Isaiah 46, what idols are in your life?

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If you are unsure what the biblical definition of courage is, you just saw it.
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Isaiah chapter 46. Isaiah chapter 46. Dalton, if this thing starts making that sound because it's on my shirt, tell me,
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I'll turn it off and just use this, alright? Don't let me go through the whole sermon making that noise and not tell me, okay? Isaiah 46.
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I apologize. You don't have a handout this morning. You're just going to have to have your Bible in front of you. So I would prefer you to get your eyes off me and on your
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Bible. We have work to do today, okay? This is probably my favorite chapter of the
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Bible. This is Isaiah chapter 46. And what we're about to read was written 700 years before the
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Incarnation. Now, by the way, instead of leaving here knowing as much as you walked in, why don't we learn something today?
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The Incarnation is when Jesus became flesh, when He was born of Mary, okay?
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So 700 years before Jesus was born, this, what we're about to read, was written.
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That's about 2 ,700 years ago. Let's put that in context for a minute.
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The United States of America has been a nation for approximately 250 years. This was written 700 years before Jesus.
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Christopher Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492. That's approximately 500 years ago.
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This prophecy was written 700 years before Jesus. You understand? Let's read all of Isaiah 46.
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They bow down together. They cannot save the burden, but they themselves go into captivity.
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Listen to me, all the house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been born by me since before your birth, carried from the womb.
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Even to your old age I am. And to the gray hairs, I will carry you.
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I have made you. I will bear you. I will carry you. I will save you.
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To whom will you liken me, make me equal, and compare me, that we may be alike? Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh out silver in scales, they hire a goldsmith and he makes it into a god.
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They fall down and worship it. They lift it on their shoulders, they carry it and set it in place, and it stands there.
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It cannot move from its place. If one cries to it, it doesn't answer or save him from trouble.
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Remember this and stand firm. Recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old, for I am
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God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I declare the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things not yet seen, saying, my counsel will stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.
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Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country, I have spoken,
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I will bring it to pass. I have purposed it, I will do it. Listen to me, you stubborn of heart, you who are far from righteousness,
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I will bring near my righteousness. It's not far off, and my salvation will not delay.
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I will put salvation in Zion for Israel, my glory. Idolatry.
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What is idolatry? Idolatry is what? Correct answers only.
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What's idolatry? Worshipping an idol. It is putting something in front of God in priority, a magnificence in worth, in effort.
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It's putting something in front of God as a treasure in your heart. It is treasuring something other than Yahweh, or treasuring something more than Yahweh.
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And I ask today, what idols are in your life?
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You have an option, you have a choice. You can destroy those idols.
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You can break them to pieces and set them on fire, or God will do it.
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And if God does it, it will be far less pleasant for you. So I beg you today to take the example we're going to read, murder those idols in your life.
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For if you do not, the punishment for the adherence to them will fall not just on them, but on you.
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What do you treasure in your heart? What do you treasure the most?
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What in your life is more valuable than anything else? See, the word worthy means worth.
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If I were to look at your life, what would I say that you value the most? What would others say that you think is worth the most?
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Not based on your words, but on your actions. What do you give the most worth to?
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If it's anything other than God Almighty, put it in its place today.
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Put it in its place, or God will. Or God will. When we look at this passage, we're actually going to start from the end.
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It says in verse 11, Calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country.
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I'm going to have to just teach you for a minute. I'm going to need you to bear with me, or lion with me, or tiger with me, or whatever you want to do.
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Will you explain it to Amber, please? The man from the east.
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To tell you who that is, we first need to figure out where we're at in history at this point.
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A reminder that many thousands of years ago, God decided to create a nation.
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A nation of the people of Israel. See, all the world had already rejected God. All the world had already chose themselves.
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But God said in His mercy, I will create a nation. I will give that nation the tools to spread
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My message of redemption, of reconciliation. And I will bring them to a land that I've promised them.
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I will give them My oracles and My prophecies. I will give them My Word that they can share to the world.
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And then, I will bring My Son from that nation as a gift to the world.
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That's what God did. So He made Abraham the father of many nations.
