Man, the title of my sermon this morning is A God in Their Own Image.
A God in Their Own Image.
Many people today, instead of believing in the God of the Bible, have made a God in their
own image.
And this is the exact opposite of the truth, because the Bible says that God created man
in His own image.
In the image of God created He him, male and female created He them.
But many people instead, they form and fashion a God of their own understanding, as if they're
the creator, creating a God in their own image.
What do I mean by that?
They basically think that God thinks like them, or is like them, or has the same attitude
that they have.
They make themself the authority.
They basically put themself on par with deity by thinking that God must think just like
them and believe what they believe.
They make themself their own authority, and in many ways they almost are their own God.
This is the day that we're living in today, there are a lot of people of whom it could
be said that they made God into their own image.
Let's look at Isaiah chapter 55, you're beginning verse number 6.
The first point that I want to show you this morning is that our thoughts are not God's
thoughts.
We don't think the way that God thinks, okay?
Look down at your Bible in verse 6.
The Bible says, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.
Call ye upon him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto
the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and
my thoughts than your thoughts.
The Bible's saying, look, unrighteous people, wicked people, they need to forsake their
way, and they need to forsake their thoughts, and realize that God's thoughts are not the
same as their thoughts, and they need to get on his program, and stop thinking about things
the way that they used to think about them, and start thinking about things the way that
God thinks about them.
And how are we going to know how God thinks about things?
By reading the Bible.
And we can see how God thinks about things, and we can adjust our own thoughts and our
way, and get on his program, but today many people, they want to get God on their program.
So they want to go to a church that tells them that God is just like them, and thinks
like them, and believes like them, instead of going to church and saying, okay God, tell
me what to believe, tell me what to think, tell me what the right way is, opening their
Bible and saying, alright God, show me the truth, show me what the Bible says, you know,
show me who you are.
They say things like, well I just can't imagine a God who would send people to hell, or I
just don't think that God would, well wait a minute, it's not what you think, it's what
the Bible says God is.
Otherwise you've got another God that you made up, a figment of your imagination.
Now turn to Jeremiah chapter 23.
One of my pet peeves, and this is kind of related to the same subject, is when people
attribute their own thoughts, ideas, and imaginations to deity.
So basically what they'll do is, they'll dream something up, and here's what they'll say,
oh God told me X, or God said Y to me, and it's something that they dreamed up of their
own heart.
And the thing that's so wicked about this is that they are making themselves out to
be God, they're attributing deity to their own thoughts, ideas, and imaginations that
they came up with out of their own heart, and then they just say, oh I got this from
God.
Well they actually got it from themself, so in a way they're almost like thinking that
they're God.
You know, they're making up God in their own image.
It's like, are you God?
Because you dreamed that up by yourself.
Okay.
Now, in John 16, you don't have to turn there, you go ahead and turn to Jeremiah 23, did
I have you turn there?
Okay, well in John 16, the Bible tells about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
And it says, how be it when he, the spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into
all truth, for he shall not speak of himself.
And I want you to just let that ring in your ears.
He will not speak of himself.
And then it says, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show
you things to come.
He will glorify me, for he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.
All things that the Father hath are mine, therefore said I, that he shall take of mine,
and shall show it unto you.
Now look, Jesus there repeats the same thing three times in a row.
And if God repeats something three times in a row, we should take it pretty seriously,
right?
So what did he say?
In verse 13, whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.
In verse 14, he shall receive of mine, and shall show it unto you.
Verse 15, he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you.
Why did he say that three times in a row?
Isn't that a little bit redundant?
Because he's trying to hammer this, that the Holy Spirit does not speak of himself.
He takes of Christ's word, he takes of God's word, and he shows it unto us.
He says it three times in a row to hammer this fact, that he doesn't speak of himself.
What does it mean that he doesn't speak of himself?
Some people have misunderstood this to think that he doesn't speak about himself.
That's not what that means.
Because obviously the Holy Spirit speaks about himself.
If all scripture is given by inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and the Bible talks about
the Holy Ghost, then he speaks about himself.
When it says he will not speak of himself, of there means from.
It means the source.
He's not going to speak about things that he came up with himself.
He's not going to speak of himself.
