All right, well, we're there in Ezekiel chapter number 6.
And look down at verse number 1.
Ezekiel chapter number 6 in verse number 1, the Bible
says this, And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying,
Son of man, set thy face toward the mountains of Israel
and prophesy against them.
And say, ye mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord God to the mountains.
So the chapter begins with God having Ezekiel direct
his attention towards the mountains,
not just the mountains.
Notice there in verse 3, and to the hills, to the rivers,
and to the valleys.
Behold, I even I will bring a sword upon you,
and I will destroy your high places.
Now, why is it that God is having Ezekiel
direct his attention and preach towards the mountains,
and to the hills, and to the rivers, and to the valleys?
In verse 4, he says this, And your altars shall be desolate,
and your images shall be broken.
And I will cast down your slain men before your idols.
And this chapter really has to do
with idolatry and the idolatry of the nation of Israel.
And this question about idols is actually a question
that my wife and myself, and I'm sure even our staff here,
we get a lot about.
I know I get asked this a lot.
I know my wife gets asked this a lot.
This question about what is an idol?
Because there's a lot of teaching about this,
and this chapter has to do with idolatry.
And I kind of want to just cover this and deal with it.
Keep your place there in Ezekiel 6.
That's our text for tonight.
But go with me to the book of Exodus, Exodus chapter 34.
Exodus 34.
And we're often asked about this, what is an idol?
I mean, even right now, sitting in my email inbox
is an email from a very kind lady, very sincere lady,
who's interested in the truth and wants to do right.
And she's heard so many different teachings
and preachings on idolatry.
She literally just sent an email to us,
and she took pictures of all these different knickknacks
in her house.
And I can't remember what they all are,
but I think there's like a cat clock or like a butterfly
little design or whatever.
She's just genuinely asking, is this an idol?
Is this an idol?
Is this something I should be getting rid of?
And honestly, we get asked this question a lot.
So I'd like to just kind of deal with it and teach it.
And to be able to explain to you my position on it,
I want you to look at Exodus 34 and verse 28.
Just let's start there, Exodus 34, 28.
Exodus 34 and verse 28 says this.
And he was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights.
This is talking about Moses, of course, up on the mountain.
The Bible says he did neither eat bread nor drink water,
and he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant.
And I want you to notice the last part of verse 28.
It says the 10 commandments.
When Moses went up to the mountain,
the Bible tells us that he wrote upon the table
the words of the covenant.
And the Bible refers to it as the 10 commandments.
And I want you to understand that because I
want you to understand that that's not,
we've all heard of the 10 commandments, obviously.
That's not a title or a term that we gave it.
We didn't call them the 10 commandments
because we counted 10 of them.
But the word of God itself tells us
that Moses was given 10 commandments.
I go to Exodus chapter 20, and let's
look at these commandments that were given to Moses by God.
And the reason that I'm making that point,
that the Bible tells us that there were 10 commandments,
is because the 10 commandments are actually disputed
by several different groups.
Which ones were the actual 10 commandments?
And because if you read the 10 commandments,
you'll read 10 commandments, but you
read a lot of description and commentary
also given along with the 10 commandments.
And some people debate back and forth
where one commandment begins and where one ends.
And I want to just help you to see and understand
what I believe about this and what I teach about this.
And I'm going to tell you right now,
what I believe about this may be different
than what other good men and good pastors believe.
That's OK.
People always get real nervous whenever you start disagreeing
with other pastors or Baptists or whatever.
I want to remind you that we're independent.
That's the point.
That's what it means.
It means that we're not in a denomination.
Not all of us have to agree on every little thing.
But I want you to see where I draw the line.
Now, when it comes to this idea, because look,
the Catholics have a different 10 commandments
than most other Christians do.
And other religions have different 10 commandments
than all other religions do.
For me, it becomes easier to decide
what are the 10 commandments when we actually
begin at the end.
Because at the end, it's real clear
what the commandments are.
If you look at verse 17, Exodus chapter 20 and verse 17,
the Bible says this, thou shalt not covet.
That's the 10th commandment.
Now, the rest of the verse just goes on to describe
what not to covet.
Thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife,
nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox,
nor anything that is thy neighbor's.
But the 10th commandment is thou shalt not covet.
Look at verse 16.
We find the 9th commandment.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Look at verse 15.
We find the 8th commandment.
Thou shalt not steal.
Look at verse 14.
We find the 7th commandment.
Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Look at verse 13.
We find the 6th commandment.
Thou shalt not kill.
Look at verse 12.
We find the 5th commandment.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
And then, of course, he goes on to give a promise with that,
that thy days may be long upon the land, which
the Lord thy God giveth thee.
Look at verse 8.
He gives the 4th commandment.
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.
Now, verses 9, 10, 11 are just commentary
on the 4th commandment.
He says, six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work.
But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord.
He goes on and talks about that.
But in verse 8, we have the 4th commandment.
In verse 7, we have the 3rd commandment.
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.
That's the 3rd commandment.
For the Lord will not hold him guiltless
that taketh his name in vain.
Just a commentary on that commandment.
