Greetings, church, and greetings to all of you who are watching via YouTube. Again, let's just open with a word of prayer. Father, again, I thank you for your grace. I thank you that, again, we are still able to meet freely, and we're grateful for that. Lord, this is the time when we open up your book, when we pray for the presence of your Holy Spirit, Guide us, direct us, and give us the ability to ferret out of your word those things that you have for us and to, again, make it of permanent value, we pray. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, we've been working our way through 1 Samuel. And last time out, we looked at the travails of the Ark of the Covenant of God. And if you remember, it gets captured in a war with the Philistines, and then it winds up bringing death and disease to every town that it arrives in, and it winds up being shipped back to Israel by the Philistines on a cart led by two cows who had just given birth to calves. And after it arrives in Beth Shemesh, Israel, God strikes a number of Jews dead for looking into the Ark. And so now both the Jews and the Philistines, they're terrified of this Ark as it's being brought to its semi-final resting place in the house of Abinadab under the care of Eleazar, his son. And there it sits. for 20 years until David decides he's gonna move it back to Jerusalem. And there we learn of yet another tragic event that includes the death of Uzzah as he tries to steady the ark as the oxen slip on his journey to Jerusalem. Well, our text this morning opens up chapter seven and it takes us back to the time where the ark is still in Abinadab's house. This is before David attempted to move it to Jerusalem. Now, I've mentioned before how the history of Israel oftentimes mirrors our own personal history, and that we personally go from times where we're drawn very close to God, and then incrementally we start to drift until things get bad enough to require God's intervention. Well, this is precisely where Israel found itself when the ark was placed in Abinadab's house. You see the battle with the Philistines was still ongoing in spite of the fact that they had returned the Ark and Israel was fully into the latter stages of its incremental drift away from God. And it's all summed up in the opening statement of chapter 7 of 1st Samuel which says, Then the men of Kirjath-Jerim came and took the Ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eleazar his son to keep the Ark of the Lord. So it was that the ark remained in Kirjath-Jerim for a long time. It was there 20 years. And all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Now Israel lamented, not so much because they had drifted far from God, but because the Philistines were knocking at their door. And once again, we find this pattern repeating itself. I mean, the Jews lamented after the Lord they had forgotten, not because things were going well, Not because they were well-fed and safe, but because their lives were endangered. I mean, God had warned the Jews way back in Deuteronomy that once they had lives that were stable and secure, they had a tendency just to forget all about their God, and that's precisely what they did. And once again, they did it incrementally. They did it in small steps, in steps so small they weren't obvious to notice that they swung backwards and began embracing the gods of the Philistines. And when they did so, God began withholding his blessing. And their lives once again became insecure and unstable. And so it was because of that that they found themselves once again reaching out to God. We pick up at first Samuel at verse 3 of chapter 7. It says, Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you return to the Lord with all your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the asterisks from among you and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve him only. He will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. What Samuel is offering Israel is what we call the gift of repentance. Now, I say repentance is a gift because it's something more than simply stirring up some feelings from within you. It is actually something that God grants as a gift of his mercy. Paul's letter to 2 Timothy included this statement. It says, And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility correcting those who are in opposition if God perhaps will grant them repentance so they may know the truth and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil having been taken captive by him to do his will. In Acts chapter 11, Peter's explaining to his fellow Jews how the gospel was going to go to the Gentiles, and this is what he says. This is what it says. It says, When they heard these things, they became silent, and they glorified God, saying, Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. And so we ask, just what is this gift? What is the gift of repentance? Well, Burke Parsons writing in Ligonier's Table Talk said this, he said, First and foremost, repentance is a gift. It is an act that the Holy Spirit works in us, resulting in an act that flows out of us. Although it is our act, it does not originate from within us. In fact, in our naturally stubborn, rebellious hearts, the whole notion of repentance is foreign. Just as our righteousness is a foreign or alien righteousness from Christ, so is our