Sermon Brief
Date Written: July 12, 2006
Date Preached: July 16, 2006
Where Preached: OZHBC (PM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: Idolatry in the church
Sermon Title: What People Don’t Want to Hear…
Ascribing to the Idol of Self Worth…
Sermon Text: 2 Tim 4:3-4 (NASB) read now…
Essence of the Text: Paul told Timothy that church members would NOT want to hear the Truth…
Essence of the Sermon: God’s Word reveals that even today church members do not want to hear the truth…
Objective of the Sermon: We must come to grips with the Truth, and stop desiring OUR own version of truth…
Introduction:
This week as I was studying for this sermon, I decided that I had completed my task in 2 Timothy and I was looking for another passage to move on to and I was intent on beginning another series of sermons…
But a funny thing happened on my way to preparing another sermon series for you… God intervened and He was very clear in telling me that I was NOT finished with 2 Timothy…
I began to pray about what He wanted, and I told Him… God I did what you told me to do… I preached on idolatry in the church… I really hit ‘em hard Lord… what did I miss!
He again revealed to me that I had not finished… so I began to pray and the Holy Spirit led me back to 2 Tim 4:3-4… and God confirmed this to me in giving the words to today’s message…
So this morning, instead of getting what I wanted to give you… you are getting what GOD wants you to hear! And to be totally honest with you… that is the way it ALWAYS should be… AMEN!
SO LET’S GO TO OUR PASSAGE THIS MORNING AND READ IT…
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
As I read this passage I began to think about what it is that people want to hear… what ‘tickles’ our ears so much so that we would go out of our way to hear it?
I believe that there are the things that believers WANT to hear…like
• how GOOD we are…
• how God is blessing our efforts in the Kingdom…
• how great heaven and eternity with God will be…
• God’s love
• God’s mercy
• God’s unending forgiveness
And just like the things that believers WANT to hear, I can assure you that there are things that believers DON’T want to hear as well, such as…
• how sinful we are…
• how prideful our thoughts and actions are…
• how our sinful behavior carries severe consequences…
• how our sin affects other people…
• how there REALLY is a hell and torment and people ARE going to go there…
• about God’s wrath and judgment…
• Or about the possibility of God allowing someone to go to hell…
In 2 Pet 3:9 the Bible shares the following promise from God, “…The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance…”(NASB)
There are many believers who love to quote that promise to other believers but I fear that we miss the entire message that Peter is presenting in that passage… Peter is speaking about the great and terrible day of the Lord… JUDGMENT DAY!
Peter is teaching believers that there will come a day when the world will be judged and when those who believe are rewarded and those who reject Christ are eternally condemned…
Peter inserts v.9 to let us know that it is not God’s desire that any go to hell… but that all come to repentance and salvation…
The implication in this verse is that judgment in coming and God does not want you to face His judgment without Jesus Christ, but if you reject Jesus Christ that is just what is going to happen… you will stand ALL ALONE before God with you sin and rejection… and God will pass judgment on your life!
You see in our society today, humanity wants to believe that we are basically a good and decent being that will ultimately do the good and right thing in the end…however; all throughout human history we can see this proven wrong over and over again…
And as humans go, we love to place ourselves up on a pedestal and to be truthful with you… for FAR too long the people of the church have catered to that SAME philosophy.
Today the church has come to the point where its people are constantly bowing to the idol of self-worship, self-importance and self-indulgence…
If you don’t believe me, just go into ANY so-called Christian book store…even us Baptists and our Lifeway stores… you can go in there and there are shelves and shelves of SELF HELP books and books that lift up our SELF ESTEEM
And you may be sitting there this morning and thinking, “…preacher what is wrong with helping myself? What is wrong with building up my self-esteem?...”
The world will tell you that there is NOTHING wrong with these things…and even in the church you will find many who will tell you and encourage you to get and read these books and help yourself!
But I want to share with you that SELF HELP and SELF ESTEEM are not the focus of God’s plan and purpose for your life.
Now you may be thinking… “…God is concerned about helping me and building up my self-esteem…” but I tell you my brother or my sister…if you thinking this way… you are out of bounds when it comes to God!
