Tear Down Your Idols

Tear Down Your Idols

August 31, 2008 Morning Service

Immanuel Baptist Church, Wagoner, OK

Rick Boyne

Message Point: Get rid of the distractions that keep you from following God.

Focus Passage: II Kings 18:1-7

Supplemental Passage: 2 Chronicles 16:9 NASB "For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His."

Mat 22:37-38 And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment.

Introduction: Idols: statues or real things in your life?

I. Command Made

a. Exodus 20:4-6 NASB "You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. (5) "You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, (6) but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.

II. Command Broken

III. Command Followed

a. Hezekiah CLUNG to the Lord, DID NOT DEPART from following Him, OBEYED his commandments

Invitation: What idols are in your life? What do you allow to distract your attention from God? What keeps you from obeying His commandments?

(1 Kings 3:3) Now Solomon loved the LORD, walking in the statutes of his father David, except he sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

(1 Kings 15:14) But the high places were not taken away; nevertheless the heart of Asa was wholly devoted to the LORD all his days.

(1 Kings 22:43) Jehoshaphat walked in all the way of Asa his father; he did not turn aside from it, doing right in the sight of the LORD. However, the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burnt incense on the high places.

(2 Kings 12:2-3) Jehoash did right in the sight of the LORD all his days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

(2 Kings 14:3-4) Amaziah did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like David his father; he did according to all that Joash his father had done. Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

(2 Kings 15:3-4) Azariah did right in the sight of the LORD, according to all that his father Amaziah had done. Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

(2 Kings 15:34-35) Jotham did what was right in the sight of the LORD; he did according to all that his father Uzziah had done. Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places. He built the upper gate of the house of the LORD.

(2 Kings 16:2-4) Ahaz did not do what was right in the sight of the LORD his God, as his father David had done. But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, and even made his son pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the LORD had driven out from before the sons of Israel. He sacrificed and burned incense on the high places and on the hills and under every green tree.