Alright brethren, let's go back
now to 2 Chronicles 25. Let me just read verse 14 and
15. And it came to pass, after that Amaziah was come from the
slaughter of the Edomites, that he brought the gods of the children
of Seir and set them up to be his gods, and bowed down himself
before them and burned incense unto them. So King Amaziah went
and defeated the Edomites, the descendants of Esau. And they
had a lot of false gods, a lot of idol gods. And once he had
defeated that army, then he took those gods and he brought them
to Judah and set them up and started bowing down and worshipping
those idol gods. Verse 15, Wherefore the anger
of the Lord was kindled against Amaziah, and sent unto him a
prophet which asked him this question, Why hast thou sought
after the gods of the people which could not deliver their
own people out of thine hand? Now that's just absurd. To seek
after gods that cannot deliver their own people out of the hand
of their enemy. That's absurdity. Every sinner
who must contribute a work to his salvation, is seeking after
gods that cannot deliver their own people out of the hand of
their enemies. Now be sure to understand that
every sinner that must contribute something to his salvation, God
requires He contribute something, either at the beginning, the
middle, or the end, or all points in between. He's got to contribute
something to His salvation. That sinner is seeking after
gods that cannot deliver their own people out of the hand of
the enemy. It's a false god. Why hast thou
sought after the gods of the people which could not deliver
their own people out of thine hand? Now, let's ask this question
and let's try to answer this question just in case there's
anybody hearing this that are seeking after such gods of men. Now, to answer this, I want to
just take this question and break it into three parts. First of
all, why hast thou sought after the gods, plural. Amaziah is
like those who've heard the gospel of the true and living God, but
yet go looking at other gods. Amaziah was in the one land where
the one true and living God revealed Himself to His people. That's
where he was under the one true and living God in that one land
where God was revealing Himself. God at this point had even ceased
revealing Himself to Israel, to the ten and a half tribes
which He was calling Ephraim. But He wouldn't do that in Judah
because remember the line of the tribe of Judah, Christ is
coming through the tribe of Judah. So He kept Himself known in Judah. This is even less than had known
him before know him now. Those in Judah only. But Amaziah
was there. He was in a place where the true
and living God was declared. Just like those that are sitting
right here. But he was curious about those
gods in those nations round about him. and curious about those gods.
And so, Amaziah was willing to worship gods that couldn't deliver
their own people out of his hand, rather than the God who made
him conquer that people. Think about that. He was willing
to worship gods of a people that could not deliver their people
out of his hand, rather than worship the God who delivered
that people into his hand, which is the Lord Jehovah. to the depraved
heart. This is the evidence of the depraved
heart. Sinners are willing to consider
any of this world's gods, no matter how absurd. They are willing
to give an ear to it and consider it. But, if the Word of God is
quoted, the Word of God is declared, they are immediately ready to
doubt it and quibble about it and question it. Why is that?
Of course, man's heart is depraved. That's why. A man goes after
what he shouldn't go after by nature until God makes him go
after what he should. I remember when I was in college,
I had a lot of young friends. And that's the point where you're
out of the house, you're out from under your parents for the
first time. And so now, you know, everybody wanted to seek after
all the different gods in the world. Look into their religions
You know, and he talked about that like that was wise. You
know, when God delivered Israel into Canaan, first thing God
told them was, don't even inquire about their gods. Don't even
inquire about their gods. Because they're all fake and
phony. They're idols. Now let me ask you something.
When they went looking at all these different religions, they
were looking at all different kind of idol gods with all different
ways of salvation. Now let me ask you this question.
