Isaiah chapter 44. Let's begin
our reading in verse 9. We're going to look at several
portions of this chapter this morning. The title of the message
this morning is, The Gods of Men and the Men of God. The Gods
of Men and the Men of God. The Scripture says in verse 9,
it says, They that make a graven image are all of them vanity,
and their delectable things shall not profit. And they are their
own witnesses. They see not, nor know, that
they may be ashamed. Who hath formed a god? or molten an image that is profitable
for nothing. The gods of men. If you will notice here that
the gods of men are made by man. The gods of men are made by man. This corrupt nature that we are
born with is nothing less than a God factory. This corrupt nature
that every one of us is born with is no less than a God-making
factory. Truly, man is born in sin and
loves sin. The Scripture says that he loves
darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil. This is why most crimes would
occur at night, because they want to be under the cover of
darkness so not to be exposed by the light. And it's the same
with the human nature. Men do not love the truth. They would rather hold to a lie
because of their sin. They don't want it to be exposed. But because of the conscience
that God has given every one of us, every one of us is given
a conscience by which we know what is right and what is wrong,
what is good and what is evil. Now, we don't know the fullness.
The conscience is defiled. The conscience can be swayed.
The conscience can be burned and seared over a period of time. You can feel guilty about something,
and then you keep doing it over and over again, and pretty soon
you're not feeling so guilty. The conscience is defiled. It's
not perfect. But it is the law of God written
on our hearts. My children being from the earliest,
they knew when they had done wrong. I didn't even have to
teach them how to lie and how to steal. I didn't teach my children
how to deceive. They knew these things from their
birth, and so did I, and so did you. And I'll tell you, when the troubled
conscience comes upon a man, he will always try to escape
it some way. Some way he'll try to quiet his
conscience. And the best way that men have
done this is by making a God for themselves. Making a God
for themselves. They know that God is. Every one of us know that God
is. You children, you know there
is a God and you know that sin is evil. You know that God must
punish all sin. And all men understand this.
They can see this. Go over to Romans chapter 1.
We'll see this later on in the next message, but go over here
to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 and verse 18.
It says, "...for the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in
unrighteousness." Because that which may be known of God is
manifest to them, for God hath shown it unto them." How? Creation. That's how. Look at creation. Look at the intricate creation
that God has made, the complex organisms that God has created. And no one, no one is excused
from knowing there is a God. Only God could make these things.
Men are just discovering what God has already made, what already
exists. I'll tell you what, electricity
existed long before the light bulb, didn't it? It sure did. And all these things we're discovering
in science is just nothing more than God opening what is already
there, what He's already created. All men by nature are spiritually
dead and depraved, and this nature cannot understand the revelation
of God's righteousness. You see, we hold the truth in
unrighteousness. In other words, our best judgments
of what is righteous is always tainted by our own feelings,
our own circumstances. You see, we don't judge rightly
By nature, we say, well, I did this because of so-and-so. I did this because my parents
were bad. I did this, and we try to shift
the blame. It's unrighteous. We did it.
We're guilty. And yet we always shift the blame.
Man is not only unwilling to come to God, but friends, man
cannot come to God for mercy. Even though he knows there's
sin, he knows there's a God, he knows there's justice, he
still will not come to God that he might have grace, that he
might have mercy. And this is because he cannot
come to God. You who are without God, you
cannot come to God unless he himself draws you. Unless God comes and quickens
in us, creates in us, forms in us a new nature, we will never
understand how it is that God can be just and justify the ungodly. Instead, we'll make up a God
of our own. Because of the depravity of man
and the death of his soul, man will always seek to form the
god of his own mind. God says this, "'Who hath formed
a god, or molten a graven image, that is profitable for nothing?'
Friends, the gods of men are not profitable for anything. It doesn't matter what name you
place on your God. It doesn't matter if you call
him Buddha or you call him Allah or you call him Jesus. It doesn't
matter if he is not the God of Holy Scripture, if he is not
the sovereign, omnipotent, immutable, unchangeable, loving and merciful,
righteous, holy God, then he is not God at all. He is just
a figment of your imagination. He'll profit you nothing. It
doesn't matter what name you put on him. If you have made your God If
you have formed the God of your own thoughts and feelings, and
by vain traditions of men, your God is empty and cannot help
you. Behold, God calls out all those
who would make a God for themselves. Look over to Isaiah chapter 41.
