Jeremiah said, Will a man again make gods for himself which are not gods? And a Christian has to have the same attitude. And we could do this without... being too intense with the people we're witnessing, I wouldn't share the gospel. the same way I would teach the Bible or preach the word.
I know my audience somewhat. And it's just a different arena. It could get to that level if the conversation intensified but Most of the time, I'm just giving them facts. This is Cross Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher, Rick Gaston. Ricky is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville.
Pastor Rick is currently teaching through a topical series. Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross Reference Radio. specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will continue teaching through his message called Roles of the Godly.
So, hell, of course, looking for anybody who will It can plug into like a video game.
So it can play you. And once they find them, they download these grotesque ideas into the imagination. of the ignorant and the disobedient, Deuteronomy 32. They sacrifice to demons. Not to God.
to gods they did not know. To new gods, new arrivals. That's what Moses said. Johnny, come lately. This is the same thing.
You go to a university and they got these new ideas. They're chunk!
Well, I mean when they come against your God. You know, you say you go to a university, you want a degree in structural engineering, and he's telling you about religion. When you go to church, the pastor doesn't try to tell you about structural engineering. He's trying to tell you about God. or stir up those who already know.
1 Corinthians 10:20 to show you that this is alive and well in the New Testament. Rather, Paul said. that the things which the Gentiles, the unbelieving ones, sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons, not to God. And I do not want you to have fellowship slash friendship with demons. Don't think their gods are cute.
Don't think, well, you know They also have a Bible. They pray to Jesus. and goofy and sneezy and grumpy and anybody else they want to pray to. That's a disqualifying feature. Man has no right to make up things about God, whether A teaching or a representation have no right, and when they do, it is an idol, and it is an idol instantly, and it is anathema.
It is against the first commandment. And the second, no graven images unto me.
So among other things, an idol is really man in God's place. putting himself there. And scripture regards, in case you missed it. Scripture regards idolatry as devil worship. And you say to yourself, Well, when am I going to use that?
Anytime you have someone listen to you tell them about Christ, and they disagree and say, Yeah, well, I think God is. That person is an idol worshiper, whether they know it or not, and it's up to us to try to get them to see that. Without violence. without rudeness. Leviticus 7:17.
They shall no more offer their sacrifices to demons after whom they have played the harlot. They shall be. A statute forever for them throughout their generations. God says there's no end to this, this is permanent.
Something that's false is false. It's not going to recover.
So stay away from it. You're complete in him, Paul said to the Colossians. You have no need of Philosophies and All these empty ideas. that go against scripture. You want to have good ideas about something, that's fine, as long as it doesn't contradict God's word.
And that's why we put so much emphasis on going over God's Word. In distress, in hard times, in spooky days when his life was being threatened, Saul, King Saul. Where did he go? He turned to the underworld. to spirits to fallen beings.
to try to get the future. Fear forced him to do this. Because that's what was in him, fear. forces out of us what's fabricated in us. It expresses, it squishes like a grape.
It squishes, put pressure on it to push what's on the inside to the outside. Colossians 3.10. Put on the new man. Who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him? That's what Saul did not do.
Saul did not run into the arms of Yahweh, he ran into the open arms of Satan, and God did not forget it.
So much so, hundreds of years later, well, not that many, but about a hundred years later. God made sure it got into print. 1 Chronicles 10.
So Saul died for his unfaithfulness, which he had committed against Yahweh, because he did not keep the word of Yahweh, but also because. He consulted a witch for guidance. A medium. The ladies back then didn't mind telling you what size they were. Medium, small, okay.
So, an idolater is one who departs from the truth about God. Four. anything else. Doesn't matter. King David Nothing to do with this stuff.
And this is what we look to. This factors back into being a godly, Christ-like. servant of the Lord. David was one of those. What does he say about idols?
In Psalm 16, he says, Their sorrows shall be multiplied who hasten after another God. Their drink offering of blood I will not offer, nor take up their names on my lips. I won't even give them respect. King Josiah Second Kings twenty three. Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel And the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nabat, who made Israel sin.
How would you like that?
