The Corruption of False Worship

Good on that one. I mean, we haven't sung that one a lot. You know, come second or third verse, we started catching on, and... fourth verse, we were starting to arrive. Everyone feasted and rejoiced, and work and business were for a season entirely suspended, and the houses were decked with laurel, holly, and evergreens, and presents were exchanged between friends and clients, gave gifts to the patrons, and the whole season was one of rejoicing and goodwill, and all kinds of amusements were indulged among the people.

Sounds like a familiar description of the Christmas season, doesn't it? But you know, this is a quote from a book entitled, Paganism in Christian Festivals, by J.M. Scheler. This was a description of Saturnalia, not of Christmas, but Saturnalia, the week-long pagan festival associated with the winter solstice, the birthday of the unconquered sun, celebrated on December 25th, a principal feast of the Roman Mithraic religion.

You know, every year, and you may have noticed it too, every year, articles come out in newspapers about this time of the year, and often they talk about the origins of Christmas, and they talk about the fact that a lot of the customs and the ceremony and the celebrations have pagan origins. In fact, many people know today that Christmas and its celebrations have pagan origins, but they reason that they don't do it for the reasons that the others did.

They do it for a different reason. They apply a new meaning to the celebration. But you know, you don't have to go very far to look at encyclopedias or books or articles that actually make it very, very clear where some of the origins come from. The Christ's Mass, or Christmas, if you will, as it's called. You know, according to the new encyclopaedia Britannica, it says, December 25th, the birthday of Mithra, the Iranian God of Light, and the day devoted to the invincible Son, as well as the day after the Saturnalia was adopted by the church as Christmas.

This is the new encyclopaedia Britannica. It was adopted by the church as Christmas, the Nativity of Christ, to counteract the effects of the pagan festivals. You know, we don't use that word pagan very much. We just...it's not a common English word that we throw around. But it basically, when we talk about pagan, we're talking about Gentile, we're talking about heathen, we're talking about a group of people that don't worship the true God.

It's as simple as that. A group of people, whether it be a tribe, whether it be a nation, whether it be a people that don't worship the true God. They worship false gods that don't exist with various ways and various practices and various ceremonies, pagan festivals. Even the Reader's Digest in the past has published articles on this topic. Reader's Digest back in 1994 published a book entitled Why in the World?

and they were answering all these different questions. Why do we do this? Why do we do that? And one on page 90 was an article or a story or the question that was addressed is why do we celebrate Christmas? Reader's Digest, 1994, Why in the World? The question, why do we celebrate Christmas? The authors continue. If the question offends or the answer seems obvious, read on. So in other words, what they're saying is, you know, you may be wondering why are we even asking this question? Or with the information that we're going to, maybe supply, might offend?

You might be surprised. If the question offends or the answer seems obvious, read on. And I'm still quoting, a feast with the semblance of Christmas, Zechai, was celebrated thousands of years before Christ's birth. In 2000 BC, in what is now Iraq, and what was probably then Babylon, a five-day festival with the exchanging of gifts, with the performance of plays, accompanied by processions and merry-making, marked the death of winter and heralded the beginning of a new year.

Still quoting, it is likely that those beliefs from the East spread into Central Europe. In the depths of winter, for example, people lit bonfires in the hope of reviving the dying sun and bringing warmth to the ground. This is all answering the question of why do we observe Christmas? This is all historical background. Continuing to quote, also they decorated their homes with evergreens, holly and furs, to show the dormant seeds and lifeless plants that all was not dead.

You know, you look outside and a lot of it looks dead, but there's some greenery. The evergreens, the holly, the furs, you know, they seem to be alive when everything else was dying. There must be something special about them. So they decorated their homes with evergreens to show the lifeless plants that all was not dead. And when the sun eventually shone again, they rejoiced in their success and no doubt vowed to repeat the magic forever after. Continuing to quote further, north along the Baltic and in Scandinavia, a winter festival known as Yule honored the gods of Odin and Thor and great logs blazed and minstrels sang and famous legends were recounted and villagers drank lustily from the horns of mead.

