June 12, 2016 No Compromise With God by Pastor Josh Sheldon

Leviticus and Revelation Readings on Holy God and the Churches

First, from the book of Revelation, beginning at chapter 2, verse 1, which is found on page 80 of page 10 of 28 of your Hebrew Bible.

Revelation first, or Leviticus? Leviticus.

Scratch that, we're going with Leviticus first. I had a discrepancy between that at some point. Too pronounced. So, first will be Leviticus, chapter 9, beginning at verse 22. We're going through the chapter 10, verse 10, which is found on page 88 of your Hebrew Bibles.

And then, following that, Revelation, chapter 2, beginning at verse 1, which is found on page 10, 28 of your Hebrew Bibles. So, when you've arrived at Leviticus, chapter 9, verse 22, please stand if you're able for the reading of God's Word.

Leviticus, chapter 9, beginning at verse 22. Then Aaron lifted up his hand before the people and blessed them. And he came down from offering the sin offering and the burnt offering and the peace offerings.

And Moses and Aaron went into the tent of meeting. And when they came out, they blessed the people. And the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the pieces of fat on the altar.

And when all the people saw it, they shouted and fell on their faces. Now, Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, laid incense on it, and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which was not prepared.

And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them. And they died before the Lord. Then Moses said to Aaron, This is what the Lord said. Among those who are near me, I will be sanctified. And before all the people, I will be glorified.

And Aaron held his peace. And Moses called Mishael and Elzaphan, the sons of Uziel, the uncle of Aaron, and said to them, Carry your brothers away from the front of the sanctuary and out of the camp. So they came near and carried them in their coats out of the camp, as Moses had said.

And Moses said to Aaron, Eleazar, and Iphimoth, the sons, Do not let the hair of your bedspread loose, and do not tear your clothes, lest you die, and wrath come upon all the congregation. But let your brothers, the whole house of Israel, be wailed and burned with the Lord as pendulum.

And do not go outside the entrance of the tent of meeting, lest you die. For the anointing oil of the Lord is upon you. And they did according to the word of Moses. We're now coming to Revelation chapter 2, beginning at verse 1.

Continuing with the verse. The angel of the church in Ephesus wrote the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. I know your works, your toil, and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those who are evil, but have tested those who call themselves apostles and are not, and found them to be false.

I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name's sake, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember, therefore, from where you have fallen.

Repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent. Yet this you have, that you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who conquers, I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write, the words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

I know your tribulation and your poverty, but who are you? And the slander of those who say they are Jews but are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested.

And for ten days you will have tribulation. Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the tree of life. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

And to the angel of the church in Pergamon write, the words of him who has a sharp two-edged sword. I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is. Yet you hold fast my name, and you did not deny my faith.

Even in the days of Antipas, my faithful witness, who was killed among you, Satan dwells. But I have a few things against you, that you have some there who hold the teaching of Balaam, who taught Balaam to put a stumbling block before the sons of Israel, so that they might eat food sacrificed to idols and practice sexual immorality.

So also you have there some who hold the teaching of the Nicolaitans. Therefore repent, if not I will come on you soon and war against them with the sword of my mouth. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone with a new name written on the stone, that no one knows except the one who receives it. And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write, the words of the Son of God who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.

I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that the latter works exceed the first. But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols.

I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. Behold, I will throw her into a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, and I will strike her children dead.

And all the churches will know that I am He who searches the mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. But for the rest of you in Thyatira who do not hold to this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I do not lay on you any other burden.

Only hold fast to what you have till I come, the One who conquers and who keeps my works to the end. To Him I will give authority over the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earth and pots are broken into pieces.

Even as I myself have received authority from my Father, and I will give Him the morning star. To you as an ear, let me hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Dear Heavenly Father, in Jesus' name we want to thank you and praise you for your incredible mercy and kindness.

Father, we all have fallen short, as did Nadab and Bayou. We all have fallen short, as did many in these churches we've just read. And you are a holy God, we know from your Word, a holy God so perfectly ordained, with pure eyes that can even look upon evil.

And yet we are able to stand before you because of the precious blood of your Son, because of He, Jesus Christ, your eternal Son, very, very God, very God, who came and bore the wrath that we would bring.

You made Him who knew no sin become sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him, by our union with Him. And we just thank you for that great grace and mercy. Father, we confess our need for your Word.