repentance. It is granted to us by God himself. We would not even conceive of such a thing left to ourselves. Instead, we would come up with all sorts of excuses for our sin, and we would point our depraved fingers at everyone else around. But by his grace, God grants repentance to his adopted children whom he patiently disciplines, quote, Those whom I love I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent." Now, I've given this example before of just how repentance involves more than simply being sorry, and it involves a change of heart as well as a change of direction. Let's say you're sitting in a truck, and you're sitting in a truck with your co-worker, and you're having an argument about where you're headed. He claims you're headed into the city, you claim that you're headed out of the city, and you both insist that you're right, and then you see a sign that says New York City, 100 miles. So you continue your argument, you continue insisting that you're driving away from New York, and you come across another sign that says New York City, 50 miles. Then you realize you're wrong. And you realize you're going in the wrong direction. So the reasonable thing at that point is to simply say, I'm sorry. And although that's a good thing, that is absolutely not what repentance is. Repentance is not just feeling sorry or being willing to say you're sorry. It's something far more than just that. Repentance is a sorrow that commits itself to getting off the highway, turning the truck around, and start heading in a different direction. Anyone who is a believer in Jesus Christ, anyone who calls himself a Christian has undergone some form of repentance. And for some it may be subtle and for others it's not subtle at all. For others it's incredibly obvious. But all of us start out as enemies of God and through repentance we change our direction and we start moving toward his kingdom. Unfortunately, it's become very popular today to offer a gospel without repentance. Simply tell folks that Jesus loves you and you need to accept him as Lord and Savior and you are good to go. Well, let me just state this categorically. There is no salvation. There is no genuine Christian faith without repentance. And again, Jesus made that clear. According to Matthew's Gospel, the very first recorded word that Jesus ever spoke was a command to repent. In Matthew 4, 17, it says, And when Jesus was told about some Galileans who were slaughtered by Pilate, they were asking if these particular Galileans had sinned greatly to deserve such a terrible fate. This is what Jesus said. He said, do you suppose that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you, no. But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And then we have Peter addressing the crowd at Pentecost. And he's telling them that they were responsible for crucifying the Son of God. And now the Holy Spirit is coming down on this crowd and is convicting this enormous numbers in this crowd of a deep sorrow and guilt. And Peter says to them in Acts 2 36, Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ this Jesus whom you crucify. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? Well, now I want you to notice what Peter did not say in response. He didn't say, just accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you're good to go. He stated the one word that is at the heart of knowing Christ. Verse 38 says, And Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Well now, some may object at this point saying, okay, so now you're saying it's not just faith that saves you, it's this deal of faith plus repentance. And I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is that genuine faith will always, always contain repentance. As someone put it, they are two sides of the very same coin. I mean, we preach that faith is the gift of God, and Ephesians 2, 8, and 9 makes that clear. It says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one may boast. The point is, once you've received this gift that God gives you, this gift of faith, you, along with that gift, are going to sense the need to turn your life around. And again, that's all part and parcel of the spiritual heart transplant that Ezekiel describes as we quoted over and over again in Ezekiel 36. God says to believers who are about to repent, I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. And so you ask the question, how can you be given a brand new heart with a brand new spirit and not have a brand new desire to go in a brand new direction? You know, one of the reasons why the church today is so weak is because for years now it has preached a gospel that does not include repentance to people who have not repented. Folks who are simply willing to acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. And you know, not to put too fine a point on it, but James makes it clear that the devil also certainly acknowledges that Jesus is Lord. James pointed out that any genuine faith is also going to produce a lifestyle that demonstrates that faith. It's not just sorrow that you're going in the wrong direction. It's that determination to turn the truck around and start moving in the opposite direction. You know, James was castigating those who believed that faith could be something you just believe without having any works to demonstrate that belief. And