A heart of lostness
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Introduction
Introduction
Good morning, it is always great to get to open God’s Word with all of you men. I would like to thank the hands that helped prepare breakfast for us all this morning and I wold like to thank all of you for coming.
I hope all of us can agree with me, but I love God’s Word but I love God even more. Anyone who has spent much quality time in God’s Word, knows that there are plenty of times in scripture you do the double take. You might even say did that really say that?
I hope all of us can agree with me, but I love God’s Word but I love God even more. Anyone who has spent much quality time in God’s Word, knows that there are plenty of times in scripture you do the double take. You might even say did that really say that?
God’s Word is not a sugar coated book filled with what we want to hear but with what we need to hear.
God’s Word is not a sugar coated book filled with what we want to hear but with what we need to hear.
Can I get an amen?
If you have your Bible, and I hope you do, please turn to . We will be looking at one of these tough passages.
But before we dive into the passage, I would like to share with you a story of a woman from Ohio. Her story is an interesting one that caused quite the stir in her town...
COLUMBUS, Ohio —
A woman being driven around in a rented limousine pulled up at a coat store and announced she'd won the lottery and would pay for everyone's purchases, police said, but she ended up causing a riot when customers realized it was a hoax. Angry customers threw merchandise around and looted, leaving the store looking as though a hurricane had passed through it, police said.
Linda Brown was arrested Tuesday after an hours-long shopping spree that began when she hired a stretch Hummer limousine to drop her off at a Burlington Coat Factory store, police Sgt. Lt. Michael Deakins said. Brown walked to a cash register and loudly announced she had won the lottery and would pay for each person's merchandise up to $500, he said.
"Well, of course, people like to hear that," Deakins said. "Apparently they were in line calling relatives who were not at the store and told them to come."
People flooded the registers as cashiers began ringing up purchase after purchase, but Brown had not yet paid the bill, Deakins said. At least 500 people filled the aisles and another 1,000 were outside trying to get in, he said.
"She was telling people she won $1.5 million," Deakins said. "But it ends up she didn't win anything. She had no money to pay for anything."
About an hour later, Brown had the limousine driver take her to a bank to withdraw money, but she returned empty-handed, police Detective Steven Nace said. By then, store employees had called in two dozen police officers to handle the crowds.
Shopper Candace Jordan said she told Brown she didn't need clothes, she needed help paying her rent.
"And she said, 'How much is it?"' Jordan told WBNS-TV. "And she promptly wrote out a check."
By the time employees realized Brown didn't have any cash to pay, police said, she already had taken off in the limo.
That's when angry customers, realizing they weren't getting free coats, began throwing merchandise on the floor and grabbing clothes without paying for them, Nace said.
"Everybody was like, 'I still want my free stuff,' and that started the riot," he said. "It looks like (Hurricane) Katrina went through the store."
Police said they have no way of tracking down the customers who stole items and fled, but they're reviewing surveillance video.
When the limousine driver realized he wasn't going to be paid the $900 Brown owed him for the day's rental, he turned her in to police, Deakins said.
Brown, 44, was arrested on three outstanding warrants for aggravated menacing, misuse of a 911 system and causing false alarms. She was jailed late Wednesday, but no charges had been filed against her related to the coat store chaos pending a mental health evaluation.
Police said they didn't know if Brown had a lawyer. No telephone number was listed under her name, and no one answered repeated phone calls at the Franklin County Jail.
A spokeswoman for Burlington Coat Factory, which is based in Burlington, N.J., and has more than 300 stores across the country, said late Wednesday she couldn't comment on the incident.
Fox Online, Thursday , October 15, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,566503,00.html?test=latestnews
A crazy ordeal is it not? The woman who was going around telling people she won the lottery did no such thing whether she believed she had or not doesn’t matter because the reality was that she had not won anything but was living like it. As a result she, faced the consequence of her actions.
What does this have to do with the lesson this morning?
If you have your Bible, I hope you do, please turn to Matthew 7:21-23.
The reality is that many men and women in churches all across the world on the day of their death will find themselves equally in the shoes of not only the woman saying she won but the people who were deceived by her as well. They will find out they never truly knew God at all.
Look with me at Matthew 7:21-23
God’s Word is not a sugar coated book filled with what we want to hear but with what we need to hear.
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’
23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Our churches in America are full of hypocrisy and idolatry. I believe that our idolatry runs so deep in our lives that we confess with our mouths Jesus is Lord but never get to the belief in Jesus. We are not talking about the general knowledge here. We are talking about true life changing belief. The idolatry has our hearts so consumed that we are in capable of true life changing belief in Jesus simply because we never truly address the heart issue.
Kyle Idleman, states it this way,
It is those who know Jesus. Who walk with Him. We k
13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Idolatry isn’t just one of many sins; rather it’s the one great sin that all others come from. So if you start scratching at whatever struggle you’re dealing with, eventually you’ll find that underneath it is a false god. Until that god is dethroned, and the Lord God takes his rightful place, you will not have victory. Idolatry isn’t an issue; it is the issue. All roads lead to the dusty, overlooked concept of false gods. Deal with life on the glossy outer layers, and you might never see it; scratch a little beneath the surface, and you begin to see that it’s always there, under some other coat of paint. There are a hundred million different symptoms, but the issue is always idolatry.”
― Kyle Idleman, Gods at War: Defeating the Idols that Battle for Your Heart
Romans 10:13
What do we do? We must confess the wicked idolatry of our hearts if we desire true radical life change. We must make God our one and only God.
We must cast aside our own selves and place ourselves at the mercy of God. We must not allow our own self righteousness, which is an idol that prevents us from being in the presence of God hinder us from being in the presence of God.
Jesus’ warning that not everyone who speaks to Him or does things in His name will be saved, must not go unheard. If we do allow it to go unheard, and ignore it. We too are destined for a meeting before God and we will hear the Words depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
(Challenge)
I want to challenge each and everyone of us to pray this morning and ask God to reveal in our hearts anything that might be preventing us from truly experiencing him. Many in this room are truly saved and have no need to fear hearing those words from God but you might have allowed those idols to creep back into your life. Just make sure that today is the day, you are revived.