We continue in our walk through the Psalms, though actually we were in Psalm 103, so we take a step back in numerical order to Psalm 97. And then the next two weeks, Pastor Ryan is going to be finishing up our series on the Psalms in book five, Psalms 107 through 150, which is quite a big section, so I'm not sure how he's gonna do it. You could spend a whole year in Psalm 119 alone. Maybe you could try Psalm 119 in one sermon. Would you guys be down for that? It could be like part 17 or whatever of Psalm 119. So we're in Psalm 97. And Psalm 97, just like I mentioned last week in Psalm 103, reveals one of the main themes of the Book 4 of the Psalms, and one that appears throughout the Psalms, but especially in Book 4, God's sovereignty. The greatness of God. And Psalm, or book four, Psalms 90 through Psalm 106, really are corporate group songs of praise, primarily. There's a lot of we, us, a lot of songs of, words of praise, honor to the Lord. And you'll notice in Psalm 97 as we look today, compared to Psalm 103, that there's actually going to be a lot of thematic crossover. And that's what happens when you preach through the Psalms. You get a lot of thematic crossover because they are repetitious. They're repeating a lot of the same ideas, a lot of the same commands, a lot of the same themes. Just like our worship, if you looked at it every week throughout years and years worth of time, you would find a lot of the same ideas coming out. You would see a lot of the same words, a lot of the same songs, a lot of the same ideas, because when we worship God, we are not seeking novelty, as I mentioned last week, but we are seeking to remember that which we have already known, and then that respond in kind to the Lord. So Psalm 97, let's go ahead and read through it, and we'll jump right in, Psalm 97. A song of praise to the sovereign Lord. That's the title in my translation. The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad. Clouds and darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. A fire goes before him and burns up his enemies round about. His lightnings light the world. The earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the people see his glory. Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols. Worship him, all you gods. Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments, O Lord. For you, Lord, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods. You who love the Lord hate evil. He preserves the soul of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright of heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. Psalm 97. And today we are going to see that we must glory in God as the most high God. Today we will see that you must recognize God for who he truly is. Among a world that presents many false versions or seeks to diminish the glory of God, when we consider and meditate on who God truly is, God's true nature, his true glory and exaltation becomes apparent and clear to us. So we must make sure that we, in our own thinking, in our own hearts, in our own minds, recognize God for who he truly is. We must also today, as we'll see, we must honor God as sovereign king. We must honor him as the most high God. Worship him appropriately. And last, we must love him as our Savior, as God, our great Savior. Father, I pray that you would help us today as we seek to hear once again the truths of who you are, which I think to most here are not new. And so we may be tempted to think that we know this already, that we might feel apathetic or even bored with the truths of who you are, Lord. And we may be here today wondering what new thing I can learn. And Lord, there may be new things, maybe new ways of speaking about you that we have not considered before, new applications for our hearts. But Lord, you are the same. And for those of us who have read your scripture, who have been in church, who have heard much of you, Lord, it is not so much the novelty or the newness that we need, but it is simply a reminder. And so, Lord, we need you to draw our hearts to be in awe of you, to worship you, to honor you based on what is already true and what has been true for eternity and what we have already known to be true. So, Lord, I pray that you would help us to align our thinking of you with the reality of who you are, that we would honor you truly, that we would submit to you and worship you and put you in your proper place in our own hearts and minds, and that we would love you as our great Savior. I pray today that you would help us to align our hearts in worship with your Spirit, by your Spirit, with your heart. In the name of Jesus, your Son. I pray all these things in the name of Christ. Amen. In Psalm 97, again he opens with this great exclamation, the Lord reigns, which again is a common theme throughout the Book of Psalms, but especially in Book 4. And then he continues in verses 1 through 6, he has one section. 