Lie 1 - God is What You Want Him to Be

 

Intro.: When a coalition of armies outnumbered King Jehoshaphat, he knew that his hope had to be in God alone. In desperation he prayed, “

2 Chronicles 20:12 “ O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. ” . He knew that our great­est need is always to see God. The clearer our vision of Him, the more compelling our motivation to trust, obedience, and worship. A. W. Tozer was right when he said that “what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.” 

But in what God shall we believe? 

1.       Although opinion polls tell us that 92 percent of Americans believe in God, the God of the Bible is not who they have in mind. According to journalist Chris Stamper, that deity “looks less and less like the one true God and more and more like the star of a do-it-yourself gospel pulled off a tray at the postmodern cafeteria” This generation is through with a belief in a transcendent deity who could actually mess with our lives, rearrange our priorities, and force us to deal with that horrid concept, sin.

2.       Our generation chooses instead to meet its spiritual needs by shopping for a faith that has fragments of Christianity mixed with Scientology, Buddhism, and any number of notions derived from “personal experience’ Thus, although an overwhelming number of people will continue to say they believe in God, their conception of God will be as diverse as the items in a shopping mall.

3.       Nietzsche was right: once God was declared dead, a “rain of gods” followed, with everyone worshiping his/her deity of choice.

4.       These trends are understandable given our cultural drift; what is most lamentable is that such skewed notions of God also exist within the professing church.

5.       The grand vision of God given to us by the writ­ers of Scripture has, to a great extent, been lost. What we have in its place is an emphasis on “felt needs” and “health and wealth.” Worse, some who still want to be known as evangelicals deny that God knows the future, or that we must be saved only through faith in Christ.

6.       Many churchgoers derive their understanding of God as much from popular culture as from the Scriptures. They do not reject Christianity outright but refine it to fit in with the pluralism of today’s “feel good” religion.

7.       If the Christian church could be aroused to heed the voice of God, quite possibly our entire indulgent culture might rouse itself and take a second look at its moral and spiritual malaise. But it must begin with the church, individuals like ourselves who are will­ing to return to the God of the Scriptures

8.       What convictions must we hold to.

a.                First, we must derive our knowledge of God from the Bible alone, and not from personal preferences or experiences.

b.                My second conviction is that the clearer we see God, the clearer we shall see ourselves. Calvin was right when he said that no man can know himself unless he first knows God. In the presence of the Almighty, the yardstick by which we measure our own goodness is finally revealed. Consequently we shall quickly confess, as have the saints before us, “Woe to me! ... I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Loiu Almighty” (Isa. 6:5). Thankfully, God does not leave us “ruined” but extends the healing of His loving mercy and grace.

c.                 Third, the better we know God, the more fervently we shall worship Him. When Job learned that his ten children were killed in a windstorm, he turned to God and worshiped. Keep in mind that at this point in his spiritual journey, he had no idea why this happened. Yet we read: 

Job 1:20-21  Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,  21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.  

Lesson:  

Intro: Art Linkletter saw a small boy scrawling wildly on a sheet of paper. “What are you drawing?” Linkletter asked.

“I’m drawing a picture of God.”

“You can’t do that, because nobody knows what God looks like’ “They will when I’m finished,” the boy confidently replied.

§          What does God look like? Can we draw our own portrait of Him?

§          Whether we want to admit it or not, we are born to seek meaning, made to hunger for the spiritual; and behind those cravings is our search for God. The protagonist in a Carly Simon song traced his own spiritual journey from the halls of Cambridge to life in the country only to conclude:

 

Now you run a bookstore And you have taken on a wife

And wear patches on your elbows And you live an easy life.

But are you finally satisfied? Is it what you were lookin’ for?

Or does it sneak up on you That there might be something more?1

 

§          Yes, we all hope for “something more’ and throughout the ages, some of the greatest minds have believed that humankind could experience “something more” only by finding God: It is “A raging, inextinguishable thirst!”

§          Perhaps the Psalms give us the most eloquent description of this “raging thirst”: “

§          Psalm 42:1  As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.  ” ; “

§          Psalm 63:1   O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;   ”

§         Mankind has always sought God, but in our pluralistic age, we must ask, which God shall we seek? Where shall we find Him? And how shall we know that we have found Him? 

1. FROM GOD TO IDOLS 

A.       “I believe in God” is perhaps one of the most meaningless statements we can make today.

1.       The word God has become a canvas on which each is free to paint his own portrait of the divine; like the boy scribbling at his desk, we can draw God according to whatever specifications we please.

2.       For some He is “psychic energy”; for others He is “whatever is stronger than I am” or “an inner power to lead us to deeper consciousness’

3.       To say “I believe in God” might simply mean that we are seeing ourselves in a full-length mirror.

B.     So how shall we begin our journey to find God?

1.       The Swiss theologian Karl Barth was right when he said there are only two ways to attain a knowledge of God: one is to begin with man and reason upward; the other is to begin with God and accept His revelation to us.

