Images

Well, today marks the 13th year
at Providence Bible Church. We moved here 13 years ago, and
this would mark the 13th anniversary of the first time we visited
as a family. And as we moved in, our pastor displayed his
servant leadership in not only helping us move in, but getting
Chinese food for us at 10pm on that Friday night and then several
members, I believe maybe Mike was part of the moving committee
and the Sowers were part of the move. as well as others, and
helped us move in on that Saturday. It was about 70 degrees. And
then we woke up to snow on Sunday and knew we weren’t in Virginia
anymore. So if you haven’t guessed it, those who are visiting, our
pastor’s out of town with his wife. And so several of us have
offered to take the pulpit and preach in an effort to give our
pastor a break, because he’s worked extremely laborious these
past 12 months. Today we’re going to be considering
Psalm 115, so if you’d like to turn in your copy of God’s Word
to Psalm 115. We’re not going to be looking
at every single feature of this. It won’t be a strict exposition
in that sense. I just want to bring out several
important points of the Psalm. It won’t be, like I said, a strict
exposition. There will be thematic themes
throughout there, topical themes. Basically, my thought came from
our Wednesday evening prayer service and conducting the Psalms
there and just how rich the Psalms are to us in our walk. Many times
when we read our Bibles in the morning or whenever we read,
we get to a Psalm like 115 and we read it. and then we move
on, it doesn’t really catch any traction. So I’m hoping that
the psalm will give us some traction this morning. Basically, the
psalm is about contrasting our God, the God of the Bible, to
idols. That’s the general theme, and
we’ll go deeper into that as we go. I’m not sure how many
of us have been around idols, have seen idols, actual physical
idols. I had a friend once whose wife
had a little fat Buddha thing and it was pretty creepy when
I saw it. I tried to talk a few times about
it but it never really went anywhere. but I just think it’s a little
freaky. But for the most part, we don’t
see a physical idol around in people’s houses. We probably
don’t have an idol per se in our house, but we’ll get more
of that later. What we do see, though, is that
people place their trust in things. They come to the altar of the
world, and they pick and choose what things that they will put
their hope in. This is one of the reasons that
today we don’t see a whole lot of hope in the world. In the
end, we become worshippers of the things that we put our hope
in and that we trust. I was going to begin with a quote
from a theologian, but I thought I’d change to a psalm, actually
a proverb, Proverbs 3, 5 through 6. Trust in the Lord with all
your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all
your ways acknowledge Him. and He will make your path straight.
Now for Calvin. Man’s nature, so to speak, is
a perpetual factory of idols. We can make an idol out of anything.
Psalm 115. Not to us, O Lord, not to us,
but to your name give glory, because of your loving kindness,
because of your truth. Why should the nation say, where
now is their God? But our God is in the heavens.
He does whatever he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of man’s hands. They have mouths, but they cannot
speak. They have eyes, but they cannot hear. I’m sorry, see.
They have ears, but they cannot hear. They have noses, but they
cannot smell. They have hands, but they cannot
feel. They have feet, but they cannot
walk. They cannot make a sound with
their throat. Those who make them will become like them, everyone
who trusts in them. O Israel, trust in the Lord.
He is their help and their shield. O house of Aaron, trust in the
Lord. He is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord,
trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield.
The Lord has been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will
bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron.
He will bless those who fear the Lord, the small together
with the great. May the Lord give you increase,
you and your children. May you be blessed of the Lord,
maker of heaven and earth. The heavens are the heavens of
the Lord, but the earth has given to the sons of men. The dead
do not praise the Lord. nor do any who go down into silence.
But as for us, we will bless the Lord from this time forth
forevermore. Praise the Lord. So just opening
up the psalm, looking at verses one through three quickly. In
these beginning verses, the psalmist is calling out to God for the
name of God to be glorified by asking the question, why should
the nation say, where now is their God? The psalmist is asking
God to take action against the very enemies who worship false
gods. The psalmist is basically saying,
God, remember one of the powerful ways in times past in which your
name was glorified was by manifesting your power to save us as well
as to judge our enemies. And then in verse three, we see
the answer to the question, where now is there God? With the psalmist
giving a faith-filled answer, but our God is in the heavens.
