To Despise God's Word

Let's pray. Blessed Lord, You have caused all of the Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of Your Holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. All right, now one of the things we do here in our Sunday school lessons, we take a look at the same passage of Scripture sometimes several times through. And this is called in theological circles, it's known as the hermeneutical spiral.

And it's the idea that it's gonna take several times to begin to suck the marrow out of a passage of Scripture. Last week, we looked at Exodus chapter eight, and actually some of the preceding chapters, as the rumble between Yahweh and the false gods of Egypt got going.

And if you remember in inning number one, it looked like Yahweh took it in the chin. But the reality of the situation is that everything went exactly as the Lord had said it would happen. The problem, the fault was not with Yahweh.

The fault was with the people of Israel who didn't pay attention to His Word and believe what He had said. And so as a result of that, it led to a little bit of, shall we say, unnecessary turmoil. When Pharaoh decided that he would no longer provide the straw for them to make bricks, they freaked out.

But this is exactly what God said. And you'll notice then, as we look back at chapter eight, I wanna point out a couple of things, and then we'll move forward with more of the 10 plagues. And that is that in here we see a constant refrain as we're working through the plagues.

Not only is one of the constant refrains that Pharaoh's heart was hard or hardened, but we also hear another refrain and that it's that these things happen just as Yahweh said. Just as Yahweh said. And these are there for our comfort and give us clues as Christians how we are to view God's Word.

Sometimes the upsets that we have in our life are caused by our lack of attention to what God says in His Word. So we decide that we're not going to believe Him, or we don't even pay attention to Him at all, and His words just fly right over our head like the birds heading south for the winter.

And we don't pay much attention to them, and then something goes terribly, well, sideways in our life. And then you come to pastor, and my internal dialogue goes something like this. Duh, didn't you read God's Word?

Were you not paying attention to my sermon just three weeks ago? I know you were here. And so the idea here is that we want to pick up on a particular theme in Scripture, and I'm going to note here, I'm going to do a little bit of an advanced search in my Bible program.

And I want you to note these passages. Now, we're going to have to weed through some of them, because not every one of them deals with the topic at hand, but we're going to talk about the sin, if you would, of despising the Word of God.

Despising God's Word as a Sin of Inattention

The sin of despising God's Word. Now, if you remember your catechism, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. What does this mean? That we should fear and love God, that we do not despise preaching, and His Word, but gladly hear and learn it.

So the idea here is there is a sense in which despising God's Word, and you think despising it means something to the effect of, well, I just heard God's Word, and I despise it, I loathe it. You know, go out French on it, right?

Hey, anyway, I'm getting silly. Okay, but you get the idea. So, but that's not exactly what despising God's Word really means. Despising God's Word comes in many forms. The outright hatred of it, the denial of it, but it also comes in the form of, I am too busy to pay attention to it.

Or it could be that you're sitting in church, and while the Word is being read, and the sermon is being preached, you're working through your grocery list in your mind, checking your phone and social media to see what's going on in Snapchat and Facebook.

Well, we know that you're a pretty prolific Snapchatter. Yeah, right, right. But see, so the idea here is that a despising of God's Word is an inattentiveness to it. And believe me when I tell you, this is your sinful nature's normal posture towards God's Word.

I ain't got time for it. I'm not interested in it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is what causes all kinds of problems. What we as Christians must understand is that Scripture makes it perfectly clear that the problem that we all suffer from is that we have a very corrupt and sinful nature that we've inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve, and that as a result of it, we're dead in trespasses and sins by nature, and hostile to God.

And all of the things that get screwed up in everybody's life, over and again, just trace it back and you sit there and go, wow, that person made a conscious decision to depart from what God would have them do.

And then look at the wreckage that follows them in their life. I oftentimes think, and I may have talked about this before, that sin itself, the way it manifests itself, it's so irrational, I almost think it's a form of madness.

And think in your own life, those times when you have been most unhappy, those times in your life when things have gone poorly, when you are ashamed and you think about that season in your life, man, that was dark, what were you doing?

Were you following God's word? Were you believing it? No! You were going, God said, go this way, you said, and I'm going this way. That's what you did. And then you sit there and go, why is my life all miserable?

Why does everyone hate me? Because you're a sinful, selfish jerk. I'm speaking autobiographically. Just want to make that clear. And this comes back to our chief problem. And it makes sense. Back in the Garden of Eden, God said to Adam, the day you eat of that fruit, you will surely die.

And Satan came along and said, did God really say? The first attack against humanity, made in the image of God, we are the creatures that stand upright. The first attack was against the very word of God itself.