Now, look, when we work on it from the end up,
I don't know that anybody could really argue the list thus far.
I mean, it's real obvious that the 10th commandment
is thou shalt not covet.
The 9th commandment is thou shalt not bear false witness.
The 8th commandment is thou shalt not steal.
The 7th commandment is thou shalt not commit adultery.
The 6th commandment is thou shalt not kill.
The 5th commandment is honor thy father and thy mother.
The 4th commandment is remember the Sabbath day
and keep it holy.
The 3rd commandment is thou shalt not take the name of the Lord
thy God in vain.
Now, here's where the confusion comes
and where people begin to decide differently
where the 2nd and the 1st commandment are.
Because in verse 5, we have this terminology.
Thou shalt not bow down myself to them,
nor serve them, for the Lord thy God am a jealous God,
visiting the iniquity of thy fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them
that hate me.
In verse 4, we have this terminology.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images
or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth.
And in verse 3, we have this terminology.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Now, if you just decide that every time it
says thou shalt or thou shalt not, that's a new commandment,
you're going to end up with 11.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
Because you've got thou shalt have no other gods before me.
It says thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
And it says thou shalt not bow down thyself to them.
Now, the problem, now here's the thing.
Someone would say, well, what's wrong
with having 11 commandments?
The only point I'm making is this.
The Bible tells us that he gave him 10.
That's what the Bible says.
So we've got to be able to divide this or separate
this in a way where we come up with 10 commandments.
Because when you ask God, how many commandments did you get?
You say, yeah, but he said thou shalt 11 times.
Yeah, but when God tells us how many commandments he gave,
he says 10.
So you say, well, Pastor Jimenez, how do you divide it?
How do you cut it up?
We've got three left, and we've got two commandments.
I look at the two that have the same common denominator, that
are about the same subject, and unite them as one commandment.
Obviously, we have the first commandment,
thou shalt have no other gods before me.
You can't really argue that one, because Jesus himself
quoted in the New Testament that the first commandment is,
thou shalt have no other gods before me.
So that kind of leaves verses 4 and, I'm
promising my paper here, 5 as one commandment.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above,
or that is an earth beneath, or that is in the water
under the earth.
That's commandment number 2.A, if you will.
And verse 5, thou shalt not bow thou thineself to them,
nor serve them, for I am the Lord thy God.
And my jealous God, visiting the iniquity of thy fathers
upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them
that hate me.
That's commandment number 2.B, because they
have to do with the same thing.
Now look, some people teach other things than that.
I'm not interested in starting some sort of YouTube fight.
Someone's going to send me an email with some clip trying
to get me.
I don't care, OK?
I'm an independent Baptist.
I'm just teaching our people here at Verity Baptist Church
what we believe and teach.
And here's what I want you to understand.
Some people teach, no, verse 4, it's its own command.
You're not even supposed to make it a graven image.
And verse 5, it's its own command.
You're not supposed to bow down thyself to it.
Here's the problem with that.
The problem with that is when you separate that into two
commandments, you now end up with 11.
And the Bible is very clear that it's supposed to be 10.
But there's another problem with that, an even bigger problem
with that.
Go to Exodus 25.
Because some people will teach any image, any graven image
you have, anything you have that looks like anything,
that is an idol.
And you are an idolatry if you have it.
This is why I'm getting pictures of a cat clock.
Is this an idol?
And I'm not mocking the person who sent me the picture.
They're genuinely wanting to know a wind chime
with little butterflies on it.
Is this an idol?
Because this was being taught.
Now here's the thing.
If you decide that thou shall not
make unto thee any graven image, just by itself is a command.
Not only does that give you a problem
with the numbering of the 10 commandments,
because the Bible itself tells us there's 10,
but there's an even bigger problem.
Are you there in Exodus 25?
Look at verse 16.
Exodus 25 and verse 16.
And thou shalt put in the ark.
This is God speaking to Moses, explaining to him
how he is to build the tabernacle and the furniture
for the tabernacle and all those things.
He's about to explain the ark.
This is the Ark of the Covenant.
He says, thou shalt put in the ark the testimony which
I shall give thee.
And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold.
Two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof,
and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, verse 18.
And thou shalt make two cherubims.
Now if you're with us for Ezekiel 1,
you know what a cherubim is, right?
It's a beast.
It's an angelic animal from heaven
with all sorts of wings and all sorts of faces
and all sorts of different things.
And here in verse 18, God is commanding Moses
to make an image, not only one image,
two images of cherubims of gold-beaten work
shall thou make them into the ends of the mercy seat,
look at verse 19, and make one cherub on one end
and the other cherub on the other end.
Even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims
on the two ends thereof, verse 20.
And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high,
covering the mercy seat with their wings.
And their faces shall look one to another
toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
What God is telling him is the ark
was like this rectangular box.
And if this pulpit, if you want to pretend like it was the ark,
he's saying you're going to put one cherubim on this side.
You're going to put one cherubim,
an image of a cherubim on this side.
The faces are going to be looking towards each other.
And the wings are going to be covering the entire cherubim.