He's going to take Christ's word, and show it unto us.
So he's not coming up with some new thing to say to you.
He's basically taking God's word, he's taking the word of Christ, and showing it unto you.
And then later Jesus says that he'll bring all things in remembrance unto you whatsoever
I've said unto you.
He'll bring those things into your remembrance.
He'll guide you into all truth.
He'll take of mine, and show it unto you.
But this is what a lot of people say.
Oh, the Holy Spirit told me, you know, drive over to that part of town.
The Holy Spirit told me, move to that city.
The Holy Spirit said, marry that person.
No, no, where's that in the Bible?
Because I thought the Holy Spirit takes God's word, and shows it to us, Christ's word, and
shows it to us.
But you know what it is?
You're sitting there, dreaming up things on your own.
Oh, I think I'll go over there, and then you just deify it.
God told me to go over there.
God told me to talk.
And you know how I know that this is a fraud?
Is because half the time when people tell you, oh, God told me to do this, or God said
this to me, it goes contrary to scripture.
So either God can't make up his mind, or you're lying when you say, oh, God told me to marry
a divorced woman.
Really?
Because in the Bible he said, whoso marrieth her that is divorced, comitteth adultery.
Oh, but God told me to do it.
God said that to me.
I remember somebody said, oh, God told me to rent this particular building for the church.
And this is an independent, fundamental, soul-winning Baptist pastor.
Then he went so far as to say, I know that God wants us to rent this building for our
church as much as I know I'm saved.
And it was a Seventh-day Adventist church building.
So they're using it on Saturday.
He wanted to rent it on Sunday, while they use it on Saturday.
Now I hated that idea.
I was like, man, I don't like that idea.
I don't want to share a building with a Seventh-day Adventist.
You know, I mean, I don't know if you could prove that it's a sin or anything, but I'm
just saying like, I personally, it didn't really set well with me.
I didn't like the idea.
So I actually decided, you know what, I'm going to pray that this falls through.
I don't want to go to church in a Seventh-day Adventist building.
I don't want to go out and invite people to church and send them to this building because,
you know, I don't want to be connected or unequally yoked together with these cult
members of this LNG white cult.
And so I prayed that it would fall through and it did fall through.
And you know what, obviously we're all human and have our carnal side.
I wanted to walk up to him and say, hey, are you sure you're saved?
You know, but I didn't say anything because obviously that would have been prideful and
arrogant and rude.
And so I didn't do that.
But I'm just telling you in my flesh, I wanted to walk up to him and say, hey, are you sure
you're saved?
Because you said that you knew that that building was going to work out and that you were going
to rent that building just as much as you know you're saved.
So are you even sure you're saved?
And obviously he knew he was saved.
But I wanted to say that just to drive in the point.
But the Bible says rebuke not an elder, but entreat him as a father.
So I was respectful and I kept my mouth shut.
But you know what?
The Bible goes to show you, you shouldn't speak rashly like that with your mouth and
say things like that and just have these crazy things like, oh, I know that as much as I
know I'm saved.
Look, I don't know anything as much as I know I'm saved.
That should be our maximum assurance, amen?
But people throw that around.
God said this.
God told me this.
I know this is what God wants.
God has told me this.
God revealed this to me.
No, no.
This is what God revealed to you.
Sixty-six books, Genesis through Revelation.
And people today, they're looking for some divine inspiration.
They need to look no further than this book.
You know, read this book ten times and then let's talk about the will of God.
Then let's talk about the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Then let's talk about God's will for your life.
Everybody's looking for God's will.
They didn't even read the book that he gave them.
This is where God talks to you and tells you what his will is.
And you know, if you want the Holy Spirit to lead you in a supernatural way, he's going
to do it through this book.
He's going to take this and show it to you.
When you're out soloning and you're talking to somebody, verses from the Bible will pop
into your mind, the perfect verse.
That's the Holy Spirit.
Or if someone comes to you and says, I need help, I need advice, the perfect verse pops
into your mind.
That's the Holy Spirit bringing things into remembrance, taking of Christ's word and showing
it to you.
But don't just start dreaming up your imaginations and your ideas and your thoughts and you're
being creative and then saying, oh, God led me.
