Transcript: March 24th, 2002« Back

Turning from Idols to Worship God

Revelation 22:8-9

Jeff Noblit

Turning from Idols to Worship God

Revelation 22:8-9


I want to read all of the verses again, uh verse 6 all the way through verse 21. And then we’re gonna look at two verses in particular and bring out some very practical things that I know will be an encouragement to you and strengthening to us as we serve to honor our Lord in these lives. Revelation 22, beginning in verse 6. John is receiving the visions from the angel, and he says: And he said to me, “These words are faithful and true”; and the Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets sent His angels to show through His bondservants the things which must soon take place. “And behold, I am coming quickly. Blessed is he who heeds the word of the prophecy of this book.”

I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. But he said to me, “Do not do that, for I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book; worship God.”

And he said to me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near. Let the one who does wrong, still do wrong; let the one who is filthy, still be filthy; let the one who is righteous, still practice righteousness; and the one who is holy, still keep himself holy. Behold I am coming quickly, and My reward is with Me to render to every man according to what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. Blessed are those who washed their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter by the gates of the city. Outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and the immoral persons and the murderers and the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices lying.

“I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright and morning star.” The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes to take the water of life without cost. I testify to everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues which are written in this book; and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city which are written in this book. He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen, come Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen.

When I was in, uh, high school, my mother used to manage a restaurant, and there was a, a hotel connected to that restaurant. It was a nice restaurant. And a, a new man bought the entire establishment, and he was from another country. He was from India. And I remember my mother telling me that one day she found out that this man kept his idols in one of the hotel rooms. I said, “What?” She said, “Yes, he has some things that are his gods that he worships in his hotel room.” And they were actually plates, and he had these plates sitting up on his shelf. And he would just tell you very, uh, nonchalantly that, “Yeah, these are my gods. I take them everywhere I go. You know I might need them sometime.” And those were his gods. That’s the first exposure or experience I had with an idol worshipper, or at least that’s what I used to think. Now I understand that there are idol worshippers everywhere. And matter of fact, all of us who follow Jesus Christ are very prone to erect idols in our own hearts and in our own lives.

I want us to talk about turning from idols to worship God. Turning from idols to worship God because John finds himself as he’s before this glorious, holy angel tempted with idolatry, matter of fact, falling into the sin of idolatry and having to be corrected. Look at it there in verses 8 and 9 of our text. I, John, am the one who heard these things, or heard and saw these things, notice the phrase, and when I heard and saw, fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. Now what did John do? John experienced something that was absolutely fascinating. John experienced something that deeply affected him and greatly moved him and wondrously blessed him. It was based on what he saw and what he heard. And based on what he saw and what he heard, this was a time for worship. So he bows before this holy angel. And by the way, can you not sympathize a little with John here? This was an incredible experience. I mean can you imagine a holy angel standing before you with the glory of God shining all around and these incredible visions you’re seeing? I mean we could excuse John for doing that, and it was not a premeditated sin. It was not a willful sin. But nevertheless, it was a sin.

Notice what happens in verse 9. This is the angel: But he said to me, “Do not do that.” A gentle correction, but a clear correction. The angel says, “I am a fellow servant of yours and of your brethren the prophets and of those who heed the words of this book; worship God.” Boy, that is a statement for the, this age of professing Christendom. And I use the phrase professing Christendom to include all those unsaved who wear the name of Christian around the world. Worship God. Don’t pay attention to the great feelings and the great sensations and the great blessings that may occur around you. Those can be very misleading. You worship God based on truth. And the angel says, “Here’s the truth. I’m just a fellow servant. Don’t worship me. Worship God.”

Now I want to share with you some things, some practical things about idolatry. First of all, number one, we are commanded of course to abstain from idols or idolatry. We’re commanded to abstain. Basic truths we all know very well. Leviticus 19 verse 4: Do not turn to idols. As the children of Israel would be marching through the lands they would make conquests of, as they would inevitably mingle with the, uh, pagans who lived around them, there would be that ever, uh, and increasing temptation to turn from honoring and worshipping the true and living God and turning to idols. And God just flatly commands in the Levitical law, “Don’t turn to idols.” Don’t let yourself do that.

