Illus: Dr. Billy Graham says, "We usually think of an idol as a religious figure carved of wood or stone, perhaps in some primitive tribe far removed from civilization. But we have our "idols" today, because an idol is anything that you worship in place of the living God. Some people worship the idol of beauty or sexual pleasure. People worship the idol of money and security... Some people worship at the shrine of power.”
(Billy Graham, -Approaching Hoofbeats-, pp. 106-07.)
Some people have created a false god in their minds and they worship that false god.
Illus: D. J. Kennedy said that a friend was once reading to a lady out of the Bible about what God said he would do to the guilty. She responded by saying, "Oh, my God would never do that!" He replied, "Madam, you are right! Your god would never do that. The problem is that your god doesn't exist except in your mind. You have created a god in your own image, according to your own liking, and now you have fallen down and worshipped him instead of the God of the Bible. Your problem is that you have committed idolatry!"
Illus: Someone said this about idolatry, “What is your most prized possession? Would you be willing to give it up if Jesus asked you? If your answer is no then your possession has taken God's place in your heart and has become an idol.”
I want to say again, America has become the land of idolatry. It is not that people do not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the problem is they have other gods in their life that they prefer more. It is obvious that the God who created them is not on the top of their list.
When it comes to idolatry in America, we do not try and hide it, we even have a television program call “American Idol.” It has become the #1 show on TV and in 2006 had completed its 5th season.
The idols that we serve are not necessarily made of wood, bricks and metal, even though many of them are. We have become “CREATURE WORSHIPPERS!”
Illus: A seventeen-year-old girl looked at Elvis Presley as not just an entertainer, or a mortal, she made him an idol and she literally worshipped him.
She has seen all his movies many times:
• “LOVE ME TENDER” 107 times.
•“LOVING YOU” 110 times.
•“KING CREOLE” 91 times.
•“JAIL HOUSE ROCK” 79 times (She did not care for it as much.)
• She has twelve scrapbooks of him.
• She has 40,000 pictures of him.
• She actually moved from New Orleans to Memphis to be near him.
This woman may be a little extreme, but she represents the many “Creature Worshippers” across America.
It has been said you can tell a great deal about a nation by the gods they serve. We in America have a problem because we have become the biggest CREATURE WORSHIPPERS that have ever existed.
We pay these CREATURES (actors, actresses, and athletes) millions of dollars to see them perform. What is sad about this, is that parents that should be shielding their children from these idols, seem to be encouraging the idolatry.
As we look at the idols Americans worship, we can certainly relate to how Elijah must have felt when he stood before the prophets of Baal. Those people were also “creature worshippers.” The only difference was that the creatures they worshipped included creatures they made with their own hands.
In 1 Kings 18, we have the story of Elijah standing up against 850 false prophets of Baal. He refused to compromise with them! Let me show you THREE ways that Elijah dealt with these CREATURE WORSHIPPERS.
I. HE RECOGNIZED WHO GOD WAS
Look at verse 37. We read, “...thou art the Lord God...”
Elijah says in this passage that he recognized something very important. He said two things that we all need to recognize:
• I am not God
• THOU ART GOD
These idols the people were serving were not God! Elijah knew WHO GOD WAS! He said, “...THOU ART THE LORD GOD...”
WHO IS GOD? God is the Creator of everything WE CAN SEE and CAN NOT SEE!
Illus: We can walk out on a clear night and see a sky full of stars, millions of them. Yet further out we know there are billions of stars that God has created that we can not see without a very powerful telescope. We can not see those stars, but we know, whatever exists, God created it!
Through the centuries, idols that men worshipped have come and gone, but GOD WAS, IS, and ALWAYS WILL BE GOD! The wisest men on earth are the men who KNOW GOD IS GOD! The most foolish man on the earth, is the man that believes that creation just accidentally happened.
Illus: A pastor was confronted by an atheist in a public gathering. The atheist, wishing to embarrass the pastor, said loudly, “There is no God.” The preacher said, “Friend, what you said is not new -- the Bible said that more than 2,000 years ago.” The atheist said, “I did not know the Bible stated that.” The preacher said, “Yes, it does in Psalm 14:1, ‘The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God...’” Then the preacher said, “But there is a great difference between that fool and you. He was quiet and modest and said it in his heart, but you have blurted it out so that everyone knows what a fool you are!”
God says it takes an absolute fool to deny His existence. The normal routine of life should be enough to convince the most hardened skeptic THAT GOD IS CREATOR OF EVERYTHING.
• The sun rises
• The sun sets
• The seasons come in uniform succession
• The uncontrollable weather constantly reminds us
All these things are simple proofs that a man can plainly see that testify that there is a God.
David saw it. Psalm 19:1-3 proclaims, “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.”
Creation has its own voice. It speaks day and night, declaring the glory of God. All people have to do is look and listen. If they will, then they can see the POWER of ALMIGHTY GOD.
Illus: It was not too many years ago that God used Mt. Saint Helens, in Washington state, to reveal His greatness. That blast got the attention of geologists and people all over the world. Mt. Saint Helens had stood 9,700 feet high. Then it happened. There were three eruptions. The third eruption blew over 1,300 feet off the northern side, leveling it off at 4,400 feet on the northern side of the mountain. Rivers of boiling mud and ash were sent down the mountain side at the speed of 80 miles per hour. A crater was formed that was two miles long and a mile wide.
One of the famous geologists of our country said there had not been a volcanic blast of this magnitude in the last four thousand years. Pundits claimed it was over five hundred times that of an atom bomb.
So much ash was belched forth by the force of the eruptions that it literally fell all over this country. Such force was exerted that the ash was forced 50,000 feet into the air. That is almost 10 miles straight up!
