“GETTING WHAT WE WANT, BUT LOSING WHAT WE HAD”

TEXT:  Psalm 106:11-15
 
THESIS:  To show that we need to be content with God’s blessings and not lust after carnal desires or we may find God will give us what we want and we will lose what we had!
 
INTRO: 

A. The children of Israel ▶cried for deliverance for many years from the task- masters of Egypt.  ▶God heard them and sent Moses to be their deliverer.  ▶God opened the Red Sea for them and they sang His praises. (v.10-12) ▶God provided all their  needs in the wilderness, food, water, clothing, and even kept them from sickness and  disease.  ▶They began to view His blessings as boring and lusted for their former life and lifestyle and ▶God again heard them and ▶▶He gave them what they wanted, but they lost what they had!

B. There is a principle here.  When we tire of God’s blessings and lust after something outside
His will we will place ourselves in the position of...

“GETTING WHAT WE WANT, BUT LOSING 
                           WHAT WE HAD.” 

America, like Israel failed to appreciate God’s blessings, so we lusted after something we thought would make us happy and satisfied, and God gave us what we lusted after and we lost His blessings!  What is true of the nation is also true in our homes and in our lives…
 
I. WE WANTED CHOICE BUT LOST CHARACTER:
 
A. Our Anti-Child Mentality:
 
   1. Our land is defiled by innocent blood thru wholesale abortions. (v.38-42)
 
ILLUS:  I typed in the words “innocent blood” on my computer and was shocked to find 20 references in the Bible.  One of the most horrible and heinous sins of Israel which led to God’s judgment of the land was an anti-child mentality where they sacrificed their children to idols!  Today we do worse in aborting the unborn!  And God will judge us and already has. 
            👿There is a bumper sticker which reads: “PRO-FAMILY, PRO-CHILD, PROCHOICE.”  How sad and how sick!
 
    2. When people neglect God’s moral law, it spawns a chain reaction of iniquity.
    3. God-neglect always precedes child abuse.
    4. Pro-choice = Pro-death and is anti-God!
 
ILLUS:  In Romans 1 the Bible speaks loudly of God giving over those with an immoral mentality to a “reprobate mind.”  A reprobate mind cannot discern right from wrong.  ‘WE WANTED CHOICE BUT LOST CHARACTER!’
 
II. WE WANTED FREEDOM BUT LOST RESPONSIBILITY:
 
A. Our Legacy of  ‘Freedom’:
 
ILLUS:  You say “Hey Preacher, this is the 90’s not the 50’s!  Let’s look at the 90’s!
 
   1. We have children having children (freedom with out responsibility)!
   2. We have men making babies with out becoming fathers (Freedom with out Resp.)!
 
QUOTE:  Harold Vaughan:  “The media drooled all over Louis Farrakhan because he organized the Million Man March.  If Mr. Farrakhan was really serious about helping his country (and his people), he would have told those men to march home and take care of the children they had fathered!”
 
   3. We have women getting pregnant and aborting their children (Freedom with out Resp.)!
   4. We have people killing people with out cause or over drugs, or domestic arguments, or a barroom disagreement, or car-jacking or ? (F. with out Resp.)!
   5. We have people sitting around shooting up, or snorting up or smoking in substances which will fry their brains than ever (Freedom with out Resp.)!
   6. We have more divorces and more people living together with out marriage than ever and more “trial marriages” and “pre-nuptial agreements” (which says we anticipate this marriage will fail, even before the ceremony)  (F. with out Resp)!
   7. We have more illiterate high-school graduates than ever (in the 50’s, if you didn’t learn it, you didn’t pass it!)  (F. with out Resp.)!
                       
ILLUS:  One of the reasons kids are not learning in the public schools is because of a lack of discipline which is reflected in the lack of dress standards.  Check out the bus stops and look at how the kids dress.  Kids used to be sent home for leaving their shirt tail out, not that is “style” along with shorts, halters, mini-skirts, pants for girls, etc.  (Stay tuned!)  Check out the hair styles…the kookier the better!  (F. with out R.)!
            Yet some of you parents grate and grumble over our dress code for your kids.  You ought to rise up and call us blessed!  You ought to come by and say thanks for caring about my kids!
 
