Pastor Ralph Douglas West - Spiritual Vertigo | 1 Kings 18:21 & James 18

0:25 for all of our readings today. What a joy. The question has been asked, the King James uses an interesting phrase, how long halt ye between two opinions? And James answered, those of you who are double-minded, you're unstable.

0:58 I want to tag this text this morning, Spiritual Vertical. You may be seated. There's something arresting about the way certain people use humor to unlock what appears to be unlockable. Humor has a strange way of making that which is undigestible palatable. And nobody used humor as strangely as Yoga Barra. Some of you remember Yoga.

1:54 He was a national baseball figure back in the 1960s. He played 19 years in Major League Baseball from 1946 to 1963 to 1965. He played every year with the New York Yankees until his final year. He had all these yogi-isms that we throw around now and maybe we don't know that they belong to him. Let me give you a couple of them of how he used these strange words, contradictory statements to defy explanation. See if you can pick up on some of them. Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded. is like deja vu all over again.

2:49 The future ain't what it used to be. Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical. You can observe a lot by watching.

3:15 I really didn't say everything I said. Sound like somebody in Washington, D.C. It gets late early out there. One of my favorites has to do with our text this morning. Yogi Berra was giving direction to Mickey Mantle to his house and he says now this is how you get to my home and when you arrive at the fork in the road take it Thank you. this morning what you heard read to you in the form of a question comes out of first king chapter 18 it's a moment in the life and the history of israel when they come to a fork in the road and now they are faced with the decision whether to take it or not Ahab is the king he has described this way in the scripture that he did more evil in the eyes of God than his predecessors even Jeroboam he married a woman named Jezebel and wreaked havoc upon the nation Ahab was an evil king terrorizing his community, oppressing God's people, and then God raises a prophet and simply says to Elijah, who steps on the scene from we don't know where, he's this desert brand burning prophet who comes across the desert and stands before the king and simply says that God's going to shut the heavens for three years. There will be no rain until at

5:27 my word. Elijah is speaking on behalf of God for God's people. And this is 700 years before the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he is speaking also not just to Ahab, but also to God's covenant people who were on the threshold of making some nonsensical decisions. They had come to can we say it again, a fark in the road.

6:00 And one of the farks in the road that they would take or come to make a decision about would be about a God named Baal. Not the God of Moses, not the God of Abraham, but the God Baal. Not the God of the covenant, not the God that had brought them out of slavery, but about Baal. Baal was interesting. Interesting God. Two things I want to say about Baal. Let me do some Baalology this morning.

6:40 first, Baal was the god of harvest. You remember that Israel is an agrarian group of people. They live from the land. And so you could see why Baal would be appeasing to them when the Canaanite deity was identified as the one who died in the winter but rose in the spring. And this was the cycle of the Baal, that when there was a huge harvest, it was because Baal was alive. If you live from the land, there might be a tendency to which you would pledge your allegiance to a God like Baal. So it's not out of the ordinary That these people might Gravitate toward Baal but then Baal secondly beyond harvest was a god of sexuality.

7:41 People love sex and the worship of Baal was actually an orgy on top of the hill out on display. Not very different from what we see and read and listen to.

8:02 They live by a kind of Hugh Hefner philosophy, everyday an orgy. And so the Israelites found themselves between God and Baal. When you read the King James, halt ye between two opinions, how do you read it? All my life as a young Christian and preacher coming up when I saw halt ye, I always thought it was stop ye. but it's actually the Hebrew word if you can imagine this of somebody going this way and that way or backwards and forward trying to make up their mind on what decision to make. They were back and forth between two opinions and this is what they wanted.

8:57 They didn't want to deny God but they didn't want to give all their loyalty to God. They didn't want to be exclusive to God. They wanted to include Baal. They wanted it both ways. They were at a fork in the road. Remember, these are the people to whom God had given the Ten Commandments. And before you read the Decalogue, the prologue to the Decalogue simply says this, I'm the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of slavery.

9:32 And there shall be no other God before me. And then you won't make unto yourself any graven images. Then God made this clear, and I'm a jealous God. Now this is not to be reduced to some kind of cinematic outpouring of disgust that we see in the theater. This is lifting life up to God And God simply saying That I'm a jealous God That is, don't you dare put another God in front of me This is one of the challenges that we face in America today in Christian nationalism. It's often called white Christian nationalism. But let me say this, there's some black Christian nationalism.

10:29 It's not ethnic as much as it is ideological. It's not based on color only. it is based more onto a cultural framework and where we put God and country on the same playing field. Where we speak of the Bible and the Constitution as one, the cross and the flag as one, and I'm here to tell you, God shall have no other gods before him. it's a challenge is it that when you even hear me some of you shrink back in your seat because you have been conditioned in a way in which anything like that disturbs you. Well, you had a fork in the road.

