Why Won’t We Accept God’s Plan For Our Security?
(Romans 11:4)
Why Won’t We Accept God’s Plan For Our Security?
Transcript of a clip from the talk Baal Worship by Rev. Ernest O’Neill
Well, first of all, many of us are really pagans. We have rejected God’s idea for our lives; we show no interest in what His plans are for us. We don’t spend a minute of any day asking Him what He wants us to do. We have actually rejected His rule over us. So we have no confidence in expecting that He will fulfil His promises to us because His promises are conditional upon us obeying Him. Many of us are just rank pagans! We don’t let God govern our personal relationships with other people; we don’t let Him govern what we are going to do on vacation; we don’t let Him govern our marriage plans; we don’t let Him govern what we do with our businesses. The result is we actually quake inside when it comes to God’s promises, because we have no ground for expecting Him to fulfil those promises, simply because they are conditional upon obedience.
Others of us here this morning say, “Well, I’m not a pagan. I’m not a rebel. I believe in God. I believe Jesus died for me. I believe many of the things that you have talked about in God’s plan to meet my needs for security. I believe those things, but somehow in my life I still experience the anxiety that Auden talked about: “In headaches and in worry vaguely life leaks away.” That’s what my life is like. I believe God is a good God. I believe He is kind. I believe He is taking care of me, but I must admit that I do get worried and I do get anxious about the bills that have to be paid. I do get concerned about my future. I do seem to have many of the symptoms of the people that you describe as Baal worshippers.” Why? Syncretism! It means worshipping or trying to worship two gods at once. That’s why God said what He did to Elijah. “Look, I have seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Israel has! Israel as a whole sees me as Jehovah God, but they also try to worship Baal. And of course I am a jealous God. I know that you cannot get anything unless you trust me completely apart from everything else. You can’t worship two gods at once — and they aren’t. They are worshipping the god that they trust day by day.”
Loved ones, that is the situation with many of us. We say we believe in God; in our heads we give mental assent to Him. We give mental assent to the idea that Jesus died for us, but day by day we don’t trust our dear Father who is our truest Friend and who will never let us down. We live day by day trusting our possessions and our ability to gather and collect enough of them to see us through to the end of this life.
Baal Worship
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