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The King James Version of the Bible has served the English speaking world greatly for hundreds of years, but there are a few places where its age shows. The common KJV of today is the revision of 1789 and since that time we have made many archeological findings that help us better understand places, names, and past civilizations. And so in a couple of places, where the KJV translators simply had no way of knowing what an ancient name represented or what city it was, now we can know that the Hebrew is referring to something specific in an ancient culture and we can better understand the handful of verses that this type of issue occurs.

Our text in Isaiah is one of those few difficult verses upon which archeological findings of the last hundred years has helped to shine light. Isaiah is prophesying to people who have forsaken God Almighty and the KJV reads:

Not knowing the precise meanings for the Hebrews words, the KJV took the same route and gave a possible general meaning and translated them as "that troop" and "that number." What they could not have known in the late 1800s was that the two Hebrew words here referred to specific idols of the nation of Babylon. And so all modern English translations -- the New King James included -- changes the translations so that the names of these false gods are included. Thus to get down to really what God was saying, I had to read my text in another version.

The English Standard Version and most other modern English translations leave no doubt that God was referring to specific idols here, but what interests me are the names of these two false gods of Babylon. Our text in the ESV reads:

God was denouncing the Israelites that were turning to serve two pagan false gods, and these Babylonian idols were named "Fortune" and "Destiny." Fortune is meant as in "good fortune" or as in "luck." The Babylonians believed that some people were just luckier than others and destined to be more blessed than others, and that by offering sacrifices to the gods of Fortune and Destiny, that they could influence their future fates to the better. And so they would give sacrifices and set tables for the god called "Fortune." And they would worship the god called "Destiny" by filling cups of strong drink and offering it. They were literally worshippers of "lady luck." And God was not pleased and said those that worship these two pagan gods would be slaughtered and that He would not listen to their call because they did evil in His eyes and He did not delight in them!

The Contemporary English Version reads like this:

These idols of Fortune and Destiny are referred to as "Good Luck" and "Fate!" And God made it clear that people who put their faith in such idols were on the outs with Him!

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I am preaching to you today because the devil would like to erect the false idols again among the people of God. There are some of you who are convinced that you will be who you are and whether or not you get better or not will depend upon how lucky you are. There are some of you that are convinced that some people are more blessed than others because they are "more lucky" or they are somehow destined to be so. And you have convinced yourself that you can never be as mightily blessed or to such a level in God. But I'm here to remind you that the one, true God called "Fortune" and "Destiny," "idols" meaning that they were "man made." There is no such thing as "fate." There is no such thing as "lady luck." God cried out through Isaiah and He is crying out today that "you create your own luck." Literally! If you serve it and believe in it, then realize it is your own creation! You and you alone decide your fate. God -- the real one and the only one -- will not choose for you, and false gods cannot do a thing! You are really the one who will determine whether or not you are blessed or cursed!

Listen to what God said in the rest of the verse:

God contrasts those who trust in good fortune and luck with those who trust in Him as His "servants." Notice:

Shall eat Shall be hungry

Shall drink Shall be thirsty

Shall rejoice Shall be put to shame

Shall sing for gladness Shall cry out in pain

Will be called by a Will have their name cursed

new blessed name

And then God closes with this passage:

"He who blessed himself in the land shall bless himself by the God of truth!" And so we find a startlingly truth that shakes our generation to its very core. There is absolutely no such thing as luck. Those who will be called "lucky" in the end are those who choose to serve God and perfectly obey His commandments and those who will be termed "unlucky" will be those who don't. Even today, our concepts of Fortune and Destiny are false gods that have been created by men.

Our generation doesn't want to hear this message today. We are a generation of "good luck charms" and rabbit foots and we cross our fingers and we play the lottery just hoping that we have "lucky numbers that day" and people go to these Casinos and give more to the one armed bandit than they ever gave in a church offering plate and yet they are hoping and chasing this illusion called "luck" and "good fortune." And really what they are doing is worshipping a false god of old that is being erected in a new generation. They are bowing down and setting tables and offering sacrifices to the false gods of Fortune and Destiny.

