Greetings. Welcome to idolatry. Sounds kind of ominous when I say it that way. Welcome to idolatry. But welcome to our study of Isaiah. As we're going through the book of Isaiah, we're taking now topically many of the things that Isaiah speaks about. And we're not only studying the book of Isaiah and what its content is, But we are equipping ourselves to understand this book as we read it again and again. Hopefully we'll set ourselves up for a future of enjoying the book and rightly applying it to our lives and seeing its relevance even today. We're going to see that very strongly today as we talk about idolatry. And idolatry of course is a huge subject. and it is something that is filled through the Old Testament speaking of idolatry and condemning idolatry and God judging the idolatry of the Israelites and you see a great deal of this content in the book of Isaiah as well so Isaiah addresses the issue of idolatry multiple times we're going to look at a few of those today but most importantly we're going to connect this to the New Testament conception of idolatry that we can even apply this to ourselves today. So first thing we want to do is we want to turn to Isaiah chapter 2. We're going to start actually by reading in verse 12 and we're going to go through verse 22 and we're going to really focus on verses 18 through 21. So open your Bibles if you will or join us on the screen here and we'll get started. Here's what it says there in Isaiah chapter 2, starting about verse 12. The Lord is speaking of the coming judgment upon Jerusalem and Judah for their idolatry and other things, for their pride, for their sins. And here's what he says, he says, for the Lord of hosts has a day. Against all that is proud and lofty, against all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low. Against all the cedars of Lebanon, lofty and lifted up, and against all the oaks of Bashan, against all the lofty mountains, and against all the uplifted hills, against every high tower. against every fortified wall, against all the ships of Tarshish, and against all the beautiful craft. And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled, and the lofty pride of men shall be brought low, and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day. And the idols shall utterly pass away, and the people shall enter the caves of the rocks, and the holes of the ground, from before the terror of the Lord, and from the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to terrify the earth. 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. to enter the caverns of the rocks and the clefts of the cliffs from before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth. While I think at this point it's appropriate, we pause for a word of prayer. We may understand these scriptures today. Father God, we praise You and we thank You for bringing us together in this way and in this format to explore Your Word together. I pray that it will be a blessing to us, that we will understand You more, that we will know You more. Indeed, we pray for Your Spirit to draw us closer to You and give us understanding, for these things are spiritually discerned. And I pray, Lord, that you will make yourself known and give us wisdom in handling your word rightly today. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. Well here we have the Word of God and the Word of God is is definitely amazing and wonderful in this passage of scripture and in this passage of scripture we see a great many opportunity for us to enjoy and understand the Word of God. So what I'd like to do first is talk about what exactly idolatry is and we're going to look at some scriptures to help us out with that. As we saw here in the Old Testament We saw that idolatry is a physical representation of a deity, usually used as an object of worship. And this is from the Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, and this is a pretty standard definition for what Old Testament idolatry is. So when God is condemning it, what he's condemning in the people of Israel is that they would make some kind of a graven image or purchase some image of some supposed God and then they would worship to it and offer it to things and that would be a form of worship and this is what's being condemned in the Old Testament. It's very clear from the Old Testament law that this was not to be done. If we look in Exodus chapter 20 verses 4 and 5, you'll recognize this as the Ten Commandments given to the Israelites as they came to Mount Sinai in the wilderness after God redeemed them out of Egypt. And it says this, it says, 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 the Lord your God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments. So here you see this commandment comes with this great warning in addition to a great encouragement. And so this is very important to God. And notice he said anything in heaven or in the earth beneath. And that would include himself. We're not to make any kind of an image of God himself. Now some people use images in various ways. That's a topic for another day. When we're talking about pictures of Christ and illustrating the Gospels and things like that, That could be another issue. But today what we want to talk about is we want to talk about idolatry, which is plainly trying to represent God by an idol or representing some other false god. And so this includes God himself. Look in Exodus chapter 32 and what you'll find is the Israelites immediately struggle with this issue. As Moses is up on the mountain for many days, we're like, hey, we don't know what happened to Moses. He's been gone a while. He's up on