Making Scarecrow Idols

Let me ask you to open your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 12. These summer Sundays, perhaps strangely we're looking at this Old Testament book.

Some would see it as a very negative book. Jeremiah is sometimes described as the prophet of tears, a gloomy kind of individual, a harsh individual, and yet we're learning that what he said to ancient Judah is coming in power to us today. He's given a very tough assignment by God. He's a prophet, and his message basically is one of repentance. It's a message of judgment. If you're a prophet, if you're a preacher, you want to say something positive.

You want, in a sense, to reinforce people in their own prejudices and desire, and in that way increase your popularity. But Jeremiah has a very strong call. He realizes that he was consecrated by God, that before he was even conceived in his mother's womb, God knew him, and God had a purpose for him. And in the difficulties of his task, and it's a very difficult task, we see his courage and his commitment to the Word of God. Here, if we could say humanly, as we come into chapter 12, he's kind of having a tough day.

Do you have these? Jeremiah chapter 12, let's read first of all the first four verses. Righteous are you, O Lord, when I complain to you, yet I would plead my case before you. Why does the way of the wicked prosper? Why do all who are treacherous thrive? You plant them and they take root.

They grow and produce fruit. You are near in their mouth and far from their heart. But you, O Lord, know me. You see me and test my heart toward you.

Pull them out like sheep for the slaughter, and set them apart for the day of slaughter. How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the evil of those who dwell in it, the beasts and the birds are swept away because they said he will not see our latter end. Jeremiah, in these verses, is asking a very common question, a very emotional question, one that I would suggest all of us have asked, why, why, why? Why, Lord, do you allow the wicked to prosper? I'm a man of God. I'm a prophet and I see the wicked thriving.

I see their crops are doing very well. Why do you allow this to happen? How long, verse four, how long will the land mourn? How long has this to last?

How long have I to put up with this? Notice the Lord's answer. It's a tough answer, verse five.

If you have raced with men on foot and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan? Some translations say the pride of the Jordan, thinking that Jeremiah is revering to the time when the Jordan swells its bank, but probably the word is better translated thicket as we have in our translation. Later, Jeremiah uses the word again and is translated the jungle. The jungle of the Jordan. The Jordan today in one sense is much of a river, but the time of Jeremiah obviously it was, and there was a kind of jungle in the banks of the Jordan. There were wild animals there even at the time of Jeremiah the lion.

In other words, Jeremiah, here's the point. If you think it's tough going now, you haven't seen anything yet. That's not what he wants to hear, is it? He's given a very tough assignment, but it's going to become even more difficult. If you have difficulty running with the men on foot, how on earth do you think you're going to compete with the horses?

If you have difficulty surviving in the safe land, how are you going to get on running in the jungle of the Jordan, a place where there's wild animals and a lot of treachery? Not what we want to hear during the tough times of our life, is it? Do you find living for Jesus Christ difficult today with all of His challenges? I think most of us would say yes, it's difficult. Students, do you think it's difficult being a Christian at Audrey Kell or Southmec High School? Do you think that's difficult? How do you think it's going to be when you go to UNC Chapel? You think your work situation is difficult now? How do you think it's going to be for you when you get that promotion? You think it's difficult raising a five-year-old child today?

How do you think you're going to do when you have a child in middle school and two in high school a few years from now? That's it, isn't it? The NIV translates verse 5 this way, if you've raced with men on foot and they have worn you out, how can you compete with horses? If you stumble in safe ground, how will you manage in the thickets by the Jordan?

Very graphic, isn't it? The way Jeremiah writes. Here's the point. How are you going to be faithful to God in the future if you find it tough living for God today? See, God has plans for Jeremiah, and God has plans for you and me. Instinctively, we think that if we follow the plans of God, if we do the will of God, life is going to be easy. That's not always the case. It wasn't the case for Jeremiah.

Do you find yourself today falling apart because of disappointments and some setbacks in your life? How do you think you're going to handle the future? How are you going to run with the horses when you can't even keep up with men on foot? You say I don't know. Well, Jeremiah is going to tell us.

And I can summarize it this way. What's he saying? Stop looking at scarecrows.

He said what on earth is that? Stop looking at scarecrows and start looking at your great God. First of all, don't worship false gods.

Go back to chapter 10. Jeremiah 10, and we'll read from verses one through 10. Now, arise, this is unfamiliar language, but if we concentrate, we can understand this. Don't think because it's Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah, you can't understand it.

