________________________________________________________________________

You cannot read the last five chapters of the book of Judges without feeling that something had gone seriously wrong in Israel. In Genesis we read about how that the children of Israel moved to Egypt where they multiplied into a numerous nation, but found themselves slaves to a cruel Pharaoh. In Exodus we find that God heard their cries and sent to them a deliverer named Moses. Through the supernatural workings of God, Moses and his brother Aaron led the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the Red Sea. They were delivered by the Red Sea closing upon and drowning the entire Egyptian army and then they followed the Spirit of God which appeared to them as a cloud by day and as fire by night into the wilderness until they reached the base of a mountain called Sinai upon which God engraved His Word upon tables of stone and then proceeded to lead them through the wilderness to a "Promised Land." We find that despite being God's chosen people, the people still had some "Egypt" in them that had to be worked out and when they would murmur and complain and find themselves in a tough situation, God proved Himself to them by delivering them with bread from heaven, water flowing from rocks in the desert, and with helping them conquer their enemies.

Finally they reached the Promised Land which God had promised them, and they sent 12 spies across to report on the land. The men came back with great reports "It is even better than we imagined. There are vineyard already planted and houses for us to live in and grapes the size of watermelons and it truly is a fine land with everything that we could possibly want." But 10 of the spies went on to report "but there are giants there. Big ugly looking behemoths that look like they could squish us like bugs." In fact there exact words were "we were in our sight as grasshoppers" to the inhabitants of Canaan.

Two spies, Joshua and Caleb stood up and said "You've got to be kidding, the God that brought the mighty Pharaoh to his knees and then parted the Red Sea and destroyed the army that was following us; the God that led us and kept us and fed us through a mighty wilderness; the God that shook the mountain with His mighty presence and with His own hand engraved His Word upon the stone tablets, can surely help us defeat a few giants in the land that He has already said would be ours." But the majority of Israel listened to their inner fears and to the doubters and cried out "we want to go back to Egypt." We would rather be slaves in Egypt than have to face our insecurities and step out in faith for what God has promised. And their doubt and disbelief made God so angry that He decreed that such unbelief and doubt would never enter into the promised place of His blessing and so the book of Numbers is the horrible story of the ones who God had ordained to enter into His Promised place, wandering around in circles in the wilderness until everyone that was over 20 years of age and that had doubted had died! Joshua and Caleb would be the only people of that generation who would step into the promised land.

Somebody asked me a question a few weeks ago that I could not immediately answer. The question was "did the people who died in unbelief in the wilderness die eternally saved." I've thought about it and I've prayed about it and I've asked a few ministers. I want to tell you that I believe the answer is "no." Those who did not believe God and enter into the Promised Land did not enter into eternal salvation either. Let me show you why.

The scriptures say that all of these things are recorded for "examples" to us today. You and I -- the church -- are presently the chosen people of God. Like Israel of old, God found us in a foreign land of "sin" where we were slaves and dying. God, too, sent us a deliverer named Jesus Christ who through miraculous power and sacrificial love broke the chains of Pharaoh and gave us the ability to choose to leave Egypt. God still delivers people from sin today by the water, except our "Red Sea" is the waters of Baptism that wash us with the blood of Jesus Christ and kill the past sins that are trying to destroy us!

We then must follow the leading of the Spirit and allow God to "write His Word" upon our stony hearts. That's why the prophet Jeremiah said:

And just as God led Israel through the wilderness to get the remnants of "Egypt" out of them, so does God allow some trials and persecution come to get the ways of this world out of us and to lead us to a place where we stand on the threshold of the Promised place. He brings us to a place where we can see the promises of God, but we must choose to either give into our fears and stay in the wilderness or to press into the promises of God. I have heard preachers preach that the Promised Land represents heaven. I do not believe that. The Promised Land had idols and enemies and walled fortresses. Heaven will not have enemies for you to fight or anything that exalts itself as a false God. The Promised Land represents the Holy Ghost and living in a new life with Jesus Christ living within you. Remember, Peter himself referred to the Holy Ghost as "the promise." After telling the people on the Day of Pentecost that they could receive this same experience, Peter then said:

