DM 620425

functions. I'm going to turn to Exodus 20, beginning in verse 1. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them. For I, Yahweh your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. in the notes in my ESV Bible where it says thousands, it actually says or to the thousandth generation. So there's some promised blessing there.

But we've been discussing the second commandment and it is slightly difficult. we'll sing the song after the sermon I guess it's slightly difficult I just looked at the order of worship sorry to discuss the second commandment alone because God's law is really one unit you can break it down kind of easily into two units loving God and loving your neighbor and the second commandment is so closely related to the first commandment that as on preparing to preach to you about the idols and the idolatry in the second commandment, and as I'm preparing, Lord willing, next week to preach about the jealousy of God to you, those things all relate to both of the first and the second commandment. And it makes sense. You can't really violate the second commandment without also violating the first commandment.

They're utterly related to one another. so if while I'm preaching today you think to yourself well that sounds more like the first commandment than the second that's okay I think we're trying to make sense of God's law so if you turn to 1 Samuel 15 I've got a few verses that I want to look at with you the goal today is to make you hate idolatry. And I can think of no better way to attempt that than to show you scripture. If you have a better way, let me know, and we'll keep you in the pews.

So, a little joke there. All right. In 1 Samuel 15, 23, Samuel's speaking about the Lord's delight, what he delights in and what he doesn't delight in. And he says, though, that rebellion is as the sin of divination. So when you rebel against the Lord, it's like practicing witchcraft, basically. You're hoping that you're going to do something that's going to get some positive effect when, in fact, God's already told you it won't. and he says and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry now presumption is a word that we'll use regularly in the english language and it's not always referring to something bad i mean i have the presumption that a few of you ladies brought dinner tonight i don't think i'm a horrible sinner for presuming upon that that's something that's reasonable to expect.

And just from a pattern of behavior here, it's working out pretty well. Presumption in the Bible, and in the case of Saul's sin in this chapter, is referring to a person's belief that they can go on in sin and God will forgive them. Okay, so you've been justified by faith. Old Testament folks would have had some idea of knowing the Lord and knowing Yahweh and fearing God and even Saul the wicked king of Israel at this time he would have thought he knew the Lord and he knew what it meant to give the Lord the sacrifices that the Lord required and he presumed that he could do things his own way and that God would accept it just like Cain just like me when I was a pretty good Roman Catholic.

I believed I could do whatever I wanted all week long. I could show up at Mass, they call it, on Sunday. They don't call it the same thing we do. They call it Mass. And I could show up and I could do the things on that day. I could make the offerings and sacrifices that I was told to give in a formal sense and that somehow God would be happy with me.

I believe that. That's what Roman Catholics, faithful Roman Catholics, generally do believe. It's called presumption, to presume that God's going to be pleased with you, even though you do not come to Him through the way that He has given us to do it. But the focus of this verse that I wanted to point out is that presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.

We're talking about idolatry with the first commandment and the second commandment. for you to presume that the Lord is going to accept your sacrifice that He going to accept your behavior that He going to accept your apology or whatever it happens to be when you willingly disobey his law in some other way is a form of idolatry. And he also calls it iniquity, which means you're taking what God has given, a good gift like his law, and you're twisting it. That's what iniquity is.

It's when You take what God's given and you twist it. So gay marriage is iniquitous because we've taken something good that God gave and we've twisted it. Adultery outside of marriage, that's a transgression. We've crossed over trans, like transatlantic. You go across the Atlantic, right? Some of you homeschool kids should be learning these words, these prefixes. a transgression is when we've crossed over God's law and we've gone into something he has not allowed.

We've gone into that which is forbidden. So these different words have some connotations to them. They're denotations. But idolatry is when we have another God before the one true God. And so what Samuel is trying to explain to Saul is that even though Saul went to the one true God and he did the type of sacrifice that he thought God would like and he's in theory doing it to the real God because that's the only God Saul knows, Samuel is telling him, this presumption of yours is actually idolatry.