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He brought the children of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of Joseph, out of bondage from Egypt, into the land
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He promised them. But then, they said, God, we don't want
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You to rule over us. And after years and years, 350 years of rebellion, they finally said,
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God, we're done. Give us a king. And God said, I am your king.
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And they said, not a good enough one. We want a different one. We want a king like everybody else.
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And God said, if I make one of your own a king, He will take your sons to war.
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He will take your daughters as His wives. He will tax you mercilessly, and He'll do whatever He wants and forget
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My law. And they said, let that guilt be on us then. We don't want You ruling us anymore.
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God told the people for century after century, come back to My law.
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Obey Me. And they said, no. A brief history of this,
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I'm just going to read, you can write it down for later, is found in 2 Chronicles chapter 36. If you want, you can turn there.
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We're only going to be there briefly. But in 2 Chronicles, towards the beginning of your Bible, chapter 36, beginning in verse 14.
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This is 2 Chronicles chapter 36, beginning in verse 14.
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All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations.
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They polluted the house of Yahweh that He had made holy in Jerusalem. Yahweh, the
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God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by His messengers, because He had compassion on His people and on His dwelling place.
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But they kept mocking His messengers of God, despising His words, scoffing at His prophets, until the wrath of Yahweh rose against His people, until there was no remedy.
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In verse 17, but before we do notice, notice, God has sent messengers, God has sent prophets, and they said, no
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God, we want our way. They did not remove the idols, so God is about to remove them.
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Verse 17 of chapter 36. Therefore He brought up against them the king of the
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Chaldeans, who killed their young men with the sword in the house of the sanctuary, and had no compassion on young men, virgin, old men, age.
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He gave them all into His hand. Now, look again in verse 17. God brought up the king of the
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Chaldeans. See, King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Judah, but it was
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God's hand, God's hand of punishment against the rebellious children that did that.
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Nebuchadnezzar thought he was acting on his own, but it was according to the purpose of God, who for century after century after century, for generation after generation after generation, said, repent and turn back, or I will destroy you.
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And they said, forget you. So God raises up a pagan nation.
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God does. Raises up a pagan nation to destroy His people.
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But not forever. But not forever. Verse 19, they burned down the house of God, they broke the wall of Jerusalem, they burned all of its places with fire and destroyed all its precious vessels.
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He took them into exile in Babylon, those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to Him, until the establishment of the king of Persia.
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After the Babylonians had their way, God sent the Persians to then take over Babylon.
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And the king of Persia, in verse 22, is named
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Cyrus. And a word of Yahweh entered his mouth.
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And Yahweh stirred up the spirit of Cyrus, so that he made a proclamation through all his kingdom and put it into writing.
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Thus says Cyrus, the king of Persia, Yahweh, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth.
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He has charged me to build a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever is among you of all the people, may
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Yahweh his God be with him and let him go up. So do you understand what's happened so far? Let me recap that. Let me make sure you understand what just happened.
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God brought the Israelites into Canaan. They rebelled against God and said, We don't need you anymore.
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We have our land. We have our people. We don't want you anymore. Your law is old.
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I don't need it anymore. Give us a king. Even in the midst of that rebellion,
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God sends messenger after messenger, prophet after prophet, pleading,
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Obey God. Return. Even now, if you return,
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He will forgive. For He is long -suffering. His mercy and steadfast love endure for a thousand generations.
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And they said, No. So God, not just aloud,
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God used Nebuchadnezzar to bring judgment to His people. And it was severe.
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It was swift. If you read the book of Lamentations, it is a lament five chapters long, about this event.
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About Nebuchadnezzar laying siege to Jerusalem. And the way Jeremiah, the prophet, puts it in Lamentations chapter three, he says this,
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Yahweh has caused this grief, but He did not do it from His heart.
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It says, Though He caused grief, He did, but not from His heart.
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In other words, He takes no pleasure in the discipline of His children. He takes no joy in the punishment of His own.
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But He does it because He's committed to justice. And because for the well -being of generations after them, if He does not, they will continue to spiral out of control, away from Him, and the effects of that will be felt on their children, their grandchildren, their great -grandchildren, until they will know nothing of God in just two generations.
