All right, so good to see you here tonight. I invite you to take your Bibles, please, and open to the Old Testament book of Zechariah. If you haven't been with us on Wednesday nights, your first time, Zechariah, let me tell you to get there. Go to the book of Matthew, make a left, go back two books in the Old Testament, and you come to Zechariah the prophet. Now, you probably haven't ever heard a series of sermons through Zechariah, but that's okay. You will now if you just stick with us. We're in chapter 7 tonight, and if you're with us, we've been looking at the eight night visions that Zechariah had. You remember that God on one night gave this Old Testament prophet eight visions of hope, we call them, because they were visions about the future, they were visions about what God was going to do in the future for the nation of Israel, but also really for all of us because it involves God's whole plan of redemption and how God brings it all together. Tonight I wanna talk about the subject of the problem of empty worship. We're gonna look at chapter seven tonight. George Malone tells a story about a big Gothic cathedral in his hometown of Vancouver, British Columbia. The cathedral had colorful stained glass windows that were donated right after the Second World War. They were donated in honor of the men and women who gave their lives. And the windows illustrated pictures of soldiers. And one day he overheard a little boy ask his mom, Mom, who are those people pointing to the stained glass windows? And she said, those are the people who died in the service. And he said, Mom, was it the Sunday morning service or the Sunday evening service that they died? Well, hopefully that'll never happen to us. We won't have anyone die in one of our services. There are some worship services that are so mechanical and dry that people are dying spiritually in churches. And the problem is not the word of God because we know the word of God is alive. The problem is people. They have the same problem that the people in Zechariah's day had. Many people have it today. They're simply just going through the motions of worship, but there's no enthusiasm, there's no real passion in their worship for God, no excitement. And so their worship is not really meaningful. It's empty worship. Now, God desires worship, beloved, but he despises worship that is empty, where there's no heart, there's no real meaning in what is going on, where people are just going through the motions of worship. Now, let me give you the context here of chapter 7. Two years had passed since the last vision that Zechariah had. Remember, I told you he had eight visions in one night. And they were all about the future of Israel, how God was going to rebuild Jerusalem, rebuild the temple. God had a future for his people. And the message to us is God has a future for all of us as well. There's hope for all of us in our future as long as we're trusting in the Lord. Well, two years had passed now, and God was actually fulfilling a lot of what he had already said. According to verse number one, the day is December 7, 518 BC, according to our Julian calendar. That is the fourth year of the reign of King Darius in Babylon. And the reason I cite that date is because it's two years, and the temple is going up. Great progress is taking place. The walls are up. And the city of Jerusalem was prospering. After these exiles had returned, remember, it was in ruins. Well, two years later, things are really moving along. The city is beginning to be rebuilt. God was keeping his promises to the people of Jerusalem, the ones he made through the prophet Zechariah. Things were looking up in many ways. However, there was a spiritual problem. And the problem was about this idea of worship, and this needed to be addressed. What good would it be to have a brand new, beautiful temple if the people that came to that temple had empty worship or meaningless worship? What good would that temple be? Again, God values true worship, worship that comes from the heart. Jesus said this in John 4, 23, but the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth, listen, for the Father seeketh such to worship Him." This is what God's looking for. He's looking for true worshipers, those that worship God in spirit, that has had the passion and the enthusiasm and the heart. and then also truth. We worship according to the Word of God. There's a balance there. Our worship is not cold, dead orthodoxy, neither is it strange fire where there's all kind of passion, but it's not according to the truth of God's Word, but it's in spirit and it's in truth. Now, sadly, this doesn't always take place in the house of God. And if we're not careful, we can come to God's house and just go through the motions of some rituals without the heart of worship. People sing words without truly expressing love and affection to God. We just had a time of prayer. How many of you really prayed and sought the Lord or did you let your mind wander and think about other things? Or did you really use those few minutes that we come together to truly seek the face of God? God knows our heart. He knows what's going on. Now God's message to the people through Zachariah is this, be real in your worship. Don't just go through the motions. What I want you to see in our text here tonight are three indicators, three signs of empty worship. Here's the first sign, number one, when ritual replaces reality. When ritual replaces reality, look at verse number two. And when they had sent unto the house of God, Sherezer and Ragam-Malik, and their men to pray before the Lord, and to speak unto the priests which were in the house of the Lord of hosts, and