he said in James 2, someone will say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works and I will show you my faith by my works. And then he says this, you believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. And this goes back to the problem. The problem was the Israelites, they were claiming an empty belief. They were in need of national repentance. They had done exactly what the nation had done repeatedly. They had slow walked their way away from God towards the idols that were surrounding them. And once again, it was only due to the threat that the Philistines represented that they began to lament their sin. Now, if you remember the events that led them to this place, you know, the Jews of Beth-shemesh had been executed by God for looking into the ark. The ark was then removed to the house of Abinadab under the care of Eliezer for 20 years. Again, let me just read it. It says, then the men of Kirjath-Jerim came and took the ark of the Lord and brought it into the house of Abinadab on the hill and consecrated Eliezer, his son, to keep the ark of the Lord. And so it was that the ark remained in Kirjath-Jerim a long time. It was there 20 years and all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord. Now understand the house of Israel is not lamenting for those who died. I mean that that happened some 20 years previously. Now the reason why Israel is lamenting after the Lord it goes back to the pattern we spoke of at the beginning. For 20 years now they have been slipping incrementally away from the Lord. And the reason why they're lamenting has nothing to do with their spiritual condition. It has a lot to do with the fact that once again the Philistines are knocking at their door. And it's not for a friendly visit. And again, we pick up once again on verse three. It says, Samuel said to the house of Israel, if you are returning to the Lord with all your heart, then put away the foreign gods and the Ashtaroth from among you and direct your heart to the Lord and serve him only. And he will deliver you out of the hand of the Philistines. Well, I mean, I hope you can see Samuel here. He's clearly calling Israel to repentance of a repentance that's far more than simply being willing to feel sorry. And in fact, Samuel lays out three different aspects of what Israel's repentance would be. First, he says, it's returning to the Lord with all of your hearts. Or perhaps the best known example of that is the Psalm of Repentance found in Psalm 51. Just a background, I mean, David has been convicted by the prophet Nathan of essentially committing rape and murder. If you remember, he had impregnated Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, his loyal general, and then he set Uriah up to be killed in battle when she told him that she had become pregnant. Now, it took a while, and it took also the pleadings of the prophet Nathan, but David eventually comes under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and he responds to God's gift of repentance by saying this to God in Psalm 51. David says, against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Now, I confess, the first couple of times I've read this, I read David's confession, I was personally offended. I'm thinking, I don't get this. David is appealing to God alone for horrendous things that he did to Uriah and Bathsheba. I mean, what about them? You see, I had forgotten that godly repentance is a gift from God. And what I didn't realize is that part of genuine godly repentance is its direct connection to God as the one chiefly offended. You see, God's servants, God's servants made in God's image had been lied to, cheated on, and murdered by David. And David realizes that repentance starts with God. Now, Uriah and Bathsheba, they were clearly collateral damage, and God was deeply offended at David's treatment of them. But first and foremost, David had broken God's command. And returning to the Lord with all of your heart means recognizing that the heart of your problem is not just the collateral damage that sin always creates, but it's an offense directly committed against God. Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians, said in 2 Corinthians 7, for godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. You see, godly grief is just that. It's a grief that goes back directly to God and not to my consequences. I mean, there's no shortage of worldly grief that accompanies sinful acts. It's basically grief over getting caught as opposed to grief over having offended God. It's me realizing that I'm going in the wrong direction and feeling bad that I was doing wrong and that it had bad consequences, but it stops short of turning the truck around and going in a different direction. Now, the second aspect that Samuel speaks of The second aspect Samuel makes of Israel's repentance is doing something to turn the truck around. It's putting away the foreign gods that they've been worshiping. Samuel tells Israel, quote, then put away the foreign gods and the asteroth from among you. You see, Israel's downward slide was not limited to ignoring God. It also included taking up the false gods of the Philistines and idols as well. And it's not a problem that is unique to Israel alone. I don't know if you remember, but about 10 years ago, we did a study on Jonah. And in that study, we took