Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. As you run today's race of life, get ready for a paradigm shift.
Guess what? God does not think like you do, never has, never will. And this means we need to get on His page, not the other way around.
For all the details, stay tuned. 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. Our current series is on ten lies about God and why you might already be deceived. Pastor Lutzer, today you're speaking on lie number four, that God thinks like we do. In one sense, what else could we think? Well Dave, the answer to that question is, we like to think that God thinks like we do.
That's the humanistic response. After all, we think that we know what God should be like. But what we have to do is to correct that by going back to the scriptures. And I say to everyone out there, and some pastor has already emphasized this, that if you think that God agrees with you about everything, look in the mirror and you are seeing who your God really is. The fact is that we must get back to a biblical conception of God. And that's why I wrote the book entitled Ten Lies About God and we're making it available for you. And I wrote the book in order to help us correct some of the misconceptions about God in our culture. It'll help you to understand and also to answer objections about God. Here's what you can do.
Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Let us make sure that we get back to the biblical God. Art Linkletter said that he was watching a child scrawling something on a piece of paper and said to him, what are you drawing? And the voice said, I'm drawing a picture of God. Linkletter said, nobody can do that because nobody knows what God looks like.
He said, oh yeah, they will when I get through. The question is, what does God look like? If you were with us last time, you know that I spoke about a conception of God that was really not human enough. I argued that God is a God of emotions and that Jesus not only suffered on the cross, but God the father suffered on the cross. But today I'm going to deal with an opposite and more prevalent error. It is the idea that God is too human.
He is too much like us. As you know, this is a series of messages titled the 10 lies about God. And today we come to number four. And the fourth lie is that God thinks like we do. We recreate God in our own image.
It's a terrible, terrible mistake. Very good book by Donald McCluff, the trivialization of God. He says that as we end one century and go into another, perhaps the worst sin he says is the trivialization of God in the church. And that's why when we come to church, we often don't expect to encounter God. We come so casually, just as if encountering God is a familiar thing and everybody does it. And he says these words, we prefer the illusions of a safer deity. So we have paired God down to more manageable proportions.
Let me ask you a question. What comes to your mind when you think of the word idolatry? Is it a group of primitive people dancing around objects made of gold and silver? That's part of it, but that's only a sliver of what the Bible teaches about idolatry. Idolatry is any conception of God that is a false conception that we attribute to him. That is idolatry. As a matter of fact, idolatry is simply having thoughts that are unworthy of God. You have created a God in your mind, perhaps even a God that you worship, but the God that you worship is not the God of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why did Israel begin with idolatry when Moses was up on the mountain?
You remember what they said? They said, as for this man, Moses, we know not what has become of him. What they were saying is, look, this God who revealed himself with all that terror, he's distant. He's not meeting all of our needs. We want a God who is more present. We want a God that we can see, a God that is more manageable. Why is it today that people create all these images of God that are idolatrous? Well, there are many reasons, but one of them is because oftentimes the God of Christianity is looked at as being too distant, too removed, and too unconcerned. People say if he is all powerful and if he has all might and all knowledge, why the Holocaust, why the suffering that takes place, why the terrible, terrible tragedies of today? That's one reason.
There's another reason. People say the God of the Bible is too judgmental. We need one that is a little bit more tolerant of who we are, who understands us just a little bit better, and as a result, idols are manufactured. In fact, Calvin said that our minds are idol factories, constantly spewing out idolatrous thoughts about God. Because what you find when people make their own conception of God, there are several things you'll know about it. First of all, it is a God who is manageable, a God who allows me to be in charge at all times. It is a God who is a substitute for the true God, and it is a God who allows me to live the way I want to live. I maintain control.
In America today, people go God shopping. The imagery is the cafeteria, and that's a very important imagery. Because when I'm going through a cafeteria and I'm selecting this and I'm selecting that, first of all, I remain in charge. I remain in charge. I make my decision so I am fully informed and I eat what I desire.
That's number one. Number two, the imagery of a cafeteria means that I can't judge people who select something different from me. So today we have a cafeteria religion. You take a little bit of Eastern mysticism, you add a tad of Buddhism, you throw in some verses of scripture, and then a whole lot from your own experience, and you come up with a conception of deity that is just right for you, and you certainly can't judge the person next to you whose concoction, whose conception is different from yours.
And so that's where we're at. Karl Barth, the great Swiss theologian, said very accurately that there are only two ways to construct an idea of God. One way is to begin with man, and having begun with man to then project as to what God is like. And the other way is to begin with God and see what he has revealed. So what I'm going to do in the next few moments is this. First of all, we're going to talk about various conceptions of God that have been man-made. Secondly, we're going to contrast that with the God of the Bible who is going to shatter all of our idolatrous thoughts about him, and we're going to ask the question about the possibility of coming to know him and what rewards there might be attached to such a knowledge and to such a pursuit.
