Will You Climb the Mountain to God’s House?

January 14, 2007

Good Morning.

In today’s lesson from Isaiah 2 we read “and the house of God shall be on the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall come to it”.  As I looked at these words I wondered how many of us will be willing to climb the mountain to Yahweh’s house.  It seems so easy, doesn’t it?  Just walk right up the side of the mountain and presto there you are, at the house of God.  Right?  I wonder if it will really be that easy in the days to come.  The last days of this heaven and earth as we know it now, that is.

How many of you who are in church today believe that you are going to be one of those singled out by God to be saved that is to live with him and be able to go to his house?  Do you know this for sure?  What have you done to make this a reality for you?  Yeshua gave us guidance on how we could be sure we would be there when God reestablishes his house on that mountain.  Yeshua tells us in Matthew 5:5 that the meek shall inherit the earth.  The dictionary tells us that meek means “humbly patient or docile”.  A meek person is someone who does not put himself first above others or is a booster or bully.  Look again at what our lesson says, “…the mean man bowed down, and the great man was humbled: and I will not pardon them”.  Which of these are you the meek or the mean and great?

When I look at the people of the world around me I am sadden to see so many of the “mean and great” and so few of the meek.  Why is it this way in an age of sophisticated technology that has made the world virtually and literally smaller then ever before in our recorded history?  A preacher can give a sermon today and literally every corner of the world can see and hear him give his sermon, that very hour, yet few if any are listening.  Why?  Because as we invented technology to do our common labors we began to forget how fragile we are.  We began to believe that we were more and more invincible.  Now don’t throw all the weight of this on your own shoulders, as mankind has been doing this for centuries.  We didn’t get to where we are on the haughty list in one or two generations.  No from the discovery of fire by the first man we have slowly been working towards the end we are about to face.  And, as we grow more and more in our own self-importance we begin to forget the importance of Yahweh.  We forget that it is he who gives us the ability to create the technology we have.  We forget that our technology is puny and unimportant to his natural powers.  We begin to be lead astray by the great deceiver, who is Satan.  And like the gold and silver we test before creating our idols from it, so is Yahweh testing us, with Satan, to see if we are pure enough for his creation.

Now most of you will be thinking, whew I am glad that reverend Bob isn’t talking about me.  I don’t have any gold or silver idols.  Guess again you who are feeling secure are the ones who I am addressing today.  You who are using your gold and silver to buy cars, houses, boats, all kinds of toys and gadgets, to the extent that you don’t have time for family, friends, neighbors, the poor, and the meek.  Those possessions of yours are your idols, the very same idols that Yahweh will damn you for.  How many of you can call work and say hey, I won’t be in for a couple of weeks, I am going to hang out with my family?  How many can call in to work and say I won’t be in for a month I need to go help the poor or the sick in my community?  Very few of you could or would dare do this.  Why?  Our lesson shows us why you are the servant of your idols.  Those big expensive houses, with the outrageous mortgage, the sleek new cars with the large monthly loan payment and insurance bill, and that wide screen high definition TV that maxed out one of your several credit cards. Now many of you may have been told that these were blessings from God, for your piety and righteousness.  You may actually believe that Yahweh is proud of you and is giving you all this material wealth as a reward for going to church.  Friends, don’t keep fooling yourselves.  Our God, the one and only Almighty God, Yahweh, doesn’t deal in credit.  He gives rewards to his truthful, he doesn’t loan them to them with interest.  These are idols that you crave so much as too turn away from God and follow Satan, without even being aware of it.

            Now some of you are saying you have heard enough of this.  Many of you have seen some of those fancy dressed preachers promising the good life if you join their followers.  And, send in that big check every week.  We all have friends and or family members who we know are doing this.  Hey maybe like me, you even have done it before yourself.  But what is wrong with it, the money goes to build that big fancy church with all the gold and silver trim.  Stain glass and chromed beams are expensive.  And we have to have the finest choir gowns and the pastor needs that new car to go where he goes.  It felt good to be a part of that group, to see and feel all those fine things, to have the promise of a better paying job, and a bigger house in a better neighborhood be realized. You went to that church, listened to those sermons and life was good, right?  Then why are you listening to this sermon today?  Oh, by the way where does that fancy pastor go in that fancy ride?

