Well, good afternoon once again, everybody. And to begin with this second message on God's holy Sabbath day, I'd like us to all open up our Bibles to 1 John the epistle thereof --- 1 John 5. And I'd like to pick up the thought in verse 18. When we are at services, we always want to use Scripture as our foundation and build everything upon that. And then understand how the Scripture relates to our lives, our hearts, our existence today. Allow me to read this starting in verse 18.

1 John 5:18  We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him. 

We know that whoever is born of God interesting with the message that we just heard being children of God, whoever is born of God does not sin, but he who has been born of God keeps himself and the wicked one does not touch him. So we’re all kept. It's a phrase that we hear every so often, but we are kept by the sovereign God, our Heavenly Father.

1 John 5:19  We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. 

While we are kept under God, the society and the culture around us is under the sway of Satan, the wicked one.

1 John 5:20  And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life. 

But that's all building up to what I want to lay on your minds and on your hearts today. Notice now verse 21. As we go to verse 21, let's understand that the epistle of 1 John written about 85-90 AD is written to encourage and to solidify the second- and third-generation of Christians by this senior fellow, the Apostle John. And notice what his last words are that were written then and we need to understand why it was written for the audience then, but God knew that we would need this admonition and encouragement as well.

1 John 5:21  Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. 

So be it. What is this all about? Here we have a warning directed to Jesus' followers for all times. To the children of God to notice, “flee idols”. Now back then, 85-90 AD, the world was saturated with idols. Not only large idols in forums of Hellenistic or Ro an cities, but also going back to the days of Yore, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and in the Middle East, it was also filled with what we may call little portable idols that you could carry with you, that you could put in your pocket, that you could put in your satchel, that your mule or your camel could carry. Idols were pervasive. So what does that mean in our time and our day? I think there's more to consider. What is the warning to us today in admonishing you and me as children of God today in the 21st century?

The purpose of this message today is to help you to understand the impact of the Apostle John's words, actually God's words, through that human vehicle about our daily lives today and, yes, future events to come.

So I'd like to give you the title of my message so that you'll exactly know where we are going. The title of this message is simply this: “Bowing our hearts to whom?”

Idol worship normally, normally involves bowing. But we're going to come to find that it's more than just simply bowing our knee, it’s bowing our hearts because the knee follows where the heart will lead it. Bowing our hearts to whom? A subtitle to this might be simply this, “Walking with God in an ungodly world.” I hope that what is mentioned here about bowing our hearts to whom can be a life-changing question. And when we ask that question, “Bowing our hearts to whom?”, only you, as men and women, can answer that for yourselves. Each of us has that responsibility. It's kind of interesting that, again, we look at society today, and Bob was talking about he knows everything. I thought Bob knew everything already. He's our professor right here in the congregation. But you've given answers as a grandpa that I probably have at times, unfortunately, learning about that humility quotient, Bob. But we often talk about, as grandparents or people that have some years on us, we talk about the good old days. Oh, if you had only been raised in the 50s or the 60s or, for some of you, in the 40s, you know, that's when life was good. Or I'm sure you heard that from your parents or from your grandparents.

But here's the question I want to pose to you this afternoon, may I? And that is simply this, “Were they ever truly good?” They might have been better than today, I might say that humanly speaking, but were they ever good? What I'd like to do now is to have you join me on a little journey because what we're going to do is we're going to go right to the very beginning of the story. We're going to look at and discover where the thread of idolatry began, and which is the biggest idol of all of them. And the only way that you can do that …. Have you ever walked into a movie halfway and you wonder what's going on and you're trying to figure it out? Well, that's why we always have to go to the beginning. So if you would please join me in Genesis and or the beginning, we want to see where this all began.

