Exposed: The Great Cover-Up, Part 6

We are in a lengthy section that
begins here in chapter one, began actually in chapter one, verse
eight, where Paul began to interact and dialogue with the Roman church. The section essentially continues
to an expose on sin itself as being one of the chief features
of this epistle. Paul, beginning in verse 13,
though, gives us the main motive motivating factors for him. to
take up this great task of preaching. What was it that motivated Paul?
We looked at two things. Not only the righteousness of
God, but the wrath of God. The sinfulness of humanity that
is poured out upon humanity and upon sinful humanity. Paul was
not ashamed of the Gospel. He was not going to be dissuaded
from preaching. He was not being flaky and not
having arrived already in Rome. He was eager to preach the gospel
there because the gospel was the gospel of God. It was God’s
message. It bore the power of God and
it uncovered and revealed the righteousness of God. And then
we picked up in verse 18 with this series that we’re now in.
What we have called the great cover up. The great cover-up
has been exposed. The great cover-up was nothing
less than sinful humanity trying to suppress God. As we’ve indicated
for weeks, it is the heathen, the Gentiles that are in view
in chapter 1. Paul would put the Jews also
in view as being sinful beginning in chapter 2, but here it’s the
Gentiles. It’s the heathen. They saw it. unsuccessfully to hide God, to
cover him over. If you would pick up in verse
18. For the wrath of God is revealed
from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who
suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about
God is evident within them. For God made it evident to them.
For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes,
his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen,
being understood through what has been made, so that they are
without excuse. We see God’s response. We see
the nature of this cover-up. We saw the proof of the cover-up.
It was God himself that had revealed himself. We see the details of
it, that from the very moment of creation, everything unfolded
before the heathens’ eyes. And yet we see the verdict as
well, that in the face of all of this, they still sought ignorance. They still sought to try to cover
over God. And the verdict was guilty. They
are without excuse. The entire rest of the chapter
is the sentence. The entire rest of the chapter
bears the consequences of the heathen trying to cover over
God. We pick that portion up in verse
21. Verse 21, just by way of reminder,
we’ll be considering verses 22 through 24 today. For even though
they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks, but
they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. professing to be wise, they became
fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for
an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and of four-footed
animals and crawling creatures. Therefore, God gave them over
in the lust of their hearts to impurity that their bodies might
be dishonored among them.” Now, as we looked at this several
weeks ago, I suggested to you that verse 21 really gives us
the pattern, if you will, of the cycle of judgment. God doesn’t
just judge in whimsy. God doesn’t fly off the handle.
God has great cause. And the cycle of judgment goes
like this. We saw it two weeks ago. Rejection
first. First of all, God is rejected
by the heathen. Then there is a replacement.
We talked about that God-shaped vacuum where it is ever being
filled with other things. Even to this day, people try
to fill that so-called God-shaped vacuum with anything but God. There is replacement, not only
rejection and replacement, but thirdly then comes reprobation,
a giving over. That’s the pattern that is established
in verse 21, and as I told you two weeks ago, it’s repeated
three times. We see cycles of judgment, and
perhaps I should clarify, I don’t mean that there’s three phases
of judgment, or that maybe three different kinds of judgment,
and one group of heathen get one form of judgment, and the
other get another. No, that’s not the case. You
might even use the word waves, three waves of judgment. It’s
all coming. Three waves of reprobation. The first cycle of judgment we
see in verses 22 through 24, which versus will be considering
this morning, the rejection is simple, professing to be wise,
they became fools. They exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God. They replaced it with what? An
image in the form of corruptible man, birds, four-footed animals,
and we’ll look at that closer. And then comes reprobation. The
second cycle of judgment we see in verse 25 and following. Verse
25 through 27, we see the rejection. They exchanged the truth of God
for a lie. They replaced it with serving
and worshiping the creatures rather than the Creator. Something
very germane to our own day. And then finally comes the reprobation
in verses 26 and 27. The third cycle, the third phase,
if you will, or wave of reprobation of God’s judgment takes place
in verse 28, where we see they did not see fit to acknowledge
God any longer. What little acknowledgement they
gave Him, and usually it took the form of flat idolatry, now
they don’t even give Him any credence whatsoever. The replacement
and reprobation become one. They are literally given over
to their choices in verses 20, 29 through the end of the chapter. But this morning we want to look
at that first phase. The first phase. Or first cycle of judgment, beginning
in verse 22 and following. Where again, we are struck by
the very thought that there are those on earth that would seek
to replace God. They don’t like the idea of God
as he is presented in nature, as he presents himself, as he
clearly has revealed himself, which the scriptures speak of.
