Viral Unbelief | Sunday, May 3, 2020

Hello, Cross Connection Church family! Welcome again to church online. We are so grateful that you are here today. Before we get started, as I have every week, I'm going to ask you to take just a moment and send a text message to a friend or a group of friends. Invite them to join us this morning for church service. Send someone a text and simply say, "Come to church online with me at live.ccchurch.com."

I also want to say welcome to many of you who are joining us for the first time. Some of you are in places far away from Southern California, where Cross Connection Church is located. Cross Connection Church is a Christian church. We believe in and follow Jesus, and we trust that He speaks into our lives through His inspired Word. Thank you so much for joining with us. We are praying for you, and we would love to connect with you. If you are new, please let us know that you tuned in to the broadcast this morning by going to the website new.lifeinconnection.com and filling out the form.

I am convinced that we have a great time of worship and study in the Scripture this morning. I believe that God desires to meet us now in worship and in His Word, so I hope that you'll stick around as Pastor Anthony leads us.

Amen. Lord, we thank You for Your Word that says to cast all our cares on You, for You care for us. We are so grateful that You do care for us, God. We want to spend this time to praise You for Your goodness, worship You for Your provision, and worship You for who You are. You are Jesus, Son of God. So we bless You and worship You in Jesus' name.

Jesus, I feel strange. These chains, Your presence is strong. Oh, and shame from being honest feels alive.

My heart cries. Welcome, and thanks for joining us for church at home today. If you're new or tuning in to Cross Connection Church for the first time, welcome! I'm Pastor Garrett, and I'm glad that you could join us today. Cross Connection is a church.

That's all about living life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus Christ. This week, I want to encourage you to connect with God through prayer. First, you can do that by visiting prayer.lifeinconnection.com and submitting your prayer requests. Know that as soon as you submit those requests, you are being prayed for by our pastors and prayer team who love you. We are seeing God answer so many prayers here at Cross-Connection Church, so don't hesitate to send in your prayers. Whatever is going on, we would love to be praying with and for you.

Second, if you are someone who loves prayer and spends a lot of time in prayer, and you would like to join the prayer team to pray for all the requests that come into Cross-Connection Church, you can do so. Just submit a prayer request on the same form at prayer.lifeinconnection.com and simply say in the description box, "Join the prayer team." We will add you to the list, and you'll receive all of the weekly prayer requests. We would love to grow the prayer team. God is doing an amazing work right now, and our prayers are powerful and effective.

For other ways to connect here at Cross-Connection Church, I want to encourage you to visit our homepage at lifeinconnection.com. You'll find all the other points of connection and ways for you to stay connected with Cross-Connection during this pandemic until we can meet in person at the church again.

Our mission this week is to highlight a missions organization or someone we support and ask you to pray for them. This week, I can't give you their names, but I can tell you it's a couple in Jordan. Because this is a live YouTube broadcast, we can't share their names or specific details. Please pray for our missionary couple in Jordan that we are supporting. They are doing phenomenal work there, but it has also been a really difficult time for Jordan. Just like us, they are shut down because of the virus, which means that all the small businesses have been closed. Since it is a tourist-specific industry, many people are hurting over there.

This missionary couple has had many opportunities, especially during this time of Ramadan, prayer, and fasting. They are praying for all of their neighbors and the businesses there, and they are getting opportunities to share the gospel. Please pray for the Kingdom of God to continue to expand through this couple in Jordan.

In just a moment, Pastor Anthony is going to lead us in a time of worship. This is going to be a time set aside for those of you who call Cross-Connection Church your home.

Home church, it is important to be giving faithfully to the Lord. You can do that in a couple of different ways. First, you can simply go to give.lifeinconnection.com and give on our website. Second, you can pull out your phone and text any amount to 84321. Alternatively, you can mail your tithe to the church address: 1675 Seven Oaks Road, Escondido, California. We would love to worship the Lord with you in this way.

As we enter into this time of worshipping the Lord with our giving, I invite you all to bow your heads with me as I pray for our missionary couple in Jordan and over the tithes and offerings.

Father God, we do thank You for all those who are faithfully giving to Your kingdom. Lord, we are treasuring and transplanting what we have here and putting it into the kingdom of God. We pray that You would use what is given for the furtherance of Your kingdom here in Escondido and around the world.