And that attack continues to this day. So as a result of it, we must understand that these things going on in scripture, they're calling us, God through his spirit and his word is calling us to wake up, to see the real nature of things.

You really want to learn how to live properly, to think properly, to experience, and I mean this, true peace in your life, even in the midst of trouble and suffering, you've got to stop thinking the way you would think intuitively as a sinner and learn the thoughts of God through the transforming of your mind through his word.

Make sense? Now, let me give you some cross references here. Numbers 15, 31. Numbers 15, let me get some context so we can see what's going on here. The priest shall make atonement. We'll start in 15, 28.

The priest shall make atonement before the Lord, the person who makes a mistake when he sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him and he shall be forgiven. You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally and for him who is native among the people of Israel, for the stranger who sojourns among them.

But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he's a native or a sojourner, reviles the Lord. Now, we're in Mosaic covenant here. This is law. And to do something with a high hand is basically saying, I know what God's word says to you, God, and I'm gonna go my way.

That's a high hand. You get it? This is an absolute act of rebellion and defiance against God. That person is to be cut off from among his people because he has despised the word of the Lord, has broken his commandment.

That person shall be utterly cut off. His iniquity will be on him. You sit there and go, wow, that's some pretty heavy law. Yeah. That is really heavy law. Right? Well, we do, at least we're supposed to, and I want you to think about this.

What's our cross-reference to this in the New Testament, in the new covenant? Matthew 18.

Let me show you. Matthew 18, verse 15. If your brother sins against you,.

Go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. Now, this is not talking about a public sin where the pastor preaches false doctrine. Public sins are to be handled publicly. But if your brother or sister sins against you, which is gonna happen?

I don't know if you've all noticed that. It happens. How are we as Christians to handle this? Well, go to him privately, tell him his fault. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. Notice here, the actions then are prompted by the need of your brother to be forgiven for his sin, not you who's been offended.

Okay, let's try this again. If he listens to you, you've gained your brother. The reason you're going to your brother when he sins against you is for his sake, not yours. For his sake. And this makes perfect sense.

Because how many times does your brother sin against you before you can stop forgiving him? 70 times. It's some ginormous, ridiculously complex number, right? I don't do math. It's a dark art. Just saying.

Yeah. So if he listens to you, you've gained your brother. But if he does not listen to you, now we've got a problem. If he does not listen to you, you take one or two others along with you so that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.

Brothers, brother, brother, you've sinned. Go pound sand. I got to go get another person. Now we've got two of us. Brother, brother, you've sinned, repent. Get out of my house. Now he's acting in a high hand, is he not?

Who's he defying? God. So if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. Notice what it does not say here. This is important. When somebody sins against you, grab your cell phone and start texting everybody to let them know what they did.

Yeah, they had to write letters and use carrier pigeons. You know, the iPad at that point was a carrier pigeon. Anyway, you get the idea, right? So if he refuses to tell it to the church, if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

That is you treat him as an unbeliever. That means he is not in fellowship. He has acted in a high handed way against God because we are the community, the body of Christ of those who are forgiven, who are penitent, and we bear fruit in keeping with repentance and forgiveness and repentance is an ongoing daily exercise for Christians.

The person who says I'm not going to repent of my sins says I don't love Jesus. I don't love his forgiveness. I've got a better way. I can't really stand this whole forgiveness and repentance of things, sins, things anyway.

I'm sick and tired of you telling me I'm a sinner. Get out of my house. They're despising the word of the Lord. Yeah, that's right. And it hurts us all equally in that sense. Mark. Okay, that's real simple.

Let me get to it. Okay, so if he refuses to listen, tell him to the church, okay? Treat him as a Gentile or tax collector. Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven. Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

What's that a reference to? The office of the keys. See, I exercise one of the keys every church service. I as a called and ordained servant of the word forgive you all of your sins. That's the loosing key.

Notice there's two keys, binding and loosing. So this is a reference to absolution. And so the idea then in true church disciplined fashion, and this is going to be tough for some of you to hear. You wanna know why?

Because some of you, you're all family members. You're blood. So what do you do when somebody who's a family member in our congregation, this is Christ's church, not your family's church, sins and refuses to repent?

But pastor, if we follow Matthew 18, I know our church constitution says that that's what we're supposed to do. But if we do that, they'll never talk to us again. Yeah, that's a possibility, is it not?

But what's the problem here? This is not about personalities. This is not about family. This is about somebody claiming to be a Christian who despises God's word. They will not hear it, they don't believe it, and their actions are showing it.

Let me show you some other passages. Samuel, 2 Samuel 12, 19. Why have you despised the word of Lord to do what is evil in his sight? You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with a sword and have taken his wife to be your wife.