He does whatever He pleases. This is the first contrast of
God to idols. We see in this reply that God
is in the heavens and He does whatever He pleases. The idols
are on earth and they do nothing. He is sovereign over all and
He’s all-powerful and there’s no one above Him. He does whatever
He pleases. For the remainder of our psalm,
I want to look at it under three heads These three headings are
the image of man, the image of God, the image of idols. Then for a conclusion, we will
briefly consider the image of Christ. So in speaking of the image of
man, I’m beginning this chain of thought with this play on
words, image of man. But to be very clear, I’m not
saying that man invented God. I’m not saying that man gives
God his attributes. God is not created. He’s not
created in man’s image. Man did not create or invent
God. By saying the image of man, what I’m alluding to is that
by way of anthropomorphisms, God communicates truth about
himself in a way that helps us to understand and know him better.
Anthropomorphism is just a big word that means that we’re taking
something visible to teach something about our invisible God. In the
case of our text, we will be reminded about God and his character
and his attributes from the viewpoint of his mouth, eyes, ears, nose,
hands, and feet. So here we will have a vivid
picture in contrast of idols to the living God. When the psalmist
writes about the deadness and worthlessness of idols, he is
reminding us that the gods of the nations are nothing. The
psalmist’s point is twofold. First, he is turning their mocking
of them back onto them by saying your gods are dead and worthless.
Secondly, he is contrasting the deadness of the body parts of
the idols to the living God. Well, my goal is to take these
negative comments about these idols and view them positively
as we compare them with God. In each case, what it teaches
us is that the God of the Bible is not lifeless or worthless
like these idols, but in loving kindness and truth, He attends
to the world and to His people. In verse 4, we see that these
idols are made of precious and rare metals, silver and gold.
As I thought about gold and what its value was, I went chasing
down this rabbit trail, and Elliot helped with the math, but I got
to thinking how much my gold was worth. And so I looked at
my ring on my finger, and outside of the symbol that it is, it’s
not really worth much. I think we paid about $300 for
our wedding set. We didn’t have any money. But
I got to thinking, I was drinking coffee, and I thought, if I made
a gold mug, how much would this be worth? And so I looked at
the price of gold, and I did some calculations, and I figured,
if I made a cup, a coffee cup out of gold, it would weigh about
seven pounds and cost $180,000. Well, then I thought, well, what
if it was solid gold? And then I made it into a Buddha.
What would it be worth? And it would weigh 70 pounds
and cost $2 million. But in terms of actually doing
anything, the value would be zero. This gold coffee cup that
I’m worshiping is worth zero in terms of what it is actually
doing for me, for my spiritual nature, my walk with God, or
even my value to God’s people. It cannot impart any material
or spiritual blessing. I think that’s pretty obvious,
right? There’s no hope that this thing can provide, and there’s
no hope that idols can provide. But looking at verse four again,
Their idols are silver and gold, the work of man’s hands. Since
these idols are the work of man’s hands, they’re also the work
of man’s imaginations. But our God is not made. God
told Moses his name was, I am who I am. In this name, God declares
that his self-existent and eternal nature. God had no beginning. Later, Moses would sing, before
the mountains were born, or you gave birth to the earth and the
world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. All right, turning
to verse five. They have mouths, but they cannot
speak. They cannot speak. In fact, if you look at verse
seven, they can’t even make a sound in their throat. They can’t speak.