You're actually worshipping a demon. The offering you're making that you think you're making to Yahweh is nothing more than idolatry. and so in a sense all sin is a form of idolatry so I told you this when we did the first commandment you want to obey the first commandment obey the other nine right if you choose to disobey any of the commandments disobeying your parents not honoring the Sabbath blaspheming God even if you only do it in your heart even if you never actually say the words out loud having a murderous heart Lord forbid there's any literal murderers in the room but some of us murder people just with our haughty looks at them some of us hate people enough that in God's eyes it looks like murder adulteries you don't have to physically be with a person that committed adultery in the eyes of God you can do it in your mind in some cases we'll say maybe it's more common for women it happens more on an emotional level they seek the emotional connection they're not getting with their husband outside the marriage they don't even have to be with a man to make it wrong stealing you don't have to take something to covet it God sees you as a coveter and a thief bearing false witness against people telling, you know, even telling stories where you don't tell the story accurately. You know, that could be bearing false witness.

And so if you do any of those things, all right, we all get the sins. We all understand them. When we preach at Ohio State, we preach as if people know these things are wrong. Most people know these things are wrong. Some people deny it, of course. But when you break any of God's commandments, you're committing a breaking of the first two as well because you are setting up another God before God that you are worshiping and sacrificing to instead.

And what I will remind you is that every God that you choose to serve will demand your time, he will demand your money, or she, or it, will demand your life eventually. you will give your life serving the God that you choose to serve and you can either do that for the God who actually sent his son to give his life for you the God who will reward you with eternal life or you can give your time and your money and your life to something that will not reward you, that will have no power to give you any help whatsoever Psalm 96, 5, you don't have to turn there We're going to turn to Isaiah 2, but Psalm 96, 5 says, For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but Yahweh made the heavens. All of your idols are worthless and powerless, but God is the creator of all. So you can put your faith and trust in the God who made all things, and the God who had the power to speak everything into existence and he has the power to speak it into destruction at the moment he chooses.

Or, for the most part, you could put your faith and hope into something that you've molded with your own hands. Some of us are just bad enough at fixing things that we would never trust anything we made in our own hands. Maybe that's a gift from God. the gods of the peoples are worthless idols remember what we saw last week those who worship them become like them so there's a reason why God could say to the people in the Old Testament and then Paul quoting him in Romans 3 can say all have turned aside together they have become worthless I'm careful to use that term It can be a hurtful term to people to call them worthless.

But it's hard to look around what's going on in the United States right now and not think there's some worthless people making decisions for others. And that distinct from our inherent dignity we have made in the image of God So just because somebody has made themselves worthless it doesn mean we kill them or something like that There capital punishment for certain crimes But you don't want to become worthless. Don't worship worthless idols.

Isaiah 2. Speaking of the day of the Lord, I'm just going to go to 12. Verse 12. Yeah, we'll look at 11. The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the lofty pride of men shall be humbled, and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day. So there's a whole lot here we could do a sermon series on pride and haughtiness.

But remember, the focus right now is idolatry and idols. And the worthlessness of them. Against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan. So these were places that had lots of these things. if you were going to brag about something and you were from Lebanon you bragged about your cedars that's where they got the wood from for the temple later he says against all the lofty mountains and against all the uplifted hills against every high tower and against every fortified wall against all the ships of Tarshish and against all the beautiful craft so basically the greatest things that man has and the haughtiness of man shall be humbled and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low and Yahweh alone will be exalted in that day.

So he's speaking of the day of the Lord. He says and the idols shall utterly pass away. Even God's word isn't going to pass away, right? But the idols will. and now it's easy to imagine the people bowing down to little wooden statues and things like you see the jungle pictures of some of these pagan type people and stuff but remember when you're sitting in this room and you're being preached to that God is speaking to you and you need to consider what are the things that are going to absolutely be destroyed and burnt up on the last day that you might actually be clinging a little too hard to that I dare say that it would drag you down with it.

Cling to Jesus Christ. He's the one that's going to come and cause all these things to pass away. Now listen, and the people, these are the pagans that worship their idols, they shall enter the caves of the rocks and the holes of the ground from before the terror of Yahweh and from the splendor of His majesty. when He rises to terrify the earth. So we're going to be excited to see Him.

We're not going to be afraid in this sense. We'll fear Him as we fear God. They're going to be afraid of His splendor and majesty because they know that there's enemies in this moment. In that day, mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats. Now, this is an interesting sentence.

I don't know how you read it in the NKJV or some of the other ones. I didn't look them all up. But, which they made for themselves to worship is, again, we talked about grammar once in a while, that's a positive. it's a statement that is inserted into a sentence in between subjects and verbs and it's actually just another word describing the noun for you so it says the idols of silver and of gold are being described by this which they made for themselves so it's telling you that these idols they made themselves it's pointing out that these idols are created I don't even want to say beings they're just created things right somebody found some silver underground or wherever you find silver they molded it into something and maybe they made a fork with the rest of it to sell right these are just created things and these created things on the day of judgment have no power to help these people in fact they won't even cling to the things anymore but what's interesting It says they'll cast them away.

