The Following Sermon was delivered to a Men\'s Group, but it applies to all.
Substitution
Jer.2:4 Hear the word of the LORD, O house of Jacob, all you clans of the house of Israel. 5 This is what the LORD says: \"What fault did your fathers find in me, that they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. (Remember this phrase) 6 They did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD, who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness, through a land of deserts and rifts, a land of drought and darkness, a land where no one travels and no one lives?\' 7 I brought you into a fertile land to eat its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. 8 The priests did not ask, ‘Where is the LORD?\' Those who deal with the law did not know me; the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal, following worthless idols. 9 ¶ \"Therefore I bring charges against you again,\" declares the LORD. \"And I will bring charges against your children\'s children. 10 Cross over to the coasts of Kittim and look, send to Kedar and observe closely; see if there has ever been anything like this: 11 Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their Glory for worthless idols. 12 Be appalled at this, O heavens, and shudder with great horror,\" declares the LORD. 13 \"My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the Spring of Living Water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
The Lord here, through Jeremiah, makes a charge against Israel that they had forsaken Him, and had instead chosen to substitute other gods. He uses the broken cistern metaphor to illustrate how that they had chosen to supply themselves, - to supply their needs, physical, relational, and spiritual, - by turning to gods of their own making, instead of to the Lord, their Creator. And He say\'s that in choosing these worthless idols, they had become, like them, worthless themselves.
Now we all know what substitution is - we do it all the time. Say the job we\'re working on requires a special tool and we don\'t want to take the time or spend the money to go rent or buy one - what do we do? We grab the vice-grips. We try to make due with what we have at hand and hopefully don\'t botch the whole thing by using the wrong tool.
We substitute. It\'s our nature. If we need something and don\'t have it, or don\'t want to take the time or pay the price to go and get it, we grab something else that \"will do\", even if it means abusing whatever it is we\'re using as a substitute. I think probably all of us have ruined a screwdriver by using as a pry bar or a chisel. It\'s called \"tool abuse\".
What we do to tools we also do spiritually and relationally.
We usually think of sin as being \"something I really shouldn\'t do, but do anyway\". And we leave it there. We really don\'t think much deeper than that.
I\'m going to give you a definition of sin that I think you will find useful.
Sin occurs when we attempt to meet legitimate needs, by illegitimate means.
Sin is basically substitution. It\'s substituting an illegitimate solution, for a real or legitimate need. In the sense of the Jeremiah text, it means that we seek to quench real emotional or spiritual thirst by digging our own cisterns instead of drinking from the Spring of Living Water. And sometimes the cisterns we dig are so deep we can hardly get back out once we\'ve dug ourselves in.
What do I mean by \"legitimate needs\". A man might say, \"I go out and get drunk twice a week: Do I have a legitimate need for alcohol?\" No. What I am saying is, is that this man is using alcohol as a substitute to fill real emotional and spiritual needs. The man is using alcohol as a medical mood-changer.
I need to explain that I am using the terms \"Spring of Living Water\" and \"Cisterns\" in a fairly broad sense. The Spring of Living Water means \"God, and all good and righteous things that flow out from God. And likewise the Cistern refers not just to idols per-se, but also to all things evil that man does when he looks to a substitute in place of God.
So I have defined sin as \"attempting to meet legitimate needs, by illegitimate means. What are the legitimate needs of man? What needs are we trying to fill?
Let\'s go back to the beginning - to Adam before the fall.
Obviously Adam is not self-sufficient. He had physical needs: Food, Water, Warmth. Things that pertain to physical Life
Then there is Adam\'s spiritual need. God created Adam to have an unbroken, intimate, and powerful relationship with his Creator. And it wasn\'t something that God created as an option. Just as God created Adam to breathe air, and created air for him to breathe, so God created Adam to need spiritual fellowship with Him. Man needs God, just like he needs air. So Adam has spiritual needs that can only be filled by a relationship with God.
Moreover, God created Adam to relate to other\'s of his kind. God created Adam to need human contact, human relationship. This was a kind of need that was not going to be met by God alone. In the garden He said, \"It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him\"[1] Even though God and Adam had unbroken fellowship, God said Adam was \"alone\" without another human. He didn\'t create Adam to be a hermit - just alone with God on some mountaintop (It\'s a very romantic idea, but it doesn\'t work that way). He created Adam to be relational, to need other human beings generally, and to need a special human being - a physical and soulical counterpart.