2.       For the moment, we are going to begin with man and reason upward. We will uncover some concepts of God that are unworthy of Him: ideas constructed from within the heart of man, idolatrous images manufactured from the raw desires of the human mind.  An illusion of a safer deity, and so we have pared God down to more manageable pro­portions.”

3.       Whenever we begin with man and reason upward, we manufacture an idol. Our temptation is to invite ideas of God into our minds that are either just wrong or are notions that diminish Him. Idolatry is more than dancing around a statue of silver or gold; it is constructing a men­tal idea of a deity that bears little resemblance to the God who actually exists. Idolatry is giving respectability to our own opinions of God, formed after our likeness. Idolatry is fashioning an idea of God accord­ing to our inclinations and preferences. It is to pare God down to “more manageable proportions?’

4.       In the Old Testament, the psalm-writer contrasted idols with the God he had come to know through personal revelation. Notice the difference: 

Psalm 115:3-8  But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. 4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. 5 They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: 6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: 7 They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. 8 They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. 

C.There are reasons why we prefer our own ideas about God.

1.       The Israelites made the golden calf because they became impatient when Moses lingered on the mountain. The delay made them nervous and they wondered whether he would ever return: “As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Exod. 32:1). God seemed distant and uninvolved; therefore they sought a more present, more realistic god. They fashioned a calf they could see, touch, and carry—a god of “manageable proportions?’

2.       This is the first reason why we have so many idolatrous ideas of God today: we are impatient with His silence in this confused age. 

a.      We think that if God is all-powerful, He would put an end to the suffering of this world, so we construct a god who puts up with evil for the same reasons we do: he can do very little about it. Or else we turn away from reality and say that evil does not exist.

b.      Let’s honestly admit that a growing number of Americans think that the church is irrelevant. Well, that means that the Christian God is seen as irrelevant.

c.       What is more, the God of the Bible is exclusive; He appears so demanding that the moment you become acquainted with Him, He begins to raise “sin issues.” And because we resent such intrusion, we prefer a God we can manage, not an omnipotent God, but an accepting deity committed to helping us fulfill our human potential.

3.       So a second motivation for idolatry is that we want a God who is more tolerant of us, less demanding, less “judgmental.”

a.      When a friend of mine left his wife to live with another woman, he withdrew from his friends at the church and formed new friendships in bars and sports complexes. He felt better associating with people who could accept his choices without judging; he wanted to be affirmed, rather than rebuked, for the “courage” to leave his wife. Just so, we want a God who will not mess with the core of our lives.

b.      A commitment to individualism fuels our idolatrous nature. Americans, nurtured on consumerism, go “god shopping” at a spiri­tual smorgasbord, trying to find a deity that is best suited to their tastes. This cafeteria image is very important: when I select the entrees to suit my tastes, I remain in charge. Millions of Americans say with Thomas Paine, “My mind is my church.”

c.       Of course this form of mental idolatry is not a new phenomenon. Centuries ago Asaph recorded these words from God: “These things you have done and kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face” (Ps. 50:2 1). Yes, even today, we think that God is like unto us.

d.      So, the essence of idolatry is to entertain wrong thoughts about God. When we construct an idea of God from our imaginations, this idolatry of the heart is just as bad as idolatry of the hand. The prophet Ezekiel had a penetrating message for this kind of idolaters: “Then the word of the Loiw came to me: ‘Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces”’ (Ezek. 14:2—3, emphasis mine).

e.      “Idols in their hearts”! “Stumbling blocks before their faces”! No wonder Calvin said that the human mind is an idol factory!

f.        Join me as I explore how our ideas of God affect the way we think, the way we worship, and the way we live. I’m convinced that if our minds are open, our investigation will change the way we see God; and of necessity, it will change the way we see ourselves. And we will be led to seek the true God with all of our hearts.

g.      Let’s take a quick tour of some of the idols of modern culture. Let’s try to grasp how tempting it is to construct an idea of God based on our own desires and interests. 

2. IDOLS FOR DESTRUCTION 

Of course, some modern conceptions of God are not entirely wrong, just skewed; others are as far from reality as one can travel. Once we assume that we can construct an idea of God beginning with man, that is, “from the bottom up~’ anything is possible. We are capable of doing this even with our Bible in one hand and a personal agenda in the other. 

A. The God of My Health and Wealth 

1.       Given our preoccupation with success, money, and leisure, we should not be surprised that a special Western god has emerged in the last decades.

2.       This concept of God is purported to have been drawn from the Bible, but it reflects American capitalism more than a serious considera­tion of biblical texts.