up the notion of idols. And what I said back then is the problem with idols is their apparent transparency. We just don't see them. And they are all around us. We pay homage to them oftentimes. We worship them even though they suck the spiritual life right out of our souls. I once heard a lecture about idols that was given to pastors by Tim Keller, and he made some amazing observations about today's idols today. He basically said nothing has changed since the days when Paul walked through the Areopagus, that's the pagan marketplace, pointing out that idols really have no power. And Keller said, we sophisticated 21st century folks, we laugh at the idea that idols could control areas like they used to in ancient Greece and Rome, but that's exactly what they still do here today. He pointed out that the Areopagus was the cultural marketplace where thoughts and ideas were disseminated, and that we have an Areopagus as well. In fact, we have a series of them. And they're really no different, it's just got different names. Our Areopagus today is called Hollywood, it's called Harvard, it's called the New York Times. And we no longer bow down our bodies to these things, we bow down our souls. You know, the ancients had Aphrodite, who was the goddess of beauty, who ruled one particular area. They had Athena, the goddess of reason, who ruled yet another. And they had Artemis, the god of success and prosperity, who ruled yet another specific area. Every area was dominated by a particular idol. And what Keller was pointing out is that's no different at all today. Keller pointed out that Boston with Harvard and MIT and its great medical facilities is an area that's still dominated by Athena as the goddess of reason. I mean, it's the very place where intellectual brilliance is the dominating idol. He said New York, on the other hand, with its financial centers and Wall Street, is dominated by Artemis, the goddess of success. L.A. and Hollywood are still dominated by the goddess Aphrodite because what still matters there is physical appearance. And what he pointed out is that it's been 2,000 years since Paul identified idol worship as the controlling influence in a culture, and it's really no different today. And in his lecture about these idols, Keller made a very bold statement. This is what he said. He said, if your congregation doesn't come to grips with the idols that they worship, then you as a pastor will never be able to get through to them. He said, you're just going to be adding layer upon layer of spiritual information without really affecting people's lives. And I thought about a scripture that describes the danger of coming to the gospel for information instead of transformation. It's something that Paul said in 2 Timothy. And he described this dangerous mindset as, quote, always learning, but never able to acknowledge the truth. And this truth, this truth about our own individual idols is not some kind of truth you save up for Bible jeopardy. This is not just something that's good to know. It's something that's vital to know. That's more like learning biblical CPR or self-defense. You see, these are vital truths that we have to learn if we ever hope to make any progress with our spiritual lives, because the prophet Jonah's words are absolutely true. This is what he said in Jonah 2.8. He said, those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. And just as Jonah was absolutely clueless about the nature and the identity and the power of the idol that he worshipped, so we too. We need to ask God to show us, first, what an idol is, secondly, how the idol operates, and third, how we can defeat them. Now, the lecture that I heard became a book by Tim Keller entitled, Counterfeit Gods. Excellent, excellent book. It was subtitled, The Empty Promises of Money, Sex, and Power and the Only Hope that Matters. And you know, just like Jonah found himself engulfed and entwined in seawater and seaweed, so we also get engulfed and entwined in our own individual idols. And Keller does a great job of pointing out different ways of discerning just what an idol is. This is some of the things that he mentioned. He said, when you look to some created thing to give you only what God can give you, that is idolatry. He says, idolatry is anything in your life that is so central to your life that you can't have a life if you lose it. And if I have that, I have value. If I lose that, I have no life. He pointed out that Jonah took a good thing, that is, his life as a prophet in Israel, and he made it into an ultimate thing that morphed into an idol. I mean, Jonah had made his identification with Israel into that island. He knew Nineveh was a grave geopolitical threat to Israel. And so when God chooses him to bring repentance to the Ninevites, he just flat out disobeys. He goes in the opposite direction. And when he ultimately preached repentance in Nineveh and the entire city repented, Jonah was furious. I mean, the last thing he wanted was to see this vicious enemy of Israel spared in spite of the fact that it was clearly God's doing. I mean, Jonah's national identity as a Jew had become so central to his life that he just couldn't cope with the idea that God would spare them. And again, as Keller points out, idolatry by definition is anything in your life that's so central to your life that you