Worldly Zeal

O soul, are you weary and troubled? No light in the darkness you see. There's light for a look at the Savior, and life more abundant and free. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace.

I am missionary Richard Derby in Japan, striving daily, most every day out in public, to let the true light of the Lord Jesus Christ shine into this nation, into this big populace of people in such spiritual darkness. Sometimes when a friend of mine or friends come from the States, church friends, to visit me here, they comment on the fact they feel the spiritual darkness. Actually, what they're feeling is a presence of demons, and when the light shines in, they flee.

Pray for me that I will faithfully let the light shine right in the corner where I am, right in the corner where you are. That's a wonderful song too. I'm blessed to be able to preach to you again today.

At the end of my previous sermon in this series on Job, a series titled Safety, Rest, and Quiet, where Job said at the end of chapter 3, verse 26, I was not in safety, neither had a rest, neither was I quiet, yet trouble came. Now, ending my last sermon, I was in the midst of preaching against an idol God worshipped ever so much more zealously by masses of Laodicean churchgoers than they worshipped their creator God, and that false God that I'm referring to is the organized God of sports. And I got to the place where I was ready to say, most of the coaches, trainers, and such people who keep the idol God of sports on its throne certainly are hard taskmasters, and you know that to be a fact.

Also, you know that is exactly what all those involved in worshipping this idol named sports want in the coaches and trainers. The last time I was talking about some people asking me, Christians, Laodicean, lukewarm Laodicean Christians asking me, is God such a hard taskmaster that you have to labor for him all the time? And my heart's cry is, no, he's not a hard taskmaster at all. Truly, his yoke is easy and his burden is light.

I do it because I love him and because he is worthy and because the cause of lost doomed souls headed for hell is ever so worthy. And it wasn't too long ago before you and I, since you and I were among them. Now, the coaches and trainers, they, the people want hard taskmasters in them.

They want hard, the fans and the parents and such, they want hard taskmasters who will produce tough athletes. And Christian parents will watch their own children just in practice and training being pushed to the limit by these hard taskmasters until those young athletes literally drop, some of them drop dead. And to those Christian parents criticize those coaches and trainers for being hard taskmasters, almost never will they do that.

Rather, they typically highly praise those hard taskmasters for doing such a good job in making their children into sports idols for everyone to worship. And it is not rare at all for you to be a hard taskmaster on your own self. You will labor hard and long, often putting in much overtime to accomplish your own selfish goals, to gain and gain things of this life that you lust after, often little of which glorifies God.

And all the same, at the same time, you're doing it with an attitude that it is unreasonable and cruel of God to ask much from you in service to him, you sinful hypocrite. The righteous judge has your heart attitude, your thoughts, attitude, words, and actions regarding this on dock at his judgment seat for you to soon face. Many of us are heavy laden with sinful hypocrisy, and the judge of the universe is keeping an accurate detail record of our sin of hypocrisy in this matter.

So each hypocrite is going to face that record on judgment day as he trembles before the throne, prepare to meet thy God, Amos warns us in his book in the Bible. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, please have mercy on us all.

I do regularly see this gross hypocrisy abounding everywhere in many Christians' lives, even my own. Wake us up, Lord, help us to see ourselves as thou seest us sinful hypocrites in thy sight. Teach us anew the terror of the Lord.

Help us to repent and serve thee with fear and trembling. Do look upon us in mercy and by thy power create within us a heart that desires to do right in these matters. Help us to forsake our idolatry of working so hard to enjoy the pleasures of the world.

Give us a heart to joyfully work for thee long and hard. Help us to do it with thanksgiving, counting it to be a privilege to be allowed to serve thee. Amen.

Oh how God detests hypocrisy, and you rest assured that you can never fool him with it. I told you of that man on Guam who scornfully told me those girls would catch a cold out there singing in the rain. Girls whom I was in charge of, and we were singing out in front of the post office when the rain shower came up, and they, three girls, chose to stay out there in it singing.

And he was pretending to be all upset about it. But on that hot tropical island, it is common for children to play out in the rain. And I doubt if he objects to that, nor would he be concerned about children catching a cold by playing in the rain there.

If that is the case, then he was a hypocrite in what he said to me. Think on this. If rain starts toward the end of some ball game being played outdoors by children or teenage athletes, often they play on till the end of the game if it's not storming rain.

And you know how those kids come off the playing field bone tired, soaking wet, and some of them have already caught a cold out there, which is not a big deal. Also, you know how the cheerleaders come off the field wet, and their voices hoarse, are totally gone from yelling and screaming in that rain. But most important of all, you know how everyone, most Christians included, looks upon them all with such a spirit of admiration and praise for giving maximum effort to that idol of God.