But what begins with speculation and we’ll look more at that word
in a moment, what begins with speculation terminates in idolatry. That’s where it ends. Idolatry
from mankind’s earliest moments on earth has been a perpetual
plague. Sinful man has always tried to
put a face in a shape to God. They knew he was there. They
didn’t know his name, so they sought to assign him features
and attributes and to bring him down to their level. Israel had
an admittedly difficult task to live in righteousness, to
be a testimony to the surrounding nations that God had placed them
smack dab in the middle of. God had placed them there and
he placed them there for a purpose to be a light and a testimony.
To eradicate godliness. Deuteronomy, if you would, I
want to have you turn back to Deuteronomy, the second giving
of the law. That’s the meaning of the name
of this book. The second giving of the law,
and we want to go to chapter four, and I want to just let
you see God’s perspective on what he was calling Israel to.
How dangerous a situation that God himself deemed it to be.
how vile and corrupt these neighboring nations were. Look at chapter
four beginning in verse five. See, I have taught you statutes
and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me so that you
should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it.
So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding
in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes
and say, surely this nation is a wise and understanding people. For what great nation is there
that has a God so near to it as the Lord God whenever we call
Him? Or what great nation is there
that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law
which I am setting before you today? God put them right in
the middle of all these nations to be seen, to have an influence,
Deuteronomy chapter 7, turn if you would. Deuteronomy chapter
7, God gives Israel the occupational hazards of following him and
serving him in this land in which he had placed them. When the
Lord your God brings you into the land where you are entering
to possess it and clears away many nations before you, the
Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites and
the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, seven nations
greater and stronger than you, And when the Lord your God delivers
them before you to defeat them, you shall utterly destroy them.
You shall make no covenant with them and show no favor to them.
Furthermore, you shall not intermarry with them. You shall not give
your daughters to their sons, nor shall you take their daughters
for your sons. But they will turn your sons
away from me, from following me to serve other gods. Then
the anger of the Lord will be kindled against you, and he will
quickly destroy you. But thus shall you do to them.
You shall tear down their altars and smash their sacred pillars
and hew down their Asherim and burn their graven images with
fire. For you are a holy people to
the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen
you to be a people for his own possession. out of all the peoples
who are on the face of the earth. God made it very clear what His
calling was in their life. There was to be no syncretism.
There was to be no blending with society. There was to be no influence
that pervaded into Israel from these neighboring nations. Now,
mind you, God saw that the task was great. Extremely dangerous,
you might say. Placed in the middle of these
heathen and idolatrous nations, God explicitly clarified His
calling in their lives by way of the Ten Commandments. Listen
to just the first two lines of the Ten Commandments. You shall
have no other gods before me. which prefigures the fact that
there were not real gods, but there were other images, idols,
called gods by a multiplicity of nations. Hundreds, thousands. You shall have no other gods
before me. Many nations prided themselves
in the fact that they had a multiplicity of gods, in the fact that they
had dozens and hundreds. There was strength in numbers
in the heathen nations. God says you shall have not even
one, no other gods before me. The second commandment, you shall
not make for yourself an idol or any likeness of what is in
heaven above, on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.