Yes, you can. Pay attention to the reading of the Word. Jeremiah 10 verse 1, hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Notice, hear it. Listen up.

I'm saying that to you. Hear it. Listen. Don't just listen to my voice. Think of the message. Thus says the Lord, learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens, because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity.

A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold. They fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak. And they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good. Verse six, there's none like you, O Lord.

You are great, and Your name is great in might. You would not fear You, O King of the nations, for this is Your due. For among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You.

They are both stupid and foolish. The instruction of idols is but wood. Beaten silver is brought from tarshish and gold from ufaz. They are the work of the craftsman and of the hands of the goldsmith.

Their clothing is violet and purple. They are all the work of skilled men. But the Lord is the true God. He's the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation. Verse 14, every man is stupid and without knowledge. Every goldsmith is put to shame by his idols, for his images are false and there's no breath in them. They are worthless, a work of delusion.

At the time of their punishment, they shall perish. What a contrast. What's he saying? First of all, don't follow the contemporary society. Verse two, here's the Lord. Learn not the way of the nations. Why are you following the way of the pagan nations?

Israel's done that time and time again. You remember the time of Samuel? They're not happy with Samuel as a prophet. And they look around the nations and they say all the nations have got a king, and we need a king. But they want to select their own king.

First Samuel 8, there shall be a king over us. The people say that we also may be like all the nations. We want to be like everyone else. You see, this desire to conform to the surrounding nations, this desire to look like and act like everyone else is a very strong human emotion, isn't it? Those of us who are brought up in Christian homes know that emotion. Dad, why are we different? Why can't we be like so and so? Answer, well this is a Christian home. And we take our beat of our drum, not from the contemporary pagan nation, but from the Word of God. But this desire to conform is very strong in us, isn't it?

To go with the flow. Don't stand out. Who wants to stand out? Who wants to be different?

Who wants to be thought of as an oddball at work or at school? But Israel had forgot that when God called them out of Egyptian bondage, they were told that you are to be a holy nation, separated, different, distinct from the other nations. They are pagans. They have many gods. You are different.

You are different. But now Jeremiah 10, verse 2, they're learning from the way of the nations to their destruction. That be true of us?

Of course it is. We're often like Israel, aren't we? Instead of learning from and following the Lord, we learn from and follow our surrounding culture. Almost in every aspect of our life, Paul in the New Testament tells us, don't be conformed to the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Be different. Don't follow the Lord. Don't allow the world to squeeze you into its own mold. You're different.

Be different. And Jeremiah has already told us that the trends and the customs of the surrounding nations, they are vanity, vapor, worthless. They're pointless.

They're meaningless. Chapter 2, verse 5, we saw before he said, what wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me? There's something wrong in me, the great God that you would leave me, and what do you do?

You go after worthlessness and become worthless. And Israel, of all people, they worship false gods. Notice the graphic way in which Jeremiah to get their attention describes their idols. Verse 5, their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field.

NIV says a melon field, cucumber. I read that, I thought scarecrows in the Bible, I was brought up with the old King James. And the old King James talks about boundaries but the word — Hebrew word for palm and scarecrow have the same consonants but in the context, the translation scarecrow I think is right. Here's a picture of a scarecrow.

Not many around Charlotte. When I was growing up, there was many scarecrows but I don't know if you have that in your backyard. It looks like one of my old suits on it. You know a scarecrow? The farmer puts up this ridiculous structure in the middle of his field of cucumbers or melons or whatever it is to scare the crows.

The birds come, they take the fruit, and the farmer puts up the scarecrow. It's a kind of steak-like, helpless, almost pathetic figure, isn't it? Yes, you can put a hand on its head. You can put a coat on it.

You can put baggy pants on it. But it's still a scarecrow. And Jeremiah is saying, listen, that scarecrow of an idol, it can do absolutely nothing for you. That's your idols. Look at the scarecrows in the cucumber field next door to farmer Bob. See a scarecrow? That's just like your idols. And this is what Israel has done. Israel turned from God the fountain of living waters.

That's tragic itself, but it gets worse, isn't it? They go to the forest. They cut down a tree.

They hammer a few pieces of tree together. Make this ridiculous scarecrow. They decorate it with gold and silver.

They put on fancy clothes on it as we read. But it's still made of wood. And this is what you want to worship instead of the great God.

This is now your God. Notice what he says at the end of verse four. It can't move. Scarecrow doesn't go around the field, does it?

