Smashing Our Idols Part 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. God went to extreme lengths to force Egypt's Pharaoh to let the children of Israel go.

Would he do the same to you and to me? God wants our full attention. No idols are to take his place, but many people today harden their hearts.

They won't let go of their idols. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, would God force his people today to give up idols? Well Dave, that's a very interesting question and I think that you already answered it in your intro when you said that there are some people who harden their hearts. Now I do have to say that God continues to chip away at our idols. He does that by showing the fact that they are only temporary, that they can never fulfill their promises because God wants our devotion to be given to him and to him alone.

Meanwhile, he takes us through some very difficult circumstances. I've written a book entitled Getting Closer to God. It's actually based on this sermon series of the life of Moses and in it we discuss such things as toppling idols, yes, but also God helping us in tight places when the bitter water becomes sweet.

All of these experiences in the life of Moses and in our lives are designed to help us, and Dave, this goes back to your question, to make sure that our idols are ripped out of our hearts. Now for a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. It's entitled Getting Closer to God. What you can do is go to RTWOffer.com.

RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the book Getting Closer to God, and I believe that it will be used in your life to fulfill the promise that God blesses those whose idols are torn from their hearts. But there's a second comment I must make, and that is a reminder that God is always at war, always at war with idolatry. God hates idols.

God is the God who pervades the whole universe and because he does, he says, thou shalt have no other gods before him. There is no other being on planet earth who deserves praise and adoration and worship, and because God is unique and special and there is none other like him, he hates rivalry. You say, well, isn't that pride? It would be pride for us, but it is not pride for God. You see, pride in our lives is sin because everything that we have is a gift of God. None of it is what we deserve, and therefore all praise that comes to us must be passed on to the Almighty, but God has nowhere to pass on the praise that comes to him.

It stops with him, and he says his glory he will not share with another. He hates idolatry. Now think with me just for a moment about the idols that we have in this culture. For example, the idol of sex, the idol of immorality. People say to themselves, I want to have this idol in my life, and I am willing to defy God.

I'm willing to do anything that I can do my own thing. It's the Woody Allen approach, who in a relationship with his stepdaughter said, the heart wants what it wants, and God says, I am at war with fornicators and with adulterers. The Lord says, I personally am at war with them. He is at war with the idols of this generation within our school systems and how our hearts should break.

Young people are not only taught to be immoral, but they are taught how to be immoral, and the present world of you within our culture seems to communicate to them that it does not make any difference whether you destroy this planet by AIDS or with abortion or with anything else just as long as you have your way. This is one idol that our culture is not willing to sacrifice, and God says, I am at war with it, and I will devastate you, and I will smash your families, and I will bring guilt into your life, and in the crevices of your soul I will bring despair, and ultimately I will even destroy your country because you have set up an idol that is more important to you than the Lord God. Of course, there are other idols. There's the idol of all kinds of different pleasures that people have, the addictions to which they give themselves with abandon, hoping that if it is true that you only go around once in life that people will grab for all the gusto that they have, and so these things become means by which God is pushed to the circumference of their life.

He is pushed out, and God says, I hate those idols. What about money? Oh, how money makes promises like all idols do and then cannot fulfill them. Some of you perhaps years ago heard me tell about the time when my wife and I were at a hockey game with a woman who owned a part of the team, and we were told that she was worth 50 million dollars, 50 million dollars. No, she did not buy us our ice cream. We paid for that for ourselves, but you know there she was with deep lines in her face filled with anxiety.

She would clap with her fingers crossed because she was superstitious. A year or two later died of cancer. Well, money made all these promises. Surely this is where it's at, and then the ultimate mockery, 50 million dollars cannot save you when cancer sets in and destroys all the promises that the God made to you, the God of money, the God of power. You have to understand that Pharaoh was the consummate control freak, the consummate control freak. He did not want to let the people go.

He wanted to have them under his control. The thought of actually giving up these people who were of benefit to the land and with their flocks and their herds was absolutely unthinkable to someone who wanted to own and to control, and God says I hate that idol because it is based on a pride that has not been brought to the point of humility before God. Now of course I told you that God is always at war with idols in our lives. He's at war with the idols that I find in my heart, and how does God war with us with those idols? Well, one of the things that he does is to create within us a sense of dissatisfaction. I don't know how it is when you sin deliberately or when you begin to fasten on certain thoughts that begin to be the idol of your life, but God does not let me get away very long with those idols.