If you'd join me in Genesis 3. In Genesis 3, and let's pick up the thought if we could in verse 1. And allow me for a moment to give you some background to creation and the creation story of man and woman. You know, God had made everything by the sixth day that is physical, but He wanted to save something very special for that sixth day. And so we come to understand that He wanted to make something that was unlike anything else in all of the physical creation. And He was going to make man. He wanted to have a relationship with a thinking being. Somebody that He could have a relationship and could mold. Yes, He started by molding through the dust or the mud or the clay of the earth, but He wanted to mold more than that. He wanted to have, as Bob said, He wanted to have a child or children that could be humble, that could be meek, that could be trainable, that would trust Him. And that when He made Adam, He made Adam carefully with those hands. Much of creation came into being by Him speaking. He spoke and light and dark were separated. He spoke and this would happen, but this was hands-on. As God knelt down in the clay of paradise, Eden, and made man, later would make woman --- for one purpose. That as they were made, the first thing that they would do is they opened up their eyes, it would be God looking right into those eyes. And there would be a connection, and there would be an intimacy. There would be something just really, really beautiful.

But we recognize then that something happened along the way. In Genesis 3, this is where the thread of idolatry begins. And you'll be quite amazed who the idol is. “Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God made. And he said to the woman, ‘Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat the fruit of the tree of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’

So here they're having God talk. People just having God talk doesn't mean it's necessarily godly. Have you ever noticed that? Just like Bob's friend telling him that he knew the whole Bible. We notice then that it says, “Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day that you eat of it, your eyes are going to be open. (and notice now) And you will be like God.” You're going to be like God. You get to be God. Wow. Knowing good and knowing evil. Well, what did the woman say? “I can't do that. There's only one true God. He's the Maker. He's the Creator. I'm the creation.” But what happened? “So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of it fruit and ate.” And she also gave it to her husband with her, and he bit into it as well. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened.” And the rest is history. What's happening here, friends? Do we understand what's going on? God in that sense was pushed aside. Adam and Eve decided that the God that they were going to worship was themselves. They would write the rules. They would write the regulations. They would make all the decisions in their life. A four-letter word is in the shadows of this chapter. S-E-L-F. Self. At that point, they decided to no longer worship the God of creation --- the one true God --- God with capital G, capital O, capital D. Big God. But they decided to follow that little God that was inside of them.

Let's go to the next story. Build this thread of idolatry.  Genesis 6 and verse 1. In Genesis 6 and verse 1, we pick up the story here. Now, when the Bible says that, it's about to say [that] something came to pass, and it did. When men began to multiply in the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful. And they took wives for themselves of all whom they chose. Whom they chose. And the Lord said, “My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh, yet his day shall be 120 years. Now it says there were giants on the earth in those days. And also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and bore children to them. These were the mighty men (actually, the phrase is the Nephilim) were of old. Men of renown (at least in their own eyes and in their own hearts.) And then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This was the heritage of Adam and Eve. Mankind apart from God.

So the Lord said He was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in his heart. He said, I'm going to destroy man. There was something that was so heinous and so horrible. Perhaps even projected beyond what we might call the historical line of decline that God had to intervene and saved one man and his family, Noah, Mrs. Noah, and the children. What was going on at that time? Once man decided to make himself the center of the universe and make himself God, him and her being little gods,

him and her being little God over the great God. I think we get an inkling of what was going on when you go to Genesis 9 and you see the Noachian covenant that God gives Noah after he comes onto dry land.

And I think this is a hint of it.

And allow me to share this with you. Verse 5, chapter 9, Genesis. Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning. From the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man, from the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of a man. Whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood shall be shed, for in the image of God he made man. This gives me a sense or a hint of what happened that once Adam and Eve bit that fruit, that man began biting on one another after that, generation after generation. There must have been a horrible pillage upon man killing man, man killing woman, having no respect for life and having no respect for the creation of God and misusing and or never using the gift that God gave him of having a relationship with Him. Join me now. Let's continue to the thread.

Let's go to …. Genesis 10. In Genesis 10. …. In Genesis 10 and verse 8. Let's take a look here. In Genesis 10 and verse 8. It says, speaking of Nimrod, many of us are familiar with Nimrod. It says, Cush, who came from the line of Ham, “Cush begot Nimrod: He became a mighty man on the earth.” Now notice this. “He was a mighty hunter before the Lord; therefore, it is said, “Like Nimrod, the mighty man before the Lord.” It wasn't as if he was going before the Lord and exalting the Lord. It was in place of the Lord. In the sense when you get into the Hebrew, it says before the Lord, apart from God, in place of God. And notice what it says, “And in the beginning his kingdom was Babel and Erek and Akod and Kelna and in the land of Shinar.” What did that lead to as he founded the kingdom of man --- and in a sense the genesis of Babylon?

