I guess all of us have watched this program and enjoyed it, as some of the guests of the show made good deals and some made bad deals.
While none of us have appeared on this show and played “Let’s Make A Deal,” the fact is, Satan wants to play this game with us every day.
For example, the Lord sent Moses down to a place called Egypt to speak to a king called Pharaoh, to cause him to let His people go from the bondage of slavery.
When Pharaoh refused to let the people go, God sent 10 plagues that changed his mind.
During the course of these plagues, Pharaoh offered to let God’s people go. But, he wanted to make a deal before he would allow Moses to lead God’s people to the PROMISE LAND.
Four times he offered to let them leave, but each time he wanted TO MAKE A DEAL.
He was saying to Moses, “I am tired of all these flies, lice, and frogs! I know God said to let His people go, and I will, but first, LET’S MAKE A DEAL.”
Let’s look at the four deals he proposed to God’s people.
I. WHY DON’T YOU SACRIFICE HERE?
In Exodus 8:25, we read, “And Pharaoh called for Moses and for Aaron, and said, Go ye, sacrifice to your God in the land.”
Pharaoh was saying, “Let’s make a deal Moses, you can serve your God, but you do not have to leave Egypt YOU CAN DO IT HERE.”
This is the same deal offered to many believers today.
The Devil comes by and he says, “Let’s make a deal. Go ahead and be a Christian if this is what you want to do, but do not leave, stay right here among us.”
The devil does not want us to get out of reach, because he wants to control us.
Moses refused Pharaoh’s deal.
Look at Exodus 8:26-27, we read, “And Moses said, It is not meet so to do; for we shall sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians to the LORD our God: lo, shall we sacrifice the abomination of the Egyptians before their eyes, and will they not stone us? We will go three days' journey into the wilderness, and sacrifice to the LORD our God, as he shall command us.”
Moses told Pharaoh that if they remained in Egypt and offered up their sacrifices, their sacrifices are despised by the Egyptians and they will stone us.
For example, the Egyptians considered cattle to be sacred animals.
• The bull represented their god Apis
• The cow represented their goddess Hathor
If the Israelites had sacrificed those animals in Egypt to Jehovah, there would have been rioting and violence for doing such a thing.
Moses said we cannot stay here, water and gas does not mix.
Nothing has changed!
• Today ungodly people can ride by churches with their church steeples pointing people to heaven and it offends them.
• It offends the ungodly boss man when you tell him Sunday is God’s day and you cannot work on God’s Day.
• It offends the ungodly when you tell them you do not care to hear language that take God’s name in vain.
The lost world never has and never will understand the worship of the Spirit-filled Christian today.
The message of the FROM THE LOSS to Christians is; “Do not go out from among us, learn to TOLERATE US!”
• They want to fill the world with sin, and Christians are to TOLERATE IT!
• They want to trash the movies with four letter words and nudity, and we are to tolerate it!
• They want to take God out of the schools, and we are to tolerate it.
• They want to cram laws down our throats that permit abortion, and we are to tolerate it.
• They want to fill our streets with homosexuality, and we are to tolerate it.
• They want to take the Lord’s Day and make it like any other day, and we are to tolerate it!
• They want to strip Christmas of Christ, and we are to tolerate it.
• They want to commercialize Easter, and we are to tolerate it!
• They want to fill our young people’s ears with garbage using rap music, and we are to tolerate it.
• They want to REPLACE GODLY PARENTS AS ROLE MODLES TO THEIR CHILDREN and make the scumbags of the earth role models for our children, and we are to tolerate it!
The message of the lost world is TOLERANCE.
But listen, the message of the cross has always been; “DO NOT TOLERATE SIN, YOU GET AS FAR FROM IT AS YOU CAN!”
We cannot worship God among that crowd because to them the cross of Christ is foolishness.
• They think it is utterly ridiculous for a Christian to attend church three times a week
• They think it is utterly ridiculous for a Christian to give a tenth of their income each week to promote the gospel
• They think it is utterly ridiculous for the Word of God to be the authority in the Christian’s life
To them worshipping and serving God is foolishness.
Look at 1 Cor. 1:18, we read, “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.”
• When God told Moses to bring the people of God out of Egypt, he meant for them to COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM!
• The same thing is true for Christians. When the Lord saved us He commanded us to COME OUT FROM AMONG THEM! WE DO NOT MAKE DEALS WITH SATAN.
Now, I realize everyone does not agree with what I am preaching.
Perhaps they have the best of INTENTIONS, but listen, when it comes to the lost world and Christianity MIXING, it is like WATER AND GAS they do not mix!
There are churches all over this nation that do not come out from among them.
They claim they compromise with the world into the church to win the lost.
I am convinced that many do it out of spiritual ignorance, but they are wrong according to the Word of God.
Illus: They remind me of the Catholic Church years ago. When they were going to Christianize the Babylonians they decided to do this by taking in their worship service as part of their worship service.
For eample…
• The Babylonians worshiped the god of Tammuz. We are told they would bow before this god and with their finger make a design of a “T” on their chest. Later on, they changed it to the symbol of the cross.
