Well, this evening our confessional lesson's actually gonna come from the Heidelberg Catechism. The Heidelberg Catechism. I'm gonna read questions 96 through 98. You find that on page 890 in the back of the hymnal. 96 through 98 on page 890. Question 96, what is God's will for us in the second commandment? that we in no way make any image of God nor worship him in any other way other than what's been commanded in God's word. Question 97, may we then not make any image at all? God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way. Although creatures may be portrayed, yet God forbids making or having such images in order to worship them or serve God through them. Question 98, but may not images as books for the unlearned be permitted in churches? No, we should not try to be wiser than God. He wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of his word, not by idols that cannot even talk. As you know, the first commandment teaches us that we're to have no other gods before Yahweh. And we could summarize that first commandment with three prepositional phrases. We're not to have other gods instead of Yahweh. We're not to have other gods above Yahweh. and we're not to have other gods alongside of Yahweh. So at the heart of the first commandment is the obligation to be exclusively loyal to the true and living God, that He alone is the sole object of our worship. And the second commandment flows out of that and says that you mustn't make images or worship God in any way that's not been commanded in His word. And I want to make sure we pick up on the connection between the first and second commandments. The moment an image is created, no matter how benign it might seem to our human sensibilities, what we've done If we've made an image to help us worship, what we've done is introduce a kind of mediator of sorts into the worship of God. Because that's what a mediator does, isn't it? It's a go-between between God and man. And that's what man-made images end up functioning as, as kinds of mediators. And the moment we do that, the moment we make our own image to worship God, We've corrupted worship because we've decided to approach God on our terms, not His. That's the reason question 97 makes it clear God cannot and may not be visibly portrayed in any way, although creatures may be portrayed, yet God forbids making or having such images in order to worship them or serve God through them. And notice the catechism is saying that it's not a sin to create art. If you want to paint a beautiful picture of Lake Michigan or sculpt some kind of magnificent animal, that's fine, so long It's not something that has the purpose of intruding itself into the worship of God. But any image that functions in any kind of mediatorial role that begins to function as a go-between between God and man, that's a sin. And did you pick up on the language of question 97? Not only does God's law forbid making idols and images of God in any way, it forbids having idols and images in our possession. You see, the things we create to aid our worship, the man-made things we create to aid our worship, end up getting placed alongside Yahweh. Even if we don't intend for those things to become an idol, that's precisely what they become. And of course, that's a violation of the first commandment. I wanna look at a couple passages to sort of flesh out the importance of not creating images. Let me ask you to turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 4. Deuteronomy 4. I'm gonna walk through a few verses in this section. In Deuteronomy 4, you basically have Moses rehearsing how it is that God brought Israel to Mount Sinai to covenant with them to form them into a nation. So Deuteronomy 4, let's pick up at verse 11. And again, two things I want you to pick up on as we work through a few of these verses. First, God's disposition toward images and the centrality of the word in the ministry of God's people. So Deuteronomy 4, beginning of verse 11. Then you came near and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire to the midst of heaven with darkness, cloud, and thick darkness. And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of the words, but saw no form. You only heard a voice. So he declared to you his covenant, which he commanded you to perform the 10 commandments and he wrote them on two tablets of stone. I want you to pick up on just a couple things. First, the Lord spoke to the people. They heard a sermon directly from the mouth of God. They didn't see a likeness of God, they heard His voice. They saw all kinds of things to be sure, but what mattered is that they heard the voice of God. And second, It was from this divine sermon by the very voice of Yahweh, by his word, that his covenant was declared to them, right? So not images, the word. Let's pick up now at verse 15. Take careful, heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourself a carved image in the form of any figure." After this, Moses provides a list of things to say, don't make an image of anything in the created world, nothing in the created world, if you intend to use it in worship to draw near to the Creator. If you do, it's idolatry. And then Moses gives a stern warning in verses 23 and 24. Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God, which he made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God." Again, don't miss what this is. The covenant, the 10 commandments, they're spoken to the people. And the warning is, if you make images, You are breaking covenant with God. And that's serious, don't you think? We'll skip down to verse 25. We'll read through 27. Verse 25. When you beget children and grandchildren and have grown old in the land and act corruptly and make a carved image in the form of anything and do evil in the sight of the Lord, excuse me, evil in the sight of the Lord your God to provoke him to anger, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day. that you will soon utterly perish from the land which you cross over the Jordan to possess. You will not prolong your days in it, but will be utterly destroyed, and the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you'll be left few in number among the nations where the Lord will drive you. So the teaching is expanded here to say, in the future covenant community, make sure the next generation knows that images and idols have no place in worship, or they're gonna end up being carried off into exile. And why is this important to us? Because that's exactly what we've seen happen in Israel, isn't it? First Israel tolerated idols, then they embraced idols, then they loved idols, and the apostatized and they were carried off into exile. That's why Israel was given strict instructions when they took possession of the promised land. One of the first things they were to do in the promised land was to destroy all the idols of the nations they dispossessed. I want to look at one more passage. Turn to Exodus 34. Exodus 34, this is actually right after the golden calf incident where you'll recall Israel sought to worship God through golden calves, and God in His great mercy is renewing His covenant with them. Let's pick up at Exodus 34 and verse 11. Observe what I command you this day. Behold, I'm driving out from before you the Amorite, and the Canaanite, and the Hittite, and the Parasite, and the Hivite, and the Jebusite. Take heed to yourself. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you're going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break down their sacred pillars, cut down their wooden images. For you shall worship no other God for the Lord whose name is jealous. is a jealous God. Lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods, and make sacrifice to their gods, and one of them invites you, and you eat of his sacrifice, and you take of his daughters for your sons, and his daughters play the harlot with their gods, and make your sons play the harlot with their gods, you shall make no molded gods for yourselves. This is a long way around the barn to get to this point. This is why the Reformed have always been so militantly against images. The command to God's people is destroy idols, not make them. Of course, the question that always comes to mind, is it possible that images or art or drawings of the divine could be used to instruct people? For example, could pictures of Jesus be a helpful teaching tool? And I love the clear way that question 98 answers that, no. We should not try to be wiser than God. He wants the Christian community instructed by the living preaching of his word, not by idols that can't even talk. And that's really a summary of those passages we just walked through. And one of the reasons I chose this catechism lesson is this evening we're gonna see that King Isaiah takes the exhortation of Exodus 34 seriously. And he's going to be the first king of Judah who is on a mission to rid the southern kingdom of all the false idols that led God's people to false worship. And we're going to see that God's going to bless him in extraordinary ways because of his desire and his commitment to smash and destroy these idols. Well, for now, let's continue praising the Lord. Let's stand to sing number 219. Oh, worship the King, number 219. Well, let me ask you to open up your copy of scripture to 2 Kings 18. 2 Kings 18. We're going to read verses 1 through 8. Second Kings 18, beginning in verse one. Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, the son of Allah, king of Israel, that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, king of Judah, began to reign. He was 25 years old when he became king, and he reigned 29 years in Jerusalem. His mother's name was Abi, the daughter of Zechariah. And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord according to all that his father David had done. He removed the high places and broke the sacred pillars, cut down the wooden images and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days, the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nahushtan. He trusted in the Lord God of Israel, so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord commanded Moses. The Lord was with him. He prospered wherever he went, and he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. He subdued the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory from watchtower to fortified city. Well, there ends the reading of God's holy and inspired word. May it bless it to our hearts this evening. Well, dearest congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, by way of review, you'll remember that second Kings can generally be divided into three sections. The first 10 chapters really focus on the Northern Kingdom, and one of the things we find in those first 10 chapters is the transition from Elijah being the chief prophet of God to Elisha. In chapters 11 through 17, there's a back and forth of information about the northern and southern kingdom, and it's in that section that Elisha dies. From chapter 18 and forward, we're dealing almost exclusively then with the southern kingdom of Judah, because the northern kingdom has been judged by God because of her idolatry. and they've been carried off by the Assyrians. And verses nine through 12, we didn't read those verses, but in verses nine through 12, there's something of a postlude of the Northern kingdom. But if I can say it this way, at this point, the fat lady has sung and Israel's over. Now, tragically, it appeared as though the Southern kingdom was following right in their footsteps. the footsteps of idolatry and wickedness and apostasy and exile. That seemed to be the sure path they were on. You remember the reign of Ahaz, it was an unmitigated, idolatrous disaster. You may recall from several weeks