On Sunday night, Bro. Dennis was preaching on Judges 3, which tells us of the judge God raised up for Israel named Ehud. There was an evil king named Eglon, who led the Israelites to worship that which is false. Israel was called to be holy, not looking like the rest of the world; they were to worship God and God alone.
It all started as they were doing what was evil in the sight of the LORD. God allowed Eglon to become stronger, and to take over Israel. He lead Israel, who was already in sin, to serve sin. God raised Ehud to take down the King, and bring peace to Israel.
We live in a day and age where many attend church, however, there is always something that is competing for our attention and affection. They are idols; the things that we place at a higher importance than God. It starts out as something we seem to think we can control. Soon, much like Israel experienced, the sin we allow grows stronger and takes over us.
When we allow the sin of idolatry to come in and take up a part of our life, we stop worshipping God the way we are called to, and we worship what we focus on instead. We become blind to the dark, terrible reality of sin. It clouds our judgment.
The things that Christians should enjoy and take part in (reading the Bible, praying, sharing the Gospel, fellowship, church) do not seem as enjoyable. Our idols become the object of our worship. We think about our idols day and night. All of our free time becomes consumed with what is our idol. It could be anything; television, sports, cars, work, etc. We stop looking more like Christ, and begin to look more like the world. The Christian is called to look different from the world. The Old and New Testaments tell us that we are to be holy, for God is holy. The book of Romans says to “make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (13:14).
John Owen, who was a theologian in the 1600’s, in his book Mortification of Sin in Believers, says to the reader “Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” We as Christians have to fight the sin in our lives. We cannot allow sin to come in and take up space. It slowly kills, and sin that is not repented of causes a whole world of trouble.
I encourage you to actively fight sin. Make it a priority to read the Word, to pray, to attend church services. Actively seek to grow in your knowledge of God. Do not allow anything to take the place of God in your life. Let Him and Him alone be the object of your worship. To God alone be the glory.