(Disclaimer: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain mistakes.)

and give everyone here ears to hear and hearts to understand. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. The title of my sermon this morning is sacrificing to the Lord in vain. Sacrificing to the Lord in vain. The Bible reads in verse number 11 there in Isaiah chapter 1, To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, sayeth the Lord? I am full of the burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts, and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats, when ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts. Bring no more vain oblations, incense is an abomination unto me. And he goes on here, but he's saying here that they are bringing a whole bunch of sacrifices unto him. I mean, this is costing them something. Think about the fact that at this time, wealth is measured in animals and beasts. And even today, these are not cheap things, oxen, sheep, goats. They are worth something. Cattle is still worth something, of course. And so they're bringing a lot of offerings to the Lord. You could look at this that they're giving a lot of money, or they're putting a lot of effort into serving God. They're going through the motions here, killing these animals and offering them upon the altar, but you can just sense the anger here as God talks about this in Isaiah chapter 1. He's very angry with them, and he's saying, what is the point? Why are you bringing me all these sacrifices? I don't want them. I'm not interested. Now obviously, there are other places in the Bible where the Bible speaks well of bringing a sacrifice unto the Lord and where God does command sacrifices to be brought, but for some reason, God's angry with the children of Judah here for bringing these sacrifices. Of course, Isaiah is one of the most significant books in the Bible. It's one of the most famous books in the Bible. It's one of the three books that Jesus quoted more than any others. Deuteronomy, Psalms, and Isaiah are the books that he quoted the most. And this is chapter 1 of Isaiah. I mean, he's just getting into the preaching, getting into the message of this important book, and he just really goes off on them for the sacrifices that they're bringing. He says in verse 13, bring no more vain oblations. Vain means meaningless, pointless, worthless. Don't bring any more vain oblations. Incense is an abomination unto me. The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies. I cannot away with it. It's iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feast, my soul hateth. They're a trouble unto me. I'm weary to bed. He's saying, look, when you have these church services and these celebrations where you're worshiping me, quote, unquote, he's saying not only are they in vain, not only are they not accomplishing anything, not only am I not impressed, in fact, he's saying I'm irritated. I'm weary to bear them, he says at the end of verse 14. They're getting on my nerves. It's not even just neutral, like God's not impressed. God's even just saying, stop it. You're annoying me. It's irritating. Look, if you would, at verse number 15, when you spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you. Yea, when you make many prayers, I will not hear. And then we get to see a little bit what the problem is. God, what is the problem? Don't you like sacrifices? Don't you like prayer? Don't you like church services and assemblies and people worshiping you? But then he begins to explain what the problem is. He says, your hands are full of blood. Wash you, make you clean, verse 16. Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow. So what we see here is a group of people, they're not following the word of God. They're obviously not following God's commandments. If he has to tell them, hey, your hands are full of blood, you need to clean up your life, you need to wash you, you need to make you clean, you need to put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes. And then he tells them to learn to do well, seek judgment, help the widows, help the fatherless, do good works, stop doing all the sinful things that you're doing. That's the issue. What we have here is a group of people who are disregarding God's word. They're disregarding God's commandments. They're not listening to what he has told them to do, but they're quote, unquote, worshiping him. Basically, they're just throwing a bunch of prayers and offerings at God, trying to appease him like you would appease some kind of a pagan deity when actually God wants us to love him with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength and actually do what he told us to do. And he wants us to love our neighbor as ourself, not to just treat our neighbor badly, abuse people, and then just make a sacrifice to the Lord and make up for it. He says here that the many prayers that they make in verse 15, I will not hear. This made me think of what Jesus said in Matthew when he said, when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their much speaking. They think that just by praying a lot, they're going to be heard. And folks, this is the way pagan religion is. This is the way the Hindus are. You know, they just, they chant and they walk around in a circle. They repeat things over and over again. They repeat their mantras. And then they go to their idol of their deity, and they pour milk on it, and they pour honey on it. They sprinkle flowers on it. They present fruit for it to eat as if it could eat when it's just a hunk of metal. But they're presenting all these offerings, and it's a waste. It's in vain. And that's not how we worship the Lord, okay? We don't worship the Lord by just going through the motions and just coming to church and just going through this and praying and kneeling and genuflect, light a candle. And I've often heard my whole life preaching in Baptist churches about the Roman Catholics, how they basically just go out and just sin and do all these sinful things. They premeditate all kinds of sin because then they know they're just going to go to the confessional booth, and then they're just going to basically throw a few Hail Marys at it, throw some Our Fathers at it, and then everything's fine. You know what? God's not impressed with that. That means nothing to God. In fact, according to this passage, it's irritating to God. The vain repetitions, the many prayers, the chanting, or the going through the motions of religion, but you don't actually want to serve and love God from the heart, you're wasting your time. So we think about the Roman Catholics with it because they're definitely going through a lot of motions and a lot of rituals that are not pleasing to God. Things that he didn't tell them to do. They might even join a monastery and chant all day and whip themselves and lock themselves up and study God's Word all day, but God never told them to be a monk. God never told them to be a nun. There's no such thing as a nun in the Bible. There's no such thing as a monk in the Bible. God never told them to chant things over and over again. He never told them to say hail Marys or to pray to Marys. Every prayer to Mary is in vain. It's not getting past the ceiling because God does not sanction praying to saints or other dead people. You know, we're supposed to worship the Lord our God and him only shall we serve. And