False Hope — Chuck Smith

And let's stand to read the Word of God. Truly my soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation.

He only is my rock and my salvation, he is my defense, I shall not be greatly moved.

How long will you imagine mischief against a man? You shall be slain, all of you, as a bowing wall shall you be, and as a tottering fence.

They only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight in lies, they bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly.

My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him.

He only is my rock and my salvation, he is my defense, I shall not be moved.

In God is my salvation and my glory, the rock of my strength, and my refuge is in God.

Trust in him at all times, ye people, pour out your heart before him, God is a refuge for us.

Surely, men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie. To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them.

God hath spoken once, and twice I have heard this, that power belongeth unto God.

Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for thou renderest to every man according to his work. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you that you are a refuge to all of those who will put their trust in you, and that you have provided a place of refuge and safety for us in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father, we realize that men are putting their trust in many things today, empty things, in trying to find a place of refuge and strength, in tottering walls.

The Lord, we pray that you'll lead us today to that only place where we are truly safe, and that is in the arms of Jesus Christ, as we put our trust and our faith in him. In his name we pray, amen. You may be seated.

Tonight, Pastor Skip will continue to lead us in our study through the word, as this week we are in Ezekiel 13 through 12. So we encourage you to read those over this afternoon. And trust you've already read them over during the week.

I try to make a practice of reading it two or three times during the day. And then on Sunday evening, I go in and I study the chapters that we'll be studying tonight. And Kay said, Chuck, Skip does the studies.

Now you don't have to go in. And I said, he might get sick. And I might have to substitute for him. But it's just the love of the word of God. And these chapters in Ezekiel are very instructive. And I would encourage you, read them over and join with us tonight, as we gather to study the word.

False Prophets and the Untempered Wall in Ezekiel 13

This morning, we'd like to draw your attention to the 13th chapter of Ezekiel, beginning with verse 10. The 13th chapter is really addressed against the false prophets and the prophetesses that were causing the people to trust in their lies, because they were declaring peace.

And in reality, the nation was on the verge of destruction. So God said concerning them, Because even because they have seduced my people saying peace, and there was no peace, and one built up a wall, and lo, others daubed it with untempered mortar.

Say to them which daub it with untempered mortar, that it shall fall. There shall be an overflowing shower, and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall, and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing where you have daubed it?

Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury. There shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. And so will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof, and ye shall know that I am the Lord.

God speaking out against those false prophets who were saying peace when in reality they were on the brink of destruction. In a sense, they were seeking to build a wall for the people in their minds by which they could find comfort and hope for a defense against the enemy.

It gave to them a false sense of security and safety. These conditions seem to exist throughout history. Those who hold out a hope for a better world, a better day, who build walls for people with untempered mortar, that is, when the time of real storm comes, these walls will collapse so that those that have been trying to find safety behind them will find themselves exposed to the destruction from the enemy.

Years ago, when I was just a child, they had a group called the Moral Rearmament. And the chief slogan of the Moral Rearmament was, every day and in every way, the world is getting better and better and better.

My grandmother, one of them, belonged to this Moral Rearmament thing, and when she would come to visit, she'd gather us kids around, and she would say, now children, every day and in every way, the world is getting better and better and better.

And this was sort of a popular group. The slogan was popular until Hitler began his conquest of Europe and the tremendous bloodshed that came out of that war. And suddenly their voices were silenced, and you didn't hear that slogan much.

Every day and in every way, the world is getting better and better. That was a wall built of untempered mortar. People who were trusting in the peace and all that seemed to exist, the wall tumbled when the storm came.

It was interesting. In our text, it talks about these false prophets building these untempered walls, and then others coming along and daubing them with untempered mortar. The Lord said through the prophet Jeremiah, for they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, peace, peace, when there was no peace.

The people were in a state of confusion. Who do we believe? Ezekiel and Jeremiah that tell us that Babylon is going to totally destroy the city of Jerusalem? Or do we believe these prophets who are telling us that we will defeat the Babylonian army?

When they come, we will destroy them. Those that have gone into captivity will soon be coming back into the land. Now, naturally, the people liked what the false prophets were saying. They wanted to hear comforting words that our wall will stand, that we will defeat the Babylonians, that you don't need to worry, you don't need to fear.