And of course, this all pictured the throne room up in heaven
where you've got actual seraphims and cherubims
standing at the throne room of God saying, holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty that was and is and is to come.
So here's the problem.
If Exodus 24 is all by itself a command
thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image,
then just a few chapters later in Exodus 25,
God just told Moses to sin.
Now, and people say, well, God can do whatever he wants.
And you know what?
I believe God can do whatever he wants, obviously.
But God doesn't go against his own word.
God says, don't lie.
And then the Bible says that God is not a man, that he should lie.
So if it's a sin to make a graven image,
then you've got a problem with the art.
But you've got more problems than that.
Go to Numbers 21.
Numbers 21.
Again, I'm not trying to start a fight with anybody.
I'm just trying to help our people.
Because we get this question asked all the time here.
I mean, some of you sitting here have asked me this question
or my wife this question.
You know, we answer it, and we do it respectfully.
And there's people even in our church
that don't agree with me on this, and that's fine.
You're not my enemy.
I don't like you, but you're not my enemy.
You're not my enemy.
That's what I mean.
And I do like you.
Numbers 21.
Look at verse 7.
Therefore, the people came to Moses and said,
we have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord
and against thee, praying unto the Lord,
that he take away the serpents from us.
Remember when God sent the fiery serpents to the people?
And Moses prayed for the people.
And the Lord said unto Moses, make thee a fiery serpent,
and set it upon a pole.
And it shall come to pass that every one that is bitten,
when he looketh upon it, shall live.
And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole.
And it came to pass that if a serpent had bitten any man,
when he beheld a serpent of brass, he lived.
This is, of course, where we get our song, Look and Live.
My brother lived.
Look to Jesus now and live.
Because Jesus said that if he be lifted up from the earth,
like Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
there's a picture there of salvation.
This is also, if you ever notice,
if you ever go to a pharmacy in the United States of America,
the symbol for medicine is a serpent on a pole.
And that comes from this story where
Moses lifted up a serpent in the wilderness on a pole.
But I want you to notice that Moses was commanded by God
to make a serpent of brass, and to put it upon a pole.
So you say, well, Pastor, what are you saying?
Here's what I'm saying.
I believe that simply making an image is not a sin.
And you say, well, Exodus 20 and verse 4 commence.
I believe Exodus 20, verse 4 and Exodus 20, verse 5
are coupled together into one commandment.
Otherwise, you end up with 11.
And the command is to not make a graven image,
and to not bow yourself down to it, and to not serve it.
And you say, well, I disagree with you.
I heard you this, and I heard that.
That's fine.
You can have whatever disagreement you want.
But you've got to answer this question, then
are there 11 commandments?
Are you going to unite committing adultery,
not stealing as one?
And you've got another problem.
What about the cherubims, and what about the serpent?
And here's what's interesting.
Go to 2 Kings, chapter 18.
2 Kings, chapter 18.
Because people say, no, no, no, it's only making it.
It doesn't matter if you bow down to it,
or if you use it in some sort of religious fashion.
It's only making it.
Here's what's interesting.
God commanded Moses to make it.
And he used it to heal the people from their serpents.
But you know, the Bible actually tells us
that the people eventually began
to use that serpent, that brazen serpent, that brass
serpent that he made, basically as an idol.
And then God did have the serpent destroyed.
Look at 2 Kings 18, and verse number 4.
2 Kings, chapter 18, and verse 4.
2 Kings 18, and verse 4 says this.
He removed the high places and break the images
and cut down the groves.
This is Hezekiah having his revival.
Notice what he does.
And break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made.
Now, why did Hezekiah break it in pieces?
For unto those days, the children of Israel
did burn incense to it.
And he called it nehushathan.
So I want you to notice that they were using it as an idol
and burning incense to it.
And once they began to use it in that capacity,
Hezekiah break it in pieces and destroyed it.
Why?
Because at that point, it wasn't just, in my opinion,
it wasn't just enough that they built it.
In fact, God commanded Moses to create it.
But it was when they began to use it
in a religious capacity, when they began to use it
in a religious way.
So look, you do what you want.
And here's what I always tell people.
I'm never going to ask someone to sin
against their own conscience.
I mean, if you look at those little military figures
that your five-year-old has, and your conscience moats you,
that your son is playing with idolatry
because he's got little figurines of an army
soldier crawling, look, then get rid of it.
But don't try to push that on me,
because I don't feel guilty about it.
Do you understand what I'm saying?
To me, it's idolatry when it's an image that is being
used for religious purposes.
So look, here's where we've drawn the line in my home.
Here's the stand that I take, that my wife takes.
We don't have any images in our house that have
a religious connotation to it.
We don't have crosses.
We don't have crucifixes.
We don't have angels.
We don't have the little fish that
represents Jesus on the back of our car.
Or we don't have the little dove that
represents the Holy Spirit.
But I just came back from the Middle East.
And I came back with a little souvenir, a little magnet
of one of the locations I was at.
It had an image of the city we were in.
And then in it, it had a little camel.
I don't think that's idolatry.
Now, some people would say, that's idolatry.
That's fine.
But I'm telling you, that's more mild than a serpent on a pole.