Would God create thousands of different religions and thousands
of images of Himself and thousands of ways to worship Him, none
of which really declare who He is? Would God do that? Do you
do that? If you want somebody to know
who you are, do you declare thousands of different images, show them
different images of yourself that aren't really the image
of you? and tell them all these different
things about you that have nothing to do with you, and show them
all these different ways they can know you that have nothing
to do with who you are. Do you do that when you're declaring
to somebody who you are? Why insult God and think God
would do that? They're idol gods. They're idol
gods. The one Lord Jehovah who saves
one way through His Son Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit is the
one and only God. He's the one and only God. Where'd
all these other gods come from? There was two men that came from
Adam. He had a bunch of other children,
but these two represent all religion in the world. There was Cain
and Abel. Abel came with blood, faith in
Christ, representing salvation by the grace of God. Cain came
with the works of the ground, the works of his own hands, representing
salvation by man's works. God rejected Cain and saved Abel. Then you go along the line and
you come to these two men named Isaac and Ishmael, born of the
one man Abraham. God said, Isaac is the one in
whom my seed shall be called. Picture Christ the Lord. Picture
of faith in Christ. Picture of salvation by grace.
He said, Ishmael is the son of a bondwoman. He's the son of
your own hand, Abraham, because you didn't believe me and you
went and had her by your bondwoman. That's the picture of works.
He's got to go. And he's the father of Muslims.
And their religion is a religion of works. Isaac is the father
of the faithful, just like Abraham. Save salvation by grace. And
you go to the next two children. You have Jacob and Esau. God
said, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. Esau's got to go. And Esau is who God sent Amaziah
to destroy the Edomites here in this passage. That's who he
went to destroy. God was with Amaziah. God was
with Judah. God was with His people. The
choice of His own choosing. But He wasn't with Esau. God
can have mercy on whom He will and pass by whom He will. That's
salvation by grace. Jacob represented salvation by
grace. Esau represented salvation by
works. There's only two kinds in the world. There's the one
true God who saves by grace and then there is all the other gods
in the world that men have made that have to have the sinner
to help them. Thus saith the Lord, the King
of Israel, and His Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, I am the first,
I am the last, beside me there is no God. He said in Isaiah
45, 6, I am the Lord and there is none else. I form the light,
I create darkness, I make peace, I create evil, I the Lord do
all these things. There is no God else beside me,
a just God and a Savior. There is none beside me. Look
unto me and be you saved. All the ends of the earth, for
I am God and there is none else. And somebody will say, well how
do you know you're right? It's called divine revelation. It's
the only way you can know. God has to reveal it to you.
If He doesn't, you know what a man will do? He'll go after
the gods. That's all he'll do. But Paul
said, for those that have been called and God's revealed Himself,
we know that an idol is nothing in the world. There is none other
God but One, for though there be that are called gods, whether
in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many,
but to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things,
and we in Him, and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things,
and we by Him. There are many religions. There's
many idle gods, yet there's but one true God who is a just God
and a Savior. Why seek ye after the gods? Now here's the next part of the
question. Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people? Why hast thou sought after the
gods of the people? Man's gods all come from man. You know, a depraved sinner knows
there's a God. That's not an issue. He knows
there's a God. But the problem is, Romans 1
says, when they knew God, they didn't bow down and worship Him
as God, but they changed God into an image likened to man
and four-footed beasts and these other things and fell down and
worshipped the creature, worshipped that which was created rather
than worshipping God the Creator. And that's all a man will do
by nature. He can do this in the finest First Baptist church
in the country and be worshiping an idol. That's of his own making. A man doesn't have to carve him
out. He's in his mind, he's in his heart. But it's the God of
the people. Isaiah 40 verse 19. Let's look
there. Isaiah 40 verse 19. You have some people who are
a little more wealthy than others and their gods look better. Verse
19, the workman melted the graven image and the goldsmith spreads
it over with gold and casts silver chain. Then you have some folks
that are a little poor, a lot more poor than that. They can't
afford gold. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooses
a tree that will not rot. He seeks unto him a cunning workman
to prepare a graven image that shall not be moved. You see here,
a man creates a god like himself, that is accommodating to himself. The rich man, he wants a God
that looks good, because he thinks he looks good, and he wants one
covered in gold. The poor man can't afford the
gold, but he knows that you don't have to have a God made out of
gold, so he just makes one out of wood, but it's good wood. It won't rot. See, this is a
principle. A man makes a God like himself.