don't have a life if you lose it. And Jonah saw himself losing his life when he realized that not only was the nation spared, but he was the one responsible. And at the end of the book of Jonah, Nineveh repents, and Jonah's enraged. And this is what he says to God. He says, but Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? This is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." Jonah was an idol worshiper, and his idol was his role as national Israel's prophet. You know, take that away by making Jonah his enemy's savior, and Jonah no longer wants to live. And the one who he's really furious at is not Nineveh, it's his God. The problem is, it's the same with us. I mean, we think of idols as primarily little gods who bleed away our loyalty to Christ, and that's only half right. You know, Samuel told Israel to put away their asteroids and their other idols, but those are not a temptation to us. That's not a temptation in our culture. I mean, more often than not, it's not primitive little gods that steal away our hearts. I mean, there's not a whole lot of us that are tempted to fall down at the feet of carved images. No, for Christians, it's good and noble things pushed to an ignoble end. that can spiritually destroy us. And Keller gave a list of potential idols that was enlightening to say the least. This is his list of what he said are potential 21st century idols. He said family and children, career, money, achievement, acclaim, social standing, romantic relationships, competence, skill, beauty, political and social causes, and religious activity. He said, you know, take away what we hold dear. Take away our health, our wealth, our family, our career, and we will behave exactly the way Jonah did. We'd just as soon die. Jonah didn't realize he was an idol worshiper until God gave him the mercy of this great fish. He allowed a good thing to become an ultimate thing, and that's precisely how we create our own idols. And part of the problem of identifying the idols in our life, as I mentioned before, is that they're almost always good things pushed until they are now out of bounds. And what often pushes them out of bounds is the fact that idols can never satisfy. You see, they constantly over-promise and under-deliver. And instead of seeing that, we just wind up doubling down on our efforts. And the problem with so many who are successful with obvious idols such as money and fame and power is that only the people who get those things, only they really know how little they deliver in terms of satisfaction. And trust me, they are not talking. Yeah, for most of the world, those things are the carrot on the end of the stick, and those who have actually gotten to eat the carrot are not going to shout to the world what a waste it's all been. And if we only knew what little satisfaction money, fame, and power delivers, we would be astounded. And most people, most of those people who have made it to the top, they don't want you to know how empty it is because they don't know where else to go. You see, everything that is offered to us in this world is like cotton candy from the outside. It appears to have substance. In fact, it looks like it might be very satisfying. But those looks are always deceiving because we were not designed to be satisfied by what this world offers to us. And so we see this cotton candy and we take a bite and it just kind of melts away in our mouth. There's no substance. There's nothing really to chew on. only the appearance of something solid. And so what do we do? We take a bigger bite. And that too melts away. I think we've all experienced in one way or another how empty worldly satisfaction can be, how it always over promises and under delivers. Let me give you just a very timely example. News this week, you know, a big deal this week was the fact that iPhone came out with a brand new iPhone, came out with iPhone 16. Now there's some folks who actually wait online for hours, who spend the night camping in tents, just waiting to get that new phone. And the main point of getting an iPhone 16 is to make iPhone 15, 14, 13, and 12 obsolete, needing to be replaced. I mean, have you ever stopped to think of how little genuine satisfaction we get from these things that are in themselves absolute marvels? I mean, the typical smartphone of today has more computing power that you carry in your pocket than the entire computer system that NASA used to launch Apollo 11 in 1969. You know, if you take a smartphone, if you were able to take that back just 50 years, Folks would be speechless at what you've been given. I mean, with this little item in your pocket, you can access almost all the wisdom there is in the entire world. You can call your distant relative in Africa or China for free. Now, you can use its geolocator to give you pinpoint directions to anywhere in the United States or the world, for that matter. And in spite of all the incredible things that it can do for you, the one thing that it cannot do is give you satisfaction. I mean, have you ever noticed that all of the blessings that accrue to modernity, what they really do is they just increase our appetite for more. I mean, we don't sit here and say, what an incredible blessing to have this little lady barking out directions to us, telling us when to turn, and even when we make a mistake, she