Open—Steve Stewart
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218.
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Where are we asking Lord self like to read a verse from Nehemiah chapter 8. Nehemiah chapter 8 verse two. Nazareth the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding of our state. So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly.
And gave the sense.
'Cause them to understand reading, says the Lord self.
Psalm 115 verse two. Wherefore should the heathen say, where is now their God?
But our God is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased.
Their gods are silver and gold, the work of men's hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell not.
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They have hands, but they handle not feet have they? But they walk not. Neither speak they.
Through their throat. But they that make them are like unto them. So is everyone that trusteth in them.
And then a verse in 50th Psalm Psalm 50.
Verse 21.
These things hast thou done, and I kept silence. Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself. But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.
I'd like to speak a little this afternoon about the subject of idolatry the psalmist graphically lays out.
The idols of the heathen, they have all the semblance of being able to do something, of having intelligence.
Of being able to communicate something. But they are dead, dead idols. They can't do anything.
And those that make them are like unto them, the Scripture says. And then we read in the 50th Psalm, The Lord says, Thou thoughtest I was altogether such a one as thyself, when man makes an idol.
And if you have had any little bit of history or world history and culture, you know of the different gods that have been worshipped by the nations, their names are still around and usually they have some attribute that is.
Similar or the same as what men have. A God of War, a God of love, and all the gods of the heathen.
They argued and fought among themselves and were envious of one another, and they had all the traits of fallen sinful man.
And so when man makes an idol, he makes something that's like himself that answers to what he is inside.
And the Lord says, you thought I was like you.
But I'm not like you. I'll reprove you. And so when man makes an idol that he calls God, he makes it like himself. And then he says that's what's God's like. He's like me. He's like this God I've made.
That's an idol, it's not God.
And God says I will reprove thee. I want to tie those thoughts in with what we've some of what we've had in our readings.
But first I'd like to go back and look at an Old Testament account of a man who made an idol her idols. And we want to look at judges. The book of Judges is the history of Israel from the death of Joshua up until the end of the times of the judges, just before Samuel, who was the last great judge of Israel.
There's a series of judges.
That are raised up by God as deliverers. The people fall into sin.
Get away from the Lord. He raises up a judge, they deliver them and they repeat the cycle again and they cried to the Lord and he has mercy and raises the judge. And but as you go through the book of judges, it's really a, it's a slope down. It gets worse and worse. Things get worse. And in fact, the very last judge is Samson.
And Samson, instead of being a deliverer of the people, he needs to get delivered.
Himself. And then we come to Chapter 17 of Judges.
In chapter 17, through the end of the book are an appendix. You know, an appendix is right. You read a book, you read a story and you come to an appendix and an appendix will tell you something and give you details that weren't given when you read the story. It takes you back and says, I want to, you know, the author wants to show you a little something more about what he wrote about the story, and he takes the appendix and he unfolds it. That's what.
This is in the book of judges, starting with chapter 17. It's an appendix that opens up something from the time of the judges to help us understand better what took place. It was a downward slope. Why was it a downward slope? Well, chapter 17 to the end unfold to us more. Why? Two big events take place in these chapters. The first one is connected.
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Idolatry. The second one is connected with immorality.
They both take place way back at the beginning of the Book of Judges, but it's not till the end that the account is given.
The first one in chapter 17 we're going to read just a little bit, starting with verse one. There was a man of Mount Ephraim, whose name was Micah, and he said unto his mother, the 1100 shekels of silver that were taken from thee, about which thou cursed and spake also in mine ears, Behold, the silver is with me, I took it.
And his mother said, Blessed be thou of the Lord, my son.
And when he had restored the 1100 shekels of silver to his mother, his mother said, I had wholly dedicated the silver unto the Lord from my hand, for my son to make a graven image and a molten image. Now therefore I will restore it unto thee. And he restored the money unto his mother, And his mother took 200 shekels of silver and gave them to the founder, who made thereof a graven image and a molten image. And they were in the house.
Of Micah and the man Micah had a House of gods, and made an ephod and a tariff him, and consecrated one of his sons, who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes.
And there was a young man out of Bethlehem, Judah, of the family of Judah, who was a Levite, and he sojourned there. And the man departed out of the city from Bethlehem, Judah, to sojourn where he could find a place, and he came to Mount Ephraim.
To the House of Micah as he journeyed. And Micah said unto him, Once cometh thou. And he said unto him, I am a Levite of Bethlehem, Judah, and I go to sojourn, where I may find a place. And Micah said unto him, Dwell with me, and be unto me a father and a priest, and I will give thee 10 shekels of silver by the year in a suit of apparel, and thy Vidal. So the Levite went in, and the Levite was content to dwell with a man, and the young man was unto him.
