Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Stand this morning and we'll go to the Lord in prayer.
[00:00:04] You know, it's very interesting to me that day in and day out, so many things are happening in so many wonderful people's lives. I'm actually going to speak on the nature of evil a little bit today.
[00:00:18] It just seems there's a lot of evil in our world. And I was actually officiating at a funeral service on Friday.
[00:00:26] It was not a nice day, I'll just tell you that. But it really hit me with impact, you know, death is an enemy. Death is an enemy.
[00:00:38] And even this morning, I was praying for someone. Death is an enemy. We need to know that. But I'm going to just say this to all of us. Even though that's an enemy, Jesus came along and took away the sting of that enemy.
[00:00:49] And the sting he took away was the fact that you and I now are going to experience eternal life with Christ for all eternity. And if people are slipping into eternity, and the people that are slipping into eternity, love God, listen, they would never want to come back here. The joy and the blessedness that they're experiencing is beyond anything we can comprehend. But for us who remain behind, it's still painful. It still hurts. We still cry, we still grieve. It's all part of reality. But we don't grieve, though. It says like the rest of people do, we have a hope. Thank God for that hope. It's not the end of the line. We're going to see them again, folks. And the older you get, you start realizing something, the more heaven gets populated with the people you love. And eventually, I'm sure some of the saints that are older than me are going to say, and there's more people above than there are below.
[00:01:47] You know, you're starting to say, I got more friends up in heaven than I do down below. You know, now you're getting ready to say, I'm getting ready to exit and join my friends in the presence of the living God. But I want to pray for us today. Pray for those that are grieving. Pray for those that are battling sickness. Pray for those that are struggling with maybe a relational challenge in their life. There's so many things going on in people's lives, so we need to pray. And so, Father, we come before you. We love you. We thank you for this blessed hope that we have, a hope that anchors our soul in life's deepest trials, a hope that sustains us even though the enemy of death approaches. Lord, we know it's lost its sting. You've conquered the grave, you've conquered death. You've given us this amazing future that lies before us. An inheritance that's beyond anything we can imagine. But even while we're here, Father, you don't leave us. You don't abandon us, you strengthen us, you encourage us, you direct us. You work out even the most difficult things in our lives. And you bring and use both good and evil to bring about your eternal purposes. And many times in hindsight, we look at the story of Joseph, we can look back and say, yeah, this was meant for evil, but God, you used it for good. Lord, use some of these things right now that make us cry for good. And we thank you for that. In Jesus name. And God's people said, amen. You may be seated.
[00:03:20] So we're in the book of Jeremiah. Title of the sermon is how to Be Delivered from Deception and Evil. You know, when you start reading a chapter, you start saying to yourself, okay, the Judean governor has now been assassinated. Lord, how does that apply to us?
[00:03:34] That was the first thought in my mind as I'm reading the chapter. But, you know, spirit of God is so faithful. God just starts dropping stuff into your heart. And I realized something that what we believe shapes what we do. How many go, that's so true. I mean, we're making decisions on what we think is best. Isn't that right? And so what we think and how we see things is really defining how we make decisions. And those decisions actually impact the days ahead. What you're deciding to do today will affect your future tomorrow. And if we make good decisions day in, day out, day in, day out, eventually we have an amazingly positive future in our lives. You know, some of you may be aware of this. I really love history, and I do a little bit of reading. Patty's laughing. I do a little bit of reading, and I've read Winston Churchill's six volumes on the Second World War. It won a Nobel Prize. It's a little bit lengthy, but it's worth the read. And I'm just going to quote a few little excerpts from volume one, called the Gathering Storm, because he starts talking about how things led up to World War I. And it's very fascinating as he relates the tragedy of the Munich Accord. Many people know what this is about. This is kind of the sense of betrayal when Britain and France kind of agreed to allow part of Czechoslovakia to be given over to the Nazi German aggression. Basically, it was negotiated aggression. But Keith Feiling, who wrote on the Life of Neville Chamberlain, shared this very interesting thing that happened in a private meeting between Hitler and Chamberlain. These are the two leaders, one of Britain, one of Germany. And it was just after they had signed the Munich Accord.
[00:05:32] And this is what Chamberlain said when he's talking to the person who writes his autobiography. He says, in spite of the hardness and ruthlessness I thought I saw on his face, I got the impression that here was a man who could be relied upon when he had given his word.
[00:05:50] Now, most of us know a little bit of history, and we realize that from this impression. Chamberlain basically had an agreement drafted that neither country would go to war against the other, to which Hitler signed.
[00:06:02] And when Chamberlain returned to England to the cheering crowds, he says, I believe it is peace for our time.
[00:06:10] Now, most of us, we look at that and we go, how sad.
[00:06:15] How sad that that happened. How tragic that Chamberlain was wrong. And it allowed a deception to open the door to an even greater evil. You know, it was interesting that after the war they had the Nuremberg trials, and Colonel Eager, who represented Czechoslovakia, he asked Marshal Keitel, which was one of the German high Command, and he said, would the Reich have attacked Czechoslovakia in 1938 if the Western powers had stood by Prague?