7 through 9 is section number 2, and 10 through 12 is section number 3. So if you look in your scripture, you will see that there's kind of this breakdown, verses 1 through 6, 7 through 9, and 10 through 12. And in fact, in my scripture translation, it has those paragraphs kind of broken out, though the versification and the exact formatting is not inspired. But that is accurate, I think, reflective of the psalm structure. And in Psalm, or in verses one through six, the psalmist praises God for his holy majesty and sovereign rule. He does this by calling their attention to something that's happened in the past. You noticed in last week's message, he remembered another instance in the past, and if you read in the scripture and the Psalms, there's a very common theme that they go back to a specific time or a series of historical events in the Old Testament all the time. It's common. And so when you look here at this psalm, look at verses 2, 3, 4, and 5, notice what he talks about. He says, the clouds and darkness surround him, fire goes before him, his lightnings light the world, the earth sees and trembles. At the presence of the Lord, when God appears, the mountains melt like wax. At the presence of the Lord, if the Lord were to appear, the whole earth would be destroyed if he appeared in all his glory. Now is there a time in the Old Testament that you can think of that might be, he might be drawing illusions from here? It's a very important time when God appeared to his people on top of a mountain when there was lightning and clouds and darkness and thunder and a whirlwind and fire on Mount Sinai. Okay, on Mount Sinai. And you remember last week, the psalmist went back and remembered the Exodus in that time, because those periods, those events are foundational, informative to their understanding of who God was, because that was what, when God had appeared to them, established them as a nation and set them on this path of being his people going forward. Brought them out of Egypt, brought them to Mount Sinai and made a covenant with them and said, you will be my people and I will be your God. You do this, I do this, there's a covenant made. And that's what the psalmist here is doing. He's using these allusions to Mount Sinai in the Old Testament, Exodus 19, to speak of the presence and the appearing of God and who God is. Listen to Exodus 19, verses 17. So they've come out of Egypt, they've wandered through the wilderness for a couple months, and they come to Mount Sinai. In verse 17 of Exodus 19, Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain shaped greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up." It's interesting, if you study—this is a little bit of a side—if you study mountains in the Bible, you will see there's a lot of instances where God does incredible, important historical things on mountains. Mount Sinai, okay, you can go forward. Where is Jerusalem? Settled. on a hill, on a mountain, known as Mount Zion eventually. When Jesus appears and does his ministry, think of all the things that are happening on top of the mountains, where is the great transfiguration happen when Jesus appears in all his glory and speaks with Moses and Elijah with the three disciples? Mount, the Mount of Olives, okay? There's all these things that are happening and if you read in Revelation, when Jesus returns, where does he return and where does his foot touch down Mount of Olives. Okay, there's all these mountain ideas. And so he's bringing in his illusions from the Old Testament saying, this is who God is. This is who God is. And so first, we like the psalmist need to recognize God as the glorious King. Recognize God for who he truly is. And I think this is one of the most important things for us as Christians today and all humanity, but especially us in our culture today, in our Western Christianity, is to think to ourselves and ask ourselves, who do we believe God is? What do we believe about God? And is that idea, that picture, formed more by God's own revelation in the Scripture, or is it formed by our own ideas, or the ideas of the culture around us? And I doubt any of you is sitting here thinking, oh yeah, I don't know who God is. Or, you know, I doubt any of you are sitting here thinking, I just believe whatever I'm told about God by the culture around me. No, but that's the difficulty, is we don't always recognize when our thinking about God is out of line with what God has said. So how do we align it? by considering how God reveals himself in scripture and saying, does this fit my understanding of who God is? And there's two specific things from this section, verses one through six, that I want to point out. And they kind of interlap, and there's other things we could talk about. But as we see here, I want to think about two things specifically. First, you'll notice, glorious king. So let's talk about the king first. God is sovereign. Notice he says at the beginning, the Lord reigns. The Lord reigns. God is sovereign. The sovereignty of God. And just for a simple definition, this is not by far the, it's not an inspired definition, but this is a good definition. God's sovereignty refers to his absolute and unrivaled rule over all his creatures and their circumstances. And again, as pastor mentioned in the Sunday school hour, I'm not gonna get into the whole debate and question of exactly how this fits with free will and sovereignty, but this is biblically what the Bible teaches about God. God has absolute and unrivaled rule as king over all his creatures in circumstances. He has the absolute power and absolute right to do as he pleases with his own creation. He is called King of Kings and Lord of Lords. There is a right and a power to do with what? With the creation, what he wants. This sovereignty includes things like nature. In Psalm 135, it says this, whatever the Lord pleases, he does. In heaven, in earth, in the seas, in all the deep places, he caused the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain. He brings out the wind out of his treasuries. There's a control and rule over nature, which, by the way, is why it's such a big deal when Jesus is with his disciples on the boat, and there's the winds and the waves, and Jesus says, peace, be still. And what do they say? They look at Jesus and say, who is