3.       This God becomes our financial adviser, our ATM, our consultant.

4.       Gloria Copeland, wife of minister Kenneth Copeland, has written, “The Word of God simply reveals that lack and poverty are not in line with God’s will for the obedient... . Allow the Holy Spirit to minister the truth to your spirit until you know beyond a doubt that God’s will is Prosperity77 She is talking about diamonds, BMWs, and a new house—not spiritual riches.

5.       This gospel could not have been preached in early Rome, nor today can it be preached in Haiti, Belarus, or Angola. It would be difficult indeed to convince the martyrs of the church that it was actually their God-given right to be healthy and prosperous; they would have been content with poverty, if only they had been delivered from the lion’s mouth or the assassin’s sword.

6.       The “God of my health and wealth” might purport to be based on the Bible, but it is a skewed interpretation that has left thou­sands of disillusioned people in its wake.

7.      How can we believe in such a God when Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20)? And Paul, writing from prison, said, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11)

 

B. The God of My Gender 

1.       Radical feminists seek to refashion God according to their desires and inclinations. Here is the argument: God is represented in the Bible as male; males oppress females; thus the biblical model is to blame for this oppres­sion. As long as God is male and seen as our “Father’ we give tacit approval to male dominance. To put it simply: if God is male, males are God.

2.       In order to eradicate this image, we must redefine God as female so that we have a deity in step with the feminist cause. Thus Rosemary Radford Ruether, perhaps the leading feminist writer, defines her god­dess as “the Primal Matrix, the great womb within which all things, gods and humans, sky, earth, human and nonhuman beings are generated.”’2

3.       Some religious denominations now use lectionaries, hymnals, and Bibles that have “inclusive” language that eliminates all male references to God. Where the title “King” is applied to God, they add the word Queen; God as Father is translated “father and mother’ or just “mother?’ Thus the Scriptures are rewritten to serve the feminist agenda.

4.       Let’s agree that many men have abused women; males have misused their authority and have put their own needs first. Women have often been unfairly discriminated against in our churches and in the work­place. But do we give God a makeover to address these concerns?

5.       Second, in marriage God designated male headship to demonstrate the relationship of Christ and the church. Husbands are to be Christ to their wives, exercising servant-leadership; wives, in turn, are to play the role of the church, living under the authority of their husbands. Given this model, God is represented in the Scripture as male. 

C. The “God of my sexual preference”

1.       A related version is the “God of my sexual preference” theology. This is the view that God approves of my sexual lifestyle, no matter what it might be.

2.       There is growing literature on “gay theology’ where gay per­sons have reinterpreted the Scriptures to justify homosexual relation­ships; they worship God, confident that their sexual preference is of no consequence to Him.

3.       How can we accept the “God of my sexual preference” when Jesus upheld the strict Old Testament Law? “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19). 

     D. The God of My Personal Self-Authentication 

1.       Lying at the heart of these and other misconceptions is the deeper belief in the “God of my personal self-authentication” theology.

2.       According to this belief, God says we are not to look to authoritative sources for “the truth about God?’ Instead, God says, “Listen to your feelings. Listen to your highest thoughts. Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differs from what you’ve been told by your teachers, or read in your book, forget the words. Words are the least purveyor of Truth?’

3.       However, it is not clear about how we can distinguish our highest thoughts from our lower ones. And since his God repeatedly says that there is “no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse?’ the matter is even more complicated. Perhaps we find the answer when God says, “There is only what serves you, and what does not?’ Thus, our highest thoughts turn out to be those that serve us the best. Make no mistake; we are our own best authority.’6

4.       Leaving aside the contradiction that God does not speak in words but feelings we must ask: why is this God so approving of all of our lifestyles, beliefs, and values? To no one’s surprise, this God is exactly everything we want him/her/it to be.

5.       This God defines no sin, offers no reproof, tenders no judgment. In fact, there is no right or wrong! After all, in a world without a transcendent God, the word evil is emptied of all meaning. This God has been thoroughly domesti­cated; as someone has said, we keep cows for milk, sheep for wool, and God to give us continual affirmation and acceptance.

6.       How can we accept the “God of my personal self-authentication” in light of Isaiah’s warning: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight” (Isa. 5:20—21).

7.       We might add, woe to those who see themselves in a mirror and proclaim that they have seen God! 

     E. The God of My Near-Death Experience 

1.       Betty Eadie represents that group of individuals who claim to have learned what God is like through a near-death experience. In her book Embraced by the Light, she tells about meeting Christ in the twilight zone between life and death; she even dedicates her book to Him.

2.       Now, she says, she knows there will be no judgment at death, just glad admission to the realm that can be best described as a place where everyone is nice. She appeals to the desires of all of us to enter Beulah Land, no questions asked.17 We also learn that the world is not filled with tragedy as most of us suppose, for humans are not sinful crea­tures after all.