They can’t even make a sound. They’re worthless. God is spirit,
and as such, He doesn’t have an actual mouth, but He does
speak. He speaks in all of creation,
Psalm 19. The heavens tell the glory of
God, and their expanse declares the work of his hands. Day to
day pourth forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
In fact, God spoke during creation. In Genesis, then God said, let
there be light, and there was light. Psalm 33, six says, by
the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath
of His mouth all their lives. And it is in this creative act
which gives the world no excuse to not believe in God, which
Paul brings out in the book of Romans. But while creation holds
the world with no excuse, God also spoke audibly to saints
as well as sinners of old. In the garden, He spoke to Adam
and Eve. God spoke to Cain. God spoke to Noah and Abraham.
just to name a few. God also spoke to the nation
of Israel. He also spoke to the nations surrounding Israel with
words from prophets, prophets delivering his word. And after
John read the nice verse out of Isaiah, I was wondering why
I chose this, but this is God’s word. Hear the word of the Lord,
you kings of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. This is what the
Lord of armies, the God of Israel says. Behold, I am going to bring
disaster upon this place, at which the ears of everyone that
hears of it will tingle. They have filled this place with
the blood of innocent. They have built the high places
of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to
Baal, a thing which I did not command, nor speak, nor did it
ever enter my mind.” Jeremiah 19, 3 through 6. Ultimately,
though, in terms of God speaking, we read in Hebrews, God, after
he spoke long ago to the fathers and the prophets, and in many
portions and in many ways, in these last days, has spoken to
us in his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom
he also made the world. God has fully and completely
revealed himself and spoken in his Son. But there’s more. We have God speaking preserved
for us in our copies of God’s Word, in the Bible. When we,
by faith, read our Bibles and apply it to our hearts, God is
speaking to us. Verse 5. They have eyes, but
they cannot see. Listen to what the Bible says
about God’s eyes. Job 34, 21. For his eyes are upon the ways
of a person, and he sees all their steps. There is no darkness
or deep shadow where the workers of injustice can hide themselves.
Proverbs 15, three. The eyes of the Lord are in every
place, watching the evil and the good. Hebrews 4, 13. And
there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are
open and laid bare to the eyes of him whom we must give an answer. And God said to Samuel when Samuel
was looking for a king, but the Lord said to Samuel, do not look
at his appearance or the height of his stature, because I have
rejected him. For God does not see as man sees,
since man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks
at the heart. God not only sees evil deeds,
He sees our very hearts as well. He sees the motivation of our
deeds. and the desires of our hearts. He sees what we value,
He sees what we put our trust in, and He sees what is the object
of our hope. While the fact that we have a
God who sees should motivate us to live good and wholesome
lives and in a pleasing way to God, it should also give the
believer great comfort. Psalm 33. Behold, the eye of
the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who wait for His
faithfulness to rescue their soul from death and to keep them
alive in famine. Our soul waits for the Lord.
He is our help and our shield. And then the book of Matthew
records how we’re to be motivated for prayer, and good deeds, and we’re even
encouraged to keep those things secret because our Father who
is in heaven sees these things and He rewards us. So that is
a comfort to know that we have a God who sees us and cares for
us that should motivate us to live good lives. Verse six, we read of the idols
that they have ears but they cannot hear. Who of us can identify with these
Psalms? Exalt the Lord with me and let’s
exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He answered
me and rescued me from all my fears. This wretched man cried
out and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles.
Psalm 34. Psalm 116, one. I love the Lord
because He hears my voice and my pleas. Psalm 69, 33. For the Lord hears the needy
and does not despise those who are prisoners. So our God hears. The Apostle Peter says, For the
eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and his ears attend
to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against
evildoers. he hears our prayers, but this
last phrase of this verse, it’s kind of a double-edged sword
because he says that his face is against, the face of the Lord
is against evildoers. So it is by those of us who claim
the name of Christ that he hears, It is by Christ’s righteousness
that has been given to us that God hears our prayers of confession,
and need, and even our worship. But the verse goes on to say
that there’s something that God does not hear. The prayers of
evildoers, those who are not in Christ. God turns His head
and does not listen. Remember the story in John chapter
nine with the blind man that Jesus healed? He made up some
mud and put it on his eyes. Well, the Pharisees were upset
because Jesus had healed him on the Sabbath. So the Pharisees
call him in and they’re basically interrogating him. and they’re
not listening to any of his answers. But to back up this point, I
just want to bring this out in this section. In the Gospel of
John, the man who is now able to see, he says to the Pharisees,
I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to
hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples
too? Then the Pharisees spoke abusively to him and said, you
are his disciple. But we are disciples of Moses.