Every now and then, God uses something like this to remind people that He is THE POWERFUL, EXISTING GOD! He reminds us that WE ARE NOT GODS -- HE IS GOD!
We live in a society where men place so much value on worldly things, but these things are destined to change. History teaches that people continually change. NOTHING IS SECURE! NOTHING REMAINS THE SAME.
• The car has replaced the horse and buggy
• Computers have replaced typewriters and more
• Electric lights have replaced kerosene lanterns
• Electric pumps have replaced the hand pumps and buckets in wells
• Jet airplanes have replaced prop planes
• Gas and electric heaters have replaced the coal furnaces
• Asphalt roads have replaced dirt roads
• Fax phones and Email are fast replacing the mail man
The society we live in is the result of six thousand years of civilized mutation. This is an EVER CHANGING WORLD, BUT THERE IS ONE WHO NEVER CHANGES -- THAT IS THE LIVING GOD!
False gods have come and gone, but we can say with Elijah of our Creator, “...thou art the Lord God...”
• God is God today
• God will be God tomorrow
• God will be God forever
•GOD IS GOD ETERNALLY
God has been good to America.
Illus: We can look back through history and see the Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans, etc., who have given us much of our culture and arts, BUT WHERE ARE THEY TODAY? The only time they are mentioned is in history classes. Some of them no longer exist as a nation, and those that do exist are not as significant as they were hundreds of years ago.
America is making many of the same mistakes they made. We are forgetting GOD IS GOD! God will not tolerate this idolatry forever!
We see that HE RECOGNIZED WHO GOD WAS and -
II. HE RECOGNIZED WHO HE WAS
Look at verse 36 of our text. He said, “...I am thy servant...”
Now I know many folks who will say the same thing. They will look to the Lord and say, “I am thy servant.” However, there is a big difference. When Elijah said it, his actions backed up his words.
Illus: Suppose you hired a servant and all he ever did was walk around the house saying, “I am your servant?" Yet...
• The house was a mess
• The dirty dishes were stacking up
• The carpet needed vacuuming
• The windows needed washing
All you had was a person who walked around saying, “I am your servant.” If that were the case, you probably would say, “Then serve!”
Illus: That would be like the man who says that he is a -
• FISHERMAN, but never fishes.
• GOLFER, but never plays golf.
• BALL PLAYER, but never plays ball.
• SKIER, but never skis.
• TENNIS PLAYER, but never plays tennis.
• PREACHER, but never preaches
If we are servants, then we should serve Him! The word “servant” has become a dirty word.
Illus: When many hear that word, “servant,” they equate it with “slave.” Then they think it is something we should abolish.
The word “SERVANT” IS NOT A DIRTY WORD. Every day we serve in some capacity.
• If you are in the military, you are serving your country
• If you are an employee, you are serving the company you work for
• If you are a tax payer, you serve all Americans by providing taxes to operate the government
We may prefer to call ourselves soldiers, employees, and taxpayers, but in reality we are SERVANTS. If it were not for people who do these things, this country would be in a mess.
One reason the work of Christ is not more effective than it is, is because many Christians do not KNOW WHO THEY ARE!
Elijah said, “I am thy servant...” He knew WHO GOD WAS and WHO HE (God’s servant) WAS.
We see that HE RECOGNIZED WHO GOD WAS, HE RECOGNIZED WHO HE WAS and -
III. HE RECOGNIZED GOD’S WORD
Look at verse 36b, “...I have done all these things at thy word.”
As a nation, we have more Bibles than any other country. How sad it is that very few seem to realize why God has blessed us with these Bibles. God’s Word is to be READ and OBEYED! It is not to be...
• Dusted off every now and then
• Ignored
• Rejected
• Diluted down
• Compromised
IT IS TO BE READ AND OBEYED!
Elijah felt he had the right to ask God to send fire down from Heaven. He said, “...let it be known...that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word.”
When we READ and OBEY the WORD OF GOD, we bring happiness and success to our lives.
Illus: The “Chicago Daily News” told the story of the success of the Standard Oil company in their discovering oil in the Middle East. One of the Directors of the company was reading Exodus, chapter 2, of God’s word which speaks of the mother of Moses making an ark of bulrushes and covering “...it with slime and with pitch...”
The director reasoned that if there was “pitch” (asphalt, from root word meaning: “To liquefy") and bitumen, (meaning: “asphalt found in a natural state") then there must be oil, and, if there was oil there in Moses’ time it would still be there. The company sent geologist Charles Whitshatt to investigate and he discovered oil there.
Those who search the Word of God for ways to please the Lord will find something far more valuable than oil. Can you say, with Elijah, “...I have done all these things at thy word”?
Conclusion:
It is time we destroyed the idols in our life and let the God of Creation be the God we serve. We might love the gods of this world, but the gods of this world are incapable of loving us.
Illus: A man visited a friend’s house and noticed a picture of Jesus on the wall. The eyes looked like they were looking right at him and it made him feel uncomfortable so he moved across the room. It still appeared that way and he said, “Doesn’t that make you uncomfortable?” His friend said, “No, that picture tells me that He loves me so much, He can’t keep His eyes off me!”
We read in verses 37-38a, “Hear me, O LORD, hear me, that this people may know that thou art the LORD God, and that thou hast turned their heart back again. Then the fire of the LORD fell, and consumed the burnt sacrifice, …”
Elijah saw the “...fire of the Lord...” fall in his lifetime! We need to be like Elijah.
I. HE RECOGNIZED WHO GOD WAS
II. HE RECOGNIZED WHO HE WAS
III. HE RECOGNIZED GOD’S WORD