We notice what it says here in Genesis 11 and verse 1, “Now the whole earth had one language, and one speech, And it came to pass as they journeyed from the east that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and dwelt there. And then they said to one another, Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They had brick for stone and they had asphalt for mortar.

And they said, “Come and let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves,” They don't go before and into society or into life in the name of God, the name of the Creator, but for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

“But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, Indeed, the people are one and they all have one language, and that is what they begin to do --- begin to do --- now nothing that they purpose to do will be withheld from them. Come, let Us go down and therefore confuse their language, [that] they may not understand one another's speech.” What was going on here? This is some generations, several generations after the flood, and this mighty one named Nimrod came along and says there's a bad God that ground our ancestors like rats. So let's build a tower. Let's go up. Let's elevate. Let's exalt. God wants to scatter us about. Let's gather together. Let's come into the city. Let us and ourselves, just like Adam and Eve, we’ll make our own decisions. After the flood, God had Noah and his family scattered, spread out. But man came together in the river valleys of Mesopotamia. They wanted to be in charge of their lives. God had said, God had said, I will never destroy the earth with the flood again. I'm going to put My rainbow up in the clouds, which is synonymous with that rainbow behind My throne in heaven that is to show My faithfulness to My word. I cannot lie. And yet Nimrod came along wanting himself to be worshipped and humanity wanting to be apart from God. You know, it's always interesting when you look at Babylon that that is where you begin to get this sense of priest-king, total control over the minds and over the hearts of people. Ancient Israel, as they came out of Egypt, guess where they went after Egypt? As bad as Egypt was, the Promised Land was what? The Promised Land was Canaan, and Canaan was like little Egypt. Here an idol, there an idol, everywhere an idol, idol. There were just idols everywhere.

As a covenant people, what was God telling them then as a physical covenant people, and what can we glean from that today?

In Deuteronomy 4, join me if you would. In Deuteronomy 4, let's pick up the thought if we could in verse 1. “Now, O Israel, listen to the statutes and the judgments which I (your rescuer, your deliverer, the one that is going to make you a nation, and I'm offering you to be a kingdom of priests unto me, as God says in Exodus 19 to) the judgments which I teach you, … that you may live and go in and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you. You shall not add to the word which I command you, neither take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you.” Have you ever noticed that people like to be commanded? But God commands. He's ruler. He is king. He is God.

“Your eyes have seen what the Lord did to Baal Peor; for the Lord your God has destroyed from among you all the men who followed Baal of Peor. But you who held fast to the Lord your God are alive today, every one of you. Surely I've taught you, (now notice, and allow these words to speak to you and to me today as the Israel of God, as Paul calls the body of Christ in Galatians 6:16. It's the Israel of God --- the Israel of God in Galatians 6.16. It's a new creation. It's not tribal. It's all of humanity that God is calling to Him through Jesus Christ.) Surely I've taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God  commanded me that you should act according to them in the land which you go to possess. Therefore, therefore, be careful to observe them, for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all the peoples who will hear all of these statutes.” (They're going to say what a “great nation is a wise and an understanding people. For what great nation is there that God has so near to it, as the Lord our God is to us, for whatever reason we may call upon Him? And what great nation is there that has such statutes and righteous judgments as are all in this law which I set before you this day?” Boom! Plop! Here it is. Shema. Hear and obey. “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself lest you forget these things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life.” Teach them to Bob. Teach them to your children and your grandchildren. Bob's into grandchildren. He's grandpa, Papa. Teach them. That was God's admonition. Israel was to be a light to the nations. God did not put the children of Israel up on the North Pole with the penguins. He put them right smack dab in what we call the way of the sea. Right between empires. Right between peoples, that they might be a bright light unto Him. Same with us today.