there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Not Mary, not Saint Andrew and Saint Thomas and Saint this and Saint that. Saint Claire, you know, it's just Jesus. We pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. And so these kind of rituals and things that the Lord did not command it, he doesn't accept these things. You know, lighting of incense. He said here incense is an abomination unto me. You know, there was a certain type of incense that they were supposed to do in the tabernacle as part of a program of obeying God and keeping his commandments. He's not just interested in just whatever the incense, just light up whatever the incense. Just ask Nadab and Abihu about that in Leviticus chapter 10 when they decided to just light up some incense of their own free will. And you know, God wasn't impressed with that, was he? Look what the Bible says in verse 16, excuse me, chapter 1 verse 16. Wash you, make you clean, put away the evil of your doings from before my eyes, cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow, come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword for the mouth of the Lord has spoken it. Go if you would to 1 Samuel chapter number 15, 1 Samuel chapter 15. So notice the two choices here. On one hand he says, if you be willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land. And then what's the flip side of that? If you're not willing and obedient, what are you? He said if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured with the sword. So what I see here before we move on to the next passage is that it's possible to be refusing the Lord and rebelling against the Lord even while you're showing up for church. It's possible to be rebelling against the Lord even as you're putting money in the offering plate. It's possible to be rebelling against the Lord even as you're making many sacrifices, even as you're making many prayers, even as you're showing up to many assemblies and holidays and going through the motions. It's still possible to be rebellious against the Lord because serving the Lord is about doing things His way, His way. He's got a list of commandments and Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments. And so serving the Lord is about not doing the things that He told us not to do and doing the things that He told us to do, searching the scriptures, figuring out what God wants from us, showing up to church and listening to preaching so we can figure out what God wants from us and then it's about doing things God's way, giving God the offering that He has asked for, following His commandments and not just saying, well, you know, I have my own religion or I have my own way of worshipping the Lord or, well, yeah, I go out and do all these horrible, sinful things but I make up for it by going to church, donating money. Folks, that doesn't make up for it. That's not the way things work, okay? We need to obey God. What does the Bible say in 1 Samuel 15 verse 19? This is Samuel, of course, rebuking King Saul. He says, wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord but didst fly upon the spoil and didst evil on the side of the Lord? And Saul said unto Samuel, yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord and have gone the way which the Lord sent me and have brought Agag the king of Amalek and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. Now if you brought Agag, you didn't utterly destroy the Amalekites. God said to kill all of them, He keeps one alive. He brings Agag and He kills everybody else. He was supposed to kill everybody, okay? Verse number 21, but the people, so notice, instead of taking personal responsibility, he wants to blame someone else. Well, the people took of the spoil sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed. So here Saul realizes that they were supposed to wipe all this stuff out, even admits that. Well, I know they should have been utterly destroyed but the people took it to do what? To sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal. Now God said wipe all these people out and destroy all the animals and they said, well, we're going to keep Agag as a hostage because he's kind of a cool trophy. We want to kind of hang out with him. We think that he's a great man or he's somebody important that we could kind of parade around or whatever's going through their head why they want to keep Agag alive. But then they say, well, you know, we're going to take these animals and we're going to sacrifice them unto the Lord. Is that what the Lord asked for? You see, God doesn't give out participation trophies for whoever's trying the hardest and has the best effort and the one who has their heart in the right place. Folks, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. We need to do what God said to do and not do what God said not to do and not think we're smarter than God said. Well, I know God said to wipe all this stuff out, but it seems like a waste of a perfectly good sheep. You know, it seems like a waste of a perfectly good goat. I mean, are we really just going to throw all this stuff in the trash, God? I mean, this is wealth. This is, you know, let's sacrifice it to the Lord so that it, no, God knows better. You know, there could have been a lot of reasons why God didn't want these sacrifices. Maybe he knew that those animals were contaminated. You know, you got all these wicked people and they're filled with disease and there's pestilence that's gone through there perhaps and maybe God knew for their own good. You don't want to eat this stuff because when they sacrifice to the Lord, they end up eating some of it too and really, it wasn't the fact that they just really love the Lord. They just have to give him an offering. It's really that they wanted to eat of those sacrifices. You know, they wanted to get a piece of that action, okay? So instead of obeying the voice of the Lord, they're going to do it their way. They know a better way to worship the Lord than the way God told them to do it. It says in verse 22, And Samuel said, Half the Lord has great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord. And boy, Isaiah 1 definitely answered that, didn't it? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. So even doing things in the name of the Lord, in the name of Christianity, and you're sacrificing to the Lord, when you're not obeying the Lord, these things are rebellion and they're like witchcraft to God. I think that when God sees someone reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, they reject the free gift of eternal life that the Bible says, By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves it's the gift of God, not of works that any man should boast. They reject God's clear gift of salvation, and then they reject God's plan for living the Christian life, and instead they embrace a system whereby they're going to work their own way to heaven by doing things that the Bible doesn't even mention of lighting of incense, and lighting this candle, and crossing themselves, and genuflecting, and venerating Mary, and venerating the saints. You know, I think God looks down and he put a big fat label on that, witchcraft. I think he looks down at a Roman Catholic mass and says, This is a witch's coven. This is witchcraft. Why? Because rebellion is witchcraft, okay? Rebellion against the Lord is like witchcraft to him, and he said stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. By the way, you know, the stubbornness of the Roman Catholic Church doesn't even have to be as idolatry, because they already have idolatry too into the bargain, with all their graven images and molten images that God said not to make. God said, Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. Thou shalt not make unto thee any molten image. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them. But they said, No, you don't understand. We made this molten image of Saint Andrew. We've made this graven image of the Virgin Mary. God said, No. Well, but their heart, they've got a good heart. No. Well, but they're giving an offering. It's better than giving nothing. It's better to give nothing. Just ask Cain if it's better just to give something. You know, I mean, at least they're going to church. You know, at least they're worshiping something. You know, at least they are claiming the name of Christ. Well, let's just ask Cain about that. Because you know what the Bible says about Cain? You don't have to turn there, but Genesis chapter 4, verse 3. And in the process of time, it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the Lord. The Bible says that Cain, now, did he bring the offering to the right deity? He's bringing it to the Lord, right? So he's pointing this offering at the correct deity. And today there are people that are worshiping the God of the Bible. They're saying, hey, we're doing this in the name of Jesus. So they're pointing it at the right deity, but what does the Bible say about the offering? Verse 5 says, but unto Cain and to his offering, God had not respect. God did not respect Cain, nor did God respect Cain's offering. And of course, Cain was angry. Now, how bad of a mistake was this that Cain made? Was this a little mistake that he made, or was this a huge mistake with God? Well, here's what we know about Cain from the New Testament. The Bible says Cain was of the wicked one. Who's the wicked one? The devil. He's saying, look, Cain was of the devil. Why did Cain hate his brother Abel? Because his own works were evil and his brother's works were righteous. So the Bible tells us that Cain was of the devil and that his works were evil. What was the evil thing that Cain did? He said, well, I was killing Abel. No, no, no. Cain did the evil before he killed Abel. Because the Bible says, why did he kill Abel? Wherefore why slew he him? Why did he kill Abel? Because his own works were evil and his brother's righteous. So before he killed Abel, the Bible says he'd already done evil. That's what even led to the killing of Abel. What was the big, fat, evil thing that Cain did? It was approaching God with an offering of fruits and vegetables. See, well, what's the, I mean, he's, ah, what's the big deal? Well, you know, at the end of the day, who decides what's a big deal? You and I? Or does God decide what's a big deal? Who decides these things? The creator of the universe or you? You know, God's the one who decides what's evil and what's a big deal. And you know what? God, when he sees somebody claiming, I'm worshipping the Lord. I'm here to bring an offering to the Lord. And they bring the offering that he did not ask for. They decide they're going to do it their way. They decide they know better than what he has prescribed in his word. God doesn't even look at that as a neutral. He looks at that as an evil offering. He looks down at Cain and says, your work is evil. Now it doesn't mean that he didn't love Cain. He did love Cain because he even pleads with Cain to get it right. He says to Cain, why art thou wroth? And why is thy countenance fallen? If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? So it's not that he just had a personal problem with Cain. It's not that he didn't love Cain. He pleads with Cain to get it right. But what Cain did was inexcusable because God gave clear instruction, apparently, although the scripture doesn't give a lot of detail in this story because it's just a short story. God obviously gave a clear instruction, you know, that the offering that's to be brought is of the firstlings of the flock. You know, they're supposed to bring of the blood and the fat of the lambs. You know, they're supposed to bring an animal sacrifice. And he just vegans out and says, you know, hey, that's cruelty to animals or whatever. And he decides he's going to bring fruits and vegetables. But you know what? That's not okay. Well, you know, everybody worships Christ in their own way. If they want to make God mad, they do. They want to infuriate God. If they want God to get so mad that he'll go on a rant like he did in Isaiah chapter 1 about totally vain offerings and things that are a waste. And look, you know, Cain is wasting a bunch of perfectly good fruits and vegetables. The children of Judah were wasting a bunch of perfectly good animals and doing all this stuff. Why? It didn't placate or please God. It actually infuriated God and made God more angry. So this is a pretty sobering thought when you study this in scripture and see this over and over again. I wonder how many fruits and vegetables Cain brought. Did he just bring a few? Did he just make a little salad there on the altar? Or did he bring an entire just boatload? Did he bring a metric ton of fruits and vegetables? You know what? It really doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter if it was just one apple and one bell pepper or whatever. Or if it was just literally a shipload or a truckload because God does not measure our prayers by quantity. He does not measure our works by quantity. He measures them by obedience to the voice of the Lord. And if you bring the wrong offering, you're not scoring any points with God. You better make sure that you worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. God is spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. Remember the woman at the well, she said, well our fathers worshiped God in this mountain. But you say that Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. And you know what Jesus said to her? He said, you worship, you know not what. We know what we worship. Salvations of the Jews. What is he saying? Jerusalem is the right place to worship. That's the place that God chose to set his name there. Mount Gerizim in Samaria was a false doctrine. And notice he doesn't mince any words to tell her, you don't even know what you're worshiping. You know why? Because they think they're worshiping God and they're not. Now if you would have asked the woman at the well, who do you worship in Samaria? What God are the Samaritans worshiping? You know what the woman at the well would have said? She would have said, well God of Abraham, God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, we're worshiping Jehovah God. Isn't that what she would have said? Was she? No, because Jesus said, you know not what you worship. So apparently they have the wrong answer. You know what? They are worshiping the devil and they think they're worshiping God. Why? Because the Samaritans have rejected God's word. Because the word of God is pretty clear about the role of Jerusalem and King David and all those things that the Bible makes clear in the Old Testament. But they rejected the majority of God's word. The Samaritans had this thing of, well we only believe Genesis through