We also pray that You would do a mighty work in the missionary couple that we have in Jordan. Lord, would You pour out Your Spirit there? We desire to see the kingdom of God expand and for many people to come to a saving knowledge of Your Son, Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

It is where I let go my soul and trust in the waves and wind. So let go my soul in Him. The waves and men don't know His name.

My eyes are opened to the truth. God, we thank You, Lord, that You provide everything we need. You are everything we need. We know that it is well in our hearts. We bless You and praise You in Jesus' mighty name. We pray, Amen.

I have believed for a long time and have shared many times before here at the church that our true nature, what is commonly referred to as the flesh by Christians, shows itself most clearly when we are sick, tired, hungry, and stressed. We tend to default to who we really are in our flesh during those times. This is when our impatience, unkindness, irritabilities, and anxieties really come to the surface. I think we can add to tired, hungry, sick, and stressed.

Quarantining for a week or two is one thing, but as of today, we are at day 45 of the shutdown in California. Quarantine can certainly bring out our flesh. Maybe you've even had to apologize to your family a few times during all of this. I think God often uses challenging situations like quarantine to bring to light and expose our flesh. These experiences are His tools for pruning, purging, and purification.

Ancient Israel spent a significant period of time in shutdown and quarantine. They were separated from the land that God had promised them for thirty-eight years. For four decades, Israel wandered in the wilderness, south and east of the promised land, in and around what is known today as the country of Jordan. Israel remained under an extended quarantine for all of those years to deal with a virulent problem: a deadly strain that infected an entire generation.

The author of the New Testament book of Hebrews identifies this dangerous and deadly contagion in Hebrews 3:19. There, he wrote, "So we see that they were not able to enter the promised land; they were quarantined in the wilderness because of unbelief." So dangerous and deadly is this contagion that the author of Hebrews prescribes in verse 12, "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief." Those are some incredibly strong words. Beware of an evil heart of unbelief.

I would go so far as to say that an evil heart of unbelief is ultimately more deadly than any other condition. I say that because unbelief is the root cause of eternal spiritual death, which is far worse than physical death. Thus, ancient Israel remained under quarantine in the wilderness for forty years to deal with a highly virulent and deadly form of unbelief that often manifested itself in the symptoms of murmuring, rebellion, disobedience, and the occasional debauchery.

Deuteronomy summarizes this period of Israel's history, and Moses's summary has, I believe, some important lessons for us. The first question we should ask when we consider these verses is: why was Moses summarizing the previous 38 years of history for his listeners? The simple answer is that Moses's listeners were about to be tested for a highly infectious contagion called unbelief. Their parents and grandparents had a very deadly strain of it. The entire generation died under quarantine as a result of unbelief.

By summarizing and recounting their history, Moses is working to inoculate the new generation from the deadly unbelief that killed the previous generation. Typically, when I come to a passage like this, I work to identify a series of points in the text to focus on. This week, I'm going to adjust ever so slightly to make a series of about four observations that teach us to understand the ultimate point of this passage.

It's worth noting that Moses, the narrator of this story, has just reminded his listeners that their parents' and grandparents' generation had failed to go up to possess the Promised Land because they were fearful of the fortified cities and giants that occupied the land. In light of the obstacles, they were filled with fear and unbelief. As a result, they wandered and died in the wilderness by their own choice. They did not trust that God, who brought them up out of Egypt, could bring them into the Promised Land.

On the heels of that, the first thing that God allowed His unbelieving people to do was to walk in circles. This is what we see in Deuteronomy chapter 2, beginning right there in verse 1. There we read, "Then we turned and journeyed into the wilderness, the way of the Red Sea, as the Lord spoke to me, and we skirted Mount Seir for many days." How many days? Many days—an indeterminate period of time. As much as we may not like this, I have found this to be true: God will allow you to meander aimlessly so that He may accomplish His ultimate ends.

If that means allowing you to wander in the wilderness for decades, God has a lot of time, and He is more than willing to wait. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty impatient. However, God isn't. This waiting on us, which I'm going to call God's anti-blessing, is significant. I say anti-blessing because it isn't exactly an active curse from God, but it is also definitely not His blessing. This anti-blessing is a kind of judgment, but it is a judgment that Israel chose for themselves.

