Close, But No Cigar!

August 13, 2017 (rev)                NOTES NOT EDITED

Close But No Cigar

2Kings 12:1-18

SIS:  Many people let stumbling blocks keep them from fully experiencing a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

This past presidential election has been nothing short of fascinating, even earth shattering.  The election of a non-politician, multi-billionaire outsider like Donald Trump has sent shock waves through the Washington political establishment.  We have never seen anything like this, at least not in my lifetime.

In anticipation of a "revival and renewal" in America, the Stock Market jumped.  It seems America was ready for a change, even if Washington was not.  There is a sense across the land that America is about to have a "new day" and begin pulling ourselves out of a ditch we have been in for years.  There is renewed hope that the failed policies of past administrations, both economically and morally, may be coming to an end.  Some of that hope and optimism has faded with the never-ending Trump bashing of the political establishment and media propaganda machine.  We are—or at least were—on the edge of a “revival.”

But, America has been close to revival before.  Recall that the attack on 911 shook America to a heightened awareness of the need to return to God.  In fact, in the weeks immediately following 911, people did return to church by the thousands.  But it didn't last.  Revival was close, but it never came.

There is a term for an event that has great promise of reward but the reward never materializes.  That phrase is:  "Close, But No Cigar."

I've used this phrase many times throughout life when my hopes and expectation for a great reward seemed within reach, but never quite materialized.  I decided to see if I could find out where the phrase came from. 

As near as I can find out (and nobody seems really sure) the phrase goes back to adult games at a carnival around the turn of the last century.  Often, the prize for winning a carnival game was a "good cigar."  If an adult attempted a game, but did not win, the Carney would holler:  "Close, but no cigar." 

This phrase could certainly be applied to our nation at this time in our history.  We are so close to a revival and a return to God and His Word.  We certainly need it -- desperately. 

Many individuals in church are really close to a personal "revival,"  Many people, many churches, are so close to a spiritual breakthrough where the windows of God's heaven open up and shower upon us great blessing.  We are so close, but will we get the cigar? 

Most people cannot experience revival.  Revival means, “to live again,” that is, “to live again spiritually.”  Most people cannot experience “coming alive again,” because they have never come alive in the first place.  Most people are still, “dead in their trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1).  But, the Word of God reminds us that when God’s people get revived, a result of that renewal is that many people get saved.  Look what David said in Psalm 51:10-13:

¹⁰ God, create a clean heart for me and renew a steadfast spirit within me. ¹¹ Do not banish me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore the joy of Your salvation to me, and give me a willing spirit.  ¹³ Then I will teach the rebellious Your ways, and sinners will return to You.

When saints get right—sinners get saved!

Today, we are going to examine a time in the life of the Nation of Israel, specifically the reign of King Joash.  This story is a perfect example of what it means to be "Close, but get no cigar."

Let us read our text together and then I'll give you a little background on what's going on.  2Kings 12:1-20:

In the seventh year of Jehu, Joash became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem forty years. His mother’s name was Zibiah; she was from Beersheba. ² Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him. ³ The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

After years living under wicked, rebellious, sinful kings, Israel was on the verge of revival when Joash became king.  Joash began his reign with great promise of a "New Golden Age" for Israel after some very dark and troubling times both personally and politically; however, “they were close but no cigar!”

Joash was the great nephew of King Ahab, one of the worst king's in Israel's history.  Since Ahab, pagan worship was rampant throughout Israel.  Ahab's son, and then Ahab's nephew continued the evil traditions of Ahab right to Joash's father, who had the same name as Ahab's son.  It all gets a bit confusing so I'll cut the chase.

The terrible King Ahaziah, Joash' father reigned for a very short time until he was killed in battle when Joash was just a baby.  Joash's grandmother seized control of the throne by killing all the royal family.  She would have killed Joash--next in line for the throne--but a kindly aunt hid him away in a secret place in the temple of six years.  Finally, a godly priest by the name of Jehoida staged an uprising against the wicked and idolatrous grandmother and placed Joash on his rightful place on the throne.  And, thus, there was hope that a new "Golden Age" would come to the nation.