Deuteronomy. And they rejected the whole rest of the Bible. The whole rest of the, folks that's not going to work. You can't add to or take from God's word. You need to accept all of it. And so he has stern words for her. Now thankfully she ends up getting saved and a lot of other of the Samaritans end up getting saved. It's not that God didn't love them. It's not that Jesus was just being a rude jerk and just, like he just shows up and just insults their whole culture and just insults their whole history and just insults their, you better know he did. You know, look, I'm not going to, I'm not going to walk in to an Indian reservation and basically praise their, their cultic traditional pagan views. You know, obviously I'm going to be as kind as I can, but I'm going to tell them that the word of God is the only truth. The Bible is the only truth and God's not called great grandfather. He's called God the father. Okay. And peyote is of the devil and I, you know, I'm not going to, and obviously I'm going to be kind and I'm going to be gentle in my approach, but I'm not going to go in there and say, Hey, you can do both because you can't do both. You can't do both. Why? The traditional pagan religion of the native Americans is satanic. That's what it is. You know, we were just soul winning on an Indian reservation less than a week ago and I was talking to the preacher at the church down there and here's what he said. He said, you know, 75% of the people in this town are still trying to hang on to some form of their traditional pagan worship and he said, I'm constantly trying to teach them that they need to get rid of all of that stuff and they need to just fully get on the Lord's side and embrace the word of God as the only truth and get rid of that junk. Okay. You know, we were out soul winning and we actually went to the door of their spiritual leader, their shaman or whatever he was, and he was telling us about how he went into the sweat lodge and how he was able to recover a song that was 6,000 years old that had been forgotten and it was revealed to him in the sweat lodge folks. That's a demon teaching him that song. Okay. If he goes into the sweat lodge and does all that stuff and comes out with some song, you know, that's of the devil. But I asked him, you know, hey, do you believe in Jesus? Oh yeah. Folks, they mix in a little bit of Jesus. They mix it a little bit. But you know what? They're not trusting the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ to get them to heaven. Okay. They will just put on that sheep's clothing of like, yeah, we believe in God, we believe in Jesus. But then their religion is a bunch of pagan mysticism, ancestor worship mixed in, a bunch of superstition, drug use, mumbo jumbo, and on and on. And then, you know, you wonder why the Native Americans have such a problem with drugs. Hmm. I wonder why. I wonder why there's so much meth on the rez. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that you've taught them that it pleases God to take a psychedelic drug called peyote. I wonder if that has anything to do with it. Because you know what? It's probably going to be pretty hard for you to get up and condemn meth and condemn drugs when you're sitting there on the other hand telling them, oh, this is going to bring us closer to God when we do peyote. Well then, why not do something else? Folks, the Bible commands us to be sober. Peyote is not going to bring you into the spirit world unless you're interested in talking to demons. It's not going to bring you into the world of the Holy Spirit. Peyote and drugs are not going to bring you closer to God. Okay. But there's a religion out there today that's from Oklahoma to Arizona, all over the East Coast even, where Indians today are taking peyote and they're worshipping the Lord, Jesus, God, great grandfather. Folks, they're worshipping devils. Okay. And so, you know, we can't just sit there and sugar coat that and say that, you know, you can do both. You can't do both. You can't eat the table of the Lord and the table of devils. You can't drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils. Okay. You must worship the Lord in spirit and in truth. You don't just look up at the sky and worship a supreme being. You don't just look at creation and start worshipping the intelligent designer. Okay. You've got to worship the Lord and it's got to be in the name of Jesus Christ because there's none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. It's got to be through Jesus. Flip over if you would to the book of Psalms. Go to Chapter 51. This is not a minor theme in the Bible. You know, we've looked at Isaiah Chapter 1. We looked at 1 Samuel Chapter 15. This is actually a theme that comes up more often than you might think in the Old Testament about sacrificing to God in vain, worshipping the Lord in vain. Look at Psalm 51 verse 15. The Bible reads, O LORD, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. For thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion, build the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering, and then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar. Go back to Chapter 40. So there he says, look, it's not sacrifice that God wants. It's not the offering God wants. It's the broken heart. It's the contrite spirit. It's the spirit that says, I want to do God's will. I want to obey the Lord, not the spirit that basically says, well, I worship God in my own way. I love God so much, but, you know, I got to express myself in my own way. Look at Psalm 40 verse 6. Sacrifice and offering, thou didst not desire. Mine ears has thou opened. Burnt offering and sin offering has thou not required. Then said I, lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, oh my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. Lo I have not refrained my lips, oh Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart. I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. What is it that God wants out of a preacher or a Christian? He wants him to speak the true word of God. He said, look, I didn't conceal anything from the congregation. I preached the word of God. I preached your commandments. I preached what you said in the Bible. That's what pleased him not. I put forth so much effort. I worked so hard. Folks, there are a lot of people today that are working hard and it's all in vain. I guarantee you that there are people, if you would go to 1 Corinthians 13, I guarantee you that there are people in this world who have given incredible amounts of money to churches or religions or Christian causes. I guarantee you there are people who have given incredible amounts of money and not only did that not earn them any favor with God, it actually made God more angry at them. Stop and think about that. Isn't that depressing, you know, to just give up all this money, work hard, give all this money. Not only does God not accept it, he says that's evil. What you did there is evil. I mean, how many people do you think are going to stand before God someday and they're going to stand at that great white throne, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils and in thy name done many one for us. Hey, there's some mistake. If my name's not that, but you just have it spelled wrong. You've looked it up wrong in the book of life because you don't understand how much money I