Get rid of the positive for a second. In that day, mankind will cast away their idols of silver and their idols of gold to the moles and to the bats. So that's what they're casting it to. And so what it's saying is, if you know how moles are, like, moles just chew stuff. Like, it's like moles have one job, right? Just chew through your things in your backyard or foundation of your house, right?

It's why, you know, I don't feel bad if you want to kill moles at your house. so these idols that people have worshipped these idols that people will follow until they go to hell these idols that people will spend their time, money and effort on and in fact they'll neglect another human being that needs help to go and worship their idol or pay tribute to their idol on the last day these people will throw them down and moles and bats will eat them and defecate on them and yet our God's going to appear in the splendor of His majesty. That's why it's amazing when people are Satanists. Follow me here, I know I just jumped to another topic.

Because a Satanist is a person who supposedly has looked at the Bible and seen that Satan's the big loser of the Bible and decided, I'm going to worship the guy that loses. Like if you don't believe the Bible, don't worship Satan. Right? You have to sort of believe the Bible to worship Satan. If you believe the Bible at all, why not worship the God who is going to come in the splendor of His majesty and actually destroy every other thing including His own creation that been cursed and corrupted for so long Turn to Habakkuk now chapter 2 So idols are worthless Even the people who worship idols realize that their idols are worthless here on the last day. it's actually a gift from God in a sense if you lose faith in your idols but you hope that you would do that in this life instead of on the last day so Habakkuk that's kind of at the end of the Old Testament one of the minor prophets, minor meaning he just didn't write as much as Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Isaiah did.

So there's majors. They just have lots of chapters. They weren't better prophets. Their word isn't more inspired or anything like that. It's all God's word. But Habakkuk was dealing with some difficulty.

Habakkuk's a great book to read. I think especially in 2021. I think if you're wondering what's going on in the United States, why are these bad things happening? Why do the righteous suffer? I think Habakkuk would be a nice study for you. But at the end of chapter 2, Habakkuk says in verse 18, What prophet is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies?

He says, For its maker trusts in his own creation, when he makes speechless idols. It's not hard to figure out logically that something that can make something else is greater than it. That's different from reproduction. When you reproduce, you're not greater than what you've reproduced. You're just following the process God's given you. But if you produce something, if you make something, if you've created something, which none of us create ex nihilo, but we're creative, the maker's better than what he made.

Right? I mean, Henry Ford's better than the assembly line and all the Fords that have ever been created, you know. Even if you could make a robot that could make other robots, you still needed the guy that started the whole thing, right? It's just self-evident. There's no profit for an idol when its maker has shaped it. Listen to verse 19.

Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, awake. To a silent stone, arise. He says, can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver and there is no breath at all in it. These idols aren't even alive is the point. They don't see, they can't talk, they don't taste, they don't touch.

They don't even breathe. and yet living, breathing beings who have the image of their creator stamped on them, his law written on their heart and the knowledge of him inherent in their life and displayed in the creation all around them deny him and they worship idols instead. And we understand why. We love our sin. We're so much enemies of God. We deny that he even exists and worship idols.

The challenge though for you, dear church, is how have you worshipped idols? And maybe you haven't repented. So God has forgiven you of all your sins, but maybe there's things in your past that you still cling to. That church that you grew up in where everybody was really nice and they were kind to you, but you realize now that they didn't teach the gospel.

But there's some part of you that still says nice things about them or something, like they're owed something because they were kind to you but didn't preach the gospel. So ask yourself, what are the things you're putting your faith in? When you wake up in the morning and you start your day, what are your first thoughts about? What is the first thing you grab?

And look at. And if you say your phone, then do you open your Bible app first? I'm as guilty as the next guy sometimes. I wake up, I check my work email to see if there's an emergency because I'm an on-call guy, right? But we want to condition ourselves and we want to train ourselves to recognize how we can so easily slip into just worship of something other than the one true God. how easily we can judge people that would make a little totem pole and they give it a name and think that it offers them rain or sun.

