 Man, all right, we're there in 1 Kings chapter number 14. Let's go ahead and get started in verse one. We're gonna be looking at the story at the beginning of this chapter this evening. 1 Kings chapter 14, we'll start reading in verse one where the Bible says this, at that time a byje the son of Jeroboam fell sick and Jeroboam said to his wife, arise I pray that you in disguise thyself that thou be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam and get thee to Shiloh, behold there is a hyge of the prophet which told me that I should be king over this people and take with thee 10 loaves and crackenles and a cruise of honey and go to him, he shall tell thee what shall become of the child. So if you read this story and you don't understand the context, it seems a little strange. Why is he disguising himself? Why is he sending his wife? Who is a hyge? Who are these people? Basically where we are at right now is we are in the beginning of the time of the kings. If you remember the nation of Israel used to be ruled by the judges, but eventually they wanted a king and God gave them Saul. Saul was king until God killed him. Then David took over and then Solomon was David's son and Solomon was told by God. Solomon made some mistakes towards the end of his life and God told Solomon. That is a punishment for the things he had done and for turning from God. Even though Solomon did a lot of good things and we'll look at that later, God told them that he would take the kingdom out of the hand of his son. So Solomon dies and Rayoboam takes over his king and sure enough, God basically splits the nation into two. You have the northern tribe of the kingdom of Israel that was 10 tribes and the two southern tribes was were called Judah in the south. And of course Rayoboam continued to be king over Judah in the south. But God appointed them a man by the name of Jeroboam to lead the northern nation of Israel. This profit that we are reading of a hygea, a hygea years before, this is years later in this story, but back when this happened, a hygea was the profit that God used to anoint Jeroboam and tell him that he was going to be the king. Later of course, if you're familiar with Jeroboam, he fell into sin also and he built the two golden calves that stayed there for many hundreds of years by the way, the one in Dan and the one in Bethel. And at this point he has been warned by God, he is not on good terms with God. And at this point we see, which is funny, a lot of people do this, but now Jeroboam actually needs help. And of course when he needs help, he doesn't turn to his false gods and he doesn't turn to the gods that he turned to, he realizes that he actually needs help. So he goes to the prophet of hygea. He says, I know who can help me. So his son is sick, but Jeroboam knows that he is not on good terms with God. So he doesn't want to go to a hygea himself, so he sends his wife. And he is so careful not to be recognized that he even tells his wife to disguise herself just to make sure that this prophet of hygea has no idea who they are. He does not want to be recognized as who he really is. And of course they go and they even bring these bribes with them. He says, bring tent loaves and crackles and a cruise of honey and go to him. He shall tell thee what shall become of the child. The title of the sermon this evening is manipulating God, manipulating God. What does manipulate mean? To manipulate is defined as this, to control something or someone to your advantage, often unfairly or dishonestly. So if you're controlling a person or a situation to your advantage, you're trying to get something out of it that you want, and you're doing it in a dishonest and an unfair way, you are manipulating that person or that situation. You read this story, this kind of seems what they're doing. They're being real sneaky. They're bringing bribes. They're disguising themselves. They're being completely dishonest just to get what they want out of this situation. This evening I'd like to give you three warnings. Here as they go in, as these people try to manipulate God, I want to give us three warnings that we can take key to this evening on manipulating God and on trying to pull tricks if you will on God in three ways that we can all tend to do this without even realizing it. We'll start back at verse two. Verse two, the first thing this evening, the first warning from this story is this. You can't fool God. You can't fool God. Let's start reading in verse two. We'll reread over it real quickly. Jeroboam said to his wife, rise I pray thee and disguise thyself that they'll be not known to be the wife of Jeroboam and get thee to Shiloh. Behold, there's a hyge of the prophet which told me that I should be king. Over this people, skip to verse four. And Jeroboam's wife did so and rose and went to Shiloh and came to the house of a hygea but a hygea could not see for his eyes were set by reason of age. So poor a hygea, he can't even see. He's older, of course this is years later and he can't even see. And I think they know this personally. I mean, there's no way, the Bible does not clarify but I think they were aware of this. A hygea can't even see and here they're going to this old man, this prophet, this servant of God and they're trying to deceive him. But of course God has a hyge's back. If you look at verse five and the Lord said to a hygea, behold the wife of Jeroboam come in to ask thee a thing, ask a thing of thee for her son, for he is sick. The last and the self will say unto her for it shall be when she cometh in that she shall feign herself to be another woman. And it was so when a hygea heard the sound of her feet as she came in the door that he said, come in thou wife of Jeroboam, why feignest thou thyself to be another? For I am sent to thee with heavy tidings. So she comes in and right away he says, come on in thou wife of Jeroboam. I know exactly who you are and I have some bad news for you. So right away here their plan is foiled, it does not work. It turned to Matthew 15. Now we read this and this is obviously pretty terrible and even it's silly to think, oh how could they think that they can get away with doing this to God and to this prophet? Well people today do the same thing. It all I'll explain here. Matthew chapter 15, look at verse seven. Matthew 15, seven. This is of course the words of Christ. He's talking to the Pharisees, preaching to the Pharisees, preaching against the Pharisees. He says in verse 70, hypocrites, welded Isaiah's prophesy of you saying, these people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth and honoreth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. You