to the prophets saying, should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years? And what's going on here? Who is the they in verse 2, when they sent unto the house of the Lord? The they is the people of the city of Bethel. They sent a delegation to Jerusalem to ask a question. And here is the question. They said, look, we want you to go to Jerusalem, we want you to talk to the priests, we want you to talk to the prophets, gather them together, ask them this one question. And notice what the question is in verse number three again, which is, should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself as I have done these so many years? Now the question involved the keeping of certain Jewish fasts. Now what is fasting? Fasting is where we go without food for a spiritual purpose, where we're seeking the Lord. And, you know, so we decide to go maybe a day without food or sometimes two days, sometimes three days. Daniel went 21 days without eating. Moses went 40 days. Jesus, of course, went 40 days in the wilderness of fasting, the Bible says. And so it's a sign of humbling oneself before God. It's showing total dependence on God. Someone might fast when they want to get an answer to a prayer. You know, they're asking the Lord for something special. Now, scripture does not command Christians to fast. God does not require it. At the same time, the Bible presents fasting as something that is good and profitable and beneficial. In fact, the book of Acts records believers fasting before they made important decisions. Fasting and prayer often link together in the New Testament. Jesus assumed that his disciples will fast. Listen to what Jesus said, Matthew 6, 16. Moreover, when you fast, be not as the hypocrites of a sad countenance, for they disfigure their faces. But notice what Jesus said. He didn't say, if you fast, don't disfigure your face. Don't make it public. He said, when you fast. What does that mean? He assumes that those who follow him will have times in their spiritual life where they choose to fast. And so, Scripture does give instruction on the kind of fasting that pleases God. If you ever want to study that, just look in Isaiah chapter 58. God will show what He does not like in fasting, and what He does like, and how God rewards fasting when it happens in the right way. But there is a fasting that is displeasing to God. That's when it's an empty ritual. And again, we see this in Isaiah 55, who rebukes the people for fasting, but they were using fasting as if to say, you know, Lord, if I fast, you're gonna have to answer my prayer. It's almost like they're trying to manipulate God. Since I'm fasting and praying, then God, you have to answer this prayer. Let me just tell you, in your prayers, you don't manipulate God, all right? You're not the one in charge God is, all right? Always remember that. And so, to others it was also an outward ritual that made them look very pious and spiritual, and that's really all they were after. Remember in Matthew chapter six, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees because to them it was nothing but an open show. They weren't practicing spirituality, they were performing it outwardly before others. And so Jesus rebuked them. Now here in our text, a few men from Bethel ask a question regarding fasting. And the question involved keeping certain Jewish fasts. In verse number three, they mentioned a fast in the fifth month. In verse number seven, they mentioned the fast of the seventh month. In chapter 8 verse 19, you don't have to look there, but there's mentioned two additional fasts, one in the fourth month and one in the tenth month. These are four fasting days that they came up with on their own. Now they were all related to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC. You remember, this was kind of the 9-11 of Israel, the terrible tragedy that they all will never forget, when Nebuchadnezzar came into Jerusalem and he destroyed it and destroyed the temple in 586. Well, all these fasts were to commemorate that sad event. A fast in the fourth month is to remember when Nebuchadnezzar breached the wall of Jerusalem. The fast in the fifth month is to remember when the temple was destroyed. The fast in the seventh month is to remember the assassination of the Jewish governor, Gedalia. And then the fast in the tenth month was to remember the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem. Now, these Jewish people had been observing these fasts for over 70 years, ever since the destruction of Jerusalem. They've been doing these four fast days that they all prescribed in and of themselves. And now here's a delegation, this is over 70 years later, they're released from exile, And you know, Zechariah has these prophecies and now all of a sudden the temple's being rebuilt, Jerusalem is looking up, everything's looking good. So this delegation from Bethel comes to the priests and the prophets in Jerusalem with this one question. Should we continue this fast? Should we, since the temple is being rebuilt, since everything is looking well, should we continue to observe these fasts? But you know, they were still fasting. They were going through the motions, you could say. It was really mere ritual without a heart. But yet they were meticulous in keeping these fast days. But the problem was it had become all outward. At one time it might have been meaningful, But now, I lost this meeting a long time ago, and they were just going through the motions. Kind of like that expression, like when sometimes people say, why do you do that at your church? And someone says, well, we've just always done it this way. We've just always done it this