In the book of Numbers (13th chapter) we’re told that Moses - after leading Israel out of captivity in Egypt - had finally brought the people to edge of the Promised Land. And before they go it, God tells Moses to send 12 spies into the promised land. So they select 12 men to slip into Canaan, and when they come back – the land was everything God had promised. Numbers 13:27 tells us it was literally a land that “flows with milk and honey.”
But there was a problem. Ten of the 12 spies told the people: "We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are…. The land, through which we have gone… is a land that devours its inhabitants… there we saw the Nephilim (giants), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them."
Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, "Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness! Why is the LORD bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?" And they said to one another, "Let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt." Numbers 13:31-14:4
And God said – Fine. You don’t want to go into the Land I promised you don’t have to. You’ll wander in the wilderness for 40 years and NOT ONE OF YOU will live to see the Promised Land. Only Joshua and Caleb would be allowed that privilege because they believed God’s promise.
There’s a children’s song that tells that story: “Twelve men went to spy out Canaan, Ten were bad, two were good. What do you think they saw in Canaan? Ten were bad, two were good. Some saw giants, big and strong! Some saw grapes with clusters long. Some saw God was in it all. Ten were bad, two were good.”
This story was all about - who did the people listen to, and who did they follow? The Bible repeatedly warns us: Who you FOLLOW, and who LISTEN TO, will determine where you go… and where you end up.
Proverbs 13:20 warns that “Whoever walks with the wise becomes wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm.”
And 1 Corinthians 15:33 tells us “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’”
And THAT is what Psalm 1 is all about: Bad company WILL ruin good morals. Psalm 1:1 says “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.”
I got to thinking about that and I began to realize what God is saying here. God was saying that He’s giving us choice. We can listen to the wicked, the sinners and the scoffers… or we can listen to Him! We get a choice, but we can’t do both those things.
“Blessed is the man who walks NOT in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; BUT his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on HIS law he meditates day and night. Psalm 1:2
WE GET A CHOICE!
But, listen to God OR you’ll end up listening to the wicked and you won’t like the outcome.
Then then I got to thinking: Why on earth would I listen to the wicked, and the sinful and the scoffers. They’re not nice people! Why listen to them to begin with? But you know… we have listened to such people. A lot of times, the folks you and I end up listening to might not SEEM to us as being sinful or wicked or scoffers. They are often people we even respect.
ILLUS: Back when I was a boy, many of the people I respected (even some people in Church) told me that the Bible was a boring book filled with errors. The delight of those who told me those things was NOT in the Law of the LORD. They didn’t meditate upon it day and night. They didn’t trust God’s word and weren’t encouraging me to do that either. They trusted their own understanding more than they trusted God. They didn’t understand the words of Proverbs 3:5 which tells us “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
But, what is wrong with leaning on our own understanding? Well, there’s a verse in Jeremiah 17 that says: “the heart is deceitful above all things.” That’s telling us that we can’t trust our own understanding because our hearts are inherently deceitful.
Then I looked that passage up, and this is where things got interesting: In Psalm 1 we read “His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night. HE IS LIKE A TREE PLANTED BY STREAMS OF WATER that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. Psalm 1:2-3
Did you catch that? If you meditate on God Word, rather than listening to the wicked and the sinners and the scoffers, you’ll be like a tree planted by streams of water. You got that?
Now let’s read Jeremiah 17:7-9 which says “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like (a what???) … a TREE PLANTED BY WATER, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” That’s almost exactly what Psalm 1 says.
But then Jeremiah 17 says “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”
So what God’s saying here is this: Trust Me and learn from me. Because – if you don’t – you’ll start listening to people who have deceitful hearts.
ILLUS: Have you ever heard someone say: “I’m going to GOOGLE that?”
What that means is that they believe the internet has the answer to their question. And, a lot of times it does. I have nothing against “googling” a question and I’ve even done it myself. But we need to understand that the sites that we google on the internet were written by people with deceitful hearts. They are often wicked people, sinful people and scornful people. And – if I listen to THEM more than I listen to GOD … then I’ve got a problem.
ILLUS: I read the story of Dr. Paul Vitz - Prof. Emeritus of Psychology at NY University. For about 20 years was an outspoken atheist UNTIL he turned to Christ. He wrote a book about his journey out of atheism into faith in Christ called “Faith of the Fatherless” and, in his book, he wrote this: “There seems to be a widespread assumption that belief in God is based on all kinds of irrational, immature needs and wishes, whereas atheism or skepticism flows from a rational, grown-up, no-nonsense view of things as they really are.”
That was the deceitful mindset of the people Dr. Vitz spent time with.
“I desired to be accepted by the powerful and influential scientists in the field of psychology. In particular, I wanted to be accepted by my professors in graduate school. As a graduate student, I was thoroughly socialized by the specific “culture” of academic research psychology. My professors were, as far as I could tell, united in two things: their intense career ambitions and their rejection of religion. I learned to think like a proper psychologist by putting on the right—that is atheistic—ideas and attitudes. (Gayle Crowe {Nashville, Tennessee} from a script from his current series on “Encounters With Jesus” being aired around the world on World Christian Broadcasting.)
Did you see what happened to this highly educated man? He had surrounded himself with atheists who claimed that belief in God was irrational and immature - and he wanted to be like them. He wanted their approval and acceptance and he wanted it so much that he trained himself to think like they thought.