see with the Pharisees, the Pharisees were out to get the praise of man and they were trying to convince man and I think that they did have a lot of men convinced of this, that they were something great. Their heart deep down inside, their heart was not towards God, but you see man is not as good as seeing that. You can still, especially in a church where you know people and you're around people, you can eventually kind of figure out what people are all about, but in general, man we can't see your hearts. We can't see what's deep down inside of you, but people take advantage of this fact that man can be tricked. The Pharisees, they had man fooled but they did not have God fooled. God, you see, the difference is God looks deeper than what you say with your mouth and lips. You know at the turn of the word Matthew 23, 25 says this, also Jesus preaching against the Pharisees. He says, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you may clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within, they're full of extortion and excess. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse that which is within the cup and platter that the outside of them may be clean also. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're likened to whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but within, full of dead men's bones in all uncleanness. Even so, he's saying in the same way, also ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within, you're full of hypocrisy and iniquity. See, the Pharisees deep down in the side, they were very bad people, many of them were reprobates. They obviously conspired to kill the Lord Jesus Christ, but outside, they were very good at having men fooled. They were very good at appearing beautiful outward despite of who they really were inside. Benjamin Franklin once said this, well done is better than well said. You see a lot of people, they're just going out to get that well said from men, but what they're not realizing is, you know people, you see this point and you're saying, oh well, you can't fool God, but I'm not trying to fool God. Well you see, God sees it as an attack on him. When you're going and you're taking advantage of people and you're trying to fool other people, you're really trying to fool God by just thinking that you can get away with that. You're really fooling God. You see, I don't, well done is better than well said. Think about that. You see, here's why that does not matter, because when I die and I stand before Jesus Christ, I don't want Jesus Christ to say to me, well said. I want him to say to me, well done. Thou good and faithful servant, thou has been faithful. And of course, what about the Pharisees? Well, you don't have to turn there, but John 12.43 says, for they love the praise of men more than the praise of God. See, there are people who they take advantage, especially as, like I said, as people, we cannot see, we're limited in how well we can see people's hearts, but there are people who they take advantage of that. They take advantage of the fact that people don't know the mistakes they've made, because obviously no one here knows all the mistakes that we've all made, and that's a good thing in a way. But Jesus, he's saying, God can see through that. And there's people, they take advantage of the fact that man is not as good as seeing that. Turn to Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28, you see, God wants transparency. God is not pleased when people come to each other and they try to act, and people do it in churches too. They do it a lot, where they'll try to act like there's something great, and they try to act like they're so spiritual and they've done so many great things, but inside they're not who they say they are. What people are doing is they're trying to fool God just by thinking that they can get away with that. Just by Jared Bowman's wife going to a prophet and thinking that they can fool the prophet, they're really fooling God, because you know what God did? He stepped in and he was on the side of a hygiene. He told the hygiene what they were trying to do. While you're turning to Ezekiel 28, Proverbs 20, 17 says this. Bread of deceit is sweet to a man, but afterwards his mouth shall be filled with gravel. Here's what this is saying. Bread of deceit, saying it tastes good, so to speak. It tastes good to, it's very easy to say deceit. It's very easy to say things on who you are. It's very easy to make yourself seem like you're someone you're not. It's very easy to be a Pharisee in that way and to act outward righteous, but afterwards your mouth will be filled with gravel. You're going to eat your words. Because especially in a church like this, people will realize, when you're around people this much, people will realize who you are. You will not get away with fooling God by trying to fool both God and just other people around you. And there in Ezekiel 28, this is another dangerous aspect of this. Here in Ezekiel 28, God is preaching to the king of Tyrus. And if you're familiar with the passage, it's a dual meaning here. He's both talking about the physical king of Tyrus and also about Satan. He's talking about Satan here. Now he's going to be destroyed. And he's also speaking of the actual king of Tyrus at this time. Verse one, the word of the Lord came again unto me saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up. And thou hast said, I am God. I sit in the seed of God in the midst of the seas. Yet thou art a man and not God, though thou set thine heart is the heart of God. So this is an extreme example here. This is someone referring to the physical man who actually thought he was God. He was claiming to be God. He was claiming to be someone he's not. But notice the phrase that says, though thou set thine heart is the heart of God. Not many people, especially not Christians, are claiming to be God. But what people do do quite often is they set their heart to be someone they're not. In the same way as the king of Tyrus was setting his heart and thinking, convincing himself that he was this great thing that he was not. God says, he says you're not. Just setting your heart to be that does not make it. So let's keep reading, skipped to verse six. So God goes on to explain the judgments that he's going to give to this king. Verse six, he says this, therefore thus saith the Lord God, because thou hast set thine heart is the heart of God. Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee the terrible of the nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shall die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. And then verse nine, I always thought verse nine was such an ironic verse. He says, wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee I am God? But thou shalt be a man and no God in the hand of him that slayeth thee. Here's what he's saying. He's saying, when I judge you, and when you are invaded, when there is someone standing above you with a sword about to kill you, are you going to be saying you're God then? Are you going to be telling that person, don't you know who I am, I'm God? He says, you're not going to be saying that. You will realize at that moment you are a man and not God, regardless of who you set yourself to be. And here's the dangerous aspect about this. You see, I don't want this to be me. I don't want to go setting my heart because my heart is lifted up, thinking I'm someone I'm not and not realize I'm not that great until God sends someone, so to speak, above me with a sword and until I am being judged and realize maybe I'm not that great. Maybe I'm not who I set my heart to be. You don't have to turn there but turn to Psalm 15 while you're turning there. I'll read to you Psalm 94, 11 that says the Lord knoweth the thoughts of man that they are vanity. See, we can get very good at acting like we're someone we're not and playing off the fact that man cannot see our heart like God can but God will step in because God knows the thoughts of man. And God will not let people be fooled either. God will not let people just to be completely deceived to a point just like with Jeroboam and his wife. God was not going to let a hijab be fooled like this. You're there in Proverbs 15, look at verse 11. Proverbs 15, 11 says this, hell and destruction are before the Lord. How much more than the hearts of the children of men? Look at verse three of the same chapter. The eyes of the Lord are in every place beholding the evil and the good. And you say I'm not trying to fool God. I'm not trying to fool God. I'm just, I just want to appear beautiful outward. I just want to appear righteous outward. I just want to appear like I'm better than everyone else outward. God sees as an attack on him because God knows your hearts. You know what you see this many times because when someone comes in and someone tries to act like they're someone they're not God reveals that and God makes that evident and God reveals that because people who do this they are trying to manipulate God. They are trying to fool God. So first this evening, the first warning when it comes to trying to manipulate God you say you cannot fool God. Second this evening is this. You can't bribe God. You cannot bribe God. Look, turn back to 1 Kings 14. 1 Kings chapter 14. We'll be coming back to it of course so make sure you keep a ribbon or a bookmark there. So of course we see in verse six he says come in the life Jeroboam why faintest allow thyself to be another for I am sent unto thee with heavy tidings. Go tell Jeroboam thus saith the Lord God of Israel for as much as I exalted thee from among the people and made thee prince over my people Israel and rented the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it thee. And yet thou has not been as my servant David who have kept my commandments who followed me with all of his hearts to do that which is right to mine eyes but thou has done evil above all that were before thee for thou has gone and made the other gods and molten images to provoke me to anger and has cast me behind thy back. God tells us talking to Jeroboam here and he says I gave you a chance. I exalted you above everybody else. I saw something in you that was valuable and I chose you to lead the nation of Israel and you have completely turned from me. He says I took it, I took 10 tribes from the house of David and gave it to you and you're not acting like David did. You're not serving me like David did. He said you have cast me behind your back. Like when you get a credit card application in the mail and you crumpled it up and cast it behind your back that's what he did to God. He totally forgot God which exalted him and gave him the position that he had. Well, the verse 10. Therefore behold I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam and will cut off from Jeroboam him that paced it against the wall and him that is shut up and left in Israel and they will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam is a man taken away dung till it be all gone and the dieth of Jeroboam and the city shall the dogs eat and the dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat for the Lord has spoken it. We're talking about manipulating God here in a ways that people try to do that. When people try to do that not only will they try to fool God by trying to act to both God and others that they're someone they're not but people will also try to bribe God. What I mean by that is thinking that God will treat you different because of something that you have to offer something like your earthly status or your previous spirituality or your current spirituality. The definition of a bribe, a bribe is this something offered to induce another to do something. So of course, typically when you hear the word bribe you think of like a judge and someone who's maybe offering a bribe is someone coming to a judge offering them something that they have thinking that that judge will treat them differently because of that bribe. People do the same thing with God, turn to 1 Kings 9. 1 Kings 9, a couple chapters earlier. People go to God with something that they have and they think that because of that God will treat them different or God will take it easier on them or somehow they don't have to worry about their sin and their fault or that God won't judge them for their sin and their fault because of filling the blank. You're there in 1 Kings 9. So Solomon here, we're talking about Solomon who has just finished building the temple. He has just finished doing an amazing, great work for God building this massive temple that took enormous amount of time and energy and money. Verse one, and it came to pass when Solomon finished the building of the house of the Lord in the king's house and all Solomon's desire, which he was pleased to do that the Lord appeared to Solomon the second time as he appeared unto him at Gibeon. The first time being when he appeared to him and he asked for wisdom and this being the second time. And the Lord said unto him, I have heard thy prayer in thy supplication that thou hast made before me. I have hallowed this house which thou hast built to put my name there forever. My eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually. Verse four, and if that will walk before me. See, God's coming to Solomon and he's saying