He created Adam with a particular emotional make-up, having needs that are to be met both by God and by healthy relationships with his fellow human beings; security, value, purpose, significance, a sense of success, a sense of having dominion and well-being. And with Eve, a deep physical, soulical, and even spiritual intimacy. Unfortunately we can only guess at what kind of relationship Adam and Eve had before the fall. Personally, I don\'t think we really have a clue about the depth of relationship that Adam had with Eve, and then lost.
In the garden, Adam was in a place where he was in perfect union with God and in perfect union with Eve, and where God perfectly provided for Adam\'s every need. Adam could not have been more secure. And he threw it all away. He, Adam, chose to dig his own cistern.
Now when Adam fell, these basic God-created needs didn\'t suddenly go away. What happened is simply that everything broke. The Bible describes the fallen state of creation as \"emptiness\" and \"corruption\"[2]
So Adam walks out of the garden with a damaged relationship with God, a damaged relationship with Eve, and a damaged relationship with creation. Whereas he had been completely secure in God, he now fears God\'s judgment. Whereas God provided him every tree for food, he now has to struggle on his own to survive. Instead of his work giving him pleasure and satisfaction, he must now labor to provide food, and constantly battles against thorns and thistles. His offspring provided him some pleasure, some purpose, some relationship and even a sense of supremacy, but his offspring also produced murderers. Genesis chapter 4 mentions two of them.[3] Adam outlived several of his offspring. He watched his children die as a consequence of his sin. Futility, corruption, thorns, thistles, and ultimately death-appointed-to-all-men; That\'s what he left the garden with.
Adam now has more needs than ever. He needs reconciliation. He needs comfort and security. He needs life itself. But the Source for those needs is no longer with him, sustaining him as He was before. When Adam chose to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he chose to live and act independently of God - that\'s what disobedience is - and Adam now had to live out the consequences for his disobedience. \"In the day thou eat thereof, thou shalt surely die.\"
So let\'s take an inventory: What did Adam take with him when he left the garden? (I\'m actually asking what it is that we have). What \"tools\" did Adam have in his life\'s toolbox?
· He had Eve. He had his wife, and he would soon have his son\'s and daughters, all of whom were fallen. All of whom would die.
· He had the knowledge of good and evil, which wasn\'t necessarily a good thing.
· He had a fallen nature - a rebellious core that makes men want to act and live independent of God. The Bible calls those in the world, \"son\'s of disobedience\".[4] That\'s what Adam did, and that\'s what every son of Adam has done after him.
· Adam had a new kinship with the Father of lies, the god of this world, \"the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience\". God created Adam to need a powerful and intimate relationship with his Creator. That need didn\'t go away when Adam rejected God\'s rule over him. We see that man began worshipping idols - that is demons - almost from the very beginning. You go back into the history of any culture and you will find it steeped in idolatry. Even as it is today.
So everything Adam had in his \"life\'s tool-box\" is damaged, or even dangerous. He chose good and evil, and that\'s what he got.
· One thing Adam did have that was and is very good was the promise of redemption through the seed of the woman.
A promise, by the way, means that you don\'t yet have what has been promised. It means you need to be patient and wait for it. Hebrews says, \"we do not yet see all things put in subjection to Christ\"[5]. We\'re still waiting for it.
So Adam (that is we) has two choices. He either submits to God, seeks God\'s forgiveness and God\'s redemption, seeks whatever fellowship he, as a fallen unholy man, can have with the Infinitely Holy God, - and he waits and trusts.
OR
He can choose to live a life independent of God, using the knowledge of good and evil to find substitutes for God and the life that God has promised.
These are the only two options. We\'re either going to be sons of obedience, or sons of disobedience. We either seek and wait upon God for our supply, or we seek immediately to supply ourselves. We either choose the Fountain of Living Water, or, as Jeremiah says, we dig for ourselves our own cisterns.
These are the only two options - though typically we, as Christians, try to have both.
I have defined sin as \"the attempt to meet legitimate needs through illegitimate means\".