back when we studied the reign of Ahaz, this was a man who never met an idol he didn't love and worship. In fact, the only god that Ahaz didn't bow the knee to was Yahweh. And to that end, he did virtually everything in his royal power to pervert the true worship of Yahweh. I mean, he cut up a bunch of the temple utensils and the temple furniture for scrap. And the temple was so inconsequential to Ahaz, he eventually closed its doors I mentioned this before, but that's an astonishing fact that in Judah, under Ahaz, the temple of the Lord was closed for business. That was Ahaz's doing. And if you had ventured out from the city of Jerusalem, Everywhere you look, you would have found high places, sacred pillars, a few Baal statues, and of course, some Asherahs. The city was a smorgasbord of idols and false worship. And if you moved outside of the city to the Judean countryside, it was more of the same. Under Ahaz, Judah was following the trajectory. of her northern sister Israel, and she was right on the cliff, about to fall off into apostasy and judgment and exile, till God raised up Hezekiah. Now, we spent several weeks looking at his great work as a reformer in 2 Chronicles 29-31. He reopened the temple, he consecrated the priesthood, and we saw that Hezekiah, brought about reforms in Judah's doctrine of worship, her doctrine of salvation, her doctrine of the sacraments, and even the doctrine of the old covenant church government. Now those chapters that we looked at in 2 Chronicles, they actually focused on the positive reforms that he implemented in Judah. Very early in his reign, when he first took the reins as king of Judah, The much abbreviated account that we read this evening in 2 Kings 18, it's actually more concerned to tell us how he demolished idols and personally sought to live faithfully before God. Now, the first three verses, they give us his basic biographical information, which we touched on a few weeks ago. He replaced his wicked father and began reigning over Judah when he was 25. At least that's when he began his solo reign. And he'll reign for a total of 29 years. And we're told he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father David had done. Now, something we want to have in our own mind is that from the time of David, Judah has found herself in desperate need of a mighty man of God, a faithful man of God to sit on her throne. And our narrator is giving us a little taste right up front that Hezekiah is that needed mighty man of God. You see, one of the things that's astonishing about Hezekiah is his comparison to David without any qualification. without any qualification. You see, if you look at the good kings in Judah, Asa in 1 Kings 15, Jehoshaphat in 1 Kings 22, Jehoash in 2 Kings 12, Amaziah 2 Kings 14, Uzziah in 2 Kings 15, Jotham also in 2 Kings 15. All those were good kings in Judah's history up to this point. And it's said of all of them that they did what was right in the sight of the Lord. All of them had that wonderful commendation, but all of their commendations were qualified. In every instance, their reputation received a major ding because they simply didn't do enough to rid Judah of her idolatry. There was a constant refrain, we've read, haven't we? This was a good king, this and that king was fine, he did all these great things, but the high places were not taken away. That's what makes Hezekiah a standout king, a true, faithful man of God. Look there at verse four. He removed the high places. and broke down the sacred pillars. He cut down the wooden image and broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For until those days, the children of Israel burned incense to it and called it Nahushtan. Hezekiah seemed to be keenly aware of what we read in Exodus 34, that the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God. And so he went about Judah and Jerusalem smashing idols. He started with the high places. Now, high places were simply elevated areas, or maybe just an elevated piece of topography. Sometimes they were man-made. Sometimes they were natural mounds. And people would put altars and shrines there for worship. And there were a handful of occasions where that seemed to be spoken of approvingly, but by and large, at this point in redemptive history, when you read of high places, it's shorthand for pagan worship. That's what was going on. And again, one of the things that's so astonishing is that so many of Judah's kings, they just turned a blind eye to those. They decided to leave them alone because the people really liked them and we don't want to upset the people. Despite the fact that the first commandment is, you shall have no other gods before me. But Hezekiah, he didn't feel compelled to give in to the people. He said, they've got to go and he destroyed them. Then after the sacred pillars, excuse me, after that he went after the sacred pillars. Now the sacred pillars were probably stone pillars that functioned something, they were meant to present something like a doorway. that you would come to. And the picture was, it was an entranceway into the presence of false gods. And most of the stone pillars, again, at this point in redemptive history, were associated with Baal worship. Again, we shouldn't take for granted what a surprising thing this is, that this is so prominent in Judah, Baal worship. Hezekiah was having none of it. He smashed him. We're also told he cut down the wooden images. Now, the wooden images, it's the word asherim, and these were basically wooden poles, and they were dedicated to the Canaanite goddess of the sea known as Asherah. In the Canaanite religion, Asher was the goddess who was the consort of all the other gods. So if you were a male god, you wanted to hook up with Asherah, right? She was sometimes referred to, interestingly enough, as the Queen of Heaven. And it wasn't at all uncommon for there