When the human family was rather small in
number, when they were confined perhaps to the
Tigris-Euphrates area or to that part of
the world we know now as the Near
East, we must remember that the number of
demons, or angels than my judgment, angels that
fell to Lucifer, a fixed number, not being
multiplied, not being increased, were confined to the
area where men worked.
And so you would find that every little
hill or field or valley or river would
have its owner.
And Baal worship consisted of the placating or
the satisfying of the evil spirit that was
in control of a given location.
So as the Israelites had come across the
Jordan and into the land, they had displaced
some of the people that were there, and
they'd taken over the fields.
And I can imagine someone who lingered from
among the people, we know that that was
the case in certain instances at least, and
I can see one of these men of
the land walking by and he sees an
Israelite toiling in the field that once he'd
owned, and he says, you know, when I
had that field, I had a much bigger
crop than you do.
Why is that?
Are you a better farmer than I am?
No, no.
But you see that pile of stone?
Yes, I've wondered about that pile of stone.
Well, you see, there's an owner of this
field, an invisible personality, an evil spirit.
And your problem is, you see, that's what
he used to do to me when I
didn't sacrifice to him, when I didn't pray
to him.
Look at that.
See how spotty that grain is and how
withered it is here?
That's what he does.
But if you want a better crop, all
you need to do is to go down
there and just sprinkle the blood of a
chicken and put it on those rocks, because
that red there, that black, that's blood from
the chickens I killed.
And you put that down in the evil
spirit, well, your field will fry.
Oh, you'll be amazed what'll happen.
Well, he's been forbidden to worship and serve
other gods.
But you know, his wife wants some new
pots, wants some new copper kettles.
And she's been talking to him about some,
some, another oxen.
And if he just could get grain through
all the field, the way it is in
part of the field, then, so the next
year, it just happens.
Now, he didn't do it deliberately.
It just happens that a knife falls on
a chicken right by that pile of stone.
And he holds it up, and the blood
sprinkles.
Now, he wasn't doing it, but he just,
just wanted to see, you know, a little.
And to his amazement, the grain grows, and
it's even.
And the bugs and the grasshoppers aren't there.
And the crop, people say, what did you
do with the land?
Well, no, no, I just, I'm just learning
how to farm this field.
But somebody comes and says, well, what really
did you do?
Well, you see that pile of stones down
there?
Now, they served Jehovah, they worshiped Jehovah, but
they served the gods of the land.
They compromised.
Why?
Because they wanted things.
They wanted things.
What's the other thing?
The lust of the flesh, that's the gratification
of the appetite.
What's the lust of the eye?
Things that can be seen and handled and
felt and counted and weighed.
This was the reason why they broke the
commandment.
Because it was going to be the means
by which they could acquire the things that
they lusted for, and they longed for, and
they wanted.
And so, they worshiped Jehovah, but they served,
they feared the gods of the land, and
brought on them judgment from God.
Then we find something else.
Down along the years, another form of worship
comes in, and that, the worship of Moloch.
Now, the word Moloch is another Arabic, Semitic
word.
The radicals are M-L-K.
In the Arabic that I spoke in the
Sudan years ago, we had the word Moloch.
Moloch meant king.
And I recall when King Farouk went for
the opening of Parliament in Egypt in 1945,
we were at the American University, and we
were all out there at the gate because
the parade was going right past the gate
there of the fence of the American University,
and all of us were glued to it.
On the other side were the throng of
the Kyrenes, the citizens of Cairo.
And as they could see the beautiful Arabian
horses with the uniformed riders coming, all the
same color and same size, and prancing so
proudly, and then the gilded royal coach, the
people took up a cry, Moloch Kabir!
Moloch Kabir!
Great King!
Well, that's the word Moloch.
Just another form of it.
The worship of Moloch.
We have little evidence of it from archaeology
and some writings.
The Moloch was generally represented by a statue,
a statue that would probably be twenty, thirty
feet high, usually if possible carved out of
one rock, but sometimes made out of a
variety of rocks fitted together.