We confess our need to have your beauty revealed and the greatness of the salvation that you've given us revealed to us, lest we, like Nadab and Bayou, think of your salvation as a little thing rather than the great thing it is.

So we just humbly ask that you pour out your Holy Spirit on Josh as he proclaims your Word, granting your words to speak. Pour out your Holy Spirit on us. Open our hearts to hear your Word and be transformed by it.

And Father, we just ask these things for your mercy's sake and your glory's sake, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Steve.

The Danger of Success and Self-Confidence

We all like to be successful, do we not? Isn't success a good thing for us? We reach out for it. We go to school. We work hard at work. We work hard raising our children so that we will be successful parents, employees, our children will become successful citizens, members of the church.

Success is something that is held high, is it not? And yet, with this morning's message, which text we will read in a few moments, we can see that there's a problem with success. There's a risk that comes with success.

Success can make us feel self-confident. Success can make us feel reliant upon ourselves. Success can make us feel like we did it. Success can be a terribly hazardous thing. You know, we become like little kids in the schoolyard who that one time stood up to the bully and think now we're ready to challenge Goliath.

We can become like children who just learned how to swim the width, not the length, but the width of the pool. And we think now we're ready to swim across a river, forgetting that it was Daddy holding our tummy as we kicked our legs and thrashed about with our arms, and it was Mom on the other side cajoling us to finish when we weren't actually doing anything.

2 Kings 14, which is not our text this morning, but in 2 Kings 14 we come across this King Amaziah, a king of Judah who had just walloped the Edomites in a great battle. And he's brimming with self-confidence, and so he challenges the king of Israel, far more powerful king.

And he says, come on, let's have it out. And he says, no, you better slow down here, buddy. You know, you beat the Edomites, be happy with that. Don't challenge me. And, of course, he did, and he got walloped, brought disaster upon him.

The trouble with success, you see, is we become self-confident. We become, in the biblical sense, actually even conceited, thinking that we did something. We come this morning to this final assessment of a king named Jehu, a king of Israel.

And we've been working through quite a lot of text here in this series on these two prophets, Elijah and Elisha. And, of course, King Jehu is the king who Elisha recently anointed, and he accomplished all that God told him through the prophet he was to accomplish, which we will come to in a few moments.

That's this king. And we studied a couple of weeks ago, we looked at what he actually did and the campaign he took upon himself by God's commission to wipe out not only this terrible idol from Israel named Baal, but the whole household, the whole family that he introduced and promoted it in Israel.

Jehu’s Success Against Baal and His Failure Before God

Verse 28 in chapter 10 of 2 Kings begins very positively for him. This is his assessment. This is the divine assessment by the hand of the author of this history. The Holy Spirit says of him in verse 28, it sounds very positive,.

Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel. Can we stop and say, well, he was successful. He accomplished something. And not just Baal, but the family that brought it into Israel. Ahab's line is destroyed. Not just them, but Baal's priests are destroyed.

Not just them, but Baal's temple is destroyed. Jehu was more thorough, he was more effective against Baal than even those two great prophets we've been studying, Elijah and then his successor Elisha. Jehu was the only king of the northern kingdom to ever do anything to reverse the idolatry of that land.

He ruled for 28 years, longer than any other single king except for his own great grandson Jeroboam, who ruled for 41 years. And his house, meaning his progeny, lasted for a century. Far longer than any other house or family in Israel.

In every way we can imagine, Jehu would seem to be a resounding success. But success can be a dangerous thing. When we're successful, we have warrant to slow down and guard our hearts all the more carefully.

It leads to dangerous times, it can lead to dangerous times. And Jehu, our so successful general and king, the iconoclastic reformer, he gives us a prime example and a warning of just this thing. So you might be asking already, where did he go wrong?

Which, as you might imagine, we're going to get to in a moment. Now read the entire text. In 2 Kings 10, verses 28 to 36, the divine, the biblical assessment of Jehu's reign. If you're looking on in the pew Bible, that black pew Bible in front of you, that's page 287.

So 2 Kings 10, beginning at verse 28. Thus Jehu wiped out Baal from Israel. But Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin. That is, the golden calves that were in Bethel and Dan.

And the Lord said to Jehu, Because you have done well in carrying out what is right in my eyes and have done to the house of Ahab according to all that was in my heart, your sons of the fourth generation shall sit on the throne of Israel.