[00:06:48] And Marshal Keitel said, certainly not. We were not strong enough militarily. The object of Munich was to reach an agreement there that was to get Russia out of Europe, to gain time and to complete the German armament. Now, many people don't realize this, and I think it's fascinating that Czechoslovakia, at that point in time in Europe was really the country that was the manufacturers of most of the armament. It was a very strategic country, had one of the finest armies in Europe, and they had an agreement with France and Britain. And now France and Britain in some sense, had betrayed them, and they were alone and eventually felt pressured to sign this agreement. And what the world eventually discovered was that many of the Nazi German generals were not the Nazi German generals, but the German generals were actually looking at deposing Hitler just prior to the Munich Accord. I don't know if you know that.
[00:07:49] And because of his bluster and intimidation of the Western Allied leaders, and he had such success pulling this stuff off that he was deceiving the Allies with deceiving the Allies, that they fell in line with his leadership and vision in World War II was no longer to be averted. What a great tragedy. Deception that led to such destruction. Deception that led to such evil. And why am I bringing this all out to our attention? Because, you know, my question would really be, why then is it that we're so open to Deception. Why is it?
[00:08:35] And I think the answer is, part of the answer is that we actually want to believe the lie. You see, Chamberlain wanted peace so badly that he believed the lie. You see, when you and I want something so badly, we can actually believe what isn't true.
[00:09:00] It's driven by ourselves. And we have to be very, very careful because a lot of times when things are being presented to us, there's warning lights are going off. But many times because we want something, we ignore the warning lights and we end up doing the wrong thing. And later on we pay a price for ignoring those warning lights. That's true in relationships and so many other areas.
[00:09:22] So why are we hindered from the truth? That would bring us not only political freedom, but ultimately spiritual and eternal freedom.
[00:09:32] Well, like I said, you know, sometimes truth is painful.
[00:09:39] We don't want to hear the truth, we don't want to know the truth because we have to deal with it and it causes pain in our life. And sometimes it's just easier to just not deal with things and to just not address the problem. Maybe in our own soul, in our own lives, it's just easier just to keep going the way we're going. But the reality is it's not easier in the long run. There's always a price to pay when we don't embrace the truth because lies always lead us into a state of self deception. And pretty soon we begin to believe the lie to such a degree that we're sincere about what we think the reality is. Truth has a liberating impact, even though initially it may be painful, when we come into an agreement with what the truth is saying and truth is personified in a person call Jesus. Once we come into an agreement with the truth, it brings freedom and liberty into our lives. It's very powerful. But I'd add a little caveat, and it's simply this, that when you and I speak the truth to ourselves and to other people, we need to do it in a loving way. Bible always says, speak the truth in love. We have to be kind, we have to be caring. It's not about being right. It's not about knocking people down. It's not about putting people in their place. That's not what it's all about. Truth, when it's done correctly, it's always done to encourage and inspire and help people become free and become the person that God designed them to be. You know, it was J. Grisham Mackam who wrote false ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel in Other words, if you believe a lie, it's hard sometimes to embrace the truth. It becomes problematic. And for there to be good news, usually there's an underlying reality that there's some sort of bad news or something wrong. And many people who actually say they believe in God, some of them now have stopped believing in the devil. You know, it's interesting, a couple weeks ago I talked about, you know, people don't believe in hell anymore, but the person that actually spoke on it the most was Jesus. So I think we better pay attention. He knows. Now, I'm going to point out that sometimes people that don't believe in the devil, but I want you to know Jesus knows there's a devil because he confronted him in the wilderness. So once again, I think we got to go with what Jesus says and what he did and what he believes, because that's the truth. You know, it's interesting, when I was sharing with some of the men in our prayer time this morning, I mentioned that a lot of Jewish people have a hard time believing in the devil because in the Old Testament, it's not really well developed. There's a lot of things in the Old Testament are not really well developed. I'll give you an example. Satan. You know, you start out the story and you got a serpent on a tree. And then a little later on, you're in the book of Job, and the Bible says, and Satan came up with the sons of God to the throne of God. But the word there you have to understand is there's an adjective that we don't normally put in our English Bible, but it says, and the Satan came before God. And the word Satan literally means the accuser. And so many times people just see it as an accuser and not necessarily as a demonic force. And so in the Old Testament, you don't get a lot of this coverage on the spiritual dynamics. There's a little bit, but not a lot. But when you get to the New Testament, it's in your face. You've got Jesus tempted in the wilderness. You've got Paul talking about principalities and powers. You've got people, these demoniacs are being delivered. Throughout the Gospels, you see the power of God being demonstrated against the kingdom of darkness. And you're well aware there's a spiritual entity at work behind all of this.