donated. I was out there every Saturday working for you. I was in church every Saturday. Hey, I went to church daily and I said mass or I went here and did this and that. Folks, there are going to be many in that day who say, Lord, Lord, we've done wonderful works and he'll profess them. I never knew you. But look, it's and look, obviously we understand that about unbelievers, people who reject the gospel and worship the Lord in their own way. We realize they're not even saved. Nothing they do can please God because without faith it's impossible to please him and we're saved by our faith in Christ. But even as saved Christians, we could also do works for God that are just in vain. Even if we're saved, like even if we believe in Christ, you know, I'm not saying we're not a Mormon, we're not a Roman Catholic, we're not a Muslim, we're not a Hindu, but we're actually, you know, a born again Christian, we're actually a child of God. We could actually do works that are in vain before the Lord. What does the Bible say? 1 Corinthians 13, 1, though I speak, who speaks? I speak. Who's speaking here? It's the apostle Paul. Is he saved? Yeah. And what does he say? Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I'm become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. But watch verse 3. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, I mean, is this guy giving an offering or what? He's giving everything. Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Now stop and think about it. Not only are there people who've I'm sure given an incredible amount of money, I'll guarantee you there have been people who've even been tortured to death for their faith and they still went to hell. I mean, what about Roman Catholics over in Japan being tortured to death because they're trying to bring Roman Catholicism into Japan and they got tortured to death. Is God just going to be like, well, I know you're worshiping idols. I know you've rejected the word of God for your own tradition. I know that you don't actually believe that salvation is through the finished work of Jesus Christ. You think you and your priest and everybody are going to earn your way in by chanting and repeating things and doing all these things. But you know what? Since you were willing to die for me, come on in. Is that what you think is going to happen, friend? Because you know what? They're not willing to die for him. Whatever they're dying for, it's not him. Because Jesus looked at the woman at the well and he said, you don't know what you worship. You don't know what, what's the God of, you don't know what you worship. Because you know what? The Jesuits and the Catholics and those, they're not worshiping God. They're not worshiping, they think they are, but you know what? They should have read this book and submitted themselves to what this book, this is the word of God. Thus saith the Lord. They should have submitted themselves to this, but you know what they had in their heart? Rebellion against that. Pride that says, hey, I'm going to earn my way into heaven. Pride or desiring something other than what God has offered. They desired all that hocus pocus and they desired this religiosity and this feeling and this experience and whatever it is. Folks, you know and I know the Bible does not jive with Roman Catholicism and the plan of salvation of Roman Catholicism is not by grace through faith. It is not the finished sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It's them trusting in their own selves and in their own priest and in their own pope and in their own idols and folks that isn't going to get them to heaven. It can't. No more than Hinduism is going to get the Hindu to heaven. No more than Islam is going to get the Muslim. Well it's the name of God. Well so are the Samaritans in the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. And he said, you don't even know what you're worshiping. That's a guarantee that they weren't worshiping God. They're part of a false religion. Jesus went in and got a bunch of them saved. And that's what we need to do. We need to get a bunch of Catholics saved. We need to get a bunch of Muslims saved. We need to get a bunch of Hindus saved. But even as a Christian, you can actually do things, even if you're saved, you can do things like Paul described here and have it profit you nothing. Let me give you some examples of this from the word of God. What about where Jesus said that when you give alms, if you give alms, right, because this guy, he bestowed all his goods to feed the poor. Jesus said, take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven. How much? A little less reward? You get a little deduction. He said you have no reward. Let's say I just sell everything I have. I sell everything I have. I liquidate. It wouldn't be that much, but I'm saying, let's say I had something to sell. And I liquidated everything I had and I said, okay, I'm just going to take everything and publicly give it to the poor. Look at me everybody. I'm publicly giving everything to the poor. How much reward am I going to get for that? Absolutely nothing. The only way to get rewarded for giving to the poor is to do it in secret. That's what the Bible says. Take heed that you do not your alms before men to be seen of them. Otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven. And he said, therefore when thou doest thine alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth. He's saying do it quietly, do it secretly, do it to where nobody sees. That your father in heaven, he'll see in secret and he'll reward you openly. But if you do it publicly to be seen, that's why he said that the hypocrites, they love to pray standing in the synagogue, they love to pray standing in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men, they have their reward. He said, but thou when thou prayest enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door pray to thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret himself shall reward you openly. He said when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast, they have their reward. So here's three examples of giving money to the poor, fasting and praying and all of it being in vain. You're sacrificing in vain. I mean look, fasting is not fun. Okay, feasting is fun, alright. Fasting isn't fun. You know, skipping a meal is making a sacrifice. If I take my hard-earned money and give it to a poor person, I just made a sacrifice, right. Taking my time, taking my energy and spending it in prayer to the Lord is sacrifice. I don't want to sacrifice in vain. If I sacrifice something, I want it to count. If I sacrifice, I want God to be pleased. I want God to be happy. I want God to say, well done, thou good and faithful servant. Well, you know what, I better have charity in my heart. I better have love for the Lord and love for my fellow man at the forefront. I better be doing it according to God's word, then it means something. If I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. You say, how could someone bestow all their goods to feed the poor without having charity? Isn't that what charity means? No, that's not what charity means. See, today when we hear the word charity, we just think it means giving to the poor. Charity means love. So when he says, if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing, it's possible to give stuff