It's at one point you can't move. Verse five, they cannot speak. You can't have a conversation with an idol, with a scarecrow, can you?

And they can't walk. You've got a God who is omnipresent, and you leave that God, and you turn, and you worship that idol. This verse eight is utter stupidity. It's both stupid and foolish. You say, well, that's ancient Israel. We're much more sophisticated.

We don't do that, don't we? Any idols, any scarecrows in your life? Idol of comfort? Idol of success? That's the American dream, isn't it?

It almost becomes an idol. Little kids pursue the American dream. What Jesus said, seek first the kingdom of God, but don't we tell our kids, pursue the American dream.

That's the way of success. Education. Listen, I believe in education.

Education can very much become a God, can't it? Entertainment. Oh, do we worship entertainment? Money? It's an idol. You worship money? Sport? It's one of the biggest idols we've got in this country.

Not in this country only, but throughout the world, isn't it? Your own pleasure, your own enjoyment. You ask the person in the street what they live for, it's their happiness. You ask the average man, what do you want for my daughter?

I just want her to be happy. A scarecrow. We make scarecrows idols, and so we become worthless.

These idols, like a scarecrow, are totally helpless to help you in your time of need. You may be a billionaire that will not help you on your deathbed. Jesus says, what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?

You may have developed a very large company and been very, very successful. That doesn't help you one little bit when you're told you've got a terminal illness or a loved one dies. What's Jeremiah saying? What's God saying through Jeremiah?

Don't make scarecrows idols. Can I remind you of the first commandments? First commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.

That's number one of the 10 commandments. God is a jealous God. God must have no rivals. He is God. The pagans have thousands of idols. You Israel are to have one, and that God you're to love with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And that was repeated by Jesus in the Gospels, isn't it? No idols. John, at the end of his little letter, 1 John 5 verse 21 writes, little children, keep yourself from idols. Idols.

Martin Luther said, whatever you set your heart on and rely on, that is really your God. So let me give you a little pop quiz. There's five parts to it.

Now relax. You're going to grade yourself. So you can lie, but God knows, right? You're not going to tell me, but here it is. I'm trying to work with you to see what idols, what scarecrows there might be in your life.

Here's the first question. What do you love in life? It's the love test. Augustine said, moral character is assessed not by what a man knows, but what he loves. What's number one love in your life? Jesus says you're to love your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Is that true? Your love test. Number two, your thought test. In your free moments, what do you think about? Someone said, you're not what you think you are, but you, but what you think you are.

What do you think about? What do you think about when you're driving? What do you think about when you're going to sleep? In your free time, what's in your mind? The thought test. Here's the third one, the money test.

How do you spend your money? You know, if we saw your checkbook, if we saw your credit card list, if we knew how you dealt with your finances, that would tell us, wouldn't it? We sing, there's an old hymn, Fanny Crosby, not a mite with I behold, but with hold. I'm going to give you everything I have, Lord. Why do we sing that if it's not true? The money test.

Paul says the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Is that number one in your life? I mean, be honest before God. God knows.

Here's the fourth one, the time test. What do you choose to do in your spare time? You say, I live a very busy life.

Yes, I do. I know you're a very important person, but what do you do in your spare time? What were you doing last night? What were you doing yesterday morning?

What about Friday night? What do you do in your spare time? I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just asking a question. Number five, the security test. What gives you security in life? What or whom are you trusting for the future? That's a good one, isn't it? What do you think you're doing?

Any scarecrows in your life? To love or to trust in anything more than God is to make it an idol. If you're trusting in your riches, you're making your resources your God.

If you're an anxious person, you're allowing your circumstances to control you, and you've made your circumstances your God. If you love your children more than God, you've made your children, your family a God. A very common idol in Christian churches and families. Becomes number one. What our family wants, they get.

An abdication of spiritual leadership in the family, and often we just make our family a God. God will have no rivals. God's a jealous God. Pleased to be number one. First commandment, you shall have no other gods before me.

Very simply stated, a short command, but really everything in the Ten Commandments follows from that. If you get that one right, you won't struggle so much with the other ones. Let me ask you the question another way. Maybe this is getting too convicting. You want me to move on, I know.

I'm going to dig a little deeper here. What upstages you, what upstages you coming to Calvary on the Lord's Day to worship? When you're not here on a Sunday morning, why is that?

What's more important in your life? People sometimes say, well, I was tired. Well, you tell that to God. I'm too tired to come. Oh, I work hard all week.