good job, Solomon, good job. This is a good thing you've done. I've answered your prayer. This is a great thing you've done. But now he's talking about the future. Now God's talking to Solomon about the future. And if that will walk before me, as David thy father walked in an integrity of heart and an uprightness to do according to all that I've commanded thee and will keep my statutes, my judgments, then why establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel forever? As I promised to David thy father saying there should not fail the amen upon the throne of Israel. But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I've set before you but go and serve other gods and worship them. Verse seven, then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I've given them and this house which I hallowed for thy name will I cast out of my sight and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people. God goes to Solomon here who had just finished doing an amazing thing for God who so far has been doing greats from the start of when he started reigning all the way up to this point. Solomon has just been on fire doing great things, righteous things. He's doing very well. God has blessed him. Why is this man on earth? He has a lot of wealth that God has given him. And God comes to him and he reminds him good job for what you've done and I'll bless thee if you keep doing it but it's no different for you Solomon. If you turn from me, I will destroy your nation. See, well, Solomon did a great, I mean, all the kings after Solomon, you could argue didn't do such a great work for God like this. That doesn't matter. And again, just like the sermon this morning if you think about it, the closer you are to God, the more you know his will, the harder he will be on you. What I'm talking about here is a certain attitude towards your sin. You see, I don't have it in my notes but if you think about the story Jesus told of the Pharisee and the publican, the Pharisee goes before God and says God, I thank thee that I am not as other man are or even as this publican. He goes to God and he says God, thank you for making me so great and thank you for making me so spiritual and righteous. And the publican goes to God and he says God be merciful unto me as sinner. You see, we may be doing the right things and we may be going to church and soul winning and doing all the things that we're supposed to be doing but we are still sinners and we still have sin, we still have fault, we all have mistakes that we need to actively be working on because we will always have this flesh. In our mentality, no matter how great we think we are, we need to go before God and say, you know what, God be merciful unto me as sinner. Especially as Christians who are judged more straight based on how close we are to God and how much him that knew his Lord's will and did it not shall be beaten with many stripes, right? Eva, as those people, we need God's mercy even more, not less. Instead of having this mentality where we think, oh, I've done plenty of good things enough for God, I do good enough things for God, I don't have to worry about these little things I need to fix. I don't need to worry about improving or getting better in my Christian life. I've arrived. I was just talking to Brother Frank about this out so long and how you'd see this at Verity and Sacramento a lot, how certain people, they get in church and they maybe get saved and they're growing spiritually and then they kind of get to a point, some people, where they just kind of, that's good enough, that's as far as I want to go. They don't try to pursue it and people do it at all sorts of levels. Some people will do it where they'll go to maybe church once a week and they say, I'm good, I don't need to push past that or people will be, no matter how far we are spiritually, we always need to be pressing forward. We always need to be pressing towards the mark and we need to be very, very, very cautious that we don't develop this mentality that says, well, as long as I'm doing more right than I am wrong, I'm fine, right? God will still judge us for our mistakes even if we turn from Him. Turn to Deuteronomy 10. But the reason I think of this as bribing God is because, you see, in the same way as unsay people, take someone who believes works by a salvation. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin isn't a good life. The wages of sin isn't going to church or giving money to church. The wages of sin is death. The only way to pay for your sin is by going to hell or allowing Jesus Christ to pay it for you. But people go before God owing this sin debt, owing eternal punishment and torture and hell and they go before God, trying to bribe Him with their good life. Well, as long as I give God this good life and I provide Him with this relationship with Jesus, He'll let me off the hook. Christians can do the same thing. We contend to do the same thing. See, here's how God does not judge you. God does not judge you by how smart you are. How much money you have, your previous righteousness, your current righteousness, or your earthly status. Those are not things that God takes into account when He judges you. Here's how God does judge you, though, by your current character and actions. We need to keep that in mind. Because you know what, before God, we're still all miserable sinners that deserve help. You haven't stopped, you haven't gotten past the point. You may be saved and you may not be going to hell. You still deserve it. We all do. The thing about how the Bible says that, you know, even if we do everything we're supposed to be doing and we serve God with our whole life, we're still unprofitable of servants because we have done that, which is our duty to do. Like, good job. You did what you were supposed to do. We are still all sinners and we still all have things that we need to be working on. We should always have the mentality of God be merciful to me, a sinner. There in Deuteronomy 10, 17, the Bible says this, for the Lord, your God is a God of gods, a Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty and a terrible, which regardless not persons nor take a reward. God's saying you can't bribe me with anything. In other places in the Bible, God, you see this thing where He talks a lot about how I don't need your sacrifices. I don't need your fancy temple. I own the whole earth. What are you gonna bribe me with? There's a passage in Isaiah. I was just reading the other day about that where you can't come before God and there's nothing you can offer Him to bribe God with. There's nothing you have that God doesn't have that He needs from you. God