And it was a figure of a royal
figure seated on a throne or on a
royal stool, and his hands would be out
across his thighs and his fingers together, and
thus the thighs and the arms would form
a basin.
Carved up through the rock was a channel,
and down behind was a place where they
could put the skins of large goats or
small cattle, and they could run a bellows
and force the air up, bring it down
and fill it and then force it up.
And they put a charcoal fire up there
in the lap, and then the worshippers would
come.
This was done by the people of the
land when Israel went in.
It was there.
But what did they do?
They served Jehovah, and they worshipped and feared
the gods of the land.
So what did they do?
Here would be an Israelite.
He had the things he wanted, and somehow
he found a way to compromise with the
word of God that said, Thou shalt not
commit adultery.
And so now he wanted position.
He wanted power.
Power over his fellows.
Power!
Because that was the ultimate satisfaction.
He'd already gratified his appetite.
He'd already acquired things, and what was left?
The pride of life.
Position.
Now what would he do?
His wife, who would share his ambition, would
agree with him.
And they'd just be out walking with these
Israelites, these Jews, and they'd take their little
baby, maybe on the eighth day of his
life, the twelfth day, when he was very
young, their firstborn son.
And they'd just happen to be walking by
on the day of worship of Moloch.
And they would have on a disguise so
they'd have on the dress of the people
of the land, or they wouldn't go with
their Israelitish robes.
They'd identify.
And so they'd walk down, carry the baby.
And they would be alive, and they'd just
happen to get in the line, that's all.
And they weren't really intending to do anything
terribly serious.
You know, it was just what was being
done.
And so she'd say, Well, what about it?
And she'd say, Well, look what it's done
for them.
And so they'd come to their place that
they were in line.
And the mother would hand the little baby
that she's supposed to love, eight days ago,
their firstborn son, or their son as it
might have been another.
And the father would stand there, he's been
watching his other father's cane.
And he'd look into his son, and whatever
love there was would be lost in his
vanity and his pride and his ambition.
And so then this father would take his
little child as the youngster does a basketball.
And he would throw the child up, hoping
the trajectory was such that the child would
land right in that basin of flame.
That's what it meant to make their children
pass through the fire.
Now, what we have, what we have is
the fact that these people had a name
to live.
Oh, they were of Israel, but they were
dead, because they didn't keep his commandments.
Oh, they went through the motions of serving
Jehovah, but they feared and they served the
gods of the land.
Now, what does our text tell us?
It tells us by this, we know that
we are the children of God because we
keep his commandments.
How do you know that you're a child
of God?
Because you've turned to God from idol to
serve the living and true God and to
wait for his son from heaven.
Now, what does this mean?
This means, young people, that when you have
been come forward, you've been signed a card,
you've been talked to, perhaps you've even been
baptized.
But like my Jim, of whom I told
you last Sunday night, you'll find that there
is no inclination or commitment nor purpose nor
passion in your heart to please God, and
that you dishonor your parents.
That's one of the commandments.
Thou shalt honor thy father and thy mother.
God used that commandment to prove to me
that even though I was a church member,
I was lost.
Do you hear me?
I was lost because I lied to my
parents, I disobeyed my parents, I deceived my
parents, and yet I prayed in Sunday school,
I recited scripture verses, I earned the Bible
memorizing, and God used his law to show
me I was lost, that I had dishonored
my parents.
Because the law is the schoolmaster to bring
us to Christ.
And I'll never forget, three weeks after I
had received the Lord Jesus Christ, we were
getting up at three in the morning because
of drowse.
Our horses couldn't stand the awful heat, the
dry weather and the heat.
So we'd get up at three and go
out into the cornfield and cultivate till six,
then come in and milk the cows and
get back in the field by seven and
have to get out by nine thirty or
ten at the latest, or the horses would
have died of exhaustion.
And this particular day it was eight fifteen
or so, my horses were panting, I just
had to let them stand, and I was,
my water bottle was empty so I took
it off the back of the cultivator seat
and went up to fill my water bottle
and soak the burlap that had been sewed
around it in the water tank so I'd
have some cool water to drink.