And that's easy for us to judge. But how easily then we can participate in different activities that have been, we'll say in a way they've been cleansed by the devil himself so that they don't look the same as the idolatry that's so obvious. what do you put your time and effort into not trying to pick on anyone in particular but if you're late to church alright it's a general statement but are you late to like a ball game are you ever late to a doctor's appointment do you make sure you wake up early and get places on time right how about just being ready what do you put in do you schedule your time with the Lord is he important enough to you that you block off time every day it's very easy for us to slip into forms of idolatry where we are dedicating our lives our time, our money, our resources, and ultimately our life itself to something other than the Lord. You can slip into idolatry of worshipping children.

You can worship the family integrated scene, right? You can think of, I show up at the family integrated church, everything's going to be good. Because I went to a church where they had a youth group, and a lot of the kids grew up to be bad people. Put your faith in Christ alone. turn to 1 Corinthians 12 there's a promise in the New Testament now that I want to relate to you so idols are idols are bad idols are worthless I want you to investigate your life and I want you to seek out how you have been tricked by the devil himself into maybe not literally bowing down on your knees and worshipping some kind of thing, but actually you've dedicated your time and effort to something that is not from God.

You've trusted in something other than the purity of the gospel or the purity of God's word or the purity of Christ to be a sanctifying influence in your life. So many ditches I could step in here. I mean, you've got like antidepressants. You've got all these quizzes online where you learn your personality type. You can go online. You can come here after church and we can talk about spiritual gifts for an hour.

We can try to work things out together over the course of weeks. Or you can go online and you can take a 30 question quiz and get told your spiritual gift. Are you trusting in those kinds of shenanigans to help you with your Christian life or not? Where are you putting your faith? What are you trusting in? What do you worship?

What will you let drag you to hell? 1 Corinthians 12.2 says, You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. When you were pagans, you worshipped idols. Why would a Christian ever want to do anything that would be attributed to what pagans do? even if I could even if someone could prove to you because I wouldn't do it even if someone could prove to you and I always pick on the ending we'll take horoscopes even if someone could prove to you that horoscopes were somehow accurate sometimes and that they had a kid who was suicidal and they did the horoscope game with him and he played the game and he read the stuff every day and then the kid didn't want to commit suicide even if he could convince you that it helped them out temporarily.

Even if someone could convince you that AA helped them stay sober and they became a better guy afterwards. Why would you want to do the things that God says pagans do? Why wouldn't you want to stand and say, I trust Christ to take care of my depression, my alcoholism, my sin issues, my anger, my frustrations. Even if someone could show you that some of these idols actually give you some temporary good.

I mean, are we that stupid? I'm sorry, but are we that stupid that we don't think the devil would create things that actually sometimes seem to work temporarily to get us sucked into them? Like, you just expect every false religion, people are going to walk in and die the next day? It's not that obvious. There's a whole point of the deception of it. And ultimately, what you'll see is the point of the deception of it is the focus becomes on what I can have now.

What seems to work right now, not what does God promise eternally and not what did Jesus do when he was on the earth. So don't act like the pagans. It seems so simple to say up here and then we're all going to walk out and we're all going to be tempted to do it and then we're going to be deceived into thinking we're not doing it once in a while. And then we're going to be deceived into thinking it's something it's not. like, well, I guess I can never wear an Ohio State hat.

Wearing a piece of clothing is hardly ever idolatry. It's about what's going on in your heart. Now you pay $100 for that hat because you just gotta have a hat that says Ohio State. Now we can talk. Some of us probably just spend too much money on clothes so it has the name brand or whatever. Well, in the book of Acts, chapter 17, verse 16, Paul makes an interesting statement that I'll just use as my complete justification for all my yelling and pontificating up here.

He says, now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, this is Luke writing it, he says, now Paul was waiting for them in Athens, it says, His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. It bothered him. So he reasoned with the Jews and the devout persons every day with who happened to be there. And he tried to reason with them and teach them that Jesus is the Christ and he rose from the dead.

But his spirit was provoked. It bothered Paul. It bothered Paul to see people out there worshiping another God. He cared about those people. He cared about the elect that was among those people who had not yet been called out by the gospel. And he cared about the glory of God who deserves worship.

