IF THINE HEART TURN AWAY
Deuteronomy 30:17-18.
But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them; I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it.
If thine heart turn away.
You know I have turned on the TV to catch the weather report and sat down to watch, and something happened between the time I sat down and the time they gave the report.
After a while someone would say to me, What did they say? I would have to say I didn’t know. I didn’t hear it.
The voice was loud enough. I was in the same room. No one distracted me, but my heart had turned away. The very thing I came in to receive, I missed.
It doesn’t take some awful sin. You can sit right on a church pew and turn your heart away from God
I want to say today, that as Christians, we need to be watchful. Satan is out to distract you, and to turn your heart away from the things of God. He wants to keep you from hearing what God is saying to you.
Satan is subtile. He isn’t going to come to me and suggest that I go rob a store.
No. He will start by just turning my heart away from God. He may start by telling me I don’t need to pray or study my Bible everyday. He will attempt to overload me with the cares of life.
Remember Luke 10:38. It is the story of Martha and Mary.
Jesus said, Mary had chosen the good part. She sat at Jesus feet and heard his words.
Now, it wasn’t some great sin that robbed Martha of the blessing. She got side-tracked. She became cumbered about with the serving and her heart turned away.
Mark 4:19 says the cares of the world is one of the things that choke the word in us and cause us to be unfruitful.
Soon Martha was crying Lord, don’t you care?
Jesus told her what Mary has chosen is needful. In other words, hearing the word of Jesus will cause you to overcome the cares of life.
Satan is using a lot of devices to turn away people’s hearts. He has been working to turn our worship that is supposed to be offered to God into entertainment offered to each other.
Some have turned their hearts to religious customs and traditions.
Satan has lulled them into a false spirit of religion. Their ears have become dull of hearing. They are spiritually asleep. Their heart is turned away.
Satan has simply convinced some people that they have all they need. He will say you have done all that is expected of you. You don’t need to seek God anymore. You don’t need to have a prayer life. You don’t need to read or study God’s word. You have received the gift, now just wait for the Lord to come.
The 25th chapter of Matthew tells us of 10 virgins who went out to meet the bridegroom. Five were lacking. The cry went out at midnight and they had no oil for their lamps.
I believe midnight is just about here and many, many Christians aren’t ready.
Friends, we are living in a critical hour. There is no time to be indifferent about spiritual things. No time for fence straddling.
The pressure is on and we are going to have to be one way or the other.
Our text said if your heart turn away you perish.
I am going to ask you to take a minute today and think about it.
Are the cares of the world choking off your spiritual growth?
Were you once on fire for God, but now you are just smoking?
It is easy to slip away many times, not with some awful sin, but we get caught up in activities and become so cluttered up that there is no time left to sit at Jesus feet. No time to read his word. No time to pray. No time for our fellow Christians. No time to seek the lost.
I am going to be very blunt on this point.
Drop out of anything you can’t spiritually afford, because very soon there is going to be no time, period.
Don’t make the mistake of trying to fit God into your schedule, build your schedule around God.
Jesus said, Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.
He said, if we don’t let our hearts turn away, we could, in his name, cast out devils.
He has promised us in his word that if we set our affections on him, that we can be the overcomer, not the overcome.
Joel wrote in chapter 2 verse 1. Blow ye the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble. For the day of the Lord cometh, for it is at hand.
As we close today, let us as a church and as individuals turn our hearts and our attention wholly back to our God and renew our goals:
1. To preach the gospel to the poor.
2. To heal the broken hearted.
3. To preach deliverance to the captive.
4. To recover sight to the blind.
5. To set at liberty them that are bruised.
6. To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
7. To reach the lost.