[00:13:11] Well, Jesus, in teaching us how to pray, teaching his disciples, he concludes his prayer with this amazing expression. He says, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Now, I know that when I was a child, Growing up, when we were taught the Lord's Prayer, it ended as deliver us from evil. Remember, that's how we would say it. But actually this is actually more correct because the Greek actually talks about deliver us from the evil one. It's not just evil as a concept. It's actually personified in the devil. It's actually a person that's dealing with it. And we see that he's out. This evil one is out to destroy people's lives. And in First Peter, chapter five and verse eight, he says, be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, looking who. Whom he may devour. And so you and I need to be acutely aware that there is someone out to destroy our lives.
[00:14:15] You have an enemy, but you also have an ally. And if you surrendered your life to Christ, you got to know that the power of God is greater than the power of Satan. You're fine, you're safe. But we need to be well aware that there is an adversary out to destroy our lives. And a lot of times we can get careless or we just, you know, we get lax. We don't take things seriously, and then all of a sudden we find ourselves in trouble. So he's warning us. Peter is.
[00:14:44] Don't you think it's interesting Peter would warn us of this in light of the fact that he failed and betrayed Jesus? That's what I'm trying to say. It's easy for these things to happen when we're not alert. I think one of the greatest tools the devil actually has is using deception. It's one of his great tools. Paul, in warning the Corinthians about the nature of being deceived by Satan, he writes this in 2nd Corinthians 11, he said, but I'm thankful, just as Eve was, but I'm afraid sorry that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. What's going to lead us away from Christ? We have to be deceived by somebody. Satan can deceive us. Where is he going to deceive? He's going to deceive us. In the battleground of the life of a Christian, the battleground in people's lives, it's our minds. How many know that we're living in a culture today that is highly aware, highly attuned to the issues that we're all struggling with? Mental issues. It's our minds. And it's true. They're right, there is a battle going on for the souls and the minds of people. He goes on to say here in verse four, for if someone comes to you preaching a Jesus other than the Jesus we preach, or if you receive a different spirit from the spirit you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. What's he saying? You're being deceived in your minds to embrace another gospel, another Christ, another spirit. Then he goes on, Paul is describing this battle and he goes on to say here that we are fighting with weapons.
[00:16:26] In the earlier chapter he said, for though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. What are these strongholds?
[00:16:44] What are the weapons we're to fight with? Well, in verse five he goes on to say, we demolish arguments.
[00:16:51] That's information, folks. And every pretension that sets itself up up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
[00:17:03] Very interesting. So what's the battle? The battle is for our minds.
[00:17:09] And so what we need to do is recognize the thoughts that are coming to our minds. You know, I'm going to give you some ideas of what I'm talking about because sometimes we have ideas and thoughts that come to our minds and we can say to ourselves, man, I just feel like I'm a corrupt person. This isn't, you know, this isn't a thought that I, you know, where do these thoughts are coming from? Well, I think they're coming from Satan. Paul talks about that, you know, the fiery arrows of the devil and he shoots a thought to our mind. Satan doesn't know what's going on in your mind, but he can impose an idea to your mind. And it's like an arrow, arrow in your mind. And what you need to do is take that thought and say, I recognize this as nothing that I want to dwell on. This is not godly. You know, maybe it's a fearful thought. It could be an envious thought, an angry thought, a hatred thought, a lustful thought. Whatever the thought is, you got to take captive that thought. You need to make it obedient to Christ. You say, how in the world do we do that?
[00:18:09] Well, it's the ability to control our thoughts. The Holy Spirit talks about self control. We always think of self control in a lot of areas. But what about our thought life? Because what we think is going to affect what we say and eventually what we do. So we have to win the battle at the thought level. This is what we need to understand. And a person who is spiritually mature is a person who has got the ability to control their thoughts. In other words, you can't control maybe what you're thinking initially, but you can certainly with God's gracious help, displace the wrong thought. And then you start to do what Paul says, think about whatsoever things are good, pure, lovely. If you have any virtue and any praise, how many this is something you're doing. You're consciously doing. This wrong thought comes, you go, I'm displacing that thought, going to start thinking about what's good. I'm going to start meditating on what's righteous. I'm going to start thinking about what's pure. If you entertain wrong thoughts, eventually you're going to succumb to temptation.
[00:19:13] So you have to beat it in your mind. You have to deal with it in your mind. You can't carry hatred, unforgiveness inside of you. It's going to destroy you. You got to address those things that's going on in your mind. So now having said all of that, you're going, how does this relate to Jeremiah 41? Well, that's the thing that made me ask that question. What in the world is going on in chapter 41? I think this is what's going on. What's going on is it's on a material, non spiritual level in some ways, and yet it's actually reflecting what I'm describing right now. And I want to show that to you as we launch in here in Jeremiah 41, because I think it's an illustration of the spiritual realities I'm describing in the story of Ishmael, a member of the Judean nobility serving under King Zedekiah, who's now been captured and taken away, says, we're going to see how evil embodied in a person can deceive and then bring about great destruction and disaster that has terrible and tragic consequences to an unsuspecting people.