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They'll know nothing of God. Some of you can testify this in your own life. It takes no time at all for a steadfast commitment to God to be washed away, doesn't it?
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No time at all. So back in Isaiah, what we find, back in Isaiah 46, is that this bird of prey from the east is
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King Cyrus of Persia. That's King Cyrus. He's mentioned in chapter 44 and 45 of this book of Isaiah.
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Now, please don't miss what's happening. Israel is in captivity in Babylon 150 years before Cyrus is made king.
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75 years or more before he's born, God is calling him by name and saying
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He will bring back the people of Judah back to the land of their forefathers. 150 years before he is made king,
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God is by name calling a king of a nation not yet in power and saying
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He will be the one to bring my people back to Jerusalem. I'm going to say it again because there are some zoned -out faces that are not hearing the magnitude of what you just read.
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This is before Cyrus is born. This is before Persia has conquered
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Babylon. 150 years before Cyrus is king, before he's even born, by name,
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God is saying that will be the dude that I'm going to make bring my people back to Jerusalem.
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That's sovereignty. That's power. And in the midst of all that, in the midst of all that,
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God is declaring to His children the folly of following or cherishing anything more than Him.
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Read again in verse 1. Baal bows down, Nebo stoops. See, these are the
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Babylonian gods. These are the gods of the culture they live in. What is treasured the most in the culture they live in?
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These two things right here. Treasured more than anything else. Money, time, effort is put into these two things more than anything else.
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God says, Baal bows down, Nebo stoops. They're idols on beasts and livestock.
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These things you carry are born as burdens on weary beasts. In other words, these so -called gods have to be carried.
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They actually make a burden on you because you have to carry them.
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You carry them. Verse 2. They stoop and bow down together. They cannot save the burden, but they themselves go into captivity.
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In other words, not only do they have to be carried by you, but when
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Persia comes, they will be carried away into captivity. They can do nothing about it. Nothing.
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But verse 3. But listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been born by me from before your birth, carried from the womb.
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Even to your old age I am. To the gray hairs I will carry you. I have made you.
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I will bear. I will carry and I will save. You see, the false gods, the idols, have to be carried, but our
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God carries us. What today have you burdened yourself with?
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That you are carrying a treasure that you treasure above God is on your shoulders.
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You're the one having to carry it in place of the
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God who carries you. You see, our
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God is not like other so -called gods. He is the one true
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God. He carries His children. You see, that's what separates
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Yahweh from all the would -be gods, among other things. It doesn't matter what religion you look into.
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It doesn't matter what system you search through. Virtually it all can be summed up like this.
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Virtually all others, eastern, western, doesn't matter, is about man.
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And that's where it starts. Piling up merit. Piling up acceptance through good works, through meditation, through jihad, through whatever it is.
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Piling up merit to be acceptable to the Almighty. But the
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God of the Bible says this, no amount of merit you can pile up will ever reach
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Me. No amount of good deeds you will ever do will ever even get you an inch closer to My holiness.
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So I did not wait for man to come to Me or have waited for eternity. I came to man.
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I became man, humbled Myself before them, and died for them, so that the credit for My righteousness could go to them, and the credit for their sin could go to Me.
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That's the God of the Bible. But look at verse 3. Have been born by Me since before your birth.
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Born by Me since before your birth. The Bible speaks of salvation as being past, present, and future.
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The Bible speaks of redemption as God's eternal purpose.
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You know what the word eternal means? No beginning and no end.
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Some of you think, some of you think, this is what you think.
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You think that God made it possible for you to activate
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His power at a certain point in your life, and that the effect of His death, the effect of His redemption, the effect of His atonement, was only able to be applied to you when you activated it.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please listen to me. Please hear what God said to His people's Israel. They were born by Him since before their birth.
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Ladies and gentlemen, we love because He first loved us. If you think that God is powerless to save you, powerless to save you until you walk the right steps and do the right things, you don't know my
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God, my Savior. God has an eternal purpose of salvation.
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An eternal one. You don't carry God. God carries you.