a mountain talking to God and what do they do? They make a golden image of a calf which was something that had been worshipped in Egypt and Moses introduces the thing. He takes the gold from the people and he fashions it with a graving tool, makes a golden calf And they said this, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Well, we know it was Yahweh, it was the Lord God Almighty who brought them up out of Egypt. And so what they've done is they've made a graven image and they say, oh, this is the God who brought you out of Egypt. So, right God, wrong way to worship because He is not a calf. He's not limited to an image. And if you think about it, this is just sensible because how could we craft an image to represent what God is? He is utterly beyond us and he's beyond our conceptions let alone our abilities to represent in an artistic way. So God forbade all of his people to make these images and the prophets speak very often against it because Israel so embraced it. And we see through the Old Testament they struggle with this because this is leftover practice from Egypt. It is leftover practice from the people in the Promised Land that they never completely ran out like they should have. It's also they're immersed in a world of idolatry where all the surrounding nations had their gods and had their idol worship and their practices and so they were completely immersed in this and this is why they struggle with this throughout the entire Old Testament. Now when images were made of God, It reduced who he truly was. And when idols representing foreign deities were worshipped, the Lord calls this spiritual adultery in the Old Testament. And so, but it makes some sense that they would fall into this problem, that they're going to have this problem because of being immersed in a world that they were. Now when we come to the New Testament, Israel is no longer struggling with the same kind of idolatry. But the Gentile world was there. And the early church was being formed and spreading and maturing in a world that was also full of idolatry. Paul described it when he was in Athens, what the Roman world was like. His spirit was provoked within him as he saw that the city was full of idols. We see Paul dramatically confronting the issue in the city of Ephesus in the book of Acts and in one place he and Barnabas were actually worshipped as gods and so it's an amazing struggle that the church has early on with idolatry and it had to struggle about what to do for instance with food sacrifice to idols, because very often one of the most common food sources in the ancient world was the local market, and the local market had many meats and things that had been sacrificed to idols. And so the early church had to struggle with how they were going to do this. Should we eat that? Should we not eat that? What are the rules? And that's addressed in many places in the New Testament. Idolatry, however, as its definition, was expanded in the New Testament to not just include some kind of a graven image of a God or of God himself, but to include all spiritual matters. And this is profoundly important for us to catch, for us to understand. Look at Colossians 3.5 and what Paul says there. He says, put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. So he attaches idolatry here to covetousness. And we see also in Ephesians chapter 5, verses 4 and 5, he says, let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving, he tells the people. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous, that is an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. So here he equates again covetousness with idolatry. Now look in Galatians 5.20, it's placed alongside other works of the flesh. And so he says this about these things. He says, the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. And so he warns them, I warn you as I warned before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. So a very stern warning and it includes a warning against idolatry. And it's lumped together with a list of other common worldly sins and deceptions and desires. Peter does this as well in his first letter. He says the time that has passed suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. So for this reason, what New Testament scholars often do, and New Testament believers do, is expand the definition of what idolatry is, to include anything that has the same effect as Old Testament idolatry would have upon a believer and his faith. Let's look at it this way. In the New Testament we could define it like this. I'm going to move a couple things around here for your benefit. We saw the Old Testament definition. I propose this definition to you for idolatry, which would be the same as the Old Testament. So it would include the physical representation of deity, but expand the definition of idolatry to include anything that would replace God as our object of faith and worship. Now that's important as our object of faith and worship, as an object of faith, that which we trust in, that which we expect to receive what we need from. As we trust God for our salvation, we trust God for our provision, our life, our extension of life, we trust God for those things. When we trust in other things to provide that, it might be idolatry. And also when it comes to our worship, we pay attention to God. We study His word. We spend time in meditation and prayer over His word. And we pray to Him. And we gather with other believers. And we worship God together. And we sing praises to Him. When we are doing those things in other contexts, when we're taking it away from God, we're giving it to something else, that is a