Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.
They're nice, they entice, but you'll pay a high price. We're talking about the idols we worship, idols old and new. Israel felt God's judgment for making a golden calf. We'll be judged as well if we don't renounce the idols we hold dear. 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, I wonder what our golden calves are and how tightly we hold onto them.
Well Dave, what is most deceptive is simply this, many of us have those golden calves and we don't even know it. Or at least we don't want to know it because it's possible for idols of the mind to hide, so to speak. So outwardly we worship God just like the Pharisees did, but inwardly we worship those idols. Blessed are those who have confessed their sins, their idols, and we must do so of course regularly.
You know, when you stop to think of it, Moses had many opportunities, but one thing he did not see with a great deal of clarity, though he knew that a Redeemer was coming, he did not see that Jesus Christ as God would eventually die on the cross. That's why I've written a devotional entitled For Us. Now what this devotional does is, it helps us to understand and to meditate on the death of Christ, all that Jesus went through, Gethsemane, the agony that he experienced, because I want us to deeply appreciate all that our Savior has done. For a gift of any amount, we're making this devotional available for you. It will help you to reflect on the death of Christ, and not only his death, but the suffering that accompanied it. For a gift of any amount, we're making it available for you at the end of this message.
I'll be giving you some contact info. And he took the calf, which they had made, and burned it with fire. You must understand that this calf was probably constructed with wood, and then overlaid with gold, and Moses burns the thing, and then he takes the gold, and he grinds it to powder, and he scatters it over the surface of the water, and he makes the sons of Israel drink it. What he says is, I want you to feel now the bad effects, the negative effects, the backwash of your idolatry. And just in the same way, God is continually doing this in people's lives.
Whatever idol we hang onto eventually disappoints us, and we find that bitter taste in our mouths and in our lives because we have hung onto it so dearly. And so what happens in people's experience, that marriage that they decided that they would have no matter what God said about it. They knew better than God, and they would go ahead without consulting him. They would not be too particular in submitting to his guidance because they had an idea as to what God maybe wanted to do in their lives, and they said no, and eventually the very thing that they craved has a bitter taste. And then there's that promotion that the person sought who was this overwhelmingly overcome by the desire to be promoted and to have this position and along with it come all kinds of compromises, all kinds of difficulties, all kinds of torn relationships because God begins to take the zing out of our idols. And then there's that real estate that people buy so that they might be able to have a wise investment and they discover that soon the price begins to drop and all of their hopes and dreams that have been wrapped up in that business investment come tumbling down and God is constantly stripping the idols away from us and pruning our lives so that we will not be caught up in that horrible sin that he hates so much idolatry. And so the people were judged for their idolatry. Notice what happens because the fifth point is that we must repent of our idolatry. We must repent of it.
That's step number five. If we are wise, we will repent. Here's an interesting side light into human nature. Verse 21, Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such great sin upon them? And Aaron said, well, do not let the anger of my Lord burn. You know the people yourself that they are prone to evil. For they said to me, make me a God who will go before us.
For this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. And so I, you know, what are you going to do? You live in a democratic society. I said to them, whoever has any gold, let them tear it off. And so they gave it to me and I. Well, really, Moses, believe this. I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.
Really, wasn't that neat? Moses, you need to understand it's the kind of furnaces that we have out here that's really the problem. You have to understand it's the people's problem. And then if they didn't make these kinds of furnaces, well, this would not have happened.
But what are you going to do? What a, what a furnace this is. It's the furnaces fault. Yes, I know we all think it's rather funny, but I want you to know today that Satan has a good excuse for any sin that you and I want to commit.
He's got a good excuse for it. And somehow it'll turn out that it will not be our fault. It'll be somebody else's fault and it'll be the circumstances fault and it'll be the other person's fault. But one thing is sure, we will not be at fault.
The desire to protect ourselves, the desire to make sure that somebody else is to blame is so overwhelming that we will arm ourselves with a pack of excuses and a pack of lies and we'll even blame the furnace for something that we ourselves have done. Moses, of course, is not pleased. He doesn't say, well, you know, come to think of it, Aaron, you've got a good point there.
You know, these furnaces are rather miraculous. No, what he does is he asks all those who are on the side of righteousness to come to him. Verse 25, when Moses saw that the people were out of control for Aaron had let them get out of control to be a derision among their enemies. He stood in the gate of the camp and said, whoever is for the Lord come to me. And all the sons of Levi gathered together. And he said to them, thus says the Lord God of Israel, every man of you put his sword upon his thigh and go back and forth from the gate to gate in the camp and kill every man as brother and every man as friend and every man as neighbor. And the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed and about 3,000 people, 3,000 men fell that day. And Moses says, dedicate yourselves to God.