Peter was telling the people on the Day of Pentecost that "you stand here in your Egypt, in a generation that is not leaning toward God." Save yourself from it. Follow the deliverer Jesus Christ and let Him wash you in His "Red Sea" of water baptism, and get His Word inside your heart. But don't stop there: You now stand on the edge of the Promise of God. You now stand at a place where you can see that God has promised you the Holy Ghost. You now stand at a place where you can choose to give into your fears and insecurities and choose to stay in the wilderness and die, or boldly say, "the God that delivered me from my past sins can now boldly take me into a place of spiritual blessing that I have never been before." It doesn't matter if I have to face the giant of family persecution. It doesn't matter if I have to fight against every devil in hell. If God is big enough to forgive my sins, then He is big enough to defeat my enemies! And so there are two classes of God's people: those who step out into the Promised Place of God and those who allow fear of failure to keep them out! Now you see why I said that I don't think the children of Israel who turned away from the Promised Place died right with God, because they died in "unbelief." And unbelief in what God has promised you is rebellion against His Word. And rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. They died far removed from God because they failed to take Him at His Word! If you are waiting on God, then you have the wrong mentality today, because the promise has been given. God has already said that He can give you "righteousness, peace, and joy" in the Holy Ghost. He's waiting on you. Will you cower to your unbelief and settle to die in the horrible wilderness of doubt, or will you boldly possess the land that God has given you?!

________________________________________________________________________

I'm thankful that the story did not end in the wilderness. I'm thankful that somebody was willing to trust God and enter into His promised place! After everything that had gone wrong, there finally arose a generation that said "we will boldly take the land that God has given us!" The man, Joshua, who 40 years before had stood in faith against the previous generation was to be their leader. This generation walked different and acted different than their parents. They boldly went into the land. They marched around Jericho in perfect obedience and saw the walls fall down. They watched as God helped them defeat giant after giant. They entered into the promises that God had given their parents and conquered generational fears until they were finally able to settle down into a land "flowing with milk and honey." Into houses that they did not build, onto lands that they did not cultivate. They were able to enjoy the fruits of vineyards and olive trees that they did not have to plant! And all because they were willing to trust God and take Him at His Word.

If this generation doesn't want Apostolic revival and the blessings of God, then God will pass us by. Listen to this preacher: if this generation under the sound of my voice doesn't get ahold of the promises of God for yourself, then God will let this preacher who believes live long enough to see a generation in Castroville, Texas that does want it! If this generation doesn't want to separate themselves from Egypt, and doesn't want to pay the price to face their generational giants, then God will wait on you to die and will raise up a generation that will. You will not hinder the plan of God, buy you will delay it.

I don't care whether or not your parents believed. I don't care what your friends say. My question to you is "why wait another generation?" God is wanting this generation to rise up and say "it doesn't matter what my family has always believed or how they've lived: preacher I want this Apostolic revival! I want the promises of God for myself!" God has promises that you don't even know about. So what that your generational giant looks huge. So what if it seems that hell has built a fortress within your life. You've got a promise that if you are apart of the church who knows who Jesus Christ is, then the "gates of hell" will not be able to stand against you. I can give you example after example of denominational preachers and organizations that are searching for what you and I hold and take for granted. And yet there are people who can sit even in this church and learn to live without the Holy Ghost? That can learn to live without the supernatural miraculous and healing power of God working in their lives?! That can learn to function without ever walking in the Spirit and praying in the Holy Ghost and allowing the gifts of the Spirit to operate?! Somebody needs to make up in your mind, that you will stand up and become a part of a generation that says "we can take the land!" "We can see the supernatural power of God in our lives!" Surely the God that was able to forgive us of our sins is able to defeat the enemies of our soul! Surely the God that was powerful enough to die on the cross and yet rise again is powerful enough to give us victory through any situation! Somebody needs to tune out the voice of doubt that so reverberates around this world, and say "Hey, I'm not going to die in unbelief: I'm willing to stand up and step out in faith! God don't give up on this generation just yet, because there are more than two here that believe that you can do it!"

________________________________________________________________________

I haven't forgotten my text or my subject. Now let me preach to you the burden that God has given me for this service.

Joshua's generation boldly took the land of promise. They divided up the land. Each man got a bountiful inheritance in God. It was a great place. It was a beautiful place. It was an awesome place. They had reached the promised land. No more slavery. No more hard grueling labor without seeing the rewards. They were to be a blessed nation unlike any other in history. And God designed it that there would not be one man who ruled over Israel, but God Himself was to be king. Jehovah God would be the ruler of these people. It was not to be a democracy where the people voted men into a system of checks and balances. It was not to be a dictatorship where a human ruled with iron fist. It was to be a theocracy where one God ruled over all.

And for a while it worked. When God needed a man or woman, He would raise up someone to lead for a little while, but the true spiritual leaders always faded back into the crowd. They understood that this promised place was a "God thing." He was the sole king of Israel. He was the only true ruler of His people.

But something went wrong. We get to Judges chapter 17 and the writer begins to record perhaps the three most horrible stories in scripture. I reread them again this week and thought that they sound more like something from the history of a pagan land, of a nation of people who did not know God, and as you read them you can't help but think "surely such things could not have happened among Israel, God's chosen people." And when you read these stories, you get the feeling that the writer is only giving us a few examples of how bad things had gotten.