We don't take anything away. If the whole world stopped worshiping God completely and everyone just decided they hated him and God destroyed the whole world, it wouldn't touch his glory whatsoever. It doesn't change God. But God is worthy of worship and we should actually be bothered that we don't see that happening. when you look on the TV or the internet or whatever you look on and you guys can hate me if you want for this and you see the Republican guys who are supposed to be the good guys, and they get up and they say a few of the right things about maybe taxation or a couple semi-right things about abortion, and then they say all the other stupid things, and half of them blaspheme God, most of them have mistresses, and frankly it seems like more Republicans get abortions than Democrats anyway.

And you're supposed to think that God isn't hating that? Because they said the right thing about a couple conservative political issues? God deserves worship. Now I'm not telling you can never vote for a guy that's not perfect. But I think sometimes we're lulled into the fact that some guy's not so bad because he says a few right things. And that's the devil's doing.

So in 1 John 5.21, you don't have to turn. I'm going to read a few verses for you. 1 John 5.21, a command in the New Testament. So for those of you who say, okay, but the idol stuff was Old Testament. The New Testament's different. In Acts, they were just told, don't eat meat, sacrifice to idols, and, you know, whatever.

New Covenant. Now, John says, little children, keep yourselves from idols. It's the last thing John tells them in his letter, in the first letter he wrote. Little children, keep yourselves from idols. He wasn't mocking them. It was a loving phrase from an elder gentleman.

A man who saw Jesus Christ walk the earth, sat next to him at his last supper, saw the risen Jesus Christ, and supposedly lived like 60 more years, right? I shouldn't say supposedly, reportedly, died in the last decade of the first century. You think his spirit wasn't provoked within him when he saw the idolatry going on? When he had to write letters to a church telling them not to follow Gnostic heresies, but to stick with the purity of Christ?

When he had to tell this church, if anyone denies Jesus came in the flesh, the guy's an antichrist. Like, he's like, I saw the guy. you'd think if there was one thing the first century wouldn't have had a problem with it was acknowledging Jesus' humanity it was like the first problem they had almost 2 Corinthians 6.16 I'll give these to you after if you want what agreement has the temple of God with idols for we are the temple of the living God you don't have any agreement with idols 1 Thessalonians 1.9 to me this is like the stake in the heart verse Paul's commending the Thessalonians for what he's heard about them and he says for they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you and he says and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God that is the mark of a Christian I dare say it's maybe the first mark we're commanded to keep away from idols the new birth condemns idolatry it condemns idols and it promises deliverance from them so John Calvin could say our hearts are idol factories and as unregenerate people I suppose it is for sure as regenerate I suppose we still have some issues with our flesh might use different language once in a while but I think you have some promise that you'll be delivered from idolatry I think a Christian can actually say something like I think a Christian can say hey I don't look at porn anymore and a Christian will say that eventually and I think a Christian can say I don't worship idols I don't think it's one of those things where well we're just always going to sin and nobody's perfect Christian will constantly strive to avoid these things. Turn to Ezekiel 36.

While you're turning there, I'm going to read Jonah 2.8 to you. Jonah in his prayer, in the belly of the fish, Jonah says, Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. that is undoubtedly I said Ezekiel 36 turn to 25, verse 25 if you want that is undoubtedly a verse that's telling you that if you pay regard to vain idols you forsake your hope of steadfast love that is Old Testament language saying if you worship false idols you're going to hell is that simple? If you're an idolater, you will inherit the lake of fire.

It's that simple. No idolater will inherit the kingdom of God. Galatians tells us that. Jonah told us that. Ezekiel 36, 25, talking about the new birth, the promised new covenant and the new birth that happens to people who believe in Jesus Christ. I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and then the very first thing he mentions and from all your idols I will cleanse you this is a constant theme in scripture I think sometimes we think some of these things are just not talked about much you know well we know it's wrong because of the first and second commandment but it's not really something that's a big deal or it's just stuff pagans do He says you're going to be cleansed from all your idols.

He says I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules And if you skip down to verse 31 maybe one of the most powerful verses in the entire Bible and one that if you meditate on it enough, it should cause you to get on your knees and ask God to give you some help with your personal repentance.

He says, then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good. He says, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations. Next time somebody tells you that you need to forgive yourself, turn to this verse. I kind of get what people sometimes mean by it, but turn to this. No, we should loathe ourselves. You need forgiveness from God.