I\'m not saying anything you haven\'t already heard. Ministers for years have spoken of the tendency of mankind to use the things of the world to fill what they call \"a God-shaped vacuum\".
Dr. Lawrence Crabb, a Christian psychologist, counselor, lecturer, and author calls mankind\'s \"God shaped vacuum\" his \"Hollow Core\". He writes:
\"...counseling that fails to come to grip with the Hollow Core by promoting acute awareness of it\'s emptiness and by clearly presenting the Christian (and only) route to fullness is unbiblical. Symptoms may be relieved, feelings may become more pleasant, a counterfeit sense of well-being may be enjoyed, but if the reality of the Hollow Core remains unchanged, the counselee remains a slave to the god of his own longings for satisfaction. We must attack the core problem of the human personality, the real culprit behind all non-organically caused human distress (which is): a steadfast determination to remain independent of God and still make life work.[6]
All of us pursue, in one degree or another, avenues of fulfillment that have nothing to do with God... In Jeremiah 2:13 the prophet indicts God\'s people for depending on broken cisterns in their efforts to quench thirst, cisterns which they have made themselves but which can hold no water. Nothing that man can control will ever provide deep satisfaction. Yet we insist on trying to control our own lives. And that fact defines our foolishness.
But our foolishness is not immediately apparent. Even wells with holes in them can hold some water for at least a while. Temporary satisfaction is available in the pleasures of sin. Impressing a friend with our wit or a congregation with our maturity can be exhilarating. Involvement with a woman who takes the pressure off feels much richer than involvement with a clinging wife.
Satan is a master of counterfeit. He provides almost limitless opportunities for illegitimate but very convincing satisfaction. He capitalizes on our desperate desire for a quick fix to blind us to the long-term emptiness of following him.[7]
I think he got it right.
Romans chapter 1 gives a poignant example of ungodly substitution: It is a clear illustration of those who have forsaken the Spring of Living Water in favor of their own cisterns. When I read it pay attention to all the times the term \"exchanged\" (substituted) is used. It\'s just like Jeremiah 2:13.
Rom 1:21 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22 Professing to be wise, they became fools,
23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them.
25 For they exchanged (substituted) the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged (substituted) the natural function for that which is unnatural,
27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.
28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper,
This example covers everything I\'ve already talked about - It\'s a very simple circle of rebellion, deception, and substitution. And it\'s one that we are all too familiar with, because we, in our own ways, do the same things.
In this passage in Romans:
- You have fallen men who have a core of rebellion against God. (It says, \"Even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks\". \"They did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer\".
- You have men using the tree of knowledge of good and evil to provide alternates to God, and alternates to the things of God.
- They professed to be wise, to have knowledge, but they became fools.
- They exchanged (substituted) the glory of the incorruptible God for an image of the corruptible.
- You have God giving them over to their own ways, giving them over to the lusts of their heart and degrading passions.
- Remember in Jeremiah it says that they worshipped worthless idols and became worthless themselves. God gave them over to reprobate minds, probably in concert to their yielding to demonic influence and seducing spirits.[8]
By the way, a degenerate mind doesn\'t know what it really needs. It misdiagnoses the real problem. It\'s like a man who says, \"I know I have a problem. I don\'t know what it really is, but I\'m going to fix it myself.\" Or yet another man who says, \"I don\'t have a problem - what\'s your problem? This is normal. Gay is just as good as straight!\"
We need to realize that just because mankind has rejected God doesn\'t mean that the basic needs he was created with suddenly became illegitimate. We have the same needs we have had since the beginning- it\'s just that in the darkness of our minds we tend to misdiagnose what those needs are, and because we refuse to turn to God, we look to other sources to fulfill those needs.
(And) Since we are physical creatures living in a physical universe we typically look to physical things as substitutes for spiritual, and soulical (or emotional) needs.
Ø So you have the fat lady who sits in her apartment all day eating and watching television. Instead of filling her life with God, and with Godly things, she fills the emptiness of her soul by feeding her stomach with Cheese Curls and potato chips. Instead of having a relationship with God, and forming healthy relationships with humans as God intended, she lives vicariously through the characters on the TV screen. Instead of living a wholesome and godly life, she drinks from the cistern of her own digging; she bows before the electronic Cyclops, and consumes vast quantities of Twinkies as an offering to her idol.