And that's more mild than a cherubim
on the Ark of the Covenant.
And you've just got some problems with your theology
there.
You've got to make those things match.
And you can have whatever doctrines or positions
you want to have.
But don't try to push those on people, especially
if you haven't really even thought this through.
You know, look, the entire Bible is God's word.
It all has to match together.
So you make whatever decisions you want.
Here's where I stand.
You look around this building.
You don't see crosses.
You look on anything that we put out.
We don't put crosses.
We don't put any sort of religious symbols.
What we've decided is no images, no pictures,
nothing that has a religious type connotation to it.
We choose not to have those things in our home
or in our ministry.
But I believe that an idol is something
that's not only graven and emolted, created,
but is also something that you're
using in a religious capacity.
So if you've got a butterfly on a windmill in your backyard,
I think it's fine.
If it's smiting your conscience, get rid of it.
But I don't think you have to worry about it.
Now, if you've got a Jesus fish, a little Jesus fish,
get rid of that.
I think that is idolatry, whenever
you add a religious connotation.
But I just wanted to take time to answer that,
because I get so many questions about that.
Go back to Ezekiel.
And go to Ezekiel chapter 14.
Ezekiel chapter 14.
And again, I'm not preaching this sermon.
And listen to me.
I'm not preaching this sermon so you can take a clip out of it
and go email it to some pastor or whatever.
I don't really care what other people do.
It's fine what positions people take.
But you need to just be convinced
of what the word of God says.
And you need to understand what the Bible says.
And you need to decide for yourself,
is this the stand that I take, or is this?
And you may take a stronger stand or a more lenient stand.
But I believe the clear teaching from scripture
is that if you have an image and you're
using it in a religious capacity, that's an idol.
And I don't think having a little toy
turtle for my baby is an idol.
I don't think a little magnet with a camel on it is an idol.
That's my position.
And I believe I can back it up from scripture.
Ezekiel 14.
But let me give you just one more other thought
about idolatry, because that's physical idolatry.
And by the way, that stuff needs to be taught and preached,
because we live in a world today.
I think Brother Stuckey put up a video on our YouTube
even today.
India, one of the largest populations in the world.
Tons of idolatry goes on there.
There's all sorts of countries all over the world
that are heavy into idolatry.
Catholicism has a lot of idolatry in it.
So we need to preach against idolatry.
That's the physical, actual, real idolatry.
That's what I would call physical idolatry.
But there's also something I would call spiritual idolatry.
Let me show that to you from the Word of God.
Ezekiel 14.
Look at verse 3.
Now we're in Ezekiel chapter 6, but just we're
going to fast forward to verse 14 real quickly.
Just to make a point.
Ezekiel 14, verse 3, notice what the Bible says.
Son of man, these men have set up their idols,
notice what it says, in their heart,
and put a stumbling block of their iniquity
before their faces.
Should I be inquired of at all by them?
So I want you to notice that the Bible here also
refers to people setting up idols in their heart.
So what I want you to understand is that an idol can be something
tangible, like an actual image of Mary or Jesus or whatever,
that someone bows themselves down to it
or they're using it in some sort of religious capacity.
And again, look, if you want to just understand,
my position is if it's an image and it's religious,
we just stay away from it.
Because look, Ezekiel should teach you
that God hates idolatry.
So we have no crosses, no crucifixes, no doves,
no whatever, no fishes, no angels, none of that.
And if people give us stuff like that, we're not rude to them.
We don't throw it back in their face.
But we don't put that kind of stuff up in our home
because we want to have an idol-free home.
So I would encourage you to make sure you don't have images
that are religious-type, spiritual-type images
in your home because God hates idolatry.
But there's also the spiritual type of idolatry,
which here we see in Ezekiel 14.3 where they set up
their idols in their heart.
You say, how can that be?
That's not tangible.
That's something that's spiritual.
It's an idol in your heart or in your mind.
And because at the end of the day,
an idol is basically anything that takes the place of God.
And whether you actually have an image of a god
and you're worshipping that image as your god,
that's an idol.
But when you allow things into your life
and those things become more important than God,
those things take priority over God, that's an idol as well.
And that's the type of idolatry that we as Americans
are probably more prone to.
Unless you're Catholic, you're probably
not going to have some big idol in your house.
But you do.
You may have an idol.
It might just be sitting in your driveway.
It might just be parked in your garage.
It might just be down into your bank account
because we tend to make things, idols, we put them before God.
And we can put up and set up idols in our heart.
Now go back to Ezekiel chapter 6 and look at verse 9.
Ezekiel chapter 6, verse 9.
We're going to cover every verse in Ezekiel 6,
but I wanted to just teach that and explain that.
Look at verse 9.
And let me say this about idolatry.
God considers either physical or spiritual idolatry,
he considers it adultery.
Look at Ezekiel 6 and verse 9.
The Bible says this, and they that escape of you
shall remember me among the nations,
whether they shall be carried captive, because I am broken.
Notice what he says.
With their whorish heart, which hath departed from me,
and with their eyes, which go a whoring after their idols,
they shall loathe themselves for the evils
which they have committed in all their abominations.
