Idols Tugging at Your Heart. (402)

Recognize idols in life.

Points:

1. What’s in Your Temple? (Ezek. 8:3b-4,10)
2. Do We Think God Is Unaware? (Ezek. 8:11-12)
3. What’s So Wrong with Idols? (Ezek. 14:1-5)
4. What’s the Way Out? (Ezek. 14:6)

Goal:
Reject all forms of idolatry

• be devoted only to God,
• avoid any idolatry in the heart.

BACKGROUND

• God gave His people the Ten Commandments.
• The First and Second warned against idol worship.
• Israel’s history is one of defiance toward God concerning these two Commandments.
• Throughout Israel’s history, God sent prophets to denounce the people’s idol worship.

BACKGROUND OF EZEKIEL

• After God called and commissioned Ezekiel
  • he began to speak against the sins of Judah and Jerusalem.
  • He used both symbols and sermons to share God’s messages.
• God’s words were stark and scary,
  • His threats imminent.
  • They described that the end was upon them.

WHAT’S IN YOUR TEMPLE? (
Ezek. 8:3b-4,10)

Along life’s way,

• extreme difficulties and dangers
• challenges
• Tempted to turn backs on God
• redirect personal trust, love, and reliance
• from God to a person or thing.

What’s in your temple

• love and devotion for Christ
• idolatry with its love of modern-day idols?

Lordship
God owns first place in a believer’s heart. Anything else that competes successfully for first place is an idol and is unholy

1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NASB
16 Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
17 If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.

• The living God is jealous of His glory and accepts no rival.
• believers themselves are the temple of God,
• the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 6:19 NASB

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?

Question:

• What will you do about anything in your heart that displeases God?

DO WE THINK GOD IS UNAWARE?
(Ezek. 8:11-12 HCSB)

spiritual adultery as terrible and detestable

• what should have been the elders’ response?
• The right action was not idol worship
• but repentance and confession so that God would return to them with blessings in His hands.

God, alone, is worthy of our trust.

Question:

• Do you think God is unaware of your wrong attitudes and actions? Why or why not?
• How has God revealed to you personal sins?

WHAT’S SO WRONG WITH IDOLS?
(Ezek. 14:1-5 HCSB)

Here’s the story:

One day, some of the elders of Israel went to Ezekiel’s home,

As soon as the elders sat down, the word of the Lord came to Ezekiel. The tables quickly turned. The conversation would not go as the elders hoped.

Question:

• What effect will mixed loyalties have on your relationship with God?
• What action does God want you to take in this regard?

WHAT’S THE WAY OUT
(Ezek. 14:6)

Repent

• God desired the people to come back to their relationship with Him.
• When God shows us the idols in our hearts,
• admit their presence,
• turn away from them, and return to wholehearted devotion to God.

Question:

• What’s so wrong with your idols?
• What’s the way out for you?
• What does it mean to repent and turn back to God?

Conclusion

put into action what you’ve learned in God’s Word about idolatry.

• Stay open and honest with God
  He will help you identify any idols you have set up in your life.

• Resist the temptation

God is aware of and is concerned about whether you are wholeheartedly devoted to Him.

• idolatry puts a stumbling block in your relationship with God
• it invites His judgment.
• When God reveals idols in your heart, admit their presence,
• turn away from them, and return to wholehearted devotion to Him.