way. And no one knows why we keep doing it. Again, there's nothing wrong with traditions. Don't get mad at me. Some of y'all are giving me dirty looks here. We're gonna keep doing things, that's fine. But the question is, is it just mere outward? performance ritual? Is there any meaning to it? Is there any heart to it? These fasts had long lost their meaning to these people when they were going through the motion. And God did not command them to do these fasts. This was something they did on their own. The only fast that God commanded his people to do was on the Day of Atonement. This is according to Leviticus 16, 29. And it had to do with the yom kippur, when the sprinkling of the blood on the mercy seat. On that day, God commanded his people to fast. And you remember that the Day of Atonement, all of that prefigured and pointed to who? It pointed to Jesus Christ, right? It pointed to the fact that he was gonna be the one who would shed his blood on the cross, and that blood would cover our sins. It would be sprinkled on the mercy seat as it were there at Calvary. And so that was the only fast that God commanded. Yet these Jews added these fasts, this was their own idea, it was their own tradition, and they were going through the motion of these religious fasts, but they were doing it without a heart. Now before we judge them, we have to say, and be honest with ourselves, that we're prone to do the same thing at times. Did you ever notice that there are some Christians that get hung up on rituals, or maybe a man-made list of dos and don'ts, And they use that list to judge everyone's spirituality. You know, if you do this, you do that. You know, you have outwardly everything looks really good. And you're keeping these commands, so to speak, these rituals. But they're neglecting dealing with their own heart. True sanctification that starts on the inside. And so they judge Christians by outward appearance. While they tolerate inward sins or other sins like pride and gossip and greed in their own hearts, they got a list of behaviors that make you either spiritual in their eyes or unspiritual. But it's all outward show. And the problem is their list isn't in the Bible. Their list is not something that God commanded. And if you ask them to go through the scripture and point out their convictions on why you should do this, they couldn't do that if you held a gun to their head. It's just something they feel strongly about. It's their list of do's and don'ts. And so, and even how they ask this question, it's funny to me the way the question is asked in verse number three, where it says, should I weep in the fifth month, separating myself? It just comes across like, hey, look, we're scheduled to weep in month, you know, these fifth month here. In fact, we're scheduled to weep four times a year. And anybody ever schedule weeping on your calendar? Hey, I'm scheduled to weep this week. Gotta work it up. You know, I got to start to weep, you know. It just, it seems what? It seems perfunctory. It seems performance. Should we just continue to schedule to weep on these days? I mean, we've been doing it. We're okay with it. I mean, we know how to turn on the tears. Should we keep doing it? Again, there's a note of hypocrisy in the way that this is asked. And again, it reminds me of the Pharisees that Jesus rebuked in Matthew 6, when they disfigure their faces. They walk around and someone says, are you all right? No, I'm fasting, brother, pray for me. You know, it's all performance. You know, they schedule it. They schedule when to be seen. And there's a hint of self-righteousness, separating myself as I have done for these many years. We've been doing this for all these years. You know, they were careful to say how long they've been practicing this. And there's also a sense of weariness in these words, because again, at one time it might have been meaningful, but now it's just mere mechanical. And this is the very thing that Jesus confronted with the Pharisees in the New Testament. Listen to what Jesus said in Matthew 23, 27. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you're like unto whited sepulchers, which indeed appear beautiful, what, outwardly, but are within full of dead man's bones and all uncleanness. And Jesus knew their heart. Hey, on the outside, you Pharisees, you got it all together. You're like whited sepulchers. You're white on the outside, there's no hint of impurity, but on the inside, you're filled with corruption and deadness and rottenness. And Jesus knew their hearts. According to Zechariah, outward religion without inward reality leads to spiritual hardening of the heart. And we see this in verse number 12, where it says, yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone. They became hardened in their heart. And Zechariah's explaining how this happened. And you have this religion system, you got it down pretty well, you got the routine of the Christian life down, you go through the motions. Your motives aren't right, but you're oblivious to that. The outward appearances, that's what you got together as a Christian. But it's mechanical, it's outward, it's not really personal fellowship with God, it's not really an inward desire to please God and to obey God. and and to fellowship with God moment by moment you know where you're praying without ceasing where something comes up and all of a sudden you pray about it you're driving along and something comes to your mind you just committed to the Lord in prayer you know you don't have that moment by moment fellowship with God where it's real and you sense his presence and you feel like you can take anything to him at any time and he hears