"THE DANGER OF COMPROMISE."
I. WHEN YOU ARE DETERMINED TO FOLLOW THE LORD IT SEEMS THAT SATAN BEGINS TO OFFER COMPROMISES.
A. God requires absolute, unconditional surrender. As a teenager I used to sing, "All my days and all my hours, all my will and all my powers, all the passions of my soul, not a fraction, but the whole, shall be Thine dear Lord, shall be Thine dear Lord." That is what He wants.
1. As someone has said, "He is Lord over all, or Lord not at all."
2. The moment you decide to make Him the Lord over your life, Satan begins to suggest certain compromises.
B. In Biblical typology, Pharaoh is a type of Satan as he holds the people in bondage refusing to release them. Egypt is a type of the world.
II. THE FIRST SUGGESTION OF THE PHARAOH TO MOSES WAS TO GO AND SACRIFICE IN THE LAND.
A. That is, if you are going to insist on serving God go ahead, but still live in the world. You can go to church on Sunday, but the rest of the week just live as you always have.
1. Don't get carried away with this religion bit.
2. You don't want to become a fanatic.
3. It is interesting to watch the professional football games and the stupid and weird things that people do to root for their team.
4. They will paint their faces with the colors of the team, they will wear outlandish clothes, and the world calls them fans.
5. Raise your hands while you are in church to worship God and the world calls you a fanatic.
B. Go ahead and worship God, but don't leave the world.
1. Yet God has commanded us to come out from among them and be separate. Saith the Lord, "Touch not the unclean thing and I will be a Father to you and you shall be My sons and daughters."
2. John wrote, "For the world passeth away and the lusts of it, but he who does the will of the Father abides forever."
3. James tells us that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.
4. David prayed that the Lord would unite his heart to fear His name.
5. Oh Lord, give me an undivided heart.
C. There are always those who seek to live as close to the world as possible and still maintain a relationship with the Lord.
1. They are always looking for the limits. Can I do this and still be a Christian?
2. They have too much of the world to be happy in Jesus and too much of Jesus to be happy in the world, thus they are a miserable lot.
3. We used to sing, "I want more of Jesus, more and more and more. I want more of Jesus than I ever had before. More and more of His great love, so rich and full and free. I want more of Jesus so I'll give Him more of me."
III. VERSE 28: GO, BUT DON'T GO VERY FAR.
A. How many times you have heard people warn you not to go overboard on this Jesus thing.
B. The world just doesn't understand our love for the Lord and our desire to live for Him.
1. Paul tells us that the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned.
2. They wonder why you want to go to church other than on Sunday morning. When you go to church more than once a week, they begin to get worried about you.
3. Peter wrote:
1PE 4:3 For in our past life we lived like heathen as we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, drunkeness, revellings, partying, and abominable idolatries:
1PE 4:4 And now they think it strange that you still do not run with them to the same excess of riot, and they speak evil of you.
IV. NEXT PHARAOH SUGGESTED THAT THEY GO BUT THAT THEY LEAVE THEIR CHILDREN. THE DESERT IS A HARD PLACE, YOU MEN GO, BUT LEAVE THE CHILDREN BEHIND.
A. So often Satan suggests that if you want to become a fanatic, and not watch X-rated movies and videos, keep your convictions to yourself, and don't deprive your children the pleasures of the world just because you feel convicted about certain things.
B. You can go to church but don't force your children go.
C. Don't deprive them of the T.V. programs they want to watch with all kinds of sexual innuendos.
D. Let them be exposed to all of the witchcraft and violence on the cartoons.
E. Just because you feel convicted about those things, don't force them to live by your convictions.
F. You surely do not want to damage little junior's self-image. Let Him be himself and determine for himself what is right and wrong.
G. And you surely do not want the other kids to call him names like "Jesus Freak," or "Holy Joe." He is too little to take a real stand for Christ.
H. You go, but let your children remain in the world.
I. Do you let your child determine what food they are going to eat?
1. Why do you say, "Eat your vegetables." "No desert until you finish your salad." "Drink your milk."
2. You want them to have strong bodies and be healthy.
3. But what about their spiritual health.
4. Their spiritual well-being is far more important than their physical well-being.
V. FINALLY, PHARAOH SUGGESTED THAT THEY GO BUT LEAVE THEIR CATTLE AND POSSESSIONS.
A. You may give your life to God but don't give Him your possessions.
1. So often Satan suggests that you cannot afford to give to God.
2. The truth of the matter is that you cannot afford not to give.
B. When the people of Israel returned from their captivity to Jerusalem to begin the task of rebuilding the Temple, some of them were saying, "It is not the time to rebuild the temple, let us finish our houses first." It was then that the word of the Lord came to Haggai the prophet.
HAG 1:4 [Is it] time for you, O men of Israel to dwell in your ceiled houses, while My house lies in ruin?
HAG 1:5 Now therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
HAG 1:6 You have sown much, and bring in little; you eat, but you have not enough; you drink, but you are not filled with drink; you clothe yourself but there is none warm; and he that earns wages puts them into a bag with holes.
HAG 1:7 Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Consider your ways.
HAG 1:8 Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD.
HAG 1:9 You looked for much, and, lo, [it came] to little; and when you brought [it] home, I did blow upon it. Why? saith the LORD of hosts. Because of mine house that [is] waste, and you run every man unto his own house.
HAG 1:10 Therefore the heaven over you is stayed from dew, and the earth is stayed [from] her fruit.
HAG 1:11 And I called for a drought upon the land, and upon the mountains, and upon the corn, and upon the new wine, and upon the oil, and upon [that] which the ground brought forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and upon all the labor of the hands.
C. The prophet Malachi asked, "Will a man rob God?" The people responded, "How have we robbed God?" The prophet answered, "In your tithes and offerings."
MAL 3:9 You are cursed with a curse: for you have robbed me, even this whole nation.
MAL 3:10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now in this, saith the LORD of hosts, and see if I will not open to you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that you not find room enough to contain it.
MAL 3:11 And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts.
MAL 3:12 And all nations shall call you blessed: for you shall be a delightful land, saith the LORD of hosts.
D. Have you yielded to compromise in your life? Have you for some reason or other not yielded fully to Jesus Christ? What are you holding back? I strongly recommend that you surrender your all to Him today.
Verse-Reference
Square — [Jhn 1:1 KJV]
Abbreviate Books
Use SBL Abbrev.