You know, that's blasphemous because the Bible says add not unto his words lest he reprove
thee and thou be found a liar.
The Bible says there's a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are
the ways of death.
A lot of people just think that something seems right and they're like, oh, that's the
Holy Spirit's leading.
Well, some things seem right and they end up being a way of death.
Every man did that which was right in his own eyes, the Bible says, when in a very sinful
time, they're doing what's right in their own eyes.
So you can't just trust the leadings of your own heart to tell you what's right and wrong.
It needs to be scripture based.
Eve thought it was a good idea to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It looked good to her.
She followed her heart and ate of the tree and damned the whole human race.
So look down, if you would, at Jeremiah chapter 23 verse 16.
It says, thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy
unto you.
They make you vain.
They speak a vision of their own heart and not out of the mouth of the Lord.
So there are prophets that are pretending that God spake to them, oh, God told me this.
God said this to me.
But it says they're speaking it out of their own heart.
They made it up and they attribute it to deity.
Look at verse 17.
They still say unto them that despise me, the Lord hath said ye shall have peace.
And they say unto everyone that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, no evil
shall come upon you.
Now does this look like the false prophets of our day?
God's not mad at you, they say.
He's saying, look, they talk to people that despise me and tell them you're going to have
peace.
Wicked people.
People that are going to be punished.
Well, God's going to bless you.
This is your prosperity televangelist preachers.
This is your Joyce Meyer with her book.
God is not mad at you.
On the back of the book it says I don't care who you are.
I don't care what you've done.
God's not mad at you.
That's a lie because God is angry with the wicked every single day, the Bible says.
God's angry with the wicked every day.
And you can't tell a wicked person you're going to have peace.
God's going to bless you.
It's a lie.
But these people, they pulled that out of their own heart.
It seems right to them.
There's what's called natural religion.
This is a modern concept over the past 200 years, this idea of a natural religion.
And what they're saying is like, what if we just kind of forget the Bible, forget all
the books and organize religion, and just kind of, what would be the natural religion
of just kind of being good?
You know what I mean?
What do people think nowadays?
You know, what do all religions kind of have in common?
You know, don't steal.
Well, the Jews didn't, they don't accept that one.
Because remember in marching to Zion, the Jewish guy said that it's okay to steal.
He said the only reason stealing is bad is because we as a society said that it's bad.
And I said, well, isn't there an absolute, like where God said, thou shalt not steal?
And he's like, no.
He said if you don't steal, you're bad.
If you do steal, you're one of us.
Watch the movie.
He says it right there in marching to Zion.
It's pretty clear.
So the point is, you know, just a basic common sense religion.
This is what's called natural religion.
Just a common sense religion of don't kill, don't steal, you know, be good, love people,
be nice.
And this is man's wisdom seeking to create a God in his own image, creating and calling
it the natural.
Well, you know what, the natural man receiving not the things of the Spirit of God.
Okay.
The natural man and they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
And you know, that's funny because, you know, I have this natural thing where I hate homos.
So why isn't that part of natural religion?
That's how most people feel naturally.
But all of a sudden it's like, oh, don't go with your heart on that one.
Don't go with your gut on that one.
Right?
Or what, you know, I naturally think that adultery is bad.
You know, I naturally think that, you know, that you could name anything.
The point is, who are we to just make our own list of rules and say, well, forget God.
Let's just kind of go with what's natural.
You want to see what's natural?
Go find a bunch of cannibals somewhere who have no contact with the outside world.
They're eating each other.
That's great.
You want a beautiful, natural religion without the Bible to confuse them.
That's what they did.
Go to some deep, dark jungle and find me the people that are the most cut off from Christianity
and the Bible.
You're going to find a sick, evil group of people is what you're going to find.
Put that in your pope and smack it because I'm sick and tired of people with their thought
of, oh, yeah, these tribes, they're so wonderful without Jesus.
Without Jesus, they're going to hell and they're making the world into a hell around them.
The National Geographic might whitewash it and say, oh, it's so peaceful.
They're so loving.
They kill and eat each other.
It's been happening all over the world for thousands of years.
Running around naked, fornicating, murdering each other, cannibals.
It's wicked.
Christianity brings civilization.
The more influence society has from the Bible, the better that society is.