I don't know what that means, but it sounds like they had some alcohol. I'm not sure what the horns of mead were. You know, it's amazing that the information regarding Christmas and its origins can be found so easily. It's there! You get on the encyclopedia, the encarta or online or books or go to the local library and check out books on the topic and the origins of Christmas it is showing that they are rooted in paganistic practices. And yet many today, even though some of them know the truth about where some of these practices came from and the origin of Christmas, they ask the question what difference does it make?

What difference does it make? So what if it isn't Christian as long as God and Christ are the object of my worship? What difference does it make in the way that I worship them? I think that's a good question to ask. Does it make a difference? Fair question. Good question to ask. Does it make a difference? God and the Scriptures tell us that it does. We're going to cover some of that in a moment. That there is a true worship and there is false worship.

And that false worship leads to a corruption. I'm going to talk about that today. The title of the message today is The Corruption of False Worship. The Corruption of False Worship. Let's turn to Jeremiah 10, verse 1. Jeremiah 10, verse 1. Does it make a difference? Let's see what the Scriptures have to say to you and to me and to them. Jeremiah 10, verse 1 is where we'll start here. It says, hear the word which the Lord speaks to you. So these are God's words that he's speaking through his prophet Jeremiah.

Verse 2, thus says the Lord, do not learn the way of the heathen. Do not learn the way of the heathen. Let's look at that word, way, just for a moment. Let's look at the Hebrew word. The Hebrew word is called darek. What does it mean? It means, and can be translated, road, way, path, manner, habit, course of life, the course of life, your way, your road, your habit, is what this Hebrew word means and how it is translated. And so we look at it, God says, don't learn the habits, don't learn the way, don't learn the road, if you will, the course of life of the Gentiles.

And I think the old King James says, heathen, if you've got that on your lap. Other translations say, Gentiles, heathen, pagan, were basically three terms that can mean the same thing. Someone that doesn't worship the true God. God says, don't learn that way. He goes on to verse 3 and he says, because, he says, the customs of the people are futile. My reference says it could also be translated, they're vain, they're vanity, which means they're worthless, they don't mean anything.

They don't result in anything. I think the new international version, if you have that, says, the customs of the peoples are worthless. It says in the new Revised Standard Version, the customs of the people are false. And in the NAS version, it says, the customs of the peoples are delusion. They're delusion. False, worthless, delusion. So God says, don't learn that way.

But let's notice in the New Testament, there is a way of God. Let's go over to Acts chapter 18 and verse number 25, Acts chapter 18 and verse number 25. Let's take a look at what it says there. We'll pick it up here in verse number 24 of Acts chapter 18. We'll see that there is a way of the Gentiles and there is a way of God. Acts chapter 18, verse number 24, now a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures, came to Ephesus, and this man had been instructed in the way of the Lord.

So there is a way, isn't there? There's a way of God. There's a way of the Lord. It is a way of doing things. And so he was instructed in the way of the Lord. Though it says in the last part of verse 25, though he knew only the baptism of John, so he began to speak boldly in the synagogue.

When Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately. So here he was speaking about the way of the Lord and the way of God. He had some fine tuning that needed to be done, but he was talking about God's way, the way of the Lord. Let's turn over also just to page Acts chapter 19 and verse 9.

Acts chapter 19 and verse 9. Just a page over here. But some were hardened and did not believe. So they were hearing about God's way, but some were hardened and did not believe, but spoke evil of the way before the multitude. So he departed from them and he withdrew his disciples, reasoning daily in the temple. And let's jump over to verse number 23. And about that time there arose a great commotion about the way because of a certain man named Demetrius, a silversmith, who was creating false idols, and it was going to affect his occupation and the money that he made.

And so he spoke evil of the way. If we look at the word way in Greek, we'll find and research it. It means the same thing as the Hebrew word way does. If we look up the Greek, it's hodos. And it means pretty much the same thing. A traveled way, a road, a course of conduct, a manner of thinking. A way, a road, a course of conduct, a manner of thinking. Brethren, there is a way of God. There's a way that we worship God.