to be cult prostitutes where there were Asherim. And again, Hezekiah puts the ax to them. This is really a remarkable work, unprecedented in scope. Again, this is something none of the other kings did. And by the way, all of these various kinds of idols we just read about were actually introduced by David's son Solomon in 1 Kings 11. And they've been perverting true worship for the last 160, 170 years. And Hezekiah says, they've got to go. Now those first three idols we looked at, they're all heathen idols, aren't they? Clearly, false gods and false idols, but the fourth idol that Hezekiah had to dispose of didn't actually originate in the mind of some godless pagan. In fact, it was something that God had used to deliver his people. You'll remember when Moses was leading the people in the wilderness. This is not gonna come as a newsflash, but the people grumbled against the Lord and spoke against the Lord. And when they were in the Sinai desert, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people and many of them were bit and many of them died. And so the people were afraid and they cried out and they actually confessed their sin and in mercy. The Lord told Moses to make a bronze serpent, put it on a pole, lift it up high so that any of the people were bitten, they could look on that bronze serpent and live. And you can read this in Numbers 21 at your leisure at home. And this great bronze serpent not only provided salvation and deliverance for those who were bitten by snakes, it was a picture, a glorious picture of Christ-saving work who was lifted up on the cross. Listen how John makes that connection in John 3, 14 and 15. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up so that whoever believes on him, or we could say whoever looks on him, should not perish but have everlasting life. And by the way, I would imagine everybody knows the next verse, John 3, 16, right? The point is the event in the wilderness was profoundly important redemptive event. It was a saving event for Old Covenant Israel and it pointed to the great saving event of God's people on Mount Calvary. But what happened is that the children of Israel began to worship the symbol of This is why Calvin very famously said the human heart is an idol factor, because we can take something that's good and noble and good, excuse me, and true, something that's of profound significance in redemptive history, and we can manage to twist it into an idol. That's what happened to Judah. The Lord never instructed that the bronze altar should be venerated in any way. But the people began burning a bit of incense to it. They were worshiping. They were bringing sacrifices to it. And it's idolatry. The people came to call it Nahushtan, which is kind of a play on words meaning bronze serpent. And the fact that they kept this wasn't necessarily wrong. What was wrong was looking to the symbol and making it an object of worship. That's why it's so important that our worship is regulated by God's word, because we can even use good things in idolatrous ways. We can make our traditions, our pet peeves, our preferences, our personal ideas, something that has to be for worship. And it's probably idolatrous if it's not grounded in God's word. And this is really a picture of what the Roman Catholic Church does, isn't it? They celebrate the mass as the center feature of their worship. So when we gather around the Lord's table and we take the bread and cup, they point us to Jesus. Because of their theology, when they take the bread and cup, they actually think they have Jesus and they worship those symbols, right? That's just what Israel was doing. Well, Hezekiah, he doesn't hesitate. He broke the whole thing into pieces. Phil Reichen made an interesting comment, he said, What good King Hezekiah did is fulfillment of one of the Bible's oldest promises of salvation. Think about it, King Hezekiah's actions are really a picture of a greater king, King Jesus, who would crush the head of a serpent, fulfilling Genesis 3.15. One of the things we should keep in mind is that hating idolatry, and we must hate it, in all of its forms is actually a mark of genuine conversion and a mark of truly trusting in God. I mean, the Apostle Paul commended the Thessalonians because they turned to God from idols. to serve the living and true God, 1 Thessalonians 1, 9. And Hezekiah's reforms and the destruction of idols came from that same place, a place of trusting God, of a deep abiding faith in Yahweh. Glen said at verse 5, he trusted in the Lord God of Israel so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him. So Hezekiah trusted the Lord. He had this abiding faith in his covenant God, and it wasn't a one-off. It was faith that's a life pattern. He trusted. Because of that, he's marked out as one of the greatest kings in the history of Judah. And what's so important about this? is that it not only tells us why he was smashing these idols, this also tells us why he was so committed to a full reformation of Judah. why he totally changed their worship, why he reinstituted the sacrifices so that salvation could be provided for God's people, why he began practicing and celebrating the Passover, and why he organized the priesthood in distinct groups. Why he did all those reforms was because this was a man of great faith who loved the Lord God. And there's something that's very important in the way he works this out. He destroys idols with a passion, but he reformed the church with vigor. He did both things, you know? He has a kind of balance that we need. It's very easy, it's very easy to be the kind of people who are always against and never for reformation. And that just comes off as mean and brittle. On the other hand, this is probably more prevalent, I'm not against anything. We're just for the good stuff, and you come off as sentimentality and wimpy and wishy-washy. He