That's where we're going. First of all, these unbiblical conceptions of God. Now, I'm going to give you five or six very quickly. I will only list them and make a comment or two, and some of these are not entirely wrong. Some of them have a mixture of truth and error.
A few are completely, completely wrong and perhaps even blasphemous. So let's go. First of all, there's the God of my health and wealth. It's the God who is there to make me prosperous. It's the God of Western capitalism. God becomes my financial advisor.
He becomes my ATM. Gloria Copeland wrote, the word of God simply reveals that lack and poverty are not in line with God's will for the obedient. Allow the Holy Spirit to minister this truth to you until you know beyond a doubt that God's will is prosperity.
And what she means is diamonds and cars and houses. I think the martyrs in the early church would have been shocked to discover that God's will for them was material prosperity. I don't think you could preach this message in Haiti or Angola. I don't think you could even preach it in Belarus or some of the Eastern European countries that my wife and I have visited, but it's the God of my prosperity. Here, America is so concerned about success and prosperity. Is it any wonder that we should drag God into the equation, make him our servant so that we have the God of my personal prosperity.
Let me give you another one. The God of my favorite cause, the God of my favorite cause. Here I'm thinking about such things as radical feminism. Radical feminism says male dominance has created a lot of hurt.
It has stifled women, et cetera. And you open the Bible and it is a male book from beginning to end. God is spoken of as father, as king, as master. What we need to do, the radicals say, is to realize that if God is a male, then males will think they are God. So what we have to do is we have to retranslate the Bible and come with inclusive language to chisel out all of these male references to God so that we can have a God finally that women can worship.
And so one writer says that God is really the goddess of the primal matrix, the great womb from which everything has come. Now before we criticize this view, we do have to hear what these women are saying. Let's be very sensitive here and realize that the Bible has often been used to justify a kind of male dominance that is harsh and uncaring and oppressive. And we stand against that. And so let's remember that many of these women are hurting women. But at the same time, is the answer really for us to take the Bible and hymnals and lectionaries and change them to goddess rather than God or some kind of inclusive language that is gender neutral? Do we have a right to do that?
I don't think so. I want you to know in passing that whenever you begin to have this kind of female emphasis on deity, you always slip into pagan religions. And this can be seen in radical feminism, where you end up in a major denomination actually having a conference where they worship Sophia the goddess in that re-imaging conference that received so much publicity.
That's where it goes. But furthermore, whether you like it or not, the Bible talks about male headship, God being male. Now of course, every theologian knows that God is neither male nor female. Male and femaleness have only to do with creation. God is certainly not male.
But that's the way he's represented to us. And we must find out why God has been so represented. The answer is not to try to take the scriptures and reinterpret them so that we have a goddess that women can worship. Then men can have their own God. Women can have their own God. No, that's idolatry.
Let me give you another one. The God of my sexuality. The God of my sexuality. There's a growing body of gay literature, homosexual literature that takes the Bible, looking at it through new eyes, through new ways of interpretation and comes out saying that God is in favor of the gay lifestyle.
Now let's be very careful here as well. Because oftentimes the church has been very judgmental, very oppressive and many of these folks who want to so reinterpret the scriptures, bless them. They have often been the targets of focused judgmentalism by Christians who live with all kinds of other sins but then we take the gay lifestyle and we use it and therefore it becomes the point of contention and judgmentalism.
So let's feel their pain. But is the answer that we should take God and make him more tolerant? And then I think of a book that was written many years ago that said that any loving relationship is sanctioned by God.
Heterosexual, homosexual, whatever. So you have today the God of my sexuality. My God would never do that, people say, not realizing that they may be talking about an idol.
Let me give you another one. The God of my emotional need. Today oftentimes the Bible is preached with a language not of scripture but the language of psychology today. God exists we are told and the reason that he does is that God might help our rehabilitation. We don't need to be redeemed, we need to be rehabilitated and he exists there for no other reason than to make me whole. God does help people become whole but the emphasis in the scripture is redemption, it is not rehabilitation.
Let me give you another one. The God of my nation. I need to tread softly here but those of us who perhaps have roots in other countries we see this clearly sometimes in the great wonderful country of the United States where somehow God is on the side of the United States and whatever is good for America is also good for God. He is our God. It is the God of Christianity wrapped in a flag or we could also say a sub point the God of my race.
Here's another one. The God of my personal notions. The God of my personal notions. I bought the book conversations with God because I had heard so much about it.