I love this, God calls them out. He challenges them to come out. Chapter 41, verse 21, God says,
Produce your cause, saith the Lord. Bring forth your strong
reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring forth and show
us what shall happen. Let them show the former things
what they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end
of them, or declare us things to come. Show the things that
are to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods. Yea, do good. Well, do evil,
that we may be dismayed and behold it together. Can you get the
hint of sarcasm in that? Our God says, prove your God.
Do good or do something. Just do something that we may
be amazed. He said, if you do something,
even I who am God will be amazed. But friends, they cannot do anything. man's gods that he makes and
forms. If he is not the God of this
Bible, if he is not the God of Holy Scripture, if your God has
no authority, has other authority than this word, he is not God.
He is not God. How many times do you hear people
say, well, I think, I feel that God is blank, whatever. Put in there whatever you want.
Well, it really don't amount to a hill of beans what you or
I feel about God or what we think God is. Because God is what God
is, regardless of what we think about him or what we feel he
should be like. God declares who he is. And if
we try to declare the God that we think and feel, we've made
a God all by ourselves. We've formed our own God. We've
carved Him. The formed God is always formed
after the image of man. If man is going to make a God,
he will always make Him after his own image. Look at verse
12 in Isaiah 44. Look at verse 12. It says, The smith with the tongs
both worketh in the coals, and fashioneth it with hammers, and
worketh it with the strength of his arms. Yea, he is hungry,
and his strength faileth, he drinketh no water, and is faint. The carpenter stretched out his
rule. He marketh it. out with a line, he fitteth it
with planes, and he marketh it out with a compass, and maketh
it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a
man, that it may remain in the house." You get that? The guy's out there and he's
working real hard at this fire, stirring up the coal, and he's
beating this piece of metal, and he's shaping it, he's molding
it. And then you have a carpenter
that comes in and takes that rough image and he starts to
fashion, starts to file it down and starts to shape it into the
beauty of a man. And he nails it down to somewhere
in his house. And he bows down and worships
it. The false gods of natural men
are always given the same wicked, petty character of the lustful
man that formed it." Can you not see that in every false god? In every false god, he takes
on the infinite characteristics of the wicked man that made him. Just for example, take the Roman
gods, Greek gods. I mean, these guys were the most
lustful and petty creatures that were ever thought of. What did
they do? They thought of themselves and
they made their God a little higher than themselves. Only
his sins were greater than theirs. You see, it made them look good.
It made themselves look good to see the horrible things that
their gods would do. This is why many cultures have
multiple gods. It's like men have multiple personalities. This nature's got multiple personalities,
doesn't it? It's one for church, one for
home, one for the street, one for the car. I mean, we all have
different things, faces we put on. Well, in order to represent
those, men have to have multiple gods. Multiple gods. In Psalm 50, verse 21, it says,
These things thou hast done, and I kept silent. Thou thoughtest,
there's the problem. There's the problem. Thou thoughtest
that I was altogether such in one as thyself. Men love to think
of God as they think of themselves. Man hates instruction and casts
the word of God behind him. He sees the thief and takes part
in it by not saying anything. He consents to adulterers and
fornicators. And he believes because God does
not judge right now, because God doesn't immediately judge,
he thinks that God overlooks those things, just like himself.
Well, you know, God's loving. He'll forgive me. What are you saying? That God
is not just. That's what you're saying. You're
saying that God does not punish sin. That's what you're saying.
Your God is not God. Because God must, of necessity,
punish sin. And truly, man is full of sin
and free from righteousness. But friends, God is holy. God
is just. And God is righteous. to the
infinite degree. God will not overlook one sin. How many sins does it take to
make a sinner? One. One. How many sins does it take to
be worthy of an eternity in hell? Because God is absolutely holy
and just. The true God confesses himself
to be just. He says, I will by no means clear
the guilty. That's God. Is this your God? Or have you
formed an unjust God? We see this unjust God being
proclaimed in many of the churches today. We see this unjust God
that men have formed of their own image. Their God desires to save all
men and loves all men without exception. He creates man in
his own image and loves him so much, but somehow sin came in. Somehow. Sin entered into his
world and he was confused. He had to make up a way to save
sinners. And he knows, I'll do this, I'll
send my son and he'll die for their sins. But their God, when
he sent his son to die for the sins of all men, he would still
punish them for the sin of unbelief. Now, how is it that God, who
is just and must punish all sin, if He punished all sin in His
Son, how then shall He punish us again for the sin that He'd
already paid for? It's unjust. I'll tell you, if
I get a ticket and I go down there and pay the judge, and
the judge comes back on me and says, you've got to pay again,
that's unjust. I've already paid it. How unjust would it be for Christ
to pay for the sins of all men and then charge them for the
sin of unbelief? How foolish is the God that loves
everybody but has no power to save anybody? What kind of God
is that? That's a God formed. That's a
God made by man in his own image. I'll tell you this, none of us
who are parents or have relatives of young children, I know this,
that no loving parent would suffer the death of his child if he
had power to save it. Is that not true of us? Is that
not true of wicked men? And yet they would put it on
God to love everyone and not have the power to save anyone. They made God in their own image.