There is a way that the Gentiles approach the worship of their gods. And I suppose you could say there's a third way too. There's the way of you and me. There's a way that seems right to a man. But as we read in Proverbs 14 and verse 12, that sometimes that way seems right, but it leads to death. Brethren, there are some that accept and believe that God will accept worship in any form that they choose as long as God is the object of their worship. That they say, well, I'm worshiping God.

God must be pleased with that. He's the center of my worship. Well, God the Father has revealed to us a way that he wants to be worshiped. But let's understand from the Scriptures today that our own way, or somebody else's way, or a way of the Gentiles, are not acceptable to him.

And let's also realize that if we start down that way, that that is more dangerous and more damaging than we can imagine. We'll read a little bit about that here in a moment. Because God's got a lot to say about pagan ways of worship and how they begin to corrupt and where they ultimately lead. Let's notice Leviticus chapter 18 and verse number 1.

Leviticus chapter 18 and verse 1. You know, a long time ago, God began working with a special people that he called out, the children of Israel. He brought them out of the slavery of Egypt. The people had been immersed in the culture of Egypt for hundreds of years, and they had observed gods that were attractive to them. They were attractive. They saw gods that they felt were powerful. And they saw false gods that were worshiped in some and various attractive ways. And now Israel was going to go to a new land.

And there were gods in Canaan where they were going to go. They also had false gods, but they were also worshiped in very attractive ways. Well, let's take a look at what God has to say. He begins to deal with them here. Leviticus chapter 18 and verse 1. Then God spoke to Moses and he said, Speak to the children of Israel and say to them, I am the Lord your God, according to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do. And he says, And according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am going to bring you, you shall not do, nor shall you walk in their statutes.

So what did God want them to do? Well, the very next verse, verse number 4. You shall observe my judgments and keep my ordinances to walk in them. I am the Lord your God. You shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them. I am the Lord. You know, he's telling them and he's telling us, there are the ways of the Egyptians, where you're coming out of. I don't want you to bring any of that with you. I don't want you to do anything that they did.

And the Canaan, where I'm bringing you to, I don't want you to do their doings. I don't want you to follow their way. The ways of the Gentiles. Let's go over to Exodus 32, verse 1. Exodus 32, verse 1. God freed his people from the slavery of Egypt. And in this context here, they're on their way into the wilderness, on their way to the Promised Land. They've come to Mount Sinai. God's going to call Moses up to the top of the mountain to share with them some information, more information of how he wants his people to live. But Moses is gone for a longer period of time than they're comfortable with.

And so, they, let's pick it up here in verse 32, excuse me, chapter 32 in verse 1. It says, when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and they said to him, Come, make us gods that shall go before us. For as this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him. So it's not very long here that they turn to Aaron, and they're beginning to ask for other gods. How does Aaron react? Verse 2, when Aaron said, We'll break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, and your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.

So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and they brought them to Aaron. And then he received them, and they melted it down, and then he engraved it into the image of a calf. Verse number 4, He fashioned it with an engraving tool, and he made a molded calf. And then they said, This is your God, O Israel, that had brought you up out of the land of Egypt. So when Moses was gone longer than what they were comfortable with, rather than God's people began to revert back to what they had known before in Egypt, they started to turn aside from the way that he commanded, and they started to revert back to what they'd come out of.

You know, all their lives, they were accustomed to the Egyptian forms of worship. They'd lived their lives in Egypt. They had seen how they worshipped their gods. They knew the idols. They knew the statutes. They knew the customs of the Egyptians.

And God took them out of that. He removed them out of that. But in a very short period of time, they're starting to go back to it. You know, historically, I think I may have covered this last year. Apis was a God deity, a bold deity in Egypt. Apis, a bold deity God worshipped in Egypt. He was the most important of all the sacred animals in Egypt, and as with others, its importance, Apis's importance increased over time. There's evidence that the body of Apis was eaten by the pharaohs because they were trying to grow or gather from his great strength so that they would be strengthened by absorbing Apis's great strength, by eating the Apis bull.