So if you just hear me say that, especially your teens, you say, what does that have to do with anything? Has this to do with it? His family was shamed because of him. Would you like to bring that kind of shame on your family?
So coming back to Jeroboam and what happened with Josiah, Who made Jeroboam made Israel sin? had made both That altar And the high place. He broke down. Josiah is breaking these things down, and burned the high place and crushed it to powder. and burn the wooded image.
He crushed it to powder. You know, he put effort into this. He made a profound statement.
So the pagans would show up the next day looking for their shrine. And there'd just be this dust. Where he just obliterated it. 2 Chronicles 34, when he had broken down the altars and the wooden images. Had beaten the carve images into powder and cut down the incense altars throughout.
All the land, he returned to Jerusalem. He's this crusader. He goes around smashing an iconoclast, smashing these idols. And he just goes home. Then there's the apostate king Jeroboam that gave him.
The idols to crush. This is the negative now. 2 Chronicles 11:15. Then he appointed for himself priests for the high places, for the demons. and the calf idols which he had made.
So we're talking about the treatment of demons, the activity of demons. They are real. They don't have to show up and make you speak in a deep voice or something crazy like that. All they gotta do is get you to contradict God. That's what they want.
The Old Testament writers were notorious for describing idols as dung gods or gods of dung, and I'm being polite. Their disposition towards Those gods were contemptuous and it shows up in their language. Ezekiel is the greatest. Moses did it too, others did it also. Instead, there was an alternate.
Sometimes the Jewish writers, when they talked about these idols, they would use the Jewish word for image. That's not the dung gods.
Well it's the same thing, but they're just using a different word. But when they really wanted to lay on You, what they thought of these gods. They'd use a different Greek Hebrew word. Which Meant. Dong.
Waste. Because idolatry is identity theft. They're messing with God's people, they're populating hell, and the prophets didn't care for that. Psalm 106, but they mingled with the Gentiles and learned their works. Yeah, like when a good Christian child goes into the workforce or goes into the university, they learn the works of the devil and they change teams.
They burn the flag of Christ and they start wearing the flag of Satan, though they call it by other names. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.
Well, who does that today? Abortionist. Those are human beings. continues and they shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters whom they sacrificed to idols of Canaan. And the land was polluted with blood, and God's judgment came upon Israel.
The Jews were told Twice a day First. Chronicles chapter 23 verse 13. I believe it is. To stand and thank and praise the Lord. And in my head, I know I covered this.
while back, but it's just been bouncing around still. I have no problem defining thanks to God. But I need clarification sometimes on praising God versus saying what's the difference. There is a distinction there. They're not the same.
They may overlap, but they're not the same. And when you think about The sins we have committed. And the system of grace and place, how can you not praise Him in addition to thanking Him? It's said of Jesus, He does all things well. Whether he does them for you or not.
If you want them to do them, you got to come to them. 1 Chronicle, 1 Corinthians, Paul continues this language from the Psalms. He says, what am I saying then? That an idol is anything? Or, what is offered to idols is anything.
Rather, the things that the Gentiles sacrifice, sacrifice to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to have fellowship with demons. You cannot drink the cup of Yah of the Lord. and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of demons. You cannot serve the two masters.
You cannot serve the God of heaven and the Satan of hell. You cannot do that. You can fake it. But You're only faking it to yourself.
So now we come, that's the idols, and the high places, of course, were where these idols were adored. With some exceptions, these were the places that. The pagan religions thrived, and there were some exceptions. They're elevated hilltop areas, you know, higher up, often where they. Thrashton.
winnow the wheat, you know, to separate the chaff from the Kernel They often would worship there. The ancient people often built their shrines there, believing that put them. closer to They're gods. This is just made up. There's no basis for that.
In a submarine, you can be just as close to God as you are in a spaceship. Because he's ubiquitous. He's everywhere at the same time. But he's not everything. He is God.
He's not like the, you know, the wood on a tree. Anyway.