Now again, they may not carve it out and actually make it into
an idol. It doesn't have to be carved
out to be an idol. An idol, covetousness is idolatry. To be thinking you can save yourself
by your power and your means and your works, that's covetousness. That's being covetous of the
glory of God. The glory that belongs to God
who alone saves His people. So that idol is in our hearts
by nature. I'm an idolater by nature. So
are you. So is everybody here. And if
you've not been born of God and given a new spirit, all you are
is an idolater. We can't help that. We come forth
knowing there's a God, but we're so depraved and so ruined by
nature that all we can do is imagine God to be like us and
to save like we would save. If someone came along in Judah,
let's say they came along hundreds of years after this, and some
young fellow got out of the house from his mom and dad, he decided
he wanted to explore the gods and he didn't want to go to worship,
they claimed to worship the god of Israel, he didn't want to
do that anymore. He wanted to be wiser and explore and see if there
were some other gods he might want to worship, unlike his father's
god. So he finds Amaziah's gods and he goes and worships Amaziah's
gods. And he falls for it and he thinks these are the true
gods right here. Where did those gods come from? Look back at
verse 14. It came to pass after that Amaziah
was come from the slaughter of the Edomites that he brought
the gods of the children of Seir and set them up to be his gods.
They came from a man. They came from a man. And so
here's a young man who's fallen for a god or multiple gods that
are just the product of a man. And he wants to call God's people
dummies for trusting God and believing God. God is the solitary
eternal God. Scriptures don't even try to
prove God. Scriptures just start out and say, in the beginning
God. God made man. Man didn't make God. God is the
creator. We are the creature. God doesn't
need us. We need God. This is only true concerning
one true living God revealed in this book. That's the only
one this is true of. Every other God needs you. Other gods can't spell church
without you. This God can. He don't need you. He don't need me. Him saving
His people is not adding anything to who He is. He's doing it because
He will. Because He will show His people
who He is. Scripture says in Him we live and move and have
our being. Even the vain poet Paul's day
said, we are also His offspring. You see that? He's not living
in us. That's an idol God. An idol God
lives in the man that created Him. And He moves and lives and
has His being by the man who created Him. God who is the creator,
we live in Him. And in Him, we live and move
and have our being. That's why at the appointed hour,
when God says, that's it, it's over, men die. And you can't
stop it from happening. Because God is God. And He's
the only true God. He's the only God that's so,
that's true of. So, listen to Him now. He says, I am the Lord thy God
from the land of Egypt. Thou shalt know no God but Me,
for there is no Savior beside Me. That's what God says. So, why seek after the gods,
plural, which are all of the people? Now, lastly, and this
is the absurd part. Why hast thou sought after the
gods of the people which could not deliver their own people
out of thine hand? This is the most absurd of all.
Why seek a God that can't deliver their people out of the hand
of their enemies? How can you tell if God's an
idol of man's making? How can you do it? It's really
very simple. How can you tell if the God men
claim to worship, whether they say and they worship? You know
Baal, the word Baal, that we translate as Baal. You know what
the word is? Lord. Lord. Christ said, many will say to
men that day, Lord, Lord. So just because men appear to
be worshipping the true Lord God, the true Jehovah, the true
Christ of the Bible, there's a way you can tell if they're
worshipping the true God of this Bible or they're worshipping
a God of their imagination that they call Christ Jesus the Lord.
How can you tell? If they cannot deliver their
own people out of the hand of the enemy, then they're not the
true God. They're not the true Lord Jesus
Christ. Every God that requires even one work of a man's hand
to save is an idol created by the work of a man's own hand,
by a man's own vain imagination. Every God that requires just
one work of the sinner to save is an idol created by man. Every
God that man creates requires man to do something to help him.