The less influence from the Bible, the worse they are.
Hang your natural religion.
I'll take the supernatural religion of the King James Bible.
But they want to make a god in their own image and call it, oh, this is the natural religion.
Hang it.
I don't want it.
Look at verse 18.
For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord and has perceived and heard his word?
Who has marked his word and heard it?
Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury.
Even a grievous whirlwind, it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.
So here's what he's saying.
The people who are making stuff out of their own heart are saying, oh, peace, God's going
to bless you.
It's going to be great.
And then he's like, okay, who's actually heard the word of God?
A whirlwind is going to land on your head and wipe you out, right?
That's the actual word of God that you're going to be wiped out if you're wicked, it
says in verse 19.
The anger of the Lord, verse 20, shall not return until you have executed, until you
have performed the thoughts of his heart.
In the latter days, ye shall consider it perfectly.
Well guess what?
We're in the latter days.
And guess what?
You know why we can consider it perfectly?
You know what perfectly means?
Completely.
We see the whole picture.
You know why?
Because we have the whole Bible.
In the time of Jeremiah's preaching, they didn't have the whole Bible.
So they had a picture of God's wrath.
We have the complete picture.
We can read the book of Revelation and get a real clear picture of how this world's going
to end up.
So he says in the latter days, you'll consider it perfectly.
God is going to do according to the thoughts of his heart, and it doesn't matter what these
preachers have dreamed out of their own heart, he said.
He said in verse 21, I've not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I've not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in my counsel and had caused my people to hear my words, then they
should have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
What he's saying is, if the preachers all over America would get up and actually preach
God's word and actually preach the wrath of God, then people would get right with God.
People would clean up their lives.
They'd put away the wickedness of their doings, but instead they preach peace, peace when
there is no peace.
And you say, well, but Pastor Anderson, you're in the Old Testament, you need to get on a
New Testament program.
Hold on a second.
He just said in the latter days is when this is going to be the most applicable.
He said in the latter days is when we're going to consider Jeremiah chapter 23 more perfectly.
We understand Jeremiah 23 better today than they did back then.
It's more applicable today than it was back then.
Jeremiah 23 is written unto us.
And so it's written to preachers today who are dreaming things out of their own heart
that seem right and that sound right, but they've made a God in their own image that's
tolerant of the things that they're tolerant of and intolerant of the things that they're
not tolerant of.
But what sayeth the scripture?
The Bible here says that if we would actually preach the word of God, people would actually
get the sin out of their lives and get right with God.
Society would improve.
He says they would turn from their evil way and from the evil of their doings.
Verse 23, am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?
Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him, saith the Lord?
Do not I fill heaven and earth, saith the Lord?
I've heard what the prophet said that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I've dreamed, I've
dreamed.
How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies?
Yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, which think to cause my people
to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbor, and their
fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.
The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream, and he that hath my word, let him
speak my word faithfully.
Which one are you today?
You have God's word.
You have the whole book in your hand.
Your job is to preach God's word faithfully.
He says, what is the chaff to the wheat, saith the Lord?
Is not my word like as a fire, saith the Lord, and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in
pieces?
Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every
one from his neighbor.
Now, what does that mean?
The prophets that steal my words every one from his neighbor.
Instead of actually preaching God's word, a prophet gets up and lies and says, oh, here's
what the Lord says, and it's something false, something he dreamed up out of the imagination
of his own heart.
But then what happens is, then another prophet repeats that, like, oh, that sounds good,
and they steal, quote, God's word from their neighbor, basically, like one guy preaches
it, and then pretty soon everybody starts preaching it.
And how many times have we heard false doctrines repeated this verbatim over and over?
One guy gets up and preaches a false doctrine or says, oh, the Bible says, and then everybody
just repeats that, and then you realize it's not even in the Bible.
But people have heard it so many times, like this thing of you have to repent of all your
sins to be saved.
We've all heard that hundreds of times.
That didn't come from the Bible.
Or this idea of love the sinner, hate the sin.
That's from Mahatma Gandhi, but your average Christian today thinks that that's a quote
from the Bible, literally.
One guy dreams that out of his own heart.
One weirdo Hindu dreams that out of his own heart, and then Christians just keep repeating
it.
