Holy People, Worldly People
An all-creatures Bible Message

Holy People, Worldly People
 
A Sermon Delivered to
The Compassion Internet Church
 
18 September 2016
 
Frank L. Hoffman, Pastor

Scripture References

Psalm 79:1-11
Matthew 5:48
Luke 16:1-13

Holy people, worldly people quite often outwardly look the same and may even speak the same, but inwardly they are significantly different.
 
Holy people are those who are peacemaking children of God, who live in His heavenly will and do everything in their power to help free creation from its present corruption.
 
Worldly people are those who live in the corrupt and evil ways of this world, and they also include those people who have one foot in the church on Sunday morning, and spend the rest of their time with both feet in the world.
 
Unlike holy people who try to protect the whole of God’s beautiful creation, these worldly people contribute to the corruption of this world with all its violence, pain, bloodshed and death, which causes millions of human beings and billions of animals to suffer and die every year.
 
Furthermore, these problems have existed ever since humans disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden.
 
Let’s think about these things as we look at Psalm 79:1-11...

1. God, the nations have invaded Thine inheritance;
They have defiled Thy holy temple;
They have laid Jerusalem in ruins.

And one of those nations was the nation of Israel who helped destroy God’s inheritance from within.
 
These worldly people of Israel were also the same ones who began to defile the temple, just as we are seeing many proclaiming Christians, including clergy, defiling their churches and religion by their worldly ways.
 
Holy people protect the things of God, but worldly people live like they believe God even made the corrupted and evil ways of this world for them to enjoy, even selfishly, such as causing the suffering and death of others, particularly the animals.

2. They have given the dead bodies of Thy servants for food to the birds of the heavens,
The flesh of Thy godly ones to the beasts of the earth.

The psalmist is referring to the bodies of the Israelites, but we believe that this also applies to us today, and the results of our warring madness, gun violence, and the bodies of over 100 billion animals who are killed every year to satisfy the gluttony of the human beasts of this earth.

3. They have poured out their blood like water round about Jerusalem;
And there was no one to bury them.

We also have to remember that the temple was a slaughterhouse, and the graves of most of the animals were in the bodies of their human killers and those who promoted their activities, such as the way people do today when they buy animal products in the market.
 
Holy people know the horrible pain and suffering that is inflicted upon other living beings, and they don’t participate in it, and do whatever they can to prevent it.
 
Worldly people dismiss from their minds the pain and suffering that their lifestyle is causing.
 
They make themselves believe that dairy cows and egg laying hens don’t suffer, and ignore the fact that almost all of these animals suffer all their lives, which is rarely over 20 percent of their normal life expectancy, and that male chicks are often ground up alive and fed to the mothers, and that the male offspring of dairy cows are stolen from their mothers by the time they are only two days old, and become veal calves who suffer all their young lives.

4. We have become a reproach to our neighbors,
A scoffing and derision to those around us.

The people of this world see most Christians as hypocrites because they live like the other people in the world and even worse in many cases; in other words, these Christians speak like they are holy people, but their lifestyles reflect that of worldly people.
 
And because of their actions, most of the people in the world don’t believe what the holy people say, which is a problem that we face every day.

5. How long, O LORD? Wilt Thou be angry forever?
Will Thy jealousy burn like fire?

No, God will not be angry forever; He is only waiting until some portion of the worldly people repent of their evil ways and return to Him wholeheartedly.
 
Then He will forgive them and transform them back into the holy people He created us all to be.

6. Pour out Thy wrath upon the nations which do not know Thee,
And upon the kingdoms which do not call upon Thy name.
 
7. For they have devoured Jacob,
And laid waste his habitation.

God does not have to pour out His wrath upon the nations, for He has already set in motion what will happen to the worldly people of this world who travel along the broad way that leads to destruction, a destruction of their own making and choice.
 
The holy people who travel along the narrow pathway will be in heaven with God forever and ever, even if they die here on earth.

8. Do not remember the iniquities of our forefathers against us;
Let Thy compassion come quickly to meet us;
For we are brought very low.

God won’t even remember our own iniquities if we truly repent of our worldly ways and return wholeheartedly to Him.

9. Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of Thy name;
And deliver us, and forgive our sins, for Thy name's sake.

God has wanted to do this ever since we humans disobeyed Him in the Garden of Eden; it is we who have turned our backs to Him by desiring to live as worldly people instead of the holy people He had always wanted us to be.

10. Why should the nations say, "Where is their God?"
Let there be known among the nations in our sight,
Vengeance for the blood of Thy servants, which has been shed.

We need to remember that it’s the worldly people who cause the nations to act like this.
 
We need to remember what Jesus commanded us in Matthew 5:48…

48. Therefore, “you shall be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.”

This is a commandment and not a request.
 
Jesus isn’t telling us to try to be perfect on Sunday morning in Church, and that we can do whatever we like that rest of the week; He is telling us to be holy people all the time.

11. Let the groaning of the prisoner come before Thee;
According to the greatness of Thy power preserve those who are doomed to die.
NASB

God does hear the groaning of the prisoners, including the billions of animals that worldly people have imprisoned and condemned to suffering and death.
 
Until we human beings face our own worldly sins and turn away from them, we don’t see God acting as the psalmist writes.
 
It is we who have the power to make the peaceful changes this psalmist writes about.
 
We are to be God’s holy people and not the devil’s worldly people.
 
Let’s think about holy people and worldly people as we look at Luke 16:1-13…

1. Now He was also saying to the disciples, "There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and this steward was reported to him as squandering his possessions.

This is exactly what the worldly people are doing with God’s beautiful creation.

2. "And he called him and said to him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.'

Remember, in Eden that God gave us the whole of this earth and we were to be His holy people and as His stewards we were to protect creation from all forms of harm whether they were physical or spiritual.
 
Instead the vast majority of the people were enticed to follow the ways of the devil and corrupt the earth to satisfy their desires and lusts.

3. "And the steward said to himself, 'What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig; I am ashamed to beg.
 
4. 'I know what I shall do, so that when I am removed from the stewardship, they will receive me into their homes.'

This is the way that most worldly people think; they are not interested in repenting and becoming peacemaking children of God, instead they just want to be accepted by other worldly people.
 
So he goes on and compounds his sins by bargaining with his master’s money, and not his own.

5. "And he summoned each one of his master's debtors, and he began saying to the first, 'How much do you owe my master?'
 
6. "And he said, 'A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, 'Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.'
 
7. "Then he said to another, 'And how much do you owe?' And he said, 'A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, 'Take your bill, and write eighty.'
 
8. "And his master praised the unrighteous steward because he had acted shrewdly; for the sons of this age are more shrewd in relation to their own kind than the sons of light.

In other words, both the master and steward are worldly people; neither of them have any intention of repenting of their evil ways and becoming holy people.

9. "And I say to you, make friends for yourselves by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that when it fails, they may receive you into the eternal dwellings.

These eternal dwellings are not in heaven with the holy people; they are in hell with the worldly people.
 
We need to choose which people we want to be.

10. "He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
 
11. "If therefore you have not been faithful in the use of unrighteous mammon, who will entrust the true riches to you?

The simple answer is no one.

12. "And if you have not been faithful in the use of that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own?

And again the answer is no one.

13. "No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one, and love the other, or else he will hold to one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
NASB

Or, we could say, we cannot pretend to be one of the holy people, when inwardly our desire is to be one of the worldly people.
 
We cannot serve God and the devil.
 
Amen.

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