3.       But how can we believe in the nonjudgmental God of near-death experiences when Jesus predicted that all the dead would be raised and “those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:29)?

4.       Ideas similar to Eadie’s are found in other popular books, such as The Celestine Prophecy and A Return to Love. They have common themes: when I encounter God, I am encountering an undefined being who is loving and affirming of who I am. I am a co creator with God, I participate in the divine; evil is illusionary, and we are all on our way in evolutionary transformation. Such pantheistic ideas, the argument goes, connect us with the ancient masters, and at the end of the day, God is whatever helps me achieve my potential. Such books reduce reli­gion to therapy, and the study of God to little more than a study of myself.

5.       Listen to Jeremiah’s cryptic description of such idolatry: “Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good” (Jer. 10:5).

6.       In this passage, a couple of characteristics of idols are evident.

a.       First, they must be carried—an idol allows me to remain at the center of my life, and my loyalties are always under my control.

b.       Second, I can make my idol any shape I desire, and yours can differ from mine; it becomes whatever I make it to be.

c.     I can credit it with mystery, with magic, and with meanings derived from my own mind. In the end, since I manufacture reality, I am my own god. 

CLOSING :

So when we construct an idea of God “from man upward” we must, of course, disregard any claims for truth. After all, the God you construct might be entirely different from mine. Hitler had his God and you have yours. Adherents of these new kinds of “faith” can go on triumphantly, fabricating as many conceptions of God as there are cravings in the world. Twenty years ago we heard, “If it feels good, do it?’ Today, it is “If it feels good, believe it.”

C. S. Lewis said it more accurately than anyone: “The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you.”’9 The Bible teaches that God created man in His own image; man now attempts to return the favor. No wonder we read of idolaters, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18). 

Let us resolve to meditate on the self-revelation of God given in His Word. We will learned that God is hidden and far off, but also near, will­ing to meet the deepest needs of the human soul. If He stands apart from us because of His holiness, He also stands apart because of His mercy.

I’ve often reflected on Psalm 42, and I encourage you to read it as a personal response to God’s invitation to “seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isa. 55:6). Here are a few verses from the psalm, though I hope you read the entire passage in your Bible: 

Psalm 42:1-2  As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.   2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?  

Psalm 42:5  Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.     

Before us lies a challenge. We want to know God, but how do we approach Him? What do we bring that we might be accepted? Let’s continue our journey as we look into the pages of this book to discover the true and living God.

 

Lie 1

Lie 1 - God is What You Want Him to Be

 

Intro.: When a coalition of armies outnumbered King Jehoshaphat, he knew that his hope had to be in God alone. In desperation he prayed, “

2 Chronicles 20:12 “ O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. ” . He knew that our great­est need is always to see God. The clearer our vision of Him, the more compelling our motivation to trust, obedience, and worship. A. W. Tozer was right when he said that “what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.” 

But in what God shall we believe? 

1.       Although opinion polls tell us that 92 percent of Americans believe in God, the God of the Bible is not who they have in mind. According to journalist Chris Stamper, that deity “looks less and less like the one true God and more and more like the star of a do-it-yourself gospel pulled off a tray at the postmodern cafeteria” This generation is through with a belief in a transcendent deity who could actually mess with our lives, rearrange our priorities, and force us to deal with that horrid concept, sin.

2.       Our generation chooses instead to meet its spiritual needs by shopping for a faith that has fragments of Christianity mixed with Scientology, Buddhism, and any number of notions derived from “personal experience’ Thus, although an overwhelming number of people will continue to say they believe in God, their conception of God will be as diverse as the items in a shopping mall.

3.       Nietzsche was right: once God was declared dead, a “rain of gods” followed, with everyone worshiping his/her deity of choice.

4.       These trends are understandable given our cultural drift; what is most lamentable is that such skewed notions of God also exist within the professing church.

5.       The grand vision of God given to us by the writ­ers of Scripture has, to a great extent, been lost. What we have in its place is an emphasis on “felt needs” and “health and wealth.” Worse, some who still want to be known as evangelicals deny that God knows the future, or that we must be saved only through faith in Christ.

6.       Many churchgoers derive their understanding of God as much from popular culture as from the Scriptures. They do not reject Christianity outright but refine it to fit in with the pluralism of today’s “feel good” religion.

7.       If the Christian church could be aroused to heed the voice of God, quite possibly our entire indulgent culture might rouse itself and take a second look at its moral and spiritual malaise. But it must begin with the church, individuals like ourselves who are will­ing to return to the God of the Scriptures

8.       What convictions must we hold to.

a.                First, we must derive our knowledge of God from the Bible alone, and not from personal preferences or experiences.

b.                My second conviction is that the clearer we see God, the clearer we shall see ourselves. Calvin was right when he said that no man can know himself unless he first knows God. In the presence of the Almighty, the yardstick by which we measure our own goodness is finally revealed. Consequently we shall quickly confess, as have the saints before us, “Woe to me! ... I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Loiu Almighty” (Isa. 6:5). Thankfully, God does not leave us “ruined” but extends the healing of His loving mercy and grace.

c.                 Third, the better we know God, the more fervently we shall worship Him. When Job learned that his ten children were killed in a windstorm, he turned to God and worshiped. Keep in mind that at this point in his spiritual journey, he had no idea why this happened. Yet we read: 

Job 1:20-21  Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,  21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.  