This is Nathan the prophet speaking to King David. We all remember how the whole Bathsheba affair went. It was on the cover of the Enquirer magazine back then. I'm just saying, they had to write it out by hand.

It took a while to get those things published. But the way this went down is that, well, the army went out to war, and King David, he's getting a little older, a little gray in his beard, and he decided to stay back.

And he's out on the balcony, and whoa, there's a woman bathing. And he decided to invite her up. Got her pregnant. Tried to cover it all up by bringing her husband back from the front lines. But he wouldn't spend any time with his wife.

So David had him murdered. And so you'll notice, the man after God's own heart, David, Nathan the prophet speaking by the word of God, confronting him with his sin says, you have despised the word of the Lord.

Despised it. The word that says, thou shalt not commit adultery. To do what is evil in his sight, you've struck down Uriah the Hittite by the sword. You've taken his wife to be your wife. And yet, David wrote the Psalms.

The Psalms that says, on your law, I meditate day and night. And this is what we have to struggle with as Christians. Our sinful nature hates God, hates his word, despises hearing it, doesn't want to obey it.

In fact, has every desire to do the exact opposite of what it says. To believe the exact opposite of what it says to believe. And this is our problem. And so when we fall short, we must see it for what it is.

A despising of God and his word. It's truly what's wrapped up in it. David, you had a question.

You know, a lot of times, you'll see where... Yeah. Well, here's the thing. You've got David singing. Yeah, yeah. And yet, he's not. Right. But it's also showing us that God has...

Hypocrisy, Works-Righteousness, and Grace Through Faith

Right, so let's talk about the charge. Christians are oftentimes charged with that terrible crime of being hypocrites. Now, sometimes, and I'll be blunt, sometimes the charge sticks. It's true. And here's the reason for it.

If you attend a congregation where they preach law, law, law, and they sprinkle on a little gospel, law, law, law, what are you going to produce? Pharisees. You're going to produce a bunch of people who think that, well, I am the cherry on top of the whipped cream of the body of Christ.

And literally just hold me up to heaven because God is so pleased with me because of just how obedient I am. And they turn Christianity into a religion of works. And when you do that, you don't hear the gospel very often.

The gospel comes up as, well, a necessary ingredient to help somebody make that decision so that they can get into the fun park of works. And then what happens is, you know, you get the stereotypical church lady where somebody is, well, they're struggling with a sin, and of course, they're not, and their prayer sounds a lot like that of the Pharisee in the parable of the Pharisee in the tax collector.

I thank you, God, that I am not like all those sinners in America. Oh, that I go to church, I tithe, and I'm even on the altar guild, and oh, man, I even made the treats last Sunday during the fellowship time.

Isn't that special? Could it be Satan, right? Yeah, so unfortunately, I'm going to say this, is that pagans and unbelievers have had run-ins with these people who claim to be Christian. Here's the problem.

They're not. If we take the book of Galatians seriously, where it says, you who would be justified, that means declared righteous by the law, you've been alienated from Christ and you've fallen from grace, we must do the hard thing and say, that person who's trying to get to heaven based upon their works in the name of Jesus will fail because salvation is a gift given by God by grace, through faith.

It is not a wage paid for being good. Yeah, that's right. Again, the best way to think about God's law, take the 10 commandments and do the work and put them on a china vase and have that thing in the kiln and bring that sucker out, and there's God's law on the china vase.

As soon as you break one of them, the whole thing comes apart. Instead, and this is the right way in order to avoid the charge of hypocrisy, and this is why we can say, David is a man after God's own heart is not because David was righteous in and of himself, but because David, just like us, is a sinner saved by grace through faith.

He has received the forgiveness of God. So notice this, when we have the Lord's Supper, we all come to the rail and kneel. We're all equals. We're all equals on our knees. Christianity is entered on your knees or on your face, not on a ladder.

And unfortunately, there are enough people out there who are striving to earn their salvation who call themselves Christians that the world sniffs it. You're sitting there telling me, I can't watch these movies with this rating.

I can't be partying and getting drunk and doing all this kind of stuff, and God loves you because you don't, and then they watch them like a hawk. Uh-huh. So you say you never get drunk. I saw you swerving in your car the other night, and boy, you sure did reek of whiskey to me.

How is it wrong for me to be engaging in sexual immorality when you and your boyfriend are clearly not virgins? So it's best if we do not judge. No, that's not exactly the right answer. So here's what we do.

We say, listen, God's word judges us all, and we're all guilty. And we never turn the grace of Christ into a license to sin. When Christians fall short, you know what Christians should say? I despised God's word, just like David did.

