Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording including sermon title, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these words. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copies and quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
Undeserved Trust Invites Defeat!
Isaiah 39:1-8, "At that time Merodachbaladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah: for he had heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and shewed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armour, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah shewed them not. Then came Isaiah the prophet unto king Hezekiah, and said unto him, What said these men? and from whence came they unto thee? And Hezekiah said, "They are come from a far country unto me, even from Babylon. “Then said he, What have they seen in thine house? And Hezekiah answered, All that is in mine house have they seen: there is nothing among my treasures that I have not shewed them. Then said Isaiah to Hezekiah, Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days."
Steve Green, who sang six years with Bill and Gloria Gaither, tells about getting to know some of the work crews in the large auditoriums where their concerts were held. The Gaithers prefer concerts-in-the-round, which means extra work for the "riggers," who walk the four-inch rafter beams, often a hundred feet above the concrete floor, to hang sound speakers and spotlights.
"The fellows I talked to weren’t bothered by the sight of looking down a hundred feet," says Green. "What they DIDN’T like, they said, were jobs in buildings that had false ceilings where the acoustical tile was hung just a couple of feet below the rafters on weak metal frames.
They were still high in the air, and if they slipped, their weight would smash right through the flimsy tile. But their minds seemed to play tricks on them, lulling them into carelessness."
Satan’s business is not so much in scaring us to death as persuading us that the danger of a spiritual fall is minimal. No wonder Peter advised us to "resist him, standing firm in the faith" (I Peter 5:9).
In effect, this is the message that these scriptures have for you and I. All too often, Christians are easily fooled because of the naivety in trusting people who we don’t know. This often leads to disaster.
When I was a teenager, our neighbor, who was a “baby Christian” was approached by a very convincing young preacher who persuaded him to invest a considerable amount of money in the establishment of a local Christian radio station. He was promised a return of his money with a large percentage of interest added in a short time.
It sounded like a good deal. The young preacher was known to come from a respectable and upright family but no one really knew his personal character because he had lived away from home for some time.
After giving the preacher the money amid grateful thanks and a promise to keep our neighbor informed of the progress of the station, our neighbor said goodbye to him and watched the preacher drive away. Our neighbor was excited about the new station and was very glad to be a part of the spread of the gospel over the airwaves.
Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months and finally into years with not one phone call or any action on a Christian radio station. My neighbor had been duped, and misled by a con artist and, needless to say, he never saw his money again.
He learned an important lesson in trust that day, and it is a lesson that we all need to learn by his experience lest we fall into the same trap.
Believe it or not, there are people who you cannot trust!
Just as King Hezekiah in our scripture text for today, we are often caught up in the idea that, as the people of God, we are to trust everyone and be friends to everyone.
While it is our nature, as Christians, to love everyone and want to befriend everyone, we must realize that there are some people who will trample your love into the ground and allow you to be deceived into thinking that they are your friends, with the sole intention of getting what they can from you.
Which of us have never felt like we have been “used” or “abused” by someone we trusted and loved?
Many parents have been deceived by their own children who have stolen from them or had them arrested on false charges in a fit of anger. Pastors have been deceived by church members who claim to love them and respect them and these same ministers have often had their ministry become ineffective because of lies and accusations that are never proven true.
Which of us would trust some of our friends with our Credit Cards or the Pin # to our ATM cards? It would be an inexcusable example of absolute ignorance on the part of any of us to give out that kind of information to anyone that we haven’t learned through long periods of mutual trust and unfailing loyalty to each other, that they are truly trustworthy.
Do you have a friend or friends like that? They are few and far between. If you do have someone like that in your life, you better hold on to him or her because they are a rare commodity.
An African proverb says, "Only a fool tests the depth of the water with both feet."
This is great advice since the water may contain not only deep, unseen holes, but can contain underwater limbs or vines or maybe even a crocodile or two.
I know too many Christians who will not only jump in with both feet but will dive in headfirst because they “trust in the Lord to deliver them”.
There is a big difference between trusting in God and tempting God.
Hezekiah had been very ill, even to point of dying. Isaiah had brought him the message from God that Hezekiah was going to die and to get his house in order. But Hezekiah cried out to God and begged for mercy so God gave him another 15 years of life. A balm made from figs healed the boil that was bringing the infection to his body and killing him, probably with gangrene or some equally serious disease.
In the scripture portion for tonight, Hezekiah is happy, jubilant and excited because God has given him the blessing of longer life. He is joyous and generous and wants to share his feelings with everyone he meets.