[00:20:19] They're going to be deceived and because they're lowering their guards, they're putting their lives in jeopardy. And we're going to watch how this happens.
[00:20:28] So what can we do? Or as Peter states, how can we be alert and sober minded so we're not caught, unaware and being duped and experienced tremendous losses in our lives? Well, I think there's three things we can learn to be delivered from deception and evil. And the first one is to heed warnings and take necessary precautions. How many go, you know, the Bible? I remember when I was a Bible school student, you know, they talk about doing devotions and they would say, you know, first of all, you know, maybe look at all the things you need to thank God for in this text of scripture you're reading. What can I thank God for? Maybe the second thing is, what are some of the things I need to confess? You know, what sins maybe have I committed or things like that? And then, you know, one of them is, what are the warnings that are being given to me in this text? What can I, you know, alert myself to and avoid doing these things so that I won't be deceived and actually enter into evil? Well, I think the Bible is filled with warnings and I think it pays attention in order to help us escape the snares that the devil has. He's trying to ensnare us. You know, it's like a fisherman, he puts out a lure and sends it out there. And, you know, how many know when you're fishing, you have to maybe change lures depending on if you're catching fish or you're not catching fish, you know, isn't that true? That's a little bit that I know about fishing. I've done it a few times and I've gone out fishing with people. So I know you have to keep changing the, you know, the lures to try to attract the type of fish. Hey, you know, what are you using over there? What are the fish biting? In other words, what lures working for you? And Satan knows that all of us in this room, he's going to have to come up with different strategies to entrap us. But he's good at it because he's been doing it for a long time. And you and I have a lot less experience at this level. And that's why the Bible says in Proverbs, we're to what, trust in the Lord with all of our hearts and then what?
[00:22:21] Don't lean on your own understanding.
[00:22:24] You know, a lot of times what we're doing is we're leaning to our own understanding. How many know your mind? And my mind is not match for Satan's mind. He's been around for a long time. So I just go, okay, if Satan's coming and I see Jesus, I'm just sticking behind Jesus. He's the commander. He knows where he's going. I'm just staying there because I know the devil is no match for Jesus. I'm just going to Hang with Jesus.
[00:22:47] I'm going to trust what he has to say. I'm going to figure out what he's talking about. I'm going to listen to the words of Jesus. You see, I think a lot of people today are being so bombarded and we all are by media, different expressions, social media, all kinds of things are coming at us. You know, people can get all kinds of information, but my concern is, is it what God is saying or is it what the devil wants to feed you?
[00:23:15] And the only way to discern that is if you're spending a lot of time in the Bible. You got to know the word of God, folks, to be able to pick up on some stuff. You say, well, I'm a brand new Christian, I don't know that much. I'm just saying, keep reading your Bible because the Holy Spirit is inside of you and it's really amazing what happens. All of a sudden somebody says something and you go, I don't know what's wrong with this, but something inside of me says this is not right. That's the Holy Spirit. Pay attention to that. But the more you study scripture, the more you'll be able to discern. Okay, I get what's wrong here. I see what the problem is. A lot of people are missing the clues. Do you realize that when people say lies, what? Where's that language coming from?
[00:23:53] Satan is the father of all lies. The truth. When I hear the truth, I know that's coming from God. Because Jesus is the truth. He's the way, the truth and the life. So truth and lies should tell you what camp it's coming from. Let's pick up the story here.
[00:24:10] Gedaliah has been warned now that Ishmael is going to come and assassinate him. I don't believe this. He says he doesn't take it very seriously. No high alert, doesn't take any precautions.
[00:24:27] But he has received the warning. And I think sometimes we negate warnings. Look at Jeremiah 41. Pick up the story. In the seventh month, Ishmael Son of Naphtaniah, the son of Elishamah, who was of the royal blood, had been one of the king's officers, came with 10 men to Gadolia, son of a Heiakim at Mizpah. And while they were eating together there. This is going to be the worst kind of terrible behavior. Because in a Middle Eastern culture, when you entered in and had a meal even with your enemy, nobody would do anything bad. Okay? It's an honor. Shame culture. This guy. We're going to find out is going to violate everything cultural and customary. Look what he does. Ishmael, son of Netaniah, and the 10 men who were with him got up, struck down Gedaliah, son of Ahiakam, the son of Shaphan, with the sword, killing the one whom the king of Babylon had appointed as governor over the land. Ishmael also killed all the men of Judah who were with Gadalia at Mizpah, as well as the Babylonian soldiers who were there now. What could he have done differently? If he had taken this warning seriously, he might have said, okay, guys, we're going to have you. You know, we're about to have dinner here. Everybody's going to have to get rid of their weapons.