But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord, the God of Israel, with all his heart. He did not turn from the sins of Jeroboam, which he made Israel to sin. In those days the Lord began to cut off parts of Israel.

Hazael defeated them throughout the territory of Israel, from the Jordan eastward, all the land of Gilead, the Gadites and the Reubenites and the Manassites, from Ariar, which is by the valley of Arnon, that is, Gilead and Bashan.

And finally this, Now the rest of the acts of Jehu and all that he did and all his might, are they not written in the books of the chronicles of the kings of Israel? So Jehu slept with his fathers and they buried him in Samaria, and Jehoahaz, his son, reigned in his place.

The time that Jehu reigned over Israel in Samaria was twenty-eight years. So again, he wiped out this religion of Baal. He won every battle that he fought. Success, right? Is this not a successful man?

Is this not one who we'd want to emulate? Would we not want to do as well in school or in upbringing our kids or in our jobs as Jehu did in accomplishing God's commission to him? Would we not want to do like he did?

Be so thorough, be so zealous, be so energetic, be so complete, so efficient as he was? But no, he was not a success. He could only be considered a success if we look at it in what we call the horizontal plane, from a human viewpoint.

And only there could he be a success. Because the scripture says he was a failure. He was an abject failure. And I think it's good for us this morning to look at this scripture and his final assessment after having looked at his life from the time he was anointed king of Israel to the time he became king and fought these battles.

To understand where he went wrong and to take this as a warning for ourselves. Where did he go wrong? Well, two ways. The first is he halted the reforms that were begun by his campaign against Baal. In other words, he went this far but not the rest of the way.

This far and no further. Those first verses I read you. There's sort of an inclusio there. Did you hear it? In verse 29, Jehu did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat which he made Israel to sin.

That's the golden calves that were set in Israel when they became a nation some 50, maybe 60 years before that. That's the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Jehu did not turn aside from that. And then in verse 31,.

But Jehu was not careful to walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. He did not turn aside from the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat. Not just an inclusio so we understand that that is a definable section of the scripture.

Not just an inclusio but an emphasis. A warning. He did this much. He got rid of that detestable worship. But he did not turn aside. And again, he did not turn aside. He halted the reforms begun by his campaign.

He just stopped. And second, He did not walk in the law of the Lord God of Israel with all his heart. Of course the author tells us with all his heart, but he's referring back to Deuteronomy. The great Shema, as we call it.

Shema, here. Here, O Israel, the Lord our God, he is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. So he only says heart, but he means the rest.

Destroyed Baal, but he's castigated here for leaving the golden calves behind. So constant was Israel's respect for these images. When this king, Jeroboam, the one whose sin becomes the exemplar for sin in Israel, when that king set them up, he said, Here are your gods, O Israel, who redeemed you out of the land of Egypt.

So entrenched were they that that very term, the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, becomes inextricably tied to that particular idolatry. And we think about this text, and I'm presenting to you this king who never failed.

In fact, he even gets this word from God. It says, you've accomplished all that was in my heart with regard to the house of Ahab. And I'm calling him a failure. You should be asking, how is he a failure?

I mean, isn't it enough, you might ask. Isn't it enough? Why can't God be satisfied with what he actually did? Isn't best effort good enough? Don't we tell our kids? Just try your best at it, and I'll be happy with you.

I'll be proud of you. You don't have to get an A double plus. If you get an A, I'll be happy with you, if you try your hardest, if you do your best. Isn't it enough that he did what was specifically in his commission when he was anointed king?

And the answer is no. The answer is no. It's not good enough. It's not good enough, as we will see, because of the God that's being served, because of the God who gave the commission in the first place, because of who he is.

It's not good enough. Our best, our most righteous work is what? Before God. It's a filthy rag. It's a filthy rag. It's unworthy of his presence. The answer was given to Israel when Nadab and Abihu were killed by the Lord because they offered profane fire.

Among those who were near me I will be sanctified, and before all the people I will be glorified. That answer was given to Herod in Acts chapter 12 when he took the glory to himself that should only be given to God.

And so the Lord killed him, and as Luke tells us in Scripture, he was eaten by worms. No. It's not good enough to simply do away with the most egregious, the worst, the most horrible aspect of that awful religion and keep the other.

Even though the golden calves were not as bad as Baal, they weren't as bad. We can see that in the Scripture. Our divinely inspired author tells us that clearly. But that doesn't mean that they're acceptable before a holy God.