Leviticus 26 verse 1: You shall not make for yourselves idols. Now we know in the ancient days in this part of the country and still in many places all around the world they often fashion some little statue out of wood or out of stone. Or if they’re very wealthy out of gold or maybe silver, and it can be a thousand and one different things. I remember one of the popular idols in India when we ministered over there was a, an elephant headed man. And they’d make this little fat thing with an elephant head on it, the most grotesque looking thing you ever seen in your life. And certain times of the year they would really pay homage to this particular idol. And here you have a country of India that has, advanced education and, and even in the sciences and in other things, yet they, the open and flagrant idolatry is just, it’s just everywhere. But God says, “Be careful. Don’t make for yourselves any idols.”

Leviticus chapter 20, verses 4 and 5, one of the Ten Commandments; matter of fact, the second commandment. You shall not make for yourself an idol. You shall not worship them or serve them. Well, that’s clear enough.

Number two, the root and the source of idolatry is the heart. Where does idol worship come from? It comes from our fallen hearts. That’s the source. That’s where it springs from. I’ll not take the time to turn there, but in the sermon on the mount the Lord gave us a great truth about the source of all sin and how it comes from the heart concerning two particular things the Lord shows us this truth. First of all, He says, “If you, uh, if you have lust in your heart, Jesus said, “you’ve committed adultery already.” Now come perverse people says, “Well, if I’m guilty of adultery already, it doesn’t matter if I go ahead and do adultery.” It certainly does matter if you go ahead and do it. If you commit the adulterous act, you hurt and damage a lot more people, and you multiply your sin. But as far as the guilt of the sin and the source of the sin, it begins in the heart. And God holds us accountable for that.

And then He says, “Here’s another illustration. You’ve heard that you should not commit murder, but I say to you if you hate from your heart you’re a murderer already from your heart.” I’d much rather you hate me than kill me, by the way. But still, before God the guilt because, for being one who hates and who would murder comes from the heart. That is the source. That’s why Matthew 7:21 says, “For within, or for from within out of the heart of mean proceed evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries.” You see, the problem with man is not what he does. The problem with man is what he is. The heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart. Like Martin Luther said, the heart is an idol factory.

Well, let’s go to our third main point. Understanding heart idols. Let’s try to get something of an understanding of how we are so prone with these fallen natures to erect idols in our hearts and stop worshipping God and start worshipping these idols we have erected in our hearts. Three things that I want to emphasize, and you probably could do five or twelve or whatever, but three things I want to emphasize here under understanding heart idols. IN the first one, or let me word it this way. You have erected an idol in your heart when these three things occur in your heart. First of all, disobedience. Particularly, of course, willful disobedience. You’ve erected an idol in your heart when you walk in disobedience.

In First Samuel 15:23 after Saul had disobeyed the command of the Lord, remember the story from the earlier service. The Lord said, “Go and kill all the Amalekites. Don’t bring back anyone. Kill all the animals.” And Saul justified in his mind because the people wanted it that way, to bring back some of the animals and spare the king, uh, uh, of the Amalekites. And God rebuked him through the prophet Samuel for that disobedience. And here’s one of the things that God said through the prophet. First Samuel 15:23: “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and insubordination as iniquity and idolatry.” He says, “Saul, by disobedience, you’ve actually erected an idol in your heart.

You would, well listen, when you’re disobedient or you’re insubordinate what does that say? When your insubordinate or disobedient to God you say this: “God, I reject You right now as Lord. I’ll erect self as the idol of my heart and I’ll honor self for right now.” You’ve just worshipped an idol is what you did. You erected an idol in your heart, and that’s why First Samuel 15:23 says, “This insubordination is like idolatry.” You know, what would happen in someone’s mind, like Saul’s mind would be this: “Well, I didn’t go out here and work in the magical arts or in the black arts of witchcraft. Well, I didn’t go out here, and I didn’t go out here and do some of these open things.” What does the text say there? “I didn’t go out here and build this little silver idol or wooden idol and bow down before it.” “NO, no. It was more subtle than that, Saul, but it was just a real and just as wrong.” The idol of erecting self as Lord for this season so you could do what you wanted when you’re functioning in the reverence of man, that is the fear of man instead of out of a reverence for God, the fear of God.