I'm guilty. I'm guilty.

But as we judge others and look at them, you are swerving, you're having an affair. We are just as bad. So that's where I say we should not judge because we are no better.

And this is where it gets interesting, okay? I'll kind of pick up on a little theme from Scripture. Paul, the Apostle Paul tells us to judge those inside of the church, not those outside. When we preach the law and gospel evangelistically to non-believers, the goal is for them to be brought to repentance and faith in Christ.

Oftentimes what ends up happening is kind of like in the old moral majority way of doing things. We're better than you are because we keep God's law. And that's all the pagans hear, and that's not correct.

What they need to hear is that, listen, we are all screwed up. We are, every one of us, dead in trespasses and sins by nature and at war with God. And God's law was given to shut us up. Let me take you back to Romans 3 on this so you can kind of see the purpose of the law.

Romans 3, this is a fun class, by the way. Romans 3, starting at verse 9, this is a passage worth going to again and again. The Apostle Paul, which he begins an argument halfway through Romans chapter 1, and this is the conclusion of the argument in chapter 3.

He asks the question, are we Jews any better off? No, not at all, for we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous, no, not one. No one understands, no one seeks for God.

All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. Anyone want to hazard guess to what the word all means in this context? It means all. Everybody. The only exception is Christ.

Their throat is an open grave. This is the description of me. This is the description of you. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood. In their paths are ruin and misery. The way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. So that's what the law's verdict is for every one of us.

God's law looks at everybody and says, you are godless. And then he says, now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law. And here are the important words. So that every mouth may be stopped.

That's a polite way of saying, so that God can tell everyone to shut up. And shut up in this sense. Yeah, but God, I really meant to do good. Be quiet. But God, but God, but God, it was only a white lie.

Silence. But God, but God, I loved him. I know it was wrong, but we intended to get married. Be quiet. And the reason you need to be quiet is because God has another word. The law says guilty. And you cannot get the gospel until you get that part.

Guilty. And the whole world now is held accountable to God. Verse 20, by works of the law, no human being will be justified, that means to be declared righteous, in God's sight, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.

Now we have the law written on our hearts. We intuitively think this is how Christianity works. I transgress God's law, I fall short, I recognize I screwed up, go my bad, and then I try harder. And then the harder I try, the better I get at keeping God's law, and eventually I experience enough life-changing transformation in my life that God says, well done.

That's not how this works. That's not how this works. You cannot be saved, you are not made right with God by being gooder, trying harder. If that were the case, then those people who have figured out how to actually keep their New Year's resolutions are going to heaven.

Haven't yet figured out how to do that. Stupid things. Anyway, right, yeah, I made a resolution years ago and I've kept it, never making another one. The only one I've ever kept. That's the best one. The text continues, but now the righteousness of God has been manifested.

Notice whose righteousness it is. It's God's. Has been manifested apart from the law, although the law and the prophets, they bear witness to it. The righteousness of God that is through faith in Jesus Christ for all who what?

Believe. Are you saying, pastor, that those who believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins are going to heaven? Duh, the thief on the cross. Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom. Today you will be with me in paradise.

Which works did he do? I don't see him feeding poor people in the soup kitchens. Salvation is a gift given and it is grasped by believing. But notice this, believing absolutely presupposes not a despising of God's word, but a trust in God's word.

God's word says I'm guilty. This is true. God's word says I'm saved not by anything I've done, but by everything Christ has done for me. This is true. Amen. You mean you're saved? I know for a fact, Roseboro, you're a jerk.

Yeah, I know. When I get to heaven, I'm telling you, the mansion values are gonna plummet in whatever neighborhood Jesus sticks me in. They're gonna be really upset. There are, no joke, there are tax collectors, prostitutes, all kinds of rank sinners right now in heaven.

When I show up, they're gonna go, oh, there goes the neighborhood. He's letting anybody in now. What did Paul say about himself? This is a trustworthy saying. Christ died for sinners of whom I am the chief.

There is no hypocrisy in biblical Christianity. In fact, one can argue if you rightly understand God's law and the gospel and true biblical Christianity, and you do not despise his word, if you rightly understand it, then there is only one error in all of scripture, and that's what Paul said, that he's the chief of sinners.

If you're honest with yourself, you say, yeah, no, I think I got that one. I think I got that one. There's no hypocrisy in that, none. You know you're not getting what you deserve. I know I'm not getting what I deserve, and that's the gospel, and that's what makes it such good news.