The answer was given to Jehu when God said, you've accomplished all that was in my heart. Sounds pretty good. But then he says, your house will only go on for four generations. And what is God saying to him?

This far and no more. Because he continued in the sins of Jeroboam. The answer is given to all of God's people, in fact. We say to God, isn't it good enough? Didn't I do enough when I examined my soul before the Lord, on my knees in prayer with the Scripture open before me, and I got rid of this sin, I conquered this iniquity, this besetting sin as we call it.

Isn't it enough, Lord? Stop there. Jesus teaches us that our good works are a light on a hill that shines on a billboard and that billboard stretches across the whole earth and it says something like this, all done for the glory of God.

All done for the glory of God. Who are we representing? Who's the God we serve? Who was Jehu supposed to be serving? Our Lord taught us to pray and say our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, hallowed, held glorious, held sanctified, held as holy is your name.

And what else do our works, which are on that hill that the world can see, proclaim but that? No. Nothing less will do. Nothing less will do. Jehu is our warning. We spoke a few weeks ago about his campaigns, their violence, the extent to which he kept going after his enemies, God's enemies.

I mean, once he was anointed king, he was like a whirlwind. Did everything he was told to do and yet God is not pleased. Does this just make him some kind of a grumpy schoolmaster who no matter what we do, he's going to wrap our knuckles with his ruler?

No. No, because of who he is. Because Jehu's failure is a failure to acknowledge God as holy and God is the one who gave him the success on the battlefield and against the idol Baal. Well, he is somewhat pleased.

I mean, we did say he's pleased to have the land sanitized from so awful a deity as Baal. He isn't so pleased with what remained, which was the calves, the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. Jehu didn't get rid of them and so God tells him that his reign will only go to four generations.

Well, Baal, as we said, is worse than the calves. The calves were a misrepresentation of the true God. Baal was another God altogether. But what's the point of the scripture? Why does he come out with this negative assessment in the end?

Because he should not have stopped just with the one. He should not have stopped. I want to notice a couple things in our text from 2 Kings 10 there. At first is that word but. But can be a glorious word.

But God, who is rich in mercy, after the book of Ephesians acknowledges our sin and forces us to acknowledge it and see it. And then it says, but, thank God for but. But God, who is rich in mercy, even while we're yet dead in trespass and sin, he saved us.

But God, but. Going the other way, an adversative but. But Jehu did not turn aside from the golden calves. It jolts us out of our stupor, doesn't it? As we're starting to extol this hero, it shocks us.

Daniel, if you'd work up here, I am. This is coming off my ear. I'll keep going into this microphone. It shocks us. It stops us in our tracks before we laud this man too much. In the original language, it's a little different than what we have in English.

The emphasis is different. It's something like this. Only from the sin of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, which he made Israel sin, Jehu did not turn aside. He left behind the golden calves that were in Dan and Bethel.

See, the emphasis from God's viewpoint is the calves. Only from the sin of Jeroboam did he not turn aside. Jehu did not. He had done what he was commissioned to do, but he stopped short. Should God have said to him specifically something like, oh, by the way, you know those calves?

They bug me too. I'm not real happy with those, so would you, while you're at it, do something about those as well? That God didn't say it is evidence enough that he didn't need to. Jehu should have known himself to wipe out the calves simply by what he was told to do for the other.

And also this. God doesn't do half measures. God doesn't stop halfway, and nor should his people, nor should his servants, which if you have the Lord Jesus Christ, you are his servant. And where the Bible says servant, the majority of the time should actually be called slave.

No half measures. Because of who we serve. This makes me think of Jesus' short parable in Matthew chapter 12 in verses 43 to 45. You can turn there if you want to, Matthew chapter 23, excuse me, chapter 12, beginning of verse 43.

Jesus says, when the unclean spirit has gone out of a person, it passes through waterless places seeking rest but finds none. Then it says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when it comes, it finds the house empty, swept, and put in order.

Then it goes and brings with it seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last day of that person is worse than the first. So also will it be with this evil generation.

I want to use that parable as a way to bring this text about Jehu home. I do want to make one prefacing statement that if you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have the Holy Spirit within, which the gospel promises if you have faith, you do, then God will not share you with a demon or with any other.

God will not share His glory with another. And so this message is not about demon possession. I will say, just to set your mind at ease for a moment, the demon possession of a believer in Christ is not possible.