And as a form of Osiris, the Lord of the dead, it was believed that to be under the protection of the Apis, would give the person control over the four winds of the afterlife. So this was a very important deity in Egypt. And now, under Aaron's leadership, the congregation of God begins to revert back to these Egyptian practices, these common pagan heathen practices. Verse 4, And he, referring to Aaron, received the gold from their hand, he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and he made a molded calf.

And then they said, This is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. So the people said, This is the God. This was a visible representation of the God that brought us out of the land of Egypt.

So when Aaron saw it, verse 5, he built an altar, and before this altar, or before the calf, rather, he built an altar before the calf, which is a sign of worship. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. I think the New Living Translation says, Tomorrow is a feast to Jehovah. So they're not calling the golden calf Apis. They're calling the golden calf Jehovah, the God that they've been dealing with.

And so they're starting to mix truth with error, aren't they? And then, of course, Aaron makes a proclamation that tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. But God didn't tell them to make that a feast. He didn't tell them to build that, engrave that golden calf. They did this all on their own, so that they could worship Jehovah.

James and Fawcett in Brown Commentary says this about verse 5. I'd like to read this. It says, Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. A remarkable circumstance, strongly confirming the view that they had not renounced the worship of Jehovah. So they were still saying that this is the God that brought them out. It's not Apis, it's Jehovah. Strongly confirming the view they had not renounced the worship of Jehovah, but in accordance with Egyptian worship had formed an image which they had been familiar.

Something they'd seen before, with their eyes. Something they'd been familiar with to be the visible symbol of the divine presence. But there seems to have been much of the revelry also that marked the feasts of the heathen. And remember, they rose up to play. Verse number 6. So then they rose up early the next day. They offered burnt offerings. They brought peace offerings.

Then the people sat down to eat and drink, and they rose up to play. So here they're mixing. They're mixing syncretism, mixing truth with error. And what did God think about this idea? Well, I think we know. Verse number 7. The Lord said to Moses, Go and get down, for your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. And that's interesting, I think. Not only was God angry.

Not only did God disapprove. Not only was his anger hot, but he said something had started in the people. They had started a process of corruption in themselves. Maybe we haven't thought about that before. Brother, this is why worshipping God in a way that we think, instead of the way that he says, is so damaging and so dangerous because it starts a process of corruption in the people that are doing it.

Let's take a look at the Hebrew word for corruption here. The Hebrew word for corruption is shakath. What is shakath? How is it translated? Well, it's translated corruption in this particular place. In other places, it's translated to decay, to ruin, to destroy, to mar, to perish, to spoil, to utterly waste. It's a pretty strong word, isn't it?

God says the people had begun to corrupt themselves. You know, we talk about the Days of Unleavened Bread, one of God's festivals that he does want us to observe. And all the things that we learn about sin and how it corrupts and how it works like leaven, how leaven is introduced into a loaf, and a little leaven changes the entire loaf, just like sin does, just like cancer does, like leprosy, like rust on metal or somehow they're a powerful potent agent like that.

It starts to infuse and it begins to mix itself with the ingredients around it until the end result is completely different than what was started. You know, it's one of the days, or one of the means of the Days of Unleavened Bread. And God says that false worship corrupts in a very similar way. And it corrupts the people. False worship starts a process of corruption and decay in people who worship falsely.

Maybe we haven't thought about that before. It changes the people. It leads to decay. It leads to ruin. It spoils. It marrs. And eventually it destroys. Until the end product is very different than what it started out with. Starts innocently, sometimes. Verse number 8. God says they turned aside quickly out of the way that I have commanded them.

There's basically three ways. There's the way of the heathen. There's our own way. And there's the way of God. And God says they turned aside quickly out of the way which I have commanded. They've made themselves a molded calf and they've worshipped it.