But, no Golden Age came.  No revival and renewal came to Israel even though Joash had great potential, especially with the godly counsel of the priest, Jehoiada.  But, Joash had no convictions.  He had no principles.  He stumbled and eventually fell.

He was "close" to a great revival, but "no cigar."  Several stumbling stones tripped Joash up along life's road that kept him from fully experiencing a life-changing encounter with God.  Here are the stumbling stones that hinder "revival and renewal" in our lives, in our churches, or in our nation.

1.  Joash lacked PERSONAL CONVICTIONS (v2)

Joash did what was right in the eyes of the Lord all the years Jehoiada the priest instructed him.

Unfortunately, as we will see, Joash inherited the bad spiritual genes of his father and grandfather.  He, like they, was always drawn to worshipping pagan idols.  This is a propensity that we all seem to have.  We always drift into loving “other stuff,” rather than God.

While Jehoida, the priest, was around Joash took his counsel and did what was right in the eyes of the Lord.  He was not perfect, but as long as he listened to Jehoida, he did really well. But, borrowed convictions are not true convictions at all, and do not last.

The problem is that Jehoida did something older people have a tendency to do--he died.  2Chron. 24:17-18 describes the death of Joash's mentor, Jehoida:

¹⁷ After the death of Jehoiada, the officials of Judah came and paid homage to the king, and he listened to them. ¹⁸ They abandoned the temple of the Lord, the God of their fathers, and worshiped Asherah poles and idols. Because of their guilt, God’s anger came upon Judah and Jerusalem.

When Jehoiada died, Joash simply adopted the convictions of a new crowd—a wicked crowd that “abandoned the temple of the Lord.”  If all a person has is the convictions of a leaf, those convictions change every time the winds shift. 

We all need mentors and guides in our lives as we grow through life, but we need “godly” mentors who will help us establish our own “personal convictions.”   We, however, all have the tendency to suffer from "celebrity blindness."  We tend to follow those people who have gained a sense of notoriety in the religious community.  It may be Billy Graham.  It may be John MacArthur.  It may be Beth Moore.  God forbid, it may be Kenneth Copeland or Joel Olsteen.  It may be just about anybody who gains celebrity status and we allow them to access to our hearts and minds.  We abandon the “temple,” or God’s church, for Christian conferences, and the newest celebrity teachers.

The problem becomes:  "faulty followership."  One borrows the conviction of others, instead of developing our own personal convictions based on the Word of God.  We are never to follow a man (or a woman) no matter how godly they may seem, or actually be.  We have one Lord, and that is Jesus Christ.  We have One Book that tells us about Jesus Christ and that's the Bible. The Written Word leading us to the Living Word is the only leader we should be following.

Paul gives us wise counsel about avoiding "faulty followership" in 1Cor. 3:

Since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? ⁴ For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?⁵ What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. ⁶ I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. ⁷ So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

God alone is our Guide and Mentor.  Paul again stresses this idea in Hebrews 12:2:

Let us fix our eyes on Jesus,
the author and perfecter of our faith,

Joash's problem was he had no convictions of his own, but was swayed by whoever happened to be preaching in his ear at the time.  He was NOT like the Bereans of whom it is says in Acts 17:11:

 Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.

If you are following any man, save the God-Man Jesus, it is only a matter of time before that man, or woman, lets you down or leads you astray. And, that certainly applies to me.  Never take what I say as the gospel unless you verify by "chapter and verse."

Joash stumbled and missed the "Cigar" of revival and renewal because he had "Faulty Follwership."

2.  Joash tolerated, even embraced,  the Secular (v. 3)

³ The high places, however, were not removed; the people continued to offer sacrifices and burn incense there.

These "high places" were private altars scattered all over the countryside where sacrifices were made and incense was offered to God.  The Israelites had patterned this practice after the pagan inhabitants of the land.  Thus, sometimes the worship of Yahweh was mixed with the worship of local pagan deities.

Besides that, these private altars became a sort of competition for the worship at the Temple.  Thus, these high places led to a mixed-up, often corrupt, competition with true worship.

Against the good advice of Jehoida, Joash tolerated these "high places."