If you are thinking that God is concerned about your self-help and your self-esteem… you are looking at God’s plan and purpose thru the wrong lens!
If you think that way, your view of God is flawed…
You see, God is not some cosmic waiter who is standing there to take your every order and wait on your every selfish demand!
God is not some grandfatherly figure who can be manipulated or persuaded into doing what YOU want Him to do!
This is because…brace yourself here… it is NOT about you… it is about HIM! God loves you and wants you to be a part of HIS work, of HIS plans, of HIS purpose! And when you ARE in His will you will be fulfilled and full of joy!
So often, as believers, we are quick to exalt what we do for the kingdom, but really slow to condemn what we do NOT do… or what we are doing that is wrong…
We say things like, well I am only human, I can’t be expected to be perfect… or it wasn’t MY fault… or we point the finger of blame at others or even God himself…
This is because our focus is on the wrong thing… it is pointed in the wrong direction… our focus is on OURSELVES and not God.
Do you remember how it was in the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve had the perfect life and each night they physically were able to commune with God in the Garden… God had provided them with ALL they needed for a perfect life…
But when the serpent came and tempted them, they both fell to the temptation. And when God asked what happened, Adam’s first response was… Lord it is that WOMAN that YOU gave me… it’s all her fault… or in other words what Adam was saying was that it was ultimately God’s fault!
Adam did not want to take responsibility for his actions, and he did not want to hear about where he had failed so he lashed out against God and blamed God for his predicament…
And just like Adam, we are all fallen creatures and we carry that same attitude…the attitude of “it is NOT my fault… it is because of this or that…but NEVER is it our fault…” We refuse to take responsibility for our actions…
This is the exact situation that Paul is speaking about here in 2 Tim… In our passage this morning I can see…
• First and foremost… an attitude, within this passage
• Secondly, I can see an action that is led to…
• Finally, I can see an adverse accomplishment as the result…
And that is what Paul is trying to warn Timothy about, and I want us to look at that as well this morning…
1. An attitude…
In v.3 the attitude of humanity is revealed, “…For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine…”
And I can just hear it now, “…we don’t want to hear that preacher…” And I believe there are many of YOU here this morning who have said this in your heart… or even openly with your mouth...
The attitude of the church has swung from God-centered to self-centered and has brought the church to its knees in weakness!
OH FOR US TO BE ON OUR KNEES IN PRAYER SEEKING THE FACE OF GOD, HOW STRONG WOULD THE CHURCH BE IF THAT WERE TO HAPPEN!
When the preacher or the S.S. teacher begins to teach on the doctrines of the Bible we have so many in our church today who simply tune them out when it is something that they do not want to hear…
You tune it out when you hear me preach that drinking and any mind-altering drugs are sinful and damaging to the believer’s walk with God…
Then you tell yourself,”… there’s NOTHING in the Bible that says you can’t drink! Preacher, it says don’t partake of MUCH wine!”
You tune it out when you hear me preach that gambling and playing the lottery are sinful acts and they will damage your walk with God…
And you sit there and think, “…Preacher there is NOTHING in the Bible about gambling or playing the lottery being a sin!”
And I tell you this morning… if YOU have that approach to the kingdom…
You are seeing your salvation and your service thru the lens of self worship, self importance and self indulgence! And you are NOT seeing yourself thru the eyes of God!
You don’t want to hear things from God by way of the preacher or our S.S. teacher that makes you uncomfortable… because it makes you see you for who you are… a sinner before a holy God!
You say things like, “…well, the preacher is not perfect, so how can he tell us to live like this?”
Or things like, “… I know our S.S. teacher and I know he had terrible faults in his life, how can he expect to teach me to be seeking God and living a godly life?...”
My friends, the message of God can and will come to you, but you must understand that although the messenger is imperfect, the message is perfect!
I know this from personal experience because I stand in this pulpit each and every week proclaiming God’s word to this congregation…
And I know, more than anyone, that I am not perfect…and in this life I will NEVER be perfect and you will never have the perfect messenger…but you will always have the perfect message.
God has chosen to use broken and imperfect vessels to share His perfect message. So let me give you some pastoral advice… stop focusing on who is delivering the message and begin to focus on what is being said and how it applies to your life!