God says, I don't think they're worshipping me. They're worshipping the calf. They've worshipped it and they've sacrificed to it. And they've said to it that this is your God that brought you out of the land of Egypt. So God didn't think of it as being okay. Verse number 9. And the Lord said to Moses, I've seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people.

God sees their actions and their deciding and their syncretism and their mixing truth with error and deciding how they're going to worship Him as being stiff-necked. As being starting a process of corrupting them, of changing them. Verse 10. God says, let me alone, Moses, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and I will make of you a great nation. God clearly disapproved. There's no clearer scripture really to show how He felt about what they were doing, that He had clearly instructed them in a way to worship Him.

And they were not following that way. They had turned aside from that way. And God knew where it was going to lead to them. He cares for them. He loves them. He knows ultimately what is going to happen with them if they continue down that road. Let's jump to verse number 30. Now, it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, you have committed a great sin.

So God clearly said, not only was He disapproved, but this was a sin. It was a sin. Verse 31. And Moses returned to the Lord and said, oh, these people have committed a great sin and have made for themselves a God of gold. And so now we see also that false worship is a sin.

And of course, sin corrupts. Let's turn over to Deuteronomy 12, verse 28. God has a warning and an important message for His people. Deuteronomy 12 and verse 28. He wants us to know how this process works, where it leads, where it ends up.

He wants us to be educated. He wants us to know and understand. He's concerned about us. Deuteronomy 12, verse 28, just as He was concerned about them. It says, observe and obey all these words which I command you that it may go well with you and with your children. God says, I want it to go well with you and with your children. And notice it's for many generations to come with you and your children forever.

When you do what is good and right in the sight of the Lord your God. Not necessarily when we do what's good and right in our own sight, but what's good and right in His sight. Verse 29, when the Lord your God cuts off from before you the nations which you go to dispossess and you displace them and you dwell on their land, then take heed. It's a way of taking a warning that you're not ensnared, trapped, in other words, to follow them after they are destroyed from before you. And that you don't inquire after their gods, saying, how do these nations serve their gods?

I also will do likewise. He said you shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. Don't take their ways and apply them to me. Don't take their ways and apply them to Jehovah. You shall not worship your God in that way. For every abomination of the Lord which He hates, they have done to their gods. He knows where it leads. They had come to the point where they were totally corrupted.

It's one of the reasons why God had them leave the area, to bring in His people to be an example in evangelistic light. He says in verse 32, Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it. You shall not add to it, nor shall you take away from it. God's pretty clear, isn't He? He tells us a lot here in these five verses here, verses 28 through 32. He tells us a lot. He knew His people would be attracted to the pagan customs of false gods. He knew that. And so He didn't want them to adopt them in the worship of Him, the Creator, the true God. You know, God makes it known in this context here how He feels about it. He uses the word abomination. You know, we don't often use that word, but that means another way to translate it in some other versions is detests. He feels strongly about the danger, the damage of what this can do. He's not pleased when people copy or borrow pagan practices, pagan observances, religious practices, and re-label them in an attempt to honor and pay homage to Him. Brother, let's follow where the corruption leads. How far does it go? Let's take a look. Let's notice Deuteronomy chapter 31 and verse 16. Deuteronomy chapter 31 and verse number 16. Brother, the context here is that God's people are still in the wilderness, but they're about ready to go into the promised land. And Moses is still alive, and God is having a conversation here with Moses. Let's notice what he has to say. Deuteronomy chapter 31, and we'll pick it up here in verse number 16. And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, you will rest with your fathers, and this people will rise and play the harlot with the gods of the foreigners of the land, where they go to be among them, and they're going to forsake me, and they're going to break my covenant which I have made with them. Well, they hadn't even gone into the promised land yet. God knows, though, the proclivity. He says, I know that you are going to go to your fathers, and this people are going to forget me.

Let's go on verse number 17. And my anger is going to be aroused. No different than what happened on Mount Sinai.

And I'm going to forsake them, I'm going to hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured. God says there'll be consequences.

Not only will they begin to be corrupted, but I'm going to punish.

They shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall befall them. So they will say in that day, Have not these evils come upon us, because our God is not among us?

So maybe it'll go so far that they'll wake up and say, Maybe we're doing something wrong, and our God is not among us.

Verse 18, I will surely hide my face in that day because of all the evil.

Brother God calls a spade a spade. He says false worship is evil.

Because of all the evil which they have done in that they have turned to other gods. Let's jump to verse 20.

When I have brought them the land flowing with milk and honey, of which I swore to their fathers, and they've eaten, they filled themselves, they've grown fat, then they're going to turn.

They're going to turn to other gods and serve them. They'll provoke me, and they'll break my covenant. It shall be when many evils and troubles have come upon them that this song is going to testify. So God says, I'm going to make this message into a song.

And I want you, Moses, to teach this song to my people. And then you know how a song can get in your head, and the message is there, and it just goes, and you never forget it?

God says, I'm going to put this into a song, and it'll testify eventually to my people.

So he says, this song, verse 32, will testify against them as a witness.

For it will not be forgotten in the mouths of their descendants, for I know the inclination of their behavior today, even before I have brought them to the land which I swore to give them.

God knows our inclination, doesn't he?

He knows he knew their inclination.

And so Moses wrote the song. Let's jump to verse 26.

Take this book, and this is significant. We'll tie into this a little bit later. Take this book, it's the book of the law, and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, that it may be there as a witness against you. So later on, the words that were in this book, we're going to testify to those people later on.

Verse 27, for I know your rebellion, Moses is speaking, I know your rebellion and your stiff neck. He knew what God knew, and he says, if today, while I'm yet alive with you, you've been rebellious against the Lord, how much more after my death?

And then in verse 28, he says, gather to me all the elders of your tribes, your officers, that I may speak these words in their hearing. I want everyone, the leaders here, to hear this, and I want to call heaven and earth to witness against them. For I know that after my death, you will become utterly corrupt.

Utterly corrupt, and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you.

So God knew the end from the beginning.

And so verse 30, then, all of these words were spoken in the assembly, and they learned this song.

Verse 32 talks a little bit about the song.

We'll pick it up in verse number one.

It says, give here, O heavens, and I will speak, and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain. This is the song. My speech distills as the dew, as rain drops on the tender herb, and as showers on the grass.

For I proclaim the name of the Lord, and ascribe greatness to our God.

Brethren, He's worthy of worship.

He's worthy of honor, and respect, and praise.

Verse 4, He is the rock.

His work is perfect. All of His ways are justice. A God of truth, and without injustice. Righteous and upright is He.

But notice verse number 5.

It is people, but they have corrupted themselves.

And they are not His children because of their blemish.

A perverse and a crooked generation.

Let's jump to verse 9.

We see God's care for His people here in this song. For the Lord's portion is His people.

Jacob is the place of His inheritance. He found Him in a desert land, in a wasteland, in a howling wilderness. And He encircled Him.

And He instructed Him.

And He kept Him as the apple of His eye.

As an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its young, spurting out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on its wings. You see the care here.

So the Lord alone led Him.

There wasn't any foreign God at this time in this relationship. It was God and God alone.

Verse 13. He made Him right in the heights of the earth, that He might eat the produce of the fields.

He made Him draw honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty rock, and curds from the cattle and milk of the flock, with the fat of lambs and the rams of the breed of Bashan, and the goats with the choicest wheat.

And you drank wine, the blood of the grapes. They were blessed abundantly by this one and only true God.

Verse 15.

But Jen, gesturing, grew fat and kicked. You grew fat, and you grew thick, and you are obese, and then He forsook God who made Him, and scornfully esteemed the rock of His salvation.

They provoked Him to jealousy with foreign gods, with abominations. They provoked Him to anger, and notice they ended up sacrificing honoring demons, and not God.

To gods that they did not know, to new gods, new arrivals, that your fathers did not fear.

And of the rock who begot you, of the one and only true God, who did all these things for you, you are unmindful.

President, that's where it leads.