Sons and Micah consecrated the Levite and the young man became his priest and was in the House of Micah and said Micah now know I that the Lord will do me good, saying I have a Levite to my priest.
And so Micah's mother had this silver, and her son stole it from her.
The boys ever steal from their moms.
Yeah, they do.
You know a lot of dollar bills in that wallet. Quite a few. Mom's not going to miss a couple 2-3 she did.
She say anything? No, she prayed. But this mother didn't. She cursed.
She cursed.
You ever thank the Lord for your mom? Ever out there shopping Walmart somewhere else and you hear what somebody else's mom is saying and the words that come out of their mouths, how they treat their children.
You ever thank the Lord for your mom?
What a blessing that mother is that the Lord gave you and gave you to her. We thank the Lord for her. Micah's mother cursed.
And then she turned around and blessed and James says, how can Bitter and Sweetwater come out of the same fountain, blessing and cursing all. But out of this mother's mouth came both. Well, I think she cursed so badly that it scared Micah. And he was a grown man. And he quickly fished that money he stole out and said, here it is, take it back. Take it back, you know?
I don't want that curse coming on me.
All And she blessed him, and she says I dedicated it all to the Lord.
And did she?
Well, then, she takes only a little part of it.
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Because she really didn't want to dedicate it all to the Lord.
But she takes that, and she has an idol made out of it. And Micah takes that idol and puts it in his house, and he thinks that he is worshipping the Lord. Doesn't say that he thought he was worshipping Bail or Ashtaroth or one of the heathen gods, but that he was worshipping the Lord.
With this idol that he had made out of silver.
And pretty soon he adds a Levite as his priest, and now he's got a priest to take care of all the religious stuff.
To do all the religious things, all the religious ceremonies. And you know, that's nice. Got all that in this place and now I know God's going to bless me because I got all of this arranged nicely. I don't have to worry anything about religious stuff. I got somebody to take care of it for me. I've got this idol.
That I worship all set.
You see a picture of the development of what took place in Christianity as Christianity slipped into idolatry and developed a priesthood to come between the people and God to take care of all their religious business. And I can just go to church on Sunday and somebody else does it all for me, Whether it's a Catholic Church and it's the priest and he does it all in his little things, or whether I go to someplace else and there's another man up there that takes care of the sermon and makes.
Feel good and I can go home talking with my boss. He says it's McDonald's church. He's not a believer, but he perceives it. He says I go through like the drive through at McDonald's. I get the sermon and I pay and I leave. And he feels very satisfied because he goes to church every Sunday. It's all taken care of for him as long as he puts the money in the box.
Just like Micah.
You know, it says and Peter were not redeemed by corruptible things such as silver and gold, but with a precious blood of Christ. Silver and gold were used in the Old Testament as prices for redemption, especially silver.
And those precious metals that were used in various things in the Tabernacle in the Old Testament, and the service of the Lord as the shekel of the sanctuary price of redemption, are all pictures to us. Those precious metals are pictures to us of different attributes of the Lord.
Silver speaks of redemption. What he's done for us is we haven't been redeemed with Silver, but it's a picture to us.
Of redemption, gold that covered the ark and the altar of incense, and so on, is a picture of the righteousness of God.
All of these things, precious metals and jewels, they're different pictures to us of different attributes of God.
And man likes to take one attribute of God, or maybe 2.
And he likes to take it, and he likes to make an idol, and he sets that idol in front of him, and he says that's Jesus.
Maybe he takes Grace.
The grace of God.
And he makes an idol that he calls Jesus.
And he says, My Jesus would never judge anyone.
Judge not lest ye be judged. My Jesus would never judge anyone.
And he makes an idol.
That's according to his own heart.
That conforms to his own way of thinking, and God says you thought.
I was like your idol, that I was like you, but I'm not. He takes one attribute of God and he makes an idol.
And that's what he calls his gone, and that's what he worships.
And you know.
In 2nd Corinthians 3, let's just turn there.
2nd Corinthians 3 excuse 2nd Corinthians 3. That's the scripture I want.
Verse 17.
Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty. But we all with open face beholding as in a glass you can just leave out, we all with open face beholding the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
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It is.
A fact.
That we.
Are changed.
By what we worship, what we are.
Occupied with what consumes us, what is has all of our attention.
You like Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Nothing wrong with a Harley.
You know Harley's. I'm sorry, I'm picking on Harley's if anybody has a Harley.
You really like them. That's what you're all about. You get all the magazines, you find the other guys that got one, you get together.
Talk about it, work on them. Pretty soon you buy the jacket that goes with the gang. Have a good time out there, right? And you're all about Harley's and riding the Harley's. And you know what? You look just like it because you're being changed.
Into just what your idol is. You like glamour?
Pretty soon you look like the girls in the glamour mags. You've changed into the same image we occupied with Christ.
Is he the one before your soul?
You changed into the same image.
