Don’t Make Me Count to 3
PPT 1 Series Title
We have been in Hebrews 12 for 4 months now, and have been almost exclusively in the first two verses. Today we will move a little further down the chapter and discuss what happens when you deviate from the course. I have a few more messages and then we will move on to our Jesus series, as of right now Nov. 18th will be the last Sunday in this series and it will be white hanky Sunday, and the message is entitled, "Jesus Never Tapped Out."
PPT 2 Message Title
This weeks message is entitled, "Don’t Make Me Count to 3."
How many of you have heard something along those lines growing up?
How many have had the joy of saying that to your kids, now that you are the grown up :-)
Let me show it to you in the scriptures, and then we will show an example from someone most if not all of you have heard of.
PPT 3-5 Scriptures
Heb 12:4 You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin;
Heb 12:5 and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons, "MY SON, DO NOT REGARD LIGHTLY THE DISCIPLINE OF THE LORD, NOR FAINT WHEN YOU ARE REPROVED BY HIM;
Heb 12:6 FOR THOSE WHOM THE LORD LOVES HE DISCIPLINES, AND HE SCOURGES EVERY SON WHOM HE RECEIVES."
Heb 12:7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom [his] father does not discipline?
Heb 12:8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.
Heb 12:9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?
Heb 12:10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He [disciplines us] for [our] good, that we may share His holiness.
Heb 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
Heb 12:12 Therefore, strengthen the hands that are weak and the knees that are feeble,
Heb 12:13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that [the limb] which is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.
Verses 11-13 is the key portion of text for us today. In Vs 12, and 13 God basically says, I don’t want to have to do this but I am counting to 3.
Heb 12:11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
This sermon is about to take a PG. 13 rating because we need to talk about some serious stuff. I want to show video of a guy by the name of Ted Haggard, he is perhaps the most famous example of a person God counted to 3 on. After the video I will make some comments on it and then I will make two points:
God would rather heal your heart than hit your hind end.
God would rather hit your hind end than haul you to hell.
(Note to Pastor’s at this point in the message I showed clips from two videos, one showing how famous Ted Haggard was, and the other an interview he did where he talks extensively about the cost of sin. Links at end of message)
Show video
PPT 6,7
Comments: (Some of the things Haggard said about the cost of sin)
Sin is very very costly.
Ted Haggard is living in a hell, and he created it himself.
That sin was as if it wiped out my 29 years of ministry and marriage.
As part of his severance he entered into a contract with his church that said:
You can never step foot in Colorado, you can never preach again as long as you live, you can never tell anyone you ever worked at New Life Church. (Sounds like they were very hurt, and very angry.)
My grand kids will google me and read shameful terrible things about their grandfather, that he was a liar and cheat. I cannot deny those things, they are forever in the record, and I am extremely shamed that this is part of the legacy I have left my children and grandchildren.
Ted Haggard is a person whose material life was destroyed in order that his soul might be spared.
I want to bring out just two points this morning:
PPT 8, 9
God would rather heal your heart than hit your hind end.
God would rather hit your hind end than haul you to hell.
A. God would rather heal your heart than hit your hind end.
PPT 10
Re 2:21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not.
Re 2:22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds.
1. God does not like to do discipline.
PPT 11
Eze 33:11 "Say to them, ’As I live!’ declares the Lord GOD, ’I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’
He speaks, He convicts, He woos, He warns, and then He starts counting...
He gives space to repent (although that space may be a very short period of time (Acts 5 Sapphira, she was given the opportunity to fess up once, or long as in the case of Samson.) God gave space because He would rather see change that suffering. No parent enjoys giving discipline. If God can’t speak to your spirit to change, He will then speak to you through your flesh.
PPT 12
Here is the passage in Rev. from the NIV version:
Re 2:21 I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling.
Re 2:22 So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways.
PPT 13
I liked watching the Little Rascals growing up, and there is an episode where one of the characters is spanked by his father for not studying. After the spanking the dad says, "this hurts me far more than it hurts you." The little rascal then rubs his rear and says, "yeah, but it don’t hurt you in the same place that it hurts me."
True enough, a child’s rear may sting, but a real parents heart weeps.
The second reason God would rather heal your heart than whip your hind end is:
2. It is better to have character than fear a whooping.
I know the bible says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and I am not suggesting we don’t need a fear of the Lord. What I am trying to convey is that the fear of the Lord is the "BEGINNING," of wisdom. (cf. 1 John 4:18) It is spiritual kindergarten, there are higher levels of wisdom, that is intimated by the fact the scripture calls fear the beginning of wisdom, not the summit, the beginning.
Let me illustrate this for you :
Illus: South Central and physical boys. I went on a missions trip to work in South Central LA. While at an outdoor childrens event a small boy came up and punched a little girl right in front of me. I told him that was not nice and in response he punched her again. My anger rose and I really wanted to introduce him to the board of education, but I felt the Lord check me. All the boy new was violence, he didn’t need another whopping, he needed to learn another way. You see if all people ever understand is fear of punishment, they have not learned much. Fear of punishment may modify some behavior but it does nothing to change the nature. You have all heard of the little boy who refused to sit down until forced to do so, who was then heard to remark, "I may be sitting on the outside, but I am standing on the inside." God wants to change our nature, fear is the beginning of wisdom, willingly walking in truth is a step higher up the ladder.
There are some here today, and I warn you by the Holy Spirit, that God has begun the countdown. God would rather heal your heart than hit your hind end, but you also need to know that God would rather hit your hind end that haul you to hell.
B. God would rather hit your hind end than haul you to hell.
Here are three passages of scripture that show and demonstrate this truth.
Ho 2:6 Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths.
Mt 5:29 "And if your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.
Better cut off eye
1Co 5:5 To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
Ted Haggard as far as preachers are concerned he had it all, he had a large church, head of the NAE, representing 30 million born again Christians, consultant to the major news networks, sought out by Presidents and national leaders, the whole time he was hiding a dark secret. Do you think God wanted the disgrace that man brought on His church and all of Christianity? Don’t you believe God would rather have dealt with it quietly and not destroy all the bridges that were built to secular society. God didn’t want to bring his family through the muck, of all the things he said, perhaps the one that spoke to me the most is that his grandkids would one day google his name and read of his shameful acts. God didn’t want that for his grandkids, it was the last resort to reach him that cost that suffering.
I truly believe that God would rather deal with sin privately than publicly, but when the warnings have gone unheeded, God’s last resort is public humiliation and a spanking.
Two weeks before the scandal was made public, Ted Haggard in desperation cried out to God, do what every you have to do to change me. God in His mercy did.
Ted Haggard was ruined financially, his marriage was almost destroyed, his kids have been subject to shame, ridicule, and humiliation. But now he is living for God, and thanks God for all that rocked his world and brought him to his knees.
God would rather be discreet than destructive, but He would also rather hit your hind end than haul you to hell.
Let me close with a portion of a Chic tract, entitled, "this was your life."
PPT 14
It is about the judgment of God, a man has died and he is before God and his life is being reviewed. I have put a scan of one of the pages up on the screen, and it holds two panels of writing, in one he is asking that a joke he told on earth not be repeated at the judgment seat, and in the other he is sneaking a peek at a woman and says, I remember doing that but no one saw me.
No sin goes unnoticed. To our world, and to some of you here today, God is saying, if you don’t change, by the count of three... He has already counted to two....
Links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSFqp1pDp2o (I used about 2 mins of this)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/elevation-church-video-podcast/id431160869 (Video no. 67, when God counts to 3)