That's what he means here, these ones who steal my word, saith the Lord, everyone from
his neighbor, this fake word of the Lord that they got from their neighbor.
They didn't get it from God.
They got it from some preacher that they heard and repeated it.
He says in verse 31, behold, I'm against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues
and say, he saith.
So they say stuff and say, oh, this is what God says, and then they do it in their own
words.
Look, I'm sensitive to this.
Even when I see these billboards where they say something and then they say it's God that
said it.
Who knows what I'm talking about?
It'll give some sentence, some goofball sentence or a joke or even if it's a profound spiritual
truth, but then they'll put it in quotes and then afterwards say God.
That's blasphemous.
There's nothing that irritates me more than people that say, well, here's what God says,
and then they basically just give their own thoughts.
Add thou not unto God's word, the Bible says.
And he says, I'm against the prophets that use their tongues, and then they say, oh,
he saith.
And I'm claiming that God said it when they dreamed it up.
Verse 32, behold, I'm against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell
them and cause my people to err by their lies and by their lightness, yet I sent them not
nor commanded them.
Therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.
Go to First Corinthians chapter two.
First Corinthians chapter number two.
Here's another thing that I hear people say, because what's the title of the sermon this
morning?
A God in their own image.
People make God in their own image, and we talked about how our thoughts are not God's
thoughts, and people dream things up on their own, and then they claim God told them to
do that or God said that when he actually did it.
But another thing I've often heard people say is when you preach the truth to people,
sometimes unbelievers will say this to you, they'll say, well, have you met God?
Did you talk to God?
Like how do you know that's what God thinks?
How dare you speak for God and say God thinks this or God thinks that.
Did you meet him?
Did you talk to him?
Did he verbally tell you that?
Who's heard somebody say something like that to you when you speak truth to someone and
they come at you with, well, did you talk to God?
Have you met him?
Now look at verse 16 of 1 Corinthians chapter 2, it says, for who hath known the mind of
the Lord that he may instruct him?
But we have the mind of Christ.
So he says, well, who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?
But here's the answer, but actually we have the mind of Christ though.
How do we have the mind of Christ?
You say how do you know what God thinks?
The reason I know what God thinks is because we have the mind of Christ.
Isn't the mind what someone thinks?
So if we have the mind of Christ, it's saying, hey, we know what God thinks.
How do we know?
How do we know how he thinks or what he thinks?
Well, back up in the same passage to verse 10.
It says, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit, for the Spirit searcheth all
things, yea, the deep things of God.
For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him?
Even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak,
not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual.
What are those words that the Holy Ghost teaches?
Again John 16, it's the word of Christ, the word of God, it's the Bible, it's the scripture.
And the Bible says, but the natural man, verse 14, receiveth not the things of the Spirit
of God, for they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are
spiritually discerned.
But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
For who hath known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him, but we have the mind
of Christ.
The reason that we have the mind of Christ is because there are many things that are
freely given to us of God, that are revealed by the Holy Spirit, that God's word speaks
to us through the Holy Spirit, and those things are freely available.
I mean how can we not know the mind of Christ when the Bible is available at the Dollar Tree?
When it's available in all parts of the world, when it's available at just about any store
in America, you can buy one, and you know, it's everywhere.
We have the mind of Christ, and God has freely given to us those things and revealed those
things in Genesis through Revelation, and when we read the Bible, we're getting a glimpse
into the mind of Christ.
We understand God's thoughts, and we understand that his thoughts are not our thoughts.
I mean how many times have you been reading the Bible, especially when you're a new believer,
and you read something and you're like, I don't know if I agree with this, or this doesn't
seem right.
You know what that means?
You're on the wrong program, and if you're smart, you'll adjust your thinking and say,
I guess I was wrong about that.
I guess I was wrong.
I'm going to go with what God said, but a lot of people are just like, this doesn't
seem right.
Oh, the Bible must be wrong, because me and my infinite 37-year-old wisdom trumps the
Bible.
You as a 15-year-old are smarter than the Bible, right?
Wrong.
I don't care if you're 115, you're not smarter than the Bible.
We need to adjust our thoughts and get God's thoughts.
Go to Psalm chapter 50, Psalm chapter 50.