form of idolatry. And so, as you can see, this of course greatly expands the idea of idolatry to a point that that would encompass all such things that would interfere with our practice of true faith. Anything that would take our affection away from God, anything we would look to for fulfillment, that would replace God as our object of faith and worship. So notice the wisdom in expanding this concept to address our needs to this very day because the world, indeed the Western world, has largely rid itself of the kind of idolatry that we saw in the Old Testament where there would be a small household shrine that would have some idol set up in it and that Sacrifices would be made to it, it would be bowed down to, it would be worshipped in other ways as well. And we're largely rid of that and yet we are a people full of all kinds of superstition and full of all kinds of idolatrous pursuits of other things. And so this is the wisdom of God in the New Testament to expand this definition. to include such a broad array of difficulties and dangers for believers today. Now I want to point out that idolatry is a declension from truth. A declension from truth. That is, to go into idolatry is to decline away from truth. It is a fall. And really, People look at idolatry and say, well, how bad can that be? I mean, at least they have some faith. You know, an idolater at least is having some faith in something. And maybe they'll start with idolatry and maybe they'll have faith in some false god or graven image or some kind of activity or superstition. and pursue that and find it empty and search for more and search for the truth. Well, there's two problems with that kind of thinking. Number one is this, no one starts with idolatry. As we'll see from Romans chapter one, God has shown us all readily the truth and we have turned from it. Number two, the second difficulty with that way of thinking is no one seeks God of his own accord. But it's God who redeems. Well, let's go to Romans chapter 1, try to understand this, try to get our minds around this, because it's very important what I want to show you here. It says this, it says, The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them because God has shown it to them. And so the first thing we need to understand is that God has revealed himself. He's revealed himself in all that he has made. And in chapter 2, Paul will talk about the fact that he's revealed himself in our conscience. That we have a conscience. That we have some sense of morality built into us by God. So, the first thing we see is that it is a turning away from God to idolatry. Read on here in verse 20, "...for His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made, so they are without excuse." In other words, God has so revealed Himself in those things that every human being is without excuse. No human being will be able to stand up in a judgment and say, but I didn't know. Because God will very quickly reveal to them, oh yes you did, and here's the evidence of it, and here's what you saw, and yet you turned away. Look what it says in verse 21. For although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him. But they became futile in their thinking, their foolish hearts were dark, and claiming to be wise they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. That, of course, are idols. images of these other things. And so mankind always falls away from the worship of the true God to worshiping things of his creation, including mankind himself. We're in an age that could be described as a secular humanism. In other words, it's It is man is a chief end of all thinking. Man is worshipped. The accomplishments of man is what is worshipped and respected. And how good you are at things determines your value as one of those human beings. And it's all done without reference to eternity. That's the word secular. It's done without reference to any kind of a transcendent God or anything like that. And so we decline from worshiping the true God to worshiping things in the creation. And this is terribly foolish because if we think about it, who should we trust to bring us fulfillment? To bring us all that we need as created beings? We should of course look to the Creator Himself. rather than the things that he has created. God as creator and as Redeemer is the source of all good things. Look how James puts this in James chapter 1. He says, Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. So to put idolatry alongside God is an insult beyond measure because all good things come from Him. So whatever the thing is that we are worshiping is actually something that's been given by Him. So He is the one that deserves the worship, not the inanimate object, not the people, not the other creatures that He has made. Indeed He is the one worthy of worship and to lay something else alongside Him and to give it the same respect, the same worship as we should give to God is an insult beyond measure. And so this is a fall from truth. Idolatry is a declension from the truth, not a building up to it. It's not a partial truth, but it's entirely false and always less than what the truth is. There's a great danger, therefore, in that idolatry then deceives. Idolatry deceives. Not that idols have any power of themselves, but the man-made idea of them is a tool of Satan to deceive. Let's take a look at a couple things here. In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul says this, Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. and such were some of you. So that's a good news is that this can be in the past tense for you, any of the things in that list by the power of God. Such