Number two, you’ve erected an idol in your heart when you place your hope or trust in something other than God. When you are placing your hope and your trust in someone or something other than God, you’ve erected an idol in your heart. Huh, I, you know I have no problem with just being honest and transparent about my struggles and how God has to grow me, because one of the ways God grows the church is by growing the pastor. If I, if I’m not growing, I won’t be leading you to grow. And, boy, one of the things that I have discovered so clearly is when I have insecurities raging in my heart or if there are seasons of dread in my heart or anxieties in my heart, without exception God uses that thing to open my eyes to some idols I’ve erected within my heart. There are, there, I always find there’s some thing or someone or some circumstance I was hoping in rather than God. Are you hearing me? Some thing, someone, some circumstance, some event I was placing some hope in. Therefore, putting some trust in other than God. And it wasn’t premeditated, and it wasn’t willful. I didn’t get up in the morning say, “I’m not gonna trust You today, God.” I’m gonna trust this person. I want this person to make me happy. I want this series of events to make me fulfilled. I want this particular, uh, situation to be this certain way because that will bless me and make me happy. And what am I doing the whole time? I am slowing and suddenly being seduced by my flesh and by the enemy to gradually take my eye, eyes off of God, putting my hope and trust and joy off of God and putting my hope and my trust and my joy in something or someone. Listen to me. Actually, I’m putting my hope and trust in something or someone that can be taken away from me. And that breeds anxiety. That breeds insecurity. AND in my experience, and I believe it’s a common experience in a Christian walk, God uses that pain to bring us to repentance so He can build us back up again when we get our trust and hope back in God.

I wish I could tell you as your pastor I just reached this high level and I just sail right on. Whoo. But guess what. I’m just like you. I struggle like you struggle. I fail like you fail. I have to repent like you have to repent. All of us have clay feet. Amen? But I’m gonna tell you what is different about a child of God and a lost church member. The child of God rejoices when he finds that sin so he can repent of it and get it behind him and get back on the solid ground of placing his hope and trust in Jesus Christ.

Let me ask you something, friend, tonight. Are you troubled? Are you in despair? Is your soul downcast? Are you anxiety-ridden? Is you life filled with some fear and some dread? Ask God, say, “God, show me. Show me if I’ve been trusting in something other than You. Show me if I’ve erected an idol of someone or something or some circumstance or some job or some bank account or some retirement plan or something. And that breeds this anxiety and this insecurity. God, I want to get my hope and trust back in You.” And dear lady, can I say something to you? You’re not to put your hope in your husband or your husbands job. You put your hope in God. You can make your husband your idol. Dear sir, you don’t put your hope and trust in your wife. And young people, you don’t put your hope and trust in mom an dad. You’re hope and trust is God. It’s God.

Well, if you have placed your hope and trust in someone or something other than God, you’ve erected an idol. Psalms, uh, 31 verse 6 says, the psalmist says, “I hate those who regard vain idols, but I trust in the Lord.” Notice the antithesis there. You’re either looking to a vain idol or you’re trusting God. One of the two.

Number three, you’ve erected an idol in your heart when you follow your lower passions. You’re giving in to the lust of the passions of fallen flesh. When you give into that and you walk in that and you’re enslaved in that and you’re in the stronghold of the passions of your flesh, then you’ve erected an idol of pleasure, and idol of self, an idol of lust in your heart. And that’s wickedness. Colossians 3:5 says, “Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed,” now notice this, “which amounts to idolatry.” He said, “You just sum all that up and you’re just worshipping another God other than the true God. You’re worshipping the God of flesh. You’re worshipping the God of self. You’re worshipping the God of pleasure.”