[00:25:41] That would have been a precaution. That would have been taking the warning. You know, I don't know what he's up to, but let's just make sure he can't do anything. Take away his weaponry. How many might have been a good idea, Disarm him. I would have also had a few. My few of my guys on my side say, high alert, be armed, and be prepared. Right? Doesn't that make sense? He was warned, didn't take it seriously. He's now assassinated. He's dead. Not only is he dead, everybody around him is dying. All of these guys were just not taking this very seriously. Now, that's on a physical level, but spiritually, that could be the same thing. God's warning us from his words. We're not taking it seriously. We're playing fast and loose, and pretty soon, before you know it, we are alienated from God. We have no interest. We're losing interest in spiritual things. Pretty soon we're drifting and wandering. And, you know, spiritual drift is a reality says, do not neglect this great salvation. Neglect is one of the great enemies of the Christian life. We need to discipline ourselves. We need to be awake and we need to be alert.
[00:26:44] Unheeded warnings lead to deception. Frederick Hewing says, look what happens as a consequence of this behavior. He says he argued that the 582 deportation was Nebuchadnezzar's retribution for Gedaliah's murder. In other words, you know, hey, you're going to kill a Judean, your own countryman? Yeah, he's working with the Babylonians, but, you know, Nebuchadnezzar has already been here before. He's an empire ruler. They've already conquered this land. People had surrendered. They were getting back to a level of normalcy. This one guy goes off the edge and pretty soon A whole bunch of people suffer. We're going to find out that sin affects many people's lives. That's the nature of sin.
[00:27:27] Gedaliah's death was so devastating to Judah that post exelic Judaism observed the third of Tishri, the seventh month, as a solemn fast day to mark the occasion.
[00:27:40] Know what they're saying? This event was so traumatic for the nation of Israel that 70 years later they were still observing and mourning over what had happened there.
[00:27:53] That's pretty devastating. It created total political chaos. It was a major problem. Philip Reichen says the significance of the event. Gedaliah was betrayed by one of his own, a fellow Judean. His godly rule ended just months after it had begun because he listened too little and trusted too much. Last week I talked about, you have to understand human nature. His unhappy fate paralleled that of Jerusalem. All of God's warnings, they weren't paid attention to. They suffered. Gedaliah's death was also unheeded, a warning. This act of terrorism prevailed.
[00:28:31] The murder took place during a high level talks while the host and the guests were eating together, thus violating all conventions of hospitality, especially in the Middle East. Judas Iscariot and Ishmael betrayed their masters while they were breaking bread.
[00:28:48] That's the ultimate shame in that culture. How many know evil is not rational behavior?
[00:28:56] You know, sometimes people say to me, I don't understand why they're doing this. I go, no, you can't understand sin. It's not rational. Sin is not rational behavior, folks. It's not rational because it's always detrimental to yourself. It's not rational because it grieves God. It's not rational because it always affects people around you, people that love and care about you. It's going to affect them in a very negative way. Not only did Gadaliah, I mean Ishmael, killed the Babylonian appointed governor, but some of the Babylonian soldiers who were there were killed. And what do you think these, what do you think is going to happen when you start killing the Babylonians as well as the Judean governor? You're going to have retaliation that's going to just escalate things. You know, evil only leads to more evil. The only way you can overcome evil is by doing good.
[00:29:46] Otherwise retaliation becomes a vicious cycle that draws more and more people into its destructive web. And many of the people who are now destroyed and violated were not even involved in the original situation. And we're going to see what happens. Second thing we can learn to deliver us from deception and evil is that the evil One makes a pretense in order to deceive others of the real intention.
[00:30:15] What we need to know is Satan is a deceiver and a liar.
[00:30:19] He's got an agenda, you know? As the story unfolds, we discover other people now being drawn into the event unknowingly. It seems that they're in the wrong place at the wrong time. You know, you ever heard that statement? You know, they just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Well, there's 80 men coming from the northern tribes. Josiah, who was the last godly king, had reached out because these were people who had been deported for the most part, to the Assyrian empire. But some of them remained behind. And Josiah had reached out to them, and many of them now had started to come back and started worshiping the true God.
[00:30:54] And then all of a sudden, the temple's destroyed. People are grieved, they're mourning. So 80 men are on their way to pay respects and offer an offering. Not necessarily because the altar is destroyed. They know all of this. But they're bringing grain offerings, and we pick up the story. I think the story tells us how we have to be on guard against the lies of the enemy which are designed to destroy us. Look at verse four. The day after Gedaliah's assassination, before anyone knew about it. So this is not common knowledge. It just happened.
[00:31:29] 80 men who had shaved off their beards, torn their clothes and cut themselves came from Shechem, Shiloh and Samaria, bringing grain offerings and incense with them to the house of the Lord. So Mizpah is about 10 miles north of Jerusalem. They're on their way down. They stop at Mizpah. Here, they run into this guy Ishmael. Now look what Ishmael does here. Verse 6. Ishmael, the son of Netaniah, went out from Mizpah to meet them, weeping as he went.
[00:31:56] In other words, he's identifying with them. He's acting like he is sorrowing and mourning, just like they are over the destruction of the temple. And when he meets him, he says, hey, come to Gedaliah the son of Ahiakim. In other words, join up with us. Many people have been joining up with the governor. Many people. I remember, I read last week. We read it in the earlier the chapter before people from Moab and Ammon, all of the refugees that had fled for the war were coming home. These guys are coming by.