did both. We've got to get rid of the idols, and we're not taking any prisoners, period. And the church needs to be reformed because we need to draw near to God in intimacy for worship. And it all flows out of fact that this was a man who trusted God. He had a faith that was substantial. And what goes along with faith? In the Bible, what goes along with saving faith? Perseverance and obedience, right? And we see that's also characterized Hezekiah's life. Look there at verse 6. For he held fast to the Lord. He did not depart from following him, but kept his commandments, which the Lord had commanded Moses. It's interesting, the word that's used here for held fast is the word that's used in Genesis 2.24, where it says, a man shall leave his father and hold fast, or cling to his wife. It means, in the Genesis context, it means that a husband and wife are stuck together in that one flesh union. And we're being told here that Hezekiah, he clung to the Lord. He had that intimacy of communion and union with his God. And so this was a man who set his feet to follow the Lord and he wouldn't be deterred. And it's that kind of intimate communion with God that leads to a life of obedience. He kept the commandments that God had given to Israel through Moses. And I love where this passage, where our passage culminates. The Lord blesses him. I wonder if we even think about that. If we're faithful in worship, if we're faithful in destroying idols in our lives, if we walk faithfully with our God, if we have a delight to keep the commandments of God, do we think that the Lord would bless us? I think there's some, for some reason, we're programmed to think It doesn't work that way, but that's exactly how it works. Look there, verses seven and eight. The Lord was with him. He prospered wherever he went. And he rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. He subdued the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory from watchtower to fortified city." Now, you'll remember his father Ahaz, he had cozied up to the Assyrian king, made all kinds of political alliances with him, paid him taxes and tributes. Hezekiah said, we're not going to do that any longer. No, no, no. We're not giving pagan kings the money of Israel's servants, so he pushed back. And the Lord blessed him for that act of faithfulness. And when it says that he subdued the Philistines as far as Gaza and its territory, that's significance because we know that was actually Assyrian, that was Assyrian, they were under Assyrian dominion at that point. So he's actually pushing against the Assyrians and everything he does, the Lord is blessing him because he's faithful. Well, it's a glorious picture. And I would simply say that this is a principle that we ought to have in our lives in terms of longing to find and rid ourselves of idols, right? Again, Paul said that about the Thessalonians. The Apostle John, the very last verse in 1 John is, dear children, keep yourselves from idols. The most loving of the apostles gives this commandment, keep yourselves from idols. And if you're keeping, yourself from those things that God hates, you're in a position to draw near to God in obedience. Well, I wanna wrap up, again, borrowing a bit from Phil Riken, because he has a wonderful way of bringing this back and pointing to Jesus. He writes, as we look at King Hezekiah, we glimpsed the pattern of kingship that was faithfully and perfectly fulfilled in Jesus Christ. By the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, God the Father was with Jesus wherever he went out. And Jesus always did what was right in the eyes of the Lord. And Jesus always kept God's commandment every single day of his life. Jesus, of course, was very zealous for the worship of God. He proved that when he drove out the money changers from the temple in Jerusalem. He trusted God, especially when he was dying on the cross and he faithfully prayed that his father would raise him from the dead, Luke 23, 46. And by his obedience unto death, he gained eternal victory over Satan and all the powers of hell. He did on a cosmic and eternal level what Hezekiah only did on a superficial level. That's the king that we have. That's the king who's lived and died for us. The one, true, perfect king. When we come back next week, we're gonna see Hezekiah wasn't perfect. But we dare not diminish the language of this text, because this is God's appraisal of the King. And as great as Hezekiah was, ultimately, he always is one who points us to our great King, the Lord Jesus. Amen. I'll give you a moment if you have any questions. You mentioned that it's not our nature to think that if we do what's right in the eyes of God, that he will bless us. In fairness, part of that's because of what Jesus said in Luke 17 about what the servant, if he says, get my supper, and after he's done all these things, does he thank him? Rather, he says, no, we have done your unprofitable service. We have done our duty. So if you could help him balance that out. Yeah, that's a good question. How would I balance that out? Let me put it this way. A friend of mine said it this way once. The book of Proverbs always works. What I'm getting at is if we live wisely and we live faithfully, God makes certain promises. Now, promises like this aren't like putting a coin in a vending machine. I've done this, therefore God's obligated, poop, to give me this blessing, right? That's a kind of health and wealth and prosperity gospel. But it's not wrong, let me put it this way. If you have a family and you are faithful in raising your children in the church, you do family worship, you do everything you can, do you expect the Lord to bless those efforts? Of course you do, right? Again, it's not, and yet there's still gonna be wayward children, right? And so, any other comments, sir? If I could follow up with that too. Believers will get