Now let me say something to you, friend. When you walk with God and you’re truly worshipping Him, there’s great joy in that. There’s great happiness in that. There’s great pleasure in that. God’s not a cosmic killjoy. He’s not trying to rip away from you all the, the joys and the pleasures of this earthly existence. He wants to keep you from indulging in things that will lead to you, to your trouble and will lead to heartache. Most of all, lead to dishonoring Him. These things, these lower passions, immoralities, impurity, passion, evil desire, greed, Paul says to the church at Colossae, “These are just idols in your heart. What you need to do is say, ‘Dear God, I repent of that idolatry. I repent of making that my god, and I don’t want to worship that any longer.’”

Our fourth major point, and this gets back to our text here and the foundation that we’ve launched out from in Revelation 22:8 and 9, and that is this: understanding the subtle nature of religious idolatries. Understanding the subtle nature of religious idolatry. Now I want you to keep your Bible ribbon there in Revelation 22 and turn with me over to Exodus chapter 32. And you may remember just off the bat what Exodus 32 pertains to. Exodus 32 is the account of where Moses has gone up on the mountain to receive the law of God for the people, and while Moses was gone the people of God, the nation of Israel, got bored. And they got frustrated, and they got irritated. They wanted something to happen, and nothing was happening because it wasn’t time for anything to happen. It’s time for them to be patient and wait for God’s man to come back with God’s Word. But they were impatient, and notice they fell into idolatry even under the leadership of Aaron.

Look at it there, Exodus 32 beginning in verse 1: Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, “Come, make us a god who will go before us. AS for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” In other words, “Aaron, Moses has gone up on the mountain and we’re bored. Nothing is happening in this congregation. We want, Aaron, for you to take charge. Let’s get something going in this religion. Let’s get something happening here so that we can ful, be fulfilled, we can be blessed and we can know maybe the pleasures or the fellowships of God’s power.”

Well, look at verse 2. Aaron said to them, “Tear off the gold rings, which are in the ears of your wives, your sons…” And I’d say if any son’s got a gold ring, it ought to be torn off. “…and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So Aaron says, “I want you to get all the gold jewelry, take it off everybody, and I want you to bring that all together. And we’re gonna make that sacrifice.” And he said, “I’m gonna make us a god out of this.” So Aaron says, “I want you to get all the gold jewelry, take it off everybody, and I want you to bring that all together. And we’re gonna make that sacrifice.” And he said, “I’m gonna make us a god out of this.”

You know what’s amazing? Go on to verse, uh, verse 3: Then all the people tore off the gold rings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. You know what’s fascinating to me is this: these people seemed so quick to sacrifice for this false religious conduct. Is that not amazing to you? I mean it’s just amazing how they get enthusiastic here, sacrificially give the wealth of their gold to this fleshly religious program or event with no thought to whether it honors God or God’s Word. Now we don’t know all the context here, but there’s no mention whatsoever of someone saying, “Aaron, what does God’s Word say we’re to do?” Well, God’s Word says, “Wait for Moses to get back with God’s Word.” “Well, fine, we’ll wait.” No. “We’ve got to get this thing going.”

I heard ole J. Vernon McGee. You ever listen to J. Vernon McGee on the radio. Love J. Vernon McGee. J. Vernon McGee said, course he’s dead now, but he still speaks. He said the other day on the radio, he said, “You know it’s amazing to me the Bible preachers on radio and television always struggle to pay the bills, but these other guys have plenty of money. folks, we’re talking not tens of millions, we’re talking a hundred million plus they bring in every year for maybe one half of one thimbleful of scripture every sermon. And it’s taken out of context. Why? Because something’s happening, something’s moving, something’s cooking. If you go, I guarantee you if you went, you get in the flesh first, then go, you’ll be blessed. You’ll come away saying, “Man, that was fun. That stirred me up. I was moved.” I mean, brother, they know how to get the music rolling and churning and flowing and going. Have you ever notice how the organ kicks in just right. I mean the organ kicks in, it just, and you know what they say? “This is all just spontaneous. God just showed up.” Friend, they spent hours getting that all ready.