Chapter 17 begins with a man named Micah who steals money from his own mother in order to make idols and copies of the things in the true temple of God. He then hires a Levite to be his own personal priest and sets up a "convenient temple" in his house so that he no longer needs to go to the true house of God to worship. He has images of everything that the true temple has, but with one big difference: instead of the presence of God, he has an idol that He is worshipping. Eventually another tribe hears about it and decides that they like the idea and so they come and steal the items and the priest for themselves. We find that Israel is falling into the trap of "convenient religion" and idolatry and are not worshipping God as He asked them to worship Him! The writer of Judges then reveals the reason why such horrible things were happening in God's promised place:

Then comes the horrible story in Judges chapter 19 of a man and his wife that decide that they don't love each other anymore and separate. Along the way of the man trying to get the woman back, she is raped and mutilated by men from another tribe of Israel and then the husband cuts her body into pieces and sends a piece of her to every tribe of Israel as a way of calling their attention to how bad things had gotten in Israel. What a horrible story that sounds a lot like some of the news we get in America today! We would expect such horrors from a nation of sinners, but this is happening among God's chosen people in the Promised place of God! And the writer tells us again why such things were happening in Judges 19:1: these things happened when "there was no king in Israel."

The third and final horrible story which is recorded at the end of the book of Judges tells how some of the tribes of Israel turned on their own and fought against their own kinfolks and almost wiped out the tribe of Benjamin out of existence. Cousin was literally fighting against cousin. Family against family. Like faith turned and devoured like faith. We would expect that among the heathen; we would expect that among the godless, but here? In God's Promise place? By the people who had trusted God so and entered into their place of spiritual rest!? By the people who had been saved from Egypt and led into a place of victory?! And yet the book of Judges closes by giving us the reason why such horrible things were going on among God's promised people, and we read it as our text today:

Such a simple phrase, and yet it holds such profound truth! There is no contradiction in scripture. God was supposed to be the king of Israel and for a while He was. But when the people of God began to do things according to whatever they "saw right" and stopped caring about what "God saw as right" then He ceased being their king! There was no king in Israel because each man was doing whatever He saw as right in his own eyes. And in doing so they unknowingly rejected God as their king!

________________________________________________________________________

If all of this was for our "examples" then understand what God is trying to tell us:

It is possible for people to be delivered from their sinful past, baptized in the name of Jesus, filled with the Holy Ghost and even know the Word of God so well that it is engraved upon their hearts, and have entered into the blessings of the Promised Places of God and even settled there and have tasted the fruits, and yet still not allow Jesus Christ to be your king! It is possible to have entered into such a promised land and yet choose to do "what is right in your own eyes." And to choose to "do it your way." When Jesus stood before the people of God, they were so caught up in their tradition and selves that they rejected their true king and it can still happen today. They had experienced the supernatural and the miraculous and yet they refused to make Jesus Christ the spiritual king of their lives!

I'm preaching to people today that you do not understand what it is like to be under a king. There are very few nations in this world that have true kings. We live in a democracy and I'm glad we do! We are used to knowing that even though we have a president, he does not have all power and has to answer to Congress and to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court can rule whether or not his decision is right or not, and even if it is, if there is enough opposition in Congress, it won't pass anyway. We are used to and comfortable with the idea of "if I don't like this leader, then I'll just wait a while and vote him out." And I'm glad that we have that system in America. It works well for the government of physical things.

But Jesus Christ is not a president. He is not the head of a democracy. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. You can't vote Him out. If you don't like His decree, then there is nothing that you can do to change it. He answers to no one. He is God alone. He is God all by Himself. He alone is the Savior and Creator of this world. He has every right to cast people into hell, because He is holy and He is good an He is just and when people rebel against Him there is no other alternative. He has the right to put any plan of salvation that He wants to in place. Our opinions matter little. He is the King of the Universe. But He is a loving King and a kind King! He is unlike any King that has ever lived because this king, this creator and ruler of all things loved you and I enough to come and die for us so that we would not have to experience hell's flames! He came to pay a price with His own suffering and His own life so that you and I could live forever with Him one day! He stepped off of His throne in glory to walk among you and I and when He was rejected the first time, yet died with forgiveness on His lips. He is sovereign, He is God Almighty. And He is the King of all Kings!