Sometimes I feel as if it is like pulling weeds out of a garden. You think you have them all, and then suddenly from nowhere another one of these idols will spring, and those of you who are born-again Christians, you can understand me when I say that our whole Christian life is basically continually humbling ourselves before God and asking God to keep those idols rooted out of our lives, but oh, how we struggle. And we say with Pharaoh, Lord, if you do thus and so, I will do this and that, and then God comes through, and then we change our minds, and in our hearts we say no, no, no, but we harden our hearts, and God keeps working us over until we yield. The dearest idols I have known, whate'er that idol be, help me, O Lord, to grasp it from the throne and worship only thee. Every single person who is born-again, God will work on them to get the idols out of our hearts, out of our lives, out of our homes, and out of our experience because God hates idolatry.

Now what about in the lives of the unconverted? God also hates their idolatry, and do you know what his final judgment is with idol worshipers? Those who say no to God, his final judgment is to make them comfortable and happy with their idols.

That is the judgment of God. You remember in the Old Testament there was a tribe by the name of Ephraim that succumbed into all kinds of idolatry. No matter how often the prophets preached to Ephraim, Ephraim refused to humble itself before God.

And in the book of Hosea, the Lord said to the prophet, Ephraim is joined to his idols, just let him alone. Let him love those idols. Let him be satisfied with them. Don't bother him. Make him content until the final judgment when he will see that he was in touch with idols who made promises they could not keep.

Let me ask you something this morning. Who is the worst off spiritually in this congregation? Is it somebody who has come here today with a sense of guilt, with a sense of failure, and saying, oh God, I wish that I were a better person.

God, help me in my need. No, that's not the person who is the worst off. A person who is farthest from God is the one who has excluded God out of his life and is content with it and is not bothered by the fact that God has been shoved out of their life. He has been ripped out of their souls.

He has been forgotten. And they do not care. They are joined to their idols. God says, just let them alone. May they be content with their idolatry. You know, there's another lesson, of course, that pops out of this text all over the place, and that is that no person can ever defy God and win. Nobody ever wins when they take on God.

Nobody ever wins. Here is Pharaoh. And Pharaoh on three different occasions says to Moses, pray for me. Why is it that Pharaoh didn't change after saying pray for me? Well, the reason is because Pharaoh made those decisions when he was in a very tight place, when he really needed God, but he was not willing to let God really change his heart.

What he was saying is pray for me because I'm desperate, but after the desperation stopped, he went back to his old ways. If we may put it this way, he had a series of deathbed conversions, but he would not let God capture his heart. You say, well, Pastor Luther, do you think that there is anybody alive today who has a heart as hard as Pharaoh's?

Well, I need to smile if you're asking that question because I would like to say that there are probably, unfortunately, thousands and thousands of people who have a heart as hard as this Egyptian king. You know that during the Great Tribulation, the book of Revelation talks about the judgments that are going to fall on the earth that are going to make the plagues of Egypt look very tame and they're going to look like an evening with the boy scouts in a tent. And then it says this, and the rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues did not repent of the works of their hands. They still worship their idols and it says they did not repent of their murders, of their sorceries, of their immorality, and of their thefts. Their heart was as hard as Pharaoh's. But the lesson that we learned from Pharaoh is this, that if you are not to bend in the presence of God, eventually you will break because nobody ever takes on God and wins.

Nobody. And I've known people who have said, if there is a God, I don't believe that he would allow all this evil in this world, I'm going to disbelieve in him, or I'm going to shut him out of my life and I'm going to run my own life. And what they are doing is they are defying Almighty God whom we ought to be worshipping and loving and serving.

And in doing that, they are showing the imprints of their own final doom and judgment. You remember what did happen? Pharaoh let the people go, and then he changed his mind and went after them again, and even though he had let the people go, his heart was never brought right in the presence of God. There's a final comment, and that is that the only hope that we can ever have is that we come under the protection of Almighty God. It's an exciting passage of Scripture, the 12th chapter of Exodus, and that's actually our passage for next week, but that's where the Passover was instituted and where the plague came and the oldest son of all the houses of Pharaoh died. And you remember what the Lord said to the people of Israel? He says, when this angel of death comes and deals one more powerful blow to Egyptian gods, he says, if you put blood on the doorpost of your house, the angel of death will bypass you. And all of us know that that blood represents the blood of Jesus Christ, because when Christ was there on the cross making a sacrifice for all of us who by nature are idol worshippers, when Jesus was dying there on the cross, his death was a sacrifice for us so that when we believe in him, we are forgiven. We are, therefore, exempt from the judgment of God. We become one of God's children, and then God begins to work in our hearts to rip out all of those idols.

