Are you with God, or against him? Decide now, because you are about to have to make a choice! Are you with God, 100%, no matter what He asks you to do, or are you with God 95%, as long as He doesn’t ask you to give up this, or that, whatever it is that YOU LOVE more than God, and whatever it is that you are holding back from God?

If you aren’t with God 100%, YOU GIVE HIM A BAD NAME! So if you aren’t all the way behind Him, and yet use His name, and call yourself a Christian, and even call yourself a member of the Church of God, and yet cling to the world, you are a STENCH in God’s nostrils!

Your particular brand of clinging to the world will be different from anyone else. Maybe it’s a family member you don’t want to offend. Maybe it’s the antique cross your grandmother gave you. Maybe it’s your job that occasionally requires you to make a phone call on Saturday, or work fifteen minutes late on Friday evening. But one way or another, you are better off serving Baal himself than to do those things and still call yourself a member of the Church of God!

Ezekiel 20:39 As for you, O house of Israel, thus saith the Lord GOD; Go ye, serve ye every one his idols, and hereafter also, if ye will not hearken unto me: but pollute ye my holy name no more with your gifts, and with your idols.

God says GO! Serve your Idols! Work on Saturday, fill your house with Christmas trees and spend every weekend in a brothel, but DON’T come before Him, DON’T PRAY, don’t use His name and sing His praises and pretend to be a Christian!!

Revelation 3:15-16 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

God says He WISHES you were cold or hot, that you would either serve Him or serve Baal, but instead you ride the fence! You want to be a Christian and just have a LITTLE idol, or just pick the pepperoni off the pizza so as not to offend your cousin, or just use a little bit of illegal software, and then come to church on Saturday and say “How I love the LORD!” IT MAKES HIM SICK!

Jeremiah 7:8-10 Behold, ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?

So as I said, God wants you to make a choice! If you choose Baal, He can at least respect that and deal with it – but if you don’t make some sort of a choice, and decide, RIGHT NOW, if you will serve God ALL THE WAY or just 97% of the way, He promises to spew you out of His mouth!

1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.

Do you have a better answer? When you read that, and apply it to yourself, do you think “But, I’M not worshiping Baal!?” I haven’t done any of that stuff!

Jeremiah 2:35 Yet thou sayest, Because I am innocent, surely his anger shall turn from me. Behold, I will plead with thee, because thou sayest, I have not sinned.

No, perhaps you aren’t doing any of *those* sins. But are you giving God ALL that you could give? Are you demanding COMPLETE obedience to the law of God from yourself, or only “good enough” obedience? Well? “good enough” isn’t good enough.

When you call yourself a Christian, you VOLUNTARILY adopt the name of God and attach it to yourself. If you then fail – chronically – to live up to the most basic tenets of true Christianity, then you make God look like a fool – a fool worshiped by fools!

Romans 2:17-20 Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will, and approvest the things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law.

This describes perfectly everyone I’ve ever known in the Church of God! They ALL considered themselves a part of the “special” ones, a part of the Church of God and a light to the world – and they were right! Unfortunately, the next part of this verse ALSO describes them perfectly! BUT DOES IT DESCRIBE YOU?

Verses 21-23 …Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou steal? Thou that sayest a man should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? Thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God?

You DISHONOUR, SHAME, and EMBARRASS GOD when you don’t obey the law 100% and yet STILL call yourself a Christian! And as God told David after the Bathsheba incident, “thou hast given great occasion to the enemies of the LORD to blaspheme” (2 Samuel 12:14)

What it boils down to is that this is an evil time. The worst time, spiritually speaking, that has ever existed on this earth – except possibly for a few days before the flood. Notice I said “possibly.” Christ wasn’t sure He’d find faith on the earth when He came back.

If He came back tomorrow, would He find it in you – or would He find just another self-satisfied, complacent, 90% Christian?

It’s up to you to answer that question, and to live with the consequences.

James 4:8-10 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.