In this passage this morning we can see an attitude of rejection that Paul is warning Timothy about… rejection of the truth! And it is sad to say but in the church today, that attitude is alive and well…
And when you have that sort of attitude it leads you to an action on your behalf that is NOT what God desires…
2. An action…
“…but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…”
I can hear it now, “…preacher, we don’t want to hear that, and we are NOT going to put up with it… so if you can’t say what we want to hear, then we are going to find someone else who can…”
Or some will say… we will go somewhere else to hear what we want to hear…
Now I want you to understand that Paul is telling Timothy that this action is the logical follow-up to this attitude.
When people say they are uncomfortable or do not want to hear something… and the same message is continually being fed to them… they are going to have a desire to change the messenger!
We see this evident all throughout the OT! In the book of Jeremiah, the people refused to hear Jeremiah’s message and in fact on several occasions they tried to find a messenger that told them what they wanted to hear…
But you came and defiled My land, and My inheritance you made an abomination. "The priests did not say, ’Where is the LORD?’
And those who handle the law did not know Me; the rulers also transgressed against Me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal and walked after things that did not profit.
Jer 2:7-8 (NASB)
In this passage we can see that the children of Israel were seeking to hear what they desired to hear… so they did not seek the Lord… they did not listen to the prophet Jeremiah… but they found prophets who prophesied by Baal… and that was what they wanted to hear…
This same action is true in churches all over the world today. I have heard story after story of pastors being asked to leave or even forced out and fired by congregations because of what he was preaching…
”…his preaching is too hard…” “…all he preaches about is sin and hell too much…” “…he preaches about evangelism and that we have to share our faith…”
I can tell you right now, as a congregation you don’t have the RIGHT to demand what is preached in this pulpit!
I will not be threatened by dismissal so that I will preach what YOU desire to hear… and as a church you should NEVER desire to tell me what I should be preaching!
And I want to go on record today… I will always stand firm on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and I will NEVER kowtow to pressure from any one of you to preach anything else…
Preaching is a sacred covenant between God and the pastor…the preacher may share with you and let you in… but only so that you can SEE, it is NEVER for you to influence him!
If a pastor allows his congregation to influence his preaching… then that pastor is out of the will of God and needs to be prayed for and counseled… and God may even remove him from the pulpit altogether!
But, I want to make this abundantly clear to all who are in this sanctuary this morning… when we have the attitude of NOT wanting to face our sin, and listen to God…
Then that is going to lead us to the action of separating ourselves from the Truth and when we separate ourselves from the Truth then there is…
3. An adverse accomplishment…
4 and [they] will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.
Over the past 25 years we have heard the horror stories about people being led away from the Truth by those who gave them partial truth and deceived them with many lies…
Do you remember 1979 and Jim Jones and the People’s Temple in San Francisco? Jim Jones was an ordained Disciples of Christ minister who wanted to reach out to the less fortunate of society with the gospel…
He founded a mission for all the dregs of society and before he knew it, he had over 900 members… they moved from Indiana to San Francisco and the people of the church thought Jim was super.
In the 1970’s Jim and the People’s Temple leased some land in Guyana and established “Jonestown” where they raised fruit to sale and animals to eat.
During the late 1970’s, Jones had been abusing prescription drugs and appears to have become increasingly paranoid. Rumors of human rights abuses circulated.
This motivated Leo Ryan, a Congressman, to visit Jonestown in 1978-NOV for a personal inspection, but the world would be shocked in how this visit turned out.
I can remember the day I saw the news footage coming out of Jonestown. The cameraman who was filming was shot, along with Congressman Ryan and 9 others…
Jim Jones allowed himself to believe that the Truth was in him and not in Christ and he led himself and over 900 people to mass suicide…
I am sure many of you remember David Koresh and the Branch Davidians out of Waco, TX. David was raised in the 7th Day Adventist church but was expelled for being a bad influence.
David began to think of himself as the 2nd coming of Christ and his followers thought the same thing, and he and almost 100 other people died in a fire he set… while besieged by FBI and ATF agents.