Could it be any more clear? God says no idols, no other gods. And so it is that rather idolatry
has ever been the spiritual scourge on humanity. How did Israel do? Paul will discuss Israel beginning
in chapter two, but this morning. The Gentiles are still in focus,
the heathen and idolatrous nations that Paul says are bringing down
the very wrath of God. Would you again look at verses
22 through 24 of Romans, Romans chapter one, beginning in verse
22. Where Paul says professing to
be wise, that’s not the main sentence. They became fools is
the main sentence, but Paul begins with professing to be wise, which
sets the context of their foolishness. All the while they are living
foolish and ungodly lives. They’re strutting around like
so many peacocks, assuming themselves to be God’s wise gift to humanity. The verb, it’s an interesting
one, is used of unfounded assertion. They’re making these bold claims
of being wise. No proof at all, mind you. Acts
24 uses the verb. The Jews joined in the attack
on Paul, asserting that these things were so. They had no proof
against Paul. They merely made these wild claims. So did the heathen. The verb
is used again in Acts 25. They simply had some points of
disagreement with Paul about their own religion, about a dead
man, Jesus, whom Paul asserted. to be alive. They claimed that
he had no proof that he had this fantastic idea of a risen saviour. He asserted such. And so these
heathen assert themselves to be wise. The arrogance of them
and the particular arrogance that is condemned said one is
that men sought to be of themselves wise. In other words, they were
famous for their learning and for figuring out nature and society
and creation and humanity. They were wiser even than God
or the supposed God. And what they sought to do in
figuring him out is to draw him down to their own level, their
own condition, when what they should have done is yield and
bow to His glory. They thought that they were so
smart. But instead of objectively considering the revelation which
God had clearly provided from the very beginning of creation,
they began instead, as we saw, to speculate, to reason in their
hearts about the nature of God, to redefine Him, re-explain Him
and ultimately recreate Him. Charles Spurgeon put the consideration
of God theology proper as among the most noble things that mankind
can enter into. But we must come and we must
objectively evaluate the data. And when we see the data, remember,
that is what it means to glorify God, to set a value on something
and then treat it accordingly. Well, they didn’t even evaluate
the data properly. They didn’t even objectively
look at the facts of creation, so they couldn’t hardly esteem
God properly. They couldn’t hardly glorify
Him. Charles Spurgeon said, there’s
something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation
of the divinity. The very study of theology, the
desire to know God more, getting into it, opening the word, reading
and finding out what it is that God is like, There’s something
improving to the mind. It is a subject, he says, that
is so vast that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity. So
deep that our pride is drowned in its infinity. See, that’s
what the heathen hated most, is that they couldn’t figure
out God. They couldn’t pin him down. Other subjects we can compass
and grapple with. In them, we feel a kind of self-contingent
and go our way with the thought, behold, I am wise. But the problem
with the heathen is they couldn’t do that with God. They couldn’t
figure him out. They couldn’t put him in a box. Spurgeon continues, but when
we come to this master science, finding that our plumb line cannot
sound its depth, and that our eagle eye cannot see its height,
we turn away with a thought, in vain would man be wise. But with a solemn exclamation,
I am but of yesterday and I know nothing. No subject of contemplation
will tend to more humble the mind than thoughts of God. And
that was the last thing that the heathen wanted. They didn’t
want to be humbled before Him. They wanted to be wise. They wanted to be wise in everyone’s
eyes. They wanted to have it all. professing to be wise. The heathen didn’t do that. They
didn’t objectively look at the facts of creation, the revelation
as God had given it, and they began to speculate and their
speculations led them to foolish, stupid and ungodly conclusions. As we’ve already seen, they became
foolish. They became foolish. The speculation
didn’t stop at speculation. That’s just where it began. We
looked at that word speculation, which really speaks of what one
defined as a perverse, self-willed reasoning. It was self-centered
to begin with. They wanted to figure out how
could God best serve them? How could we best conceive of
God that I will win most in the end? It is a, the word has a
connotation of discussion or debate, but it’s always with
the thought of suspicion. They wanted to wrangle with God
and they wanted to mold Him and shape Him in their minds. One
described this word as skeptical questionings or criticisms, disputatious
reasoning. They kept continuing to say,
that can’t be true of God. I don’t want that to be true
of God. This can’t be so, and that can’t
be so, to the point where they refashioned God in their mind. One referred to this as the unregulated
activity of the understanding in the service of a corrupt heart.
Their hearts literally ran amok. They didn’t want what God offered.