11:22 Bertha Smith was a missionary in the Southern Baptist and Bertha Smith in her elderly years came to Southwestern Seminary and she spoke. She had spent 50 years in China. She preached Christ and demanded a kind of undivided devotion to him. And one of the ways that she promoted this kind of loyalty to Christ is that she would hold up a picture of two people trying to stand in what she called sandpans and canoes. And you don't have to be a road scholar to figure out if you can put your feet in two canoes in the middle of a pond. They separate and you fall into the water. And that's where some of us are right now. We're trying to do God and something else. Jesus and something else. Faith and something else. You can't have it both ways. You have to make a decision when you come to the fork in the road, halt ye between two opinions.

12:35 And so here is the first movement of the question. I remember reading years ago a story, I don't know how true it is, but it makes good sense today during the Civil War that one man came to the battlefront and had on a Union top and a Confederate bottom. Blue and gray and that's how some of us want to live We want to live one way on Sunday, another day on Monday Another way on Tuesday, another day on Wednesday And here this text is tailored to teach us Stop vacillating between the two And make up your mind what you're going to be If you're going to be on God's side Thank you. Well, I guess I need to say it this morning. Preach, Pastor West.

13:30 So on one hand, this text reminds us that there's a dividing delusion, but it continues with a decisive dichotomy. The duality of this text is found now when we come to James chapter 1, the brother of Jesus who writes this practical letter. One of my favorite letters. In fact, I have a wonderful, wonderful series on James that I haven't preached in 38 years. I preached it in 1987 when I was a pastor at another church. I've been tempted to preach it again. Maybe the Lord will leave me. I've been wanting to do it. But here in James chapter 1 verse 8, it just simply says this, a double-minded person is unstable in all of their ways. You can't have a soul devoted to Jesus and a soul equally devoted to something else or someone else.

14:42 Hear the illustration that James, the brother of Jesus, is when he talks about if you need wisdom, ask God, verse 5, James chapter 1, who will give it liberally to you. And when you pray, he would go on to talk about why some of your prayers are unanswered. It's not because God didn't hear you. it's not because God can't answer you he doesn't know who's praying you're double minded you're split down the middle who do you want me to answer the Elton true blood was a Quaker philosopher, one of my favorite writers, and True Blood made a striking statement once, and he says that there's more difference between one and two than there is between two and 10,000.

15:55 That is, when you leave singularity, It makes no difference how many more you have. Quiet, you could say, man, I didn't steal Jewel's sermon this morning. Yeah, this is mine. One is decisive. One is unique. One is singular. All other numbers are plural. this word reminds us today that once you move away from that one thing that singularity of focus you can look at 10,000 other things it becomes indecisive he's the first to which there is nothing besides him. That is Christ all or nothing. And so if you try to take the why in the road, James says to you, then you're unstable in all of your ways. And that's where some of us are right now. When you come to the fork in the road and you say, take it.

17:04 James is saying let me tell you if you're not single in your focus you're unstable in all of your ways Pastor West it doesn't seem like God hears me make up your mind what you're gonna be God knows where you are who you are what your conditions are and he's waiting on you to make up your mind who you're gonna be Thank you. James Stewart in the play-turned-movie, some of you remember it, called Vertigo.

17:42 It's the story of Scotty Ferguson. He's a detective who is retired, but he's been hired out of retirement to follow a young lady by the name of Madeline, who seems to be obsessed with death and the, I guess, spirit possessed by an ancestor. So, Scotty falls obsessively in love with her. leading to a fake death. and then it's a complex plot. Then he recreates this love obsession of Madeline

18:31 in a working girl named Judy, only to discover that she was part of the original ploy of the murder. And this cunning scheme comes to a climactic end in this kind of vertical inside a bell tower. That's us. Agoraphobia.

19:03 Fear of the height of making the decision of vertical. And some of us are spiritually twisted. because of our inability to make a decision. A double-minded man, a double-minded woman is unstable in all of their ways. Unstable at work, unstable at home, unstable at the job, unstable at play. We don't know who we are. Unstable in all of our ways, inside and outside, upstairs and downstairs. everywhere, double-minded. The need of a singularity of focus. And let me tell you something, come here. If you don't get focused, you can find yourself in a fall. If you don't believe me, you ask Carl Walenda of the Walenda family.

20:00 These people defied the odds everywhere just a couple of years ago. But the famous fall took place in Puerto Rico in 1978. And one of the Walingas decided to walk across from two towers. And a gust of wind blew. A man who had walked the tight wire year after year, generation after generation, this family. But a gust of wind and he lost focus. And you can see this right now on YouTube. He takes a fall to his death. And that is when you have a double mind. especially on the tight wire of a decision. It could lead to your tragedy. You have to have a singularity of focus of who God is. Preach Pastor West.