All right, real simple. I'm not saved by anything I've done. I'm saved by everything that Christ has done. I'm a sinner just like you, but I know where the forgiveness is, it's in Christ. There's nothing hypocritical about saying the truth about yourself.

The one who thinks that they're saved by their good works doesn't say the truth about themselves. They talk about how good they are rather than confessing how sinful they are. That, by nature, automatically turns them into a hypocrite because they're putting on a false front.

See the difference? Now, all of this is preface. I want to come back and take a look at Exodus 8, and I want to note here, so our theme is this not despising God's Word, and if you remember when the children of Israel experienced resistance from Pharaoh, Pharaoh gave them the same task of producing bricks without any straw, and they freaked out.

We've become a stench in the nostrils of Pharaoh, but did God not tell them this would happen? The answer is yes, he did. So the fault lies with them, and you'll notice then as we walk through these parts of the plagues that there's a noticeable change in the refrain and what's going on with the people of Israel.

The Plague of Frogs and the Power of Prayer

Exodus 8, then Yahweh said to Moses, go into Pharaoh, say to him, thus says Yahweh, let my people go, that they may serve me. If you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all of your country with frogs.

The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house, into your bedroom, on your bed, into the houses of your servants and your people, into the ovens and your kneading bowls. The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and all of your servants.

And all the little girls in Egypt went, ah! You ever seen a little girl freak out with a frog? That and snakes and mice, I just, I don't get it. Okay, so Yahweh said to Moses, say to Aaron, stretch out your hand with your staff, make frogs come up on the land of Egypt.

So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt. The frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt, but the magicians did the same thing by their secret arts and made frogs come up on the land.

Now, last week I mentioned that Pharaoh's magicians, we know the names of two of them, two of them. They are Janus and Jambres. Open up to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3 is going to help us with this. 2 Timothy 3, it's in the New Testament.

We're gonna start at verse one, and I'm gonna tell you this. The magicians of Pharaoh are type and shadow. The type and shadow they point to are the false teachers in the church today. How do I know this?

Let's read. Understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving the good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.

Pause here for a second. It's like, wait a second. What is he saying this is in the last days for? This sounds like how people have been from like day one. Here's the distinction. Paul is not describing the world.

He's describing the visible church in the last days. We continue. Treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, but having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.

This is taking place in the church. And Paul says, avoid such people, for among them are those who creep into households, capture weak women, burdened with sins, led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

Just as Jonathan Jambres opposed Moses so that these men also opposed the truth, men corrupted in mind, disqualified regarding the faith, but they will not get very far for their folly will be plain to all as was that of those two men.

Jonathan Jambres, there's your names. Those are the names of two of the magicians of Egypt, the Pharaoh. And what does it say about them? They oppose the truth. Always learning, never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

This is what it means and what it looks like to despise God's word. So you read in God's word. It says, same sex attraction and same sex sex is sin. Nope, I oppose that. We're gonna marry people of the same sex and we're going to ordain people who are practicing homosexuals.

Always learning, never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Opposing the truth, just like Janice and Jambres. The magicians of Egypt are in type and shadow of the false teachers within the church today.

You see it? This is a tough word, pastor. I don't know what you've been drinking, but man, might wanna quit those energy drinks or whatever. How much coffee did you have exactly? So Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters.

The frogs came up. The magicians did the same by their secret arts, made the frogs come up on the land of Egypt. They're opposing the truth. They are literally opposing the truth. Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said to them, plead with Yahweh, take away the frogs from me, from my people, I'll let the people go to sacrifice to Yahweh.

Moses said to Pharaoh, all right, be pleased to command me when I am to plead for you and for your servants and for your people so that the frogs may be cut off from you and your households to be left only in the Nile.

And he said, tomorrow. Moses said, be it as you say so that you may know that there is no one like Yahweh our God. The frogs shall go away from you and your houses and your servants and your people and they shall be left in the Nile.

So Moses and Aaron went out from Pharaoh. Moses cried to Yahweh about the frogs. Watch this. He cried to the Lord. Moses is praying. As he had agreed with Pharaoh, verse 13, and Yahweh did according to the words of Moses.

I cannot overemphasize this. Christian prayer is vital. God hears you when you pray. And here we have a picture of it. Moses prayed. God heard Moses and God did according to whose words? Moses's. The devil would have you think your prayers are nothing.

He's lying to you. God hears your prayers. And there are many times when God will act according to your words. So never stop praying. In fact, I think I made this point recently and I'll make it again.

It's worth reemphasizing. I find it fascinating that when Christianity goes rogue, prayer is one of the things that the devil goes after. And I mean it. You think about the people in Roman Catholicism.