You can go to John 17. You might just want to jot that down. The true Lord's Prayer. And He said, “Father, I ask that You not take them out of this world, but keep them in this world and sanctify them by Your ways and by Your truth.” They're not going to beam me up, Scotty, I'm out of here. I've been baptized. I'm going up. No, no, no, no. You stay down here and you be a light. That was the call of Jesus to His 12 disciples. That was the call to the saints of God, the body of Christ down through the ages. And yet, we can be affected and we can be immersed into those cultures that are around us. When you read Revelation 2 and you read Revelation 3, we know that the seven churches --- and when you have that description of the seven churches, you see the pressures of the history that was in that community, or you see the culture around them trying to mold them, trying to shape them. And God gives them a commendation to begin with. He says, “Way to go.” You're doing this. You're doing that. But then He gives them correction. He says, but this is what I have against you. Don't be like the people around you. Don't be like the bad apples that might be in your midst. Come out My people. Worship Me. This was a tremendous challenge at this time, some of the churches.

In Asia Minor, home of the seven churches, seems to, when you look at the Roman Empire, seems to have been at the core of what we call emperor worship. And emperor worship is, again, where the emperor in that sense, his name could be Kurios, it could be Soter, Soter in Latin, S-O-T-E-R, meaning Lord or meaning King. And by the end of the first century, emperor worship had really taken off. And what people did, what they would do is once a year, they had to annually once a year go and burn incense to the emperor. The deity of the emperor, the genius of the emperor, the emperor who was the life-bringer, the light-bringer. The emperor who was bringing good news that under him the empire would be a whole and there'd be unity. So everybody had to do that. The Jews were excluded from that. The Romans had figured out a long time ago that the Jews are not going to be worshiping anybody, but somebody that's behind this curtain that you can't see. No idol there. And so the Jews had an exemption. And that's why the early Christianity tried to stay as long as it could under the Jewish umbrella. Because the Jews were recognized as an official religion of the empire. But then they began to hear about Christianity and that there was this, they talked about this King, they talked about this Soter, S-O-T-E-R. They talked about Kurios, Kurios, which is Lord. And they would not go in and burn incense to the emperor. Give that allegiance. Now the Romans would give the Jews a pass, and as long as they prayed to their God, they prayed to their God, that he'd be kind to the emperor, that was okay. But the early Christians would not do that. They would not bow. They would not worship. They would not get down on their knees because their heart would not bow to anybody else other than the God of creation, the God of Israel, and the God of the new Israel. The Father of the body of Christ. When people went in to do this, they would receive an imprint. They'd get a certificate. And on that certificate was a charagma, to use the Greek. That means a mark for the emperor that we know is the type of the beast.

What I want to share today in the remainder of this message is sometimes life is a circle and history is a circle. And we're coming to a time that I think is going to more and more parallel the early church that is there as an example. And I'm here to warn you and I'm here to encourage you as your fellow traveler on this pilgrimage that we need to be ready to buckle up and to recognize what is coming. Paul speaks of the world then and now in a sense in the book of Romans, if you'll join me, his fantastic treatise on salvation. But it's interesting, his comments that he makes in Romans 1, if you'll join me there for a second, to share the world that we are in and then to ask ourselves, are things really better today than yesterday? In Romans 1, for time I'm going to cut right into this. Notice what it says here. Verse 20, Romans 1, “For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.” You look up every night when it's clear here in California, and you see as Emerson said in his prose, you see the city of God shine forth, but man goes on his way as if there's not a Creator. And because although they knew God and they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals and creeping things. And therefore God gave them over to uncleanliness in the lust of their hearts to dishonor their bodies amongst themselves. For the sake of preserving the idol of self, they pushed over the God of creation, Your Creator and Your Father. How's that working in our society today? And how far can man go low? Consider just for a moment, I'm just going to share some things that have happened in our lifetime. I want you to think about it. In this nation, in this nation, which says “God bless America”, in this nation which on our coins is imprinted “in God we trust”, in this nation where church attendance, whether on Saturday or whether on Sunday, is at an all-time low and going lower every year. How did that come about? Let me just throw a few thoughts down here. You might want to just jot a few notes as we go along and you can look up this stuff later.