“Tolerance” is a word much revered in modern American culture.  We seem to be able to tolerate just about anything.  We overthrew prohibition and now have come to tolerating drinking at the drop of a hat, including a recent church fund-raiser I attended.  With Engle vs. Vitale we threw God out of the classroom in our public schools along with prayer, and now instead of bringing Bibles to school, kids bring dope and guns.  In Roe v.Wade we booted the idea of the sanctity of life to the curb and now we kill babies at the rate of over 2 per minute, some even after being born.  We have confused civil rights with what’s morally right and now homosexuality is tolerated at every level of American life—including the right to marry in some states.  We tolerate any kind of religion from witchcraft to Scientologist.  Many Americans are supporting the building of a Muslim Mosque near the site where Muslim terrorists flew two planes into Twin Towers killing over 3000 people.  We are a cultrue that seems to worship “tolerance.”  There seems to be no ideology or behavior we will not tolerate – except of course, for Christians who dare to take their Christianity beyond the walls of the sanctuary.  Then, we as a nation are quite intolerant.

But, what has been the net effect of all this “tolerance of the secular?”  Well, America is quickly slipping behind on the global scene in nearly any category you want to measure.  We are up to our eyeballs in debt.  We were once a nation of manufacturers, now we are a nation of servants.  We once led the world in education.  Now we can barely stay ahead in literacy.  The American dream is quickly becoming a nightmare. 

We were once a nation with man like Ronald Reagan, Johnny Cash, and Bob Hope.  Now we have Barak Obama, no cash, and no hope!

Everyone wants their own "high place."  They want spirituality without truth, religion without requirements, and worship without substance. We have tolerated the secular and it is strangling the life out of our churches, and as a consequence, out of our nation.

Tolerating the secular, anti-God, pagan ideas of the world put the brakes on Israel’s revival and recovery.  Such tolerance will – and is – putting the brakes on America’s revival and recovery.

3.  Surrendering the Sacred (17-18)

¹⁷ About this time Hazael king of Aram went up and attacked Gath and captured it. Then he turned to attack Jerusalem. ¹⁸ But Joash king of Judah took all the sacred objects dedicated by his fathers—Jehoshaphat, Jehoram and Ahaziah, the kings of Judah—and the gifts he himself had dedicated and all the gold found in the treasuries of the temple of the Lord and of the royal palace, and he sent them to Hazael king of Aram, who then withdrew from Jerusalem.

On the heels of tolerating everything secular, always comes surrendering all things sacred.  They go together like Hansel and Gretal, Laurel and Hardy, or peanut butter and jelly.

 I’m not an old man (though I am a proud grandpa), and I remember the Blue Laws.  As a boy, it was against the law to sell beer or liquor before 2:00 pm.  It had to be covered up with white paper.

 I’m not an old man, but I remember when no self-respecting person would mow their yards on Sunday.  It just wasn’t done, whether you were a Christian or not.

In my grandfather’s generation (three or four generations back now), 55% of the American population attended church regularly.  Now, polls say about 25-30%, and I’ll bet it is really half that.

When our nation was founded for the purpose of the free expression of religion and free worship of the Almighty God of the Bible, the most important building in any town, was the church with its steeple rising high into the air as a sort of "lighthouse for the sea of humanity," pointing everyone in the community in the direction of God. 

There was a time when America placed a much higher value on Christianity – and consequently, held a much higher position in the world.   “Righteousness exalts a nation but sin is a reproach to any people.”

When Joash surrendered the sacred objects to purchase worldly protection, he surrendered any hope for revival or renewal in the Nation.  So it is with you and I:  when we surrender the sacred time of worship each week to chase worldly pursuits, we surrender any hope for a revival and renewal in our lives.  We stumble and fall and never quite reach the finish line – much less, win the race of life.  We get close to godliness, but don't win the cigar.