were some of you. He's speaking to the church but he's saying alongside that and in that, in these things, idolaters are not able to inherit the kingdom. And so this is an important truth that we've already seen in Ephesians chapter 5. We see this in Revelation chapter 12 as the world is being deceived through idols by the evil one in the last days. We see this is all finished. The great dragon was thrown down. That ancient serpent was called the devil and saint. and deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to earth and his angels were thrown down with him. He is put down and all that he has deceived and all that he has done and all that he has led people into has been taken down. Those who partake in idolatry therefore suppress the truth this is the deception and notice it is the name of Satan here he is called the deceiver of the whole world and this is an important idea because idolatry deceives and he deceived through idolatry when you read the book of Revelation particularly chapter 13 And those who partake with the devil in his deceptions suppress the truth. Notice what it said here. These invisible attributes, all these things ever since the creation of the world. Look in verse 18 here. Wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who do what? by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. The truth is held down by those who have declined away from God into idolatry. Therefore they're grouped together with the liars as being described in the end as being judged in the lake of fire, the second death as it's called. So many people will argue, look, idols are just an object or something that we do. It has no real life in it of itself. And this is true. That is the testimony of the Old Testament. As you read the book of Isaiah, and you read other places, and the prophets in particular, God ridicules idols saying, look, this is just the work of the hands of man. How can you bow down to it? This is something you made. You took a piece of wood and you fashioned it into an idol and the other part you took and you burnt and you cooked your food on it. You know, and what's the difference between the two? And so much is made in the Old Testament of denouncing these things as being nothing. However, we know that they can be a source of spiritual deception. Paul saw the demonic activity behind idols. And even though they're nothing, as he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, in 1 Corinthians he has a lot to say about idols, He says, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that an idol has no real existence and that there is no God but one. So he says, well on the one hand we know that these idols really aren't anything. They aren't anything real. But look what he says later on as he develops his arguments. He says in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, starting verse 18, he says, consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? You know, he's referring back to the Old Testament law. He says, what do I imply then? The food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? So he's going to double down. He's going to say, no, it's not really anything. I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? And so he does suggest that this idolatrous worship is really giving something over to demons. It's really a demonic deception that we're seeing here. And it opens the door to so much deception. So no doubt by this point you see the danger of idolatry. And the important thing to understand in this is that idolatry is alive and well today. And we look through the Old Testament and that should concern us because we look through the Old Testament we see the cost of idolatry. That Israel's disobedience in this matter of idolatry brought the wrath of God upon them. Thousands upon thousands of lives were lost. Many people were deceived and missed out on the promises of God. And the people of Israel were eventually taken, according to the terms of their covenant with God, taken into exile as a result of their great idolatry. And so this is an important fact that idolatry is destructive. but it's also alive and well today. I want to show you a couple things. As we looked at Colossians 3.5, which we already looked at, you notice this is listed, idolatry is listed, along with these other things that represent fleshly or sinful desires. The same thing in 1 Peter 4.3, where it's associated with lawlessness. And we have to ask the question, why do people sin? Let's go back to the basics. Why do people sin? Well, James would tell us people sin when they are led astray by their own desires. It begins with a desire that we have and we transgress then the law of God in order to fulfill that desire. In other words, we desire a thing and so we go and steal the thing. Okay? Or we desire a person and so we go and we commit adultery or some other sexual immorality. And that transgresses the law of God. We do what we want to do. And when what we want to do is in opposition to God, it results in sin. We commit sins. And so it's the desires of the heart that lead someone into idolatry. The seeking of something, some kind of a gain, or some kind of a comfort, or some kind of an advantage in something other than God. And this is then the essence of idolatry. But how do we examine our own lives then to see if we have an idolatrous heart, that we have something in our lives that's an idol? Because it's clear that we probably don't have an altar with a carved image or something sitting around in our house that we bow down to, but we see that this expansion of the definition makes it much more. How do we evaluate this for