One of the princes of Babylon, the son of the Babylonian King Baladan, had come as an ambassador from his father. Hezekiah was glad to see him and threw all caution aside as he began to show him all the riches of the temple in Jerusalem and the wealth of Hezekiah’s treasury.
Hezekiah was naïve and trusting of this Crown Prince of Babylon, never realizing that he was allowing his enemy to see the very thing that would bring Babylon down on him to conquer the nation of Israel.
In Luke 16:8, we read, "And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light."
Only a gullible and trusting Christian would ever follow the example of Hezekiah. You would never find a worldly man or woman who would trust anyone with the kind of information that Hezekiah did. The world knows that it cannot trust its own.
The Prince of Babylon left for home and Hezekiah was so glad to have made a new “friend” of this powerful nation. He didn’t know that he had opened the floodgates of disaster for Israel until Isaiah revealed it to him.
Isaiah’s questions to Hezekiah should ever ring in our ears when it comes to doing business for the Lord or for our families.
“Who are these men and where did they come from”?
In other words, why did you reveal secrets to anyone who you do not know very well, especially the secrets of the wealth and power of Israel? Did you check out their motives, do you know why they came, and did you exercise any caution in allowing them access to everything?
Hezekiah, like so many of us, just stood there with egg on his face!
How dumb, how stupid, how gullible, how foolish could I have been to allow these things to happen?
Do we not think that this same thing happens in the life of the Christian today?
2 Timothy 3:13, "But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving
, And being deceived."
“A fool and His money are soon parted”
God expects us to use wisdom in dealing with other people, even those who labor among us in the church.
It’s not that I don’t trust anyone in this church, its just plain common sense to protect your family from any possible source of harm.
It’s not that I don’t trust other preachers, or love them, or support their ministries in prayer and offerings, but unless, they have taken the time to build a mutual trust and relationship with me, I can’t allow them in the pulpit to preach to the flock that God has entrusted me to lead.
How many of our decisions leave us with egg on our faces?
We must be careful lest we leave a legacy that we don’t want to have. If we overextend our finances and build buildings that leave our children in great debt, that is a terrible legacy and our children certainly won’t appreciate it.
If we make financial decisions that ruin our credit and bring us to ruin, what kind of message are we leaving our children?
If we are not careful and allow anyone to preach a message that is misleading and contains half-truths, what kind of spiritual stability will our children have?
One of the greatest battles of my life was caused because I totally trusted in someone who was not trustworthy. This battle was the result of a several “good Christians” who decided that they were the authorities of perfection and proceeded to bring false reports and accusations against me in an all out effort to destroy my reputation and credibility.
It was a hard and costly lesson for me; a lesson that I shall never forget. I learned to be very careful of whom I trust and whom I listen to. I was proven to be in the right but by the time the proof was accepted the damage had been done and was almost irreversible.
Be very careful whom you trust with personal information. Make sure that the person you are telling your secrets to will not turn and use them against you.
Hezekiah had unwittingly played right into the hands of the Babylonian army. In years to come the nation of Israel would be conquered, the temple destroyed and the people of Israel led away into the Babylonian Captivity for 70 long years. Those taken away captive would include Hezekiah’s own children. Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego and nearly all of the youth of Israel would be slaves in Babylon while Israel was under the thumb of King Nebuchadnezzar.
Who knows how much suffering, how many of our youth and our children, or how many churches and families have been destroyed because of our careless decisions and courting of our enemy?
I hope that our attitude, when we fail, is not the same as Hezekiah’s!
When Isaiah told Hezekiah that his children would be slaves in Babylon and that Israel would be conquered, the answer that Hezekiah gave was an example of the most self-centered man I’ve seen in a long time.
Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, Good is the word of the LORD which thou hast spoken. He said moreover, For there shall be peace and truth in my days."
He didn’t care what happened after he was gone, just so Hezekiah could live out his days in comfort and peace.
I pray that we have a greater vision and a greater love for our children than did Hezekiah.
History would have been better if Hezekiah had died 15 years earlier instead of being healed by God.
His children would never have been born to live as slaves in Babylon. They most likely died in Babylon and are in hell today.
Israel may have still been conquered by Babylon, but Hezekiah only hastened the day of captivity.
What kind of future are we leaving our children?
What condition will the church be in that we are leaving our children?
What will our legacy be?
May we be cautious in all our activities, be careful of whom we trust and careful of the friends we make.
Matthew 7:6, "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."
Guard your souls, Guard your salvation, Guard your Family, and Guard your very life because Satan is raging an all-out war to kill, steal and destroy all of it!