to the poor without actually loving God or loving people. So then what's motivating them? It must be to be seen of men. So then this jives perfectly with Matthew, okay, because they want to be seen. And folks, we see Hollywood people do this all the time, don't we? We see Hollywood people just being glorified as, look at this philanthropist. They make money by being a literal prostitute, a literal whore is what they do, okay? Because let me explain something to you. Any actress who hops in bed with a man that she's not married to while a camera's rolling and they're getting paid, right, is that a charitable service she's doing? No, she's hopping into bed with some dude on the screen and she's being paid to do that. That's the definition of a prostitute. Any Hollywood actress who's been a part of a bedroom scene where she's stripping her clothes off and hopping into bed with some dude, you know what? She's a whore is what she is, she's a literal prostitute. She's being paid to commit that act. She's being paid to commit fornication on screen. Say, well, you know, they didn't actually do it. Well, they uncovered their nakedness for money. I mean, that's prostitution. So if you go to Hollywood and you're a literal prostitute, because, you know, I'm sure the lion's share of these actors and actresses have participated in those type of scenes in today's films, you go to Hollywood and you make millions of dollars being a literal prostitute, but then you're going to give the money to the poor. You think God's just like, well, I didn't really like, I didn't really like canes, fruits and vegetables, but I'll take that. I'll take your filthy lucre that you earned making movies that are blasphemous, making movies that promote wickedness and adultery and fornication, being a literal prostitute. Yeah, I'll take that money from you and I'll give you a reward for that. There's no way. There's absolutely no way. So it is possible to give a lot of money and God not to be impressed and for it even to be a stink in God's nostrils where God's even irritated with it. Go to Revelation chapter 2. Revelation chapter 2, while you're turning there, I'll read for you from Mark chapter 7 verse 5. Then the Pharisees and scribes asked him, why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashed hands? He answered and said to them, well, hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites? So look, you know, that was our text this morning, right? As it is written, this people honor with me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. People going through the motions, doing a lot of religious stuff, but their heart is actually far from him. How be it in vain they do worship me? It's in vain. It's a waste. It's meaningless. Teaching for doctrines of the commandments of men. When you're teaching for doctrines of the commandments of men, you're worshiping in vain. Did God command the fruits and vegetables? No. Did God command the paganism of the Roman Catholic Church? No. You know, did God command this, that, or the other? No. Laying aside the commandment of God, he said, you hold the tradition of men. Verse 9, he said to them, full well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your own tradition. So these people are lovers of their own selves. They love their tradition. And we see, of course, today the Jews are continuing in this, where, man, the Jews are serious about their religion. Just kidding. 99% of them aren't. But the ones who are serious about it, the tiny minority of Jews that are actually serious about their religion, because most of them are super-duper liberal. They're called Reform Jews or whatever. There is a small minority of Jews who actually are really serious about all their halakhic rules and how they're going to keep the Sabbath and they're going to keep the dairy from the meat and they're going to keep it separate and they're going to be kosher and everything like that. It's not the Lord that they love. They love the Talmud. They love rabbis. They love themselves. They love, they basically glory in their own selves, like, look at us, we're the Jews. We're the chosen. We're Israel. You know, we're this. Folks, if they loved the Lord, Jesus said, you know, you'd love me. Folks, if they actually loved the Lord, man, as soon as they met Jesus, they would love him. If they actually loved Genesis and Exodus, they would love Jesus. Jesus is the author. I mean, if you had a book that you totally loved, you're going to love the author, right? Because you know, Jesus Christ is the word made flesh. How can you say you love the word and you don't love Jesus? It doesn't make any sense, does it? But we see them, you know, working hard and they're rocking back and forth and they're chanting and they're there. I mean, look, they've sacrificed. Not ever eating a cheeseburger in your life is a big sacrifice. I mean, a lot of people think like, oh, well, you know, they're not eating any pork. That's only a minor. I could skip pork if that's what God wanted. Like David said, hey, if you wanted a sacrifice or a burnt offering, I'll bring it. Hey, if God told me don't eat pork, I won't eat pork. If God told me not to eat bacon, I wouldn't eat bacon. If God told me, hey, you can't eat this, you can't drink this, you can't do that. Hey, you know, I'll do what God says. But folks, let me tell you something. It'd be a major sacrifice to say not only are you not going to eat pork, even beef. You can't put any cheese on it. No lasagna. No parmesan on your spaghetti. No cheeseburger. I mean, they're sacrificing, but you know what? It's a sacrifice that's made 100% in vain. This world today would be like, how can you say that? They're so sincere. They love God so much. Isn't God going to just look past all that? What does the Bible say? Over and over again, he says you better hearken to the voice of the Lord. You better obey, take heed how you hear, thus saith the Lord. It's not just like, you know, you just kind of love the supreme being, the intelligent designer how you want. No, you better get on God's program. And then once you're saved and you acknowledge that the word of God is the only truth, then you know what? You better keep searching it daily so that you can live your life in a way that will please him because you'd hate to make a bunch of sacrifices that are worthless. And let me tell you something, there are a lot of churches today that are doing a lot of work. There's a lot of movement. But if they're not doing it according to God's word, a lot of times they could be wasting their time. Look what the Bible says in Revelation chapter 2. This is the seven messages to the seven churches. And again, the fact that this is the first church on the list is significant. Chapter 2 verse 1, of the angel of the church of Ephesus write, these things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand and walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. I know thy works. Are these, look, is this a do nothing church? Is this a church that's just sitting around doing nothing and they're just lazy, they won't do anything? Is that, no, is that what it says? He said, I know thy works. And then he says, and thy labor. So if there was any doubt when he mentioned the works, he said, I know your labor. They're doing stuff. Is this church making sacrifices? They're sacrificing their time. They're sacrificing their energy. They're getting things done. They're working, man. It's a busy, busy place. I know thy works and thy labor and thy patience and how thou canst not bear with them which are evil and thou hast tried them which say they're apostles and are not and has found them liars and has bored and has patience and, and folks, just in case you were wondering, for my name's sake, has labored. Three times, your works, you've labored, oh man, you're laboring. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen and repent and do what? Do the first works. So look, there were works that they were doing and there were works that they were not doing. The first works aren't being done. Otherwise it'd be ridiculous for them to say, do the first works. They just, we already are. You know our works. You know our labor. You know we've labored for your name. You say, do the first works. So they're working. They're working hard, but are they doing the work that God told them to do? They're apparently not doing the works that God has prescribed. They're working. And you know what, today, Sunday, March 1st, 2020, how many churches do you think there are in the United States that are all claiming to be worshiping the Lord right now? Millions, right? Right now there are millions of churches, literally millions of churches right now, and everybody who's going to those churches would all claim, I'm here to worship God. I'm here to make a sacrifice unto the Lord. And out of all the Christian churches, which would still be millions, they would say, I'm doing this in the name of Jesus, wouldn't they? Do you actually believe that all of those millions of churches are actually worshiping the Lord and actually doing it in the name of Jesus? And I would like to know today how much legitimate work for the Lord is happening today. I mean if we took all the churches and just asked this question, what percentage of these churches are actually doing what God told them to do? They're all working. And even amongst the ones that are saved, okay, let's skip the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Catholics and all these just way out there versions of Christianity that aren't even close to being biblical Christianity. Let's just limit it to just Baptists, right? Let's just limit it to just Baptists. I mean there are 10,000 independent Baptist churches in the United States, there are 18,000 Southern Baptist churches in the United States. Out of the 10,000 independent Baptist churches, 6,000 of them are King James only. I wonder how many of those 6,000 King James Bible only independent fundamental Baptist churches, so I mean churches that are just claiming a lot of the right things, I wonder how many of them are really doing God's will for their church, where God would look down at that church and say, you know what, this church is fulfilling my will. Or look down and say, this church is doing a good job at reaching their area. They're doing a good job at loving the people of their area and reaching them with the gospel. They're doing a good, folks, you and I both know that the numbers would be pretty bleak. I don't even want to know, to be honest with you. I don't even want to see it, because it'd probably be depressing, you know. I'd rather just not know, okay. I'd rather just say, you know what, we're going to make sure our church is doing the right thing. And we're going to try to influence as many other churches to do the right things, too. And you say, well, how do you know that you're right and they're wrong? Folks, it's all measured by this book, that's why. How do you know? Folks, this isn't just some guess work. We're not just wandering around blindfolded, trying to figure, what is God, what God, what do you want? We love you, we want to do something for you, we just don't know what to do. Folks, we know what to do. It's all right here. The problem is either, A, we didn't look in this book and search it and read it. Some pastors will even say, oh, I've read it cover to cover once. You're a pastor? So a lot of the problem could be just not even searching the scriptures, not meditating in this book, not saying it. Or number two, you read the book, but when you came to something that you didn't agree with or you didn't like, you just said, nah, I think it should be this way. Those are the two problems. You and I both know that there are a lot of churches out there that are working hard and spinning their wheels. Look, I've seen churches, man, they're working hard at the music program, they're working hard at this children's program and that program, but there's no soul winning going on at all. The baptistry is filled with Christmas ornaments from the 70s. I'm serious. I've been to churches where the baptistry is a storage tank. It's just filled with junk and there's cobwebs. They're not fulfilling the great commission. They're not doing the first works. They're not actually with a tear in the eye going out and winning souls and doing things. They're just getting together and worshiping God in their own way. And boy, they want to stay busy with ... It's so funny sometimes you go to a church's website and look at their ministries tab and they got a ministry for everything except preaching the gospel. I mean, they got ministries for everything. We got the single mother ministry, we've got the children's drama ministry, we're baking pies and sending them here, we're making a care package for the soldiers that are over in Afghanistan. Look, I'm not against doing nice things but you know what, you don't want to just do a bunch of stuff that you dreamed up on your own and then neglect the stuff that God clearly told us to do like preach the gospel to every creature. If we go by Isaiah chapter 1, it wasn't just the good things that they weren't doing. He also said your hands are full of blood. You're doing a bunch of wicked things. Folks, you think God's pleased with churches today that are pro-choice, pro-abortion? Folks, I guarantee you any church that's pro-choice, any church that says, hey, we believe a woman's right to choose to murder her baby, you know and I know that God looks out at that church and their oblations are a stink in his nostrils. He looks down at that. He's not pleased with that. He's not pleased with them when they fly a rainbow flag out on their sign. They put a rainbow flag outside and say, hey, you know, we're affirming of the whatevers. Then you know what, you just lost the candlestick or you probably never even had it but I mean if you lost it, you lost it a long time ago when you're doing that, okay? And you know, one of the things I thought, I'm just about done but one of the things I thought of was swimming. Anyone who knows anything about swimming knows that swimming is all about technique. Swimming's all about technique, okay? And if you ever get a chance to watch someone swim who's a really good swimmer, they don't even look like they're working hard at all. It seems like they're just gliding through the water and you're just like what am I missing? And the guy who's working the hardest is usually going the slowest. You know, you see a good swimmer and man, they're just, it seems like just every stroke, they just effortlessly just launch themselves forward like a torpedo and you're just like ah, ah, ah, ah. I mean look, you want to watch somebody work hard swimming, throw somebody