You need to loathe yourself for your abominations and your iniquities. turn back to Ezekiel 23 nope don't turn to Matthew 4 Ezekiel 23 will be next week ultimately we have no hope whatsoever of having the favor of God upon us because we are already idolaters in our hearts because you were born in Adam and you have absolutely no hope whatsoever that you can even live a life of sinlessness let alone having sinned as much as you have if there's no way you could make up for it. If I could tell you, well, as long as you did good deeds the rest of your life, maybe you'd go to heaven. We find that that fails logically really quickly and it fails every biblical test of how God sees people.

So what you need is a Savior. And you need a Savior who not only is a nice guy that the preacher talks about, but you need a Savior that actually didn't commit idolatry. He can't be a Savior that just didn't lie and steal or go with girls that do. I don't drink or chew or go with girls that do. right that's the old saying but you need a savior that was tempted to commit idolatry and yet was without sin in Matthew chapter 4 Jesus is led into the wilderness by the spirit to be tempted by the devil remember God doesn't tempt anyone so whereas we pray lead us not into temptation Jesus said give it to me make it as hard as possible you realize you literally failed in the garden of Eden like you were in the garden of Eden in Adam failing in the perfect environment with no curse no thorns no thistles beautiful wife all this stuff right we all have beautiful wives here too like we know that right you failed in the garden of Eden you didn't have a single complaint it wasn't too hot, it wasn't too cold you weren't tired, your bones didn't ache however old Adam was made to look like however that works Adam had no achy muscles and you and I all failed and Jesus Christ went into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan didn't have food for 40 days Satan tempts him three times but I'm going to look at the last one verse 8 again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory and he said to him all these I will give you if you will fall down and worship me now there's an implication here that we need to understand I think in the text let me give you the example I used in my family worship this week if I if I told you right now I'd give you all the kingdoms of the world if you worship me, you would laugh at me.

It would not be a temptation because you would know that I in fact do not have the authority to actually give them to you. There must be some meaning to the temptation and the meaning must be that there is in some respect a sense that the devil has authority over these kingdoms. That in some sense the devil could have actually told Jesus, I'll let you rule over these kingdoms.

Which is an interesting commentary on the world we live in now, when you realize who is the God of this world, right? 2 Corinthians 4. The author of confusion, it's the devil. But so Jesus, in this sense, he has a choice. Now it's not like the choices you and I have, where like in the old cartoons, there was the devil and the angel. And the devil would say the bad thing, the angel would say the good thing, and like the cat or whoever would have this inner struggle to decide right and wrong.

It wasn't like that. Jesus doesn't have that struggle that we have. In Jesus' life, there was never this difficulty we face. Okay? He was perfect and he didn't have to even think about doing the wrong thing. He only could do the right thing.

And that'll be nice. One day you'll be like him. One day you won't have all these battles every day. But he tells them, all these I will give you if you fall down and worship me. Now Jesus Christ has the chance to effectively avoid the suffering of the cross. He can avoid the shame of it all.

This is the beginning of his ministry. He can avoid three years of people following him and then rejecting him. He can avoid touching lepers. I don want to touch a leopard Jesus was a human Jesus could have avoided all of it And had he done that which is unimaginable in one sense had he done that, we would have had an imperfect, unrighteous king over the world, which is what we had before.

And Jesus says, Be gone, Satan, in verse 10, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. Then the devil left him. So interestingly enough, Jesus could have said be gone Satan at the beginning, but he didn't. He let Satan do his thing and Satan gets to try to have his little temporary fun and Jesus says there's no way I'm going to worship you.

Why? Because Jesus wasn't an idolater. Jesus would only worship the one true God. He quotes Deuteronomy 6. So if you turn to Deuteronomy 6 and then we'll look at Deuteronomy 8 and then I'll give you a rest and I'll give your Bibles a rest and we'll sing a song. But sin, sin is idolatry.

Idolatry is sin. Your idols, the idols of the pagans, all of the idols around us are worthless and can do nothing to help you. They only want to kill you. And I just personified something that has no life, in fact. It's really the devil behind him that wants you to go down. Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6, 13.

It is Yahweh your God you shall fear, Him you shall serve, and by His name you shall swear. I know it embarrasses her, but Mary's got the shirt that says, Fear God and nothing else on it. That's just basically a summary of what Jesus is saying. don't fear all these other idols don't fear what the state can do to you don't fear what your government can do to you don't fear what your employer can do to you don't fear your wife, don't fear your husband don't fear the wrath of your children when they're mad at you don't fear what people at Ohio State can do to you or Harvard or the place this mic's going to be we fear the one who actually has power to give life and take it Jesus quoting this chapter I think wants us to look here he says you shall not go after other gods Moses writes it the gods of the peoples who are around you don't follow all these counterfeit gods pagans have a desire to worship but we're all made as worshippers the question is not do you worship the question is what do you worship or who do you worship So the people around you, they're worshiping.