ourselves? How do we know if in fact we are subject to idolatry? Well, let me give you some helpful ways to think about this. I'm going to say it might be idolatry. Notice I say it might be idolatry if it is sinful or provides a temptation to sin. So if the activity is inherently of itself sinful, then it's very likely idolatry. And a good example there would be sexual immorality of any kind. But it would also be other things. A lot of people can find idolatry in sports activities and being competitive because it brings ugly parts of their character to the forefront. It causes them to be unkind. It causes them to be wrathful or vengeful. It stirs up things in them. For this reason, there are Christian denominations to this day that discourage any kind of sporting or any kind of competition. Now, I think maybe that's a little too far. I think each believer ought to engage with this and struggle with this thing themselves. But nevertheless, some people find it that those kind of activities reveal something in them of bad character, and so they avoid the activity altogether. It's anything that is sinful or provides temptation to sin. It might be idolatry if it causes a distorted or unbiblical view of God. Now here's where we get into some very important things. Many people have erroneous beliefs about the nature of angels and their interaction with human beings. Many people have false beliefs about the dead and believe that the dead speak to them and that people speak to them from the dead. And I believe in those instances there's something speaking but it's probably not your dead loved one. It is probably a spiritual one. Today it's perfectly capable of knowing something only they would know and relating it to you. And so many of these things are deceptions of spiritual entities and things like that, or they're just creations of our imaginations. Nevertheless, they create a distorted view of God, that God somehow lets people slip through the cracks, that God somehow is using angels to speak to us when we've been told they might But if they bring a gospel other than what we read in the New Testament, they are to be cursed and they're not to be listened to. And so, anything that causes a distorted or unbiblical view of God is a form of idolatry. Anything that takes time, money, and attention away from God. In other words, if we're spending an inordinate amount of time in some kind of an activity, and we're neglecting our spiritual walk, and our service to our local church, and our relationship with God in order to do it, It might be idolatry, and we need to prayerfully work through the place that that has in our lives. I've seen many people come and go in Christianity who get carried away with the cares of this world, and they are described by Jesus in a parable of the soils, which suggests that the cares of this life and the interest in the things of this world has taken them away from the faith, but they were never really in it. They were never really the good soil. And so if we have something in our lives that is taking the place of God, that is pushing it out, that is relegating our worship of God and our practice of our faith to the sidelines, well then we need to really examine that because we may not be in the faith. By not prioritizing him, we're suggesting perhaps there's not a love of him there that's present and that ought to be dealt with as potential idolatry. It's very important we get those things right. Also, if whatever the activity or idol is becomes a source of trust or hope or joy beyond that which comes from God, then it might be idolatry. So it might be idolatry if we're putting our trust and our faith in it. A lot of people do investing, they play the stock market, things like that. We are to be wise stewards. We should plan for the future because we don't know when the Lord will return. And we should conduct our affairs in such a way that we're not burdensome to others. But when we begin to trust in those things, they could become an idol. because ultimately we know that in the world all such things can perish. No matter how solid your portfolio is, no matter how balanced it is, no matter how you've protected it, no matter how you've secured it, it can go away. And then who will you trust to provide your needs? Hopefully the Lord God, the God of Israel, Jesus Christ, who came in the flesh, is hopefully the true thing that we all trust in. So if it becomes a source of trust, hope, or joy beyond that which comes from God, then it might be idolatry. Now I've got a list here of some common modern idols and I want to issue a disclaimer. Do not read this list like I'm condemning these things or like these things are inherently bad because most of the things on this list are good things in and of themselves, and they're things through which we can actually worship God by our performance in these things, or by our appreciation of these things, that we can give glory to God for all good things that He gives us. And so most of these things are not of themselves inherently sinful, but they can be idols in the Christian life. And this is what we want to see here. So some of these things, false conceptions of God, of course, and that is condemnable and that is sinful. Our own source of identity. in recent years as there has been such a such a spark such a revival of of racial strife and and concerns of social justice and things like that many people put their identity ahead of their faith and we have to remember we are very first citizens of the kingdom of heaven, if indeed we are in Christ, and then secondarily, whatever other kind of description we want to give