Lesson:  

Intro: Art Linkletter saw a small boy scrawling wildly on a sheet of paper. “What are you drawing?” Linkletter asked.

“I’m drawing a picture of God.”

“You can’t do that, because nobody knows what God looks like’ “They will when I’m finished,” the boy confidently replied.

§          What does God look like? Can we draw our own portrait of Him?

§          Whether we want to admit it or not, we are born to seek meaning, made to hunger for the spiritual; and behind those cravings is our search for God. The protagonist in a Carly Simon song traced his own spiritual journey from the halls of Cambridge to life in the country only to conclude:

 

Now you run a bookstore And you have taken on a wife

And wear patches on your elbows And you live an easy life.

But are you finally satisfied? Is it what you were lookin’ for?

Or does it sneak up on you That there might be something more?1

 

§          Yes, we all hope for “something more’ and throughout the ages, some of the greatest minds have believed that humankind could experience “something more” only by finding God: It is “A raging, inextinguishable thirst!”

§          Perhaps the Psalms give us the most eloquent description of this “raging thirst”: “

§          Psalm 42:1  As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.  ” ; “

§          Psalm 63:1   O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;   ”

§         Mankind has always sought God, but in our pluralistic age, we must ask, which God shall we seek? Where shall we find Him? And how shall we know that we have found Him? 

1. FROM GOD TO IDOLS 

A.       “I believe in God” is perhaps one of the most meaningless statements we can make today.

1.       The word God has become a canvas on which each is free to paint his own portrait of the divine; like the boy scribbling at his desk, we can draw God according to whatever specifications we please.

2.       For some He is “psychic energy”; for others He is “whatever is stronger than I am” or “an inner power to lead us to deeper consciousness’

3.       To say “I believe in God” might simply mean that we are seeing ourselves in a full-length mirror.

B.     So how shall we begin our journey to find God?

1.       The Swiss theologian Karl Barth was right when he said there are only two ways to attain a knowledge of God: one is to begin with man and reason upward; the other is to begin with God and accept His revelation to us.

2.       For the moment, we are going to begin with man and reason upward. We will uncover some concepts of God that are unworthy of Him: ideas constructed from within the heart of man, idolatrous images manufactured from the raw desires of the human mind.  An illusion of a safer deity, and so we have pared God down to more manageable pro­portions.”

3.       Whenever we begin with man and reason upward, we manufacture an idol. Our temptation is to invite ideas of God into our minds that are either just wrong or are notions that diminish Him. Idolatry is more than dancing around a statue of silver or gold; it is constructing a men­tal idea of a deity that bears little resemblance to the God who actually exists. Idolatry is giving respectability to our own opinions of God, formed after our likeness. Idolatry is fashioning an idea of God accord­ing to our inclinations and preferences. It is to pare God down to “more manageable proportions?’

4.       In the Old Testament, the psalm-writer contrasted idols with the God he had come to know through personal revelation. Notice the difference: 

Psalm 115:3-8  But our God is in the heavens: he hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. 4 Their idols are silver and gold, the work of men’s hands. 5 They have mouths, but they speak not: eyes have they, but they see not: 6 They have ears, but they hear not: noses have they, but they smell not: 7 They have hands, but they handle not: feet have they, but they walk not: neither speak they through their throat. 8 They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. 

C.There are reasons why we prefer our own ideas about God.

1.       The Israelites made the golden calf because they became impatient when Moses lingered on the mountain. The delay made them nervous and they wondered whether he would ever return: “As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him” (Exod. 32:1). God seemed distant and uninvolved; therefore they sought a more present, more realistic god. They fashioned a calf they could see, touch, and carry—a god of “manageable proportions?’

2.       This is the first reason why we have so many idolatrous ideas of God today: we are impatient with His silence in this confused age. 

a.      We think that if God is all-powerful, He would put an end to the suffering of this world, so we construct a god who puts up with evil for the same reasons we do: he can do very little about it. Or else we turn away from reality and say that evil does not exist.

b.      Let’s honestly admit that a growing number of Americans think that the church is irrelevant. Well, that means that the Christian God is seen as irrelevant.

c.       What is more, the God of the Bible is exclusive; He appears so demanding that the moment you become acquainted with Him, He begins to raise “sin issues.” And because we resent such intrusion, we prefer a God we can manage, not an omnipotent God, but an accepting deity committed to helping us fulfill our human potential.