Back in 1925, famous story, famous movie out of it, Inherit the Wind, was the Scopes trial between William Jennings Bryant and Darrow over the teacher named Mr. Scopes who was introducing Charles Darwin into the school system. Now actually, Scopes lost that trial. Darrow lost that trial. But it was overturned. But more than that, a splash was made in American society that the God of creation began to be taken out of books, began to be taken out of the hearts of young minds --- and evolution (creation without God) began to take hold. The difference between what you do and I do, because we believe that we are a creation of God, aren't we? Yes. That's when you're all supposed to be nodding. Okay, good --- Talking to the right crowd. Creation of God versus simply evolution. Evolution is based upon natural accidents happening towards a whole. Nature of and by itself without a God. Evolution itself is based upon accidental creation. Accidental movement of nature. When you have a Creator God, you are going to follow that Creator God as Bob brought out in his message, you're going to begin to live a life of design. A life of cause and effect and God willing, not that we don't go through things in this life, but of blessings. To take the Creator out of the creation is like taking a father and a mother out of the nuclear family. Later on, what would happen? We noticed that later on that in the early 60s that prayer was taken out of the schools. Prayer was taken out of the school. Might have been just a couple of minutes, but there was a marker. There was a starting line of the day.

There were the words of ancient wisdom and praise towards a God that was a Creator and was in part and parcel of establishing this nation to be a light to the world. Later on in the 1970s, decade-by-decade, we have abortion. We have the ruling of Roe versus Wade. We begin to recognize the challenge there of the sanctity of life, of where a living being ought to feel at its safest in the womb of the mother. And yet one day, the mother allows that little life to no longer be. God says a lot to ancient Israel about child sacrifice. It says don't be like the religions of Mesopotamia that passed their children through the fires to Moloch. Little life. The life that Bob was so aptly describing today with children, grandchildren. God will not hold a nation guiltless that does not uphold life. For every cause, there is an effect. In our past decade, we now have where God, Creator, said He made a man and He made a woman. And He told that man and woman to be fruitful and to multiply and to fill the entirety of the earth. He made man. He made woman. You can go to Genesis 2 verse 8, it's there. But in our lifetime, we notice again with the words of Paul n the book of Romans that because they did not keep God at the center, He allowed them to be given over to passions that were unnatural. To recognize then that today, in our lifetime, the last decade, that marriage between people of the same sex is now a law of the land. Today, especially the last couple of years, we now have confusion. When you don't keep God's laws, when you don't have them at the center, confusion begins in the life of a nation and or in our own personal lives.

Now we have transgenderism where people are saying, I'm not really who I look like. My mind does not match my biology. I won't go any further than that. And a humanistic, secular society is endorsing that. Probably one of the greatest idols that we confront today, and remember, oftentimes things are neutral. They are neutral. They can be created, but they can either be used as a weapon or they can be used as a tool. The greatest challenge in a sense that I feel that is happening in this human secular world and what's added to it is to recognize that we can have the idolatry of technology. The idolatry of technology. We live in a world that is, everything's just coming at us at once. We have more facts. We have more info coming to us than any librarian in Alexandria or Pergamum back in the days of the Greeks and the Romans. And the human mind and the human brain and the human heart can only take in so much at once, and yet we're just completely bombarded. And there's much good. Please understand, I use the computer. Susan uses the computer. There's much good. There's much good. I mean, it's amazing. But also recognize that so much is coming at us that we can't focus, or we can be lured off on the things that we ought not be involved on in a computer. And we don't have time to, to use a computer term, Victor you'll like this, we don't have time to personally defrag, to create space for God to come in, for space for God's Spirit to lead and to guide us.