We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we
do not know where he is from. The man answered and said to
them, well, here’s an amazing thing. You do not know where
he is from, and yet he opened my eyes. Now this is the important
part. He says, we know that God does
not listen to sinners, but if someone is God fearing and does
his will, he will listen to him. Friends, if there’s anyone that
is not in Christ, God does not listen to you. The only reason
God is attentive to a believer and hears them is because we
are found in His Son. If you turn from sin, call out
to God in faith for His salvation, if you place your faith in Christ
and His finished work on the cross, God will hear you. That will be the first of many
prayers that God will hear. Verse six. They have noses, but
they cannot smell. We read in Genesis that after
the flood, Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of
every kind of clean animal and some of every clean bird and
offered burnt offerings on the altar. The Lord smelled the soothing
aroma, and the Lord said to himself, I will never again curse the
ground on account of man. In the book of Leviticus, God
makes many promises to the nation of Israel and to his people.
He also makes many threatenings or warnings or curses to the
nation. This is one of the curses. Listen
to what God says He will do if they disobey. He says, I will
turn your cities into ruins as well, and make your sanctuaries
desolate, and I will not smell your soothing aromas.” Leviticus
26, 31. God specifically says that He
will not smell their soothing aromas. In other words, He will
not accept their worship. The New Testament speaks of this
in this way, Ephesians 5, 1 through 2. Therefore, be imitators of
God as beloved children and walk in love, just as Christ also
loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice
to God as a fragrant aroma. Philippians 4.18. But I have
received everything in full. This is Paul. But I have received
everything in full and have an abundance. I am amply supplied,
having received from Epaphroditus what you have sent. a fragrant
aroma, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God. In Romans 12,
we are instructed to present our bodies as living and holy
sacrifices, acceptable to God, which is our spiritual service
of worship. When examined, these verses inform us that as we offer
our lives to God, mirroring how Jesus offered His life, God sees
this as a sacrifice and accept it as worship. He smells the
sweet aroma. As we offer praises and service
to God, God is pleased. Gil says, our God smelled a sweet
savor and legal sacrifices offered up in faith of the Messiah. And
especially he smells a sweet odor, a sweet savor in the sacrifice
of his son. and in the prayers of his saints,
which are sweet odors, and particularly as they come to him perfumed
with the incense of Christ’s mediation.” Again, it’s Christ’s
mediation in his work that makes our prayers acceptable to God.
Finally, in verse 7, we’ll briefly consider God’s hands and His
feet. In saving us, a common refrain from God in the Old Testament
is that we would be His people and He would be our God. In a
very personal and close picture, listen to how he phrases this
in Leviticus 26, 12. Moreover, I will make my dwelling
among you, and my soul will not reject you. I will also walk
among you and be your God, and you shall be my people. And of
course, in the New Testament, we know of Jesus as Emmanuel,
God with us. As to God’s hands, what more
do we need than Jesus’s words? My sheep listen to my voice,
and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life,
and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of
my hand. My Father, who has given them
to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them
out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one. If
we have placed our faith in Christ, we are eternally secure. No one
can snatch us out of our Savior’s hand or the Father’s hands. Before
we move on to verse eight, what it says, I just want to take
a short detour and consider this point which will dovetail into
verse eight. And that point is the image of
God. We’ve considered God through the use of these anthropomorphisms,
these images, We now have a clear picture of who God is and what
He’s like. We’re reminded of those things. Now we’ll look
at the image of God. In Genesis 1, God said, let us
make mankind in our image according to our likeness and let them
rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky
and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every
crawling thing that crawls on the earth. So God created man
in His image, in the image of God. He created him male and
female. He created them. Birkhoff says
of this image of God, man is distinguished from all other
creatures and stands supreme as the head and crown of the
entire creation. When Reformed theologians speak
of what traits or attributes make up this image of God in
man, they speak of things like man’s original righteousness,
his innocence, his holiness, the freedom of man’s will. Basically,
any of God’s communicable attributes are things which were placed
in man at creation to make him God’s image. It also included
the ability to think, the ability to reason, to create, to love,
and to have fellowship with other people. It means we have an immortal
soul which will never die, and we are also charged with subduing
the earth, cultivating and producing from it. This is a little lengthy
quote from a theologian, Man is not an unsuccessful portrait
or a somewhat similar one, but that he is a perfect and totally
corresponding image of God, such as man is in miniature, such
as God is in the large, the infinitely large outline for man as such
as God is. Man stands infinitely far beneath
God and is nevertheless related to him. As creature, man is absolutely
dependent upon God, and yet as man, he is a free and independent
being. Limitation and freedom, dependence
and independence, immeasurable distance and intimate relation
ever against God, these have been combined in an incomprehensible
way in the human being. We are created in God’s image.
