, drawn away by his own desires.

Put your finger there, James. Let's go back to Galatians 5 and see what some of those desires might be. For Gehazi, it obviously was money and it was clothes and possessions. That was the thing that he looked to. That entered his mind. He was drawn away by his own desires. And he started walking down a road that led to death. Galatians 5 and verse 19, the works of the flesh, the things that we're susceptible to because we are still flesh and blood, even though we have the Spirit of God. And I hope not all of us, not any of us, have all these things, but some of these on here, or one or two at least, we probably would see that maybe the things that do so easily beset us. The works of the flesh are evident which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, sex. The things that tempt so many people.

We live in a world that thrives on sex. You don't even have to venture from your house to find things on a computer that can so easily beset and tempt and lead you down a path you don't want to go down. How many countless? Hundreds of thousands and millions of people have that addiction that they deal with all the time, and even some people in the church. That's one thing that might be, certainly the young man in Proverbs 7, that appealed to him, going on. Idolatry, sorcery, looking at other gods, dabbling in perhaps things that God would say to stay away from.

Hatred. Are you disposed to, if someone does you wrong, not forgiving, and just flat out not liking them. Contensions, stirring up trouble, rather than being peacemakers, being peacebreakers.

Jealousies. Outbursts of wrath, getting angry over nothing. Someone says a crossword to you, and all of a sudden there is a problem. Now about jealousies. Things that can tear us apart, if we allow them to. Selfish ambitions. How many in the world are given to selfish ambitions?

We look at a position, we look at something. It's right in the corporate world. The politics that are out there should never find their way into the Church of God. As we, the Spirit, lives in us and grows in us, those things would not be something that we would give into and then allow ourselves to walk down the path, because we know the path. The end of the road of any of these things we're here are not where we want to be going, but they lead to death. Distensions. Heresies. Not believing the Word of God, but always being talked about by a winded doctrine.

Reading something on the Internet and then doubting everything that you ever learned.

Meeting someone who has some other thing and then you run away from where God has put you.

Heresies are speaking those things. It comes from not knowing, not being grounded in the truth, not developing that love of the truth that God wants us to have. Envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like, of which I tell you beforehand, just as I told you in time past, those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Those are the sins, some of the sins, that do so easily beset, some of the sins that we could be tempted by. Not all of them, some of them.

And we can be drawn away. We could be enticed. We can be walking on that road and thinking, all is hunky-dory as we walk down that road, just like Ahazdi did, until he came in and he saw Elijah and met him face to face. And then he was held accountable for what he did, and it was too late.

He had already committed the sin, and he paid the price of leprosy. Just like the young man in Proverbs 7, who didn't heed, but just went down that road, thinking everything was great, loving every minute of it, thinking he was doing okay, no one was going to catch him. But in the end, he died. Or just like Simon the sorcerer, who Peter saw the road he was on and said, don't go down that road. Don't abuse the Holy Spirit that way. Don't think along those lines.

What happened to Simon? We have our theories on what happened to Simon, but apparently he didn't stay in the church and he didn't correct himself and get back on the right path. He allowed it to continue with him. Back in James 1.

Verse 14, Each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, we let it be in our mind. We think about it. We roll it around in our mind.

And pretty soon it takes birth. I'm going for it. I'm going into that bed of tapestry. I'm going for that prize, and I'm going to get that prize from that person who offered it to me. I'm going to get that position. When we think along those lines, we're going down the wrong path, not being led by God, but being led alone by our own desires. When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin. And sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. That's what's on the horizon. We keep walking down the road farther and farther and farther, and it brings forth death. The Holy Spirit, with the fruits of love, joy, peace, that gives us the power and the discernment to understand where we're going if we really look at ourselves, or the Holy Spirit that gives us the discernment when someone else might tell us, it's not the path you want to be on. Because you notice in all three of those situations that I read, it wasn't the person who corrected their fault. It was Peter who had to correct Simon, but he didn't listen because he thought there was nothing wrong with what he was doing. It was the writer of Proverbs who would have admonished the young man, but he didn't pay attention to that. He just kept walking down the same road.