And as we saw two weeks ago, the mind, as one said, is never
in a religious vacuum. If there is a God shaped void
in every man, as we believe there is, that God has put it there,
it must be filled with something. And if you take God away, something
will fill that space. Something will fill it. Professing
to be wise, they became fools. for all their claims, all their
fantastic and proud claims to be wise, in the end, they were
revealed as nothing more than fools. One pastor said, what
else is polytheism except a sort of permanent hallucination, a
collective delirium? I love that. They’re out of their
minds. They’re out of their minds that
they think that there are all these gods with all these features
and all of these Characteristics. They’re hallucinating. Paul said
the same thing. Paul said the same thing to the
Corinthians, the word of the cross is foolishness, their whole
system is foolishness, and the way they look at the truth when
they see it, they deem that to be foolishness. And God says
if that’s the case, then so be it. Let’s have the foolishness
of the cross. The very idea that you would
even embark upon this exercise of recreating God is so foolish
and so outlandish and so offensive to God. One pastor said it this
way, those that think to draw God by a stroke of a pencil or
form him by engravings of art are more stupid than the statues
themselves. The idea that Paul is pointing
to here Sometimes people have tended to limit that just to
philosophers. I remember reading this the first
time and thinking, that’s my seminary professor that he’s
talking about. Or not my seminary professor, my college professor,
my ungodly secular college professor. I pinned that on them. And we have this tendency to
think of philosophers and those are the ones that professing
to be wise, they became fools. But it isn’t that limited. The reference is much more general,
more basic to humanity, more basic to the godless who do not
know him. They profess to be wise. Talk
to your average. It doesn’t have to be a college
professor. Talk to your average person who
doesn’t know God and they will profess to think that they are
wiser than God himself, that God is unfair, that God is unjust,
that God doesn’t know how to run this world that he’s created. A few biblical examples, Genesis
three, six. When the woman saw that the tree
was good for food, that it was a delight to the eyes, and that
the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit
and ate, and she gave to her husband and he ate. She thought
she knew better than God. Genesis 11. The whole earth used
the same language, the same words that came about as they journeyed
east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled
there. And they said to one another,
come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they
used brick for stone and they used tar for mortar. And they
said, come, let us build for ourselves a city and a tower
whose top will reach to heaven. Professing to be wise, they became
fools. This verse doesn’t point to college
professors who do not know God as some kind of an exclusive
class. It doesn’t point only to philosophers
who missed the mark and propagated error. This is talking about
the totality, the whole of heathendom, from the smartest of them to
the least. They claim to be wise when in
reality they were nothing more than fools. But then in pretending
to be wise, they made themselves fools. You know what it reminded
me of? We had a book when I was a little
kid and probably many, I’m sure many people have many different
versions. We had a version of the Emperor’s New Clothes, right?
You remember the story? That’s what this reminds me of.
But in our book, the little book, the little version that we had
of the Emperor’s new clothes. You know, you know the story.
They use this fantastic invisible thread. And when you see it,
everybody, when we sew this garment, everybody will be so impressed.
This will be the finest attire in the land. And the king was
so dubious at first, but ultimately convinced. And he puts on this
so-called garment and goes out parading through town in his
underwear, essentially. And the thing that I can still
remember, even though I was a tiny little kid when I read this book,
is the smug look on the king’s face as he paraded through town. That is the image that is here. This smug look of, I know God
better than you. I can define God better than
God can define God. That same smug look of the emperor
with no clothes. But it doesn’t stop there. It
doesn’t stop at speculation. It never does. Professing to
be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the
incorruptible God. And I want you to pause and gulp
that down. That is an incredible statement.
They literally cashed God in. This won’t do. One pastor called it a religious
monstrosity. that this process of degeneracy
love. They took God’s glory, what God
had revealed about himself, that spoke of him and of his nature,
that in creation we could see his sovereignty, we could see
his power, we could see his goodness and his holiness. We could see
all that. They took that and what we should
have done with it, what God wanted humanity to do with it is to
look and to see God for who He was. To look objectively at the
data, to esteem Him and respond accordingly. Remember, the very
minimum is to bow and give thanks. God, I don’t know Your name.
I haven’t seen You face to face, but I know that You’re there.
And I thank You. I don’t deserve this. I thank
You for what You’ve given me. We’ve seen it before, that glory
just means opinion, esteem, to value. And they cashed in the
value of God. They took that precious value
of who God is and who God presented Himself to be and they cashed
it in, they exchanged it. Ultimately, they exchanged it
in the form of something far less. value, nothing more than
a statue, at times even just a stone, perhaps a tree carved
to some degree with varying levels of artistic expertise. J.I. Packer, writing about the
whole issue of idolatry, said this about cashing in God’s glory. He said, images dishonor God,
for they obscure His glory. The likeness of things in heaven,
sun, moon, stars, and in earth, men, animals, birds, insects,
and in the sea, fishes, mammals, crustaceans, is precisely not
a likeness of their creator. The point here is not just that
an image represents God as having a body and parts, whereas in
reality he has neither. But the point really goes much
deeper. The heart of the objection to
pictures and images is that they inevitably conceal most, if not
all, of the truth about the personal nature and character of the divine
being whom they represent. His glory is precisely what a
picture can never show us. Did you get his point? When you
make a statue of God, allegedly. You cash in the glory of God,
there’s no possible way that you can represent the glory of
God. Israel knew this, they were told
this, they were clearly pointed to this. And we’re not talking
about Israel this morning, but I will for just a moment. You
remember the golden calf. The very earliest stages of Israel’s
journey. Exodus 32. Come make us a God
who will be before us. As for this Moses, the man who
brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what
has become of him. He’s stuck up on the mountain.
And Aaron said to them, tear off the gold rings which are
in the ears of your wives, your sons, your daughters, and bring
them to me. And with that, they made the
first of many idols in Israel. But as I said, we’re not talking
about Israel here. Not yet. Israel certain apostatized. They capitulated into idolatry.
But Paul here is talking about the heathen. And I want to go
back to them. All this this exchange of glory
they did to what Paul refers to here as the incorruptible
God. I don’t want you to conceive
of God as being corruptible in the moral sense. That’s not what
he’s talking about. He’s not talking about God being uninfluenced
or uninfluenced by sin. What he’s talking about here
is that God doesn’t change. God doesn’t degenerate over time. He’s ever living. He’s incorruptible. The word is also translated perishable. He’s talking about physically,
not morally. God doesn’t go through change
like we go through change. It is, as one defined it, that
perfection of God by which He is devoid of all change, not
only in His being, but also in His perfections and in His purposes
and promises. God doesn’t need a retreat in
order to get spiritually pumped back up like you and I, right?
I am the Lord, Malachi 3.6. I change not. Now, you contrast
that with your average idol. Paul did. Paul saw the decaying
statues of Athens. And he said, we ought not to
think that divine nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image
formed by the art and thought of man. God’s not like that.
That’s not God. Those things are here today and
gone tomorrow, but God’s here forever. As the older confessions
say, he is a most pure spirit, invisible without body parts
or passions. He alone has immortality. That’s
exactly what Paul said to Timothy. That he alone possesses immortality
and dwells in unapproachable light. There’s an old hymn. That we
sing from time to time, it says frail as summer’s flower, we
flourish. We’re here today. We look so
magnificent for a time. Frail as summer’s flower, we
flourish. Blows the wind and it is gone. Life is short. It’s brief. It’s
fleeting. Frail as summer’s flower, we
flourish. Blows the wind and it is gone.
But while mortals rise and perish, God endures, unchanging on. God is not mortal. God is not corruptible. God is not like the idols that
Paul pointed to here. Our God doesn’t get tired. He
doesn’t get sick. He isn’t fickle. He isn’t dead. But as one pointed out, the ungrateful
heart did not stop short. At merely failing to thank God,
it degraded and dishonored him and changed him into his opposite. Stephen Sharnock, great theologian and commentator,
said this, that to make any earthly representations of God is unworthy
of God. To represent God by an earthly
image and to worship Him in and by that image is idolatry. Suppose
we could make such an image of God as might perfectly represent
Him. Yet, since God has prohibited
it, shall we be wiser than God? He has sufficiently manifested
Himself in His works without images. In other words, He points
back to exactly what the heathen had missed. all of the works
of creation, all of the things, even the sustenance of God’s
creation. His works are more excellent
representations of Him as being works of His own hands than anything
that is the product and art of man. His glory sparkles in the
heavens, the sun, the moon and stars as being magnificent pieces
of His wisdom and power. Yet making representations of
the excellency and majesty of God, is idolatry in Scripture’s
account and a denial of God, a prostituting of the glory of
God to a creature, to a thing made. Paul says, look, the history
of this world is a history of idolatry. To close this morning
with just the absurdity of idolatry, I want you to turn to Isaiah
chapter 44. This is what the heathen had
spooked to. This is what they had embraced.