Every God that a man has, I don't care if he goes under the name
Christianity or Mohammed or Allah or what, every God that a man
creates requires the man to do something to help him save him.
Why? Why? It's because man cannot
create any other kind of God. He can't create a God. Man's
natural heart is enmity against God, the true God. And the only
God he can create is a God that will only allow him to do what
the man allows him to do. Because the reason man by nature
hates God is God gets all the glory and salvation, man doesn't
get any. And we come to this world by nature glory hounds,
we want the glory for ourselves. And God won't give, He won't
share His glory with another. The only idol a man can create,
the only God a man can imagine is a God that can do nothing
but what that man lets Him do. Because that man wants some glory.
You've heard this, I've heard this all my life. I grew up in
the South. I grew up in the Bible Belt. And this is so common to
hear down there. God has no hands but your hands
and no feet but your feet. Won't you let God? He wants to
save you. But you're going to have to let Him. You're going
to have to cooperate with Him. Go with me over to Isaiah 46. Listen to this. Isaiah 46 and
verse 7. God has no hands but your hands. God has no feet but your feet.
Tell me who this describes. Tell me what kind of God that
describes. Listen here. Verse 7. God says they bear Him
upon the shoulder. Their God doesn't have any hands
or feet. They bear Him upon the shoulder.
Christ bears His people on His shoulder. That's what Scripture
says. He finds His Lamb, puts it on
His shoulder and brings it home. Look here. They carry Him and
set Him in His place and He standeth. God carries His people. He sets
them in His holy habitation and they stand in Christ where He
put them. Look at this. From his place shall he not remove... This is the idol God. They bear
him upon the shoulder, they carry him and set him in his place
and he stands. And from his place he shall not remove. He can't
do anything unless man lets him do something. He can't go from
where man puts him unless man lets him go somewhere else, carries
him and puts him somewhere else. This is the God of man's imagination.
God does His will in heaven and earth and He sets the bounds
of men and it's not the other way around. Look here about an
idol. Yea, one shall cry unto him,
yet he cannot answer, nor save him out of his trouble. God hears
His people, and in Christ He saves each one of them, and none
shall be lost. Not one. Let's go to Psalm 115. Psalm 115. And look at verse 4. This is God speaking. Look at
Verse 3, Our God is in the heavens, heath done whatsoever he hath
pleased. Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but they speak
not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but
they hear not. Noses have they, but they smell
not. They have hands, but they handle not. Feet have they, but
they walk not. Neither speak they through their
throat. They that make them are likened to them. So is every
one that trusteth in them. You want a God that can't save
you? If you're dying in the ocean
and you're sinking and it's about to be the last time you bobble
down under, do you want a coast guard that comes to you that
can't save you? Do you want a coast guard to show up and say, we
don't want to offend your will? Are you willing to be saved?
Now you're going to have to make the first step toward us before
we're going to pull you out of there, you little drowning rat.
You want that kind of coast guard to show up or you want one to
show up and don't care what you think, have to knock you out
if they have to to pluck you out and save you? Show the things that are to come
hereafter that we may know that you are God. Yea, do good or
do evil that we may be dismayed and behold it together. Behold,
you are nothing and your work is nothing and abomination is
he that chooses you, God said. Understand this, salvation apart
from man's works is so despised by fallen man that his own debraved
heart will not allow him to create a God that does all the saving. He can't do it. That's why it
doesn't matter if you go half a mile up the road or if you
go on the other side of the world. Every God that is not the true
God is going to depend on you to do something to save every
one of them. Man makes his God to be like
himself. That's why every idol God man
creates cannot deliver their own people out of the hand of
their enemy unless the people help them. Man makes all his
gods to be just like him. His God can do no more than he
can do. God said this in Psalm 135, verse 18. I'm not making
this up. Listen to this. They that make
them are like unto them, and so is everyone that trusteth
in them. But the true and living God is
not like those He saves. Do you know that? The true and
living God is not like sinners that He saves. He said in Psalm
51, Thou thoughtest I was altogether such as one as Thyself, but I'm
not. He said, if I was hungry, I wouldn't
ask you. Everything on a cattle on a thousand hills belonged
to God. He said, if I needed anything, I wouldn't ask you.
