The Unknown God Part II

(click on the pic to listen) There’s the story of a man named Urbaal, who was a farmer living in about 2200 B.C.  He worshipped two gods, one a god of death, the other a goddess of fertility.

One day, the temple priest tell Urbaal to bring his young son to the temple for sacrifice – if he wants a good crops. Urbaal obeys, and on the appointed day drags his wife and boy to the scene of the boys “religious execution” by fire to the god of death.

After the sacrifice of Urbaal’s boy, and several others, the priests announce that one of the fathers will spend the next week in the temple with a new temple prostitute. Urbaal’s wife is stunned as she notices a desire written more intensely across his face than she had before, and she is overwhelmed to see him eagerly lunge forward when his name is called.

The ceremony over, she walks out of the temple her head swimming, concluding, that “if he had different gods, he would have been a different man.”

We learned in the last blog entry that we are pretty good at god making. We can make a god out of anything.  We may not physically sacrifice our children or run off to a new temple prostitute for these gods but we spend countless hours worshipping them. The people around that love us are saying, “if only he had worshipped different gods, he would have been a different man.” We also learned that the real question is not whether we create other Gods but what are doing about the God’s we are creating.

Commandment number two says this, Exodus 20:4 –   “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea.

In this blog entry I will also be referring to Exodus 32. The following verses are the most comical of the story: click here to read all of the story.

Exodus 32: 22-24

 22 “Don’t get so upset, my lord,” Aaron replied. “You yourself know how evil these people are. 23 They said to me, ‘Make us gods who will lead us. We don’t know what happened to this fellow Moses, who brought us here from the land of Egypt.’ 24 So I told them, ‘Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off.’ When they brought it to me, I simply threw it into the fire—and out came this calf!”

Before this scene lets look at what the Israelites experienced before they built this golden calf. They experienced freedom from slavery in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, water from a rock in the middle of dessert, and God supplied them with food for forty years. Moses goes up the mountain to be with God for forty days. While he is up there he gets the ten commandments. What were the people doing while Moses was getting the ten commandments. They were building a golden calf because they were bored and tired of waiting for Moses. If you know anything about the Israelites they went from obeying God to not of obeying God. You could say that they were fickle followers. They had experienced and seen the power of God time and time again but yet they were powerless when it came to trying to obey Him.

This was their first problem — trying. It was with human effort they tried to obey Him. They were powerless to obey him. Worshipping the wrong God didn’t help them either.

Why were they so powerless to obey?  The same reasons why we are so powerless to obey.

1. We are worshipping God but it’s not Him.

We are obeying the god(s) we are worshipping but they are the wrong God. If you are worshipping the wrong God you are going to be powerless no matter how much you obey. They are powerless because we have created them. Could it be the reason we never experience the power of God in our life is because we are worshipping a fake God?

It is different for everybody but there are things in our lives one looks and you say If I had that. I will be okay. The only way you can tell you are worshipping the wrong God is when God allows problems to come into your life and you begin to see you can’t get to that “thing”, that one “thing” that would bring you peace. You can’t get there. There is a ceiling. A wall. When you can’t get to it you begin to realize what really is running your life.

2. We don’t trust Him.

Why? Because we don’t know Him. We believe THAT God will do but do we put our trust IN him? It is possible to know THAT Jesus lived and died for you without ever trusting IN Him. We only trust in people that we know.

There is a story in the book called, “The Case for Christianity”. The story describes a police officer who faced a gun point-blank which a parolee was  holding. In his mind he knew that the bullet proof vest would protect him from serious injury and death. But his knowledge about his vest wasn’t going to save him in this moment. His knowledge about his vest was put to the test. The man fired the gun point-blank at his chest. He lived to tell the story. Now, not only did he know that the vest would protect him, he could put his trust in it as well.

This is true of the people in Israel in Exodus 32. They believe “THAT” there was a God and He did all those incredible things for them. Despite the fact that He freed them, fed them, and led them. They still built a golden calf. Despite all the stuff God did for them they still struggled to put their trust IN Him. So instead of trusting in Him, they built their own God.

When we make this personal we all could agree that we know a lot about Him. But if we are honest, who do you “FUNCTIONALLY” (meaning “really, really”) put your trust in? Many Christians say they put their trust in God. It doesn’t matter what you say with your lips. We must ask an honest question: WHAT DOES YOUR HEART REALLY RELY ON? Is there anything you are seeking to get only what God can give? The gods we make up have no power to give us the things we are all longing for:

peace, joy, comfort, feeling of knowing you are loved

When we put our trust in these gods we created, we are giving them power.  Whatever or whoever we put our trust in we are giving them power over our lives.

God is the only one who can empower you. This is why I believe why some many Christians are powerless. They are putting their trust in a God doesn’t exist.

So what do we do?

Look at Colossians 3:5-11

⁵ So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. ⁶ Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. ⁷ You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. ⁸ But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. ⁹ Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. ¹⁰ Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. ¹¹ In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile,circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized,slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.

a. Have nothing to do with them. Once you discover what fake God is controlling your life, have nothing to do with it

b. Get rid of them. What do you when your house and/or garage get cluttered with stuff? You get rid of it.

b. Put on your new nature. This is a daily thing. When we get up in the morning, instead of letting the weather, circumstances, or your job dictate your day, tell the Lord, “Here I am.” This is your day.

The bottom line is that we are asked to put to death the fake Gods we worship.

Simple but not easy.

Like Urbaal in the beginning of this blog entry, we would be a different person if we would worship the real God.

Just ask your friends and family.