And they rejected Jeremiah. In fact, they put him in prison because he was announcing that they would be defeated by the Babylonians. They didn't like his message. And so the popular crowd followed after the false prophets because they were saying the things that they were hoping would be true.

The False Hope of Comforting People in Sin

But it was a false hope. It was a wall that would not stand when the storms came. Today, a true servant of God dare not to preach a comforting message to those who are living in sin. People want to hear a comforting message that it really doesn't matter to God what you do.

As long as you have a good attitude, as long as you are nice, and yet, if I would just try to comfort you in your sin, I would be a false prophet. I would not really be benefiting you. I would be building a wall by which you might find a sense of security and a hope for the future, but it would be a false hope.

The wall would be untempered. And in the day when judgment comes, you would be condemned. We do have good tidings for those who will surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, will cleanse a man from all sin.

And if you will put your faith and your hope and your trust in Him, God will forgive your sins. That is a wall that will withstand when the storm comes, and you'll be safe in Christ. He is the rock of safety for each of us.

But I must warn of the consequences that will come to those who do continue a path of sin. So our text speaks of a wall. It seems that every man seeks to find a defense in a wall, no matter how weak and how tottering it might be.

They want something in which they can feel secure. One of the walls that men have built today, untempered wall, is that wall of morality. They are not really bad or evil people. You'll hear them say that they believe in the golden rule.

And seek to practice it. They're good neighbors. Their kids are in Little League and on soccer leagues. And they have backyard barbecues. They have a savings program for their children so that when they get of college age, they'll be able to put their children through college because they are interested that their children live a good life and live a successful life.

However, they take little or no thought for the eternal destiny of their children. They say, well, we're just going to let them, when they grow up, determine what they want to believe. And they do not train their children in the word of God.

Nor do they stress to their children the need for them to repent of sin and to trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. Jesus asked a question. What would it profit a man if he would gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

What real profit would there be for your children if they became very successful, gained great riches, but in so doing, lost their soul? Morality is a untempered wall. And so many people are trying to hide behind it today, hoping that it will give them security in the future.

Many people take more pleasure in taking their children to Disneyland than they do to Sunday school. We've got a day planned for Disneyland. We're all going to go to Disneyland. And oh, there's all kinds of excitement and all as they are preparing.

And the parents sort of help whip up the excitement. But on Sunday, well, it's just a little difficult to get up on Sunday morning. It's about the only day I have to sleep in. And so they're not that concerned to make sure that their children are in Sunday school, where they can begin to learn the basic principles of faith in Jesus Christ.

Every year, many of the men in the church feel that it is more important to watch the Super Bowl than to develop their spiritual walk with the Lord. And so we find on Super Bowl Sunday evening, a lack of men attending the services.

In reality, you're saying, well, that's really more important to me than God. Jesus wants to be the most important thing in your life. He doesn't want to be second fiddle. And as you look at your life and the priorities, where does Jesus rank?

Fourth, fifth, seventh, eighth? Usually it's down the list somewhere. There are other things that are top priorities in your life. Now, because Jesus is there, though he has a place of secondary importance, there are many people that are resting or trying to rest in that wall.

Well, I believe in Jesus. Well, of course, I believe in Jesus. And I go to church and, you know, and yet Jesus isn't really first, top priority. The first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me.

If you drive by South Coast Plaza as you leave church, you will see the thousands of people that are there this Sunday morning. They have no real concern in their eternal destiny, no real concern about the precious blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for their sins or the power of the Holy Spirit to help them live a committed life.

They're too absorbed in their worship of mammon as they are going through the mall, looking to find some trinket to hang around their neck at 50 discount or some cosmetic to make them more attractive.

Empty Ritualism and the Wall of Religious Security

And those are the major things in their lives. Another wall that is even more deceptive is the wall of spiritual ritualism. Many people are trying to hide behind this wall as they are trusting in their salvation and in their hope of eternal life to the fact that when they were a small baby, their parents took and had them christened.

And so they're resting in the fact that they were baptized as an infant. And they trust that when they go into a coma and are ready to die, that the priest will be there to perform the last rites for them.

That may be the only time in their life they're around a priest, when he held them up to christen them, or when he was there to say prayers over them as they were dying. But they are hoping in that wall that it will somehow preserve them from the judgment of God and that they'll be okay when the final appearance before God does come.