this? I can do that. This is God's sovereignty. It also includes human history. Proverbs 21 says, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord like the rivers of the water. He turns it whichever way he wishes. It may seem to us like the history of the world and the acts of kings and great people and powers are out of control, but God is sovereign even over those things. Even over seeming chance events, Proverbs 16, 33 says, the lot is cast into the lap. That's like dice. I mean, you can think of it like dice. He says, dice, the lot is cast, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Even the simple things that we think of are just chance encounters. God is sovereign over these things. In other instances of the Bible, you can think of all the things that God is sovereign over. Think of the stories of Esther. Esther is this Jewish girl who lives in Babylon, who is just seemingly by chance chosen to come be a part of this presentation before the king, and she just happens to be chosen to be part of the king's, the harem of wives, and just so happens that this happens exactly when God's people need someone there to be their advocate before the pagan king. You're like, oh, that's totally by accident. Or Jonah. Think of the story of Jonah. God says, Jonah, go preach to Nineveh. And Jonah says, nope, I'm going the other way. Did God just say, oh, sorry, I guess Jonah just, he's gonna do what he's gonna do. God says no, so he sends a storm. He sends a fish. He gets Jonah going where God wanted him to go. And throughout that book, we see God acting and acting and acting. God is in control. God is even so sovereign even over evil choices. And this is, again, a little bit of a difficult concept for us. Because do people choose to do evil things? Yes. Are they wrong? Yes. And are they held accountable for the evil things they do? Yes. But is God still sovereign even over those outcomes? Yes. Genesis 50, 20, the famous verse after Joseph has been sold into slavery by his brothers, but Joseph then is in a perfect time to save his people because of that. And Joseph says, but as for you, you meant it for evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about to this day to save many people alive. Romans 8, 28 in the New Testament. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. So God is sovereign. He's the king. And what does this mean for us? Well, God's sovereign rule demands joyful submission. He is the rightful king. No one can look at God and say, I don't owe you obedience. There are times in our lives where we look at human governments, according to scripture, and we say, what you're telling me to do is wrong. I will not obey. I have the right to disobey. Or if a foreign government tried to come in and enact laws upon us, and we'd say, you're not my government. I am not under your authority. There is no one who can rightfully say to God, I am not under your authority. And to those who fear him, to those who love God and fear God, it is a comfort. Say, is God in control of the things going on in my life, the circumstances of life? Yes. And we know even in evil, he is working all things together for good. But to those who rebel against God, this truth is an offense. If you go to the average person and say, you owe God obedience and submission and loyalty, and he will hold you to account for your disobedience, that's offensive. And they will try to claim, no, I am not under God's authority, I don't believe in him. You say, it doesn't matter. They say, I don't recognize God. You say, doesn't matter. And it's actually a fearful truth. Here's the ironic thing. To those who choose to fear God, to honor God, to respect him, it's a comfort, but to those who rebel against God, God is fearful. He causes them to be afraid of accountability and consequence. What God says is truth. He determines what is right and wrong, and we are to submit to him. So for us today, is God the sovereign king to us, to you, in our minds? Is our life, is your life, part of God's plan? Do you seek to follow God's will, God's purpose, obeying God's commands? Or do you act as if God is there to fulfill our plans? And this is the danger, even in a Christian setting. We can act, we can say the right things, we can say God is king and then we act and believe that God is there to help us. He's there to fulfill my desires. He's there to help me along my path. Do we honor God as the sovereign king or do we see God as a means for myself to be actualized? You know, I'm here with my needs and my desires and my plans and I know what I need and God is here to give those to me. Often that's revealed when those things do not come to pass, and who are we angry at? God. Say, God, you have not done what I wanted or have not given me what I hoped for. We reveal in those moments that we were not serving our king, but that we were expecting him to serve us. Ultimately, who do we recognize as king? as sovereign. So first we see that God is sovereign. We need to recognize God as the glorious king, as the king. And secondly, this glory, this glorious nature is his holiness. Holiness is kind of a summarization of many different concepts about God, characteristics of God. But what is holiness? Another definition, the holiness of God speaks to God's existence as completely separate from his creation at the time, and at the same time, to his pure and utterly incorruptible nature. We think of holiness often primarily as purity, which it is, but purity is actually a result of what holiness truly is. Holiness is about separation, being set apart, being distinct. And in that way, God's