You read it in this century and you say, I can't believe it, 3,000 people. But you see, what God was saying is I hate idolatry and I take it seriously. And in Old Testament times when you had a theocracy and God intervened directly into the lives of people, he was very angry. The anger of Moses burned and the anger of God burned and God said, this I will not put up with. And he wanted to give a lesson as to what he thought of idolatry.
You see, this is the problem. This is the source of conflict within the human soul. We are idol lovers and God is an idol hater.
And he deals severely and drastically with our idols. Turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 10 where we can see here a New Testament commentary on this event and also it will help us to understand where we fit into this picture. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Paul is saying that these stories in the Old Testament aren't given just simply as ancient history.
They have lessons that they need to teach us. Pick it up in verse 5. Nevertheless, with most of them, this is 1 Corinthians 10 5, with most of them, God was not well pleased for they were laid aloe in the wilderness. Most of the people died, almost all of them, except Caleb and Joshua and Moses who even died before he got to the land. Now these things happened as examples for us that we should not crave evil things as they also craved. And do not be idolaters as some of them were as it is written the people sat down to eat and drink and stood up to play. And let us not act immorally as some of them did and 23,000 fell in a single day. That incidentally is referring to another incident in the book of Numbers. And let us not try the Lord as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents and let us not grumble as some of them did and they were destroyed by the destroyer. What are all the things that are being referred to here?
What are those idols of the heart that you and I protect and crave and bow down to and build our secret shrines to? First, immorality, certainly. Yes, immorality. Secondly, gluttony. Did you know that that is why they grumbled? It's because they didn't like the food that God prepared for them in the desert and that's why he sent those fiery serpents among them.
That's being referred to here. And you say, well, certainly overeating couldn't be an idol. If you think that, you've never talked to somebody who struggles with gluttony. There is alcoholism and drugs and pride and money and all those things, you see, that compete for the allegiance of the almighty God. And what I'm saying to you today is, first of all, we need God even to help us identify those idols, don't we?
And they are quite easily identified. If you leave here today and say, Pastor Lutzer, I don't know, there's something wrong in my life, but I don't know what it is. I must have some idol, but I don't know what it is.
I have a good suggestion for you. Get on your knees and guess at it. Just guess at it.
Might be right. Easy to find out what your idol is. Number one, what is it that you think about most of the time when you have free time to think?
And secondly, what or who do you desire most to please? That's your idol. That's my idol.
C.S. Lewis refers to our idol as, quote, our overwhelming first. I love that expression. So I ask yourself as I ask myself, I ask you as I ask myself, what is our overwhelming first, the driving passion? It may well be that that is the idol of our heart that God needs to pluck from us. So first of all, we should identify our idol. Secondly, we should repent of our idols. Repentance is the idol smasher. Repentance, you see, is the way in which we acknowledge our sin to God and we allow the truth to come to the surface so that we can deal with these things.
And may I say that Martin Luther was absolutely right when he said, the Christian lives the life of repentance every single day. Because this past week there were idols in our hearts. It's like trying to weed a garden. At first those little weeds seem to be so insignificant and they do not seem to sap energy and sunlight from the produce that you want to grow.
But eventually they become stronger. And after you pluck them up, even from the roots, it has to be done again and again and again and again, because we are by nature idolaters. We want some God to worship that is made after our own likeness.
And it's that God that we pursue. And then of course, we must really replace the idol with a true God. You replace the idol with a true God. Now let me be very frank and say that there are some of you who are hooked on some idols that you cannot get rid of. You have bowed before these idols, you have paid them homage, you have worshiped at their shrine, you have enjoyed those idols, but you also know what it is to be ensnared with those idols.
And you don't even have the strength to turn from them. If I said today, I want you to turn from those idols, you know right well that even if you attempted to, it would have to be done insincerely because you've tried before and your idol is stronger than you are. That's why the Bible that is so precise theologically says this in 1 Thessalonians, Paul commends the people, he says, you turned to God from idols. He didn't say you turned away from idols and then you turned to God. No, there are many people who do not have the power to do that.
In fact, not a one of us is capable of that. The idols are too strong. So rather than emphasizing the turning away from idols, we turn to God in our helplessness and seek him in repentance and faith. We come to a God who is stronger than the idols. We come to the true and the living God who has trampled on all idols. And we come to a savior who has been raised and taken to heaven as proof of his absolute total triumph. That's where we ask you to come today. That's the bottom line. Being number two in life is the essence of life.