rewards on the day of judgment. We will be rewarded for doing our duty. So though it's our duty, though it's our command that we're supposed to be of life to do, we're still rewarded, so yeah. Rewarded gloriously. Right? And again, all those gifts, all those gifts are simply grace gifts. Everything we do on this side of glory is tainted by sin. The only reason it's accepted is because God received them through the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and they're purified and perfected. But God is so merciful that even though we're feeble and weak, he will bless us, you know. Anything else? So this is, I definitely thought a lot about this and had conversations. And everything you say is great. So let's take the TV show, as far as idols, take the TV show about Jesus, what's that show called? The Chosen. The Chosen. Is that wrong? Are we trying to be wiser than God because we're showing an image of Jesus? And I have friends who say yes, and I have friends who, you know, so I just wondered. Yes, I'm a Presbyterian, and historically that is what the church has believed. And let me tell you why, right? It's clearly the, don't make any images of God, right? So here's the situation. Jesus isn't merely a man. When he walked the earth, he is the God-man. And if you understand orthodoxy, there's no separation, division, confusion, or change in the two natures of Jesus. So when we talk about Jesus, we're talking about Jesus the man and Jesus God, the God-man. If I make an image of him, I've made an image of God. And that's a sin. It's just, it really is that simple. And there's a host of other directions you could go in. First off, think about what Jesus told the woman in John 4, 24, you know. God desires worshipers who will worship in spirit and in truth. God is a spirit and he desires worshipers who worship in spirit and in truth, right? In truth, nobody knows what Jesus looks like. It is clearly, it is clearly an inaccurate presentation of who Jesus is. It's not a true representation. Not that that would even make it right, but at its core, it's a lie. And I think this is one of those things where Satan uses something, again, it's sort of like Nahushtan, right? That was something that was very good and very positive in Israel's history. They decided we're gonna use it for worship. Well, Jesus is the perfect God-man, we make images, that's what we're doing, the same sort of thing. The thing with a cross is, Now if you're talking about a crucifix with Jesus on it, that's a different animal. A cross is just a symbol. So as long as you're not worshiping the cross, it's a symbol, I don't have a problem with it. But it's not the same thing. I mean, Chosen is a show about Jesus. And incidentally, not to be Too much of a negative now. The show is put on by Mormons and people whose understanding of the gospel is minimal at best. In fact, just like two weeks ago, I saw an interview with two of the creators of the show, and this is what they said. You know why people love Chosen? Because they come to see that Jesus is a flawed person, just like they are. Here's the problem. If Jesus is a flawed person, he can't be my savior. They just obliterated the doctrine of the atonement. Pardon me? I don't know what they mean by that. I don't know. Yeah, well, I do. Yeah, again, I, yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I, yeah. I have a big problem with it because we should not be wiser than God. When the person talks about, you'll be ready today, I just cannot even see Oh, oh, oh, yeah, they're worshiping idols that cannot talk yeah, yeah Well, if you look at what he goes through in Exodus 34, basically he walks through all the created elements that you find in the Genesis account. People, animals, creepy crawling things, birds of the sky, and all the host of heaven. He goes through all those things and he says, don't make images of them. For worship. Because again, then you're gonna put it in that place of being something of an intermediary between man God. This is really helpful. Psalm 115. I'm going to begin reading verse 2. Why should the nation say where is their God? Our God is in the heavens. He does as he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths and but they do not speak. Eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear. Noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel. Feet, but they do not walk. And they do not make sound in their throat. In other words, they can't talk. Now listen to verse eight. This is important. Those who make them become like them. So do all who trust in them. See, we become like what we worship. If we worship dumb idols, we become, we follow. That's why we can only worship the living God the way he tells us to through his living words. Anything else? Just to follow up with that too. You mentioned before, there's nothing wrong with art, birds, things like that. In fact, even the tabernacle had angels or whatever it was embroidered on the pomegranates, things like that. The difference is worship. That's what we're talking about, or something that represents God. And one of the differences in terms of the tabernacle is God said, put them there. Moses didn't say, man, I got an idea. You know, that was the Lord. And again, I believe it is in Exodus 34 that we're told Moses got that pattern from heaven. Yeah. Well, and it was, yeah, yeah. Well, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your word. We pray that you help us to be men and women of God who love your truth. We're quick to look at those idols in our own lives that might corrupt our relationship with you, and that we would seek to mortify them in the power of the Spirit. Bless us as we go from here this evening. Help us to be men and women who cling to the Lord Jesus, who trust in Him, who seek to walk faithfully with Him. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.