I'm tired. On Sunday is the Lord's Day. I catch up on my rest.

Really? Seems your comfort is a bit of a God, isn't it? Well, on Sunday I spend time with my family and friends. I find it's a good time for my family. I'm a very family person. I see. So, spending time with your family and friends on the Lord's Day at 945 is more important than coming and worshiping God. Well, you know, I had a late Saturday night. I've heard some single say, I'm tired. Late Saturday, what are you doing on Saturday night? How long are you really up with that video game? Could it be that video game, that time on social media, that late night movie that that has become really your God?

You don't like to confess that. It sounds ridiculous, but could it be true? How about this one? My children are involved in a traveling sports team. You know, little Johnny, little Susie, they're a really good player at soccer or baseball or whatever it is, volleyball, everything else. And in order to do it, they've got to play in the Lord's Day. OK. That's your choice as a family, but what does that communicate to your children? That week after week after week, I've known families not to come to worship because they're traveling throughout the country, and it seems that what the coach says is more important than what God says.

And instead, men, of leading your family, you're allowing often an ungodly coach to set the priorities of your children. And that, when it comes down to it, is more important than coming and worshiping on the Lord's Day. You say, John, you're being a bit legalistic. Well, you can, I'm asking the question.

Do you really think that that honors God? What about your business? Sunday morning, you're doing business. You say, well, I'm catching up. I've got a lot to do. Or a student says, well, I have my studies. I have to study on Sunday morning. You can't take a break from your study for two hours. You're not much of a student then, if you need that time. If you can't get through your course without studying on a Sunday morning, you're not a very good student.

You're not, you have not organized your time very, very well. Let me tell you, as someone who has done exams, and who has done higher education, a sporting event. I've told the story of Good Now, I'm On Vacation. We met this couple from England, and to his great joy, my lesser joy, we found out we both like Manchester United. Now, I like Manchester United, but they're not my idol. And it became very obvious to this young man that his life revolved around Manchester United, so that every time we met, he talked and talked and talked about Man United. And he told me that he went to every home game. Nothing would stop him from going to a home game. And his wife said, he's very difficult to live with when they get beat, because Manchester United do get beat from time to time, as all teams do.

That was his life as an idol. You say, well Man United don't play here on Sunday mornings, and would I still come to church if they're playing on a Sunday morning? Yeah, I would be here. We have people who can't come to the Lord's — to worship the Lord when the Panthers are at home with a kickoff at 1 o'clock. And I speak to some people and they say, well, you know, we got to go early.

We tailgate. You think, really? Do you think Jeremiah, if he was speaking to us, might say, that is a scarecrow idol? I mean, the service finishes after 11 o'clock. You have two hours to go, what, half an hour's distance?

It wouldn't be tragic if you missed that opening 10 minutes. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field. God is opposed to all scarecrows. The second commandment says, you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. A carved image or idol distorts a true concept of God. No representation of God can capture the essence of who God is.

That's incidentally why we don't have any statutes at Calvary Church. We don't try to represent what God looks like. We don't try to represent what our Lord Jesus Christ looks like.

No. That would focus on our imagination. That would emphasize the creativity of the artist rather than us looking at the revelation of God. No, we don't bow before statutes. We don't have icons. When people use a satchel or an icon in their worship, that object is often worshiped or prayed to or treated with a special power or sometimes almost like a lucky charm. An idol, a false god, reduces God to our comfort level.

We can manage it. And we hear people say today, well, my God's like this. My God wouldn't do such and such. And you think, your idea of God is a true God? We make a God which fits into our own culture. We make a God that we can live with. We can make a God which is kind of tame, which is kind of domesticated. A God that doesn't make us feel bad at all. A God that we can use and we are erecting scarecrows. Remember soon after the Israelites left Egypt, what did they do?

They made a golden calf similar to the false gods of Egypt. There's something in our hearts, isn't it? That we drift so easily into idolatry, don't we? And this is why the corporate worship of the people of God is so important.

I don't say that because I'm a pastor. I say that in the authority of Scripture that you and I need to be reminded as we've been reminded today of the greatness of our God, that we will get our eyes again up to see who God is. And our worship is not to mimic an unbelieving culture. We are to worship the true God in spirit and in truth. Don't erect scarecrow idols. Don't worship false gods.

Here's the positive, and it's a beautiful positive. Boast only in the true God. Chapter 10, again verse 6, there is none like you, O Lord.