3.       So a second motivation for idolatry is that we want a God who is more tolerant of us, less demanding, less “judgmental.”

a.      When a friend of mine left his wife to live with another woman, he withdrew from his friends at the church and formed new friendships in bars and sports complexes. He felt better associating with people who could accept his choices without judging; he wanted to be affirmed, rather than rebuked, for the “courage” to leave his wife. Just so, we want a God who will not mess with the core of our lives.

b.      A commitment to individualism fuels our idolatrous nature. Americans, nurtured on consumerism, go “god shopping” at a spiri­tual smorgasbord, trying to find a deity that is best suited to their tastes. This cafeteria image is very important: when I select the entrees to suit my tastes, I remain in charge. Millions of Americans say with Thomas Paine, “My mind is my church.”

c.       Of course this form of mental idolatry is not a new phenomenon. Centuries ago Asaph recorded these words from God: “These things you have done and kept silent; you thought that I was altogether like you. But I will rebuke you and accuse you to your face” (Ps. 50:2 1). Yes, even today, we think that God is like unto us.

d.      So, the essence of idolatry is to entertain wrong thoughts about God. When we construct an idea of God from our imaginations, this idolatry of the heart is just as bad as idolatry of the hand. The prophet Ezekiel had a penetrating message for this kind of idolaters: “Then the word of the Loiw came to me: ‘Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces”’ (Ezek. 14:2—3, emphasis mine).

e.      “Idols in their hearts”! “Stumbling blocks before their faces”! No wonder Calvin said that the human mind is an idol factory!

f.        Join me as I explore how our ideas of God affect the way we think, the way we worship, and the way we live. I’m convinced that if our minds are open, our investigation will change the way we see God; and of necessity, it will change the way we see ourselves. And we will be led to seek the true God with all of our hearts.

g.      Let’s take a quick tour of some of the idols of modern culture. Let’s try to grasp how tempting it is to construct an idea of God based on our own desires and interests. 

2. IDOLS FOR DESTRUCTION 

Of course, some modern conceptions of God are not entirely wrong, just skewed; others are as far from reality as one can travel. Once we assume that we can construct an idea of God beginning with man, that is, “from the bottom up~’ anything is possible. We are capable of doing this even with our Bible in one hand and a personal agenda in the other. 

A. The God of My Health and Wealth 

1.       Given our preoccupation with success, money, and leisure, we should not be surprised that a special Western god has emerged in the last decades.

2.       This concept of God is purported to have been drawn from the Bible, but it reflects American capitalism more than a serious considera­tion of biblical texts.

3.       This God becomes our financial adviser, our ATM, our consultant.

4.       Gloria Copeland, wife of minister Kenneth Copeland, has written, “The Word of God simply reveals that lack and poverty are not in line with God’s will for the obedient... . Allow the Holy Spirit to minister the truth to your spirit until you know beyond a doubt that God’s will is Prosperity77 She is talking about diamonds, BMWs, and a new house—not spiritual riches.

5.       This gospel could not have been preached in early Rome, nor today can it be preached in Haiti, Belarus, or Angola. It would be difficult indeed to convince the martyrs of the church that it was actually their God-given right to be healthy and prosperous; they would have been content with poverty, if only they had been delivered from the lion’s mouth or the assassin’s sword.

6.       The “God of my health and wealth” might purport to be based on the Bible, but it is a skewed interpretation that has left thou­sands of disillusioned people in its wake.

7.      How can we believe in such a God when Jesus said, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head” (Matt. 8:20)? And Paul, writing from prison, said, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances” (Phil. 4:11)

 

B. The God of My Gender 

1.       Radical feminists seek to refashion God according to their desires and inclinations. Here is the argument: God is represented in the Bible as male; males oppress females; thus the biblical model is to blame for this oppres­sion. As long as God is male and seen as our “Father’ we give tacit approval to male dominance. To put it simply: if God is male, males are God.

2.       In order to eradicate this image, we must redefine God as female so that we have a deity in step with the feminist cause. Thus Rosemary Radford Ruether, perhaps the leading feminist writer, defines her god­dess as “the Primal Matrix, the great womb within which all things, gods and humans, sky, earth, human and nonhuman beings are generated.”’2

3.       Some religious denominations now use lectionaries, hymnals, and Bibles that have “inclusive” language that eliminates all male references to God. Where the title “King” is applied to God, they add the word Queen; God as Father is translated “father and mother’ or just “mother?’ Thus the Scriptures are rewritten to serve the feminist agenda.

4.       Let’s agree that many men have abused women; males have misused their authority and have put their own needs first. Women have often been unfairly discriminated against in our churches and in the work­place. But do we give God a makeover to address these concerns?