in regardless, not persons. You see, God cares about you. Don't get what I'm about to say wrong, okay? God cares about you. He loves you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He cares about you, He does not care who you are. He doesn't care your status. He doesn't care. You are still someone in the desperate need of God's mercy. We all are. So we can't develop this mentality. God can't be bribed with anything. You know what the term there, I'll read you a couple of verses. This one was actually read this morning. Ezekiel 18, 24, but when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness. You say, oh, I've done a lot of righteous things in the past. Good for you. But when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness and commiteth iniquity, and doeth according to all the abominations that the wicked man doeth, shall he live? So God is asking, or a question here, he's gonna answer. He's saying, if you have someone who's righteous and they've done a lot of good things, they have a lot of, on the record, they've done a lot of good things, but they've turned from God. He says, shall he live? He's saying, will they get away with it? He goes on to say all his righteousness that he hath done shall not be mentioned. In his trespass that he hath trespassed, and in his sin that he hath sinned, and them shall he die. Say you were arrested for committing a crime. Say you stole a car or something, and you stand for a judge, and you say, but judge, I stole this car, but just last week I donated a bunch of money to charity, and I go to church and I'm normally a pretty good person. That doesn't come into account when you're being judged for a crime. Same way with God, you commit sin, you're gonna be punished for that sin. You don't get by with it. It's not like some people get by with it, and some other people don't because of the previous things they've done or some bribe they have with God. Another good verse in Ezekiel 33, which has a lot of the same language as Ezekiel 18. God says this in the first part of the verse, Ezekiel 33, 12. Therefore, thou son of man, say unto the children of thy people, the righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression. He's saying, you're a righteousness and the day that you sin, that righteousness will not be regarded. It will not get you anywhere with me. Again, even though we're saved, we are still far beyond the glory of God. We are still miserable sinners and we need to keep that in mind. Turn to Romans 2. Romans chapter 2. Romans chapter 2, we'll start reading in verse one. Romans 2, one, the Bible says this, therefore thou were inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou are the judges, for wherein thou judges another, thou can dimest thyself, for thou the judges do the same thing. For we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things, and thing is thou this, O man, that judges them which do such things and do us the same, that thou shall escape the judgment of God. You know, you read these verses and sometimes you read it and maybe at first you think, well, who does this? Who judges somebody else for something that they do and they do the same thing and they think that God will treat them different? A lot of people do it. A lot of people do it. And here's what it's saying. It's saying when you're judging others, you're really just condemning yourself because you will be judged for your sins as well. You will be judged for the same thing as well. And obviously we understand that the Bible says judge not that ye be not judged. So don't judge him critically is what it's saying. It doesn't mean that you can't point out right and wrong is not what that's saying. Verse four, or despises thou the riches of his goodness and reverence along suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance, but after that hardness and notice this word, impenitent heart, thou treasures up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath, wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds. So this word impenitent, it's defined as this, not feeling regret about one's sins or sins, obdurate. So when you are just stuck in your ways, this verse is talking about someone who's just stuck in their ways. They don't feel regret about their sin. They don't think it's a big deal. When God's saying, don't forget that every man will be judged according to his sin. There's nothing that you, you can't bribe God with something that you have that will make him treat you different. Keep reading verse seven. He gives some practical examples here of how God will judge everybody if they do this and God will do this if they do this. And God will say who they are. Verse seven, to them who by patient continuance and well-doing for glory and honor immortality, eternal life, but to them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath. Tribulation to anguish upon every soul that doeth evil, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. You see in this, at the time this was written, this is people who thought that God, people Christians is with Zionism, right? People think that some people get a certain past based off something they have and other people do not. This is still going on today with Zionism, right? People think that people just do it with different things. And in the case of Zionism, they're basing it off like nationality in religion. They're saying, oh, well, if you're part of this nationality, you get a pass on the things you've gone. Or you get, God will give you a pass because you're his chosen people or whatever. This verse is saying it does not matter who you are. God will judge you and treat you the same. You know, praise God for that. Praise God that God doesn't just let certain people, that God isn't hard on certain people, let other people slide and everything. God is a just God. God is a just God. God is merciful, God is loving, but he is also just. He must punish sin appropriately. Verse 10, glory, honor, peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first and also to the Gentile. Look at verse 11, for there is no respect of persons with God. Like I said, God cares about you and God loves you, but he does not care who you are. God does not respect you anymore because of who you are. Everybody in the eyes of God were someone who was at his mercy, who had sinned against him and who is in need of salvation and who he had died for their sins and simply believed on it and who got a free pass into heaven. We're a bunch of freeloaders to God in a sense. There's no one who can come before God and bribe him or offer him anything to make him treat us any different. So, first