"A Chink in the Armor"
Why paying attention to our affiliations matters when it comes to our personal and public witness of Christ.
Download or email this sermon The Danger of Not Listening
I only wish that Jehoshaphat, a good king, had listened. But we find out 2 Chronicles 20 that he didn't. Verse 35…
After this Jehoshaphat king of Judah allied himself with Ahaziah king of Israel.
He does it again…
He acted wickedly in so doing. So he allied himself with him to make ships to go to Tarshish, and they made the ships in Ezion-geber. Then Eliezer the son of Dodavahu of Mareshah prophesied against Jehoshaphat saying, “Because you have allied yourself with Ahaziah, the Lord has destroyed your works.” So the ships were broken and could not go to Tarshish.
The second time, God's judgment comes. The first time God rescues him and rebukes him. The second time, "Are you going to do it again?" And they do it again. They lose all they've built.
You see men of God, who built what God has blessed and used, put those things at risk for the folly of riding in Ahab's chariot, for going on idiot TV. Why? Chuck Missler is a man of God. Greg Laurie is a man of God. Josh McDowell's a man of God. Ray Comfort is a man of God. There are enough churches, enough people, and enough money in Calvary Chapels to make their own Christian TV channels. They don't need to get involved with those people, and I say that in love. But it's not just them. How can good men get involved with the Ecumenical Movement? How can you get involved with these people?
This is Hawaii – you see more of it on the mainland, but on the mainland in most Calvary Chapels nearly three out of four people are ex-Roman Catholics. How many people here are ex-Roman Catholics? Put your hands up. See these people? The Roman Catholic Church says, "You are going to hell because you left the one true church; because you no longer believe that salivation is by sacraments; because you no longer believe that you have to atone for your own sin in purgatory." Yet major evangelical leaders – Chuck Colson, Pat Robertson, J. I. Packer, one after another – are lining up with the very "church" who’s cursing them, that is sending their families to hell? I've got a Catholic mother who trusts in a statue of Mary for her salvation instead of Jesus Christ. How can good men get involved with that? But then again, once God corrects them, how can they be involved? But they're doing it.
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.