We all probably remember the “Heaven’s Gate” cult that sought to ‘catch a ride’ on a spaceship to nirvana… and they all committed suicide to transport themselves to the ship…
You are probably sitting there thinking, well preacher these people were NOT me, I am not going to be fooled! I want you to listen to what was written in an article in Current Thoughts and Trends magazine in Oct of 2003
“…New Age is gaining mainstream acceptance. Judith Rosen reports in Publisher’s Weekly, “After years on the fringes, New Age--which includes some alternative health, addiction and recovery, psychology and spiritual titles, as well as books on Eastern traditions--may finally be approaching the middle of the road.” Rosen bases her conclusion, in part, on [the many] yoga centers across the United States, and all the TV and radio programs featuring the afterlife and reincarnation,…”
Well preacher cults may be spreading, but it isn’t going to affect me! “…that would NEVER happen to me, I am a good Southern Baptist… I am a Christian, and I believe the Bible…”
But the world is filled with professing Christians that… just like you thought they were on the right track, but ended up being deceived because they had left the truth of the Gospel of Christ!
But the facts are that people are being deceived in great numbers and they are leaving the Truth of the Gospel because they were not willing to hear the Truth as the Word of God proclaims it…
They were not willing to hear the truth so they set out to find someone who said what they WANTED to hear!
Several research studies estimate that 5 to 10 million Americans have been at least fleetingly involved with cult or cult-like groups. This study which randomly surveyed 1,000 San Francisco Bay area high school students found that 3% of students reported that they were members of a cult group, while 54% reported at least one contact with a cult recruiter.
Peter tells us in his letter to the church in Rome, “…Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour…”
Satan is trying to get believers to abandon the certainty and Truth of God’s Message, by casting some doubt about one or 2 things they may disagree or take issue with…
In our society today there are many who THINK they are on the right path, but according to God’s Word, the only path they are on is a path straight to Hell!
Take for instance, Oprah – she is NOT someone you would say was BAD! She is even described by the magazine Christianity Today as one of the most influential spiritual leaders in America today – perhaps even all over the western world where her program is shown.
Did you know that Oprah was raised in the Baptist church? And this ex Baptist now believes and shares her belief that “one of the biggest mistakes we make is to believe there is only one way. There are many diverse paths leading to God.”
She has been described as a ‘postmodern priestess – an icon of church free spirituality’. And sadly enough, her tribe is growing.
Oprah does many things that the world believes to be great and wonderful! Oprah embodies the values of our new age society & the people like what she is saying... so they are listening to her and NOT to the Truth of Scripture…
The point, to all these illustrations, is simply this, when you stray away from the Truth of Christ… you are going to be taken in by almost anything that comes your way…
Don’t sit there in your seat this morning thinking that YOU have it all under control because YOU DON’T!
Conclusion:
When we abandon the Truth of the Gospel… the true message of God we are going to fall and fall very hard! And what I see in the church today…
What I see in our fellowship today…
Is that we are bowing and worshipping at the altar of self worship, self importance and self indulgence. We have abandoned God’s plans and purposes for our own… and we simply try to put God’s name on our desires!
I know that this morning there are many of us who are still harboring in our hearts this form of idol worship! I know that there are times in my life when I find myself at this altar of self worship and I have to fall on my face in confession of my sin and ask God to forgive me!
I am calling on OZHBC to abandon this idol…
God is calling for OZHBC to begin to worship HIM in spirit and in truth…
God is calling the people of OZHBC to give up the idol of self importance and self indulgence…
God is calling you to remain faithful to the TRUTH of God’s Word that is found in the person of Jesus Christ!
Now what you have heard this morning is probably NOT what you wanted to hear… but rest assured it is a message directly from God to YOU today! Don’t ignore this message, I want to ask…
Will you be true and faithful to that message this morning?
Will you abandon your idol worship to throw yourself at the foot of the Cross and confess your sin and allow God to wash you and cleanse you of your wicked ways and thoughts?
This morning as Bro Jerry comes to lead us in the invitation chorus, Into My Heart I want you to step out and come to this altar and confess your sin to God and let Him clean your soul today! Don’t wait… come as we begin to sing…