I suggest that's one of the biggest challenges that are out there today, that God has people so busy down the rabbit trails of information that they're not able to stand still and know that He is God. I think it's part of the reasons why we don't have more people coming to our services. You know we do this, we do that, we have this out there. From Cincinnati we have this and this going. But there is so much out there. Where do you start? It's like looking for a needle in a haystack. God understands that Satan wants to keep people so busy that they can't come to know Him as the loving and living true God of creation and our personal Creator. And that's happening out there. One last thing that's happening when we talk about self, when man takes it upon himself, is that words lose meaning. We live in a society today where words are changing literally year-by-year of what we used to call something is no longer called that. And it takes you back to 1984. In “1984”, the Orwellian novel, to where there was what we call newspeak. Newspeak. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. And there's a memory hole that you toss down anything and everything that has ever been and you just put it into the memory hole and it vanishes. When people stop talking about matters and talking about issues in life, they disappear. And that's what Satan, the adversary, would like. That he does not want us to keep on talking about the truth. And if you know the truth and you remain silent about the truth, you might as well not know the truth or the whole truth. Silence, not speaking about something, not talking about the truths of God, of morality, of how society ought to function, what the family is about. If we're not talking about that and having that conversation with you our people, and with you with your children, what happens? It disappears. It goes down the memory hole. So what do we do about this? What do we do about this? There's a lot going on there, and like I said, that we are entering a time... Now, I said this, I think, the first time I gave that Zoom cast about two years ago when COVID began. I said something's different. I said something's happening. And it's a time that we need to buckle up. And when I say that, the echo's coming back on me. We're moving, dear friends, into challenging times and we're going to need to be ready about that.

In Revelation 18 and verse 4 it says, “Come out of this world.” Now, that doesn't mean to be a hermit on a pole like some of the people did in the 2nd century AD in Syria. You know, you're so far up above that nothing gets to you. No, He's called us to be a light. He's called us to be a light in the darkness to one another as husband and wife. I've got a great light that lives with me. I try to shed a little light her way from time to time. You have that. We have that here. We need to speak about the things of God. We need to be rooted. We need to be grounded. We need to know that the revelation of God Almighty has come down to us, not because of who we are but who He is. We need to do that. And facing giants that are coming our way, that are around us now in society and will yet come even more, facing giants and idols before us starts by what's inside of us. You know, so often we think of the aspect of bowing down to idols like this. You know, I can't do it with my knee. You know that. But anyway, it's hard enough getting up that step. But bowing down like this. No. It doesn't begin with the knees. It begins with your heart. It begins with your relationship with God that it is so tight that man cannot put it asunder, especially with God's help. And here we are. Man decided to worship himself. And what do we have in our human nature? There are three things about human nature I'm going to ask you to jot down for a second and you can take it home and do some homework on yourself: 1. Number one, human nature can be divided into three ways just like a pie. Number one is human reasoning. Human reasoning; 2. Number two is self-justification; 3. And number three is self-righteousness.

You can go from A to Z. Just when you don't think you got it, it’s got you, okay? Just look at it and ask God to help you with it. And what's going to be coming along in our life, there's going to be a lot of human reasoning that's going to pull us back. No, no, no. Not a big deal. Bad things happen when good people do not stand up and hold their ground. I'd like to share just a little bit again. It's interesting what Peter said. Peter, by a religious crowd, said, “Okay, you can't talk about Jesus.” And in Acts 5 and verse 29, it says, “We must obey God rather than man. There's the marker. We need to obey man, but when God comes into the equation we are to obey God rather than man. I want to use an example of human reasoning that is, it's the story of Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego, otherwise known as Mishael, Hanani, and Azariah (which are their real names). Interestingly, they had Babylonian names. But this is out of the Life Application Bible, and I've used it before with all of you and other congregations, but it's so rich out of the commentary. We know the story. Nebuchadnezzar raises the great idol, and everybody's supposed to, on the cue, bow down. But here, we don't know where Daniel is. He might have been on a government vacation, but he's not mentioned in this one. But the other three are mentioned. Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. And if you do not bow down, you're going into the fire. Think of the first century AD people. Think of Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. They, as it says in Revelation, speaking of the saints of God, it says, and they did not love their life unto death. Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego understood that God was their Creator. He was the God that had led their people out of Egypt. They were keeping the festivals every year that always takes the pilgrims of God back out of the world that he called and delivered them from, whether it is an empire, whether it is a nation, or whether it's our own kingdom, our self-kingdom. And he called us out of that. Here's some things. I just want to share some things. Ask yourself if you've ever gone down this course, okay? Because if we're not dealing with the little things today, how are we ever going to deal with the big things? You know, you think about David. David started, you know, he told Saul, you know, I've killed the lion and I've killed the bear. So this isn't going to be half bad. I'll take on the giant. But you have to start working your way up. It's what we do daily in our lives. But here's what they could have done. Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego. This is probably the best of all the human reasoning.