Yet, After the fall, mankind, while still God’s image, lost
something. We lost that original righteousness,
for one. We lost the freedom of our wills,
for another. But we also added something,
sin. Our theologian continues, sin
has robbed man of innocence, righteousness, and holiness.
Sin has corrupted his heart, darkened his understanding, inclined
his will to evil, turned his inclinations right about face,
and placed his body and all of its members in the service of
unrighteousness. But it is not accurate to say
that man bears the image of God merely. He is that image of God. The image of God is identical
with man and is inclusive as the humanity of man. But to the
extent that even in the state of sin, Man remained man to that
extent he has preserved a remnant of the image of God. And to the
extent that he has lost the image of God, to that extent he has
ceased to be man, true and perfect man. Only the image of God constitutes
man, true and perfect man. With this in mind, let’s look
at verse eight. After all these considerations
about the deadness and worthlessness of the mouth, eyes, ears, nose,
hands, feet of these idols, the psalmist declares, those who
make them will become like them, everyone who trusts them. Those who trust in idols become
dead and worthless. What does it mean, though, that
those who trust in idols become dead and worthless? For this,
we move to our third point. We’ve considered God through
the use of our text. We’ve considered man as the image
of God. We now come to man in the image
of idols. So the image of idols. From our
consideration of man being image bearers of God, we can come to
several conclusions. Only as we share in the image
of God do we become complete as we are originally created.
Humans were the crown of creation as being God’s image. Even though
sin has infected the human race, we all still bear God’s image. Yet, to the degree that we move
away from God, there is less of God’s image in us. The farther
we move away from God in unrighteousness, outright rebellion, or even in
just plain unbelief, the less we are God’s image bearers in
the purest and most worthy sense. The farther we move from God,
the more animal-like we become. We can see this progression from
bad to worse in the worst criminals. And yet here in the psalm it
says, those who make them will become like them, everyone who
trusts in them. As we trust idols, we become
more like them, less the image bearers of God and more the image
bearers of idols. And that image is one of deadness.
They are dead to God and of no use to Him or to God’s people.