Now listen, I’m not just trying to be down on those guys. I’m just telling you, this very thing’s happening in our day all the time. Not one half of one thought to what pleases God, what honors His Word. “Just if you can get something going, Aaron, we’re for it.” Well, that’s where they are.

Well, look at verse 4. He took this from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made it into a molten calf, and they said, “This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.” Now here’s what Aaron’s saying. Aaron’s saying, “We’ll still serve the true God, the God who delivered us from Egypt, but we’ll just bring Him down to our level so we can grasp it and understand it and all be blessed by Him.” I’m so sick of church members seeking for the blessing. Seek for God. Seek for God. Don’t just seek the blessing. Seek Him. It could be that when you seek Him you don’t get blessed for a while. But you honor Him because you love Him.

Well, the calf was something they had over in Egypt. They worshipped Baal, and Baal was typically viewed in a calf-like image. So this was something they could relate to. You ever heard that lately? “Let’s get a gospel people can relate to. Let’s bring it down so people can understand it.” They don’t understand Moses being gone on the mountain. They’re just sitting around waiting. And he attributed this calf idol to the deliverance from Egyptian bondage.

Look at verse 5. Now when Aaron saw this, that is he saw that it pleased the people so much, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to Baal? No. To Jehovah. LORD. Capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D. That’s, that’s spelled that way in your Old Testament to let you know that’s Jehovah, the true God of Israel. “So we’ll keep the idol and the fleshliness of that, but we’ll call it worshipping Jehovah.” And that’s what happening in our churches today. We’ll call it serving Jesus, we’ll throw the terms around, but we’ll get in the flesh. It’s idolatry. It’s the subtle deceptiveness of religious idolatry. It’s the wicked, insidious mingling of error with truth. They called the calf Jehovah, the Lord, the proper name of the God of Israel. They’re worshipping and celebrating Jehovah, listen, but not according to truth. That is so important. Why? Because the calf is not a true statement of who Jehovah is. The calf is, is not, he’s, he’s limited. He’s not, not omniscient. He’s not omnipresent. He’s not infinite or eternal. And all those things are who God is. See, we have to repent of the tendency to erect an idol in our heart of what we want Jesus to be and grasp and love with a passion what God says, or who God says He is from the Word. And glory in who He said He is, not what we feel like we want Him to be. He’s not your little personal Jesus. He’s Jesus revealed in scripture. And that’s why we preach through books like Revelation because we are forced to step back, kick out all of our boxed limited notions of who God is, and we begin to receive and understand and know God as for who He is recorded to His truth. AND that is true worship. And that’s why Martin Luther said the highest form of worship is the preaching of the Word of God, because when the Word is properly preached, then God is being expressed to the greatest extent of who He truly is and the people can receive that and glory in it and that most pleases God. He doesn’t want you to be passionate. He wants you to be passionate according to truth. These people were passionate. These people were excited. These people were blessed. These people were fired up, but they worshipped Him in error, not according to who He had revealed Himself to be. They in, in essence changed the truth of God into a lie.

Now look at verse 6. And they loved it. They’re having a big time. Man, this is working. I mean they’re growing a congregation here, buddy. Verse 6: So the next day they rose early and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. Now that’s modern evangelical church right there. “Find us a place we can eat and drink and play, and we’ll join your church. If you tell us we can eat, we can drink, we can play, that’s the church I want to join right there, brother.” That’s why when we designed our new brochure for our church we put at the top, “Come serve the Lord with us,” because that’s where Christianity is. And that’s what it’s all about, serving our Lord. And by the way, that is our pleasure. That is our fun. That is our joy.

Well, look at verse 17. Moses finds out about this. Moses is upset. Verse 17: Now when Joshua, Moses’ companion, heard the sound of the people as they shouted… Hey, this is a shouting meeting right here. Boy, they’re having a shouting hallelujah time over error. I want to tell you something. I’m for shouting if it’s based on truth. You can even dance in the Lord in truth, here, right here if you want to in truth, but not on error. They’re having a shouting hallelujah camp meeting, and all around the mingling of truth with error.