I've heard people say "well, the Bible doesn't say anything against gambling." And yet it does. It calls the gods of Fortune and Destiny false gods and curses those who trust in them. If you play the lottery and don't pay your tithes and offerings, then you are cursed because you are telling God that you believe the million to one odds of the state lotto commission more than you trust the promises of God! If you go to Vegas and dump more money in the slot machine than you give to missions, then you are telling God that the prospect of getting rich on earth here and possibly "getting lucky" means more to you than storing up riches in heaven for eternity and therefore you are cursed!

And if we are not careful, we'll let the false gods of Fortune and Destiny slip in to the church of the living God. Some Christians think that people who have a great anointing or a powerful ministry or walk with God just "got lucky" or had "fortune smile on them" and somebody did them a favor to place them where they are. Or it was "their destiny" and it was "just meant to be." Or "they were meant to be an overcomer because of what family they came from or because of their spiritual lineage or because of the opportunities afforded them. I've heard people say, "luck was on their side." And with all of that hogwash we begin to raise up again the false Babylonian gods called Fortune and Destiny in our lives and we attribute everything to them and we believe in them more than we do the God of the Bible!

But I've come today to tell you that the Bible doesn't decree people as lucky or unlucky. It doesn't label people as destined or undestined. It simply labels them as blessed or cursed; righteous or unrighteous. "Those who are God's children" and those who are not!" The simple matter is that Fortune and Destiny are idols and you create your own luck. It's not hard to figure out: those who are blessed with great anointings and great walks with God and who are financially blessed in God's kingdom are those who obeyed God's Word and those who seem "unlucky" are those who -- even if they didn't realize it -- did not do what God had commanded. Those who are faithful to God will be blessed, and those who are not, will be "unlucky." But luck has nothing to do with it, but rather the everyday choices that we make determine our destiny. We don't want to admit it but the circumstances that you are in today are largely a result of decisions that you made years before. Most of your issues are your own creation. As my grandmother used to say, we "make our bed and lie in it." Really we have nobody to blame but our own actions. Life is life, but in the end we create our own luck! Don't give an idol credit for something that you created!

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Let's do a little Bible study to help understand the magnitude of what the scripture is teaching us. In 1 Kings, we read the tale of two kings, Solomon and Jehoshaphat (you can remember that name, just think "jumpin' Jehoshaphat." In 1 Kings the ninth chapter we read this:

There are two points of interest in this verse. First, it was a time when Solomon was serving Jehovah God and regularly offering Him sacrifices and serving Him. He has not yet fallen into sin and began to build pagan temples. We are reading of Solomon at a time when he is serving Jehovah God with everything within him. And the second point is that he made ships and sent them with men to Ophir for gold and they made the voyage safely and greatly increased Solomon's treasure. Now turn to the 22nd chapter and read about our other king:

Jehoshaphat was also a king over part of Israel and he too made ships and sent them to Ophir to gather gold, but his ships were wrecked and didn't make the trip and instead of great fortune, he suffered great loss.

Now the average person would say that the difference was "Solomon was lucky and Jehoshaphat was not" but before you give those idols of Destiny and Fortune credit, there is more to the story which we learn from a companion scripture in 2 Chronicles that you need to know:

Here we learn that Jehoshaphat joined with evil king Ahaziah and because he closely associated with such an evil man, God sent a prophet to tell him that "your ships will be wrecked." What at first seemed to be just bad luck versus good luck was actually -- once you got to the root of the situation -- the difference between good spiritual choices and bad spiritual choices in these men's lives.