And of course, they hope that you, their relatives, will pray them out of purgatory so that they won't have to spend that much time there. But these are walls that are made of untempered mortar. When the storms come, these walls will not stand.

And you'll be exposed to the elements. And watch that wall crumble. Didn't God say, incense is an abomination unto me. I hate your new moons and your feast. In other words, God is saying that he hates empty rituals.

He is looking for a heart that is truly dedicated to him. There are other religious walls that people seek to hide behind that are also made of untempered mortar. That wall of self-esteem. The message that they preach is that the main goal of the church is to help you to feel good about yourself.

All of the self-esteem in the world will never get you into heaven. That is certainly another gospel that Paul warned the Corinthian and the Galatian churches, they should be wary of someone coming and preaching another gospel.

Positive Thinking and Another Gospel

The gospel of the power of good thoughts. Discovering the God within you. The powers that are latent within you. And how to release those powers through a positive attitude. Or by writing down your goals and visualizing yourself as attaining your goals.

See yourself at the top. There may be power in this gospel to help you to become a successful person in this world. But this gospel will never gain you entrance into heaven. It is a false hope. It is only the blood of Jesus Christ that can bring forgiveness to your sins.

Paul said the gospel that I preached, how that Christ died for our sins. That's the true gospel. It may be that in following this false gospel, you might become extremely successful. It might be that you can gain the bragging rights of being the most successful man in hell or the richest man in hell.

I will gladly leave those bragging rights to others. I would rather have the bragging rights of being the poorest sinner in heaven than the richest man in hell. For again, what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?

There is that untempered wall of skepticism behind which many people seek to hide. They try to dismiss the Bible from their minds. They say that there is no God. The Bible is just a book of Jewish myths.

That the universe with its billions of galaxies with their billions of stars came into existence billions of years ago when a small bit of matter the size of a dried pea exploded and this vast universe developed from the explosion of that small little bit of matter.

And that in one portion of this vast universe in a galaxy called the Milky Way galaxy, down in one corner of the galaxy there was a medium-sized star that threw off gases that became planets that orbited around that star.

And that on one of these planets a bolt of lightning struck a puddle of mud causing the first cell to come into existence by the spontaneous accidental circumstance of lightning on a bit of matter. But this cell gradually mutated and developed over millions of years into the various life forms that we see.

And some of them developed through the zoo ultimately to you. And here you are. The vast miracle of billions of years of fortuitous occurrences of accidental circumstances. And that there is no real design there is no real creator that everything turned out by accident.

And this fine-tuned marvelous miraculous instrument called your body with all of the functions the ability to see the ability to hear the ability to communicate to ability to digest food the blood the whole it all just happened came together by accidental mutations.

Have you ever thought how amazing the body is? It is able to transform potatoes into ideas and thoughts. Amazing. To hear these people talk they are the only wise people in the world. And a person who believes in an all-wise creator.

Oh he's just a gullible unscientific fool. They pass off their idiotic theories as science. And as Paul wrote professing themselves to be wise. They actually became fools because they worshipped and served the creature more than the creator who is blessed forevermore.

But here they are they build this wall. And then others come along and they dab it with untempered mortar. They begin to talk about you know the various aspects of how things developed and so forth and try to make the ties between the various species and all.

And they're dabbing it with untempered mortar. There's no safety in that wall. There's no security in that wall. When the storms come that wall will surely fail. And they will be exposed. As Ezekiel tells us one man builds the wall and others come along and they temper it with untempered mortar.

The false prophet utters his nonsense and others come along to confirm it. They temper that wall with untempered mortar. And though the wall that they have created attracts and draws multitudes of people.

They because of their success have seminars to teach other people how to build the same kind of an untempered wall through which people will seek to find shelter. And they begin to add more untempered mortar.

They testify to the soundness of the wall to the success of the wall until they have others seeking to build the same kinds of walls. But the tragedy is that the people that are trying to find safety behind these walls are hoping in false hopes.

Jesus Christ as the Only Solid Foundation

My hope is built on nothing less. Than Jesus blood his righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name. God declares that these walls are going to crumble. They will offer no safety when the true storms come.

God says concerning the wall it shall fall. It isn't a question of it might fall. It shall fall. God speaks very positively three times in the text. He talks about these walls of untempered mortar failing.