From glory to glory. They that make them, we read, are like unto them, because what occupies our hearts is what we become like. You can't change. It's like a law of physics. It's a spiritual law. You will look like and be like what you're occupied with and what absorbs you in your life. Do you like money?
Do you want money? You'll look like money.
You'll be like it. You want power. You'll look like it. You'll be like it. You wrapped up in the politics of this world and the pursuits of this world. That's all you'll talk about. That's what you'll be like. That's what you'll be involved with. You'll look like it.
You'll look like your idol.
All for the believer. We have one before us that changes us into his own image more like him. Day by day, day by day. You know, in that moral appendix and judges Tribe of Dan comes along. We're not going to take time to read it. Time of tribe of Dan comes along seeking.
Their place, their portion in the land, and they send spies out to look for a spot.
For them and those spies come by the House of Micah, and they turn in and they say, what do you got here? As they see that idol and the Levite that he made into a priest, who a Levite wouldn't have never been a priest. They were another priestly family.
And when he tells them, and they say, we'll inquire of the Lord for us, and he says, oh, and he bestows a blessing on them, Go, go, go ahead. The Lord's gonna bless you, you know. And those that occupy those places, they only dispense blessings. They never give you a word of plain truth.
And then they find the place where they're going to tell the tribe this is the ideal spot. There's some people here we can conquer and take their land. The whole tribe comes back and they say, wait, there's Micah's house. You know what's in there? What's in there? First time I read it, I thought they're going to go in and destroy Mike and his house and destroy that idol, and that's going to be the end of it.
Instead they take the Levite made into a priest and the idols and they make off with them and a whole tribe goes into idolatry. A whole tribe of Israel goes into idolatry, and no one in Israel says a thing.
Not one thing.
The next incident that takes place, a woman is horribly abused.
Horrible immorality that takes place. The tale is told to all Israel. They gather as one man to destroy the perpetrators of that sin.
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They're incensed.
That that could take place.
And you will find, sad to say.
In professing Christianity, there is far more righteous indignation against sin, against another person, against immorality, than there is against the open idolatry that has come into Christianity.
That which is an offense against the person of God himself is disregarded. Nothing is said. Oh, that's just a matter of opinion. Your opinion, you're welcome to it. I have my opinion. But when it comes to some immoral thing, oh, up in arms and protesting, get out the placards and March down the street and we got to stop this. This moral appendix is the root cause of the decline of things in Israel. They didn't really care about the.
Of the Lord. But where they were personally offended, they got up in arms about it. So we read in the Epistle of John. John is writing in a day when the doctrine of the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and who he is, is thoroughly attacked.
It was under attack and he writes in defense.
Of the Person of the Son of God, and we read one of the.
Tasks that is given first, John, let's turn there.
We read in the 4th chapter.
How every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in flesh is of God, and every spirit that doesn't confess that Jesus Christ has come in flesh is not of God. And we spoke how that really takes up that he came, Eternal Son of God came into this world and he took manhood into union with himself. God prepared a body.
He was born in this world and he was a man spirit, soul and body. And he could say that he we could read of him and John that he groaned in spirit and he in Chapter 11 and we could read in chapter 12. He said now is my soul trouble? He had a human spirit, a human soul and a human body.
And other than that, He could never have given himself for you and I on Calvary's cross. Because if there was going to be one to be a sacrifice acceptable to God for our sin, it had to be one like us, but without sin himself personally, He had to be a man, just as you and I are.
Outside of that, we do not have a savior.
A little further down in our chapter, we didn't get to it verse.
14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him and he.
In God, another test confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Not that He became the Son of God when he was born in this world, but that He was always from eternity the Son of God. Early in the chapter we read that God sent his only begotten Son into the world. You cannot and He could not send the Son unless he were a Son to send.
What does that mean? It means when the Father sent the Son, the person he was sending was the Son, not someone who would become the Son after he was born. Otherwise he couldn't have sent the Son. He would have been sending whatever person in the Godhead it was that wasn't the Son.
And that he would have become the Son on birth. No, he sent the Son because he was the Son from all eternity.
Who shall, whoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God?
Chapter 5. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.
He is the true Messiah, God's anointed. And we saw that Antichrist denies that Jesus is the Christ denies Messiah, and Antichrist is going to head up Jewish apostasy. What are the Jews not believe? They don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the true Messiah.
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And the Antichrist is going to reinforce that. He's going to head that apostasy up. But what's the wonderful revelation given to Christians?
The revelation of God the Father, he that has seen me, the Lord said has seen the Father, the revelation of God the Father in the Son. And he's going to deny the Father and the Son. He's going to deny that revelation of the Father and the Son, and he's going to head up Christian apostasy too, both in that one person. And so these are touchstones given to us.
And John's epistle.