God, with His Spirit indwelling you, will not share you with that. My idea here is this idea of not stopping, where we get rid of the one, but we tolerate the other. Jehu put Israel in order. If we think of the proverb in Matthew 12, Jehu put Israel in order by banishing Baal from the land, but the orderly state was only on the surface because something was intentionally left behind.

We know what that was. I've said it several times already. I ask us, and what about us? What about us? What pet sin do we cherish? What fleshly pleasure do we protect against God's intruding grace? I mean, do we dispense with adultery but keep pornography?

Is violence repented of but hateful thoughts are retained? Do we expunge pornography but maintain a lustful heart? The list could go on and on. The text applies directly. Let me ask it this way. Have we cleansed Baal but not turned away from the golden calves?

Ask yourself that personally. Just take a moment. Have I wiped out the worst, most egregious sin I could think of and then kept and protected and maintained? What? That was Jehu's error. We will get to, actually, the cause behind it as we go through this, but that's the core of his error.

He kept the one after having gotten rid of the other. Can someone say of you or me, well, you know, Carl put away this awful thing from his life but he did not turn aside from his other better loved sin.

He or she did well against greed but would not contest the grip that covetousness had on her. Jesus says that if this is the case, then our state is worse than when we started. Ask why? For one thing, it implies that we think we can fool God.

It implies we think we can fool God. We join the mockers in Psalm 73 who say, how can God know is there knowledge with the Most High? This corner of my heart I've kept away. It's mine. I know what's in it.

I have filled it with what I want and I own it and God does not know about it. That's what's implied. Listen, dear people, listen to this. If we can grieve the Holy Spirit by a love of sin, because the Apostle Paul tells us clearly, do not grieve the Holy Spirit by imbibing your sin, by doing things clearly against God's will revealed to us in His Word.

We can grieve the Holy Spirit by that love of sin but the other side of the coin says we cannot hide it from God. We can hide it from ourselves even. We can fool ourselves. We're easy to fool especially when it's us tricking us.

That's simple. Hebrews 4 .13 says, No creature is hidden from His sight but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account. What was read to you from Revelation applies directly.

What does it say over and over? Jesus knows the good works we've done. If any good works there are, He knows of them. But then He says, But I have this against you. But I have this against you. Acknowledging the good.

And brethren, we can do good. By the power of His Holy Spirit we can do good. Ephesians 2 .10 says that God made the good works before all time. And He laid them out for us that we should walk in them.

They are good works because they're what God has decreed for us to do. Doesn't mean we do them perfectly. I'm not talking about complete sanctification here. I'm saying that if God gave us the good works to do when we do them, that they're good because it's God who gave them.

And Jesus, in those letters to the churches that Steve read to you, says, I know the works you've done. I don't want to say Jesus appreciates them because we appreciate when we do favors for each other.

This sounds wrong and I can't think of the right word to put in it. But Jesus does acknowledge them. And He doesn't say, I know the works you've done. I know you tried real hard. They're kind of cruddy in my sight.

They're not quite up to my snuff because, you know, I'm the Son of God. He doesn't say anything like that. They are good works. But that same Lord says, but I have this against you. What has He against you?

What has He against us? Have you kept your calves after having done violence against Baal? He knows you've done the one. How long must He wait for you to do the other? How long must your husband or wife wait for you to do the other?

Your children. How long must your brothers and sisters here in this church wait? If you read 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, other places in the Scripture, if you're a member of this church, if we are bound together by our common faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, your sin affects us.

My sin affects us because I'm the one who stands up here most often and declares the Gospel to you. My sin affects us more in a way. What have we held back? And why? Why do we halt the progress? We're not told exactly why Jehu did, but we are told this, he did not follow the law of God, the Lord of Israel, with all his heart.

And this is at the core of the whole matter. This is the foundation of it all. His heart was held back from God. We are given no more than that, though what we have in that is really the root cause. When we forbear to offer our whole heart to God, heart here means what?

It means the whole person. It means who and what we are. Then we're vulnerable when we do that to all sorts of mischief. And most dangerously, we're testifying implicitly or explicitly that the initial success that we had, if any we did have, was due to what?

Due to us. Due to my righteousness, my abilities, my sanctity. Due to my power. Did Jehu join, for example, Nebuchadnezzar, looking out at his kingdom and saying, look what I have done? Do you remember that in Daniel?