And as they cleave more and more to their idol, they become increasingly
hard and spiritually insensitive. As their God is, so they are. they take on more and more deadness. Well, it’s a good thing that
none of us worship idols, right? Spurgeon said, when we speak of idolatry, we
need not think of blocks of wood and stone. Neither need you go
out into the streets to find them. Stay where you are and
look into your own hearts, and you shall find idols there. This
is one easily besetting sin of our nature, to turn aside from
the living God and to make unto ourselves idols in some fashion
or another. For the essence of idolatry is
this, to love anything better than God or to trust anything
more than God. Ultimately, our idols are in
our hearts. I asked a pastor as I was preparing
this, not our pastor, a pastor, what he thought the biggest idols
were today. And he said, entertainment, something else which I won’t
mention, and maybe food. I thought that was a pretty good
answer. I think there’s a lot could be said of that. You could
add to that sports. You could add to that money,
reputation, Facebook. Stuff. We have so much stuff. We have stuff and then we have
places to store stuff. We could make intellect our idol, our spouse, our kids could
be our idol, our grandkids could be our idol. We could make theology
an idol. We could make Bible reading an
idol if it’s not done by faith. But I think it goes deeper than
that. Romans is informative when it comes to identifying idolatry. In Romans 1, and you’re all familiar
with this passage, for since the creation of the world, his
invisible attributes, that is, his eternal power and divine
nature, have been clearly perceived, being understood by what has
been made, so that they are without excuse. Who’s they? The world. The world is without
excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor God. They
did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile
in their reasonings. Even their reasonings are futile.
And their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise,
they became fools, and this is the point, and they exchanged
the glory of the incorruptible God for an image. in the form
of corruptible mankind, of birds, four-footed animals, and crawling
creatures. Therefore, God gave them up to vile impurity in the
lust of their hearts, so that their bodies would be dishonored
among them. For, and this is the next point, for they exchanged
the truth of God for falsehood, and worshiped and served the
creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Church, Every time we exchange the truth of God for a lie, every
time we exchange the glory of God for an image, we become worshipers
of the thing we trust. We commit idolatry. The problem
of idolatry goes deeper than just things, as I mentioned,
these vices that they may be. One area that I see idolatry
is what I’m just going to label worldliness. The Apostle John
said, do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone
loves the world, and let me back up here, because I was going
to say it over here, but I’m going to say it now. Typically,
when John is speaking of the word world in his writing, he’s
not speaking about the physical world or creation, the cosmos,
and he’s also not talking about how big it is. So in John 3,
16, while there is a sense in which God so loved the world,
he’s speaking of, well, it’s not just the Jews that he loved
that Christ would come and die, but it’s for all the people of
the world. And there’s a sense in which that’s true. But Carson
talked about how world is more the evil system, the present
evil system. It’s the system which the world
snubs its nose at God. It’s the system that hates God
and denies God. And so when John says, for God
so loved the world, it’s not, oh, the great big world. It’s
God so loved the world. He loved that. that He sent His
Son to die. So in this text when we read
about the world, it’s the system. Do not love the world nor the
things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the
love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world,
the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful
pride of life is not from the Father, but from the world. The
world is passing away, and also its lusts, but the one who does
the will of God continues to live forever. That’s 1 John 2,
15 through 17. Worldliness is to follow the
way of the world. It follows what the world values. It is more of a conformity to
what the world teaches and believes than it is just stuff. Psalm
2 encapsulates this view of the world. The kings of the earth
take their stand, and the rulers conspire together against the
Lord and against His anointed, saying, let’s tear their shackles
apart and throw their ropes away from us. When we read in Colossians
3.5, therefore, Treat the parts of your earthly
body as dead to sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire,
and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things
that the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience.
And in them you also once walked when you were living in them.
Here, in our verse, Colossians 3, 5, it says, he compares greed
with idolatry, or in some verses, covetousness. But all of the
sins listed are part of our fallen sinful nature, and part of the
world system, all of those things. And even so, when we replace
God with the world, as one said, we exchange the glory of God
into the image of some creature or other, deify the world, the
sun, the moon, and the stars, art, science, or the state. Here from over 100 years ago,
we’re guessing about 112 years ago, this theologian speaks of
the idols of science and state. Worldliness can be seen in sinful
living, but it also can be seen in valuing and trusting what
the world values and trusts. The world puts their trust in,
well, what do they put their trust in? Social justice, money,
political correctness, gender identity. These past 351 days,
not that I’m counting, we are 351 days into our 14-day experiment
to slow the spread. We have seen what the world, values, where it places its ultimate
trust. And I could go on, but I won’t.