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The question is now this. The question is now this. Are you treasuring
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Him as worthy of all the glory and praise for that? Or are you carrying something else on your shoulder and won't put it down because you value it more than God?
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Is that what's happening? You have been born by Him since before your birth.
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John 5 .24 says this. It's worth memorizing. Truly I say to you,
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Jesus says, truly I say to you, if anyone hears My words and believes on Him who sent
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Me, has eternal life. That's right now.
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And will not come under judgment, but has already passed from death to life.
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As Debbie said perfectly earlier, if you have passed from death to life, you will not die again.
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You have already passed from death to life because God resurrected you.
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There is a sense like we sang earlier, there is a sense in which God wrestles with the sinner's heart, like we sang earlier.
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But there's another sense in which He doesn't wrestle with the sinner's heart. He exchanges it for a new heart.
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He takes out the heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh that is capable of loving
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Him, of seeking after Him, of searching for Him. Verse 4 says this,
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Even to your old age I am. What did
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Moses hear God say from the burning bush? He said, I am.
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I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Jesus uses that to make a point that God never changes.
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His name Yahweh means I am. You know what His name will be tomorrow?
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I am. You know what it was 10 ,000 years ago? I am. You know what it will be 15 ,000 years into eternity?
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If we can even say that sentence, 15 ,000 years into eternity, His name will still be
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I am. He simply is. He never was and will be.
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He simply is. He is God. And even to your old age,
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I am. See, no matter what changes in your life, He's still the same.
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Even to the gray hairs, I will carry you. Which includes years of unfaithfulness, years of putting something else on your shoulder and carrying it, years of burdening yourself with idols that you in your heart desired more than God, and God punishing you for that rebellion and then picking you up after that.
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Even to your old age, I am still He. And to the gray hairs, not just I will guide you, not just I will advise you, but it says to your old age,
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I will carry you. I have made you.
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I will bear you. I will carry you. I will save you. You see, salvation is not just past, that we were born by Him since before our birth.
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It's not just present, and that we have eternal life. Salvation is future, and that that which
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He started, He will be carrying to perfect completion. I will save you.
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The work that God started in your life will be carried to perfect completion. Perfect completion.
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In verse 5, He says, Whom will you liken Me to, or compare Me to that we may be alike?
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Those who lavish gold from the purse and weigh out silver in scales, you see, they have to make their false gods.
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That which they treasure above God, they actually have to form. They have to make it into something more than it really is.
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They have to give it worth. They have to give it value. They have to give it preciousness.
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They have to give it something it doesn't have intrinsically. They have to make it valuable.
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They have to pour things of themselves into it to make it worth more than it really is on its own.
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Church, the idols you are carrying are not worth what you're putting into them.
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They are not that valuable. They are not worth it. What you are valuing above God, you had to make worth that much.
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You had to make it worth that much. It's not worth it on its own. See, the
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Bible says that the kingdom of heaven is like a great treasure buried in a field.
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And when a man finds it, he goes and sells all he has and buys that field with joy because it's a good trade.
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All that he has with joy, he goes and buys that field because it's a good trade.
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Every joy, everything that you think is beautiful in your life is not even worth measuring on the scale for the worth, for the beauty of who
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Jesus is. When you treat it as such, you are not valuing, you are not savoring, you are not taking pleasure in the beauty of who
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Jesus really is. He is more valuable than all the riches, the pleasures, the comforts, the insecurities, the excuses, the victimhood mentality.
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Whatever you have that you're putting on, He's more valuable than all of it. Not because He's been made that way, because He intrinsically is worth it.
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They lift it up on their shoulders. They carry it and set it in place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place.
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If one cries to it, it doesn't give an answer or save him in trouble. That which you value more than God, can it save you?
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Can it give you more worth? Thank you, Lisa. See, that's why I love you. That's the only reason though, right?
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Yeah, it's just allergies, guys. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you something.
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Whatever you are putting in front of God will not save you from the burden you think it will.
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It will not. You are giving it a place. You're giving something that you created in your mind a place that it is not worthy of being in.