Their fervent zeal for sports stems from their love for it, the thing of the world. And in the same way that man on Guam was scornful, of three girls singing praises to God out in the rain, it was because he was a God-hater. That's why it rubbed him the wrong way for them not to let the rain interfere with them singing praises to God.

He was just looking for a lying excuse to voice his opposition. And if you serve God with all your heart, Christians around you who are lovers of self will scorn you for the same reason, just because it rubs them the wrong way by convicting their guilty backslidden souls. You pay no attention to their scorn.

Just keep on serving the Lord God with all your heart. Don't let sinful men control you and rule over you. Do that which pleases God.

Set your face like a flint and stand upright in our precious Savior. Teenage athletes catch colds and pneumonia while practicing and competing out in the cold damp and rain. And you know how greatly they are praised and admired.

Also, you know how their cruel task masters like coaches are also praised and admired for pushing them so hard. As little children, teens, and college kids pour out their utmost to the idol God of sports, bones snap and break, ligaments, tendons, and muscles are strained and torn, skin is scraped, torn, ripped, and cut, jaws are broken, teeth are broken, knocked loose, and knocked out, gulls pop, and brains get scrambled with concussions, necks and backs get broken, leaving some of those young men paralyzed for life. And every year, several young people under the age of 20 die from sports injuries.

But among all their parents, teachers, and fanatics, just who will rise up and call on those coaches and call those coaches and trainers hard task masters who would call on them to go easier on the lives of their young ones? Usually no one will do that. That is because when you have a false idol God that you simply fervently love, you just can't do too much for that God. And as the injured kids lie on a hospital bed, the limbs in traction and such, the paralyzed adjust to life in a wheelchair and such, everyone comes around and praises them for martyrdom to that false God of sports.

At the funerals of those who die from injuries, those dead youth are eulogized and praised for serving this idol of sports with all their effort. No one issues a warning that they had better get out of the rain or quit such rigorous, demanding, dangerous sports. At any sporting event of athletes between the ages of six and 20 years old or so, these are the ones not yet on full adulthood, just look at what has been prepared in advance of the ball game in the way of bandages, antiseptics, gauze, splints, stretchers, gurneys, ambulances, medics, doctors, and such.

Why is all that gloomy stuff there ready and waiting? It is because that false God of sports hurts, injures, paralyzes, kills and such. But that does not seem to faze its zealous worshipers one bit, though it certainly does stir up the wrath of God against it. With all that in mind, my blood boils over in righteous indignation when a God-hating wicked sinner scorns me about the danger of three girls out in a warm tropical rain singing praises to God.

Away with you, man, I'll have nothing of you in my face spewing out such from your wicked God-hating heart. Glory be to God that I stood out in public for hundreds of hours with groups of children singing praises to God, and never once did one of them receive any injury from it. Some of them sang till they lost their voices, which they quickly recovered, but none ever got teeth knocked out, bones broken, skin torn, paralyzed, or killed, which is what thousands of youth get worshiping the God of sports, while all the adults highly praise them for receiving all that abuse.

None of the girls singing out in public with me ever died from getting struck in the head with a hockey puck, as happened to a 13-year-old girl fan at a hockey game around 20 March 2002. I heard that on radio news at that time. I don't think it was in the U.S., South America, maybe.

Anyway, I know that that was the case, a fan and a 13-year-old girl in the stands, and that puck slammed into her head and sent her out into eternity. Anyway, I have not heard one voice calling for banning hockey because it kills young girls who are simply fans some distance away in the stands. Hypocrites, people be sinful hypocrites.

Thus, I have no patience with any hypocrites scorning me by saying three girls will catch a cold singing praises to God out in the rain on a hot tropical day on Guam. The only reason he objected them singing out there and I rejoiced over it was because he was on the devil's side in this matter, and I was on God's side. With God's help, that is where I will stay forever.

Which side are you on? Who is on the Lord's side? Let's pray about this. Lord God, please help me to always be on thy side, loving thee with all my heart, serving thee with all my might, and always counting it such a joy to do so. Wake up other Christians so they can see their sins of idolatry in loving and serving many other things more zealously than they love and serve thee.

Convict us all, grant us repentance, help us to forsake our idols and to love and serve thee with all our heart and strength. Grant this, Lord, I pray. Amen.

In 1995, when I'd come from Japan back to Alabama for a short time preaching churches in some southern states there, I requested volunteer help from among my friends to do some light, easy work, if anyone had time and any desire. And one friend who would not say directly to me told another person that I was out of touch with the present situation there and just didn't realize how the times have changed and there just aren't any volunteer helpers now. I well understood what he was saying, but whether or not people answer the call for volunteer help sort of depends on the cause and purpose of the work.