Of the true Person of the Son of God. Now, perhaps you have never run into someone who denied any of those things.
You may, you may, but I want to take something up that perhaps.
You may run into or may have run into.
We had a little earlier in the chapter that verse six that the apostles could say, John could say we are of God. He that knoweth God heareth us. He that is not of God heareth not us. Hereby know we the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
It is Sunday school picnic some years back.
And a big SUV pulled up. We've just been giving thanks for the meal. Big SUV pulled up, man got out of it.
Came over, he said. Wonderful to see all these Christians praying. Wonderful, he said. And.
Began to talk and as the conversation went on, well, I'll get to the point he he wanted to come to our meeting room and preach to us.
And we told him, well, we would not allow that. We really don't know who you are or what doctrine you hold. You're welcome to come and observe if you'd like, but no, we wouldn't invite you to preach. And he really began to press the point that he was a capable preacher. And not only that, he did miracles, and he had proof of the miracles that he did.
And so on.
And he began to very vehemently press his desire. And I think we took up with them that, you know, we really don't let those participate in ministry of the Word unless they're in fellowship at the Lord's table because they are evidencing by that desire that they want to go on in the truth of God. And so there's confidence in them that that there's a desire to go on in the truth. They've embraced the truth of God.
And we can let them minister in the Assembly meetings if they have that gift.
And he began to argue that point and that how could we take a place of being separate in that sense from other believers? I'm just giving the very gist of the conversation. And I said to him, well, Paul the apostle writes to us in First Corinthians that we're not responsible to judge those that are without, but we're responsible to judge those that are within and to make sure.
That things are kept clean at the Lord's table and there's a rejection of all that would dishonor the Lord.
And he said to me.
Whose greater Paul or Jesus?
That's a rhetorical question. What's the answer? You know the answer. What did I answer? The same thing you would answer.
I said Jesus then he said, And Jesus said, Judge not, lest ye be judged also.
What was he doing? You know, I didn't know what to say.
Conversation ended not long after that. He climbed into his big SUV and off he went.
Who's greater? That question just rang in my mind.
Who's greater?
Paul or Jesus?
The answer was always the same, Jesus.
But what was he doing with that question? And you may get asked a similar question. You may run into a similar situation. He was setting the words of the Lord Jesus Christ against what the apostles had written. And that was unsettling to me, but I didn't know how to answer it.
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You know, if you get a question like that.
You don't and are not obligated to the one who poses the question to give them an answer that satisfies them.
You can leave it embarrassing, might be feeling like you didn't win the conversation.
Yep, that's not important. Take it to the Lord. It may take some time, but He'll give you an answer. I want to show you the answer the Lord gave me.
John, First Corinthians, Chapter 11, verse 23.
For I.
Have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you.
Chapter 14 Verse 37. If any man think himself to be a prophet.
Or spiritual. Let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments.
Of the Lord. But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.
First Thessalonians, chapter four. First Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 15. For this we say unto you, by the word of the Lord. And now I want to turn to a scripture in Hebrews chapter 12. Hebrews 12.
Verse 25.
See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escape to refuse him that spake on earth, much more shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh from heaven?
What the apostle Paul received and communicated, he received from an ascended Christ, and that man was putting the words of the Lord Jesus Christ here on the earth against the words of Christ, ascended and glorified, that he had given to Paul as if they were opposed to each other. The question is not who is greater, Paul or Jesus? The answer to that is obvious.
The point is, is that what the apostle Paul has given us, what the apostles have given us, is from Christ.
It's his words, it's his authority.
They're not opposed to each other.
That man was making an idol. He was making an idol. He called Jesus. It had one attribute.
You might call that attribute judge, not.
My colleague Grace it had one attribute and it denied all the other attributes of Christ.
And it was used to deny the very words of an ascended Christ. See that you refuse, not him that speaketh from heaven. And you are going to run into those who have made idols for themselves that they call Jesus.
But they're not the Jesus of the Bible. They're not the Jesus of this book. They're not the God that this book presents to us. They're a God after their own making, and they're like them. They suit their own hearts because every band in the days of Micah did that which was right in his own eyes. They're gods that allow them to do whatever they feel like and want to do.
And that's their idol. But we have the true Jesus, if he had not come, the Son of God.
Come in flesh, gone on to that cross and dine. We'd never have known the love of God.
We'd have no object to form us into that same image like himself. How does Paul close this epistle Chapter 5, verse 20. The precipitate is one is said of all of John's ministry. John chapter 5, verse 20 and we know Christian knowledge. We know that the Son of God has come and have given us an understanding that we may.
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That is true, we are in Him, that is true even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life and nothing else beside that. Everything else is an idol of man's making that suits himself and will never conform you into the image of the Son of God.
Little children, says the aged apostle.
In his closing words.
And tender affection to you and I little children, keep yourselves from idols.