            The truth is more and more believers are exiting from our churches here in America and around the world, at an unprecedented rate.  Why?  Not because they stopped believing in God.  No but because without even being conscious of it they had stopped knowing about Yahweh in those churches and were learning about the ways of Satan.  The gold and silver idols of this world were being held before them and they were saying no to them.  These people who are counted amongst the lost were saying no to eternal damnation and are looking for the real truth.  The rewards in this life of following God’s ways are minuscule compared to the rewards that await you in eternity, that is why you can’t see them or feel them, because they are in heaven not on earth.  When we truly humble ourselves before Yahweh we no longer look on that new car as an extension of ourselves, that big house in the prestigious neighborhood no longer has the same attraction for us.  We begin to see that the blessings Yahweh bestows on us in this life don’t come with strings attached, we don’t pay interest on them, for they are truly blessings.  We turn to our wives, our children, our friends, and our neighbors to see them for the value they truly have.  Everyday becomes important for itself, not because of what we will earn at work but for what we can be setting aside in heaven for always.             In our lesson we are told that man’s idols will be hidden in the ground and in the caves.  Is that not where society is hiding our idols today?  Our gold, our oil, our weapons, and even our secrets against each other, all hidden away by the powerful deep underground in caves and mineshafts.  Hoarded, just as if those in power believe that they can keep our idols forever.  And just like in our lesson the more the high and mighty hoard these things the higher the mountain they climb to boast of their own righteousness and power.

            In our reading from Revelations we learn that God will answer these people, and they will ignore him to the extent that even after a third of them are utterly destroyed those remaining still did not repent.  Yet not only did they not stop worshiping their idols, they also continued to murder, to worship false gods with sexual rights, and to steal from the meek. What kind of sign do you need to repent brothers and sisters, if after a third of mankind is utterly wiped off the face of the earth and you don’t get it.  I have to ask myself why wouldn’t someone who knew they were being singled out by the true God for not following his laws, not ask forgiveness and turn to Yahweh for salvation? 

            These people don’t know.  That’s the answer they simply don’t know, who God is.  They have been lead astray by the generations of Pharisees that have been serving Satan since the time of Yeshua.  In the reading from the Gospel of Matthew 21 today we learn why so many will be deceived.  The Pharisees, who are the leaders of Satan’s religion both literally and metaphorically, simply don’t know Yahweh.  Thus they ask the question of Yeshua, “…By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority?”   They don’t know who Yeshua is or who sent him.  But not only do they not know, neither do those who follow them know.  For centuries the false traditions of the Pharisees have been being taught to us from the churches around the world.  Generations of ministers and priests have been educated in the very same false doctrines that Yeshua warned us of and told us to stay away from in Matthew 15 and Mark 7.  Today most of those who want to believe in Yahweh, don’t even know his name.  They think it is LORD or GOD.  So how can they hear and understand his warnings.  How can they positively respond to his eliminating a third of the evil people of this world in the way he wants, when they have been taught that good is evil and bad is righteous for generations.

            Yeshua in answering the Pharisees gives us a sign to look for if we are smart enough to listen to his words form today’s Gospel reading.  “For John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him: and ye, when ye saw it, did not event yourselves afterward, that ye might believe him.”  The publicans and the harlots, the simple people in life would be those who could hear God’s message clearly.  These people who were not part of the social elite, who had not initiated into the religion of the Pharisees, who had taken over the temple in Jerusalem, were able to understand what the Messiah was saying to them.  Their minds were free from the dogma of man that was being preached by the religious leaders of their time.  Today my friends the Pharisees are still with us, hiding behind many names, but still preaching the poison of Satan to the masses and still convincing many of our brothers and sisters to turn to new and more seductive forms of idolatry.   

            But there is hope and safety for those who truly believe.  Yeshua tells us in Matthew 18:3 that unless you become like children you will not enter into God’s (Yahweh’s) kingdom.  The publicans and the harlots were children to religion.  They had not learned yet!  So we must become like them.  We must unlearn all the dogma we have been taught for generations, and must learn the truth of God with a fresh mind and a clean spirit.  Thus is the symbology of baptism in that we wash away all the untruths, like cleaning the chalkboard in school, so that we can hear and understand the word of God.  So that we can receive his love and his gifts, not only in this life but for all eternity.  What is it that you want out of this life, a golden idol like a new car?  Or, do you want the gift of God’s love and the comfort in knowing that you can be with him always in a better life.  Throw away the idols of this life, learn to know Yahweh for who he really is, and receive the Kingdom of Heaven as your own.