ourselves, whether it's by the color of our skin, or our national origin, or our previous walk of life, or our nationality, all those things are secondary. to being kingdom citizens. And yet we see in recent years a lot of people getting that confused, putting it above their identity in Christ and identifying themselves first by some other characteristic or attribute. So identity can be an idol. Our careers can be an idol, and I think that one's very obvious, that we can get really obsessed and we can misplace the good things of God. We can neglect our families to the benefits of our careers. We can sacrifice many things for a career, and very often it is our spiritual life. Physical appearance and fitness. We are in an age in which that is coveted to be fit, to be physically appealing to others. It's something that people enjoy and they can find their own fulfillment in that and that can also be wrapped up in their identity. Entertainment, of course, can be an idol. We have a tendency to look at the screen a lot these days. And as we look at the screen, whether it's the one in our hand or the one on the wall or the one on the table, Whatever it is, we can get addicted to that. We can spend too much time in that. We can neglect the things of God. We can be watching reel after reel of senseless videos when we should be reading the Word of God. That's an idol and it needs to be dealt with. And so some of these things can be very insidious in their nature. We can make an idol, oddly enough, of our family or our children. And I see this as people, their concern for their children leaves them to drag their children off to every single thing they possibly can to put all their hope and dreams into their children. and neglect their own spiritual lives. And the sad part is then, neglect by extrapolation the spiritual life of their children. And so they've got children who are functional, great in the world, have some kind of a great career, are popular among their peers, have every kind of opportunity laid before them, and yet are lost and will perish. in eternal flames because they got their priorities wrong. That can be an idol. Sports, of course, can be an idol. And if you have any doubt about that, if you know me, you know that I absolutely love sports and I love to watch them, but I watch very little because my time does not permit it. But when I do, I enjoy them greatly and I give glory to God because of what's happening there, the abilities that He's given to people and just the things that they are able to achieve and to do. And sports can be very encouraging, they can be healthy, they can be good for our children's development, but they can become an idol. We need to evaluate the questions we looked at before to see if they are. Today, fame and influence can be an idol, how many likes you have, how many shares you have, how many views you have on your reels or on your TikTok videos. This is a very common idol these days. And people also, this gets wrapped up in their identity, who they are. They put their value in that. And this is a form of idolatry because our value is by God. It is that He has made us to be His image bearers upon the earth. That He has redeemed us by the blood, the precious blood of His Son, Jesus Christ. And if we then begin to seek our value from the world, and how the world appraises us, we are committing idolatry. We get our value from the intrinsic value that God has placed in mankind, and from the value He has put in the blood of Jesus. That is our identity. That is the value that we have, and that far exceeds all the praise and glory that the world has to offer. For we are destined to share the glory of God, which far exceeds that which can be found on earth. Another one that trips up a lot of people are their hobbies. Their hobbies can become an obsession and it can be something that takes away their resources, physical and mental and financial resources away from the work of God. And finally, another idol is gossip, and I'm sure you can think of more. But the reason I go through so many of these, it's so important that we weed these out of our lives, is because idolatry ends in destruction. Did you notice what it said there in the verses that we shared earlier? In Isaiah chapter 2, verses 20 and 21, he says, In that day mankind will cast away their idols of silver and gold, which they made for themselves to worship, to the moles and to the bats. to enter the caverns and rocks and clefts of the hills from before the terror of the Lord and from the splendor of his majesty when he rises to terrify the earth. One day when the Lord returns there will be no idolatry because the truth will be exposed but that will be too late, that will be the time of judgment and that's why you hear language here as you hear in the book of Revelation is that All people will be able to do is to try to hide from God, but they won't even be successful in doing that. The idols will fade away. The idols will be gone because then it will be very clear that there's nothing to them, that they're not real. And look at this in Isaiah 44 as God ridicules idols. I want you to see this, that the section is called the folly of idolatry. Now just look at it a little bit. All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. You know that those who would worship idols or make idols, God calls them nothing. Idol worship is self-degrading. It not only reduces who God is, but it reduces who we are. We are less than something God intended for us to be when we are given over to idolatry. I want to go back to Romans and leave Isaiah 44 for you to study on your own. It's actually quite amusing in