5.       Second, in marriage God designated male headship to demonstrate the relationship of Christ and the church. Husbands are to be Christ to their wives, exercising servant-leadership; wives, in turn, are to play the role of the church, living under the authority of their husbands. Given this model, God is represented in the Scripture as male. 

C. The “God of my sexual preference”

1.       A related version is the “God of my sexual preference” theology. This is the view that God approves of my sexual lifestyle, no matter what it might be.

2.       There is growing literature on “gay theology’ where gay per­sons have reinterpreted the Scriptures to justify homosexual relation­ships; they worship God, confident that their sexual preference is of no consequence to Him.

3.       How can we accept the “God of my sexual preference” when Jesus upheld the strict Old Testament Law? “Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19). 

     D. The God of My Personal Self-Authentication 

1.       Lying at the heart of these and other misconceptions is the deeper belief in the “God of my personal self-authentication” theology.

2.       According to this belief, God says we are not to look to authoritative sources for “the truth about God?’ Instead, God says, “Listen to your feelings. Listen to your highest thoughts. Listen to your experience. Whenever any one of these differs from what you’ve been told by your teachers, or read in your book, forget the words. Words are the least purveyor of Truth?’

3.       However, it is not clear about how we can distinguish our highest thoughts from our lower ones. And since his God repeatedly says that there is “no such thing as right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse?’ the matter is even more complicated. Perhaps we find the answer when God says, “There is only what serves you, and what does not?’ Thus, our highest thoughts turn out to be those that serve us the best. Make no mistake; we are our own best authority.’6

4.       Leaving aside the contradiction that God does not speak in words but feelings we must ask: why is this God so approving of all of our lifestyles, beliefs, and values? To no one’s surprise, this God is exactly everything we want him/her/it to be.

5.       This God defines no sin, offers no reproof, tenders no judgment. In fact, there is no right or wrong! After all, in a world without a transcendent God, the word evil is emptied of all meaning. This God has been thoroughly domesti­cated; as someone has said, we keep cows for milk, sheep for wool, and God to give us continual affirmation and acceptance.

6.       How can we accept the “God of my personal self-authentication” in light of Isaiah’s warning: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight” (Isa. 5:20—21).

7.       We might add, woe to those who see themselves in a mirror and proclaim that they have seen God! 

     E. The God of My Near-Death Experience 

1.       Betty Eadie represents that group of individuals who claim to have learned what God is like through a near-death experience. In her book Embraced by the Light, she tells about meeting Christ in the twilight zone between life and death; she even dedicates her book to Him.

2.       Now, she says, she knows there will be no judgment at death, just glad admission to the realm that can be best described as a place where everyone is nice. She appeals to the desires of all of us to enter Beulah Land, no questions asked.17 We also learn that the world is not filled with tragedy as most of us suppose, for humans are not sinful crea­tures after all.

3.       But how can we believe in the nonjudgmental God of near-death experiences when Jesus predicted that all the dead would be raised and “those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned” (John 5:29)?

4.       Ideas similar to Eadie’s are found in other popular books, such as The Celestine Prophecy and A Return to Love. They have common themes: when I encounter God, I am encountering an undefined being who is loving and affirming of who I am. I am a co creator with God, I participate in the divine; evil is illusionary, and we are all on our way in evolutionary transformation. Such pantheistic ideas, the argument goes, connect us with the ancient masters, and at the end of the day, God is whatever helps me achieve my potential. Such books reduce reli­gion to therapy, and the study of God to little more than a study of myself.

5.       Listen to Jeremiah’s cryptic description of such idolatry: “Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good” (Jer. 10:5).

6.       In this passage, a couple of characteristics of idols are evident.

a.       First, they must be carried—an idol allows me to remain at the center of my life, and my loyalties are always under my control.

b.       Second, I can make my idol any shape I desire, and yours can differ from mine; it becomes whatever I make it to be.

c.     I can credit it with mystery, with magic, and with meanings derived from my own mind. In the end, since I manufacture reality, I am my own god. 

CLOSING :

So when we construct an idea of God “from man upward” we must, of course, disregard any claims for truth. After all, the God you construct might be entirely different from mine. Hitler had his God and you have yours. Adherents of these new kinds of “faith” can go on triumphantly, fabricating as many conceptions of God as there are cravings in the world. Twenty years ago we heard, “If it feels good, do it?’ Today, it is “If it feels good, believe it.”

C. S. Lewis said it more accurately than anyone: “The Pantheist’s God does nothing, demands nothing. He is there if you wish for Him, like a book on a shelf. He will not pursue you.”’9 The Bible teaches that God created man in His own image; man now attempts to return the favor. No wonder we read of idolaters, “There is no fear of God before their eyes” (Rom. 3:18). 

Let us resolve to meditate on the self-revelation of God given in His Word. We will learned that God is hidden and far off, but also near, will­ing to meet the deepest needs of the human soul. If He stands apart from us because of His holiness, He also stands apart because of His mercy.