So how do we know who God is?
God's word tells us who God is.
So you basically have two choices.
Well, you could theoretically say it's three choices.
You either have the God of the Bible, or you have a God that you made in your own image,
or a God that someone else made in their image.
But when people don't have the word of God, they make up a God.
Because if you don't have the God of the Bible, you just have a made-up God that somebody
dreamed out of their own heart and says he says when he doesn't say.
Okay, now look at Psalm 50, verse 16.
It says, but unto the wicked God saith, what hast thou to do to declare my statutes, or
that thou shouldst take my covenant in thy mouth?
And let me stop and say this, the statutes or the covenant is referring to God's word.
His statutes are his rules.
His covenant is his promise or agreement that he makes.
We call the Bible the Old Testament and the New Testament.
That's the same thing as saying the Old Covenant and the New Covenant.
So when the Bible talks about the covenant and the statutes, we're talking about the
word of God.
We're talking about law and grace here.
The statutes representing the law and the covenant being God's grace or God's agreement
with man, God's promises.
The Bible says in verse 17, seeing that thou hatest instruction and castest my words behind
thee.
So he says to the wicked, look, don't talk about my statutes.
How dare you even put my covenant in your mouth?
You don't even read the Bible, right?
He's saying here, you hated instruction and castest my words behind your back.
How dare you talk about the Bible?
He says to the wicked.
You don't know what you're talking about because you've rejected the word.
He says in verse 18, when thou sawest a thief, then thou consentest with him and has been
partaker with adulterers.
Thou giveth thy mouth to evil and thy tongue frame it deceit.
Thou citizens speakest against thy brother, thou slanderest thine own mother's son.
These things hast thou done and I kept silence.
Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such and one as thyself, but I will reprove thee
and set them in order before thine eyes.
Now consider this, ye that forget God, lest I tear you in pieces and there be none to
deliver.
Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me and to him that ordereth his conversation aright
will I show the salvation of God.
Now the Bible here is saying the wicked have rejected the Bible, right?
It says in verse 17, this is the key verse, they hate instruction and cast God's word
behind them.
What does it mean to cast something behind you?
Well the Bible says that when we get saved, God took our sins and cast them behind his
back.
What does that mean?
He's going to forget about it.
As far as the east is from the west, so far has God separated us from our sins.
And the Bible says their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.
So when we get saved, God forgets about our sins.
And another way of saying that is it says thou wilt cast all their sins behind thy back.
These guys have cast the word of God behind their back.
You know, I'm not going to throw this Bible because this is a nice Bible that I like.
Here, I'll throw a false Bible just as it'll show.
Here, let's pretend that this is a real Bible.
You know, this is basically what they're doing to the Bible.
Just casting it behind their back, right?
Just nuts to that.
Now that was a junk Bible.
That was the so-called living Bible, which is actually the dead Bible, not a King James
version.
But anyway, I mean, it's just the ultimate act of disdain, isn't it?
Just throwing something behind your nuts to this piece of junk.
I mean, it's just the ultimate disrespect of just throwing it behind.
But the idea is forgetting it.
Out of sight, out of mind.
If they threw it in front of them, they'd still see it.
They don't even want to retain God in their knowledge.
They throw it behind their back.
They don't even want to remember God's word.
Okay.
So they've thrown God's word behind their back.
And then it says in verse 21, these things as thou done, and I kept silence.
Here's the key phrase, thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.
Okay, so wicked people who discard the Bible, what do they think God is like?
What do they think God's like?
They think God's like them.
When a wicked person casts out the word of God, then you know what they say?
Oh, God's like me.
Oh, a loving God wouldn't do that.
What they really mean is I wouldn't do that, or I don't think God should do that.
They've set themselves up as the authority.
So the wicked man thinks that God is altogether such a one as himself.
Now another way of looking at this verse, because this is a powerful verse, another
way of looking at this would be to say that in the absence of God's word, people think
that God is like them.
And we need the Bible to show people that God is not like them, but that God's thoughts
are not our thoughts, and that God's ways are not our ways.
And as the heavens are high above the earth, that's how much higher God's thoughts are
than our thoughts, and how much higher his ways are.
Look, your way is junk compared to God's way.
You know, we have our way of doing things, and then there's God's way.