But he does it in love, because we belong to him forever. At this moment, I need to ask you a question. Do you have within your heart a desire to be a follower of God? Or do you have a heart of a pharaoh? Have you dug in your heels and have you said no to God? I ask you with all that is within me, open your life to him because nobody says no to God and wins.

God is at war with idolatry, and guess who wins every single time? Let's pray. Our Father, we have been confronted by the living and the true God, and we acknowledge him to be Lord and King, and we think, Father, of all the idols of our culture and how insulting we have become as a nation to you. We pray today, Father, for those who came here today, who know you as Savior and who love you, we pray that we might open our hearts to you and that you might help us to yield the idols that we have hung on to so long. And then we pray for those who do not know you as Savior. We pray that along with this message that appear to be so harsh, they may see also the love of God and the forgiveness of God to those who open their lives to the Christ of the cross and the Christ whose blood was shed for us. Burn into our lives the message of Exodus.

Blessed are those whose God is the Lord, for I hate false gods. In Jesus' name we pray. And before I close this prayer now, I want you to talk to God wherever you may be. If you're a Christian, just tell the Lord about that idol that you have been hanging on to. Ask him to give you the grace to give it up.

Just give it up. And if you are not a believer, Christ is monitoring your heart at this moment. You can, even where you are seated, believe on Christ and be saved. You can say, Lord, I don't want a hard heart.

I want a soft one. And I respond to you in faith, trusting Christ as my very own. Have mercy upon us, Lord. We need you desperately.

Show us yourself your might and your power. And may every weed in our lives be torn down, that Christ might be totally enthroned. We pray in his name. Amen. My friend, this is Pastor Lutzer.

I'd like to try to quote a poem that perhaps you've heard me say before, but it comes to mind. The dearest idol I have known, what e'er that idol be, help me to tear it from the throne and worship only thee. That's what God is after.

He is after hearts that are wholly committed to him with no competition. I believe that this series of messages is being a blessing to many people. And if you would like to listen to it again and again, perhaps you've missed some messages and you want to listen to all of them. For a gift of any amount, these messages can be yours so that they can be played and shared and continue to be a blessing.

Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com. That's RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. And I want to remind you because of your support and because of your prayers, God continues to bless us. And we desire that the word of God get to as many people as possible. So if you want this series of messages, here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

And while I'm talking about the subject of idolatry, which is what this message was all about, let me remind you again that idols always break the heart of their worshipers. Ask for the sermon series, Getting Closer to God. Here's what you can do. Go to RTWOffer.com for a gift of any amount. The sermon series can be yours or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

And thanks so much for standing with us because together we are making a difference. The gospel of Jesus Christ in its transforming power is reaching thousands upon thousands. Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. Are Jewish feasts for the church today? An anonymous listener is asking this, I am wondering if celebrating the feasts of Passover, weeks, and booths is something Christians should consider. The Old Testament talks about those as lasting ordinances. We know that there are New Testament verses that say Jesus fulfilled the law. But in Zechariah 14, 16-19, it seems to reference a future time when God requires us to celebrate the Feast of Booths. 2 Timothy 3.16 says that all scripture is inspired by God. Wouldn't that refer to the Old Testament too, since it's all they had?

Excellent question, and the answer I think is this. Yes, we can learn from these feasts. So in that sense, we can celebrate them. For example, Passover. If you know something about Passover, you have a much better understanding of what we call communion today.

Because Jesus instituted that communion at a time when they were observing the Passover. It's been my experience that the various feasts of Israel shed light on the gospel. It helps us to understand the history of redemption, what God was doing in their lives, pointing toward the time of Jesus. So yes, I think that we can celebrate them in that sense. What we don't want to do, however, is to confuse the issue by giving the impression that these feasts are necessary for salvation, or that the keeping of them somehow is mandatory because they are part of the Old Testament law. But that being said, if we see them as pictures of Christ, if we see them as giving us a better understanding of the totality of our redemption and redemption history, they can be very, very profitable. I mentioned one other feast, and that is, of course, Yom Kippur. What an illustration we have there of the high priest going into the Holy of Holies, and most of you know that whole story, and what a marvelous picture of Jesus it becomes.

So let's benefit from the feasts, but at the same time, let's understand their proper role in biblical history. Some wise counsel, as always, from Dr. Erwin Lutzer. Thank you, Dr. Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered, go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer, or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. Today, Dr. Erwin Lutzer concluded Smashing Our Idols, the fourth in a series of twelve messages about Moses, a man getting closer to God. Next time, the story of the Passover, Foreshadowing the Death of Christ. Join us for Redeemed at High Cost. For Dr. Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McCallister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.