I want you to notice that God considers these people going
after idolatry.
He says in their hearts they have whorish hearts.
He says they go a whoring after their idols.
James 4, 4, you don't have to turn there.
I'll just read this for you.
But in James 4, 4, it says this.
Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye
not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?
Now, here in James, we're being told
that when you allow the world to take the principal position
in your life, God says, look, there's
only room for me or the world.
You can't have both.
He says, know ye not that friendship of the world
is enmity with God?
Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world
is the enemy of God.
And again, that's talking about why
does he use the term adulterer and adulteress?
Because God, that's the terminology.
He said, when we decide to make something else more
important than God, he says it's equivalent to a wife preferring
another man over her husband, or a husband preferring
another woman over his wife.
He says, that's what you're doing when you set up an idol
and you put it before me, whether it's a physical idol
that you're actually worshipping or using
in some sort of religious capacity,
putting incense to or whatever, or whether it's
an idol of the heart, something that you've allowed
to take precedence over God.
God says, that is adultery.
He says, you have a whorish heart.
He says, you go a whoring after their idols.
Now, go back to Ezekiel chapter 6.
Now, with all that said, let me give you
just some thoughts about idolatry from this chapter
that we see.
I want to give you three quick points,
and then we'll have our conclusion, and we'll be done.
The introduction was a little longer than usual,
but let me give you three quick points about idolatry.
And look, you got to ask yourself,
do you have idolatry in your life?
And I would think that most of you don't.
Maybe you have a cross hanging in your house.
You need to go home and take that cross down.
Or you have a Jesus fish on the back of your car.
You need to take that thing down.
And look, if you've got a Buddha in your backyard,
you need to get rid of that thing, or whatever.
I mean, if you have a nativity scene with Jesus on it
in there, that's an idol.
Get rid of that thing.
You've got angels, and you've got whatever.
You need to get rid of those things.
I would imagine most of you, if you have idols,
it's idols of the heart.
And you got to ask yourself, is there anything in my life
that I give priority over God?
Is there anything in my life that I give priority over God?
And let me just give you some thoughts
in regards to idolatry.
Number one, God will make your idols the object of his wrath.
What we learn from this chapter is that God
will make your idols, whatever it is that you put above him
and before him, he will make that idol
an object of his wrath.
Look at verse 4.
The Bible says this, and your altars shall be desolate.
God says, look, when I bring destruction,
I'm not just going to destroy the people.
He said, I'm going to destroy your altars,
because God will make your idols the object of his wrath.
He says, and your altars shall be desolate,
and your images shall be broken.
And I will cast down your slain men before your idols,
and I will lay the dead carcass of the children of Israel
before their idols, and I will scatter your bones
right about the altars.
We're going to get back to that.
Look at verse 6.
And in all of your dwelling places,
the cities shall be laid waste.
Don't miss this.
And the high places, that's where the idolatry is being
taking place, the worship being taking place,
shall be desolate.
And your altars may be laid waste and may desolate,
and your idols may be broken and cease,
and your images may be cut down, and your works
may be abolished.
Now, I want you to notice, and it's not just Ezekiel 6.
I bring this up whenever there's a chapter on idolatry.
I bring this up every time, because it's there every time.
The Bible is very clear about the fact
that whatever you decide, whatever a human being decides
to make an idol of, when you decide
I'm going to make an idol of, and you just
fill in the blank, you just put a target on that thing,
because God is going to make that idol.
He's going to make your idol the object of his wrath.
Let me give you just a quick example.
You don't have to turn to this, but you
remember the 10 plagues?
We've been talking about Moses.
Remember the 10 plagues of Egypt when
God brought down the 10 plagues?
You know, what's interesting when you really look at that,
because we have enough history of Egypt
to realize that Egypt was obviously
a polytheistic nation.
They worshipped multiple gods.
And here's what's interesting.
If you look at it hard enough, you'll
figure out that every single one of those plagues
was directed at some god that Egypt had.
The first plague, you have the turning of the Nile River
into blood.
And the Egyptians had a god named
Hapi, which was the Egyptian god of the Nile.
And again, this is not hard to understand,
because we actually have so much history
about the Egyptian culture that they
had a god that they worshipped that was the god of the Nile,
because the Egyptian culture was based on that Nile.
That Nile River is what allowed them to become the powerhouse
that they were at that time.
And they had a god that they worshipped for that Nile.
And then God just kind of puts his finger in their face
when he turns the Nile River into blood.
How about the plague of the frogs?
They had a god named Heket.
And you may have seen this image before,
but their god actually had the face of a frog.
And again, God's just kind of mocking.
They have a god that has the face of a frog,
and God sends all these frogs.
How about the plague of lice from the dust of Earth?
They had a god named Geb, who was
an Egyptian god of the Earth.
And I won't go through all of it.
How about the plague of turning the sun into darkness?
Remember when darkness?
Their main god was Ra, the sun god.
And it's just every single plague
that God delivered to the Egyptians, every single one
was just directed at one of their gods,
showing how their idols were worthless.
They have a god they worship for the sun,
so God just turns the sun off.