this evening we saw you can't fool God. We're talking about ways people try to manipulate God, manipulating God. The first is you can't fool God. The second is you can't bribe God. The third this evening is this, you can't ignore God. Turn back to 1 Kings 14. You cannot ignore God. So here we have this judgment. The God gave to Jeroboam. We're just gonna read it in its entirety and notice what he says towards about the middle of it. He says, go tell Jeroboam, the state, the Lord God of Israel, for as much as I exalted thee from among the people, made thee prince over my people Israel and ran the kingdom away from the house of David and gave it thee. And yet that was not bend of my servant David who kept my commandments and followed me with all his heart to do that only which was right in my eyes. But that was done evil above all that were before thee for that was gone and made the other gods and molten images to provoke me to anger and has cast me behind the back. Therefore, behold, I'll bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam. In this curse here, note that this curse is a special curse. God only gave this curse three times to the kings. This curse where he basically vowed to wipe out their whole family and end their dynasty in the nation of Israel. He did it three times. He did it with Jeroboam here. He did it with Basha later and he did it with Ahab. And here we go, Jeroboam, who is the very first king of Israel. You could say he's the only one that God actually chose, except for maybe Jihu later, God actually chose him specifically to lead this nation. And he has received this special curse from God where he says, I'm going to wipe out your entire family. I'm going to end your dynasty. And another thing that speaks to Bram and God. You know, Jeroboam was chosen by God at some point. Obviously he was a good enough person to where God said, you know, I'm gonna pick this man to lead my nation. But that did not get him very far when he sinned, right? Verse 10, therefore behold, I'll bring evil. We already read that. Verse 11, in the dieth of Jeroboam, the city shall the dogs eat and in the dieth and the fields shall the fowls of the air eat, for the Lord has spoken it. And then he finally gets to the matter of what she actually came to hear about, her child. Verse 12, arise thou therefore and get thee to thine own house. And when thy feet enter into the city, the child shall die. It's pretty harsh. He says, oh yeah, and about the child that you came here so subtly to try to, you know, get a reaction about, you brought those bribes, you brought that, those gifts to me to try to bribe me into giving a positive answer, your child's gonna die as soon as you go home. Verse 13, and all Israel shall mourn for him and bury him, for he only of Jeroboam shall come to the grave, because in him there's found some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel in the house of Jeroboam. Verse 14, moreover the Lord shall raise him up a king over Israel who shall cut off the house of Jeroboam that day, but what? Even now, for the Lord shall smite Israel as a reed is shaken in the water and he shall root up Israel out of this good land, which he gave to their fathers and shall scatter them beyond the river because they have made groves, provoking the Lord to anger, and he shall give Israel up. And then you see this phrase that repeats itself throughout the kings and chronicles because of the sins of Jeroboam who did sin and made Israel to sin. You see Jeroboam, he started out obviously good enough to where God even said here, he saw some good thing in him to where he chose him, but Jeroboam ended up turning from God and he was wiped out by God immediately for his sins. Jeroboam obviously who by the way said a horrible precedent for the nation of Israel. We're gonna read about it later, but throughout the whole, you see Jeroboam, you read this and you say, why did God, why was God so harsh? There were kings of Judah later in his time went on that were worse than Jeroboam. Jeroboam was not the worst king. He did a lot of bad things, but there were worse kings than Jeroboam. He say, why was God so hard on him? Because he's the one who set the precedent of evil. You'll notice when you're reading, see David for example, take David, David said a good precedent. When you're reading through the kings and chronicles, it's kind of telling stories back to back, just jumping from Israel to Judah, from Israel to Judah. Typically, and there's a couple of exceptions, like with Manuset and things like this, but typically what you'll notice is that when a king of Judah is described when he died, and it's just talking about whether he was a good king or a bad king, it compares him to David. Like he was not as good as David or he didn't follow God like David or he was good like David. He didn't follow God like David. When it's a king of Israel, the example is that they're compared to his Jeroboam, which is just on a side note, what kind of precedent do you want to set, right? Do you want to be looked at as a bad example or do you want to be looked at as a good example? But either way, look at verse 17. He tells her that when you go home, your child's going to die. And Jeroboam's wife arose and departed and came to Tiersa. And when she came to the threshold of the door, the child died. Notice how she seemingly ignored God's prophecy of her child. I mean, he says when you go home, I mean, obviously he's going to happen either way. But he says when you go home, your child's gonna die. And she just goes and, you know, blatantly home and the child dies. And that's obviously an example of ignoring God, but there's a much bigger example here. The example of Jeroboam in his sentence. Turn to 1 Kings 13. You see, Jeroboam, yeah, he turned from God, but Jeroboam was warned. It's not like he turned on God and the next day, God said, you're done, I'm wiping out your old family. Jeroboam was warned by men of God. Of course, Jeroboam, he became king. Later, he built the false gods. He built the golden calf down in Bethel. In 1 Kings 13, in this story, he's actually at the altar, offering incense to this false God that he built. Verse one, and behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto Bethel, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. And he, talking about the man of God, cried against the altar in the word of the Lord and said, oh, altar, altar, let's say, the Lord, behold, the child shall be born into the house of David, Josiah by name, and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee. So here he prophesies of what happened in 1 Kings chapter 23, where Josiah comes years