Well, guess what?
God's way is so much better.
Even in the same stratosphere, okay?
Because God's ways are just so much higher, right?
And so we need the Bible to show us that God is not like us.
God's different than us, and we need to become like him.
The wicked man says, well, God's already like me, because I was just born God-like.
That's what they think of themselves, it's pride.
They think that they are God-like.
We seek to strive to get on God's program, but we don't consider ourselves deity or
God-like.
We are his humble servants, amen?
And we let him tell us what's right, and we let him tell us what to do.
These things has thou done, and I kept silence.
Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such a one as thyself.
Another unrelated thing that I've preached out of this verse is silence is agreement.
You know, if somebody tells a dirty joke and you're silent, you know, they think you're
altogether such a one as they are.
You know, somebody teaches heresy and lies and you just kind of put up with it.
You know, a pastor brings in a guest preacher and he gets up and preaches his heresy, and
then the pastor just doesn't say anything, you're going to assume what?
Oh, I guess the pastor brought this guy in, right?
My mom taught me that my whole life, silence is agreement.
And that concept is here in this verse.
That's unrelated to what I'm preaching about right now.
That's my secondary application of that verse, though.
Consider this, ye that forget God, verse 22, lest I tear you in pieces.
Don't make me rip you to shreds.
I mean, look, this is the God of the Bible.
I don't know, that just doesn't seem right.
Just ripping people in pieces.
Well, who should we go?
Should we go with your version of God?
You got your Santa Claus God up in the sky.
He knows what you've been sleeping.
He knows when you're awake.
He knows if you've been good or bad, so be good for goodness sake.
But he's pretty much just going to give you a present anyway.
He knows if you've been good or bad, but everybody gets a present.
Nobody really actually ends up with a lump of coal in their stocking.
I've never gotten a lump of coal in my stocking.
Has anybody here gotten a lump of coal in their stocking?
Now one, you got a lump of coal?
Now the closest thing I ever got, one year for the AIDS-free Christmas year, all the
sodomites got together and they sent me a giant box of coal for Christmas.
And I was, we thought about having a barbecue at the church using all the charcoal, because
they sent us like a giant UPS shipment of charcoal.
And they said, Pastor Anderson's getting a lump of coal in his stocking for Christmas,
so they did some fundraiser and shipped me a giant amount of coal.
But then I, but here's the thing, I was planning on having a big church barbecue with it, but
then I realized that the coal was not coming directly from the manufacturer.
So after the sodomites have handled it, I didn't even want to put my food near it, just
for a sanitation issue, you know.
And you know, I mean, I guess after it got super hot, it would kill all the pathogens
and everything, but I just, I just ended up throwing it in the trash.
It wasn't very green of me, but I threw it away.
It wasn't very green of them either, you know, wasting all that precious fossil fuel or whatever.
But anyway, I don't even know if that is a fossil fuel, but probably not, but I'm not
really that worried about it.
So let's turn to the last place, Romans chapter one.
Romans chapter one.
Fossil fuels would be, I guess, the starter fluid, right?
But anyway, Romans chapter one, let's close on this.
This is always a good place to close, amen.
It's a good place to start in the start, middle, or end of any sermon.
Romans one is a good one.
But anyway, Romans one has the same thought.
I'll close on this.
It says in verse 21, because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God.
Now this doesn't mean they were saved.
What this means is that they knew him in the sense of saying like, you know, I know Nick.
What do I mean when I say I know Nick?
What does that mean?
Yeah, I know Nick.
It means what?
I'm familiar with him.
What if I said, I know Phoenix.
I know Tempe.
I know Scottsdale.
What do I mean by that?
I mean, I know my way around.
I know the city.
I'm familiar with it.
I've been there.
If I say I know Nick, I'm saying Nick and I have met.
We're acquainted.
I'm familiar with him.
Or possibly maybe we've never even met, but if I'm just aware of him, I'm familiar with
him, I could say I know him.
Oh yeah, I know that guy.
Like hey, have you seen so and so, the YouTube channel?
Yeah, I know that guy.
What am I saying?
I'm familiar with him.
I've been exposed to him.
I know who that is.
So the Bible is saying here they knew God, meaning they're confronted with the God of
the Bible.