Failing in the storm. Unless your wall is built firmly on Jesus Christ it will surely fall. If it was founded on Peter or any other person that wall will fall. Paul wrote no other foundation can any man lay than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ on Christ the solid rock I stand.

Walls that are founded on principles as good as the principles may be will not save you. They will not pass the test of judgment that is to come. Positive thinking, possibility thinking, positive confessions, having purpose driven goals.

These are walls of untempered mortar. They will collapse in the storm when you are ready to face God. They will not bring salvation to you. Jesus in the sermon on the mount told of two houses. It was toward the end of the sermon on the mount where he had just warned to be careful about false prophets.

Of course Ezekiel is really speaking against the false prophets here. And he said beware of false prophets. They come in sheep's clothing but in reality they are wolves. And in context he said there were two houses that were built.

One man dug deep, laid the foundation on a rock where the other man just built his house upon the sand. Now no doubt the one who built his house upon the sand, his house went up much faster. Didn't take the time, the energy to dig deep, laid the foundation on the rock.

But Jesus said the storms came just like we have here in Ezekiel as God speaks about the storms that are going to come. And he said the rain fell, the waters rose, and the house that was built upon the sand, it washed away, it fell.

Great was the fall of it but the house that was built upon the rock, it withstood the storm. Upon what are you building your faith today? What is the basis for your hope for eternal life? You want to go to heaven.

What is the basis of your hope for going to heaven? Well, I'm living as good a life as I can. That won't get you there. Well, I'm a very positive person. I have learned to look at things with a positive attitude.

I try to smile a lot. Never get you there. Well, I was baptized, I was told when I was a baby. Won't get you there. There's nothing that can get you entry into the kingdom of heaven but a living relationship with our living Lord, Jesus Christ.

He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man can come to the Father but by me. A while back, I had a fellow come up to me and I recognized him. He was in my high school department years ago when I was pastoring in Huntington Beach.

And he said, hiya Chuck. And as we talked, he said, well, I'm not a Christian anymore. I'm a Mormon now. And I said, oh, what a shame. And he sort of bristled and he said, what do you mean? I said, well, you know, when I knew you, you identified yourself as a Christian.

Now you identify yourself as a Mormon. You once had built your faith upon Jesus Christ. You sought to identify with Jesus Christ. Now you're seeking to identify with Joseph Smith and his teaching. And I think that's a shame because Joseph Smith's teaching can never get you into heaven.

Jesus Christ is the only one that will ever get you there. I said, what do you base the hope for your eternal life today? He said, I base it upon my faith in Jesus Christ and my continued membership in the Mormon Church.

People trusting in tottering, bowing walls. Untempered walls. Walls that will not stand up when the real storms come. Interesting, the house that was built upon the sand fell. Do you know what untempered mortar is?

It is mortar that has too much sand in it. Doesn't have enough cement to truly harden. Too much sand is an untempered mortar. In verse 14, God declared concerning the untempered wall. So I will break down the wall that you have daubed with the untempered mortar.

I will bring it down to the ground so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered and it shall fall and you shall be consumed in the midst of it. And you shall know that I am the Lord. On Christ, the solid rock I stand.

All other ground is sinking sand. Father, we thank you for the solid foundation upon which we have built our faith, our hope for eternal life. Nothing less than your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ, and in his blood that was shed for the remission of our sins.

And, Lord, he is our shelter, he is our wall, he is our defense. And, Lord, we know that our hope is not in vain, but Jesus Christ will see us through the greatest storms of life and will one day present us faultless before your presence with exceeding joy.

Invitation to Build on Christ

Thank you, Father, for a wall that can withstand every storm of life, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Shall we stand? Take a good look at the wall behind which you stand today. Ask the question, Will this wall keep me secure?

Is this a good defense? Or when the enemy comes, will the wall fail? When the storms come, will the wall fall? The pastors are down here to meet with you and to pray for you who would like to have a true security, a security that comes only through surrendering your life to Jesus Christ and letting him become your defense.

And so I would encourage you as soon as we're dismissed, come on forward and commit your life today to Jesus Christ. And you can go from here today with that blessed assurance. Come what may, Jesus is with you and your wall will stand because it is founded upon the solid rock, Christ Jesus our Lord.

The Lord bless thee and keep thee. The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee and be gracious unto thee. The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee.