Depending on to whom you are listening 94 to 96 percent of Americans say they believe in God. The question of such a faith can be important or it can be trivial, depending on what kind of god it is in whom they profess belief. You see, different people have different gods. Oh no, you say! Well, let's see.
Greetings to you, my friend. Thank you for inviting us into your home today. We are here to study the Bible, which we believe is the word of God-- and there is no other. We are In Search of the Lord's Way to become a Christian and to live like a Christian ought to live. We pray we will both be blessed.
A few days ago, I'm sure you noticed it, too; about the only news we could get in the national media was about an anniversary celebration of the death of Elvis Presley. After all these years, some people still haven't let him die. Some are still saying he is alive. Only a week or two later, was the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the death of England's Princess Diana. It seems every radio and TV news program updated us on that for-- well, most of a week maybe and longer than that even. Even the royal family joined in on that celebration. They haven't let her die yet, either. It is with no disrespect to either of them that I mention it today. I'm just saying that these two, among many, many others, have become a great many people's "idols." We even have popular TV programs devoted to selecting and celebrating new "American Idols." In view of this apparent idolatrous condition, we have given our study today the title, "Our God Is Alive."
If you would like a free printed copy, a CD or an audio cassette tape of the message, our address is In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. Or by e-mail it's searchtv@searchtv.org. Our toll-free telephone number is 1-800-321-8633. After Ken Helterbrand leads us in singing praises to God, I will be back for Bible reading and pray.
We are reading today from the New Testament book of 1 Thessalonians, chapter 1; and we will begin at verse 2. “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father, knowing, beloved brethren, your election by God. For our gospel did not come to you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit and in much assurance, as you know what kind of men we were among you for your sake. And you became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became examples to all in Macedonia and Achaia who believe. For from you the word of the Lord has sounded forth, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place. Your faith toward God has gone out, so that we do not need to say anything. For they themselves declare concerning us what manner of entry we had to you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” We read through verse 10. Now we will go to God in prayer. Dear God and Father of our spirits, we bow before you now and recognize you as the living, almighty, loving and caring God, and creator of this world. We confess our need of You today and everyday that we live. We pray now for Your special care as we study about You and some of Your characteristics-- that You are the one true and living God, and we pray that we may learn that lesson from what we study today. In the name of Christ, our Savior, and Your Son, we pray. Amen!
In the Jewish period of Old Testament history, when God's people took to worshiping the gods of the people around them, God sent prophets among them to tell them of the folly of idol worship. Isaiah 44, verses 14 to 17 speaks about the man who hews down a tree, takes part of it and warms himself, bakes bread with part of it, and from the rest of it he makes a graven image. Then he falls down and worships it and prays, "Deliver me, for thou art my god." Well, Jeremiah earned the title, "The Weeping Prophet of Israel," by his weeping over the idolatrous condition in Israel. He said, "Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the people are false. A tree from the forest is cut down, and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. Men deck it with silver and gold; then they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried for they cannot walk." That is chapter 10, verses 1 to 6 in the Revised Standard Version. Scarecrows in a cucumber field! Well, perhaps you are not as fortunate as I. You might not know about "scarecrows." I grew up on the farm. Farmers create something that looks like a man in the field, so crows won't eat certain of their crops. They're called "scarecrows" because they scare the crows away. But, it is as Jeremiah said, the idols of the people were as useless as a scarecrow in a cucumber patch because crows don't eat cucumbers. It isn't necessary to go all the way back to the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah and the other Old Testament prophets to confirm the practice of idolatry. Our text shows it had been the practice of the new Christians at Thessalonica to worship idols but they had been converted from that, and were then at the time that Paul wrote worshiping "the living and the true God." That would have been in about the middle of the first century A.D. Paul also found men of wisdom worshiping idols when he arrived in Athens-- and later, in Corinth.
In his commentary on the book of Acts, chapter 17, about the apostle Paul in Athens, Charles R. Erdman says, "the modern world is absolutely full of idols." He says, "It is actually appalling to notice how large a proportion of the human race are this day bowing before gods which men have made. Even the majority of those who theoretically adhere to some one of the ethnic faiths, maybe, are practically fetish worshipers; even countless Christians worship images, and others displace God by some other object of devotion and affection." Now that is in his commentary on the book of Acts, pg. 124.
Well, he is right. And, just as the ancients created gods to meet their "needs," post-modern religionists have their mental images of the kind of gods who meet their "felt needs." Some of those needs being miracles, happiness, healings, financial security and-- well, you know of the other images that men serve. These are idol-gods, not only ideally but i-d-o-l gods, as surely as if they had carved them out of wood or stone or some kind of precious metal. By making God "the god-of-my-liking," men have reduced Him to a meaningless image.
The passage we read a few moments ago said that the Christians of the ancient city of Thessalonica had turned from their idols to serve the living and true God. The statement necessarily infers three things about the nature of the gods they had formerly served: (1) their gods were many, (2) their gods were dead, and (3) their gods were false.
And so it is with American religion here in the early 21st century. The spirit of individualism that so thoroughly permeates today's religion is certain to produce individual gods. It's what is often called "cafeteria style Christianity." It is beyond hope that it could produce anything but "cafeteria-style gods." God was patient with the sins of Israel to whom He had given the promised land-- until-- (now are you listening now, friend?) until they defiantly broke the first and second commandments of the law. The first, as you know says, "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20 and 3). The second commandment in verses four and five says, "You shall not make for yourself any carved image, 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; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…" Because they had forsaken Him for their "home-made" gods, God permitted His people to be taken into captivity; this time to a pagan nation.
By the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul addressed the idea of the multiplicity of gods in 1 Corinthians chapter 8, verses 4 and 5. He said, "We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is no other God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as there are many gods and many lords), yet for us there is one God." Once more: in Ephesians chapter 4, verses 4 through 6 the Scripture says, "There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
And, David the Psalmist contrasted the greatness of God-- our God, the "one God and Father," with the worthlessness of humanly conceived idols in the 115th Psalm. Here he said, "Our God is in heaven; He does whatever He pleases. (Ah, I like that.) Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they do not speak; eyes they have, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear; noses they have, but they do not smell; they have hands, but they do not handle; feet they have, but they do not walk; nor do they mutter through their throat. Those who make them are like them,” he said; “so is everyone who trusts in them." Well friend, a God that's no bigger than my image of what God ought to be, what he ought to be doing, will never be big enough to make any difference in my life.
In the days of the Greeks and the Romans, each city had its own patron god, or goddess, who watched over it and protected it from all the enemies and from the evil that might come upon it. It is strikingly impressive that Paul, on Mar's Hill in the very shadow of the magnificent Parthenon, the celebrated temple of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, preached the one and only living and true God! He said, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are very religious; for as I was passing through and considering the objects of your worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: To The Unknown God. Therefore, the One whom you worship without knowing, Him I proclaim to you." Then he began: "God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their appointed, preappointed I should say, times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, For we are also His offspring. Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked, while others said, we will hear you again on this matter." My! My! What a powerful and comprehensive sermon about the God of the Bible! What boldness! And what courage the apostle demonstrated by preaching such a sermon under those circumstances! And what an example and inspiration he is for all preachers of the gospel-- today-- to nobly and courageously declare revealed religion in the midst of man-made substitutes. Yes, these were men of wisdom. Yes, some mocked, of course they did; others simply dismissed him as a "babbler" meaning "a seed picker" (Acts 17 and 18). We would say a "country hick," maybe. But, some believed! And, what a great sermon! It lives on to this day! It is still good preaching, friend! The one thing the gospel message cannot survive or overcome, though, is being ignored!
Luke, the inspired historian, author of the book of Acts, leaves no room for doubt about what motivated the apostle Paul to preach so powerfully to those distinguished scholars as he did. He wrote in Acts chapter 17, verse 16, "Now while Paul waited for them (the "them" meaning, of course, his co-laborers and traveling companions, Silas and Timothy), his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the city was given over to idols.” That is the New King James Version. The old King James says, the city was "wholly given to idolatry." McCord translates it: "the city was full of idols."
In his book Therefore Stand, Wilbur Smith says, "As he (Paul) walked into this city the first thing that smote his heart was the fact there in the world's very center of learning was the most foolish thing that men could ever create, a vast multitude of them-- dead gods, that, having eyes never saw, having mouths never spoke, and having ears never heard a prayer." "Dead” gods as opposed to our "living and true God" and Father of our spirits. You see, as a Jew, Paul was brought up in the strictest teaching of the Jews. From earliest childhood, Paul had those first two commandments taught him persistently. And he and his family sat, when they sat in the house, when they walked together down the road, when they laid down at night, when they got up in the morning, they were taught "You shall have no other gods before Me." And, "You shall not make for yourself a carved image..." (Exodus 20 and verse 4). And, to witness idolatry as "the widely accepted way" as he saw it in Athens "stirred" Paul to his heart!
I wonder why it doesn't disturb us the way it did Paul. What is the solution to our problem? Or, do we even have a problem with idolatry? Perhaps our failure to admit the polytheism of Postmodern religion is our problem. If every person is free to believe what he wants to believe, why wouldn't he also be free to believe in his own personal god-- or gods? A friend of mine told me recently of a friend of his who along with his wife had changed churches. He had asked them "why?" And he was told that the new church did thus and so, "and that's what we like." Oh then: their god is the "god of their likes." Now we have a new god-- "the god of our likes."
The solution I see to this kind of false religion is "the gospel of God." So Paul continues in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 saying: "Even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict...So, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God, but also our own lives, because you had become dear to us. For you remember, brethren, our labor and toil; for laboring night and day, that we might not be a burden to any of you, we preached to you the gospel of God." Three times in those few verses the apostle wrote to those who had "turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God." And that is it, brother! The solution to the problem we have with polytheism is to preach, and to preach, and to preach "the gospel-- the good news-- of God." Let us pray right now; and then we'll sing "Our God; He is alive." Holy Father, we are so thankful to You for the manifestation of Yourself in Your word and in the world around us. In Jesus’ name we thank You. Amen!
My friend, it has been so good to be with you today. Would you exercise the kind of faith and courage that we have talked about today among the Thessalonians? It requires a change of faith. That is a change from faith in a dead god, to a living God. It also requires a change in behavior or lifestyle. That is called "repentance" in the Bible. And, in that great sermon on Mar's Hill, Paul said, "God commands all men everywhere to "repent" because He is going to judge the world by His Son, Jesus Christ. Yes, God loves you. Oh sure He does. You hear that preached a lot. And he will save you, too, through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. But, He also will be your judge on Judgment Day. That you don't hear preached much. For that reason He insists you repent. And, while it isn't mentioned in this passage, the Lord said, "He who believes and is baptized will be saved.” Will you do that and be ready to attend His judgment?
If you would have use for a free CD, or audio cassette tape, or even a printed copy of the message today, you are welcome to it. Just mail your request to In Search of the Lord's Way, P.O. Box 371, Edmond, OK 73083. We will be back next week. We hope you will, too. God bless you now. We love you.
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