They have a god they worship the Nile,
so God turns the Nile into blood.
They have a god that looks like a frog,
so God just overwhelms them with frogs,
and then removes the frog at his will.
And then, of course, the Egyptians, their main deity
was Pharaoh himself.
Pharaoh was one of the first political leaders that
declared himself deity, and they worshiped their Pharaoh
as a god.
So what does God do?
He kills the first born son of Pharaoh, the next Pharaoh
in line, showing that it was in his hands
the power of these so-called gods.
So here's what's interesting.
Is in the Bible, you'll find that whatever idolatry,
whatever lowercase g god people want to put before God,
God makes that god, big G god, makes that lowercase g god
the object of his wrath.
And it doesn't only happen with Egypt and with these idols.
It happens with the idols of your heart.
I mean, look, I've watched it.
I've seen people in our church who
decided that they wanted to make money their god,
and they became covetous.
And you talk to them, and all they talked about was money.
You talk to them, and all they cared.
You used to talk about the word of God.
You used to talk about soul winning.
You used to talk about things that mattered.
And now it's just all about business, all about money,
all about cars, all about vehicles.
It's like they decided, I'm going
to worship the almighty God.
But you know what's interesting?
I saw those same people just be ruined financially.
I mean, the guy that couldn't stop talking about money
was living with his parents.
30-year-old wife, children, living with his parents,
in debt up to his eyeballs.
And then the rest of the people in the church
who don't care about money, who just go to work,
and just want to make enough money to be able to survive
and serve God, they're getting raises.
They're getting bonuses.
Everything's going great with them.
And the guy that's all super covetous,
living with his parents, has all this super debt,
can't get ahead financially, you think that's a coincidence?
Look, whenever you decide that something
is going to become more important than God,
you just put a target on that, and that
will become the object of the wrath of God.
I mean, you've got people coming to church, and they're like,
oh, I'm having family problems, so I have to make my family
more important than God.
So they'll skip church to spend time with their kids,
and then they have the worst relationship with their kids
than the people who just come to church.
They'll skip church, well, I've got
to spend time with my wife.
And then they've got more problems with their wife.
I've got to spend time with my husband.
And then they've got more problems with their husband.
Look, the people who have the best marriages here
are the ones who realize that God comes first,
wife comes second, husband comes second, children comes third,
work comes fourth.
But when you get those all messed up,
I'm going to make work more important.
And then now you're unemployed.
You can't figure out why you can't find a job.
Look, it's because whenever you make an idol,
you make that idol the object of God's wrath.
You say, Pastor Jimenez, why don't you
ever just skip church on a Sunday night
and just go have some family time?
Because I love my family way too much.
Because I don't want God to decide, oh, really?
You want to worship your family more than me,
and then do something to my family,
or put them in the hospital, or cause some sort of problem.
Because as soon as I put them, people say, oh,
I love my family too much.
That's why I can't go sewing.
I love my family.
No, no, actually, you don't love them enough to not put them
in the right position.
Say, Pastor Jimenez, why do you tithe and budget
and try to not be covetous and try to drive an old car
and you wear old clothes?
Why do you do that?
You don't buy new clothes.
The good thing about when you stop growing when you're 13
is that you can just keep wearing the same clothes.
And you say, why don't you care about money?
You know why I don't care about money?
Because I want God to take care of me financially.
I realize that as soon as I put money over God,
now I'm going to be the 30-year-old living
with my parents, except my parents have
way too much character to let me live with them.
I've told you the story my dad told me
the week before I got married.
You're never coming back here.
Sink or swim or whatever, but just don't come back here.
So here's the point that I want you to understand
is that God will make your idol the object of his wrath.
God will make your idol the object of his wrath.
So when you really love something,
don't make an idol out of it because God will destroy it.
God will remove it.
God is a jealous God.
And God doesn't want to compete with your wife.
God doesn't want to compete with your job.
God doesn't want to compete with your children.
God doesn't want to compete with your 401k.
So you know what, I want all those things to be safe,
so I'm just going to put God where he deserves,
where he needs to be.
Because as soon as you put something else before God,
as soon as you put just listen to me, listen to me,
as soon as you put anything before God,
you just put a target on that thing.
God will make your idol the object of his wrath.
Number two, not only will God make your idol
the object of his wrath, but God will make it clear
that your idols are helpless to help you.
Look at verse four, and your altar shall be desolate,
and your images shall be broken.
And I will cast down your slain men.
God says, I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to cast you down.
Notice, before your idols.
And I will lay dead carcasses of the children of Israel
before their idols.
And I will scatter your bones round about your altars.
Look at verse seven, and the slain
shall fall in the midst of you, and ye shall
know that I am the Lord.
Look at verse 12.
This is returning back to Ezekiel 5.
He that is far off shall, number one, die of the pestilence.
And he that is near shall, number two, fall by the sword.
And he that remaineth and is beseech shall, number three,
die by the famine.
Remember that from chapter five, where he cut his hair
and divided into three parts.
Thus will I accomplish my fury upon them.