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You don't want the problems of looking to your idol to save you when only
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God can. But church, listen to me. If you think the way
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God works is you're carrying this idol and you won't put it down, but when stuff hits the fan you expect
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God to come running like a lap dog, but you get to keep your idol on your shoulder, church, you got another thing coming.
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Either you put down that idol or God will break it. Break it.
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Some of you that put that type of value on things that are intrinsically not evil, family members, do you really want to make them to an idol?
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Well, see, what does God do with idols? Weary and heavy laden, and I'll give you rest for your souls.
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Come and learn from me, for my yoke is easy, my burden is light. See, you're struggling to carry those idols.
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My burden is light because I carry you. And God says this, remember this and stand firm.
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Recall it to mind, you transgressors. Remember the former things of old. For I am God and there is no other.
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Can that be said in your life? If your mouth was shut, as by the way on judgment day, for all who are not in Christ, it will be.
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That's what the Scripture says. Romans 3 says, every excuse, every excuse.
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And ladies and gentlemen, I know in here, I know we have some people that have been through some stuff. Some hard times.
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Things that would make most of the people in this room cringe. But on that day, ladies and gentlemen, for anyone who has not submitted to Jesus as Lord of their life, there will be no excuse you can offer.
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There will be no, oh but God. There will be nothing you can say.
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The Bible says, every mouth will be shut and the whole world held accountable to God. The only hope for mankind is a heart, humble, bowing before God saying, yes
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Lord, I am totally unworthy. But I trust in you, your Son, as my
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Savior, as my Lord. That is the only hope for humanity. That that God decided to save sinners.
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That God said, remember the things of old, for I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is no one like me.
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I'm going to ask the music people to come up as we finish this last point. Verse 10, I declare the end from the beginning.
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What a beautiful phrase. I declare the end from the beginning. Notice it doesn't say, it doesn't say,
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I change my plan to fit the parts of the plan
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I didn't see coming. Notice it doesn't say, I react to all things and work it perfectly.
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I declare the end from the beginning. And from ancient times, things not yet seen, saying my counsel will stand and I will accomplish all my purpose.
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The beautiful thing, church, is this. If you are a believer in this room, if you are truly born again, if though you have to fight to constantly put down the idols, if God is the ultimate sovereign of your life, do you understand that it's
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His purpose? That's sovereign God's purpose, to bring you into eternity, to mold you into His image, to show you
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His love, to show you His love, to make His home with you.
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The sovereign God of the universe, that's His purpose. That's His purpose.
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Today, the idols that you have, that you have on your shoulder now, there is no excuse to have them there.
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Break them. Crush them. Set them on fire and never go back.
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God's judgment on anyone, particularly His children, who put something before Him, is swift.
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But then God does this. In the midst of that, Israel is sitting here licking their wounds.
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God has judged them and yet He reminds them. And yet He reminds them this, that you are still
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My child. My promise has not changed.
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To the gray hairs, I will carry you. And if that means that ten years from now you put another idol on that shoulder,
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I will be breaking it again. For I am a jealous God and I am righteously jealous. I will be breaking it again.
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You will humble yourself again. You will call to repentance. And because I am the most long -suffering, merciful being to ever exist,
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I will pick you back up again and carry you home. That is our
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God. Today, the call of the Word of God is for you to humble yourself.
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For you to put down those idols. For you to do that. Not to wait for the punishment of God, but for you to do that willingly.
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I ask you now, as we please stand, I ask you now to search your heart and decide, in your heart and your head right now, what do you have more valuable than Jesus in your life?
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I pray today, not that you pray it away. I pray today, not that you say, oh,
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I should get around to that. Today, you destroy that forever to set an example to others.
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The Bible says, let us praise and obey the Lord now that a generation yet to be born may praise
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Him. Today, remove those idols from your life. Whatever it may be, whether it's for the first time or the hundredth time.
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Repent. Come to God with a humble heart and you will never find Him to be anything other than a perfect, loving
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Savior. Right now, it's time to get to work. And if, by the way, if you can't find that in your own life, go find someone else right now and simply say the words, how can
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I pray for you right now? And then don't go home and do it. Do it right this second. Right this second.