The one true living God does all the delivering of His people
out of the hand of our enemies. He saves His people. His people
do not save Him or even help Him. His name should be called
Jesus, for He shall save His people from our sin if His people
just will give Him a little help. No. His name is Jesus, Savior,
for He shall save His people from their sins. End of story. End of story. The true God chose
His people before as yet there was any false gods. Look at Isaiah
43.10. Before man ever even created
a God, God already chose who He is going to save. Go to Isaiah
43.10. He said, you're my witnesses,
saith the Lord. He's talking to people that he's
called out. He said, you're my witness, saith
the Lord, my servant whom I've chosen, that you may know and
believe me and understand that I am he. Before me there was
no God formed, neither shall there be after me. Even I am
the Lord and beside me there is no Savior. I've declared and
have saved. I've showed when there was no
strange God among you. Before man ever even created
all his idol gods, God said, I already declared the end from
the beginning. Therefore, you are my witnesses,
saith the Lord, that I am God. Yea, before the day was, I am
He, and there is none that can deliver out of My hand. I will
work, and who shall let it? A true God saves His people according
to His own covenant promise. He said in 1 Kings 8.23, Lord
God of Israel, there's no God like Thee in heaven above, nor
on earth beneath, who keepeth covenant and mercy with Thy servants
that walk before Thee with all their heart." He is the one who
keeps His covenant. He doesn't depend on you to fulfill
some aspect of His covenant promise. He keeps it. That's why David
said, he's made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things
and sure because he ordered it in all things and he made it
sure by the precious blood of Christ. That's a good covenant. That's how he keeps covenant
with his people. Man's idols depend on man to
help their God to keep his covenant promise. He can't keep it unless
you help him. God makes His people alive and
He delivers us. We don't make our God alive and
deliver Him. Deuteronomy 32, 39, See now that
I, even I, am He, and there's no God with me. I kill and I
make alive. I wound and I heal. Neither is
there any that can deliver out of my hand. You think about what
I'm saying here to you now. Christ said you didn't choose
me, I chose you. And when it comes to Us knowing
Him, He said, you must be born from above. That which is born
of the flesh is flesh. That which is born of the Spirit,
Spirit. What you have to do with being born the first time, not
a thing. You don't have a thing to do
with being born again. There's no step by step to how to be
born again. God does it. That's the true
and living God. You show me a God that gives
you some step-by-step things to do to be born again, I'll
show you a God that's not a God. You show me the God who says,
I'm the one who gives my people life, I quicken my people's life
and I don't need any help. I say that's the true God right
there. God's known by the judgment He executes in the earth. That's
what the psalmist said. Tell me, find me one of these
idol gods anywhere in this world. Here is where the rubber meets
the road right here. This is what the gospel is all about. You
find me one God anywhere that is a just God and a Savior. Find me a God that talks anything
and all about upholding a perfect righteousness so that He is just
while at the same time shows mercy to His people and does
not do it at the expense of His justice. There is no God like
that anywhere in the world. Because men are unrighteous by
nature, they can't even imagine a God who is absolutely perfectly
righteous, who is just and a Savior. Man can't create that God. No
man ever figured out the dilemma on how God could be just and
honor His law and kill everybody on this earth that sinned in
Adam and yet at the same time save some of them and show mercy. No man could figure that dilemma
out. Whenever Darius was going to
have to cast Daniel into the den, that was the point, that
was the picture there. He couldn't figure it out. He
thought, I want to show this man mercy. But if I show him
mercy, my law won't be upheld. How can I uphold my law and show
Daniel mercy? And he labored all night long
and couldn't figure it out. Finally he said, just throw him
in the lion's den. I'm going to uphold my law, throw
him in. And Christ came and saved him. And you know what Christ
did later? Christ said, here's how that
dilemma is solved, Darius. I'm going to go to the cross.