you that's what true Christianity is all about but If we're not careful, we can fall into this outward mechanical thing where Christianity is not really something that is meaningful. Empty worship. When ritual replaces reality. But here's number two. When worship is man-centered rather than God-centered. Look at verse number four. Then came the word of the Lord of hosts unto me, saying, Speak unto all the people of the land and to the priests saying, when you fast and mourn in the fifth and seventh month, even those 70 years, did ye at all fast unto me? Even to me? Now here is the response to this original question that was asked to the priests and to the prophets. We don't read of any response given by the priests and the prophets, why? Because God enters in. And God comes to Zechariah and says, here's what I want you to say to them. Here's what I want you to ask them. Ask them this one question, and God's gonna be very specific in this question. And I think that God answers their question with his own question, and I think this response from God takes them completely by surprise. I think it just totally shocks them. They had been fasting and they thought that their fasting was doing good. They thought they were pleasing God. They thought they were really doing a great service. And they expected God to commend them for it. They expected perhaps to be commended by the priests and the prophets when they asked this question. But God had never been pleased with it. Think about that. They've been observing these fasts for more than 70 years. And none of it pleased God. None of it was something that he was honored by. Why? Because again, God sees their hearts, and he knew that they weren't doing it for him. They were doing it for themselves. Again, outward religion is done for the person who is doing it, not to glorify God. And so, again, notice the question that God asks in verse five, when you fast and mourn in the fifth and seventh month, even those 70 years, did ye at all fast unto me, even unto me? God says, were you doing this for me? I missed that somewhere along the line. Just kidding, God didn't say that, but you were doing this for me? Because I think you're doing it for yourself, and of course God knew them. He knew their hearts. He knew that they weren't doing it for God. He knew that they were doing it for self. And so God was not impressed with it. And we need to, you know, when we come to a passage like this, we need to examine our motives and whatever we do, we need to make sure, are we doing it for the right reason? We need to ask ourselves these questions. Am I doing it from pride or self-righteousness? Am I doing this to seek status? Am I doing this to seek the applause of others? Or am I doing this absolutely, totally unto God? This is my service unto the Lord. This is my act of worship unto God because He's so worthy for everything that He's done for me. I'm not doing it for man, I'm doing it for God. Am I doing this because I wanna work off or cover up guilt for some sin? I mean, you know, trying to balance out all my activities, boy, I did these things wrong, so I had to do a few good things that it all balances out for God. Is that the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing? You know, try to, you know, add up some, you know, good merit with God because of the bad things I've done? Am I trying to impress God with all of my activity so that, you know, He'll give me something that I want from Him? The only proper motive for the things that we do, is for His glory. It's for the glory of God alone. That's the only proper motive. All of our activities in worship should be centered on God, not man. They should be centered on God. And we should be asking God every time we do something, would this be pleasing in His sight? We should be asking ourself, our God, is this pleasing? Is this according to your word? Am I doing this to please man or am I doing this to please God? That's really the question. Now there are some today, and you've heard me talk about this before, whose whole philosophy in church is to please man. And there's this philosophy out there among certain church growth experts, quote unquote, that say you should go out to the unbeliever and find out why they're not coming to church and take up a survey and figure out what they would like to see. And then you add all that together and then you can put together your own worship liturgy and that way you'll get people to want to come. That way you're making them happy. And you suit your whole worship service according to what people want. But you know what? The worship service is not designed to make you happy. It's designed to be pleasing in the sight of Almighty God. is designed to honor and glorify God. And by the way, God has prescribed in his word what he wants in worship. We don't have to go out and ask a couch potato that sits on the sofa and try to get him off the sofa and ask him what we could do in church that would make it more exciting for you. If prayer and seeking God's face and hearing the word of God and worshiping God in spirit and truth, if that doesn't excite you, then maybe you need to check whether you're saved or not. You just need to check your salvation if you're not interested in those things. That's man-centered worship. When we try to create the liturgy in a way that would bring entertainment and cause people to want to come, no, that's not what we do. God-centered worship is glorifying God by worship. That is our goal. That is our highest priority. And man-centered worship, again, is trying to, you know, thinking, you know, people are, you know, they call it seeker-sensitive or