I’ve often reflected on Psalm 42, and I encourage you to read it as a personal response to God’s invitation to “seek the Lord while he may be found” (Isa. 55:6). Here are a few verses from the psalm, though I hope you read the entire passage in your Bible: 

Psalm 42:1-2  As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.   2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?  

Psalm 42:5  Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.     

Before us lies a challenge. We want to know God, but how do we approach Him? What do we bring that we might be accepted? Let’s continue our journey as we look into the pages of this book to discover the true and living God.

 

Lie 1

Lie 1 - God is What You Want Him to Be

 

Intro.: When a coalition of armies outnumbered King Jehoshaphat, he knew that his hope had to be in God alone. In desperation he prayed, “

2 Chronicles 20:12 “ O our God, wilt thou not judge them? for we have no might against this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our eyes are upon thee. ” . He knew that our great­est need is always to see God. The clearer our vision of Him, the more compelling our motivation to trust, obedience, and worship. A. W. Tozer was right when he said that “what we believe about God is the most important thing about us.” 

But in what God shall we believe? 

1.       Although opinion polls tell us that 92 percent of Americans believe in God, the God of the Bible is not who they have in mind. According to journalist Chris Stamper, that deity “looks less and less like the one true God and more and more like the star of a do-it-yourself gospel pulled off a tray at the postmodern cafeteria” This generation is through with a belief in a transcendent deity who could actually mess with our lives, rearrange our priorities, and force us to deal with that horrid concept, sin.

2.       Our generation chooses instead to meet its spiritual needs by shopping for a faith that has fragments of Christianity mixed with Scientology, Buddhism, and any number of notions derived from “personal experience’ Thus, although an overwhelming number of people will continue to say they believe in God, their conception of God will be as diverse as the items in a shopping mall.

3.       Nietzsche was right: once God was declared dead, a “rain of gods” followed, with everyone worshiping his/her deity of choice.

4.       These trends are understandable given our cultural drift; what is most lamentable is that such skewed notions of God also exist within the professing church.

5.       The grand vision of God given to us by the writ­ers of Scripture has, to a great extent, been lost. What we have in its place is an emphasis on “felt needs” and “health and wealth.” Worse, some who still want to be known as evangelicals deny that God knows the future, or that we must be saved only through faith in Christ.

6.       Many churchgoers derive their understanding of God as much from popular culture as from the Scriptures. They do not reject Christianity outright but refine it to fit in with the pluralism of today’s “feel good” religion.

7.       If the Christian church could be aroused to heed the voice of God, quite possibly our entire indulgent culture might rouse itself and take a second look at its moral and spiritual malaise. But it must begin with the church, individuals like ourselves who are will­ing to return to the God of the Scriptures

8.       What convictions must we hold to.

a.                First, we must derive our knowledge of God from the Bible alone, and not from personal preferences or experiences.

b.                My second conviction is that the clearer we see God, the clearer we shall see ourselves. Calvin was right when he said that no man can know himself unless he first knows God. In the presence of the Almighty, the yardstick by which we measure our own goodness is finally revealed. Consequently we shall quickly confess, as have the saints before us, “Woe to me! ... I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Loiu Almighty” (Isa. 6:5). Thankfully, God does not leave us “ruined” but extends the healing of His loving mercy and grace.

c.                 Third, the better we know God, the more fervently we shall worship Him. When Job learned that his ten children were killed in a windstorm, he turned to God and worshiped. Keep in mind that at this point in his spiritual journey, he had no idea why this happened. Yet we read: 

Job 1:20-21  Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,  21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.  

Lesson:  

Intro: Art Linkletter saw a small boy scrawling wildly on a sheet of paper. “What are you drawing?” Linkletter asked.

“I’m drawing a picture of God.”

“You can’t do that, because nobody knows what God looks like’ “They will when I’m finished,” the boy confidently replied.

§          What does God look like? Can we draw our own portrait of Him?

§          Whether we want to admit it or not, we are born to seek meaning, made to hunger for the spiritual; and behind those cravings is our search for God. The protagonist in a Carly Simon song traced his own spiritual journey from the halls of Cambridge to life in the country only to conclude:

 

Now you run a bookstore And you have taken on a wife

And wear patches on your elbows And you live an easy life.

But are you finally satisfied? Is it what you were lookin’ for?

Or does it sneak up on you That there might be something more?1

 

§          Yes, we all hope for “something more’ and throughout the ages, some of the greatest minds have believed that humankind could experience “something more” only by finding God: It is “A raging, inextinguishable thirst!”

§          Perhaps the Psalms give us the most eloquent description of this “raging thirst”: “

§          Psalm 42:1  As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.  ” ; “

§          Psalm 63:1   O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is;   ”

§