Holiness Without Compromise

HOLINESS WITHOUT COMPROMISE

1 Chronicles 13

Shabbat Shalom to you all as we come together to fellowship in the presence of YHWH our Elohim.

Illustration: On October 31, 1983, Korean Airlines Flight 007 departed from Anchorage, Alaska, for a direct flight to Seoul, Korea. Unknown to the crew, however, the computer engaging the flight navigation system contained a 1 ½ degree routing error. At the point of departure, the mistake was unnoticeable. One hundred miles out, the deviation was still so small as to be undetectable, but as the giant 747 continued across the Aleutian Islands and out over the Pacific, the plane increasingly strayed from its proper course. Eventually it was flying over Soviet air space. Russian radar picked up the error, and fighter jets scrambled to intercept Flight 007. A short time later the jet was shot out of the sky over mainland Russia and the lives of everyone onboard was lost, all because of a 1 ½ degree routing error!

How many people today in their worship unto YHWH may be on a walk that is only 1 ½ degrees out? Perhaps this is the picture that many may find themselves on. In our walk with YHWH there is only one way and that is laid out for us clearly in His Word. How many have departed from an intimate relationship with YHWH and are heading straight for a destination that is offensive and far removed from Him? Perhaps you have been there or know of someone who is on a destructive path that in a sense started out with such a tiny compromise yet has or is leading them far from the reality of living a holy life. Many start out with great passion and zeal and end up in what could be called a moral chaos, and why is that?

The Scriptures are clear, we are called to be holy or set apart, and Devarim/Deuteronomy tells us that we are to be perfect, and yet very often many find themselves sort of ease into disobedience in such subtle ways, that at first barely seem to affect them at all. Yet over a long period of time when no attempt has been made to repent or seek YHWH anew, they only discover that they are sinning in ways that they never thought possible only a short time before. Tonight I want us to talk a little about compromise and the effect it has in our called walk of holiness. In fact true holiness has no room for compromise. My message tonight is called ‘Holiness without compromise.’

Please turn with me to 1 Chronicles 13 (Read)

Before we get into the details of this passage, let me just run through the background leading up to these events that we have just read. Many years before while Israel was camped at Eben Ha'ezer in battle against the Philistines and had just lost 4000 men in battle, the elders cried out and sent for the Ark of the Covenant of YHWH to be brought up from Shiloh so that YHWH would be in their midst and save them from the Philistines. The Ark of YHWH was brought up and the Israelites began to celebrate and raised a shout to YHWH that sent fear into the Philistine camp, yet they encouraged themselves to stand up and fight against the Israelites and that day 30,000 foot soldiers of Yisra'el fell on the battlefield. The Ark of YHWH was captured and that day Hophni and Pinehas, the sons of Eli died. When news of the Ark being captured got back to Eli, he, an old man fell of his chair and broke his neck and died. When his daughter in law had heard all of what had gone on – the Ark captured, Eli dead and her husband dead she went into labour and gave birth, calling her child Ikabod saying that Elohim had departed from Yisra’el and she died. Quite tragic events! The Philistines took the Ark of YHWH to Ashdod and set it next to the statue of Dagon in their temple for Dagon their ‘god’ who was half man, half fish. When they came the next day they saw that Dagon had fallen over and so they put him back up and the next day he had fallen over and both his head and hands were cut off. YHWH also began to strike the Philistine camp with tumours and they decided to get the Ark away from Ashdod and sent it to another Philistine camp called Gath and the same thing happened – an outbreak of tumours etc, so they sent the Ark of YHWH to Eqron another Philistine city and again YHWH sent destruction wherever they had taken the Ark of YHWH which had been in the Philistine field for 7 months, after which they decided to send it back to the Israelites. They put the Ark on a newly built ox cart and took two mother cows that had never been yoked and who had just given birth to calves – took their calves away from them, hitched them up to the cart and sent them on their way.