God in human flesh, and I'm going to bear His sin, and I'm going
to become worthy of death by bearing His sin, and I'm going
to go under the sword of God's justice, and God's going to slay
me justly, and everybody I'm dying for is going to die when
I die. And thereby God's just, and at the same time, everybody
I die for is justified of all their sins, so the law has nothing
else to say to them. That's how I'm a just God and
a Savior. Man never thought up that. Man's never made a... I'll
prove it to you. If you're out there seeking idol
gods, find me one of them. Find me one of them that mentions
anything about what I just said to you. Find me one of them that
doesn't. Idol gods are unjust just like the unjust men that
make them. There's no righteousness involved. It's not about showing
the righteousness of their god. Their god's not righteous because
the man that made them is not righteous. You won't find it.
That ought to end it for a man. And it will end it if God makes
it clear to you in your heart. That would be the end of the
discussion. You realize, if a God that has nothing to do with righteousness,
that doesn't save in a just and right way, is not just and justified,
that's not a true God. That's my gospel. That's why
God sent His Son. That's the purpose of Christ
coming and laying down His life. That's God providing Himself
a lamb. That's the only way He can be
saved. The Jews today, They're not bringing blood. They
don't have a lamb. They've done away with the one
thing that God made the whole Old Testament ceremonial law
to picture. They've done away with that and
kept everything else. The rest of it was just to declare
you're guilty and you need that lamb. They took the lamb out
and kept all the stuff that declared them guilty and say that's how
they're coming to God by that. That's an idol God. God said, there's no God else
beside me, a just God and a Savior. One that can be just and merciful.
There is none beside me. No man ever thought of a God
who could do these things. So I want to answer this question.
Why hast thou sought after the gods of the people? which could
not deliver their own people out of thine hand. Why? Why? Isaiah 45, 22. Let me finish, just read out
the rest of that. Isaiah 45, 22. Let's know what
God says. Now, I pray God make us hear
this. Look unto me and be ye saved. You see that word, be
ye saved? That's in the passive tense. That's like a lame man
on a battlefield who looks to the men that show up with the
cot and roll him over on the cot and he lays there helpless
without moving a muscle on the cot and he is saved by them carrying
him off the battlefield and carrying him to the hospital. That's being
saved. You just laid back in the cot,
unable to lift a finger and God doing it all. He says, Look unto
me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God,
and there is none else. I have sworn by myself the words
gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, that unto
me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear. Surely,
shall one say, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength,
even to him shall men come, and all that are incensed against
him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed
of Israel be justified and shall glory. You see, what I've been
telling you today gives God all the glory. It says salvation
is of the Lord. It gives God all the glory, all
the praise, all the honor. Men will get together and they'll
be singing and hooping and hollering and raising their hands and doing
all these things and saying they want God to have all the glory.
And you preach this message to them and they say, we don't want
that God. You don't really want God to have all the glory. All
that hoopla you're doing. I love what Brother Don said
that year. Go home and get in your closet and do that. Why
do it here in front of everybody? If you want to praise Him like
that, go home and get in your closet and lift your hands up and hoop and
holler. They don't want to do it there. They won't be seen
doing it. They want to be glorified. What
I'm telling you today is God gets all the glory. If you want
Him to have all the glory, you'll rejoice in this God's sake. That's
the true God. That's the God I've been waiting
to hear preached right there. The God that gets all the glory.
That's how I want it. That's what heaven's going to
be. Heaven's going to be all these people giving Him all the
glory. I pray God will bless that message.
Amen.