Their speculations didn’t stop at mere speculation about God.
Now they began to put their ideas about God down in concrete terms,
in wood and in stone. But it was all foolish. It was
futile, as we saw last week. Look at verse 9 of Isaiah chapter
44. Those who fashion a graven image are, all of them, futile,
and their precious things are of no profit. Even their own
witnesses fail to see or know that they will be put to shame.
Who has fashioned a god or cast an idol to no profit? Behold,
all his companions will be put to shame, for the craftsmen themselves
are mere men.” In other words, he says, how can a mere man fashion
a God? All of them are mere men. Let
them all assemble themselves. Let them stand up. Let them tremble. Let them together be put to shame.
The man shapes iron into a cutting tool and does his work over the
coals, fashioning it with hammers, working it with his strong arm.
He also gets hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and
becomes weary. In other words, here’s this person
making a God who has to take a break, right? He’s got this
eight hour shift and he’s got to negotiate. He’s got the union
doing it for him. So he gets regular breaks because
he’s busy making this God. Another shapes wood. He extends
a measuring line. He outlines it with red chalk.
He works it with planes and outlines with a compass and makes it like
the form of a man, like the beauty of a man so that it may sit in
a house. Surely, he cuts cedars for himself
and takes the cypress for an oak. or an oak, and raises it
for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a fir,
the rain makes it grow, then it becomes something for a man
to burn.” In other words, he gets a piece of this firewood.
That’s what he’s going to make his God with. So he takes one
of them and he warms himself. He also makes a fire to bake
bread. He also, oh, by the way, makes the God and worships it.
He makes it a graven image and falls down before it. It’s absolutely
absurd. Isaiah is meaning to point the
absurdity out. Half of it he burns in the fire,
over this half he eats meat and he roasts and is satisfied. He warms himself and says, aha,
I am warm, I have seen the fire. But the rest of it he makes into
a god, his graven image. He falls down before it and worships,
and also prays to it and says, deliver me, for you are my god. They do not know, nor do they
understand, for He is smeared over their eyes so they cannot
see, and their hearts so they cannot comprehend. No one recalls,
nor is there knowledge or understanding to say, I’ve burned half of it
in the fire, and I’ve baked bread over its coals, I roast meat
and eat it there, then I make the rest of it into an abomination,
I fall down before a block of wood. That’s the reality. He feeds on ashes, a deceived
heart has turned him aside and he cannot deliver himself nor
say, is there not a lie in my right hand? Did I really make
a God? We’ll take it up next week in
looking at these fantastic series. And I don’t mean fantastic in
a good way. I mean fantastic in an overwhelming plethora of
idols that Israel was faced with. And the question that I would
pose to you this morning, in closing, we know how Israel fared. They dabbled in almost every
one of them, even the worst of the worst, as we’ll see. But
the question I would pose to you is, how are you faring? If
the world was constantly evil as it was, pressing in on Israel
from all sides, And Israel was supposed to stand its ground
and to stand fast and to stand on God’s righteousness and to
proclaim the same. How are you doing? How are you
doing in pressing back against the world? How are you doing
in standing against the pressures of the world and the ideas of
the world? Let’s examine our hearts in this
brand new year. Our merciful God, We do see the
dreadful nature of idolatry. That in this idea, this proud
idea that we are so wise, we ultimately show ourselves to
be fools. The heathen did that. Father
God, let us never contemplate setting aside the very glory
of God. And there are many ways that
we are tempted to do that. to cash in and exchange the glory
of God, to serve a worthless, lifeless image. Father, you have
granted us the grace to be freed from that sin of idolatry. Keep us ever free, Father. It’s
in Jesus’ name that we pray. Amen. So, I’m going to show you how
to do it.