Scripture speaks of those \"whose end is destruction, whose god is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things\"[9] We look to physical things as substitutes for spiritual and soulical needs.
ØOr let\'s look at Joe Average. He lacks a vital relationship with God and may not even be aware that he needs one. He is, however, aware of his need for a woman, so he gets married. The problem is, that God never intended that a man\'s relationship with his wife be a substitute for his relationship with God. Expecting the wife to fill a spiritual need that only God can fill is abusing the purpose of the wife. She cannot fill that \"Hollow Core\" that only God can fill.
And not only this, but the wife, being a fallen creature herself, cannot perfectly fulfill God\'s purpose of her being a helpmeet - a physical and emotional counterpart to the man.
So what\'s he going to do? Well, since he won\'t submit to God to have his \"God-needs\" met, and since his relationship with his wife is not as fulfilling as he would like, maybe he should look for another woman. How about adultery? How about \"www. Hot Babe. com\". Instead of a real relationship with God, and a proper and wholesome relationship with his wife, he substitutes a fantasy. And he\'s just like the pagan who worships an image. It\'s all empty promise, fantasy, and delusion. It\'s a broken and empty cistern.
Sure he might feel momentarily satisfied, but he\'s like a hungry man who eats sawdust. He feels full but hasn\'t been nourished.
Isa. 29:8 says, \"..It will be as when a hungry man dreams- And behold, he is eating; But when he awakens, his hunger is not satisfied, Or as when a thirsty man dreams- And behold, he is drinking, But when he awakens, behold, he is faint And his thirst is not quenched\".[10]
-
Or take the hurting man - a man devoid of a satisfying relationship with God, and severely wounded by damaging relationships with humans. What is he to do?
\"Dr. Jack, I need your help! Dr. Daniel! Can you give me something for the pain?\" (Jack Daniel)
\"Sure. Whenever you\'re hurtin drink lots of this. It\'ll make you forget your pain.\" ...
Until the cure becomes worse than the disease. You know you\'re addicted when the solution to a problem becomes the problem\".
Wanting to escape emotional pain is perfectly normal - perfectly legitimate. Turning to Dr. Feelgood instead of the Great Physician is not. Fallen man needs to be comforted and God has provided the Comforter, which is the Holy Spirit[11]. The world substitutes \"Southern Comfort\".
Ø Or take the angry man. He finds that when he\'s angry he feels strong. Rather than finding peace and strength at the Spring of Living Water, he drinks the seething waters of anger. It\'s bitter but he finds it keeps him going. It sustains him. When he\'s angry he doesn\'t have to face his own weakness or impotence or helplessness. He terrorizes others into providing him instant but temporary satisfaction, but in his wrath he breaks every good thing - things that in their proper function could give him life.
These are just a couple of examples - we could multiply examples of substitution all night - of man choosing the broken cistern over the Spring of Living Water.
\"But what about Christians? We go to the Spring of Living Water don\'t we\". Yes, but we also keep our personal cisterns. We like them. We dug them exactly how and where we wanted them. We find our particular sin to be a quick convenient solution to the thirsts of our soul.
A man says, \"Lord, I know I really shouldn\'t be drinking from this well, but it\'s right here and I get so thirsty! I know the water has a high arsenic content, but ...it hasn\'t killed me yet! Besides, I come to the Spring of Living Waters on Sundays and Tuesdays - so we\'re good, right? I mean I figure that if I drink of living waters a couple times a week it\'ll take care of the arsenic water that I drink the rest of the time. I mean, what else is Living Water for?\"
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.[12]
God didn\'t want Israel to worship Him, and also worship their personal or favorite idols. And He doesn\'t want us, to drink from Him and also drink from our own personal sins. He likens this kind of thinking to harlotry.
If a man divorces his wife and she leaves him and marries another man, should he return to her again? Would not the land be completely defiled? But you have lived as a prostitute with many lovers- would you now return to me?\" declares the LORD. [13]
Would you accept it if your wife said, \"Honey, I love you most of the time, I just make out with Harry when I\'m not feeling particularly close to you. It\'s nothing serious\"? But that\'s what we do to God.