You are great and Your name is great and might. Verse 10, the Lord is the true God. He's a living God and the everlasting King. Verse 12, it is He who made the earth by His power, who established the world by His wisdom and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. Verse 13, when He utters His voice, there's a tumult of waters in the heavens. He makes the mist rise from the ends of the earth. He makes lightning for the rain, and He brings forth the wind from His storehouses.

That's it. I recently did a podcast, Your God is Too Small. That's your problem, isn't it? See, we have such a little God that is so easy, none of us can say this doesn't impact us. You all know what I'm talking about in your own heart, don't you? Easy to see it in others, sometimes blind to ourselves, that we're erecting these scarecrows for idols.

What's the answer? The answer is to understand the true God. That's what Jeremiah is doing. He is the unique God. Look at it, verse 6.

He is great. He's the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Think of the brilliant power and wisdom of this God who speaks and the worlds come into existence. Why would you abandon that God?

Why would you abandon a God who can do everything? All of creation is under His control. There are thousands, millions of scarecrows, but only one true God.

He's great. Verse 10, He's the living God. He's the everlasting King. If you have this little scarecrow that you've erected, you've gone and cut it down and put it together and there you are, and you think it's wonderful, and you have abandoned the everlasting King, there is no beginning to His being. He's the first and the last, the Alpha and the Omega, the great, eternal, uncreated, self-existent God, Almighty God who exists from everlasting to everlasting. We're born, grow old and die, but this God, this great God has no beginning and no end. He is the ever-present one.

I am who I am, the true and the living God. I ask you, brothers and sisters, why is your focus of that God? And why are you spending so much time on these scarecrow idols?

They can't move, they can't speak, they can't help you. And what happens as we erect these idols in our lives? We tend to boast in them, don't we? We take our security in them.

They make us feel good in what we've done and who we are, and this is the way of the world that we have achieved ourselves. Notice what this great prophet says in this brilliant passage, Jeremiah 9. Jeremiah 9.23, one of the great passages in this prophecy.

Jeremiah 9.23, thus says the Lord, are you listening? Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice and righteousness in the earth, for in these things I delight, declares the Lord. Oh, that's it.

That's the answer, isn't it? This is why I'm to boast in. My only boast is to be in the true God. Notice what he says you don't boast in.

First of all, he says, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. It's easy to boast in our wisdom, our intelligence, our intellectual achievements. I remember in my last year at high school, in these old-fashioned days, we were streamed so that, you know, the top students were in this class and the bottom students in different streams. And so, in God's providence, I'm in the top class for English and we're not getting ready to go to university. We're dying to get out of high school.

We're grown men. We're 17, 18 years old and we know we're going to do well and we're going to go off to university and we've done very, very well. And we're very, very cocky and we're very, very sure of ourselves. And remember, the principal teacher asked a question and one of the boys, Bruce Tattersall, answered it very quickly, very confidently.

I mean, at the end, you're a senior, what can the teacher do to you? You know, we're very cocky because we think we're very bright. We're very smart. And he answered his question. And the principal teacher, who was not a Christian to my knowledge, he said to him, he said, do you think you're really smart, don't you? And Bruce Tattersall said, yes sir, I do. He said, in fact, I am very smart. And compared with others, he was. He is.

I don't know what he does now. And the teacher said to him, he says, do you ever think who gave you your brains? And I was shocked. It's the kind of thing we would say as Christians, isn't it?

I thought, yes. You think you're smart. You think intellectually you're smart. You've done well at school, at college, smart academically. Don't boast in your wisdom.

Everything you have comes from God. Ah, but there's another one. Let not the mighty man boast in his might. Any strong men here?

Oh, there's a lot of strong men here, aren't there? I mean, physically you like to show off your muscles, don't you? I mean, it's the reason, one of the reasons you go to the gym and work out, isn't it? You take off that shirt and you show how buff you are, and how much weights you can pull, and you boast in your strength. You boast in your achievements. You boast in your athletic ability. And you want people to know about it. You do it in a subtle way.

Really? Let not the strong man boast in his strength. God, in a moment, can take that strength from you. God, in a split second, can put you right on your back, can't He?

God can make you the weakest person there is. Your strength, your might, your physical, your physique, how you look. Ladies, you think you look pretty good.

You think God has done a really good task of how you look, and you're proud of your appearance. Don't boast in these things. Here's another one. Let not the rich man boast in his riches. Thomas Fuller said, riches may leave us while we live, we must leave them when we die.