And so it is with us. What we attribute to luck and chance, is usually actually rooted to spiritual decisions that we have made. There are some of you who feel as if there is a dark cloud hanging over your head and that no matter what you do, you cannot be a success, and I'm here to tell you that such feelings and beliefs are a lie from the pits of hell. Because of your fear and your doubt, you are having down moments, but it comes from your fear and your doubt, not from some luck or curse upon you! You are creating your own luck by believing in the false gods of fortune and chance!

When a person goes into a palm reader's tent and hears what the devil wants to be their future, they have a choice. If they listen to it and believe it, then chances are their faith will be rewarded and they will unconsciously give themselves to whatever fate that was prophesied. The power comes not in the evil spirit, but in the people believing what the evil spirit said. And so it is with those who believe that they are "just unlucky." You are unlucky because you believe that you are, but never forget that the gods of fortune and destiny are ones that you have created yourself! If you would stop believing their lie, then you could be just as blessed as anybody else! It's time that someone stop blaming "bad luck" and "misfortune" and start believing that God does want to bless you and elevate you and cause you to stand up tall and strong! But you've got to stop worshipping and setting the table for the false gods of fortune and destiny, you've got to stop believing their lies that you are cursed and realize that your fate will be based upon whether or not you serve God or not and listen to His voice! Luck has nothing to do with it! If you want to be blessed like God spoke through the voice of Isaiah and hear His voice and have plenty and be called by a new name, then you've got to become "His servant" and stop serving the false goddess of "lady luck!"

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Instead of luck and chance and fortune and destiny, what the Bible teaches is the concept of "sowing and reaping." Planting and harvesting. If you plant good seed, then eventually you will reap good fruit. If you plant thorns, then you will reap thorns. Everything in life is sowing and reaping. Luck has nothing to do with it. You will reap what you have sown. In our other text we find the Apostle Paul writing:

"Do not be deceived" indicates that there is something or someone trying to deceive us! In this case it is the false gods of Fortune and Destiny. Don't be deceived by thinking life is all luck and chance -- God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap! If you sow the things of the Spirit then you will reap the things of the Spirit, but if you sow what your flesh wants, then you will reap the reward of sin and flesh!

And so there is no merit in believing that "you are cursed and that a little black cloud is following you around in life." As long as you believe that it will be so, but only because as long as you think that way will affect what you sow and what you sow will become what you reap and the cycle continues. The only power in believing that you are cursed is that you will sow as if you are cursed and therefore reap cursed things! Likewise the only power to believing that you are blessed is that such people tend to sow blessed things and therefore reap them. But we do ourselves disservice by proclaiming ourselves either way. The real issue is that you will become tomorrow what you plant today. There is no law of fates except in your imagination. You reap what you plant.

I must throw a disclaimer in here lest someone go to the extreme. What I am preaching tonight does not mean that "all bad things are a sign that you have sinned. The law of sowing and reaping does not mean that if you have a bad day or deep valley or a down moment that you have necessarily messed up. The Bible also teaches that it "rains on the just and the unjust." The downpour of life comes on those who are righteous and unrighteous. But what I am discussing is how you end up despite the storms of life. I'm talking about how the end turns out. Both the righteous and the unrighteous will have "life moments" where you are struggling or in pain or distressed. But the difference between the two is how they end up after the storm is passed. Those who obey God's Word will come out better and those who don't won't. Catch this and never forget it:

I'm not preaching to you that every little bad happenstance is a result of sin or mistake or failure on your part, but I am preaching to you about believing in the false god of Destiny! Your current situation does not decide your destiny but rather whether or not you keep trusting God through the situation! Your destiny is really based upon your faithfulness to Him! And so man's concept of "destiny" has nothing to do with it really -- don't give that man-made god any credit! If you do not lean on your own understanding and are trusting completely in God Almighty, then you know no matter what you must endure, you will come out blessed! Because God will make sure of it! But if you are trusting in your own power and your own goodness and your own way of doing things, then no matter how high the good day that you are having is, it will come crashing down because God will make sure of it! There's no such thing as lucky or fate, but rather only blessed and cursed resulting from how we have sowed!