holiness is unlike anyone else's holiness. Because who is God? He is the creator. God is holy in that he is utterly distinct from his creation and exercises sovereign majesty and power over it. We're thinking about the nature of the universe around us. I do this in theology classes I've done before. You draw a big circle, and in that circle is everything that's ever been created. Angels, spiritual beings, physical beings, the earth, the whole universe, that's everything, that's creation. And where is God in that circle, in relation to that circle? He's outside the circle. There is God and there is everything not God. And before creation, before anything else existed, what did exist? Only God. That's what we mean when we say He is holy. He is distinct, separate, unique. In the Old Testament, God's holiness denotes that the Lord is separate from all that is evil and defiled. His holy character is the standard of absolute moral perfection. And because God is separate from all corruption, all sinful creations, the sin-cursed world, he is also separate from evil, separate from corruption. And so those definitions I was just reading are from another Baker encyclopedia of the Bible. I didn't write them. But God is holy as he is completely separate. He's that set apart, distinct from everyone and everyone else. There is no one like him. This is what's called the transcendence of God. God is above and beyond anything else that we could imagine. He is infinitely greater than us or anyone else. He is creator and everything else is creation. And that creation can in no way contain him. This glory and holiness are seen even in the very creation. Notice here in our verses, clouds and darkness surround him. It's speaking of his majesty, his holy glory. Righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne. God's rule is based on righteousness and justice, and whose righteousness and justice is that? Someone else's standard? God. What is justice? That which God says. What is righteousness? That which God is. There's a danger for anyone, which is our natural instinct, to look at how God is or what he does and to say, does that meet my standard of righteousness or justice? And the real question is, no, you don't ask God whether he meets your standard of righteousness and justice. Does your standard of righteousness meet God's standard of righteousness? And that is because of his holiness. As we see here, continue on in verse three, a fire goes before him and burns up his enemies round about. He is so holy that there's this theme throughout scripture. God is not this, you know, nice, gentle, you know, grandfatherly type. He is fatherly. Okay, well, we understand that. But God is a burning fire. And anything that approaches him and is exposed to his holiness that is not also holy is destroyed. The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. Because if God truly were to appear, everything that is not God would truly be destroyed. It is only by the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because He is gracious. And look at verse 6. The heavens declare His righteousness and all the people see His glory. If we're reading the Psalms and you see those phrases, I immediately think of Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows His handiwork. Day to day utters speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. God's very creation demonstrates His holiness, His glory, and His power. And isn't that what Paul says in Romans 1? For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and His Godhead, so that they are without excuse. What does this mean for us? Our world rejects a holy God. Our world wants, if they want God at all, they want a God who is weak, who is impotent, who serves them and does not hold them accountable. They want a God who affirms us, who says, yeah, you're doing a good job. And God says, no, my standard is infinite. My holiness is transcendent. Anyone who comes near me who is not holy also will be destroyed. So do we recognize God's majestic holiness? Is God holy? Is he powerful? Is he mighty to you? What's your conception of God? Could you write this? You know, sometimes I think about this. If I took my understanding of God, would I come and say this, not the exact words, but would I say this? And if you look around Western Christianity, there are certain aspects of God that are greatly emphasized. Love, mercy, forgiveness, and those are true. But could we also equally say these things? Or do we feel uncomfortable with the idea of God as holy, as demanding, as a burning fire? And if we are missing out on those aspects of God, then the God that we are worshiping is malformed. It's not accurate to who God is. So who determines right and wrong? The consensus is that our evolved societal understanding. Well, you know, back then they thought this about their God and about the way God acted and what God thought, but today we've evolved, so we need to update our understanding of what God says, about God's standards, about what's true. That sounds, you're like, oh yeah, we wouldn't do that, but there's a lot of that that sneaks into Christianity. The assumption that like, well, we need to kind of update things so that it meets our current standard. Is it our own feelings in our own conscience even? Well, this feels right to me. You may hear that a lot in our society. Does God bow to our beliefs and our feelings about him? Anytime I hear somebody say something like, that doesn't sound like a good God to me. Okay. We can debate whether that interpretation of the Bible is correct. We can debate about whether