recalculates the directions. I mean, how many times do you think, what a marvelous blessing, as opposed to thinking, this stupid thing's not working right. I mean, that's the way we look at it. I mean, the attitude accompanies virtually everything we encounter in life outside of the one place where genuine satisfaction is to be found, and that is with God. And the point is, it doesn't matter how spectacular these things are. They're only going to grow your appetites. And the more things we get, the more the capacity to be thrilled by those things diminishes. And so you'd think as a Christian, you'd say, well, of course it can't satisfy. I mean, God makes it clear. He's the only one that can ultimately satisfy. But that claim is easy to forget in the clamor of a society that takes idol worship for granted, in a society that depends on an ever-growing appetite for dissatisfaction to keep its economy growing. So the answer isn't God, the answer isn't the pleasures of His kingdom, the answer is a new iPhone. A bigger, better, brighter, and smarter one. See, there's always going to be something newer, bigger, and better to fill the hole that can never be satisfied, and that's just it. It can never be satisfied while we are here on Earth. And God sees this as well. This is what God says directly addressing that. This is what He says in Isaiah 55. He says, why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest affair. What God is saying here is that he is what our deepest desire should be. And C.S. Lewis said, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. And that world is the kingdom of God. You know, part of the experience of watching horror movies is you get this godlike experience of watching the characters make bad choices that bring them constantly closer and closer to disasters. I mean, we see the monsters that they're heading towards, and they don't. And, you know, I can't help but wonder if this is exactly what the saints in heaven see when they look down on us. If they can see us, we don't know. If they could, they see the choices that we make day in and day out to forego the kingdom of God and the richest affair for the cheap imitation of the cotton candy that the world offers. They would have to see us as a horror show. where the characters continuously make the same bad choices over and over and over again. I mean, the choice of looking to material things for satisfaction is obvious. That doesn't make it any less prevalent. But what about other forms of idol worship that are far less obvious? What about making my children into the living embodiment of my success or failure? or making my husband or wife or girlfriend or boyfriend more important than my God? What about making my job, my career, my reputation as the only thing that really matters? See, this world is intent on you never seeing or realizing the idols that are right there in your life because they are what fuels our economy. And they say knowledge is power. And here's where the knowledge that scripture alone is able to give you is just that, it is power. And it can give you the power to change. We look at Samuel's third and final directive. It's to direct the hearts of the Israelites towards the Lord and serve him only. Now here's the point. If you get the second point right, if you're able to identify and remove the idols that crowd into your life, then the third point, naturally follows. This is what Samuel had said. This is 1 Samuel 7 3. It says, Then Samuel spoke to all the house of Israel, saying, If you return to the Lord with all of your hearts, then put away the foreign gods and the astaroths from among you, and prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve him only. And he will deliver you from the hand of the Philistines. Now Samuel's solution to the idols that crowd into our lives is to focus on God and kingdom as the one thing that will never disappoint us. And the problem he lays out, it's bracketed on both sides by God's solution. I mean, number one, he says return to the Lord with all of your hearts. Well, how do you do that? Number two, deal with your idols. Number three, prepare your hearts for the Lord and serve him only. So how do we do that? Well, first of all, just look back at your life. I mean, stop and think about the times that you put your heart in the direction of God and His kingdom. I think you'll find that there's never been a spare moment that you did that that was wasted or idle or useless. So I ask God for the gift of repentance for the idols in your life. Ask Him to show you what they are. Like I said, knowledge is power, and God wants nothing more than to give us this power so that you and I can do exactly what Israel did. It says, so the Israelites put away their bails and asterisks and served the Lord only. Let's pray. Father, we are indeed idol worshipers. That is a confession every one of us need to make. And so I pray that you would show us how subtle these idols are, how transparent they are, how hard to see they are, that you would give us the ability to see what those idols are in our life. Those things that if I don't have those, I don't have a life. Lord, those are idols. I pray that you would give us the ability to see, as Israel saw, exactly what they are and the power to deal with them. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.