• The Babylonians believed in purgatory and the Catholic Church took on the teaching of purgatory.
• The Babylonians believed in the rosary beads. The Catholic Church adopted that as well.
The Catholic Church compromised and adopted the teachings of false religions, and now the Catholic Church today is considered to be a false religion that is mixed with Christianity and Heathenism.
People today have good intentions, but the problem is that when we start to take on the world’s music and methods, we have a made a deal with Satan.
• Satan will tell you that you can have Jesus and the world too. He is a liar!
• You will either embrace Jesus and Him alone, or you will embrace the world.
You cannot have it both ways.
In Matt. 6:24, we read, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
• If you are really living for Jesus, then your commitment to Jesus will be offensive to the world.
• If you are committed to the world, then your lifestyle is offensive to Jesus.
The Lord told Moses to go to Egypt and bring His people out.
Look at Exodus 3:10, “Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.”
Anything less would have been to compromise the command of the Lord.
The servants of God are to separate themselves from this sinful, wicked world.
Look at 2 Cor. 6:17, “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.”
When God’s people continue to walk in lock step with the world, they cease to be the church God intended them to be.
You can go into churches today, and:
• The music sounds like something you hear on these wild rock and roll radio stations.
• The people of God are dressed up like they are going to Walmart.
• The preaching is a watered down to a motivation speech.
Once we come to know the Lord as our Savior, we are to come out from among the world.
It should be obvious to everyone that we are DIFFERENT!
We are not to become like them, we are to pray they will become like us!
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger’s nephew came to know the Lord. He is a good-looking young man that truly loves the Lord. He is also a very good ball player. His team was to play for the championship, and the game was scheduled for Sunday morning at 11 O’clock. The team was all excited and this wonderful Christian man stood up before his team and said, “Fellows, I hate to tell you this, but I cannot play tomorrow!” They all wanted to know why and he said, “Because tomorrow is the Lord’s Day and I will be in the house of God worshipping God with my family.” They tried to plead with him to be there, but he stood his ground.
What a testimony this young man had for loving His God more than he loved a ballgame.
The Devil will offer you that deal if you will take it - DON’T LEAVE, OFFER YOUR SACRIFICES AMONG US. We will tolerate you, and you tolerate us!
Don’t fall for his tricks!
If Israel had taken that deal, they would never have made it to the Promised Land.
First deal…WHY DON’T YOU SACRIFICE HERE
Moses did not accept that deal.
But the devil never gives up, look at the…
II. WHY DON’T YOU STAY CLOSE BY?
In Exodus 8:28, we read, “And Pharaoh said, I will let you go, that ye may sacrifice to the LORD your God in the wilderness; only ye shall not go very far away: entreat for me.”
Pharaoh is saying, “Let’s make a deal Moses. If your people must separate, then do not go too far away.”
The devil does not want us FAR from him!!!
Why? Because he cannot control us!!!
This is a deal offered to many believers by the DEVIL.
He says, “Let’s make a deal! You go ahead and be a Christian, but don’t take it too far. Don’t be a fanatic.”
The lost world can be as fanatical as they want to in serving their gods, but they tell us not to be so FANATICAL about SERVING our God!
Satan wants us to live our lives like the world around us. He will say things like.
• Go to church on Sunday morning, but do not talk about it on Monday.
• Be saved if you want to, but don’t talk about Jesus at work or at school.
• Listen to the same music the lost world listens to and fill your minds with the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the lust of pride
• Have Jesus if you want Him, but don’t take this thing to extremes of sharing it with others.
If we are going to serve the Lord, Satan wants us to live on the edge of sin.
Illus: He will never tell them to find some dedicated Christian in the church every time the church doors are open, find some backslidden Christian that hardly attends church and pattern your life after them.
Illus: Christians like this remind me of the two truck drivers that applied for a trucking job.
• One was called in to be interviewed and he was asked if he could drive an 18-wheeler through the mountains of Tennessee. He said, “I can drive through the mountains with the outside wheels hanging off the edge of the road.” The interview was over and he was sent back in the waiting room.
• The other man was called in to be interviewed, and he was asked could he drive an 18-wheeler though the mountains. The man said, “Yes, sir I can, and every time I drive, I stay as far away from the edge of the road as I can.”
Naturally the second man was hired.
We have too many Christians today who are living as close to the edge of sin as they can live.
God wants us to be radically different from the world around us, so different that there will be no confusion as to whether we are a Christian or not!
What am I saying?
If you are saved, you need to get as far away from the lost world as you can!
Illus: Christians should not be like this unisex generation where you can’t tell a woman from a man or a man from a woman.
• We need to be more seeker-friendly, to get along go along!
• We need to quit dressing like attending the house of God is something special, just dress like you are going to Walmart.
But God told Moses we need to get as far removed from the world, its ways and its attitudes as we possibly can.
• We cannot hang out with the ungodly and not be influenced by them.
• We cannot rub against them and not be contaminated by them.
