DANGER & CONSEQUENCES OF REJECTING GOD AND GOING AFTER OTHER gODs

IN THE DAYS OF HIS POWER SERIES.

TOPIC: DANGER, CONSEQUENCES OF REJECTING GOD AND GOING AFTER OTHER gODs

SERMON BY-:
Rev. Innocent Chukwudi Peace-Udochukwu President Living Fountain Ministries Int’l LIFOM

“Now consider this, you who forget God, Or I will tear you in pieces, and there will be none to deliver.”

God has for His own Deity, honor, and supremacy, and the holy indignation which he feels towards those who violate his laws, offend his majesty, or impeach his character. Not that God is jealous so as to bring him down to the likeness of men, but that this is the nearest idea we can form of what the Divine Being feels-if it be right to use even that word toward him-when he beholds his throne occupied by false gods, his dignity insulted, and his glory usurped by others.

“Why do the nations rage, and the people a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, “Let us break Their bonds in pieces and cast away Their cords from us.”

• Psalm 2:1-3

People often think that if they can just get away from God and remove any reminders of Him they’ll be free. They join together in one voice and say, Let us break their bands and cast away their cords from us (vs. 3).

Listen, the only real freedom is found in Jesus Christ: In John 8:36, the Word of God declares, If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. How sad, the only One who can truly free them is the same One they reject.

From the beginning of creation until now, people have tried to cast off every restraint placed on them by the loving hand of God. Not willing to yield to the perfect will of the Father, nations have rejected God’s authority again and again.

Rejection of the Lord’s sovereignty and provision only leads to a desolate ending. Without faith in the One who made us, we are empty, lacking, and ultimately left to our own devices.

If we seek the Lord He will strongly support us, but if we forsake Him we come under His discipline

“The Lord will stay with you as long as you stay with him! Whenever you seek him, you will find him. But if you abandon him, he will abandon you.”
2 Chronicles 15:2
This verse in Chronicles is repeated several times in different chapters and is followed by a catalogue of the kings of Judah and what happened to them. Generally they either ‘did what was pleasing in God’s sight’ and were blessed with victory over their enemies and peace in the land or they ‘did what was evil in the Lord’s sight’ and were abandoned by him to their fate by enemies or disease.

“Whoever is not for God is against Him. Whoever is not on the side of God is on the side of the devil. This is how Jesus puts it: “Anyone who isn’t helping me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me”
Matthew 12:30

It’s one thing to refuse to come to God and stay committed to Him, but it is another thing to come to Him and then abandon Him. Such turning away from God, rejecting or forsaking Him, attracts grave consequences because God is a jealous God. Exodus 20:5, 34:14, Deuteronomy 4:24, 5:9, 6:15, Joshua 24:19 and Nahum 1:2 all emphasize that God is a jealous God.

If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away from the midst of thee.
Deuteronomy 13:1-5

False gods patiently endure the existence of other false gods. Dagon can stand with Bel, and Bel with Ashtaroth; how should stone, and wood, and silver, be moved to indignation; but because God is the only living and true God, Dagon must fall before his ark; Bel must be broken, and Ashtaroth must be consumed with fire. Thus saith the Lord, “Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves;” the idols he shall utterly abolish.

Those who forsake the LORD shall be put to shame. To forsake God is tantamount to walking out on Him, dishonoring Him. Moreover, somebody can’t forsake God to serve other gods and expect God to honour him. That will be self-delusion! Psalm 97:7 says, “Those who worship idols are disgraced — all who brag about their worthless gods — for every god must bow to him” (New Living Translation). God will see to it that such a person is put to shame!
“O LORD, the hope of Israel, all who turn away from you will be disgraced and shamed. They will be buried in a dry and dusty grave, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water”
Jeremiah 17:13

Those who forsake the LORD will become a prey to their enemies. Such persons will experience evils and troubles. The reason should be easily understood because as I said earlier, when God forsakes a man, He withdraws from him; He hides Himself from him. That was what happened to King Saul after the LORD had rejected him. “But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the LORD troubled him” (1 Samuel 16:14 New King James Version).
Once God forsakes anyone, he is at the mercy of his enemies; they can deal with him anyway they like. The enemy could devour such a person

“Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations to which they will be carried captive, how I have been hurt by their adulterous hearts which turned away from Me, and by their eyes which played the harlot after their idols; and they will loathe themselves in their own sight for the evils which they have committed, for all their abominations”
Ezekiel 6:9

Brethren, the whole history of the human race is a record of the wars of the Lord against idolatry. The right hand of the Lord hath dashed in pieces the enemy and cast the ancient idols to the ground. Behold the heaps of Nineveh! Search for the desolations of Babylon! Look upon the broken temples of Greece! See the ruins of Pagan Rome! Journey where you will, you behold the dilapidated temples of the gods and the ruined empires of their foolish votaries. The moles and the bats have covered with forgetfulness the once famous deities of Chaldea and Assyria. The Lord hath made bare his arm and eased him of his adversaries, for Jehovah, whose name is Jehovah, is a jealous God.

“He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
John 3:36

The Lord Jesus Christ, of whom I now speak, is very jealous of your love, O believer. Did he not choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did he not buy you with his own blood? He cannot endure that you should think you are your own, or that you belong to this world. He loved you with such a love that he could not stop in heaven without you; he would sooner die than that you should perish; he stripped himself to nakedness that he might clothe you with beauty; he bowed his face to shame and spitting that he might lift you up to honor and glory, and he cannot endure that you should love the world, and the things of the world. His love is strong as death towards you, and therefore will be cruel as the grave. He will be as a cruel one towards you if you do not love him with a perfect heart. He will take away that husband; he will smite that child; he will bring you from riches to poverty, from health to sickness, even to the gates of the grave, because he loves you so much that he cannot endure that anything should stand between your heart’s love and him. Be careful Christians, you that are married to Christ; remember, you are married to a jealous husband.

I am not afraid for the Church of God! I tremble not for the cause of God! Our jealous Husband will never let his Church be in danger, and if any smite her he will give them double for every blow. The gates of hell shall not prevail against his Church, but she shall prevail against the gates of hell. Her jealous Husband shall roll away her shame; her reproach shall be forgotten; her glory shall be fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners, for he that is jealous of himself is jealous for her fair fame. The subject is large and deep; let us prove that we understand it, by henceforth walking very carefully; and if any say “Why are you so precise?” let this be our answer-“I serve a jealous God.”

SHALOM!

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