and years and years and years later and goes to this same altar and burns the bones of the dead false prophets on this altar, something that came to pass later. But then he also gives a more immediate prophecy. Verse three, and he gave a sign the same day, saying, this is the sign which the Lord has spoken, behold, the altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out. And it came to pass that when King Jeroboam, nice guy, heard the sayings in the man of God, which he cried against the altar in Bethel, that he put forth his hand from the altar, saying, lay hold on him, and his hand which he put forth against him dried up so that he could not pull it against to him. And the altar was rent, and the ashes poured out from the altar according to the sign which the man of God had given him by the word of the Lord. See, by the time of reading about this curse that God gives Jeroboam and his family in 1 Kings 14, he had already been warned. He already knew what God thought about what he was doing. He just chose to ignore God. He chose to block it out. He knew the judgment of God, he knew what God's word was, what the man of God had told him, but he chose to ignore it. Turn to 2 Kings 17. So I wanna look at two different ways. Two different ways we ignore God. Two different ways that it is possible to ignore God. The first one is by doing what he said not to do. And the second is by not doing what he told us to do. We're gonna look at an example here of an example of someone, or in this case a nation, doing what he said not to. Here we're talking about Israel. Of course, Jeroboam, he set that dangerous precedent, right? And as time goes on, he set this bad precedent and there were many evil kings in Israel and God sent many prophets, many who died to warn Israel. I mean, think about that. Men's, the lives of good men were spent trying to warn this nation of their sin. And eventually it gets to the point in where God wipes them out. Of course, they were taken to captivity by the Assyrian Empire a little before Judah was taken into captivity by Babylon. But I really like how God does this here because both in kings and in chronicles, where he tells the story of when the Assyrian Empire took them over, God sort of writes this little disclaimer in there kind of saying, you know, this didn't just happen overnight. I warned them. I told them, I sent them my prophets and they didn't listen. We're gonna look at the one in Second Kings. Second Kings 17, verse 13. The Bible says this, yet the Lord, again, this is right after the Assyrian Empire wiped out Israel off the face of the earth for good. Verse 13, yet the Lord testified against Israel and against Judah by all the prophets and by all the seers saying, turn ye from your evil ways and keep my commandments and my statutes according to all the law which I commanded your fathers in which I sent you by my servants, the prophets. Verse 14, not withstanding they would not hear, but hardened their necks like to the neck of their fathers that did not believe in the Lord their God. And they rejected his statutes and his covenant which he made with their fathers and his testimonies which he testified against them and they followed vanity and became vain. It went after the heathen that were round about them concerning whom the Lord had charged them that they should not do like them. See, we contend if we're not careful to do the same thing. We know what God says about a certain thing. And a lot of it comes with the things we talked about. It comes with already having an attitude where we're fooling God or we're trying to bribe God or we think that we're above being judged by God because we're good enough. We can get to a point where we know what God thinks about something but we kinda just block it out. God, we know what God says, we know what the prophets are saying, what the seers are saying and it could be said of us that we would not hear. We won't listen. We've already made up our mind. This is like the person who goes to you asking for advice and you give them advice and then they just go do what they're doing anyway. That person already had their mind made up. It's just like same thing with God and us. We can come to church if we're not careful and here it's like we're asking for advice. When you come in and you're listening to a sermon, surely you're listening so you know what to change or you know what to do in your Christian life but you see people just go do the same thing anyway. You say, why do they do that? They already had their mind made up. They already had their mind made up before they heard what God had to say. So God tells them and they ignore it. God tells them what they should not be doing and they do it anyway. But that's just one example. What about the other way? What about not doing something that God has told you to do? There's a lot of that, right? God, you know there's something God wants you to do whether it's going to church or going to soul winning or any commandment in the Bible and you choose not to do it anyway. Let's turn to Jonah, Jonah chapter one. Jonah chapter number one, we'll start reading verse one. The Bible says this, now the word of the Lord came unto Jonah the son of Amitya saying, arise, go to Nineveh. That great city, cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me. So Jonah, this is before the captivity in Jonah is told to preach to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the evil wicked nation that would judge Israel for their sin and he goes and God tells him to preach against Nineveh, go to Nineveh and preach against it. Verse three, but Jonah rose up to flee into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. Seems like he's trying to manipulate God. It seems like he thinks he can pull a fast one on God and went down to Joppa and he found a ship going to Tarshish, so he paid the fare thereof and went down into it to go with them into Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea and there was a mighty tempest in the sea so that the ship was like to be broken. Because guess what? You can't fool God. You can't bribe God either. So I'm a prophet, Jonah may have said, I'm a prophet, I've preached to tons of places. I preached here and there and there and there. What is it if I just don't preach to one? God didn't even let him get away with that. Well, he can't fool God. You can't bribe God and especially in this story you can't ignore God. When God tells you don't do this and you do it anyway, God says do this and you don't. It doesn't matter your previous righteousness. It doesn't matter who you think you are, who you've fooled others to make them think you