[00:32:32] They have no agenda but to worship God. They somehow mourn the loss of the temple.
[00:32:39] And he says, and when they went into the city because they couldn't see. There's a wall there, right? They went into the city. Ishmael, son of Naphtaniah, and the men who were with him slaughtered them and threw them into a cistern. How many go? This is crazy.
[00:32:53] How many know? It doesn't make any sense. Sin never makes sense.
[00:32:59] It's vile, it's violent, it's brutal, it's terrible.
[00:33:09] So Walter Brueggemann says the good intentions of the northern pilgrims contrast sharply with Ishmael's violence. He has no reason to fear these visitors, no cause to despise them or injure them. Perhaps they took him by surprise. Perhaps they disrupted his plans or inconvenienced him. Perhaps they were potential informers against him. Well, I don't think so.
[00:33:34] They didn't even know he was dead.
[00:33:37] Goes on. In any case, their innocent good intentions contrast with this man's vile negative intentions. Ishmael deceives them by word as he invites them to meet Gedaliah, whom he has already killed. He deceives them by deed, for he presents himself, sharing their grief while they grieve. His deception is not only a device to seduce him into the city, he. And then he kills them. Perhaps the narrative offers this support or this report to amplify the deep disorder present in a society that will not listen. But these guys actually did listen. They listened to the wrong voice and it caused them grief.
[00:34:15] You know, it's interesting to notice that when we fail to listen to God's voice, which is his word, we end up believing the lies of the enemy. And the end result to those lies? Personal destruction. One possible motivation for Ishmael's action is greed to be spared. Ten of these men pay a bribe for their safety, it says in verse eight. But 10 of them said to Ishmael, don't kill us. We have wheat and barley, olive oil and honey hidden in a field. So he let them alone and did not kill them with the others. So they basically paid for their lives.
[00:34:47] Now, the system where he threw all the bodies of the men he had killed along with Gedaliah was the one King Issa had made as part of his defenses against Baasha, king of Israel. Ishmael, son of Naphtaniah, filled it with the dead. So he's throwing all these people into this cistern. You know, all of these guys are being thrown, so the majority of their number die at Ishmael's fury. Now it brings us to our own time. So what application can you bring to Us regarding this very simple. These guys are innocent victims. They didn't do anything to create the problem.
[00:35:27] How many people today are innocent victims of political turmoil, greed and other sinful motivations that bring about people's destruction? You know, the nature of human sin is indiscriminate destruction. And we see it all the time. You know, when I talked a couple weeks ago or last week, I can't remember which week it was, I talked about 7,000 to 21,000 people dying of malnutrition every day.
[00:35:53] Most of those people are in war torn countries. That's why it's happening. That's the point. These are innocent people that are paying the price of other people's agendas, their sinful agenda. And we need to know that. You know, it's interesting, in my devotional reading this morning, I'm reading the story of Job and the spiritual attack that came against his family. Remember that story? How many know the story of Job? Job is a man. He's righteous, he's blameless. Old Testament book. And Satan comes before God. And God says, hey, where have you been? Up and down through the earth. Yeah, what are you noticing? God says, well, hey, have you noticed my good friend here, Job? He's blameless, he's a man of integrity. And the devil, the accuser says to God, you know, the only reason this guy is serving you is because of what he gets out of it. You got him protected. He's prosperous, he's got a wonderful family. His life is going great.
[00:36:51] That's why he's serving you. God says, no, he's not serving me for that reason. And Satan says, hey, just lower the guard, give me permission and I'll show you. This man has no integrity. He's just doing it for what he gets out of it. And we know the story. His children die in a tragedy. All of his wealth is taken away from him, comes back again. God says, hey, have you noticed my servant Job? The man's still serving me. He's worshiping me. And Satan goes, yeah, well, take away his health and you'll see what happens. God says, you can't take his life, but go ahead.
[00:37:27] Now that's the prologue to the book of Job.
[00:37:30] Job. Meanwhile, he's in chapter three. He's going, what in the world is going on? My whole life is upside down. I mean, I've just lost everything. You know, he's wounded, he's hurt, and even his friends show up and tell him, hey, Job, the reason this is happening to you, because you've done Something wrong? Job goes, no, I haven't. And we know that Job is right because God himself says so. God says he's a blameless man. Now, having said all of this, what we need to understand is simply this. And Nikki Gumbel brings it out. Satan appears before God having been roaming the earth and this is what he said. It's clear that Satan's objective is to cause as much suffering as he can. And I think we need to understand that. People say, why is there evil in the world? Well, I think there's a number of reasons. Number one, human rebellion. But number two, we have an adversary called Satan and he's just running rampant to destroy as much as he possibly can because his, excuse me, his time is short.