This leads us to one of the most important forms of prophecy that we find in the Bible, which we'll see a lot more of when we get into the later chapters of Deuteronomy. I call it conditional predictive prophecy. Conditional predictive prophecy is prophetic and predictive in the sense that it foresees what is going to happen, but it only does so as it recognizes cause and effect. If you do X, then you will get Y. A squared plus B squared always equals C squared. It is effectively the principle of sowing and reaping.

I am awesomely prophetic when I tell a promiscuous young couple, "If you don't stop what you're doing, you're going to get pregnant." Then, when they get pregnant, they ask, "How did you know?" Well, I'm a prophet.

We find in the text that Israel turned and journeyed into the wilderness, walking in circles for many days. If you feel like your life is going nowhere and you're meandering meaninglessly, circling the wilderness, then you have to ask yourself the question: Did I choose this wilderness myself? Am I experiencing the anti-blessing of God? If you are wandering, are you done yet? Are you tired of that?

Moses continues in verse 2, and the Lord spoke to me, saying, "You have skirted this mountain long enough; turn northward." It's time to stop wandering in the wilderness. He goes on, "The Lord spoke to me and commanded the people, saying, 'You are about to pass through the territory of your brethren, the descendants of Esau, who live in Seir. They will be afraid of you; therefore, watch yourselves carefully. Do not meddle with them, for I will not give you any of their land, not so much as a footstep, because I have given Mount...'"

Seir to Esau as a possession. You shall buy food from them with money that you may eat, and you shall also buy water from them with money that you may drink. In verse 8, when we passed beyond our brethren, the descendants of Esau, who dwell in Seir, away from the road of the plain, away from Iliff and Azan-gibber, we turned and passed by the way of the wilderness of Moab.

Then the Lord said to me, "Do not harass Moab nor contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land as a possession because I have given Ar to the descendants of Lot as a possession." The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants, like the Anakim, but the Moabites call them Emim.

In verse 12, the Horites formerly dwelt in Seir, but the descendants of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and dwelt in their place, just as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the Lord gave them.

Now arise, cross over the valley of Zaron. So we crossed over the valley of Zerud. The time we took to come from Kadesh Barnea until we crossed over to the valley of Zerud was thirty-eight years, until all the generation of the men of war were consumed from the midst of the camp, just as the Lord had sworn to them. For indeed, the hand of the Lord was against them to destroy them from the midst of the camp until they were consumed.

So it was when all the men of war had finally perished from among the people that the Lord spoke to me, saying, "This day you are to cross over at Ar, the boundary of Moab." When you come near the people of Ammon, do not harass them or meddle with them, for I will not give you any of the land of the people of Ammon as a possession because I have given it to the descendants of Lot for a possession.

That land was also regarded as the land of giants. Giants formerly dwelt there, but the Ammonites call them the Zamzummim, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place, just as He had done for the descendants of Esau who dwelt in Seir when He destroyed the Horites from before them. They dispossessed them and dwelt in their place even to this day.

The Avim, who dwelt in villages as far as Gaza, the Caphtorim, who came from Caphtor, destroyed them.

And dwelt in their place. There is a whole lot there in the text. I have three more observations to consider in this text.

First, not only will God allow you to meander aimlessly to accomplish His ultimate ends, but also God will allow you to long jealously for the life and possessions of others to provoke you to move into the life that He desires for you. Now, that may seem very counterintuitive to some. Some of the real Bible people are thinking that's crazy; God would never be okay with us being provoked to jealousy. Jealousy is wrong, but let me prove to you from the Scriptures that this is actually true.

First, I understand that jealousy, as an outgrowth of covetousness, isn’t a good thing. In fact, we're going to see in just a couple of chapters that covetousness is a transgression of God's law. It is true that we should not covet after or for what our neighbor has, but God certainly intended for Israel to long for the possession that He had created for them. If you still feel that it's off, you should go and read the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy, where we read in verse 21: "They have provoked Me," God says, "to jealousy by what is not God, and they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols. But I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation, and I will move them to anger by a foolish nation."