And in Gehazi, he should have listened to Elisha. He should have said, I'm not going to go against my master if he said he's not taking anything, neither am I. But he left the desire in his head. It rolled around there. It conceived. He went after it, and he paid a very steep price. None of us want to pay that price. That's not why we're here.

The Holy Spirit is what could lead us. The Holy Spirit should illuminate for us where those problems that we have are. If we're on the wrong path, asking God, are we on the wrong path? Measuring what our own desires and attitudes are against the fruits of the Spirit. Do they measure up? Is it love, joy, peace? That's at the motivation or at the genesis of what we are thinking of what we are doing. Or is it the works in Galatians 5.19? That's the real motivation.

If we look at ourselves and we see the path we're on and we look, what's the real source? My desire? That weakness that I have? Or is the real motivation a fruit of the Spirit? We can kind of see and discern the path we're on and then we can correct our path, get on the path that will lead that in the horizon is the kingdom of God and not the alternative or the alternative path that none of us want to be in. Matthew 7.

The Sermon on the Mount, when Christ was speaking to his disciples then, speaking to his disciples now, you and me, and he goes through the discourse that he has here, telling us, keep the law not only physically but also in the spirit of the law. In Matthew 7, he talks about being able to discern ourselves. Matthew 7, verse 3, says, why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye? Now, we can really easily see the problems that other people have, don't we?

You probably can look up here and say, I know, I know what he's not doing. It's fine. I invite you to tell me. But, you know, just the same way, sometimes I can look and say, hmm, it's not going in the right direction. That's not the path, that's not the attitude, that's not the way God would have it done. And you can see that in each other. Peter took the time to tell Simon that. We can take the time to tell someone or caution them, maybe not the attitude to have.

And when we receive those things, we can either get mad and say, in this count, and say, you don't know what you're talking about, everything's fine and dandy, I'm just going to keep on walking down this road, or we can really look at it through the eyes of God and through the eyes and the Holy Spirit that God has put in us and say, yeah, you're right. What's on the horizon for me isn't where I'm headed or where I want to be headed. Why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, he says, but don't consider the plank in your own eye? Do we have planks in our eyes? Can we ask God?

Well, we should ask God. Remove that plank from our eye. Let me see me as you see me. And as I hear comments about me from other people, don't let me discount them. Let me take them to heart and say what they really want, because we all want each other to be in the kingdom. What we really want is everyone on the road that has at the end of the horizon the kingdom of God. What we don't want is to be on the road that leads to other than the kingdom of God.

Let me wrap it up here in Luke 21. We're coming up on the day of Pentecost. God's Holy Spirit is the most valuable part of our lives. It opens the truth of the Bible to us. It opens the doors to a relationship with God for us, a relationship with each other, puts us on the right path, gives us the knowledge of what's right and wrong, and gives us the power to deny ourselves and to march forward in the direction that Christ would have us. What I've said here today is I've talked about looking at the horizon and looking at what's going on in the world.

When we look at the world, we can see what's on the horizon. We're not there yet. It can take some twists and turns, but we can see at the end of the road where things are going. We can also look at ourselves. Through God's Holy Spirit, look and say, is this the way that God would have me operate? Am I motivated by the fruits of the Spirit, or am I motivated by the works of the flesh? And then used His power to do that. Because we need to discern what's at the end of the road for the world so that we see the time coming, so that we become the type of people and have more earnest participation in what God wants us to do.

But we also have to look at ourselves. And that's what Christ says here in verse 34 of Luke 21. Take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighted down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day come upon you unexpectedly. You're marching merely down the road, looking this way and that way, and all of a sudden it's like, wow, I've arrived at a destination I didn't want to be at.

Because you didn't have your eyes wide open. You weren't looking at it through God's eyes. You weren't looking at it through His Holy Spirit. Don't be weighted down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and that day come upon you unexpectedly. For it will come as the snare on all those who dwell on the face of the whole earth.

Watch, therefore, pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. Watch. Watch the horizon, discern the horizon, ask God to give you the discernment of why are you headed so that you end up where we all want to be.