IDOLS In The HEART

                                                 
Certain elders of Israel came to the prophet Ezekiel seeking guidance from the Lord. These men were not like many of the Israelites, who openly bowed their knees to idols. You would not find them in some idol temple, offering sacrifices to the false gods there. They were leaders of the people and they wanted to appear before everyone as godly men.

Outwardly, these elders had the appearance of men who had a heart for God and  wanted to know His word for their lives. That is the manner in which they approached Ezekiel but God revealed to Ezekiel what was in their hearts. He said to the prophet, Son of man, these men have set up idols in their heart and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face (Ezekiel 14:3). 

The Lord was saying, These men have come to you saying they want to hear a word from Me...that they want to walk in obedience to my commands. But they are lying! They have secret sins in their life.

These elders all had hidden, secret idolatry. Their hearts were in bondage to sins they indulged in behind closed doors. No one could tell this by their appearance. On the contrary, they came across not as pagans or idol worshipers, but as respected men of God going about their ministries.

A stumbling block of iniquity is any evil thing that stands between you and God..any enticement that robs you of a steadfast walk with Him. It is any besetting sin that causes you to waver in your faith; any desire that brings shame to your heart and to the name of Christ; any sin you cling to as you come to the Lord seeking guidance. You can come to God's house, raise your hands, worship Him loudly, and still have a stumbling block of iniquity in your heart.

Only by turning away from your idol in wholehearted repentance can you hear the true word of the Lord and receive clear, divine guidance. 

When you repent, the first thing that returns to you is your discernment, and the farther behind you leave your sin, the clearer you will see and hear God’s voice. He will become distinct, sure, speaking with the authority of truth.

~David Wilkerson~
 

True Service For The LORD

                             

Rev 2:19  I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. 

 

Oh, that we should get some better idea of what the service of the Lord is than that it is platforms and pulpits and open-air meetings.

Beloved, service for the Lord is just as important when it is rendering some kindly act of helpful service to some rather depressed child of God in the ordinary domestic things of daily life; just as valuable as getting on the platform and giving a message.

You see it is strengthening the hands of the Lord's children, it is coming in to check the crushing overweight of the adversary, coming alongside to lift up the testimony in some life or home where the enemy is trying to crush the testimony out – and the testimony is something maintained in domestic relationships, in family life, private life.

There are too many who want to give up their domestic service and go to Bible College, failing to recognize that that service there may be just as valuable to the Lord as their going out to the mission field. It is spiritual, not technical, not organized, and you may be as much a priest of the Lord in going round to some home tomorrow where the enemy is pressing in, and giving a practical hand in helping with the washing, as you may be a priest in standing on the platform....

There are many priests of God whose voices have never been heard in public, who have never been seen in a public way, who are unknown, hidden very often in the assembly and yet in secret history fulfilling a most valuable ministry. Get adjusted over this thing.

We have to come to the point where we deliberately decide as to whether the Lord is worthy of this, and abandon ourselves to it because of our appreciation of Him, the Master. You see, this servant abandons himself freely, voluntarily, for all time to the service of his master because he has come to love his master.

~T. Austin Sparks~

The Message Of The Cross

The sin of idolatry brought down God's awful wrath on His own people. It angered Him more than any other sin in the Old Testament, so much that He declared: The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger (Jeremiah 7:18).

This is God's declaration against idolatry in the Old Testament and  He hates idolatry just as much today. It brings down His wrath on any generation, including this modern one.

A new idolatry is sweeping across our world right now. No we don't  see people kneeling down before carved images anymore; instead this modern idolatry seduces multitudes by its subtlety and cleverness. Yet it angers God more than any Old Testament idolatry.

I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: which is not another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed (Galatians 1:6-8).

This other gospel that Paul mentions is a message of salvation without the cross. The great idolatry of our day is the casting aside of the message of the cross of Jesus Christ.

The cross including its demands and hopes is the very heart of the gospel. Any worship, any fellowship, anything calling itself church is blatant idolatry if the cross is not at its center. Such worship is of another spirit entirely and God will have nothing to do with it. Without the cross, all that is left is chaff a perverted gospel, something from the pit of hell. It is more insulting to the Lord than the idolatry of Israel.

And I if I be lifted up from the earth
will draw all men unto me John 12:32. This lifting up from the earth Jesus mentions is His crucifixion. He was lifted up before the whole world on the cross~an image of His great sacrifice for our sins.

~David Wilkerson~

The LORD Will NOT Fail You

                            

Deut 31:8  And the LORD, he it is that doth go before thee; he will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake thee: fear not, neither be dismayed.

If we are seeking to go on with God to any degree beyond that which is commonly accepted as a true Christian life; if we are called to pioneer the way for any further advance in Spiritual life or Divine service; if we are given a vision of God's will and purpose not seen by the general mass of God's people or even the larger number of the servants of God ours will be a lonely way.

There are many other ways in which we may feel aloneness. It may be for geographical reasons or it may be because of an inward experience through which we are passing; an experience or phase which cannot be shared by another, even the one closest to us.

All these and other reasons may respectively become our "wilderness" in which Satan comes, and, while there is a basic occasion, his business is to push things into the extra realm of untruth and tell us that we are actually and utterly alone. It is not a rare thing for him to tell a child of God that God has left him or her.

Elijah verily believed that he was the only one left in faithfulness to God, and he repeated his complaint several times, "I only am left."

He had lost sight of the possibility that the prophets reported by Obadiah to have been hidden might still be in that underground faithfulness, or some of them at least. But the Lord knew better and told him of seven thousand unsurrendering saints who would not capitulate to Jezebel or Baal.

The fact is that what Elijah believed was positively not true. If we look at things horizontally we shall only see so far, but if we look from heaven we shall see much more.

~T. Austin Sparks~