Verse 13, then shall ye know that I
am the Lord, when their slain men shall be among their idols,
round about their altars, upon every high hill,
and all the tops of the mountains,
and under every green tree, and under every thick oak,
the place where they did offer sweet savor to all their idols.
You know what God, here's what God is saying.
Not only am I going to make your idols the object of my wrath,
but he said, I'm going to make sure that you realize
that your idols were helpful.
He says, when I kill you, I'm going
to dump your bodies in front of your idols
and see if those idols can help you.
And it's going to be real clear to anybody who walks by,
this idol was not able to deliver from my hand.
And you find this throughout the entire Bible.
Let me just give you one example.
Go to Judges chapter 10.
Judges chapter 10.
So what are you making an idol?
Some people make drugs an idol.
Some people make alcohol an idol.
Some people make pornography an idol, fornication an idol.
Some people make sports an idol.
Some people, football season starts, and it's like,
you're not going to see me in church
for the next however many months.
And look, let me tell you something.
If you watch sports, I'm not trying to hurt your feelings,
but you're an idiot.
Watching sports is the stupidest thing
anybody can do with their time.
It matters nothing.
It means nothing.
As soon as it's over, as soon as the Super Bowl is over,
it didn't matter.
None of it matters.
I mean, I understand why grown men
will spend hours watching other grown men play with a ball.
It doesn't matter, but yet people will act like it's just
this idol.
I can't go to church.
I'm sorry I'm lying because I'm watching the Super Bowl.
It's like, yeah, but you don't go to church
because you're watching the Super Bowl.
You don't go to church because you're
watching the World Series.
You don't go to church because you're watching the NBA finals,
and you're watching the college, you know, whatever games.
Then you've got to watch the Grammys and the Emmys.
It's like, oh, good night.
When are you going to come to church?
And it's just everything, everything
takes priority before God.
And everything's more important than God.
And this idea that I kind of come to church,
I mean, I've got to have nothing going on.
There has to be nothing else going on in life,
and I've got to feel good.
And then maybe I'll show up.
But if there is anything, I don't even watch golf,
but if golf's on, then, you know, I've got to.
And it's like we make idols of all these things, sports,
recreational activities.
Are you there in Judges 10, verse 13?
Judges 10, verse 13.
Judges 10, 13, notice the Bible says,
yet ye have forsaken me and serve other gods.
Wherefore I will deliver you no more.
Notice what God says.
When you decide to serve other gods,
he says, I will deliver you no more.
Notice what he says in verse 14.
Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen.
Let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation.
You know, when you decide I'm going
to make drinking alcohol, I'm going
to allow drinking alcohol to get me out of church,
or I'm going to allow listening to rock music, you know,
Brother Sucky preached a sermon against rock music.
I didn't like that.
So I'm going to allow some little disk or some little iPod
to get me out of church, because I
want to listen to my little Hills
song or my little contemporary Christian music
or my whatever worldly music.
I'm going to let that get me out of church.
Or whatever it is, listen to me.
My wife got offended.
My wife's offended at the pastor,
so I'm going to let her get me out of church.
Here's what God says.
When I bring my wrath upon you, when
you're sitting in that emergency room
and you need to pray to God for your child,
here's what God's going to say.
Go pray to your little rock music.
Go pray to your little 49ers.
Go pray to your job.
Go pray to your 401k.
Go pray to whatever it is that you want to put before me.
That's how God feels about it.
Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen.
Let them deliver you.
You know what God's going to say?
Why don't you go pray to that little fishing hole
that you like to go to every weekend instead of me?
Go pray to that little hiking trail.
Go pray to that sports team.
That's what God's saying.
When you put something before me,
not only will that become the object of my wrath,
but God said, I'm going to make sure that you know that that
idol was helpless to help you when you need it.
Look at verse 8.
Yet will I leave a remnant that ye
may have some that shall escape the sword among the nations
when ye shall be scattered through the countries.
And of course, we saw that last week.
God always has a remnant.
There's always 7,000 that haven't bowed their knee to Baal.
Let me give you point number three.
Point number one was when God will make your idol
the object of his wrath.
And point number two was that God
will make sure you know that your idol was helpless to help
you in your time of need.
Number three, God will make sure you live to regret
putting idols before him.
If you're sitting here tonight and you're thinking to yourself,
man, I've got something that I allow that to trump God
any time and every time.
I've got something that I allow that to be put before God.
Here's a message you need to hear from this pastor.
God will make sure you live to regret that decision.
Ezekiel 6, look at verse 9.
And they that escape of you shall
remember me among the nations, whether they
shall be carried captive.
Because I am broken with their whorish heart,
which have departed from me, and with their eyes which
go a whoring after their idols.
Notice these words.
They shall loathe themselves for the evils
which they have committed and all their abominations.
Listen to me.
Any Christian who decides to live their life
by the principle that in all things
he should have the preeminence, any Christian who
decides to live by the principle that God should come first
in every area of my life, that Christian
will always be happy.
They may not be healthy.
They may not be wealthy.
They may not be living in the nicest neighbor,
but they will always be content.
They will always be happy.
But any Christian and every Christian
who allows anything to come before God,
they will come to the day when they loathe themselves.