we are understanding the Bible correctly. But if that is who God says and what God says about himself, then we are in no place to say, well, if that's who God is, I don't like that version of God. We are standing up against him. Does God in your mind take sin lightly? Does he simply overlook it? Does God kind of hand wave it away? Oh, sin, yeah, it's not that big a deal. He doesn't care. Or does the wrath of a holy God consume and destroy evil? And again, God is not angry in a human sense. He's not angry, stirred up, mad because something happened and he's just got this explosion of anger. That's not God's wrath. God's wrath, though, is his holiness, his holy nature acting against sin and evil. You know, we as human beings, we get angry and it's out of control. Something happens and we just get these emotions stir up when we say things that we don't really want to say and we act in ways that we feel embarrassed about later. That's not the same kind of wrath that God has. God is not like that. But God's wrath is his holy nature, this holiness directed at evil. And for God to simply forget about the evil is to deny his very holiness. And this is why The cross and Jesus is so important because we can emphasize mercy and forgiveness and love, but we cannot do so at the expense of holiness. We do so because of the holiness of God. We do not downplay sin by understanding God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness is emphasized by our understanding of the seriousness of God's holiness. God did not just pretend our sin did not exist. No, He punished it according to His perfect, infinite, transcendent, holy nature, but He did not punish us. He punished His own Son on the cross, and that's substitutionary atonement. Christ pays this penalty in our place. And to undermine his holiness and even his wrath is to actually downplay his forgiveness. Have you ever had that experience where you try to tell somebody, hey, ask God and he can forgive your sins. And they say, what sins? Like, they don't even know. They're not aware of their own sin. They don't care about the forgiveness and mercy of God. The mercy of God is emphasized by understanding God's serious holiness and the serious wrath of God against evil. And it's not our own. When you understand the holiness of God, there's no place for pride. You can't look at God and say, oh yeah, I earned this forgiveness. This is dumb. It's impossible. Only through Christ. So God's majestic holiness and sovereign rule demand humble submission and adoration, right? We're seeing that. Submit to God as king. Adore him and humble ourselves before him. God's nature demands worship. So we recognize God as glorious king, and then what is the very next thing? Honor God as the most high, because look at verse seven, give to the Lord, or sorry, that's Psalm 96. Verse seven, let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols, worship him, all you gods. Notice he changes right away. Makes perfect sense. From God's holy, glorious, sovereign nature and rule to what? Appropriate worship. And if we recognize God as transcendent, as the infinite, holy, majestic, glorious, sovereign king, How foolish is it to carve a piece of wood and say, yep, that's God. I'm gonna bow down to this God. And yet that's what the psalmist is saying. It's shameful, it's foolish, it's idiotic. I don't know if you have kids, but it's stupid in the literal sense. It's dumb to do this. And yet this is what all people do. We bow down and worship carved images. He then extols Zion, the daughters of Judah, for the correct worship of Yahweh, for He is the most high above all the earth. Only God, only Yahweh deserves worship as the most high, the one true God. Right? We talked about this earlier. God is creator, everything else is creation. To worship anyone or anything but God is to worship a false god. To not worship the true God. There is no appropriate worship that is not directed toward God, Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament, the God of the New Testament, revealed in His Son, Jesus Christ. And isn't that what God starts off with in the Ten Commandments? Think back to the Ten Commandments. What's the first one in Exodus 20? I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me. And the very next one, number two? You shall not make for yourself a carved image, 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, nor serve them. For I am the Lord your God. I am a jealous God. Visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands to those who love me and keep my commandments. Yes, God is jealous, appropriately. In a marriage, if you've made a covenant of marriage, that bond, a spouse has the right to be jealous. If a spouse is spending time and flirting with and acting romantic towards someone not in the marriage, you know what the other spouse should feel? Jealousy. You, I deserve your loyalty because you've made a promise. God is the only true God, and so when we worship anyone but God, God rightfully is jealous and says, no, I deserve your worship. And this is the natural act of mankind, to worship the creature, the creation, instead of his creator. This false worship is not due to lack of knowledge, but instead to rebellion of the heart. Idolatry is when we put anything apart from God in the place of God. Whenever we honor something other than God, we commit idolatry. R.C. Sproul once said, when we call things holy that are not holy, we commit the sin of idolatry. This is the grievous air of idolatry, giving to common things the respect, awe, and worship and adoration that belong only to God. To worship the creature instead of the creator is the essence of idolatry. As we read in Romans 1, that was verse 20. Verse 21, because although they knew God, they have seen the glory of God in the heavens, in creation. Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things." Paul will go on to talk about sins like homosexuality and unnatural sexual practices. And it's just what Psalm 97 here is talking about. The more you lean into idolatry, The more corrupt you become, the more fallen you are in that sense, and the more shame that is brought because you are further and further from God's natural course and the natural, the right path, which is to worship God. And this is, like Paul says here, it's not because they don't know. People know God exists. Why do atheists care so much to just try to disprove it? Because we know it exists. We know God exists. It is not due to lack of knowledge that we rebel, it's because of the rebellion of our own heart. that we worship God. We worship not God, we worship the creature. The most basic and pervasive sin in humanity is false worship. To worship anything other than God, the most high God, Yahweh, the creator of heaven and earth, idolatry. And what is worship? We saw this last week. The humble adoration of one's heart to bow down in submission to or something. So, how do we know what we worship? Well, who has the highest place of authority? Who determines right and wrong? Who sets morality? Who demands loyalty above all else? To whom does one look to for provision and care? As one commentator said, the Bible uses three basic metaphors to describe how people relate to the idols of the heart. They love idols, they trust idols, and they obey idols. Love, trust, and obey. The problem today in our world, in our culture, in even Christianity itself, the problem is not an absence of worship. We might look at our society and say, oh, it's very secular. We don't have enough worship. No, no, that's not the problem. It's not that worship is nonexistent, but rather a proliferation of false worship. And there are still idols today. You know, you can think of idolatry in the Old Testament. You can think of things like physical carved images, right? That's kind of what the psalmist is talking about here. Carving an image and bowing down to it and treating it like God. And we kind of look at that and say, so foolish. And even the scholars and the educated people of today look at, you know, countries and peoples of the past who did this and they say, oh, how foolish. How foolish, this is so dumb. And yeah, it is kind of foolish. It's very foolish. It's a very crass form of idolatry. It's a very obviously dumb form of idolatry. You're going to believe that the rock and the tree is God? Like, that's dumb. Even Americans can look at that. Non-Christians say that's kind of dumb. And yeah, that's pretty obvious. But there's also more complex versions of idolatry. Things like demonic paganism. where the spirits exist in the spiritual realm. And you're not saying that a physical thing is God, but that you're worshiping or being involved in the spiritual world. And you know what? That was kind of a lot of times absent from our Western American culture, but have you noticed it's coming back? Go to a Barnes and Noble. Go to the young adult section. What do you see? Literal books on spells, witchcraft, Ouija boards, all that kind of stuff. And we, being Western intelligent Americans and Christians, might look at that and say, oh, that's so silly. All that stuff is foolish. It's foolish, but not because that stuff does not exist. There really are demonic forces in the world. When God says he's the most high, it's not because he's the only spiritual being that exists. It's because he is the one true God, the creator, and he is the one true spiritual being worthy of worship. But spiritual beings exist. And as we see our culture fall back into paganism, that stuff will become more and more and more prevalent. And we will see it. And we need to recognize that that is idolatry. In 1 Corinthians 10, verse 20, we looked at this back when we were in 1 Corinthians, Paul says, rather that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to the demons and not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. We must understand and believe that there is idolatry, that is demonic in nature, that is existing all around us and we must be ready for that spiritual war. And so that's another level that's kind of a bit more complex that you may see in our culture now that's existing more and more and more. But there's even more complex version and educated and enlightened versions of idolatry like ideological idolatry. We don't serve the gods of nature and the rocks and the trees, and we don't believe in the spiritual, but we will do service and give loyalty to and obey and submit ourselves to ungodly ideas and philosophies. Just like our society evolves, so does Satan's temptations evolve. Things like materialism. We need more stuff. You say, how is that idolatry? Okay, there's no idol. We're not praying to demons. It's an ideology that captures the hearts and minds of people. What do they love? More stuff. What do they trust for confidence, for assurance, for providence, and for taking care of them? The stuff you can get. What do they obey? The need to get more things. They obey the ads. Things like hedonism, the desire for pleasure, or even stoicism. This might become more common in our culture that is so, so overtaken by materialism and hedonism, this idea of a stoic approach. The answer to life is to be minimalistic, is to be controlled