They heard the shouts, and, and Joshua says to Moses, last of verse 17, “Now there is the sound of war in the camp. Man, I mean a lot of commotion down there.” Verse 18: But he said, “It is not the sound of the cry of triumph, nor is it the sound of the cry of defeat; but I hear the singing, the, the sound of singing I hear. I mean that must be some sort of song service they’re having down there.”

Well, look at verse 19. It came about as soon as Moses came near that camp that he saw the calf and the dancing; and Moses’ anger burned, and he threw the tablets from his hands, that was where the Ten Commandments were written, by the way, and he shattered them at the foot of the mountain. Often shallow churches that have no diligence concerning doctrine spend their time making sure the people stay emotionally stirred. And when they get stirred up good and emotionally, they’ll say, “God showed up.” My friend, I’m gonna tell you, God wasn’t near this thing right here. It was the nation of Israel. It was the chosen people of God. They were throwing around the name of Jehovah, but God wasn’t near it. Matter of fact, you know what happened when God showed up in the person of His prophet, Moses? He shut it down. There was a holy quietness before God when God showed up.

Look at verse 25: Now when Moses saw that the people were out of control, for Aaron had let them get out of control and to be a derision to their enemies, then Moses stood in the gate of the camp and said, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me.” And all the sons of Levi gathered to him. 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 gate to gate in the camp and kill every man his brother and every man his friend and every man his neighbor.’” So the sons of Levi did as Moses instructed, and about three thousand men fell that day. Then Moses said, “Dedicate yourselves today to the Lord, for every man has been against his son and against his brother in order that He may bestow a blessing upon you today.”

So here we have a moving, exciting, stirring, shouting, singing, dancing celebration of Jehovah, but it was not based on truth and God rejected it. It was just idol worship. And that’s basically where John finds himself in principle. Go back to our chief text in Revelation chapter 22. John’s stirred. John’s excited. And in that excitement, he falls into idol worship. Look at it there in verse 8 again, Revelation 22. I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I heard and saw, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who showed me these things. When I experienced that setting, it just got, it just got to me.” I just, I fell into worshipping the angel, and then the angel had to reprove or maybe you could say gently rebuke John. Once again, this is not premeditated. We can all understand this. And matter of fact, every person in this room who is a child of God and who has been saved very long has been where John is. You have and I have. You’ve gotten caught, and I’m not talking about in a worship service. Don’t, don’t just think I’m talking about in a worship service that gets lively. I like lively worship. But I’m talking about in a lot of settings and ways when we’ve had great experiences with God and we can fall into idolatry and we can cease to worship God in those settings. Or maybe as a result of those settings would be a better way to put it.

The angel, anyway, corrects John in verse 9. But he said to me, “Do not do that.” That’s firm. “I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren and the prophets and those who heed the words of this book. Worship God.” You know Satan knows that we are probably more vulnerable to religious idolatry than to any other form. So I am convinced Satan lays that seductive trap before us. AND I think Satan is very, very active in churches, purposing to get them away from truth, get them out of balance, mix truth with some error so he can get us into idol worship and not worshipping God. I know he works feverish to do that.

Let me give you some practical exhortations about religious idolatry. Three things: First of all, we can get into idol worship when we worship religious traditions. When we get to, begin to esteem or desire certain things because they’ve been a certain way more than we desire and esteem God. Some of these you’ve heard so many times before. Some folks make an idol out of certain forms of music in the church. It’s either got to be the way it’s always been or if it’s not like that then it’s not God. Or it’s got to be this newfangled stuff that’s got about one word of doctrine in it for about four thousand words. And, and both of them could be out of whack. There’s nothing wrong with new stuff. There’s nothing wrong with the choruses. There’s nothing wrong with the old stuff. The key issue in music is truth, not tune. If we’re not careful, we can get into idol worship on one extreme, or maybe the order of the service. You know there’s people who got bent out of shape, started factions, and left churches because they moved the offering from the middle of the service to the end of the service? They make an idol out of things that just don’t matter.