The twin idols of government and science, we witnessed the
hopelessness of peoples this past summer and even now, whose
gods have failed them. We have seen how people place
their trust entirely on the scientific community. We’ve seen how people
forsake reason logic, and blindly follow what we’re told to do. In some cases, it’s okay. But
ultimately, Spurgeon sums it up. All become naturally assimilated
to the objects of their worship. If that’s where all of our focus
is, we’re gonna take on those characteristics. The world has
bowed its knee. In conclusion, and this is going
to be somewhat brief, we’ve considered God, we’ve considered the image
of God, we’ve considered idolatry, come to our fourth point in our
conclusion, the image of Christ. Referring back to Psalm 115,
we’re going to glide over a few of these things. Notice in verses
9 through 11, we have the refrain, trust in the Lord, He is their
help and their shield. The psalmist is calling us to
not look at and dwell at the idols, but to trust in the Lord,
because He is our help and our shield. How do we do that? And what happens if we do that?
Look at verse 12. The threefold promise of blessing
in that verse. As we trust in our help and our
shield, we will be blessed. Now move down to verses 17 and
18. Notice that the dead do not praise
the Lord. people who are spiritually dead,
worshippers of idols, do not praise the Lord. That is one
of the points of the Romans passage that we considered. People do
not give thanks to God. They do not acknowledge Him as
God. But, in verse 18, those who are alive do praise the Lord. That’s where this whole psalm
leads, to praising the Lord. Again, we are considering the
image of Christ. Only as we are conformed to Christ
are we made more into the image of God and become true worshipers
of God and are truly useful to Him and to His people. Colossians
1.15 says of the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation. And that’s true, while we are
the image of God as well, we were reminded today how that
image has been corrupted. But the Bible says of Jesus in
Hebrews 1.3, he, that is Jesus, is the radiance of his, the father’s,
He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation
of His nature and upholds all things by the word of His power.
When He made purifications for sin, He sat down at the right
hand of the Majesty on high. The Bible says, do not lie to
one another since you are stripped of, since you stripped off the
old self with its evil practices. and have put on the new self.
How have we stripped away the old evil practices and put on
the new self? It’s by being born again. It’s
by putting our faith in Christ. So do not lie to one another
since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices
and have put on the new self, which is being renewed to a true
knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. How do we become more of the
image of God? This is the new birth. It is to be born again
with a new nature. It is to call out to the God
who sees, the God who hears, and ask Him to cleanse you from
your sin, even the sin of idolatry. The Apostle Paul was thankful,
in this case, to the Thessalonians. He said, He was thankful because
they had turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,
and that’s what we need to do. The Bible says one purpose of
this new birth is to be conformed to the image of His Son. When
we are, we become God’s image, and more and more, as it says
in 2 Corinthians 3.18, We all, with unveiled faces,
looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, are being
transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as
from the Lord, the Spirit. So if you would, turn to Romans
12 again, if you weren’t there before 12, 1 through 2. I think this ties everything
that we’ve looked at together. Romans 12, one through two. Paul says, therefore I urge you,
brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your
bodies as a living and holy sacrifice. We’ve already considered this.
Acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship,
and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by
the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will
of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. When
we present our bodies as a living sacrifice, we are told to not
be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing
of our minds. This is to be conformed to the
image of Christ, as we trust and follow and obey Him. Don’t
settle for less than what God would have you to be, His very
image. John wrote in 1 John 5 19 following, We know that we are of God and
that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. that
could be taken a system or the people. And we know that the
Son of God has come and has given us understanding so that we may
know Him who is true. And we are in Him who is true
in His Son, Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal
life. Little Children, guard yourself
from idols. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, We do thank You for Your grace and Your mercy.
Even though we are created in Your image, we wander off into
various forms of idolatry through our sin. We ask, O Lord, that You would
work in each of our hearts, that we would be able to spot these
areas of idolatry, that we would confess them, and that we would
be more fully able to put our trust and our faith in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and that You, by Your Spirit, would work in us
to conform us in His image. And we ask this in Jesus’ name,
Amen.