God doesn't want us to copy the way they worship when we worship Him. For the Lord your God is in your midst. He's a jealous God. We're going to talk about that next week, what that means. He says, lest the anger of Yahweh be kindled against you and destroy you from off the face of the earth. Jesus also quoted the next verse in His temptations.

You shall not put Yahweh your God to the test. so at the end of Deuteronomy 7 verse 23 let me finish here promising what he's going to do for the Israelites he says Yahweh your God will clear away these nations before you little by little you may not make an end of them at once lest the wild beasts grow too numerous for you so God has a plan for why he's going to change things the way He's going to change them. And people shouldn't try to do things the way they think it should be done. They need to follow the Lord's direction.

He says, But Yahweh your God will give them over to you and throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. And He will give their kings into your hand and you shall make their name perish from under heaven. No one shall be able to stand against you until you have destroyed them. Now here we are. The carved images of their gods you shall burn with fire. you shall not covet the silver or the gold that is on them, or take it for yourselves, lest you be ensnared by it, for it is an abomination to the Lord your God.

So even the valuable precious metals that were on the idols of the people God was going to drive out before his people, he didn't want them to even want that part of it. You shall not bring an abominable thing into your house, and become devoted to destruction like it. You shall utterly detest and abhor it, for it is devoted to destruction. Some of us are just a bit apathetic.

All right? Let's assume for a moment, the Christians in here, none of us wake up and worship idols. But some of us are a little apathetic about the idols around us, maybe. Maybe we don't speak out quite enough to tell other people, well, hey, that's not God. Don't worship that. Maybe some of us are a little afraid to talk to our Christian friend, the person who we're supposed to share the same spirit with who wrote these scriptures, and we're a little afraid to approach them about the thing that they're dabbling in that we think actually is going to hurt them.

We don't utterly detest it. If your friend was starting to use a drug that you thought would kill them, you'd intervene immediately. Some of us would intervene if our friend wanted to take the vaccine. But do you intervene if your friend is dabbling in idolatry? Do you abhor and detest it enough? And so God says, the whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that Yahweh swore to give to your fathers.

And you shall remember the whole way that Yahweh your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that He might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments. Or not. Or not. I turned two pages, sorry. I was trying to get to the end of chapter 8, and I turned to chapter 9. I was like, what did I miss?

He says, in verse 11 now, take care lest you forget Yahweh your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes which I command you today lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied that your heart be lifted up and you forget Yahweh your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery if there was ever a description of the prosperity that we experience in the United States This is a pretty good one Don let your heart be lifted up and forget what you been delivered from Verse 17, Beware lest you say in your heart, My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember Yahweh your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may confirm His covenant that He swore to your fathers as it is this day. Now, after reminding them, he's the God that brought them out of slavery, which he's the God that brought you out of slavery, if you're a Christian today, a different kind of slavery.

He says, and if you forget Yahweh your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. There is no hope for idolaters. Your only hope is to be a repentant idolater and to be forgiven of your sins in Jesus Christ who perfectly resisted the temptation to worship even the devil himself And if you are born again, if you acknowledge that it's God who delivered you from slavery, and it's God who provides you with all your wealth, all your prosperity, your family, your kids, all the good things that happen in your life, if you will acknowledge those things, then you're on the right path and you keep giving Christ the glory for his work you give God the credit for all that he's doing you don't take credit for it yourselves because that ends up being the ultimate form of idolatry self worship all idolatry is self worship so worship God alone because Christ died in your place let me pray for us Father in heaven we come to you today sinners forgiven and yet walking in the flesh and doing battle with the flesh we ask you to help us to see the temptations Grant us the discernment to know when we have been tempted to disobey your law Grant us the discernment to see these things that come in the place of Christ and try to take his proper seat in our heart as Lord.

Help us to detest and abhor these things in such a way that they would not come in our hearts or in our homes. And that we may even be willing to speak out to others. That we would warn people of the wrath that is to come and be concerned for people. Who have fallen prey to the wiles of the devil. Grant us today the spirit of help that we need. so that we may walk in holiness.

In Christ's name I pray. Amen.