1. We will bow, but we will not worship the idol.
2. Here's another one. We are not idol worshipers, but will bow down to this image, this one time, and then beg forgiveness.
3. Next one. This Gentile king has absolute power, and we must obey him. Surely God will understand.
4. I like this one. The king appointed us. We owe him this one time. One for the Gipper.
5. Another one. We are in a foreign land so God will excuse us for following their customs. In other words, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.
6. This is the one that takes the cake. Our ancestors set up idols in the Temple. This isn't half bad.
7. And another one. We are not hurting anybody. That's a stunner. What they're saying are the same words that are used today. We are not hurting anybody. In other words, if we bow down, not only our knees but our hearts, that's a victimless crime. That phrase started to come up in the late 60s about a victimless crime. That's a lie. If a crime has been committed, there's always a victim. And if nobody other than yourself is hurt, it's a crime. To sin is a crime against God. Right? So where do we go from here?

1 Peter 1:17. I want to direct you as we put on those seatbelts and we buckle up. And when I say that, I'm talking to myself as well. Please understand. 1 Peter 1. Let's remember what you and I have been called to. We are not, brethren, I want to share something with you. There's a famous phrase out there. I'll just say it. “Not of this world.” We are citizens of a kingdom yet to come. And as we have the Lord Jesus Christ, the curios, the soter, the Son of the Great King of the Universe, our Heavenly Father, where we are, the kingdom is. We're kingdom bearers. We bear the name of God. We go before others in time by God's grace. And notice what it says in 1 Peter 1.15 “But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy” ---  in your conduct. Not what you know. Not what you're meaning to do one day. But in your conduct, what you are. How you live as the Israel of God in a world surrounded by the idolatry of self. “Because it is written, be holy as I am holy.” I'll just share a fleeting thought. We were taking the Gospel course this week. Some of you might have been on it, on the gospel course by Mr. Scott Ashley. And he got into the mention of slavery. Not only in the Roman Empire, but down to our day. And to recognize that kind of fits in with I see the [unrecognised name?] out here. Some of you were on the San Diego Bible study the other night. We talked about bearing the name of God. That we are to be what? Image bearers. We're made in God's image. But also to recognize that that isn’t only in Genesis, but we are a part of being made in the image of Jesus Christ now. Creation is not over, right? God is taking that which was dust and putting His Spirit in it. That is, it says in 2 Corinthians 5:17, “Behold, all things are new, and that we are to be a new creation. And a part of that creation then is to be an image bearer. The image of God's spiritual being. The image of Jesus Christ's spiritual being. That we bear that. That we carry that. Why do we carry that? I'm just going to conclude last verse, 1 Corinthians 6:19. In 1 Corinthians 6 and verse 19, notice what it says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God”, and notice, “and you are not your own? Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and are not your own?” (I read that.) “For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.”

I want to remind everybody that when they were baptized and put underneath the water and then raised up in a type of resurrection and then were set apart by God from a minister of God to recognize that what you were saying is no longer my will, but Thy will be done. I am no longer my own person. I probably will stumble and I probably will do this and I will worship myself more than I ought, but my goal, my heart, my desire, my whole being I turn over to You. Not my will, but Your will be done. I am a slave. The word “doulos” in Scripture is not just about a house servant. To understand the fullness, it is to be a slave of God. We are owned by God. You said no longer me, but Thee. No longer my will, but Your will. And to follow the image of Jesus Christ who said my meat is not my own, but my meat is to do the will of the Father no matter what comes my way, no matter what society is doing, that I am a child of the Father. I am a follower of Jesus. I am a member of the body of Christ. My citizenship is already guaranteed in that sense in heaven. And that is to where my allegiance is, no matter where man is doing, no matter how many idols that they set up, that Father, thank You so very much that You rescued me and that You have made me Your child and I will be Your slave. Not a slave in misery. Not a slave like in Egypt, but to be a slave of righteousness before You in a world that is growing darker and darker that by Your grace, by Your grace, truly, I might have Your light shine through me.