Sometimes Yahweh's people had his approval and worshiped at elevated altars in these high places, 1 Samuel 9. And the reason for that is because the Philistines destroyed their or separated their arc from their altar. and damage their place of worship. And those were the times that called for this toleration of God. Paul talks about God being tolerant of ignorance or bad times.
First, Samuel, and this is Samuel, and you're not going to find a more holy man in the Bible than Samuel. You may find them as holy. But he is tough. top tier. And they answered them and said, Yes, there there he well, so this is Saul and his servant.
looking for Samuel And um So this is where it picks up. Yes. There he is just ahead of you. Hurry now, for today he came to this city because. There is a sacrifice of the people On the high place.
Well, Samuel's participant. Samuel was an itinerant prophet. That means he traveled from village to village in a circuit, and he would minister. He couldn't find another guy to put in that village.
So he had to do it. I don't know. I don't think it should be that way today. I think the New Testament church is a better system of discipleship when applied. and no church should be long without a pastor.
I know this can be a little tricky, but overall, I think that's I'm sticking to that one. As soon as you come into the city, continues the narrative, you will surely find him before he goes up to the high place to eat.
Okay, so I've made my point. I won't keep reading it. This is one of the exceptions, and I've given the reason why. 1 Kings chapter 3.
Meanwhile, the people sacrificed at the high place because there was no house built for the name of Yahweh until those days, until the days that there was. actually built. Ultimately, they did the wrong thing as a people. They held on to this. And we see it show up in 1 Kings 11.
Then Solomon built a high place of Kemosh. The abomination of Moab. And on the hill that is East of Jerusalem for Molak. The abomination of the people of Ammon. Why were these things abominations?
Because they burned people alive. They practice human sacrifice and other things too. And it seared the conscience of the people and allowed them to just not ever be able to be what God wanted people to be. Deuteronomy 12, 5. But you shall seek the place where Yahweh your God chooses out of all your tribes to put his name for his dwelling, and there you shall go.
So they were commanded to destroy the pagan sites of worship, not to modify them. And they lost the ark. and the altar and all of the ha that they had. Coming into the promised land under Joshua because of their faithlessness.
So they created this system. And God, instead of abandoning them and say, didn't I tell you? Not to worship on these high places, God says, okay, we're just gonna have to work through this. And he did. And he worked through it with men like Samuel, not so much with men like.
Hophni, Phineas, and Eli. Lessons fly off the pages from these. These things. I'm not going to push the point anymore about God forbidding this and then having to work with it because that's what people gave him. But listen to what Jesus says.
This is to the woman of the well at the well. She was not only A Gentile Samaritan woman She was a loose woman. And yet he went out of his way. He said to his disciples, I must go through Samaria. And they're like, why are you doing that?
Because he knew this girl was there, this woman. And he saves her, and he uses her. One thing she was not. She was not a liar. And that is why all the people in the village, at her word, came out to see Jesus because they knew.
Yeah, she's got some heavy issues. We don't like them But she's not a liar. And if she says this, It's worth investigating. come see this man that told me all about my life. And they came.
Jesus said to her, Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem worship the Father. And of course, we do that by the Holy Spirit.
So, the high places, they're the places where the pagans worship. The Jews even were allowed for a period of time to worship at those places. It was not God's intention, it was plan B. They recovered after the Babylonian captivity and they came back into the land. They really weren't too big into idolatry anymore, but they became arrogant, which caused another problem, which can be another form of idolatry.
And that's the prophet Zechariah Haggai saying, Hey, build your place of worship, okay? That's when Haggai and Zechariah came along. And got the people to do.
Now we come to God's. which is all part of this. They are the demon Alternate. That leads to this the The alternate route. Of death.
If you don't want to go to heaven, Take this road. And you can go to hell. They won't say it that way, but that's what they're doing. Everything unreal must go. And Every Every moral must be protected, and the false gods won't do that.
Jeremiah said, Will a man again make gods for himself which are not gods? And the Christian has to have the same attitude. And we can do this without. being too intense with the people we're witnessing. I wouldn't share the gospel.