Now I will rant a little! It drives me nuts when some people see the blessings of God in my life and say "you sure are lucky." I think it drives God crazy too to see two false gods -- the gods of Fortune and Destiny -- get credit for what He has brought about in someone's life! Let me tell you that my life is a result of the law of sowing and reaping. I had parents that sowed some good things and all of the good things in my life are a result of my continuing to sow good things. The bad things and the things that I have to overcome are in the areas where I sowed bad things. I'm not lucky that God has anointed me, I sowed the seeds of being sensitive to the things of God even when my friends were not and I sowed the seeds of study of God's Word when others didn't and God helped me understand it and blessed my efforts when I turned to Him for guidance. Furthermore, God opened the doors and rewarded the effort that I had made and God made it happen -- luck has nothing to do with it. I have a good wife who loves the Lord, but it didn't happen by accident. I kept myself for her and I prayed to God for a good one and God worked it out that we met and God put us together. Give credit to God Almighty where credit is due! It's not luck that I have two cars paid for and a place to live and nice clothes to wear and all that I could possibly need and even things that I just wanted. I've been faithful to God financially and He's been faithful to me in return. God has blessed me. It's not luck that our church has grown in the last five years, but rather a result of people believing that the word of God was true and sowing the seed in people's lives and allowing the Spirit to water those seeds and God has done the work and given the increase! Luck has nothing to do with it! Don't give any credit to some ancient gods of Babylon, but give the one, true, living God credit! And it is the same with you: give God glory for the good things in your life and give your flesh credit for the bad! But whatever you do, don't set up your life as a table of offering to the false gods named "fortune" and "destiny!"

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Notice that the scripture says "in due season we will reap." We tend to forget that there is an expanse of time between sowing and reaping. But we forget it in different ways. When we have sown evil and then reap evil, the time gap between the two processes deludes us into believing that the bad in our life was just "the luck of the draw." When many times what has happened is that we forgot what we sowed. We were reaping so much later that we forgot that what we were reaping was tied to what we had sown. It has been often in my life that someone comes to us with an issue about someone else and when we remind them of an earlier time where they were only the other end of the bargain, they have forgotten about that! The time process caused them not to make the connection between their reaping and sowing, but it was there just the same.

On the other hand, we also tend to forget about the time lapse between reaping and sowing when we sow good things. If you think the law of reaping and sowing is a negative thing -- by the way -- then you must be sowing the wrong things! If you will begin to sow good things, then you will begin to reap good things! Whether you think the law is good or bad probably depends upon what you are planting! The time lapse that causes us to lose the connection between reaping and sowing when we sow something evil causes us also to lose hope when we sow something good. You begin to sow good things and the Spirit and the Word of God change you and you decide that you are going to live for Him and you go a few weeks and if you haven't seen instance results and then we're mad at God. Wait a minute! There is a time lapse between what you reap and what you sow, remember? When you were sowing evil things, you were grateful for the long growth period of the fruit of sin, and you used it to justify your sin. But now that we are having to wait the same period of time for good things to grow, we are impatient.

God forbid that we would be more patient for the fruit of sin than the things of God! I've known some Christians who pray for something and in a few weeks or months if God hasn't sat on His head and played tiddlywinks like they asked, then they are mad at God! And they are saying "God didn't answer my prayer." Actually He did answer your prayer and did so at the moment that you planted the seed, He began to water it and nurture it and it began to sprout, but it takes time to reap the fruit of it.

Think of this: Jesus did many, many miracles. He touched blinded eyes and they were opened. He caused the lame to walk again. He walked on the water and flew into the sky while the disciples watched. He rose again on the third day and interrupted more than one funeral with a resurrection! But the one miracle that Jesus never did was lay hands on a boy and make him a man. He never took one baby and instantly produce an adult. Even He, himself, had to endure every step and every stage of growing from a babe to a full-grown man and that tells us something important: God will not miraculously produce instant growth. He will not skip the process of His Word. If you are going to grow up into a mature Christian, then you will have to grow one step at a time like everyone else. If you are to be a mighty warrior, then you will have to fight your battles against increasing giants just like everyone that came before you. The one miracle that God doesn't do is speed up the growth of fruit in your life!