And my mother came out of the kitchen
door and out of the porch and she
saw me and she said, Oh Sonny, I'm
so glad to see you.
I'm so glad to see you.
I've got some errands for you.
Well, for every, for several days I'd been
getting up at two thirty and getting out
in the barn and harnessing the horses in
the dark and I was about fourteen years
of age and doing a man's work along
with my father and the hired man trying
to keep that corn from withering, trying to
stir the dirt around it a little.
And I did something I hope none of
you understand.
I sassed my mother.
And she looked at me and grew back
a little and she said, But all I
want you to do, and I sassed her
again.
And then she said, But, but I need
your help and I sassed her a third
time.
And she looked at me as though I'd
hit her with a horse whip across the
face.
And she said, Sonny, I thought you were
a Christian.
And she turned and walked back in the
house.
I put my bottle down on the top
of the cow tank and I went out
into the mangers, climbed up into the hay
and found a valley in the hay.
And I threw myself down and I sobbed
like a baby.
And I said, Oh, God, I promised you
I'd never do this again.
I promised you that if you would save
me, I'd never dishonor my parents again.
And I've done it.
And I don't know whether it's unsaved me
or what it's done, but, oh, God, I
hate it.
And I started to sob.
And somehow in the midst of that brokenness,
I heard the strains of an old camp
meeting song.
Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of
sin, the blood of Jesus whispers peace.
And I knew he'd forgiven me.
I knew he'd pardoned me.
And I knew that somehow I was his
child.
And I dried my tears and I got
up and I went down and I found
my mother and I asked her to forgive
me.
And I did the errand she wanted.
And I filled my bottle and walked back
to the horses.
And it had been less than 20 minutes.
And I went back sorry and wiser.
But I knew two things.
I knew one, I'd been born of God
because I hated sin.
And I wanted to please God and I
wanted to keep his commandments.
And I knew I'd carried into the Christian
life a traitor that would betray me if
I gave it half a chance.
That traitor was me.
And so he says, if you love me,
if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
My commandments are not grievous to you.
Hereby we know that we know him if
we keep his commandments.
He that saith, I know him, and keepeth
not his commandments, is a liar.
And the truth is in him.
Whoso keepeth his word in him verily is
the love of God perfected.
Let me ask you today, what do you
have that great confirmation?
That you want to please God?
That it's the passion of your heart to
please God?
That you've committed your will to please him?
Or do I talk to some people tonight
that were like me, that were church members,
that knew all the answers, and they had
everything but a new heart and a new
life and a new nature and a new
spirit?
I think I'm talking to both.
I think some of you here just like
me.
And I'm saying to you tonight that God,
in his sweet and tender love, is wooing
you.
You know your own heart.
You know your own love.
And so I'm speaking to you that by
God's wisdom and light to your old spirit,
you say, oh, I have to be honest
with me.
I'm like you were.
I'm like your son Jim was.
I've got all the answers and I know
all the words, but I don't have reality.
I don't have reality.
And I must have it.
I'm asking you tonight to do something about
it tonight, because this is the time to
do it now.
Now is the accepted time.
Then I'm talking to you, the rest of
you, or some of you at least, that
were like me.
You know you've been born of God, but
there's come into your life that which has
grieved him, and you hate it.
You do want to please him.
And you don't have a haymow that you
can go to, but the Spirit of God
has shown you the thing in your life
that grieves him.
Well, why don't you make this all to
your haymow tonight?
And you get alone with him.
And you tell him how much you hate
the thing that's crept into your life, and
come in, because the purpose of your heart
is to keep his commandments, and you haven't
done it, and you want to.
And then there are some that say, well,
I've dealt with that, but oh, that I
could have victory, that I could know how
I wouldn't have to grieve him.
Can you help me?
And I think we can.
We can.
Because God has given us provision.
He's faithful.
He's not going to let us be tempted
above what we're able.
But will the temptation make a way of
escape?
We'll be able to bear it.