places. But I want to go back to Book of Romans because we've worked in that earlier. And in Romans chapter 1, notice what happens when these people turn away from the plain revelation of God and turn to idolatry. They didn't honor him, and look what it says in verse 21. They became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. So see, now they're less than they were before. Once we turn from God, we become futile in our thinking, our foolish hearts are darkened. And look what God does as judgment to the idolater. In verse 24, as they go further down the road into idolatry, God gives them up in the lust of their hearts to impurities, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves. It has well been said that the worst thing God can do is let someone follow their own desires into destruction. And this is what we see here. He is giving them over to their lust, to their impurities. And the reason for this is a kindness. Because sometimes that person finally hits bottom. And that is when the Lord will draw them in. Look at verse 26. For this reason, God gave them over to dishonorable passions. And so God just gives them away. Okay, you want to do that? You go ahead and do that and see where it leads. And verse 28 here. Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. In other words, this is a brain that doesn't even function right anymore. That this is something that is so less than human. And when you think about idolaters, what you will see in idolaters is you will see animalistic characteristics as they fall away from the dignity of what God designed mankind to be and fall into idol worship. They become something like the idol. They become something less than human. They become something animal in nature. And you can see this with the viciousness with which people will defend their idolatry. And you can see this with the other sins that begin to crop up when people are engaged in idolatry. It seems it opens the door to everything else and pretty soon they're violent and pretty soon they're aggressive in the way that they deal with other people and they're not thinking straight anymore. It is a terrible thing for people to fall into idolatry because it tears a person down. and it invites the wrath of God who will ultimately destroy all idolatry. It's what we saw in Isaiah and it's in multiple places in Isaiah and you'll find those references in the notes that God will ultimately destroy idolatry. And he tells Israel he'll ultimately judge them for idolatry. That's the whole context of the book. He is going to judge them for many things, one of them being their idolatry, and he is going to rid them of it, but it's going to be through great difficulty and great wrath. But something we ought to be aware of is in Isaiah chapter 19. It says this, and this is an oracle concerning Egypt. So these chapters in the teens here in the book of Isaiah include a lot of messages to other nations or regarding other nations that the Lord has. And here he turns to Egypt and he says, look the Lord is riding on a swift cloud, so this is language of deity here, and comes to Egypt and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them. And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians, and they will fight, each against another, each against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. And the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out, and I will confound their council, etc., etc. And so he's bringing condemnation on Egypt. Why? Well, the first thing mentioned is their idolatry. that they were involved in the worship of non-gods. And so, he brings them into judgment for these things, and God has not changed how he judges and deals with nations. And so as a nation Egypt was condemned and judged by God, so many of the others around Israel were judged and condemned by God, so too nations today who partake in too much idolatry. Even if it's not the Old Testament variety of setting up some kind of an idol to worship, it can be the humanistic kind, it can be all kinds of other things that God will bring wrath upon that nation for. So this is important for us as citizens of the United States, whatever country you're listening from, for us to hold accountable then our nations to this standard, to have them understand that God is looking at these things, that God judges these things, that they will not be ignored. Even all modern idolatry will be judged. Look at Revelation chapter 21 verse 8, the end of the story as it were. For the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, notice the connection to lying there, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death. So this is all ultimately judged and because of this we have to examine ourselves. We must destroy our own idols or they will carry us into destruction. And so idolatry ends in destruction and this is the difficult thing that we see here about this. But what's the encouraging part here? How do we deal with our idolatry? Well, first of all, we examine ourselves to see if we have idolatry in us. And that's something that we want to do prayerfully. We want to pray for God to reveal idolatry in our lives. And we want to maybe look through that criteria that I shared earlier and pray over the things in our life that seem to take us away from the worship and practice that we should have in Christ. and we want to pray about those things. Secondly would be this, counsel with a Christian brother or sister about the things we suspect might be adultery. We might think, hey I'm spending too much time on this thing, this might be an idol of mine, and they might come alongside us and say, you