Turning the Heart
May 25, 2017
And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD … and forsook the LORD, and served not Him. -Judges 10:6
You would think that after all their experiences, the Israelites would learn that when they turned to idolatry, trouble came upon them. Human nature is fallen nature. Jeremiah has said,
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9). You and I certainly do not know the heart. It is easier for us to point our fingers back to these people who lived about one thousand years before Christ and say, “You did wrong,” than it is for us to see what we are doing wrong.
How are we doing, by the way? May I say that there is a frightful apostasy today in the church. Human nature is like that, and we are in a nation that is in trouble. We have tried every method, political scheme, and political party, and none of them has worked. What is wrong? We have gone to the wrong place for help. Only a turning to God will get us on the right path. I know that sounds square and out of date, but it sounded that way one thousand years before Christ also.
The Israelites turned to other gods, refused to serve the living God, and look at what happened: Because of their idolatry, they went into slavery again—they served the Philistines and Ammonites for eighteen years. God can afford to remove His instrument when that instrument fails Him. A great many people think that God has to have the church and has to have America because it is sending out missionaries. May I say to you that God does not have to have any of us. He is not dependent upon us at all. We are, however, dependent upon Him.
-Dr. J. Vernon McGee, from
Edited Messages on Judges