[00:38:32] His days are coming to an end. How do you know? I've read the last book of the Bible. God's going to throw him into hell forever and ever and ever. It's coming. Another motivation is to enslave people. We need to hear understand that Satan is trying to enslave the hearts and minds of people today. Look at verse 10. Ishmael made captives of all the rest of the people who were in Mizpah, the king's daughters, along with the others who were left there over whom Nebuzaradan, commander of the imperial Guard, had appointed Gedaliah son of Ahiakam. Ishmael son of Naphtaniah, took them captive and set out to cross over to the Ammonites. Now I got to ask the question, why is he doing this? Why is he taking these captives? He's killed all the men, he's taken these women and children and he's taken them over to the Ammonites. Well, I don't know if you know anything about war in the ancient world, but they took captives in order to enslave them. He was probably going to take them and sell them off and so that they would end up as slaves in this other kingdom. What a sad story.
[00:39:40] But how many today are being kidnapped and taken as slaves in the sex trafficking industry? That's happening all the time in our world.
[00:39:50] May we be aware that we have an enemy whose time is short and seeking to devour humanity. So let's review Ishmael's behavior and see if there's any parallel with someone else in the scriptures. So what's his behavior? He comes to steal, to deceive, to kill, and to destroy anybody else. You know, in the Bible that has that kind of behavioral pattern. In the New Testament, listen to what Jesus said about Satan. He said the thief has come, but to steal, kill and to destroy. How many are beginning to see that Ishmael is actually a type of Satan? He's an antichrist.
[00:40:28] He's a destroyer, you know? And listen, there are people in this world that are being used even as God uses people. Satan is using people to steal, kill, and to destroy. Let me give you the final thing we need to learn that will to deliver us from deception and evil is that evil can be defeated.
[00:40:53] I think we need to hear this, because sometimes we go, there's no use, Pastor. There's so much evil in the world. You know, we're just losing this battle.
[00:41:01] No, that's a lie.
[00:41:04] See, I think a lot of people are believing a lie. Let me give you what I think is happening today. There are more Christians in the world right now than there have ever been in all of human history put together right now. Remember Jesus told a parable about the tree that kept growing and growing and eventually the birds could land on it. He talked about, this is what the kingdom of God is, life. It's like a seed that goes in the ground and it becomes a great tree. It just keeps growing. God's kingdom is ever increasing. Until today there were more believers than ever before.
[00:41:39] And I want to just say this. You know, a lot of places in the world that we've been praying for for decades, the 1040 window, some of you hear that terminology, because those are the parts of the world where the gospel wasn't free to go into. God's still saving people in those parts of the world. As a matter of fact, I have people that I know. These are Persians. We call them Iranians today, but they're Persians. And today the fastest growing church growth in the entire world is happening in Iran. Isn't that amazing? So I just want to encourage us a little bit. Don't just listen to all the negativity out there. God is on the move and doing amazing things, and we need to be encouraged by that. So listen how the story comes to an end here. Verse 41, chapter 41, verse 11 to 15. When Johanan son of Keriah and all the army officers who were with him heard about the crimes Ishmael son of Netaniah had committed, they took all their men, they went to fight Ishmael son of Netaniah. They caught up with him near the great pool in Gibeon. When all the people Ishmael had with him saw Johanan son of Korea and the army officers or were with him, they were glad. How many know when you're in captivity and someone's coming to rescue you, it probably makes you pretty happy. That was their response. That makes total sense. Look at verse 14. All the people Ishmael had taken captive of Mizpah turned and went over to Johanan, son of Kareah. In other words, they had people to rescue them, and they turned because there's only eight people. Well, there's a little conflict here. Verse 15. But Ishmael, son of Naphtani, and eight of his men escaped from Johanan and and fled to the Ammonites. So he didn't have a big group of people. You know, the enemy acts like he's got a lot more going for him than he really has. And here we see that they're defeated.
[00:43:26] So I want to just say something. There is someone greater than Johannan saving these captives in our world today. Do you know what God decided to do? He looked at our world. He saw what Satan was doing to humanity. He said, I'm coming down. I'm putting an end to it. And Jesus came into our world to seek and to save that which is lost. He came to rescue you and I, who were captives to sin and death and destruction. Jesus came himself in person and defeated the powers of darkness on the cross. And that's why you and I have this great rescue mission that we're a part of today. That's amazing to me. We have a savior. We have Jesus doing this now. Walter Brueggemann, in summarizing the narrative, says this.
[00:44:16] Ishmael's motives are never probed, and we do not learn either what he wanted or what he accomplished. The pursuers catch up with them at the great pool of Gibeon, which has a lot of history.
[00:44:27] That was a pool that David's men fought against Abner, and because he was a follower of the house of Saul and David's men had prevailed there.