And often, we get frustrated and mad at God over the process of growth in our life. We plant the seed and because we don't see instance results, we get mad and bent out of shape when the answer is growing in our life, but because God won't lay His hands on our seed and instantly produce fruit, we get bitter! Why don't somebody get a revelation today that "I'm going to reap good things and patiently wait on God to cause them to grow." Four of five years is not much growth time when it comes to fruit trees. If you've served the Lord for less than four or five years, there has not been enough time gone by to see the results of all the good things that you have planted. Stop getting upset at God and trying to bend His arm. He's answered your prayer and it's growing as fast as it's going to grow! But it is growing, if you planted it, don't worry it will come to fruitfulness!

This week has been spring break and I saw an amazing survey in the news this week. The survey was conducted by the American Medical Association and was entitled "Risky Behavior at Spring Break." In it they asked college-age girls that routinely go to "spring break getaways" some questions. The questions were the normal about how easy it was to get alcohol and who typically bought the drinks, but one question and answer caught my attention. When asked "what about spring break do you most regret?" 53% said "Getting sick or vomiting." Only 21% said "passing out or blacking out or not remembering." And only 20% said "engaging in sexual activity. The vast majority only regretted what brought the most pain for the immediate time. Such is the attitude of the world's mindset. If it causes pain and hurt now, then it is bad, but if that pain is deferred, then it's not that bad! And these are young ladies who will grow up and statistics say that almost 60% of them will divorce from their husbands and many more will stay married but have serious marital and relationship and emotional baggage and scars and they'll pass it off as "I just had bad luck, I guess." "I guess this was my destiny." But yet they forget that actually they are reaping what they had sown so long ago! But the time lapse made them forget the connection! But God is not deceived!

What the devil wants you and I to do is to take this mentality that you had in the world and bring it into the kingdom of God and get the attitude, "if I don't get fast or instant results then I'm going to stop sowing good things." If he can get you to do that and get mad at God because of the time lapse of the growth process, then he can get you to sow bad things so that in the end you will reap hurt and pain! The devil understands the law of sowing and reaping and he wants you to get frustrated at it to God so that you will go back to sowing bad things! But somebody turn the tables on your adversary today, and make up in your mind that although you haven't seen all of the fruit that God has promised yet, you are still going to sow good things, so that one day you will reap good things! Make up in your mind to live as a blessed person so you can reap a blessing! I will not get "weary in well doing for in due season, I will reap if I faint not!"

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There are only two possible outcomes for your life, and that is you will either end up blessed or cursed and so I close with this thought: there is no security in the current state of "being blessed or being cursed." You can quickly go from one to the other by changing your behavior. And that is a warning to those who are blessed and an encouragement to those who are cursed today. If you are blessed today, then if you stop sowing good things and start sowing bad things, it will quickly change! But if you are cursed today, then if you will stop sowing bad things and start sowing good things, you will find that your life will quickly change also! It is really up to you to decide what happens! When God placed within you the power to obey or disobey His Word, He placed within you the opportunity to choose your own fate. He is not deceived and His Word cannot lie and you will end up according to how you respond to it. What you sow you will reap. Grasp that and get up from worshipping at the altars of the false god of Fortune. There is no such thing, but rather it is just a convenient idol to blame. Likewise stop serving the false god of Destiny. Such idols are your own creation. If you want to be blessed, then simply obey God's Word. If you would be cursed, then don't. And if you obey God's Word and someone would call you "lucky," then correct them and say, "no, I'm blessed." And give the one true God credit, and don't give any to the false gods of Fortune and Destiny!