Idols in the Heart

Lightly edited for readability while preserving the speaker’s meaning and substantive statements.

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   So, we come to you today. God, we praise your name. We worship you. We give you the glory and the praise and the honor. You're the only true God, Yahweh, Jehovah, Elohim, the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. God in the flesh who died on the cross for our sins, who rose from the dead. The only way for forgiveness, the only way to eternal life, the only way to heaven. We exalt your name, Jesus. We thank you, Lord, for your Holy Spirit. We thank you that you've given us the truth in your word, in the Bible. Lord, we thank you for it. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Hallelujah. You may be seated this morning. Hallelujah. But, we welcome everyone listening by Blog Talk Radio, by mixlr.com, uh by Facebook live. Those of you here this morning, good to have you. Fire and Grace Church, I'm Pastor Dean Odle. We're going to get in the word for a little bit this morning. Um entitled this morning idols in the heart. Want everybody to turn with me. First, we'll start in Ezekiel chapter 14. Are you with me? Everybody get there. Either to your Bible or your Bible app or whatever you're going to use. Now, this message is a little different today. Um you know, we we know about idols. We think we know anyway. I don't know if any of you ever been to a country where they worship idols. I have. I've seen it with my own eyes. In the year 2000 I went to the island of Mauritius, which is a long way from here. Actually, you fly over You go to fly to South Africa, fly another 5 hours cross Madagascar out into the middle of the Indian Ocean. There's two little islands out there. One's called Reunion, the other one's called Mauritius. Actually, it's the home of the dodo bird, you know, that's extinct, right? That was the only place in the world it was, and it went extinct because sailors used to stop there, English, Dutch, French sailing around the Horn of Africa, that was a stopping point, and they would the poor dodo bird couldn't fly. So, they'd grab a stick and hit it over the head, and that'd be dinner. So, the dodo bird went extinct, but the island of Mauritius is a majority Hindu country.

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   I mean, they worship, you know, Hindus worship millions of gods. They worship Kali, Krishna, Vishnu. Uh there's so many of them, different gods. And when I was there, it was heartbreaking to see people, sincere people with great devotion. I saw women weeping their eyes out taking food, which, you know, a lot of them are very poor, but they would take food offerings out to these statues of these different Hindu gods. And it was quite heartbreaking to see when people have their devotion and their worship uh misguided, when they're deceived. Uh we know that it's obvious that Roman Catholics, and I I don't care if I offend Roman Catholicism, but Roman Catholicism is full of idolatry. The Bible says that we shall not make any graven images of anything that is in heaven, in earth, or under the earth to bow down to it. In Roman Catholicism, they have statues of Mary and Peter and angels and saints, and they pray to those things, and they bow to them. In fact, the picture I used for Mixlr and on Facebook this morning for this service was Pope John Paul II bowing before a statue of Mary. That is idolatry. That is the outward acts of idolatry. Now, this is what a lot of people don't know about idolatry, either. They don't know that idolatry, according to the New Testament, we'll turn there in a minute, we'll look at some verses, but idolatry is a sin that will separate you from God. It is a sin unto eternal death that will separate you from God and put you in hell if you practice it habitually. Okay? That's in 1 Corinthians chapter 5. It's in Revelation 21. Idolatry is serious with God. In fact, it's one of the first things that he hates the most is whenever we put something ahead of him. When something else is first. The first commandment we are to keep, according to Jesus, the Gospel of Matthew, he says we're to love the Lord, our God, our creator, Jehovah, Yahweh, the God of the Bible, we're to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then we're to love our neighbors as ourselves. So, idolatry is a serious issue, right? The outward idolatry. Paul dealt with it everywhere he went in the pagan world, in the Greek world, they would worship Diana, the queen of heaven. That's what they call Mary now, the queen of heaven, same thing they called Diana. But, we're going to tell you something a little a little more deep this morning. Because even in the Old Testament, everybody thinks the Old Testament only dealt with the outward and not with the inward, with the heart. But even in the Old Testament, the God spoke through Ezekiel to speak to the elders and to tell them,

