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Post date: Sep 25, 2015 4:48:08 AM
What is idolatry?
We won't bow before stones!
Well I hope not, but what do we bow before?
Scripture teaches the worlds "ways" and "assets" are today's idols. That is how God sees it.
7 For because you have trusted in your works and your treasures, You also shall be taken. And Chemosh shall go forth into captivity, His priests and his princes together.
Jeremiah 48:7
6 For You have forsaken Your people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with eastern ways; They are soothsayers like the Philistines, And they are pleased with the children of foreigners.
7 Their land is also full of silver and gold, And there is no end to their treasures; Their land is also full of horses, And there is no end to their chariots.
8 Their land is also full of idols; They worship the work of their own hands, That which their own fingers have made.
Isaiah 2:6-8
12 “And you shall know that I am the Lord; for you have not walked in My statutes nor executed My judgments, but have done according to the customs of the Gentiles which are all around you.” ’ ”
Ezekiel 11:12
In modern language, we cant copy the operating system and value system of Babylon. Babylon is a New Testament word for the world system - essentially Hollywood and Wall street.
Israel is Gods wife under the Mosaic Covenant
32 “ out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.
Jeremiah 31:32
Israel's idolatry under the old covenant was always adultery in God's eyes.
9 “Then those of you who escape will remember Me among the nations where they are carried captive, because I was crushed by their adulterous heart which has departed from Me, and by their eyes which play the harlot after their idols; they will loathe themselves for the evils which they committed in all their abominations.
Ezekiel 6:9
29 “Moreover you multiplied your acts of harlotry as far as the land of the trader, Chaldea; and even then you were not satisfied.
30 “How degenerate is your heart!” says the Lord God, “seeing you do all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot.
31 “You erected your shrine at the head of every road, and built your high place in every street. Yet you were not like a harlot, because you scorned payment.
32 “You are an adulterous wife, who takes strangers instead of her husband.
Ezekiel 16:29-32
Sometimes it played out as sexual sin (fertility rituals and marital infidelity) between Jews, but that was always a fruit of the bigger spiritual problem.
For God the essence of idolatry is when we trust in created things (gold, cars, armies, trust-funds) rather than in Him alone.
Serving Mammon is not some occult ritual - it simply is when you worry about money
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
25 “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 “Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
27 “Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?
28 “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;
29 “and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30 “Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?
31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
32 “For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
33 “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
34 “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Matthew 6:24-34
So the question we must each ask ourselves is "which god is penetrating my heart and mind?" Which things are exciting me and inducing sacrifice from me? Which things are giving orgasms and pregnancy? BMW? Wallstreet? Fame? Glory? these are the "gods" the idols we are facing today.
Are we confident and peaceful in the Lord who made the heavens and the earth, or in things men have made in the earth? It really is that simple.
God made sex, He made all the gold and diamonds and beautiful farms and He gave us dominion and power so that we can rule over all of creation. Simply put God made sex, power and money for us, but if anyone of those created blessing replace Him as source of joy and security, it is idolatry/adultery.
3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,
4 by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
2 Peter 1:3-4
God wants us to have fun and so He created spectacular pleasures for us in the earth, but we can get into lust and idolatry very easily. We all do it all the time. The trick is to "see" it and to confess immediately. And then by the power of the Holy Spirit (you cannot do it on your own) repent.
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.”
7 Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
James 4:4-8
Jesus is going to marry a virgin. A bride who who has not "known" or been "been - known" by other "gods".
Escaping the grip of the idols is only possible by the New Birth. We must be "born again" then the gods of this world that we created ourselves (BMW HOLLYWOOD WALLSTREET) will lose its grip.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
Romans 7:24
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8:1-11
There are very real consequences for what we do in the earth!
12 “And behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me, to give to every one according to his work.
13 “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last.”
14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.
15 But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.
16 “I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and Morning Star.”
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
18 For I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this book;
19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part from the Book of Life, from the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!
Revelation 22:12-20
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