   8. We have Govt. leaders with out morals or accountability (43% of the people who voted put a Pres. in the White House who was a draft-dodger, a socialist, a womanizer, a liar and God only knows what else - (F. with out Resp.)!

   9. We now have a Govt.. which is calling for the death penalty for the man who killed those innocent people in the Federal Bldg. in Oklahoma, but which never tried anyone for putting to death those innocent people in an isolated compound in Waco, Texas  (F. with out resp.)!
 
III. WE WANTED EQUALITY BUT LOST RESPECT:
 
A. Our Role Reversal:
 
   1. This is the day of gender confusion where house husbands, career mothers and latch-key children are the norm.
   2. Men dress like, smell like, look like and adorn themselves like women, and women dress like, smell like, look like and adorn themselves like men!
 
ILLUS:  On TV this season an actress named Ellen DeGeneres (Degenerate!), will announce that she is a lesbian in her role and in her private life.  A fellow homosexual wrote an article in this week’s NEWSWEEK magazine asking “Will Ellen Still Wear Pants?”  He asks “If Ellen comes out, will she remain loyal to the lesbian  pants creed?”  He is decrying the trend of Hollywood and TV to “femme up” known lesbians by their agents or managers.  He says “getting Ellen or Melissa Etheridge  or k.d. lang into a dress is like coaxing Huck Finn into a camisole.”!
                                     
   3. We now have the feminization of men, the masculinization of women and the sodomization of children!
   4. Few are the churches and preachers who dare read such Scriptures as Titus 2:5 where Paul says women are to be “discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their husbands” or  “wives submit…” husbands, love your wives…”  “children, obey your parents.”
                                                                       
IV. WE WANTED SUCCESS BUT LOST OUR FAMILIES:
 
A. Our Broken Homes:
 
   1. Men’s headship has been decapitated.
 
1 Cor. 11:3
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.
 
1 Cor. 11:8-9
8  For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
9  Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
 
   2. God calls woman a help meet.
   3. Though equal in personality and fellowship men and women are distinction.
                       
ILLUS:  No doubt some women are upset over what I am preaching today and will rake their husbands over the coals after the service while he dons his apron and cooks dinner!  She will tell him how and what to cook and on the menu will be a large helping of roast preacher!
 
   4. Women’s femininity, grace, charm and beauty have been sacrificed on the altar of success and career.
 
ILLUS:  Men are commanded to love their wives “as their own bodies” and the Bible teaches that a wife’s role and sanctification is largely a reflection of her husband’s love and leadership.  “Don’t complain about your wife.  The fact is, you helped to make her what she is.”  Vaughan
 
   5. Children are to honor (inwardly reverence) and obey (outwardly respect) their parents! (Children are to seek the acceptance of their parents over their peers.
 
Mal. 4:6
And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.
 
   6. When the parents have the hearts of their children honor, respect and obedience as well as love will not be a problem and the Lord will have easy access to them.
 
      a. The first benefit of honoring parents is that the children will be protected from evil and the consequences of sin. “That it may be well with thee…”
      b. The second benefit of honoring parents is longevity or long life.
 
V. WE WANTED CONTROL and LOST GOD’S POWER and BLESSING:
 
A. Our Trade Offs:
 
   1. We traded cleanness for leanness.
   2. We traded victory for defeat.
   3. We traded spirituality for carnality.
 
ILLUS:  We need to learn from the Bible. Adam and Eve traded Paradise for a piece of fruit.  Cain traded fellowship with his family for a curse from God.  Lot traded the            blessings of friendship with his uncle Abraham for a place in the city gate of Sodom. Samson traded Spirit fullness for lust of women. 
 
CONCL:  The nation of Israel traded fellowship with God and His blessings for idolatry; manna for quail; spirituality for carnality.   They “GOT WHAT THEY WANTED BUT LOST WHAT THEY HAD!”  (“[God] gave them their request but sent leanness into their soul.”)  Beware!