And I'm here to preach to you today: you need this king of glory to be king of your life. If He is to be king AT all, then He must be king OF all! When it comes to God through out your democratic way of thinking. It's his way or the highway. Doing it your way will get you to the same place that Frank Sinatra and Elvis are today. But doing it His way will get you to eternal life! You can't pick and choose what parts of His word that you want to believe. You can't give just most of your life to Him. You can't rationalize your own sinfulness and unbelief with "well, I think..." Wait a minute! He alone is God! He alone is King! His Word is already settled in heaven. It has already been written down! If you don't like it, tough: He is king. But you have a choice today just as the people of Israel did in Judges and just as they did that day in Pilate's hall: will you choose to do what He has commanded and live according to His Word, or will you choose to do what is right in your own eyes? Will you choose to allow Him to reign in your life in every area, or will you crucify Him afresh by choosing to do things your way? Will you allow Him to be King of ALL in your life, or will you simply allow your life to cry "Crucify Him" by walking away and ignoring His commandments and His teachings!? Will you choose to live with Jesus Christ as ruler of your life, or will you choose to live without a king?

________________________________________________________________________

Before you choose today, understand this one thing: God has already provided an example of what your life will be like if there is no king. He allowed the writer of Judges to give you just a few examples so that you would be able to more accurately make a decision.

When there is no king:

Marriages and relationships fall apart. Did you know that the divorce rate among Christians is the same as non-Christians in America? That's not the will of God! How could a couple that has tasted of the promises of God and even receive the Holy Ghost walk away from each other? If it happens, then I can tell you why: in one of their lives their was no king! Jesus wasn't Lord of All in their life. Despite the Holy Ghost and the blessings of God, someone decided that they didn't need to follow His instructions and that they could make it doing things their way!

When there is no king:

People give in to the religion of convenience. Most churches do not meet three times a week as everybody used to. Other things are more important than the house of God. We allow other things to become more priority than meeting together with God's people. We want a religion of convenience, but that religion -- just as in Micah's day -- always results in idolatry and the exaltation of other things being more important to us than the things of God! The scriptures say that the closer we get to the coming of the Lord, then the more often we ought to meet together! And when the House of the Lord becomes low on a person's priority list, then it isn't long before their relationship with God becomes unimportant as well. And the scriptures are clear. When someone who has tasted of the goodness of God and yet falls back into the trap of putting other things before the things of God, there is a case of someone experiencing the supernatural but not allowing God to be King of Kings in their life! Such horrible things can only take place in the life of someone who has decided to do things "their own way."

When there is no king:

People turn on each other and devour each other. But not with sticks and guns and swords, but with a weapon so much more dangerous: their tongue. Show me people who are more concerned with pointing out the faults in other people's lives rather than helping them overcome them, and I'll show you people who may have tasted of the goodness of God and even received the Holy Promise of His Spirit but who had decided to do things their own way. And by doing so, they have chosen to live their life without a king!

________________________________________________________________________

Jesus Christ is either King of kings or He is king of nothing in your life. The choice is yours: you can choose to do what you want to do and die lost and suffer horribly on earth, or you can choose the blessed life of living with Him as your king! If it is true that all of those horrible things happen to people who will not allow Him to be king, then it is true that the opposite of those things happen to those who allow Him to rule on the throne of their heart! If you will choose to let Him be king of kings in your life, then you will see relationships restored, and true worship restored, and unity and peace in your life!

Trust me when I say that you don't want to find out some things the hard way and this is one of them. But the choice is yours. Choose wisely. Either I put His Word and commandments and house first, or I do what I want to do. What you are saying is "either I crown Jesus Christ king in my life or I walk away and do it my way." The scripture says twice:

But the scripture also says:

For you to receive eternal life He must be "your lord" and master. He must be king! One day every knee will bow and every tongue will have to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, but don't wait until judgment to admit that! Don't wait until the Word of God is applied in judgment of your life before that great throne! Because then it will be too late! Choose to bow a knee today. Choose to allow God's way to be the focus of your life!

The song made so popular by Elvis and Frank Sinatra has become the cry of America:

And now, the end is near;
And so I face the final curtain.
My friend, I'll say it clear,
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full.
I've traveled each and ev'ry highway;
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets, I've had a few;
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course;
Each careful step along the byway,
But more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew.
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall;
And did it my way.

I've loved, I've laughed and cried.
I've had my fill; my share of losing.
And now, as tears subside,
I find it all so amusing.

To think I did all that;
And may I say - not in a shy way,
" Oh no, oh no not me,
I did it my way".

For what is a man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught.
To say the things he truly feels;
And not the words of one who kneels.
The record shows I took the blows -
And did it my way!

That is the logic of hell. That is the logic of men that died without God and who will have to face the wrath of their decision. Did you know that Elvis Presley received the Holy Ghost in a Mississippi Camp meeting? But yet he chose to do things his way. He chose to be the "king" of his life rather than Jesus Christ.

Choose to allow Jesus Christ to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords in your life. Let it not be said that "there was no king in his life." But instead "he didn't do things his way but God's way!"