That's right. Some of you have been wealthy and are now poor. Some of you were born poor and now are very rich.

Most of us are in between, right? Boast in your riches? You are quite rich, and you want everyone to know it? And you're boasting in it. That has become a god, hasn't it?

See, if we're boasting in these things, if I'm boasting in my intellectual ability, if I'm boasting in my strength and my achievements and my athletic ability and my talents and my musical skill, whatever it is, if I'm boasting in my resources and my riches, these have become scarecrow idols. And the Lord is saying, don't do that. Turn to 1 Corinthians. Paul quotes this in this wonderful passage, and with this we conclude in 1 Corinthians. 1 Corinthians 1, Paul had read, Jeremiah obviously quotes Jeremiah 9 at the end of 1 Corinthians 1.

But notice from verse 19, 1 Corinthians 1 verse 9, consider your calling brothers. Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful.

Not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. So, that no human being might boast in the presence of God.

Do you have that? None of us are to boast. And because of Him, here's the grace of God.

Do you notice this? Because of Him, all of God's grace, you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption so that as it is written, Jeremiah 9, let the one who boasts boast in the Lord. Paul in this passage is demonstrating that the world will never know God through its own wisdom. The world's wisdom is foolishness to God and is set aside. Verse 19 of 1 Corinthians 1, for it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise?

Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? I mean, where do you go for wisdom? I mean, where do you go for the great answers in life? I mean, where are the great thinkers today?

Where do you go for our answers? The educators? The politicians? The economists? The social scientists? Celebrities? Social media influencers? The psychologists?

I mean, where do you go for answers? Plenty of knowledge but little wisdom, isn't it? Plenty of scarecrows out there, but only one true God. That's it. Your wisdom, your intellect, your ability, your achievements will never lead you to God and will never lead to your salvation. Verse 21, for since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

That's it. That the wisdom of God and the power of God, and we all want wisdom and we all want strength, the ability to navigate life and to make good decisions, and certainly for our sins to be forgiven and to be right with God, where is that going to come from? Paul says God has done something that the world thinks is absolutely crazy. It's through the foolishness of preaching that the power of God and the wisdom of God are demonstrated. Verse 18, for the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are saved is the power of God. As a preacher, I can say preaching is, humanly speaking, is foolish. Believe me, you preach for 45 minutes, and I drive home and I say to God, well what was all that about?

Does it make one little bit of difference? It's a foolish thing isn't it? Seems foolish. Ah, but it's God's appointed way for His Word to be declared that through the foolishness of preaching, the power of God is demonstrated. And through the foolishness of the cross, a man dying on a cross, a man put to death on a cross, a man who appears to be a victim of injustice.

No, that is God's way. That is God's way of salvation ordained from before the foundation of the world. That through that, our Lord Jesus Christ, the man Christ Jesus who comes into our world, dies on that cross, is a living Christ and if we cry out to Him, we are saved. More than that, says Paul, in verse 31, He becomes to us wisdom from God. Righteousness, we are unrighteous, but in the miracle of conversion we are justified. We are, we receive our sanctification, this holy life.

We receive this redemption, we're redeemed from our sins and one day we will completely be redeemed when we see our Savior. Therefore, meantime, don't go after these scarecrows. Whatever they are, I may have named some, I may have not named some.

I'm sure there are many, many we could name. Can I ask you to demolish them? Can I ask you to turn from them? Can I ask that you would, in the Spirit of God and with His power, to repent of any idolatry in your life, to keep yourself from idols? That situation, that habit, that pursuit, whatever it is, one says, Jesus, now this is eternal life that they might know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. This is our greatest blessing, to know God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And now, as I daily read the Word of God, as I daily ask for His help to follow Christ day by day, keeping my eyes on Christ, turning consciously, repenting from these idols in my life which so easily come in, so that my only boast is in the Lord. That will transform your life.

That will transform your relationships. And if you don't know Christ, I appeal to you. Turn from these scarecrows and embrace Christ as your Savior. Father, we thank You that You are the only true God. We confess that we've erected many scarecrow idols in our life.

You brought to mind some of them, perhaps tendencies, practices. May we, under Your Word, under Your mighty hand, humble ourselves that our lives will shine with the beauty of our Lord Jesus Christ. And that You and You alone will be our love, will be our passion. That we will love You with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, with our neighbor as ourselves. To the end we pray in Christ's name. Amen.