The same way I would teach the Bible or preach the Word. I know my audience somewhat. And it's just a different arena. It could get to that level if the conversation Intensified, but most of the time I'm just giving them facts and shooting down their facts. We'll get to a couple of those in a minute, we've got a few minutes left.
1 Corinthians 8. We know that an idol is nothing in the world. and that there is no other God but one. Christianity. There's no exception to that.
Idolaters condemn truth. And they are entirely tolerant Of its condemnation. When the truth condemns their lifestyle, they are intolerant of this or they get converted. or they become One of those in-between ones that causes even more trouble.
So Christ, the Bible, Christians, true churches, they become offensive and antichrist. He's going to get rid of those. It's going to c stop them from operating publicly There are political parties. That are all about hell. And Hell's deities, communism.
Communism is in ti will tolerate no rival. That's the whole thing with the killing feels of Cambodia and Paul Pott and Romania and Richard Wambrown and his wife Sabrina, the suffering they had because in Romania they wouldn't tolerate true Christianity. They Kill it, persecute it. They would allow a state church Long as it behaved itself, stayed on the reservation, Islam will tolerate no rival. If that rival begins to make converts, they're going to start.
Getting ugly. Evolution will not tolerate rivals. That's why whenever some scientist comes along and says, hey, why don't we teach creationism as an alternative to evolution? Oh boy, they'll take that thing to Washington, to the Supreme Court. No, you cannot.
We will not tolerate an alternative to our theory. The American Democrat Party today will not tolerate a rival and thus the violence. And so Truth Look at this. This doesn't only belong to communism, Islam, evolutionists. And People that are just insane, when they are in the minority.
They're like a lamb. When there is equality, they become a fox. And history points this out: when they're in the majority, they are a tiger. Thus, the Spanish Inquisition. For example, just one of just countless examples.
Spurgeon said it is evidently as evil, as idolatry. To worship a God of gold as it is to worship a God of mud. Basic understanding of what's going on here spiritually. All right. Psalm 115.
Those who make them are like them, and so is everyone who trusts in them. Psalm 16, 14, nor take up their names on their lips.
So we speed up now and we go to how they may apply to us today.
Well, I hope I've already factored that in, and we'll be finishing up with this. We should share the view Of the Old Testament and the New Testament righteous about these demonic manifestations, step one. I try not to give, you know. Three STEPs to a happy life Because you can't remember them like, what was that second step? There's something about licorice.
I know it. And you just get, it's like, well, why bother? I think a better approach is know the scriptures. Just know the scriptures. And uh you'd be riding that bike instead of talking about it.
I know there's some others that like to do the five-point sermons, and I'm not knocking them for them. But for me, I just prefer talking about the scriptures. Psalm 119. You young men, especially, because Psalm 119 is written. By, well, with a young man in mind.
Therefore, your precepts concerning all things I consider to be right, I hate every false way. We don't have time to read Romans chapter 1, except this part, talking about this is directed, directly what we call evolution of the species. Paul said they changed the glory of incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals, and creeping things. Those who claim a woman's right to do what they do of course. are also Is an application of idolatry in modern day times.
And uh So, can they come out of that? When Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, he said, you said I thought you were finishing this. I thought we were almost done 20 minutes ago. This is what Paul said about the Solomon set it up. Paul and Silas are in a place called Philippi.
They start a church there. It's a beautiful act. God opens the heart of Lydia. Things are just rolling away. Then they get this.
They're beaten and they're chased out of the city.
Well, they leave the city, pretty much chased. They weren't welcomed there. And so, with those wounds on their back, they show up in Thessalonica and they start telling people about Christ and Jesus' love. And the people are looking at these guys saying, You just got beat up in Philippi for your religion. And you're coming here and telling us to join you?
All right. Where do we sign up? Because what you're saying is a million times better than what Zeus is saying. And so Paul writes about these guys. He's so impressed, he says, For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry.
We had to you. And how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and that is the story of every convert since then. Thanks for tuning in today to Cross Reference Radio, where Pastor Rick has some answers for various questions that have been asked. We can't fully express how grateful we are that you've been with us today. But if you're ever looking for more teaching and content from us, you're welcome to subscribe to our podcast.
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