seeker-friendly, where these people are really seeking God and we need to try to remove all the obstacles. No, the problem is, is that lost man does not seek God. He has no desire to seek God. What does the Bible say? There's none that seeks the Lord, Romans 3 and Psalm 14. God looked down from heaven upon all the sons of man, Hebrew, all the sons of Adam. Who does that include? Everybody. What was God looking for? To see if there were any that did. Seek God? And what was the answer? There's none that doeth good. There's none that understands. There's none that seek God. You see, here's the key. If we direct our worship service to glorify God and please God, you know what? God'll be the one that'll do the seeking of the sinner. And God will bring them to us. By the way, that doesn't cancel out going out and sharing the gospel with others because we come together to worship God and we scatter to witness. But I'm simply saying this, that the first priority of the worship service is to glorify and honor God. And we know that there may be unbelievers among us when they come, and that's why we wanna share the gospel and throw out the lifeline and ask people to put their faith in Jesus Christ. We wanna do that all the time. But I'm gonna, again, as I said before, God is the one who does all the work of salvation. God is the one who does the saving. And so, and by the way, The gospel is offensive. In man-centered worship, these churches try to remove the offense of the gospel. Sometimes people say, I got offended by what you said, and I said, well, praise the Lord. I must have got it right. Because the gospel is offensive. Let's face it, no one likes to be called a sinner. No one likes to be told that there's nothing that you can do for your own salvation, except cry out to mercy to God. and realize what a wretched sinner you are in the sight of God. No one likes to be told that. That is against man's pride. Man doesn't like to be told he's a sinner. And so a lot of churches, they try to remove the offense of the gospel by saying, oh, God wants to do something wonderful in your life. And they make the gospel so appealing and so wonderful. Like God's gonna give you all that you dream if you just put your faith in him. God's like some heavenly Santa Claus is waiting to give you all these toys if you'll just come to him. And that's not the gospel. Here's the gospel. God is a holy God and he judges all sin. And because of that, you are in grave danger before a holy God. And the only way out of that is Christ. The only mercy that you'll find is in the cross of Christ and his finished work. So you better run to Christ for refuge. You better find mercy in Jesus. Because right now you're on dangerous ground. Because he that believeth not is what? Condemned already. You're already under God's condemnation. But the good news is, is that God is merciful, and He'll save those that come with repentance. I'm off my script, but let me get back to the point here. Empty worship. takes place when ritual replaces reality. Empty worship takes place when worship is man-centered rather than God-centered. But here's number three. Empty worship takes place when worship is a substitute for obedience. Now, God follows up his question with another question. Look down at verse number seven. Should ye not hear the words which the Lord hath cried by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain?" Now God essentially is telling them that He hadn't changed His mind from what He said to the former prophets. He wants true worshipers. And God made it clear to the former prophets, and God is talking about the prophets that came years before. Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Micah, and those guys. And God already told them, here's what I'm expecting. Here's what I want. Here's the true worshipers that I'm looking for. Here's the things that they need to do. Here's my word that they need to obey. And God is now saying to these children and grandchildren of their fathers, look, I have not changed my mind from what I said to those former prophets. I still hold to the same position. You know, God is not interested in people that just go through the motions. What God wants are people that obey Him. And so there's a call to obedience. Look at verse eight. And the word of the Lord came unto Zechariah saying, verse nine, thus speaketh the Lord of hosts saying, execute true judgment and show mercy and compassion, every man to his brother. And oppress not the widow nor the fatherless, the stranger nor the poor. And let none of you imagine evil against his brother in your heart. And so God wants his people to obey, do what he says. What does that include? Practice justice and mercy and compassion, especially those who are needy. That's what God wants. The widow, the orphan, the alien or stranger, the poor. He wanted their righteousness to be so thorough that even in your heart, you won't plan evil. You won't think evil in your heart. that the purity that you have is an inward purity before God. And what you are before God in secret, that's what you are and nothing else. What you are in your thoughts and in your motives, that's what you are and that's what God sees. And God says, I'm looking for a righteousness, not just on the outside, but starts on the inside with your thoughts and your motives where you will not think evil against your brother. You will not harbor sinful thoughts. But on the other hand, you'll show justice and mercy and compassion. And this reminds me of the words of Micah that was spoken many years prior. This is one of the former prophets that God was referring to, Micah 6, verse number 6. where it says this, wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the high God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Is this what's gonna please God if I just bring a lot of offerings? Next verse, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or 10,000s of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body, for the sin of my soul? Do I need to make great sacrifices to God to bring rivers of oil? and bring thousands of rams, or even offer my own firstborn to please God? Is that what God's looking for? Because you can bring a lot of those sacrifices to the house of the Lord, and if you're not obeying God, you know what? Those sacrifices mean absolutely nothing. There's no such thing as a disobedient worshiper. If you're a worshiper of God, that means you're obeying him. You can come to church and cry rivers of tears, and you can come to church and take all kind of notes, and you can do all the activities that you're supposed to do in a worship service, but if you go out and live the rest of days of the week, six days of the week in disobedience, your service to God on Sunday means absolutely nothing. It means nothing if you don't have any obedience. God wants people that will simply obey his word. And then here's the next verse in Micah, verse 8. He has shown the old man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. Worship is not a substitute for obedience. It's not a substitute. There is no substitute for true worship. You remember Saul? God told Saul, you know, destroy the Amalekites. Don't leave any alive. Don't leave any people alive. Don't leave animals alive. Why did God make that severe judgment? Because they, when the children of Israel were traveling through the wilderness, they came up and they, when that parade through the wilderness, they came behind the Israelites at the end of the line and they began to slaughter people. And you know who walked at the end of the line? the disabled, the old, the weak, the vulnerable. And the Amalekites did this cowardly attack and God said, you know what? I have declared perpetual war against Amalek because of what they did. And now Saul is the instrument of judgment against them. And God says, Saul, I want you to go to them. I want you to wipe them out. Don't leave anything alive, man or animal. This is God's judgment. You remember what Saul did? He went out and he partially obeyed. And he came back from the battle, and he has these sheep and oxen, and Samuel meets him and says, hey, how come you didn't obey? Oh, I, praise the Lord, I did exactly what God said. Really? Why do I hear then the lowing of oxen? Why don't I hear these sheep? Oh, okay, well, let me tell you, let me explain this to you. This is all in the Hebrew, all right? Let me explain this to you. I'm gonna kill him, but I figured what I'd do is just have a really big sacrifice, and I will offer all these and sacrifice to God. Wouldn't that be cool? And what did Samuel say to him? Samuel rebuked him, and he basically said this. 1 Samuel 15, 22, and Samuel said, half the Lord is great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord, Behold, to obey is better than what? Sacrifice. God was saying, look, you want to really worship me, obey me. To obey is better than bringing a huge sacrifice. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for obedience. And this sin became so great in the eyes of God that what did God do? God rejected Saul as being king of Israel. There's no substitute for obedience. Worship is not a substitute for obedience. But then, let me give you this real quickly as we wrap up, the consequences for disobedience. And then God, what he does next here in this chapter is he gives the people of Zechariah's day a history lesson. Essentially he's saying remember your fathers and remember this, the reason why the temple was destroyed And the reason why people went off into exile is because of their disobedience, not because they didn't bring sacrifices, but because their worship was meaningless and they were disobedient. That's the reason the temple was destroyed. Look in verse 11. But they refused to hearken. and pulled away the shoulder and stopped their ears that they should not hear. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law. And the words which the Lord of hosts has sent in his spirit by the former prophets, therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts." And God uses four images really here to describe their disobedience. But first of all, they refuse to pay attention. The word hearken in verse 11 means to be attentive. When God's prophets spoke through the power of the Spirit, you know what? They weren't attentive. They just didn't listen. And then the next thing, they refused to submit to spiritual authority, verse 11, and pulled away their shoulder. This is the image of an ox which refuses to have a yoke on its neck. They were like a stubborn ox. They would not submit, they would not get under the authority of God. They refused to hear God's word, verse 11, and stopped their ears that they should not hear. This is a picture of people putting something into their ears, and it wasn't hearing aids. They were putting their fingers in their ears. They didn't want to hear. And then they hardened their hearts. Look at verse 12. Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone. And the Hebrew word here for adamant stone, Sameer, is a diamond. And some versions translate this diamond. Diamonds are the hardest stones there is. In fact, the only way you can cut a diamond is with another diamond. Their hearts were hardened. Here are religious people doing all these outward rituals. And yet their heart was as hard as a diamond, hard as stone. They had hardened their hearts against the Word of God. And so they were severely disciplined. Again, in verse 12, where it says, Therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. This is why the temple was destroyed. This is why they were carried off into captivity. And verse 14 further describes this where it talks about a whirlwind, but I scatter them with a whirlwind among all the nations whom they knew not. When God's people harden their hearts against him, he can get pretty tough in their discipline to get their attention. And you know, the harder you harden your heart against God, the harder the hammer that God has to use. And they were ignored by God as well. Look at verse 13. Therefore it has come to pass that as they cried, and they would not hear. So they cried, and I would not hear, saith the Lord of hosts. So here's another consequence of disobedience. You harden your heart against God, you ignore God's word. When you cry out to him, he's gonna ignore you. He's gonna return the favor. When a crisis comes, you're not hearing God's word, you're not listening. God says, well, I'm not listening to you either. He would not hear their cry. Again, many wrongly think God's like an Aladdin's genie waiting to make their wishes to Him. God will make those wishes come true, but He's not. And if we continue to refuse to obey Him, He won't come running to our aid as if, you know, He owes us something. to bail us out the minute we call upon him. He will let us suffer the consequences for our sin to teach us not to sin. And then here's the next thing, they became desolate because of their sin. Look in verse 14, the latter part, thus the land was desolate after them that no man passed through nor return for they laid the pleasant land desolate. The land had been pleasant, people were living comfortably in it, but now it was laid waste because of their sin. Because the enemy armies came in and they just laid that land to waste. Sin always takes its toll. It always does. Physical health is ruined, families are shattered, bitterness, heartache, and grief abound. It's never a pretty picture. And by the way, it was the children and the grandchildren that were left picking up the pieces from the sin of their fathers. And we don't like to think about this, but a lot of times the sins of parents affect the children and the grandchildren. And the Bible's pretty clear about that. The people that are sinners and disobedient to the Lord, children bear the consequences of that, and the parents that are obedient, children can bear the blessing of that. And so, blessing or cursing can be passed along according to the behavior of parents. And by the way, the way to apply this is not for children to begin to blame their parents. We got enough of that going on in society today. The way to apply this is for you to say, I'm not going to do anything where my children or grandchildren have to pay the consequences of it. That's the way you apply that. But the bottom line is this, there is no such thing as a true worshiper who is disobedient to the word of God. There's no such thing. A disobedient worshiper is an oxymoron. Now I can imagine that delegation that came from Bethel were pretty shocked after hearing all this. All that time they were doing all these fasts and doing all these things, thinking that God was pleased and God was not, only to find out that not only was God not pleased, but he was actually pretty angry about their heartless, empty worship. Because empty worship takes place when ritual replaces reality, when worship is man-centered rather than God-centered, when worship is a substitute for obedience. And you know what, beloved? We need to be careful that we don't make the same mistakes, that our worship is meaningful, and the way that we make it meaningful is we have a heart that's completely devoted to obeying God. It's like Romans 12, 1 and 2 says. Paul says, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body, a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. That's the greatest verse in the Bible on worship right there. It's giving your whole self over to God. That means God has me, body, soul, and spirit. That means my life is his. That means I'm gonna obey what he says, and when I do fail, I'm gonna confess it and get up, and I'm gonna continue to walk a pattern of obedience before God. He owns me, he owns all of me. That's what true worship is. That's where it begins. It doesn't just happen on Sunday. It happens every day of the week, 24-7, in everything that we do, where we're giving ourself completely over to God in everything and obeying Him in all things. Let's bow for prayer together. So, Father, thank you for this passage that warns us. It serves as a sober reminder. that if we're not careful, we can devolve into this kind of meaningless mechanical outward type religiosity that really is not pleasing in your sight at all. In fact, this is exactly the thing that you don't want. And we can forget to be obedient. And we can find justification for not doing the things that we should do. We have a way, Lord, of making ourself appear spiritual in our own mind and heart when we're not obeying you. So, Father, cleanse us from all of that. Cleanse us from hypocrisy. Cleanse us from our pride. Cleanse us from self-righteousness. Cleanse us from a Christianity that is merely outward, that is mechanical, And Lord, give us a true, true love, a true submission to your word, a true passion to obey you more with all of our heart. And Lord, may our worship not be empty in your sight. May it be meaningful, true heartfelt worship. And Father, I pray all this in Jesus' holy name, amen.