I Cor 10:20 \"...the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord\'s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord\'s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
You see, we think we can have both. That\'s because we have degenerate minds too. That\'s why Paul exhorts us to -
\"...(not be) conformed to this world: but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and the perfect, will of God.[14]
The world has rejected God. They have found things to substitute for God and have been given over to reprobate minds and degrading passions as it says in Romans One. We are not to be like them but are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
[According to Strongs Greek Dictionary, renewing (anakainwsiv - ana-kai-nosin) means: \"to be changed into a new kind of life as opposed to the former corrupt state - a complete change for the better\". And this is a process. The fact that we Christians are exhorted to renew our minds means we still have corrupt thinking. We really aren\'t all that far removed from the mindset of the world.]
The next point I\'m going to bring is probably the most important point of the message:
It does us absolutely no good to make a vow against our cistern, unless we replace that cistern with the Spring of Living Water. We sin for a reason! We\'re thirsty. We are seeking to meet legitimate needs! And unless those needs are met in legitimate ways, we will turn back to those things which we found at least somewhat satisfying.
We can, as it were, put an iron plate over our well, bolt it down, drill and padlock the bolts, and weld the whole thing in place. But unless we slake our thirst at the Spring of Living Water, we will be back. Whatever we bolt, we can unbolt. What ever we padlock, we can unlock. Whatever we weld, we can grind. When it comes to sin we are quite ingenious -and even industrious. Unless we drink from the supply God has supplied, we will be back.
\"Lord I know the last time I managed to get the plate off. But this time I really really mean it. I\'m serious. I\'ve bolted the plate down really good - super strong bolts. And I used Loktite. And I bought the strongest Master Locks available. And I eve threw the keys in the well first so I can\'t unlock it. I welded everything really good this time - and I cut the cord off my grinder. This time there\'s no way possible for me to return to my sin. We\'re good. We\'re tight. I\'m done with it. I\'ve repented.\"
[Man looks around. Looks back at well, Looks at God, Looks back at well. Moves away from well. Looks at God. Looks down. Looks sadly at well. Slowly pulls plastic tube from pocket, walks toward well. Looks at God, sadly looks at well, hesitates, slips tube into well and drinks]
When it comes to sin, we are quite ingenious. Unless we fill our empty souls from God\'s supply, we will be back. And that is why, my Christian brothers, we have such a hard time overcoming our sin - because we find it more convenient to sin than to satisfy our God created needs in God\'s created ways.
Let\'s face it; pornography (as an example) is easy. Marriage counseling is not. Yet what does the scripture say?
...because of porneia, let each man have his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife the affection due her, and likewise also the wife to her husband... Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.[15]
God has provided the wife to meet the legitimate needs of her husband. Romans chapter one, which I read several minutes ago, speaks of the \"natural function of the woman\"[16]. You can fast and pray all you want, and these things are good, but according to this scripture fasting and prayer will not substitute for a wholesome relationship with your spouse (it was never intended to). And if that wholesome relationship is lacking, it\'s probably because both the husband and wife have degenerate minds to some degree. Porno is easy. Marriage counseling is difficult. It deals with deep and complex issues: defensiveness, self-protection, forgiveness, reconciliation - difficult issues. We prefer our cistern. It\'s easy.
And the same goes for any other sin issue we might point to.
That fat lady whose life consists of food and television - That\'s so easy! (Click click, munch, munch, gulp!). She needs firstly, to fill her soul with God instead of her stomach with food. Then she needs to get out of her apartment and become the useful human being God intended. She needs to establish wholesome human relationships and find significance in being useful to others. In other words, she needs to satisfy her legitimate need for God with God and her legitimate need for healthy relationships with healthy relationships, not with Cheetoes and soap operas.
It won\'t do her any good to simply vow to go on a diet (again) and turn the TV off. What\'s she gonna do - stare at the walls? Unless she leaves that cistern and fills her life with God and those good things that flow from God, she will be back. (I\'m talking practical repentance here.)
Or that guy who spends all his time at the tavern. What does the scripture say?