Most social and community projects get a good response when they frequently ask for volunteers, especially if it's school, the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and our sports, the stronger overpowering the weaker. The opposite of what Romans 15 verse 1 commences to do. We here are strong ought to help those who are weak, it commences.

Ask for volunteer help with a big fundraiser to get money, buy uniforms for the high school band, and a multitude flocks out to labor long hours for that project. Christians will volunteer in numbers to work hard, to raise much money, to buy expensive skimpy thin pieces of shiny cloth that are to be form fitted over part of the torso of each majorette in the high school band, just about completely revealing the exact shape and form of her entire torso as she wildly struts and flings her half-naked body around wantonly with her bare legs flying apart in all directions. Such a lewd, immodest, sinful scene that be in front of many eyes filled with lust, preacher's daughters, deacon's daughters perform as such majorettes, but Christians do happily volunteer in number to raise money, raise the funds needed to carry on that indecent wickedness.

Christian parents most happily do that volunteer fundraising when it is their own daughter majorette out there displaying her nakedness to the world as her parents filled with sinful pride, proud to look on that which is a sinful abomination, abominable shame in the eyes of a holy righteous God. I have observed that many people volunteer many hours and do without rest to labor for and promote that which they love. What an eternal tragedy that so many people love sin and the world instead of loving God and their creator.

Though the fields of eternal human souls are white unto harvest, the laborers are few as the Lord tells us. One main reason is because Christians love life elsewhere. Therefore, their time and energies go and money go elsewhere.

There certainly isn't a shortage of sports fans is there. There certainly isn't a shortage of Christians who aren't like Job is there. And the devil who so despised Job's existence just beams with glee over where many Christians love life.

But you do not have to be like the devil's crowd. You do not have to be like backslidden, pleasure loving, lukewarm layout of sin Christians at all. You can be like Job and labor without rest for that which counts for all eternity.

You can be like Job and not have rest from laying up eternal treasures. You can be like Job and be perfect and upright before God if only you desire to be so. It's your choice, your choice for all eternity.

Let's pray again. Lord God, is this what I want? Lord God, that is what I want to be. So I now give my heart to thee regarding this matter.

Please create within it a pure love for thee that will overcome my love for things that do not glorify thee. Create within me a heart that delights to serve thee and to work for thee endlessly. Save me from the hypocrisy of saying I love thee, but then I spend so much time, money, and effort on what pleases me.

Save all other Christians from this hypocrisy too. Remind us all with holy conviction as to just how displeased thou art about Christians spending much time day and night madly pursuing that which pleases them, no matter how much it tires, wearies, and injures them and ruins their health, and all the while they make lying excuses that they do not have time to serve thee. Please give us a clear vision of just how severe thy awaiting righteous judgment is to be against such wickedness of lying and hypocrisy.

Wake us up spiritually, Lord. Grant us repentance and a change of heart in these matters I plead. By thy mercy and grace, help us all, Lord, I do pray.

Amen. My friend asked me if Christ was such a hard taskmaster to make me labor so, and no, he certainly is not. I serve him as I do because I delight in doing so.

But come judgment day, many Christians will likely wish that Christ had been a hard taskmaster to them in this life. There they will stand with blood on their hands, the blood of all the souls who died lost, and those Christians had opportunity to witness to them of the saving gospel during this lifetime, but freely chose not to tell them about their need for the Savior. With bloody hands, they will watch those eternally lost family members and friends being bound in chains of fire and cast headlong into the lake of fire to weep and wail and gnash their teeth forever.

Likely they will then wish their creator and judge had been a harsh taskmaster to them during this present life. Likely they will then wish he had forced them to labor for him without rest, but bitter remorse there will be on judgment day when we see the eternal loss that has resulted from our spiritual laziness and cowardice in this life, but then it will be eternally too late to do anything about it. What a tragedy that will be for believers who are not like Job, but it is not too late right now.

You have the perfect chance to change right now to be totally different from the rest of your life for the rest of your life here on earth. You can determine that from this day forward you will be like Job and labor without rest for your creator God. I pray that you will do that.

If you just have that desire, then almighty God will give you all the divine help you need to be like Job in this matter. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I do not want to stand at thy judgment bar with blood on my hands, so please help me, I beg thee.

Give me courage to witness the many lost souls around me. Please help me to cease using much time for my own selfish motives and for my own pleasure. Help me to be a dedicated worker for thee.

Please work in other Christians' hearts also and awaken them to just how tragic it will be for them to have blood, the blood of lost souls on their hands on judgment day. Provide them and me too to get busy laboring fervently in the fields that are white unto harvest. Change us all and revive us in great power, dear Lord, I pray.

Amen. Tell other friends about these sermons of mine and you can listen to the audio of them on my website, christ-is-all.us, christ-is-all.us. Lord willing, I hope to be with you again in another week. God bless and be with you.