But knowing who to put a number one is really the most fundamental issue of life. And it's to be Christ. It's to be Christ. And you've heard me quoted from this pulpit before, the dearest idols I have known what are those idols be help me to tear them from the throne and worship only they and we can't tear them from the throne without divine aid. At this moment, our helplessness becomes very apparent and God's grace appears to be so wonderful. I urge you today to come to a savior who can purify your life, who can take away the curse of idolatry, and who can enable us to meet them the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. I love idols. God hates idols. I come helplessly to be delivered.
Join me as we pray. Father, if we were honest, we would admit that this week we bowed before some idols. We made some choices. We made some decisions that we knew were wrong, but the heart wants what it wants.
The furnace just seems to create what we want. Would you, Father, graciously show us those idols? And then, Lord, we turn to you. We do not turn from them for they are too strong, but we turn to you asking you, O Lord, to rid us of them. For some, the idol is a relationship that needs desperately to be broken. For some, it is an unholy ambition that needs desperately to be extinguished.
For some, Father, it is a lifelong career and goal that needs to be laid at your feet. But, Father, we are helpless because we are no better than the people in Exodus chapter 32. We have the very same heart, and unless your grace and mercy invades us, we will leave today the same idolaters as we came in. So help us, Lord. And for those who are struggling, who know right well what your will is and have made excuses for not doing it, Father, they need help because the situations aren't easy and all the promises of the false gods are before their eyes even now. And so help us, Lord. And before I close this prayer, would you pray now? Would you look to God, name your idol, and say, Father, in the presence of this idol, I am helpless, but help me for your name's sake. Deliver me from idols.
You tell him that because he's waiting. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for hearing our prayer and begin a work in us and then pursue it relentlessly even when we forget about it until you get your will and your way and achieve your goals and not ours. In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen. And you know, my friend, one of the best ways for us to get rid of those idols is to linger at Calvary. When we think of all that Jesus suffered, when we think of what he went through to redeem us, we are humbled. We are made to realize once again how important it is that Jesus Christ be the center of our lives and that indeed all those idols get toppled. That's why I've written a devotional entitled For Us.
What it delineates is what Jesus did on our behalf. It's a 30-day devotional and for a gift of any amount it can be yours. Now what this devotional will do is it'll help you to reflect. It'll help you to reflect on all that Jesus did for us and in response what we want to do is to yield ourselves to him with a new sense of dedication, a new sense of commitment. Now very quickly, here's how a copy can be yours. Go to RTWOffer.com.
That's RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Remember the title of the devotional is For Us. Moses, of course, he experienced the terrors of Sinai. For us, when we stop to think of it, we come to a hill called Calvary and that hill calls us. It beckons us. It beckons us to worship. It beckons us to be forgiven. It beckons us to love the Savior who died for us. The title of the devotional, For Us. Time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life.
Maria is from New Mexico and listens to us on OnePlace.com. She writes, Five years ago, God gave me the grace to believe in his precious son Jesus. I was living with the father of my son, who is now eight. He wanted to marry me, but since I became a Christian, he doesn't want to get married anymore. We still live together, and I pray for him every day. He doesn't like me to go to church, and we've had several fights about it.
What should I do? Meanwhile, I watch Moody Church's service. I'm from Columbia. God bless you, and thanks for your everyday words. Maria, thank you so much for your question.
I wish that there were an easy answer that I could give you, but I can't. I certainly hope that you have a network of believers. You speak about the church, and you desperately need the church at this moment. You need their wisdom. You need their comfort.
You need their prayers, but let me just give a couple of thoughts from my heart to yours in the midst of this difficult situation. Obviously, if possible, what you need to do is to separate from this man until you get married. You are living together. You've had a child together, and so there is already a bonding to this man.
We're thankful that apparently he does provide for you, so there are certain benefits, but you need to work toward the whole idea of recognizing that marriage is God's will in the midst of this kind of a situation, assuming that the man you are living with is not abusive, and that, again, is why you need the wisdom of other people. So at the same time, you must think about how you are going to minister to your child, this little boy that you have who's eight years old. You need to be able to teach him. You need to be able to guide him. You will be the one who will be able to impact him for the Lord Jesus Christ. So I would say that God has a path for you. I'm not sure exactly what it looks like, but I trust that the church that you are attending would be able to give you that guidance. Meanwhile, don't forget, God is with you, and he is going to be your wisdom and your strength.
Continue to serve the Lord and minister to that little boy, and as best you can, to his Father. 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, Illinois, 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. A holy God tolerates no rivals. That is the message of Mount Sinai, and each of us must renounce our private idols or face God's stern discipline. Today, Erwin Lutzer concluded Targeting Idolatry, the tenth in a series of twelve messages about the life and times of Moses, a man getting closer to God. Next time, Moses' finest hour. Join us as Moses asks God, Show me thy glory. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.