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.[17]
Now, it\'s not saying that we should substitute one form of drunken debauchery that comes from wine with another form of drunken debauchery that comes from Pentecostal fanaticism. That\'s not what it\'s saying. What it is saying is that filling ourselves with the Holy Spirit answers the \"Hollow Core\" longings that are illegitimately answered by filling ourselves with alcoholic spirits. And just like drinking and debauchery are often done with others, so too filling ourselves with the Holy Spirit often has a relational context. It says; \"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Speaking to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your heart to the Lord.
In other words, we\'re replacing the inebriated elation of the world, and the debauched fellowship that comes from that, with the true joy of the Lord, and the wholesome and joyous fellowship that comes among brethren that are walking in the Spirit of God. The fruit of the Spirit is self-control[18], not drunken debauchery. Walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
In all these few examples we\'re replacing the broken cistern with the Spring of Living Water. We\'re replacing the Devil and the things he offers in the world with God, and the good things that flow from Him.
I know I\'m going a bit long here, but I was offered the pulpit and around here you gotta take it for all it\'s worth. I have two more points and then I\'ll close.
You don\'t drink arsenic laden water for 20 years and expect to just walk away from it without having to deal with the arsenic in your system. Sin has consequences. It\'s possible that you might be dealing with the poison of your particular sin for the rest of your life depending on the kind of poison and the dose and the duration.
I\'ve read testimonies from men who are involved with Exodus International, a Christian group of ex-homosexuals. Few of these men are simply able to walk away from homosexuality. For most it takes a long time to return to reasonable normalcy. For most, recovery is a lifelong treatment. It\'s a lifelong commitment to having their minds renewed and to forming healthy relationships as God has ordained.
There are many other sins that poison our lives and our minds. When we sinned, we chose to exchange the truth for a lie as it says in Romans, and were given over to degrading passions and reprobate minds. We\'ve got a lot of poison in us, and may take a lot of time to become sound.
The final point:
We need to recognize and accept the fact that we live in an imperfect and fallen world. Our needs, even our need for the presence of God, will not be fully satisfied until the restoration of all things. The Bible says that the creation has been subject to futility and that it groans and suffers the pains as of childbirth. Paul writes that we also groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our full adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.[19]
Part of being a mature Christian is recognizing and accepting that our needs won\'t be perfectly met until that which is perfect is come. Until then our needs will only be met in part, or some, not at all. Our wives, our children, our jobs, our bodies, will only meet our needs in part. Scripture says, \"When that which is perfect is come then that which is in part will be done away.\"[20] Until then we will groan.
Because of this we will always be subject to the temptation to have these legitimate needs met though illegitimate substitution. As I said before, we only have two choices; to wait on God, trust in God and be grateful to God for the supply He has given, or to attempt to supply our needs though illegitimate means, though illegitimate gods.
Conclusion:
Just before Israel was about to enter the land of Canaan, and come into contact with the Canaanite multiplicity of gods, Moses took them aside, and gave them the law a second time. He said:
Deut 30:16 I command you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and to keep His commandments and His statutes and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land you are entering to possess.
17 \"But if your heart turns away and you will not obey, but are drawn away and worship other gods and serve them,
18 I declare to you this day that you shall surely perish. You will not prolong your days in the land you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.
19 \"I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. So choose life in order that you may live.
We have set before us the Spring of Living Water, and our own self-dug cisterns. I call heaven and earth to witness against all of us, that we have set before us life and death, blessing and cursing. Let us choose life that we may live.
May God grant that we might walk uprightly before God, and drink deeply at the
Fountain of Life.
Amen.
[1] Gen 2:18
[2] Rom 8:20,21
[3] Gen 4:8 - Cain, Gen 4:23 - Lamech.
[4] Eph 2:2, 5:6
[5] Heb 2:8
[6] Dr. Larry Crabb, Understanding People pg. 106
[7] IBID
[8] I Tim 4:1
[9] Php. 3:19
[10] Isa, 29:8
[11] John 14:26
[12] Gal 6:7-8
[13] Jer 3:1
[14] Rom 12:2
[15] I Cor. 7:2,3,5 NKJV
[16] Rom 1:27
[17] Eph 5:18
[18] Gal. 5:23
[19] Rom 8:23, also 2 Cor. 5:2
[20] I Cor. 13:10