It's not like they just have no clue who he is, but they are confronted with the true
God and when that happens, they don't glorify him as God.
Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart
was darkened and I don't know if you remember, but when we were going through that scripture
in Jeremiah 23 about the false prophets who dream things out of their own heart, he said
they make my people vain and preach the things that they've dreamed up out of their own heart.
And it says here that they were not thankful.
They didn't glorify him as God.
They're not acknowledging him as God.
Instead, what do they do in verse 22?
They profess themselves to be wise and in the process they become what?
Fools.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of the uncorruptible
God into an image made like to corruptible man.
So what are they doing?
They're making God into their image.
Corruptible man takes the incorruptible God and reduces him to an image made like to corruptible
man.
And even worse than that, they take it a step further to birds and four-footed beasts and
creeping things, which is even more degrading to God when you start likening him to a cow
or a reptile or whatever else.
That's even more degrading.
But even just taking the uncorruptible God and making him like to a corruptible man.
What does it mean to be corruptible?
We talked about this last Sunday morning.
Remember we talked about this word corruptible when we talked about the incorruptible word
of God.
Corruption has to do with decay, right?
Like for example when Jesus died and was buried, his flesh saw no corruption.
What does that mean?
That means three days and three nights later, his body was not rotting or decaying or having
worms in it, okay?
His flesh saw no corruption.
Now David on the other hand, he saw corruption, the Bible says.
He died and was buried, Acts chapter 2 says, David died and he was buried and he saw corruption.
Corrupt, what does it mean?
It's that which is decayed.
Now what is decay?
Decay is a change in the state of something for the worse.
That's what corruption is, right?
So if I have milk and it's fresh and clean and good and then I leave it out on the counter
for a while, what's going to happen to it?
It's going to corrupt.
It's going to spoil.
So it's changing states.
It's not in the same state that it was in before and it's a change for the worse.
God is the incorruptible God, meaning that he does not change or decay or devolve in
any way.
So when you change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corrupt a man,
you have a different God now.
The true God can't be changed.
He is what he is.
I am that I am, he said.
He can't change.
He said, I'm the Lord.
I change not.
Therefore, you sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
But today's world, they want to corrupt God.
What do they mean by that?
What do they want to do?
They want to change God with the times.
And it's not a change for the better, it's a change for the worse.
God cannot get any better.
He's already at maximum greatness, maximum goodness, maximum perfection, maximum holiness.
So if God changed, he'd be doing what?
Taking a step down.
He's incorruptible.
What would it mean if there was a judge and I said that judge is incorruptible?
What do I mean?
He cannot be corrupted.
What does it mean to corrupt a judge or corrupt a police officer?
It means we're taking them from enforcing the law, upholding the law, doing the right
things to becoming what?
A dishonest criminal.
If I said, hey, this teenager is corrupting other teenagers in the church, what's he doing?
He's changing them for the worse.
God's word cannot be changed.
God cannot change.
If you change God's word, it's not God's word anymore.
If you change God, it's not God anymore.
You have a different God, okay, because God's incorruptible.
But man wants to change God into his image and take the glory of the uncorruptible God
and change it into an image of God that is like unto corruptible man.
So they want to take the divine, perfect Lord Jesus Christ and turn him into someone more
like John Lennon, turn him into someone more like Gandhi, right?
Turn him into someone more like Martin Luther King Jr.
You know, these are their heroes.
They want to take Jesus and make him someone like that, someone that they can relate to,
someone that they like.
Well, I don't know about you, but I like God just the way he is.
In fact, I love God just the way he is.
And I don't want to change him.
I want him to change me.
So don't make God in your own image.
Let God fashion you in his image because our destiny, the Bible says, is to be conformed
to the image of his son.
We need to get conformed to Christ and not try to conform Christ to us.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for your word, Lord.
Lord, you've given us the mind of Christ.
Thank you so much for allowing us to consider things more perfectly in these last days and
to be able to read the whole Bible, Genesis to Revelation, to understand your thoughts
and your ways, Lord, and to realize how much greater and smarter you are than we are, Lord.
Help us to get on your program and forsake our own way and forsake our own thoughts and
embrace your ways and your thoughts as found in your word.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.