“Get Your House In Order”
Text: II Kings 20:1
“In those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said unto him, Thus saith the LORD, Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.”
Introduction:
This morning I am going to be introducing a new series entitled “Get Your House In Order”. Our text says, “Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live.” We know not the time of our death or departure from this earth. To illustrate it, “In the movie CASUALTIES OF WAR, Michael J. Fox plays Private Erikson, a soldier in Vietnam who is part of a squad that abducts and rapes a young Vietnamese girl. He didn’t participate in the crime. Afterward, as he struggles with what has happened, he says to the other men in his squad, "Just because each of us might at any second be blown away, we’re acting like we can do anything we want, as though it doesn’t matter what we do. I’m thinking it’s just the opposite. Because we might be dead in the next split second, maybe we gotta be extra careful what we do. Because maybe it matters more. Maybe it matters more that we ever know." Death for all of us, is a breath away. And the nearer death is, the closer we are to answering to God for all we have said and done.” (From the book, Death AUTHOR: Joel Sarrault pg. 46) So that is why it is so important to have our house in order for those who are coming after us.
We are going to be looking are three areas in which we need to have our house in order. Those areas are Spiritually, Physically, and Financially. You my ask, why do we need to have our house in order? One has said, “The factory that produces the most important product is the home.” Another has said, "This is the true nature of home, it is the place of peace; the shelter, not only from injury, but from all terror, doubt and division." We are living in a day when the opposite is taking place in the home. Today the home is a place with four walls where injuries, terror, doubt and division is taking place. We are living in a day where God has been replaced with many other gods that are causing all of these injuries, turmoil, doubt and division is take place.
In the three areas that we are going to look at together: Spiritual, Physical, and Financial; over the next few weeks they have been given many suggestions for curing the problems that they cause. The Christian Values have been striped out have our homes because of fear of what our society will think if we do or use certain things. “In 1863 President Lincoln designated April 30th as a day of national humiliation, fasting, and prayer. Let me read a portion of his proclamation on that occasion: ’It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God.’” [America’s Sin of Self-Sufficiency, Citation: Richard Halverson, "The Question Facing Us," Preaching Today, Tape 46.]
Spiritual problems causes divorce from God. Physical problems causes divorce between each other in the family. Financial problems causes divorce between husbands and wives. In this series I as your pastor want to help preventing any type of divorce happening.