Pharaoh had a third deal…
III. WHY DON’T YOU SPLIT YOUR FAMILIES?
Look at Exodus 10:8-10, we read, “And Moses and Aaron were brought again unto Pharaoh: and he said unto them, Go, serve the LORD your God: but who are they that shall go? And Moses said, we will go with our young and with our old, with our sons and with our daughters, with our flocks and with our herds will we go; for we must hold a feast unto the LORD. And he said unto them, Let the LORD be so with you, as I will let you go, and your little ones: look to it; for evil is before you.”
Pharaoh says, “Let’s make deal Moses. You can take the men and go serve God, but leave the rest of family out of it.”
Who are they that shall go with you?
Illus: Though the Egyptians, about fourscore years before, wished to destroy the Hebrews, yet they found them now so profitable to the state that they were unwilling to part with them.
• They were their cooks
• They were their workers
• They were their slaves
As they begin to let them go, they began to realize…WHAT WE ARE DOING!!!
Pharaoh did not want to let go of these families that were his servants…IT WOULD CRASH HIS ECONOMY!!!
In verse 9 Moses said, we will go…
• With our young and with our old, …
• With our sons and with our daughters.
• With our flocks and with our herds
In other words, he was telling Pharaoh we are not going leave anything behind.
This is the way a Christian should come to the Lord and take everything of value with them, and they only leave behind sin in the land of sin.
Pharaoh had another deal…
IV. WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE YOUR POSSESSIONS?
Look at Exodus 10:24-26, we read, “And Pharaoh called unto Moses, and said, Go ye, serve the LORD; only let your flocks and your herds be stayed: let your little ones also go with you. And Moses said, Thou must give us also sacrifices and burnt offerings, that we may sacrifice unto the LORD our God. Our cattle also shall go with us; there shall not an hoof be left behind; for thereof must we take to serve the LORD our God; and we know not with what we must serve the LORD, until we come thither.”
Pharaoh says, “Let’s make a deal Moses. If you must serve God, then go ahead, but leave your possessions behind. Take yourself out of Egypt, but leave your money here.”
Pharaoh wanted Moses and Israel to leave their resources behind.
When Moses heard this offer, he rejected it.
He said, “We are taking everything. We are not leaving as much as a hoof behind. We need these possessions to offer up sacrifices to our God. We are taking all of it. It was all given to us by the Lord, and it is not for your use.”
We ought to be like Moses and refuse to leave anything we have in the world behind for the devil to use when we die.
In the final analysis, God wants you; lock stock and barrel.
Many condemn the church and say, “All they really want is my money.”
The fact is; we don’t want your money.
It does take money to operate the church, and a lot of it.
But, that money is to come from the freewill offerings of people who love the Lord.
It isn’t to come from garage sales, bake sales and car washes.
It is to come from people who realize that everything they possess is a gift from the Lord, and they want to honor Him by investing in His Kingdom work.
So, if you see what money you have as your money, why don’t you just keep it all? After all, “…God loveth a cheerful giver.” 2 Cor. 9:7.
He wants people who give to His work because they love Him. The Lord will take care of His church, and He will do it through people who love Him.
When we make our break with Satan and his kingdom, we need to come out totally and completely.
Pharaoh says let us MAKE A DEAL, you can go but leave your possessions behind.
Illus: Listen; when parents are making their will out they need to be careful.
A lot of time in making their will out and they leave it to family members and friends that will take that money and use it for the devil after they are dead and gone.
Our love for God should be greater for God than for our family and friends. So, I want to will what God has given to me to those I know I can trust to use it for the God I love.
I personally when I die, I want to leave one-tenth to a Bible believing, Bible-preaching church or something like the Samaritan purse.
That is, the last thing I can do for God when I am dead and do no more, I can give Him a tenth of my income to Him who gave it to me.
We are responsible for everything God gave us, and I do not want to leave behind for the enemy to take what God has given me to use for him.
Let me explain…
Illus: Dr. Odell Belger says that he has a problem with donating our body parts to others.
He explains it this way; “Wouldn’t it be terrible thing if we donated our heart and it went to a man that becomes a vicious serial killer?”
“Can you imagine how bad you would feel in heaven knowing that you made it possible for such an evil man to do such a thing?”
To donate our eyes to a man who used them to watch pornography.
The same thing is true for our money. When we leave this earth, we need to make sure we do not leave anything behind for Satan to use.
Illus: Often, in times of war, when a military troop is leaving, they will destroy everything by fire so the enemy can’t come along and use it.
Many times, God’s people leave behind a lot of things that they will regret they left behind for Satan’s use.
Where have you invested all the things that really matter?
Conclusion:
I’m afraid that many have heard the Devil say, “Let’s make a deal.”
• They have traded something precious for something worthless
• They have left a big part of themselves in the world behind.
• They have traded their testimony for empty promises and wasted years
We have looked at the questions:
I. WHY DON’T YOU SACRIFICE HERE?
II. WHY DON’T YOU STAY CLOSE BY?
III. WHY DON’T YOU SPLIT YOUR FAMILIES?
IV.WHY, DON’T YOU LEAVE YOUR POSSESSIONS?