The God formed is powerless. Look at that back in your text
at the end of verse 13, it remaineth in the house. You see, they can
leave their God. They can hide from their God.
Surely, if they want to sin, all they have to do is put down
that picture of Jesus face down so he can't see them. It sounds silly, but I'm telling
you, this is how men think. This is the God of men, that
they can hide from him, that they can hide their sin if they
just put that little figure out of the way. See, they made man
like, made God like themselves. I can't see everything my children
do. Can you? Can you see everything that goes
on with them in their hearts or their minds? You see, they
make God like that so they can try to put it out, put him out
whenever it's convenient for them. False God is always going
to be subject to his Maker. If a man desires to be forgiven
of his God, all he has to do is whatever he wants, whatever
he thinks his God would like. Well, I think my God would like
me to say twenty-seven Hail Marys. I think my God would like me
to confess my sins to another man. I think my God, if he will,
he'll just he'll just accept whatever I give him. Yep, your
God will, but not the God of this book, not the God that exists,
the living God. He won't accept our ridiculous
offerings of self-righteousness. Well, God, I fasted for you.
I didn't eat cake this week. Surely you'll forgive me now.
Maybe your God will. But the only living God won't. Their God promises only. Their God is powerless to demand
anything of them but what they give him. but our God who created
the heavens and the earth, the true and living God who spoke the world into creation
and created all things by the word of his power. Friends, our
God cannot be nailed down. Our God is in the heavens and
hath done whatsoever he had pleased. That's God. The gods of men are nailed down,
but our God is powerful, wise, and never fails to do his own
sovereign will. A god that must do after the
will of man is not a god at all. Our God alone is king and sovereign. And all who worship our God must
believe he is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek
him." You see, men don't seek him. Scripture says there's none
that seeketh after God. There's none that understandeth.
How, then, are sinners saved? by such a righteous, such a holy,
an infinitely holy God who cannot tolerate one sin? How is it that
we who are multiple sinners can approach unto such a God? The
only way is if God forms something in you. You see, man must form a God. But God's men must be formed
of God. They must be made of God. And Peter, it tells us that we
are made partakers of the divine nature. God has to create in
us a new nature. If there is to be any hope for
sinners, it must be found only by the blood and righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the only way God can be
just and justify us, is to pay for our sins in Him, in a substitute,
and then by His power, give that righteousness directly to us
in a new nature that wasn't contaminated by the fall. A new nature created
being, a new heart. And this comes by the preaching
of the gospel of Jesus Christ to sinners. Believer in Christ,
we have this hope and trust in our God. It was He who formed
us and not we ourselves. Praise God that He formed us. that He made us in the inner
man, that He created us after His image and after His likeness,
rather than we trying to create Him after our image and our likeness. It was the power of His Spirit
that created this, and behold, the Lamb of God that taketh away
the sins of the world. Have you beheld the Lamb of God
and believed? Well, that's the power of God
unto salvation. I confess that it was only by
God's grace that he formed in me a nature after his own. There
was no cause to be found in me. He did this by his own grace.
Psalm 100, verse 3 says, Know ye that the Lord hath made us,
and not we ourselves. We are his people. We are the
sheep of his pasture. Look at this in verse 21 of Isaiah,
chapter 44. Remember these. O Jacob and Israel. For thou art my servant, I have
formed thee. Thou art my servant, O Israel,
thou shalt not be forgotten of me. I have blotted out as a thick
cloud thy transgression and as a cloud thy sins. Return unto
me, for I have redeemed thee. Sing, O ye heavens, for the Lord
hath done it." Is that not clear? God formed us, and praise God
He did. Is that your God? Because that's
the God of Scripture. Sovereign, merciful, righteous,
holy, and just God. I pray that God would bless this
to our hearts. We're dismissed.