Neil Donald Walsh wrote the book. Actually he didn't write it so much as simply write down what some being came and told him. If you're acquainted with occult literature you know that automatic writing is a part of occultism and he began to write and somehow the words came to him and he's having conversations with God.
Well God says among other things that feelings are important, words aren't. Your will is really God's will for you and God has no preferences about the way in which you live and when you read the book should you be surprised when you discover that God agrees with everything that Neil Donald Walsh agrees with. It is the God of my personal notions. God agrees with me completely because I have created this idol. Now friends I want you to know that there is a spate of books by the hundreds written along that line.
Books that will say that actually we are the ones who are in charge. God approves of whatever we do. In fact some go so far as to say that there is no evil, there is no sin, mistakes but no sin, no evil. One day I was on a plane riding I think it was to Atlanta not too long ago and a young woman sitting next to me and we began to talk about religion. I steered the conversation in that direction and she said that she did not believe in evil and I thought well wow this is really interesting so I brought up the famous name you know that everybody brings up when you talk about evil. I said what about Hitler and she said Hitler was not evil and Hitler did not sin. She said he made some unwise choices and then she added in total postmodern terms his preferences were those with which I disagree. I was glad to hear that but he did not sin and evil did not exist fully totally postmodern.
Her God was whatever she wanted him to be. Read this past week about a man who you know of course in new age literature you end up being God obviously. Patient was seeing a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist was so weary of this person he was so messed up the patient was so messed up and so confused and the man had spent hours with him and wasn't able to help him so finally the psychiatrist sat down and said look I haven't been able to help you you're so confused. He said I want to hear your story again but this time begin from the beginning. The man said okay I'll begin from the beginning. He said in the beginning I created the heavens and the earth. Is it any wonder that we're confused? When God says I am that I am he was saying I am what I am and not what you want me to be. How we manufacture idols. Jesus comes on the pages of scripture and just explodes them like an iconoclast.
He comes in and he leaves them shattered on the floor. How in the world can we believe in the God of health and wealth when Jesus said the foxes have holes the birds of the air have nests but I have nowhere to put my head. How can we believe in the God of my special cause my gender when he used such gender laden words when he says he who honors the son honors the father and to dishonor the son is to dishonor the father who sent him. How can we believe in the God of my sexuality when Jesus approved the Old Testament and said he who looks upon a woman to lust has committed adultery in his heart. How can we believe that God is nothing but my personal therapist when he said that he came to seek and to save that which was lost.
How can we say that God is the God of my nation when Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world and how can we possibly believe that God is the God of my personal ideas and notions and imaginations when he said all things have been committed to me by my father and no man knows the father except the son and no man knows the son except the father and to whomsoever the son wills to reveal him. Wow are you talking about the same God the same God who tells me that everything that I want to do is right and he has no preference regarding my lifestyle. What kind of a God is that? It's an idolatrous God. Listen to the text of today Isaiah 55 verse 6 one of the texts of the day.
Seek the Lord while he may be found call on him while he is near let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts let him turn to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and to our God for he will freely pardon for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts and you believed that what you wrote down the conception of the mind can be attributed to this God whose thoughts are above ours whose ways are above ours at the same distance that the earth is from heaven. Can we even know this God? Well the answer is yes because even though our knowledge of him is only partial only partial we know only a little part of what he has given to us we can study the scriptures but there's still this vast unknown after all his thoughts are so much higher than ours and his ways so much higher. Partial knowledge is not necessarily inaccurate knowledge. We do know some things about God but do we know fully?
No. The scripture says that we see through a glass darkly but we do see. You know my friend one of the best things we can do is to commit ourselves to get to know God as far as human beings are able to know him. What a noble pursuit. I've written a book entitled 10 lies about God some of the chapter titles are the lie that God is whatever we want him to be the lie that many paths lead into God's presence the lie that God is more tolerant than he used to be the lie that God has never personally suffered lie number five God is obligated to save followers of other religions I'll tell you this book deals with a lot of controversial issues but we need to get back to the scriptures if we're going to win this culture back to God the God of the Bible for a gift of any amount we're making this book available for you here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 of course the book deals with other lies about God as well we're making this book available for you here's what you do go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 I wrote this book to help all of us to confront the culture to know how to answer those who object and I think it will be a blessing to you go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337 you can write to us at running to win 1635 with LaSalle Boulevard Chicago Illinois 60614 there are only two ways to approach an understanding of God from the bottom up or from the top down and only one way works either you accept his written revelation in the Bible or you invent your own idols because we all worship something next time on running to win we turn to the book of Isaiah for more on coming to grips with the way God thinks for Pastor Erwin Lutzer this is Dave McAllister running to win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