of yourself, to work out and to exercise discipline and control over yourself. that's not gonna lead you anywhere more than hedonism without God. Because you control yourself, especially to men, I think, right now, it's very popular. Grind and grind and grind and work and work and work and control yourself and discipline yourself, become the best version of yourself, and at the end of your life, what does that mean? Nothing. It'll lead you to emptiness. Yet all of these are forms of the oldest and most basic idolatry. which is what? It's self-worship, self-idolatry. Just like in Genesis, when Satan appears to Adam and Eve in the garden and he says, is it true that you can't even touch that fruit? She says, no, no. Or she says, is it true that God told you you can't eat the fruit? And Eve says, no, no, we can't even touch it. And Satan says, God has said, you shall not eat it nor touch it lest you die. Then the serpent said to the woman, you shall not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. All forms of idolatry are a tool to exalt ourselves to the place of God. whether that's worshiping the carved tree, which is gonna give us blessing and power and ability, whether it's being involved with the spiritual world. You'll see this in our world today through drugs and other meditation and other things, which is about becoming the best you, opening up your mind to the consciousness of the world, or it's through the ideologies of our world, giving you pleasure or what you think you need. It is that we can be like God. as the famous theologian John Calvin once wrote, man's nature, so to speak, is a perpetual factory of idols. We all naturally seek to make idols because the greatest idol is ultimately ourselves. So what does this mean? We must remain pure in our worship to God, love God, trust God, obey God. So how is your heart today? How is each one of our hearts? Even we can fall into idolatry, even as Christians. Now, God will not allow us to stay there by His grace, but we can fall into that sin. Who are we worshiping today? You know, we must warn you against the gross idolatry of carved images, but I doubt any of you has an idol at home that you're like, keep it in my closet. When I'm struggling, I go and pray down to my idol. I doubt any of that's happening. And we really should be careful of this demonic paganism. That might be a temptation for some of you, or you may experience that in the world around you. But even that, I doubt, is really common for most of you. In our world today, in our Christian world, in our church, I think this ideological idolatry is probably the second biggest threat, and the biggest threat is ultimately just self-idolatry. The worship of self. Christianity is not about you and how God can serve you. It is about worshiping God for who he truly is and worshiping him as he deserves as the holy and sovereign king. So has your heart been captured by the world? When you are struggling, when you feel like your life is missing out on something, when you're missing something in life, what do you go to for that release, for that help? Is it God? Or is it something else? Is your worship turned inwards towards yourself? Thinking about, I come to worship because the way it makes me feel, or the way that it helps me, rather than I worship because it's the right thing to do that God deserves. And when we worship rightly, it does help us. But that's a product of aligning ourselves with God and worshiping Him truly. So recognize God for who He truly is, as sovereign, holy King. That leads us to our final point. Love God as the gracious Savior. If you recognize who God is, and you worship God for who He truly is, and you avoid idolatry, what's the result? Verse 10, you who love the Lord hate evil. True worship of God is loyal, it's singular, it's exclusive, and our world hates exclusivity. At least Christian exclusivity. Demands exclusivity to a lot of things. Loyalty to a lot of things. But if you are loyal and exclusive of your worship to God, that is not tolerated. But to worship God is to love God, and to love the holy God is to hate evil. We cannot be holy as God is holy, but what is, we can be pure after God by Christ. Be holy for I am holy. God is the one who preserves his saints. Look, he preserves the soul of his saints. What is saints? Who are the saints? The holy ones. the ones who are set apart for service and worship of God. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. How do we love and worship God today? Do you hate evil? And it's very easy to hate the evil outside of us, and we should. We should hate the evil things of our world, the ideologies, the demonic paganism, and if we experienced it, The carved images. You know, it's a lot easier to physically destroy a carved image than it is to destroy the idols of our own hearts. To break them down and destroy them. But do we hate the evil that creeps into our own soul more than what we see around us, outside of us? Because we love God. Because we love God who is holy. And ultimately, how do we love and worship God today? What does this mean for us? we must recognize that to love and worship God is to recognize him as Savior, and how does he save us? Through Jesus Christ, his son. Notice he says, light is sown for the righteous. I can't help but think of John chapter one. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that was made. In him Christ was life, and the life was the light of men. The light of God where his children is seen in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the light of God, the Savior. Light is sown for the righteous, and who is that light? It's Christ. Jesus is the one who deserves worship. You know that one of the verses in Psalm 97 is quoted in the New Testament? Probably not one that you expected. Psalm 97, verse 7. Let all be put to shame who serve carved images. It's not that part. Who boast of idols. Not that part. Worship Him, all you gods. And you say, what's the deal with this, all you gods? Well, the word here is Elohim, which is for God, but you'll notice here in your translation, it's small g, that's appropriate. Elohim can refer to God, but it also can refer to spiritual beings. The false gods, the spiritual world around us, angels, demons, those spiritual powers of which we are not truly able to observe, but are present. That verse, that phrase is quoted in the New Testament. It's in Hebrews chapter one. And if you turn to Hebrews chapter one. I know, we're like turning the Bible, whoa. Hebrews chapter one, or you can scroll there in your phone. You're probably faster that way. Hebrews chapter one. Well, let's look at, beginning here he says, God who at various times in various ways, spoken times past to the fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by his son. whom he has appointed heir of all things, through whom he also made the worlds." By the way, we notice that creature-creation, creator-creation distinction. Where is Jesus on that? Creator, ironically, also creation. But Jesus is God. He is outside of creation. He is the creator. "...who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his persons, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels. He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. Look here at verse five. For to which of the angels did he ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten thee? That's from the Psalms. And again, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. That's also from the Psalms. Look at verse six. But when he brings the firstborn into the world, he says, let all the angels of God worship him. You know what he's quoting? Psalm 97 verse seven. Oh, sorry, yes. Psalm 97 verse seven is this, let all the angels of God worship him. It sounds a little different here, and I don't wanna get fully into this, but it sounds a little different because the New Testament author is quoting a Greek translation of the Old Testament. And in the Old Testament, we see, worship him, all you gods. The Greek translation of that verse was translated into angels, because that's what he's referring to. Translate Elohim into angels. And so Hebrews 1, the author of Hebrews takes that verse from Psalm 97, worship God, all you spiritual beings, all you Elohim, all you angels, and says, who is he speaking of? Who are we to worship? Jesus, the Son. Jesus is also the Holy One and the Sovereign King. When Jesus appears and casts out demons, what do they say to Him? When He appears to Legion, Legion says, I know who you are, the Holy One of God. And He is the Sovereign King. Daniel 7. Verses 13 and 14, I was watching in the night visions and behold one like the son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him. Then to him who is, this is Jesus prophetically, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people's nations and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away. In his kingdom, the one which shall not be destroyed. And you go all the way to the end of Revelation chapter 19, Now I saw heaven open and behold a white horse and he who sat on him was called faithful and true and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire. Notice the flame. And on his head were many crowns. He had a name written which no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood and his name is called So when we think about Jesus, Who is Jesus? He is Yahweh. He is this God. He is the Holy Sovereign King. He is the one who we worship. He is the one who saves us. As 1 John 2 says, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father either, and he who acknowledges the Son has the Father also. To worship God without worshiping through Christ is to not worship God. There is no one who worships God without worshiping Christ now that he has been revealed. At the end of the same book in 1 John 5, he says, we know that we are of God and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. Satan is out there. So be cautious. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding that we may know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true. In His Son, Jesus Christ, this is the true God and eternal life." And how does he end the last verse of the book? Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Recognize God for who He truly is. Honor God as the Most High, and love God as the Gracious Savior, and ultimately we see that in Christ. Recognize God in Christ Jesus as the Glorious King. Honor God in Christ Jesus as the Most High God, and love God in Christ Jesus as our Gracious Savior. So again, the question I started with, do we think of God as he presents himself? And we may struggle with that. Because even for us as Christians who believe, who have faith, sometimes God does things that challenge us. We say, that's tough. This is a tough thing to accept. But if we know who God is and we know that he is loving and merciful and gracious as well as holy and righteous, we trust in him. Ultimately because of Christ. Jesus is the same holy, wrathful, Righteous King, but He's also the gracious Savior who delivers His people through His own sacrifice on the cross. And that's who we worship. That's how we honor and praise and glorify our great God.