I mean, you don't believe me?
Read the book of Ecclesiastes.
Ask Solomon, wisest man on earth,
decided to make women and wine and wealth and everything else
that he could think of, education,
decided to make all those things the idols of his heart.
And what did he say?
He said, I hate my life.
He said, I hate life.
He said, it's all vanity.
Why?
Because when you allow idolatry in your heart,
God will make sure you live to regret putting
that idol before him.
Look at verse 10.
And they shall know that I am the Lord
and that I have not said in vain that I
would do this evil unto them.
God said, these are not empty threats.
I'm not just trying to scare you.
He said, these things will come to pass.
Look at verse 14.
So will I stretch out my hand upon them
and make the land desolate, yea, more desolate,
than the wilderness toward Diblath
and all their habitations.
And they shall know that I am the Lord.
Now let me just give you real quickly just kind
of two closing thoughts.
And we'll be done.
First of all, look at verse 11.
God ordains direct and dynamic preaching
against the idols of his people.
Look at verse 11.
Thus saith the Lord God.
Notice what he's told to do.
Ezekiel is told, smite with thine hand.
What does that mean?
He says, do that.
That's what he's telling him.
Smite with thine hand.
Stomp with thy foot and say, alas,
for all the evil abominations of the house of Israel,
for they shall fall by the sword, by the famine,
and by the pheasant.
What is God telling Ezekiel?
He's telling him, I want you to be dynamic when you preach.
He said, I want you to get their attention.
People say, Pastor, why do you yell sometimes
and raise your voice?
To wake you up.
Get your attention.
Realize that this is not a game.
We're not playing games here.
You're going to ruin your life, and the life of your wife,
and the life of your children, and the future.
Say, why do you preach like that?
Because it's important.
Because God ordains direct and dynamic preaching
against the idols of his people.
God tells Ezekiel, I want you to smite with your hand,
stomp with your foot.
Do what you got to do to get their attention.
Look at verse 2.
He said, son of man, set thy face
toward the mountains of Israel, and prophesy against them.
I want you to notice there's negative preaching.
It's negative preaching.
Say, what do you guys provide here
at Verity Baptist Church?
We provide a lot of negative preaching.
Say, why?
Because that's what will save your life.
That's what will save your marriage.
That's what will save your child's memory.
That's what will save your finances.
That's what we need to get your attention.
And by the way, just realize this.
Because I preach these hard sermons,
and then people get mad at me.
And they always want to make it real clear that they're mad.
You know, they're pouting at me.
Look, just realize this.
I don't need you to be my friend.
In fact, I'd rather you not be my friend.
I mean, I'm kind of kidding there.
I want all of you to be my friend.
But here's the thing.
I don't need you to be my friend.
What I need is to be your pastor.
And if I need to yell and scream and get
mad to get your attention, look, I'm
happy as long as the problem gets fixed.
Now, if the problem can get fixed and we can be friends,
even better.
But if all I can get is the problem fixed
and you're mad at me for the rest of your life,
I'll take that too.
Because my job is to preach to you the word,
to rebuke and reprove and exalt with all long-suffering
and doctrine.
That's what I'm supposed to do.
I can't find it in the Bible where
I'm told that I need to be the most popular preacher
in sacramental life.
I'm going to do my best to be friendly and kind
and hospitable, but I'm going to preach the Bible to you.
And you say, I don't like it.
I don't think you should be preaching at.
You're being mean.
And I'm trying to fix problems.
I'm trying to fix idols.
I'm trying to warn you that God is going to destroy that idol
and that God is going to make sure you
live to regret the day you put that idol in your heart.
And that one day when you need him, when you need God,
he's going to say, why don't you pray to the giants?
Remember those guys?
Go pray to the Emmys.
Remember how you kept skipping church because of the Emmys?
Go pray to them, because that's who you put before me.
So we see that God ordains and directs dynamic preaching
against the idols of his people.
Let me give you one last thought.
Excuse me.
You'll learn from this chapter that God ordains this
preaching, because his heart is broken.
I just want you to know this one thing will be done.
Look at verse 9.
You may have not noticed it.
I kind of just read through it quickly,
but I want you to notice this phrase.
This is probably the most interesting phrase
in this whole chapter to me.
Ezekiel 6, 9.
And that that escape of you shall remember me.
This is God speaking.
Among the nations whither they shall be carried captives.
Notice what God says.
Because I, this is God, am broken
with their whorish hearts.
God says, I'm broken.
God says, my heart breaks.
I mean, think about that.
The creator of the universe, the being
who sustains life, the almighty, the all powerful,
the one that is and which was and which is to come,
says when your whorish heart goes after idols
and puts other things before me, he says, I am broken.
And I don't know about you, but when
I think about the Lord Jesus Christ
and all he had to do to save a sinner like me
who deserves to die and go to hell,
I don't want to break that heart.
God says, I am broken.
Say, pastor, why do we preach the way we do?
Because God is broken.
When his people engage in idolatry,
when his people choose, choose to put other things before him,
he says, I am broken.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Heavenly Father, Lord, we thank you for these chapters.
We thank you for your word.