20:54 And the higher the decision The more dramatic the fall Some of you are facing that now What kind of decision that you'll make Let me sit down now But you need to make a determinative decision We're back to Elijah now and I sit down Elijah says that he demanded that you make a final decision of devotion to Jehovah alone. It's in this late century that Israel has to make a decision, that Israel has to decide, is it God or is it Baal? That's Old Testament. New Testament, the Christians found themselves in arenas. And in these arenas, they had to announce their loyalty.

21:52 Is it Lord Kurios, Jesus, or is it Caesar? You say to me today, you say, Pastor West, what you're talking about makes no sense to me. Because this is irrelevant and not part of what I face in my daily life. This is why I don't read the Bible. This is why I don't preach. This is why I don't listen to you. It's because there's nothing calling me to make a decision.

22:30 And yet, I'm going to say to you, you're wrong. That these people who died in the arenas for their faith understood that faith is costly. What you believe will cost you something. Let me say it again. that you say, Pastor West, this is irrelevant to me. This makes no sense to me. This gospel that you preach is purely vertical. I don't need this in my life. And I argue that you're wrong. That living faith is not only vertical, it's horizontal. It'll cost you something. That's the reason why we have history. because history reminds us that this is not something that merely happened 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 100 years ago. It gives us a framework to work with and say if it happens then, there is the possibility that it can happen right now.

23:37 And no time have we ever faced more difficulty in America as a group of people than we face right now. Mega Evers being gunned down as he is on the field in Mississippi generating the need to vote as a vocality of what we stand for is not something that just happened back in the 1960s. it perpetually affects us even now. When you look at the children that march in Birmingham, Alabama, this is not just children cutting class and doing some kind of outrageous display. It reminds us historically that regardless of who you are, all of God's children play a part of standing up for what is right.

24:35 it tells us that we belong to a faith that cost us something and who wants a religion that don't cost you nothing i want to belong to a community of people that know that stone in the road we try bit of the chastening rod now let me sit down now so here a faith cost us something. It doesn't cost just Mega Evans, his life, Malcolm X, his life, Martin Luther King, his life.

25:15 There are some lives that went down the other day. in Minneapolis, Minnesota, of people that stood up for what they believed that was right. Now here's what's interesting. And then what I want to say to my white brothers and sisters, I love you, you know my world that I live in. A few years ago, we started saying black lives matter. People started saying this, well, all lives matter. But the last two killings in Minnesota was white folk. So join in. White lives matter. You'll get the point in the morning. White lives matter. The point was, it wasn't black or white. It's any life whose life has been taken from them means that all lives matter. Now you can join in.

26:08 White lives matter. God has called us. I'll just say it, sum it up this way in John Don's word. Any man's death. Any woman's death. diminishes me. I'm done. I'm a Texan.

26:36 One part of Texas history, you got to go to the Alamo. We don't know now if it's Texas legend, folklore, exaggeration, because you know Texans, everything's big in Texas. Even our lives, they grow.

26:58 So we remember when William B. Travis gathered his men to tell him that the situation here at the Alamo is hopeless. And all Travis wanted to know at this point is that, are you willing to cross the line with your life? David Crockett was there, the famous frontiersman who was part of the garrison.

27:37 And it included that David Crockett crossed the line. It was symbol of his commitment. But then Jim Bowie wounded on a gurney, we don't know. As dragged me across the line to stand up to defend. This morning you might walk across the line, be dragged across the line, carried across the line. But there comes a time where the line is drawn. That's where we get that from. The line has been drawn in the sand.

28:17 Will you cross the line? I mean, will you cross the line for what is right? I mean, right, for real right. Not just your cultural right. Not just your ethnographic right. not just your political right but will you stand for what is right and just and true.

28:43 I mean, all of us have our biases. I don't care how much you love the Lord, all of us got there. But there comes a moment when you come to the fork in the road that you have to make a decision to say that, but I'm standing now for what's not political, not just my religiosity, not just my ideology. I'm standing for what is right, for what God has called us to be. I'm standing for what is right, just, and true. Can you cross the line? I mean, can you really, truly cross the line? Because this faith of all us calls us to cross the line. You think back in a time where black folk in particular couldn't worship in a room like this.

29:38 They were in what was called hush harbors. And let me say something to you black folk. Stop being ashamed of your history. Every time I preach like this, I get a letter from one of you that says that I shouldn't talk like this because it might offend white folk. Now, for those of you that don't know me, I live in both worlds. I proudly live in both those worlds. I intersect in both places. When I talk about white, I ain't talking about no person. All of us got a white friend or some white friend. I'm talking about a system. I'm talking about a structure.

30:31 I'm talking about that which has been put in place that oppresses folk. And that was a time. And yes, there is a black church. Don't come write me talking about there is no black church. Yes, it is. When we used to worship together White folk made it clear That you are not welcome In our space The only reason we got a black church