are. You cannot ignore God and God will not let you get away with it. God didn't let Jeroboam get away with it or his wife and God does not let us get away with it. Let's look at verse five. I want to look at one more thought before we finish this evening. First five, so we read a lot of times in the Bible and I think like Jonah, we've already Jonah, we've all heard the story of Jonah. I think sometimes it's important to picture and imagine what was this like? Can you imagine being in a ship that was so bad that the ship was gonna break? That the ship was gonna be destroyed? I mean you think you'd be feared for your life, you'd be scared, I mean look at verse five. Then the mariners, these guys do this for a living. Then the mariners were afraid. When people who do it for a living are afraid, you know you're in trouble and cried to every man and do his God and cast forth the wares that were in the ship of the sea to lighten it up of them. So even these people, they're not even saved but they realize this is from God. They realize this is from God. They're praying to God, obviously a false God, they're not even saved but they realize they have enough common sense to realize this is something to do, something sent from God. They're throwing things out of the ship, they think they're going to die, the ship's gonna break. Where's the Christian? Where's the servant of God? Surely, since he's the one being judged and he knows the Word of God, he's a prophet, he'd be aware of what's going on, right? Where's the prophet? Where's the Christian? But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship and he lay and was fast asleep. If you read this and you're like, how is that possible? I mean, I'm sure he was loud, I'm sure he was shaking back and forth. We'll go out ocean fishing and there's no storm in sight and it feels like it's a rough ride. I can't imagine, can you imagine if there's a storm that is threatening your life and Jonah's fast asleep? You say, how was that possible? That's crazy. We did the same thing. Turn to Galatians 6, Galatians chapter 6. While you're turning there, I'm gonna read to you Jeremiah 49, turn to myself, Jeremiah 49. You're turning to Galatians chapter 6. So you're there, Jeremiah 49. And God's talking to a nation here, he's going to judge and he says this, Thy terribleness hath deceived thee in the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwells in the clutches of the rock and holdest the height of the hill, though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from that, sayeth the Lord. See, a lot of people, we're talking about manipulating God this evening. Now, is it possible to manipulate God? No. It's sort of a sarcastic tongue-and-cheek title, right? Because obviously no one can manipulate God. In reality, you know who are really manipulating when we do these things? We're manipulating ourselves. The joke you could say is on us. We think we're getting away with pulling things on God and we think we can go and we can do these things to, you know, the hyges in our lives, but we're really just deceiving ourselves. God says to this nation, your terribleness has just deceived you. If they're in Galatians 6, just look at who are really manipulating. Galatians 6, verse 3 says this, for if a man thinks himself to be something, is everyone thinks himself to be something, right? There's nothing wrong with that. We all have an opinion on where we are spiritually or in different areas of our life, but here's the thing, for if a man thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives God. He deceives those around him. No, here's who gets deceived. He deceives himself. Verse four, but let every man prove his own work and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone and not in another. For every man shall bear his own burden. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him the teacheth and all good things. Verse seven, so on that idea of being deceived by ourselves because we think we're something we're not, look at verse seven, it says be not deceived, God is not mocked. For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. You see, when we do these things, when we're trying to fool God and we're trying to bribe God and we build these different mentalities, you know, we take the approach that, oh, I get a pass because of what I've done, instead of God be merciful to me a sinner and we think we're getting away with ignoring God. Guess what? The joke's on us. The joke's on us. Because guess what? God's not the one mocked. And you know what? Even in a, especially in a church like this, the people here aren't mocked either. Especially since God's on their side and out of the abundance of the heart that I'll speak of, we're the ones who are fooling ourselves. And here's the unfortunate thing. And I got at this a little bit with the king of Tyre. The unfortunate thing is that most people will not, if they take it too far, if we take this idea too far and we deceive ourselves too much, the unfortunate thing is we will not realize the joke's on us until they're already reading. Until you're like Israel, where you've been taken into captivity and everyone's killed and the nation has been besieged and you're like, oops, I guess we should've listened. Maybe we weren't that great. Most people will not realize until they're like the king of Tyre. Most people will not realize who they really were and where they were at with God until there's a man above them with a sword about to kill them. And they say, maybe I'm not God. Maybe I'm not who I set my heart to be. Or they're like Jonah, where they're being judged by God for their actions and they don't realize, they haven't come to terms yet with it until someone shakes them up and says, wake up, what are you doing? Look around you. We don't wanna be this. We don't wanna let our pride get lift us up so much that we go through our life kind of building this idea. Here's verse three, everyone thinks of themselves to be something and there's nothing wrong with that. But we don't wanna go through our life building up who we think we are and going and trying to treat everyone else like we're above them and make people think like we're something great and going and trying to fooling God and bribing God and ignoring God and being so blinded. I mean how many verses have I read that talked about blindness, the blindness of our heart? And not realize how not great we really are until God has already come down on us. So we need to be aware of this because again, God is not manipulated but we very easily are and often by our own selves. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.