in the pool who doesn't know how to swim and it's like ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, you know. And they're not going anywhere. And folks, today I guarantee you got a lot of churches that are just doggy paddling today. You got churches that are doggy paddling, they need a swimming lesson, alright? And a little swimming lesson goes a long way but you know what, if you really want to get good it's like you got to keep, you got to keep learning, you got to keep tweaking, you got to keep, and that's what we're doing every day, right? We're reading our Bible, we're learning how to swim. And then some people, it seems like they're making the Christian life look easy. And it's like, of course it's not easy but they're making it look easy, okay? Why? It's about technique. The Christian life is about technique. It's about figuring out what God wants us to do and doing it. Let me give an example. I remember when I was younger, man, I just wanted to get people saved so bad and I'm being told gospel tracts. That's how you do it. You got to just give out a tract. And I remember putting out like 10,000 tracts one time. And let me tell you something, handing out 10,000 tracts takes a really long time. It's boring, it's painful, it's monotonous, it takes forever. I handed out 10,000 tracts but, you know, later in life just having seen and understood things, I pretty much realized that I probably accomplished like virtually nothing by handing out 10,000 tracts. You know, and look, I just got back this morning from San Francisco, California. And we were out in San Francisco soul winning yesterday and you know what, that's not a receptive area, is it? You know, you wouldn't put that as like, oh yeah, that's going to be a great place to go soul winning, that's going to be receptive. And then now that went to a middle class area but middle class in San Francisco, the homes are like million dollar homes. You know how much it costs for those houses in San Francisco? So, you know, we're not exactly in the Bible Belt or a poor area and we're soul winning in San Francisco, California but you know what, the gospel has power. And we were doing it the way God told us to do it. And what did God tell us to do? He told us to open our mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel. He said to have utterance of the gospel, like actually using our mouth, speaking. The Bible says God has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. So we actually went and we actually opened our mouths. We did like the Bible says of the early church, daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach to Jesus Christ. And you know what, yeah, of course a lot of people weren't interested. Of course a lot of people blew us off but you know what, I was able to have one saved. My soul winning partner was able to have one saved. Now obviously a lot of teams didn't have one saved but what if all 166 of us, let's say the 166 of us that were there yesterday, what if we all would have just armed ourselves with a bazillion tracts and just handed out tracts all day? You think we would have got 15 people saved? In fact I don't even think personally and some people would disagree with me on this, I don't even think we would even get one person saved. And if we did I'd be shocked because you know handing out a tract, it's a lot of work, it's a lot of energy, you're putting forth effort, a lot of sweat is coming out of your body but you know what, that's not how you measure. You know I've never seen any swimming event where they said, you know what, I know this guy made it to the other side first but you know lane three, did you see how hard he was working? Everybody see, I mean let's give an honorable mention to the guy in lane three who was just flailing and thrashing and you know, I mean that guy worked hard. Because nobody ever awards the guy who worked the hardest and you know what, what about at your job? Who gets awarded at your job? Who gets the promotion at your job? The guy who worked the hardest or the guy who was the most effective? The guy who's like struggling, he just barely, he can't get his jobs done and he's staying late every day because he just can't get his tasks done or the guy who gets back at three o'clock and he's like, hey I'm already done for the day, you know, you guys need me, got another job? I bet you that's the guy that's probably getting promoted, the guy who just effortlessly gets it done. Look, I'm not here to be a slave driver, I'm not telling you to work hard. You know what I'm telling you to do? Do the first works. You know what I'm telling you to do? Do what God told you to do. Get the sin out of your life that he told you to get out of your life, get the good works in your life that he wants you to do, have actual love in your heart for the Lord and for your neighbor. If you love the Lord, you love your neighbor, you read the Bible, you do things for the right reason and you do what he said to do. You know what, I guarantee you there are going to be people, don't miss this, hear me on this, I guarantee you there are going to be people standing in line at the judgment seat of Christ and I know that all that will live godly in Christ shall suffer persecution. I get it, we're all going to go through tribulations and hard times but I guarantee you there are going to be some people in line at the judgment seat of Christ getting beaucoup rewards and I'm sure they went through hard times and tribulations but maybe they didn't even go through anything that we would consider huge and they're still going to get beaucoup rewards because they just obeyed. And then there are going to be other people that if we could see them they'd be bandaged and bruised, you know picture them with like a crutch and like a cast, oh man I gave everything, I left it all out there, I worked so hard, I took a beating, I took abuse, I made it to the end. It's like they get some tiny reward because they were just flailing and got so little done of what God actually told them to do. Think about it. Many that are first shall be last and many that are last shall be first. You might think you know who's getting the rewards but you know what? It's all in God's sight. He knows who really loves him and he separates the works that actually matter from the works that are vain. So the moral of the story is, folks, we need to be studying the word of God, to learn what God wants from us so that we can please God in his way, not in our own way because we'd hate to sacrifice in vain. I don't know about you but I'm going to spend my life at something, I'm going to dedicate my life to something. It better be the right thing. I don't want to waste my life. Let's probably just have a word of prayer. Father, thank you so much for this chapter in Isaiah 1 where you gave a stern rebuke to people who had sacrificed in vain, Lord. Oh, may that never be our church. Lord, we pray that our church would please you and Lord, if there's something about our church that's displeasing to you, if there's something about my life that's displeasing to you, please reveal it to me and help me to learn from the scripture what needs to be adjusted or what needs to be fixed. Lord, help us to serve you according to knowledge and to have a zeal, yes, but also point that zeal in the right direction. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.