Like it or not, God will allow you to long jealously as you see the life and possessions of others so that He might provoke you to move into the life that He desires for you. If it drives you crazy that you're not where you feel you should be in life and someone else seems to be further along than you, it might be worth asking: Am I where I am supposed to be?

The descendants of Isaac, Moab, and Ammon were distant relatives of Israel. They were living in their own land; they had their own cities, their own farmlands, and their own cattle, sheep, and goats. During their thirty-eight years of wilderness wandering, Israel got to walk through the land of Isaac, Moab, and Ammon to see their distant cousins living in their own lands with their own homes and their own cities.

One possible way that didn't drive Israel crazy as it should have is the next thing we observe in the text: God will allow you to witness the victory of your enemies to highlight the discomfort of your defeat. The descendants of Esau, Moab, and Ammon weren't exactly Israel's enemies, but they kind of were. As Israel wandered through their lands over the decades of their meandering, we read this, which we saw previously in verses 10 through 12. The Emim had dwelt there in times past, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. They were also regarded as giants like the Anakim, but the Moabites called them Emim. The Idumeans formerly dwelt in Seir, but the descendants of Esau dispossessed them and destroyed them from before them and dwelt in their place, just as Israel did to the land of their possession, which the Lord gave them.

Did you catch that? Why did Israel not inherit the promised land under the Exodus generation? Because they were afraid of the giants in the land. But what did their cousins, the descendants of Esau, do? They dispossessed and destroyed the giants that were in the land. Just in case you missed that, let's look at what the text goes on to say in verses 20 through 22. That was also regarded as a land of giants; giants formerly dwelt there, but the Ammonites called them Zamzummim, a people as great, numerous, and tall as the Anakim. But the Lord destroyed them before them, and they dispossessed them and dwelt in their place, just as He had done for the descendants of Esau who dwelt in Seir when He destroyed the Rephaim from before them. They dispossessed them and dwelt in their place even to this day.

Israel failed to possess their promised land because there were giants in the land, but their cousins from Esau and Ammon defeated the giants. Not only that, God helped them to do it so that they could possess the land. Wouldn't He have helped His own people, Israel, to do the same as well? Sometimes God allows you and me to witness the victory of our enemies to highlight the discomfort of our defeat. God didn't want Israel to become comfortable in their wilderness wanderings, so He allowed them to see their defeat in relation to the victory of their cousins. Apparently, a little rivalry is sometimes not a bad thing.

Finally, we read at verse 24: "Rise, take your journey, and cross over the river Arnon. Look, I have given it into your hand Sion, the Amorite king of Heshbon, and his land. Begin to possess it and engage him in battle. This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you upon the nations under the whole of heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you."

The fourth and final observation here in this text is that God may require you to engage in battle to take the possession He has promised for you. This means that it isn't going to be easy. Everything worthwhile is hard. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you or selling something. God's aim from the beginning was to position Israel in their own land because His redemptive plan required it. The Exodus generation failed to possess the land God had promised them, but He allowed them and their children to meander aimlessly through the wilderness so that they might be provoked to jealousy, be discomforted by defeat, and be stirred up to move into the land that He had prepared for them.

There's an old saying, and I'm sure you've probably heard it: "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." That's actually not really true. There are at least two things that you can do to make him drink: run him really, really hard and salt his oats. He'll get really thirsty, really quick. Some of you this morning have been eating salted oats and running really hard, and God is going to keep you running until you are ready to yield to and trust in Him.

In more than 20 years of pastoral ministry, I've never met a person who regretted yielding to God and trusting Him, but I have met quite a few people who wish that they had not, and they wandered through the wilderness for decades before they finally did.

In the New Testament book of Hebrews, we read earlier: "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin." Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your heart as in the rebellion. The nation of Israel, thirty-four hundred years ago, hardened their hearts and rebelled against God.

They did not trust Him and follow Him by faith when He sought to lead them into the Promised Land. As a result, they failed to enter into the fullness of His blessing. God wants to lead you into the fullness of His blessing in Christ today, but that's only possible if you yield to Him as Lord and trust in Him for salvation.

Some of you this morning recognize right now that you need to do just that. It's time to stop wandering and meandering through the wilderness. It's time to put your trust in Jesus and to ask Him to come into your heart and into your life.