know what, no, that's not a big deal. Um, but, but maybe you can work it or, or they can come along and, and with us and say, yeah, that is a problem. You need to repent to that. And you're probably going to have to quit that or at least put it in the right place in your life. And so this is very valuable that we get an objective opinion on this because we ourselves, we have our own desires. We have our own ways that we want to go and they don't always agree with God. And so it's important for us to bring in a Christian brother or sister to counsel with us on that. But make sure it's someone mature in their faith. Someone hopefully even more mature than yourself to help you along this way. And then we pray for deliverance from that idolatry. And God is the one who can eliminate that from our life. Or at least put it in the right place and put it in perspective. Just because something in your life is an idol, you may not have to give it up 100%. But you will need to find its place, for it cannot stand alongside God. And then you want to seek from the Lord all the benefits sought. in our idolatry. That's something we want to do. If we're getting great encouragement from an activity that we're doing that might be idolatrous, let's look for that enjoyment out of God. Let's pray for that enjoyment from God. If we're receiving some kind of a financial benefit from the thing that appears to be an idol, ask God to provide for you another way because he has promised to provide the needs of his people. And so all these things can be dealt with through prayer, through searching of the Word of God and counsel and fellowship with Christian brothers and sisters. And these things are important for us to establish and to understand what we're doing. But what I want to leave you with is I want to leave you with more scripture because that is always a helpful thing to do. I want to take you to Psalm 37.4. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. This does not mean that He'll give you whatever your heart desires. This means that He will place in you the proper desires. That when you put the Lord first, that is delighting in Him, put Him first in things, He's going to give you the right desires. And so part of solving idolatry in our lives is to seek Him, to draw closer to Him, And as the hymn says, the things of earth will go strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Draw closer to God, delight yourself in Him, and He will begin to shape your desires so that He can fulfill those desires, so that He can be to you more than any idol ever could. So encouragement is this, that God is driving idolatry out of his people all the time. It is his will, and as the people of God, it is our destiny to be free of idolatry. You noticed in Isaiah, he said the idols are going to be gone. The people are going to willingly give them up one day. And of course, he was speaking about when Christ comes, when he came as first. and made the offer of salvation that we could be filled with the Spirit of God and have a chance to get that idolatry out of our lives. And he's speaking again of his second coming when we will be finally purified. Idolatry will be driven from his people and we are best off and most fulfilled when we engage with God to drive it out of our lives now. God will ultimately scrub it all from us. I want you to hear the word of the Lord today as our teacher, as he speaks of this future Jerusalem, this future Zion that has been transformed, which we'll talk about in another sermon. He says this, a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem. You shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your teacher will not hide himself anymore. In other words, God's going to reveal the teacher. It's Jesus Christ. But your eyes shall see your teacher, and your ears shall hear a word behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it. Did you know that in the early church, before they were called Christians, they were called the Way? Isn't that interesting? You'll find that in the Book of Acts. When you turn to the right, or when you turn to the left, then you will defile your carved idols, overlaid with silver and gold plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, be gone. Well, draw near to the teacher and hear what he says. Look what he says here. This is so encouraging. As he says it, he says, a word behind you. In other words, it's a whisper in the ear. It's a, hey, look this way. Go this way. This is the way. Walk in it. And what encouragement we have from God that he will do this for us, that he will direct us in the right paths and that he indeed will accomplish in us and grant us victory over our idols and all our struggles against idolatry. And he will wipe away all the tears and he will make all things new. And he's starting it now. You don't have to wait. Let's pray. Father God, you have been good and gracious to show us these things. And Lord, I pray that each one of us, Lord, really take these things to heart, really examine ourselves so that you can be uplifted and glorified in us. We thank you, Lord, for all that you've done. We thank you for this great work. We thank you for the word of God, which purifies us and transforms us. And Lord, I pray that this day we'll be transforming many of your people for your great glory. We thank you and praise you in Jesus name. Amen. Well, I thank you for joining me and I encourage you to contact us at any time if you would like. You can reach us at whitesrunbaptist at gmail.com and we will answer those emails directly and quickly and we look forward to any interactions you may have. God bless you.