Or the ordinances of the church. I was thinking in my mind about an experience I had, and I would guestimate it was about seventeen years ago. I was invited to come up to a little church in southwestern Kentucky. And they were wanting a pastor, and they were looking at me. I remember going to the chairman of the deacons’ home. I spent the night at his house. And one of the first things I noticed that he had these little magazines everywhere from the Worldwide Church of God, that garnered (?) Ted Armstrong bunch. I was a cult group. And he thought they were great. And, and, folks, that kind of stuff goes on in churches. Talk about shallowness, it wasn’t his fault. He just hadn’t been taught. I didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t know much about truth anyway, but I knew that wasn’t true.

And then the next day I preached for them, and after we had lunch the deacons gathered me around and we talked a little bit. And you want me to tell you what one of their major concerns was? This was high on their list of important things. They said, “We want to know, when you serve the Lord’s Supper, do you use wine or juice?” Because in that church from time and memorial, they had used fermented wine and probably because the chairman got what was left in the bottle after the service was over. I don’t know. But I’m telling you, that was a key. I didn’t know how to answer. I said, “Well, I, you know, juice, I guess. I don’t know. I, I never thought about it that much.” But they had made an idol out of certain motions and certain traditions concerning the ordinances of the church that absolutely did not matter.

Bible translations. We have many today that have literally erected an idol over a certain English translation of the Bible. Now listen, I, I know some of you love and venerate the, the old King James Version. It’s a wonderful translation of the Bible. I honor that translation. I thank God for that translation. But it’s not the only English translation. And then there are others who say, “Now it’s got to be one of these newfangled translations.” You just got to be careful. They’re all English renderings from the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts. We hold to the inerrancy of the original autographs of the Hebrew and Greek, not any English translation. We have wonderful translations. They are extremely accurate. But we don’t want to die on those mountains and erect and idol out of one of them

Or church literature. I remember back years ago when we first decided not to use Southern Baptist Sunday School literature because it was awful. And they, you’d think some of the churches around here wanted to vote us out of the Southern Baptist Convention for such a thing. They had erected an idol out of using only the denominational literature.

Secondly, we can make an idol out of religious leaders. Preacher worship. Boy, we have to be careful there. I, I had not been saved but just a few years. And I had been greatly influenced by the teachings of Bill Gothard. And Bill Gothard is a great teacher, and he has some wonderful things. He has a few things I think are a little out of balance, but far and away I’d encourage anybody to sit under the teaching of Bill Gothard. But I was a young Christian. I was like John here. I didn’t know what I was doing. And for, I don’t know, several months after I came back from one of the Bill Gothard seminars I quoted Bill Gothard a lot more than I quoted God. And one of my college friends came up to me one day and, and I was gonna say he reproved me, but I think he rebuked me. But I needed it. He said, “Would you quit quoting Bill Gothard and quote scripture?” And I thought, “Amen. That is exactly right.” WE do not need to honor and esteem anyone. We need to honor and esteem God.

Now it is true the Bible said that you’re to esteem your pastors. You’re to love them, hold them in high respect, submit to them, honor and obey them, the Bible says. But you do it for God, not because they’re special, not because their personality just strikes you right. Now we have to be careful with things like personality and style or maybe a particular pastor’s wit or his humor, or maybe his charisma or his authority, or maybe the personal touches he made you in a time of need. And if you’re not careful, suddenly you can get into idolatry there. You stop listening for God’s Word from that man, you stop looking to love and honor God because of his ministry, and you start really worshipping him because he blesses you. And what is that? Selfishness. You don’t want to be blessed. You want to honor God. You want to honor God. We have to remember that the pastor is a means to an end. I am expendable. God may move me one day, or I may just get old and worn out. Y’all put me in an old folks home or whatever and get you another young whippersnapper in here and go forward for God. And that’s fine. A pastor is expendable. A pastor is there so that you, through his ministry, might love, honor, obey, and worship God, not him. And what you do for him is out of honor to God.