[00:44:37] I just want you to know that Jesus came to rescue us from eternal bondage. I love that. Brueggerman goes on to say, in the perspective of the narrator, Ishmael is thoroughly discredited, both by his violence and by his appeal to the Ammonites. Johanan is perceived as their savior and rescuer. He does not eliminate Ishmael, but he does end his moment of terror. The land, however, is in shambles. The political situation is one of chaos. Public life is in total disarray. None of the available options here seem attractive. As a matter of fact, as we're going to continue the journey, we're going to find out that even the guy that saved him had his Johanan. He now opts out for the extremely the extreme alternative to Babylon, which is go to Egypt. And I want to show us that oftentimes what the devil tries to do is present to us a couple of options that are both bad. Okay. And I'm going to just say this, that there's always God's option, and sometimes we just don't know what it is at the time. And sometimes we think a bad option isn't God's option. But sometimes what God is asking us to do may be difficult. And we're going to find out in the chapters ahead that Jeremiah is going to come on the scene, and the word of God's going to come on the scene, and they're going to be told exactly what they need to do. And what they're going to do is struggle with that decision. We're going to find that out. So you just keep coming. We'll tell you what's going to happen next. Or you can read on ahead of time and you'll be ahead of it. But the action of the chapter is an interplay of principle and prudence. It's time for the prophet to intervene yet one more time, reminding us that the public life to Judah cannot be reduced to mere political calculation. Now, that's a very fancy way of saying what. I think the answer that we need to hear in our own time of crisis is a word from God rather than simply looking to safety from earthly political leaders.
[00:46:36] That's just a little thought that maybe you and I need to capture in our minds. Because what happens when these leaders fail? Fail, huh? Which they will do at times. What happens when they are pursuing the wrong course? How can we be delivered from deception and evil? Well, I think the answer is simple. We need to heed the warnings from God's word. Listen, human beings are going to make mistakes.
[00:47:01] God's word is truth. Everything needs to be measured by that, even including the words I speak. You should be checking this out. Is this biblical? Yeah. Okay, I can take that. Check it out. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't get. I'm not uptight about that. That means you're noble. That means you're into the scriptures. That means you want to hear God's voice. It says here we need to heed the warnings from God's word. Being alert, watching, praying. We need to see past pretenses that are designed to deceive us.
[00:47:32] And we are often entrapped. Walk. Why? By our own desires. And we ignore the warnings, but we should never give way to fear and despair in the face of evil.
[00:47:42] But rather we need to remind ourselves the cross is God's means which is able to use the weak and foolish things of our world in order to defeat the evil in it. How many know the cross at the moment looked like a moment of defeat and it was actually the greatest moment of victory. Victory. Let's stand as we close.
[00:48:10] You know, as I pray. This morning, I was just thinking a lot of times, what's going on in our minds? What's going on in our minds? You know, sometimes it's fear.
[00:48:22] Some people are battling fear right now. Some people are in despair.
[00:48:26] This is where the battle is, guys. It's in our minds.
[00:48:31] And I'm encouraging you today, don't let fear or failure or discouragement or despair, you know, or the pressure of our society.
[00:48:47] That's not the voices you need to be hearing. You need to take those thoughts captive. You need to say, okay, God has not given me the spirit of fear, but of power, might and of a sound mind. I'm just quoting scripture. That's why we need to know the word of God and say, this is how I'm going to respond to that behavior. This is how I'm going to act. I'm going to consider what God has to say to every situation. I'm going to embrace God's word and allow that mind of Christ to be in us, to be in me and to be in you, the mind of Christ, so that you and I could begin to live like Christ in this world.
[00:49:29] Because I've discovered one thing. You're not going to overcome darkness by darkness.
[00:49:35] You need the light. And you don't need a lot of light to illuminate darkness. And the darker it gets, the less light you really need to illuminate. How many know that's true? Can you imagine as believers, if we just started allowing the light of God's love to just open up our hearts and we just start letting the light of God shine through us. We're going to illuminate a lot of darkness.
[00:50:01] You know, you can argue till the cows come home. I can tell you that right now you're not going to win a lot of arguments with people because people believe what they want to believe. People are living in self deception.
[00:50:14] But you and I, if we just allow the light and love of Christ to shine through us, we're going to impact people.
[00:50:20] So I'm going to pray right now for us that the word of God would become a refuge to our hearts and minds. And so, Father, we do pray that way. I pray that we'll not give way to fear.
[00:50:33] We'll not succumb to deception. Will not listen to the lies of the enemy. Lord, I pray today that your word would be our standard. We would find it to be a source of strength and hope and encouragement. A source of guidance and understanding. The ability, Lord, to see through the lies of the enemy. And Lord, no matter where it comes from, Lord, give us that ability to discern and have insight and understanding. Father, help us to walk in the fear of God. Help us to walk in humility. Because we're not trusting in ourselves. We're not leaning to our own understanding. But we're, Lord, trusting in you with all of our hearts. We're not even trying to be wise in our own eyes, Father. We're looking to you for direction. We're looking to you for deliverance, Lord. And we're praying even as you taught us. Lord, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And we thank you, Father, for hearing our cry. In Jesus name, amen. God bless you as you leave.