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   "You have idols in your heart. Not statues of stone or brass or gold or silver, but you have idols in your heart." And when you have idols in your heart, you will not be able to hear properly from God. You will not be able to discern what God is saying to you. And you will be misled. So, let's read this. And let's see if we have idols in our heart this morning, what idols we have. Ezekiel 14:1. Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me. Not the heathen, not the Gentiles, not those who didn't know about God and the Bible. These were God's people. He said, "Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me and sat before me. And the word of the Lord came unto me saying, 'Son of man, these men have set up idols in their heart and put the stumbling block of their iniquity before their face. Should I be inquired of at all by them?' Meaning what God's saying, should they come to me at all? Should they come come to a prophet for a word? Should they come to church to hear a message? Should they come and pray to me?" The Lord's saying, should they even come to me at all? Since I'm not first in their life, why should I Why should I answer their prayers? A lot of people wonder why God didn't answer their prayers. I'm going to tell you because he's not first in their life. I know that might hurt some feelings out there. But let's keep reading. Verse 4. "Therefore, speak unto them and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, every man of the house of Israel my people is what he's saying. That setteth up his idols in his heart and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and cometh to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols. Now, let me break that down. What he's saying is if you have idols in your heart and you come to a prophet, you want a word from God. He said, "Yeah, I'm going to answer you, all right." I'm going to answer you according to the idols that's in your heart. Basically, I'm going to tell you what you want to hear. Even if it's wrong. Uh-oh. You say, "Wait a minute now, God wouldn't do that." Yes, 2 Thessalonians chapter number two, speaking about the end times that we now live in, says this, "If you don't love the truth," says, "in that time, God will send a strong delusion that you will believe a lie." He will allow it. Now, he doesn't do it himself, but he will allow Satan, demons, and very, very slick people to deceive you and mislead you. And you will listen to it if you have idols and sin in your heart. You will be deceived. And the Lord will make sure it happens.

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   Let me tell you this, I don't care how much of the Bible you know, I don't care how close you've been to the Lord at one time or another. All of us are susceptible to being deceived if we're not very, very careful and diligent in our walk with God. It's a serious matter. I mean, Jesus said it. He said, "Many will fall away." Many, many. In fact, the Apostle Paul said it, 2 Thessalonians again, chapter two. He said, "In the last days, there will be a great falling away, great apostasy, a great abandoning of the faith of walking with the Lord in truth. Let's keep reading this. Verse 5. Well, well, let's read verse 4 again. He says, "Therefore speak unto them and say unto them, thus saith the Lord God, every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face and cometh to the prophet, I the Lord will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols, that I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols. Therefore say unto the house of Israel, or to the church, or to the people of God, thus saith the Lord God, repent, stop this is what that means, and turn away from it. Turn yourselves from your idols and turn away your faces from all your abominations. For every one of the house of Israel, or the stranger that sojourneth in Israel, which separateth himself from me and setteth up his idols in his heart and putteth the stumbling block of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet to inquire of him concerning me, I the Lord will answer him by myself. Now, listen to this. I will set my face against that man and I will make him a sign and a proverb and I will cut him off from the midst of my people, and you shall know that I am the Lord. Now, this is a serious matter. I'm going to break down a few things for you this morning. After being in the ministry now, 2017 coming up will be my 30th anniversary of preaching the gospel, of being called by God to do what I'm doing. And Mike's known me for most of those years. Mike came to my house in 1988. The Lord allowed me to lead him to Jesus and salvation. Mike was healed that night. A miraculous healing took place. And that was in 1988, man. That's a long time ago. November the 23rd. Shoo. Long time ago. But I want to tell you this. I've counseled a lot of people. And I'm going to tell you that the number one problem in people's lives, I don't care if they if they if they got a drinking problem or a drug problem or

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