That’s called “peer pressure”. Peer pressure is when you allow the views of others to warp your thinking.
ILLUS: A team of doctors decided to conduct an experiment to study the ways in which group pressure (peer pressure) influences young people. To accomplish this, they invited 10 teenagers to take part in a study telling them they wanted to see how well they could see a picture at the front of room.
The doctors said, “We’re going to hold up some cards at the front of the room. On each card are 3 lines – Line A, Line B and Line C – each of a different length. When we point to the longest line, please raise your hand to show that you know it is longer than the others.” They repeated the directions to be sure that everybody understood. Then they raised the 1st card.
Now, what one of the students didn’t know was that the other 9 had been secretly informed earlier to vote for the second longest line. In other words, those 9 were told to vote wrongly. The doctors held up the first card and pointed to Line A, which was clearly shorter than line B. At this point, all 9 students raised their hands. And the fellow being studied looked around in disbelief. It was obvious that Line B was the longest line, but everybody seemed to think Line A was longer. He later admitted that he thought, “I must not have been listening during the directions. Somehow, I missed the point, and I’d better do what everybody else is doing or they’ll laugh at me.” So he carefully raised his hand with the rest of the group.
Then the researchers explained the directions again: “Vote for the longest line; raise your hand when we point to the longest line.” It couldn’t have been more simple! Then they held up the 2nd card, and again, 9 people voted for the wrong line. The confused fellow became more tense over his predicament, but eventually he raised his hand with the group once again. Over and over he voted with the group, even though he knew they were wrong.
More than 75 percent of the young people tested behaved that same way. They just sat there time after time, saying a short line was longer than a long line! They simply didn’t have the courage to say, “The group is wrong. I can’t say why, but you guys are all confused.” (James Dobson Ph.D. Focus On The Family Magazine 6/00)
Can peer pressure happen to us as Christians? Of course it can. The world constantly tries to pressure us away from obedience to Christ, to embrace a sinful lifestyle.
CLOSE: We recently cancelled our youth group skating party at the “Logansport Skate World and Fun Center” because they were holding a “family friendly Drag event” May 16th. In their advertising they encouraged families to bring their children. They bragged that they would “have plenty of Queens here that will be walking around ready to talk and socialize while others will be performing!”
When a local woman wrote them on Facebook literally begging them to “reconsider... as a member of our community to protect our children” the rink posted her comment and replied that she was hateful and judgmental. And noted that she was welcome to take her business elsewhere.
And that’s just what we did. We cancelled our skate party there and took our business elsewhere. But I tell you this story for 2 reasons.
First – what this rink did was evil. How do I know that? Jesus said so. Matthew 18:2-7 tells us Jesus called a child to Him and “he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.
Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the one by whom the temptation comes!’”
And Ephesians 5:11-12 tells us to refuse to take part in the darkness of this world. “Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret.” So, we should NOT encourage or subsidize sinful activities in name of “tolerance”. NOR should we turn a blind eye to evil. Ephesians 5 says we should expose these works of darkness. We should not allow ourselves to be dragged into peer pressure from the world.
And one of my favorite verses out of Proverbs (Proverbs 25:26) says: "Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked." In other words - we must stand in the way of evil. We must get in the way of wicked things and not allow them to go unopposed. If we don't stand against evil our "fountain" (reputation as God's people) will be polluted and worthless.
But now, as Christians, we face a dilemma. Jesus spent time with sinful people. He worked with them to get them to repent—to change how they lived and thought. In other words, he didn’t affirm their choices. He confronted them in love and called for them to repent. Our dilemma is this—how do we reach out to the lost of our community (drag queens, homosexuals, etc.) without embracing their lifestyles?
Have you heard the phrase – hate the sin but love the sinner? Well, we SHOULD hate the sin; BUT we must careful NOT to hate or despise those who live a sinful lives. Paul wrote “do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” I Corinthians 6:9-11
In Corinth, many of the Christians there had once been adulterers or homosexuals, or drunks—but they’d changed. They’d been washed in the blood of Christ and were now acceptable to God.
So, how can we reach out to folks like that? We love them (but not their lifestyles). We help them when we can; We invite to worship with us; We admit that we are not sinless ourselves. But then we share about how Jesus has changed our lives… and can change theirs as well.
ILLUS: A man named John Mays was in Bahamas when a man walked up to him. The other man said, “Would you like to buy some cocaine? You can tell everyone how much you really enjoyed the Bahamas.”
Mays was shocked … but he later wondered how Jesus would have responded if someone came up to Him selling drugs.
Later that day, someone else came up to him selling drugs. After he told Mays that he had the “good-stuff,” Mays asked him, “What have you got?”
The other man said “Cocaine!”
And Mays replied: “Is that all you have? I’m disappointed! I was hoping you would have something better than that. You see, I’ve got the real thing! What I have is all natural, pure and very powerful. And it makes me feel great all day and all night. And get this, it may be illegal in some countries, but not in this one, so you can’t get arrested for having it!”
By this time the man was very curious and asked Mays what is this incredible “stuff” he was talking about.
He said, “I’m talking about having Jesus! It’s awesome what he will do for you when you get him inside! No drug in all the world is as good as having Jesus in you.”
The man stopped smiling and got this real serious look on his face and said, “I want what you have. How do I get it?”
INVITATION