Listen, if that's you today and you would like to put your faith and trust in Jesus, I want to lead you in a prayer of faith and commitment to the Lord. Receiving the free gift of salvation that Jesus gives is truly as easy as ABC. First, you admit that you are a sinner; you acknowledge that you need Jesus. Second, you believe that Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sin. Third, you confess Him as Lord and ask Him to come into your life as you commit your life to Him.

God wants to do a great work in your life, and maybe you've been meandering in the wilderness for a very long time. If you would like to turn to the Lord and put your trust and faith in Him today, I want to lead you in a very simple prayer of faith to do just that. Prayer is simply talking to God. Wherever you're at right now, you can talk to Him, and we believe that He hears and answers prayer, especially the prayer of faith that calls out to Him for salvation.

So if that's you, would you bow your head and pray with me this very simple prayer?

Dear Jesus, I know that I am a sinner. I believe that You died in my place on the cross. I believe that You rose from the dead. Please come into my heart, be my Lord and my Savior. Help me to turn from my sins and to turn to You in faith. Save me from my sin. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Listen, if you did that today and prayed that prayer, I would ask that you let us know by simply going to the website commit.lifeinconnection.com and filling out the form there. We would love to be in contact with you and maybe send you a Bible if you don't have one. Please, would you reach out to us?

Let us know if you prayed that prayer today to commit your life to Jesus. For the rest of you, I want to thank you for tuning into our broadcast today. We are absolutely amazed at the things that God is doing in the midst of this stay-at-home order that we are all in. God's Word is going out throughout the entire world, not just through Cross Connection Church, but through many other churches as well online. It is absolutely amazing to see the fruit of what God is doing right now.

We thank you so much for your prayers, and we ask that you would continue to pray with and for our church as we walk through this with you. We would also like to be praying with you. If you have a prayer request today, perhaps something that is going on in your life, maybe you are struggling in the midst of this like so many people are, or you have a family member or friend who is hurting, we would love to know about that. You can simply send us a message if you go to the website prayerlifeinconnection.com, and we would love to be praying with and for you.

One other thing before we go into another time of worship for just a moment as we conclude our service: as you probably know, next Sunday is Mother's Day, May 10th. It's hard to believe that we are already at May 10th, and we've been doing this church online thing for quite a few weeks now. We had, of course, hoped and prayed that we would be gathering together here at Cross Connection Church to worship together on Mother's Day and honor the mothers that are a part of our church. Normally, when we do that, we have a gift that we give to the moms in our church, and we want to do that again this year, even though we are not going to be gathering together.

So here's what we're going to do: next Sunday, between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., we would ask you to drive down here to Cross Connection Church if this is your home church and you are a mom. We will have a gift for you, and we'll just give it to you in the parking lot as you drive through. We hope to see you here between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. on May 10th.

As we wrap up here this morning, let me just close in prayer, and then we will worship the Lord together. Father God, we thank you for the good things that you are doing, and we ask that you would continue to help us to trust in you in the midst of these challenging times. Sometimes we can feel like the children of Israel in this passage, walking in the wilderness. But God, I pray that you would be using this time to transform us by the renewing of our minds and help us to trust in you and worship you through it all.

Lord, we look forward to the time and the opportunity, hopefully not too far in the distant future, where we can gather together as Your body in this place or maybe in another place to worship You together on a Sunday. But until then, would You continue to cause Your Word to go out to the uttermost parts through the media that we're using right now? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

God is the Lion of Judah. He is roaring with power and fighting for us. The Lamb breaks the chains, and every knee will bow before the God who comes to save.

Oh God, we bow before You, Lord. Who can stop the Lord Almighty? Who can stop the Lord? Our God is the Lion, roaring. Father God, You are great and glorious.

And powerful, one day before You, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that You are Lord to the glory of Heaven. We look forward to that day, but until it comes, I pray that You would shine brightly through Your church.

May Cross-Connection Church be like a city set on a hill that cannot be hid. Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your church as we are scattered around the county and the world, and use them to be a light. We pray and ask this in Jesus' name.

Now may the Lord bless and keep you. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you His peace. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of His Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

I don't know about you, but I think it needed a little more cowbell.