Well, we can fall into idolatry by looking at our religious leaders or following religious traditions. But thirdly, religious experiences, and this is the one that John illustrates to us so vividly. John’s had an incredible experience. And I would say this is a constant challenge for all of us. WE must be diligent to constantly put, not listen, constantly put our hearts and minds on the Lord, not some experience or blessing we receive from the Lord. How many of us have experienced some great moving encounter with God, either as an individual Christian or as a part of a congregation? It was just a time or a season of revival, and there was a great sense of joy and a great sense of love and a great sense of unity. And because of that season or that time was such a great blessing, we can begin to start seeking those things and not God. And, boy, if Satan can get you there, he’ll get you like a dog chasing your tail. You’ll be a church hopper the rest of your life, trying to find that thing you once knew somewhere, sometime. We you make the experience or the blessing an idol when we do that. Listen, God wants us to mature beyond that. Nothing wrong with the joy and the time of revival and the love and the blessing and the joy. I like that stuff. But don’t look at that. Look at God because He may bring new joy and new unity and new blessings and new revivals far exceedingly greater as far as the truth of the Word is concerned than the one you used to experience. Let’s don’t stay back there. Let’s go forward. Amen? There’s higher plains to discover.

If we’re not careful, we can find ourselves like the adult who never grew up and through his adult years he’s still chasing the pleasures and thrills of childhood days. Or like the middle aged man who leaves his wife and leaves his children to find some new woman because he’s still chasing that romantic thrill he had in high school. And some folks religiously are no deeper or no better. And it’s no more honoring to God. So we can be deceived in this area, and we can make an idol out of past religious experiences and spend our times and our energies looking for that blessing. I get so tired of the television preachers talk about this blessing and this anointing and this blessing and this anointing and we’ve got, uh, a burden breaking this and stomping that and all this stuff. What about just loving and honoring God, forgetting yourself for a little while, forgetting what it does for you and just honoring God for a little while? Everything’s so man-centered. I’m telling you, if you took the man-centered thinking and theology out of some of these broadcasts there wouldn’t be nothing left to broadcast. And that’s why if brings in the money because people want to know that, want to think that God is there to bless them. NO, God’s not there to bless you. You’re there to bless God. But when you bless and honor God, you get blessed and it’s always in that order.

Where does this lead? If you’ve got this idol in your heart and you keep chasing it, soon you will be willing to tolerate false doctrine as long as you keep getting the blessing, keep getting the experience that you’re looking for. And if you keep going, not only will you tolerate false doctrine, soon you will then embrace false doctrine because you’ve become addicted to the thrill and the blessing and the stirring that you’re looking for in your religious service to God. My friend, listen to me. This is the sin of idolatry, and you must repent of it and ask God to forgive you for selfishly viewing things and experiences instead of selflessly looking to honor and worship Him.

All these idols are idols we put in our hearts, and we erect them there. Our hearts aren’t for idols. Our hearts are for God. Listen to Matthew 22:37. Matthew 22:37 says love God will all of our hearts. All of the innermost part of my being, the heart, is to be honoring and loving of God, not this idol and that idol and this idol and that idol. Ephesians 6:6 says, “Do the will of God from the heart.” Don’t let your heart follow some lusting after some idol. Do the will of God from your heart. Romans 6:17 says, “Be obedient from the heart.” First Thessalonians 1:9 says we’re to turn from idols (end of side one). My friend, it’s still the prominent thing in the culture today, and we need to turn from the idols we’ve erected in our hearts, and then walk guarding our hearts from idolatry. And then we’ll walk that kind of life whereby, whereby we are doing what the angel exhorted John to do: Worship God. Worship God.

I want you to bow in prayer while your seated there, just for a moment. Heads bowed and eyes closed, I, I just really believe there are a lot of us tonight that need to have some breakthroughs in the area of repenting of idolatry. I want to ask you concerning people, is there someone you’re putting your eyes on? Is there someone you’re putting your hope in? Is there someone responsible for you being miserable right now? If they are, you’re focusing on them. You’re looking to them. That’s idolatry. You’re to focus and look to the Lord.

Is there someone you’re looking to for your security or your joy, your happiness or some feeling or some blessing…