4.  The final stumbling block in our failure to gain
      life-changing revival and renewal comes from
      "IGNORING THE WARNING." 2Chron 24:19-22

¹⁹ Although the Lord sent prophets to the people to bring them back to him, and though they testified against them, they would not listen. ²⁰ Then the Spirit of God came upon Zechariah son of Jehoiada the priest. He stood before the people and said, “This is what God says: ‘Why do you disobey the Lord’s commands? You will not prosper. Because you have forsaken the Lord, he has forsaken you.’”  ²¹ But they plotted against him, and by order of the king they stoned him to death in the courtyard of the Lord’s temple.

Chronicles is a second account of the kings of Israel.  What we read here is pretty sad, and quite ironic.  It is sad because God spared Joash when all the other royal family was murdered.  God hid Joash in the temple.  Now some 40 years later, Joash is stoned to death in the temple.  The Golden Age of revival and renewal never came for the nation of Israel--it never came personally for Joash.  He was "close, but no cigar."

God always sends judgment upon sin.  Habakkuk 1:13, “ ¹³ Your eyes  are too pure  to look on evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing.” Ezek. 18:20, “The soul that sins will surely die.”  Psalm 7:11, “God is a righteous judge and a God who shows His wrath every day. ¹² If anyone does not repent, God  will sharpen His sword; He has strung  His bow and made it ready. ¹³ He has prepared His deadly weapons; He tips His arrows with fire.

Man is utterly without any excuse. From one end of Scripture to the other, and all points in between, God has given abundant warning that “sin brings judgment and wrath!”  Man ignores this warning at his own eternal peril. 

The Chronicler declares that “God sent prophets . . . but the people would not listen!”

A Methodist pastor and a Baptist preacher stood by the side of the road holding up a sign that said, "The End is Near! Turn yourself around now before it's too late!" Not long after they started holding up the sign, a car drove by.  The man in the car slammed on his breaks, rolled down the window and began shouting obscenities at the pastor, and saying, “Leave us alone, you religious nut.”  Then he sped off down the road.  About a minute later, from around a curve in the road, you hear a loud explosion and a large plume of smoke rising just in air.  The deacon looked toward his pastor and said, “Do you think instead of saying, ‘The End Is Near,’ we should have said, ‘Bridge Out Ahead?”

God’s warnings are much clearer, but still the majority of people ignore them.  As the Chronicler says, “God sent prophets to the people, but they would not listen!” 

Joash and Israel continued to stray from the righteous ways of God as he had been instructed by Jehoida, even as God pleaded through His prophets for them to listen.  

But, God in His mercy did not give up on His people.  He sent the son of the Godly priest, Jehoida, to warn Joash calling on the Nation to repent and turn back to God.  They killed Zecharia, Jehoida’s son, as they killed the prophets before and after him.  The sad result was:  "they would not listen."

Still, God has not given up on us. He continues to warn us, and to woo us back to Himself.  In these last days, God sent his Son Jesus to warn us of God’s wrath upon sin and offer us mercy

The hymnwriter makes this plea:

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?

Come home.  Come home. 
All you who are weary Come home

People who do not heed God’s warnings, will certainly face God’s wrath.  People who “listen to God’s prophets, respond to God’s Son will discover revival and renewal and escape wrath and judgment.”

Week after week we open the Word of God and there is ALWAYS a call to repentance.  None of us is ever as close to God as we need to be.  There is always the sad reality that we will be "close, but no cigar."  Revival is near at hand, but will we reach out for it?  Or, will we miss the good?  Will we sacrifice the best for a few momentary pleasures? 

So many people "slip into hell with their hand on heaven's doorknob."  So many get started on a path toward new life and then stumble short of a life transforming encounter with the Living God, Jesus Christ.   Too many Christians lack true personal convictions about Christ and the church.  Too many Christians tolerate too much worldliness in their lives.  Too many Christians abandon the sacred things of God and allow their once thriving spiritual lives to decay.  Too many Christians do not heed God's warning to repent, return to Him, and experience revival.

Lost people cannot be revived, but will die in their sins stumbling over Jesus Christ and His righteousness.

I pray that we will NOT miss God's best and we will fully surrender and gain the revival in our personal lives that God wants us to have.  There is a prize laid up for us in heaven, "the high calling of God in Christ."  Let's heed the Word, and gain that prize.