That's where false worship eventually leads. That's how far this corruption goes to the point that you don't even be mindful of the one and only true God.

And it says you have forgotten the God who fathered you.

Well, let's go forward now into their history. Let's turn over to Joshua chapter 24 and verse 13.

Joshua chapter 24 and verse 13.

Moses at this time is gone, and Joshua has been leading the people of God, and they are now settled in the Promised Land.

Joshua chapter 24 and verse number 13.

Client, I have given you land for which you didn't labor, and cities which you didn't build, and you are dwelling them.

You eat of the vineyards and the olive groves, which you did not plant.

Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve him with sincerity and in truth.

Sounds very much like 1 Corinthians, where it talks about, you know, eat the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. Put the leavening out. And now it says to serve God in sincerity and truth. There's a connection here about the corruption that can happen with false worship, with sin.

He says, serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river in Egypt, and serve the Lord. Now this is 40 years after they've left Egypt, and Joshua is still telling to them that they have still not really, totally forgotten the gods on the other side of the river in Egypt. 40 years after being out of that society.

Verse 15, And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, well then you choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether it's the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the river, as talking about Egypt, or the gods of the Amorites. We're talking about in the area of Canaan, and whose land you dwell.

But Joshua says, but for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

So the people answered, well, far be it from us. I mean, we're going to serve God too, Joshua.

I mean, after all, he is the God that did deliver us out of the Egyptians. He brought us through this wilderness. He fed us all of those years. He kept our clothes from, you know, wearing out. Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord, they said, and serve other gods.

And then Joshua says, well, verse 19, but you can't serve the Lord because you still haven't put away these gods on the other side of the river.

God's a jealous God. He doesn't want anyone else involved. He knows where that eventually leads.

And so he says, don't do that.

So he says, verse 19, you can't serve the Lord for He is holy. He's a holy God. He's a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions. It's wrong.

It's sin, and it's dangerous, and it corrupts us if we do it.

Verse number 20, if you forsake the Lord and you serve foreign gods, and He'll return, and He'll turn and do you harm and consume you after He's done you good. And so the people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. So Joshua said to the people, okay, your witness is against yourselves, that you have chosen to worship Him, and that means Him alone, with no mixture.

Verse 23, now therefore He said, put away the foreign gods which are among you. They're here right now today, is what He's saying.

Put them away.

They're among you. And turn your heart, incline your heart to the one and only true God.

Let's turn over to Judges 2.

Brethren, the corruption of false worship, as dangerous as it is, as damaging as it is, is not easy to stamp out.

Just like leaven, just like cancer, once it's introduced, you best get it out. Cut it out, take it away, don't get involved with it at all. Don't let it creep back in.

It's like a simmering smolder that just won't go away.

This leavening process of false worship, this corruption process, it's not easy to stamp out. It's dangerous and it's damaging.

Judges 2, verse 8, we see here now that Joshua has died. He's 110 years old. He died.

And verse 9 talks about the fact that he was buried. Jumping to verse 12, and it says what happened, it says, the people forsook the Lord God of their fathers who brought them out of the land of Egypt, and they followed other gods.

So now the corruption has started.

They followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them. They bowed down to them and they provoked the Lord to anger.

God responds the same way with false worship. He gets angry. He knows where it leads.

He knows it's not good for the false worshipper.

Verse 13, and they forsook the Lord, and they served Baal and the asterisks, and God's anger was hot.

And he delivered them into the hands of the plunders who despoiled them, and he sold them in the hands of their enemies, just like the song said.

You know, Judges is a time where it talks about in many other places that people were doing what was right in their own eyes.

That phrase is in the book of Judges many times.

They began to follow their own way. They did what was right to them, rather than what was right as far as God was concerned.

And let's see where it led here.

It says, verse 15, wherever they went, the hand of the Lord was against them for calamity. But then, nevertheless, verse 16, God would feel sorry for them, and he would try to restore things, and he would raise up Judges, and they begin to teach the right things again, and they'd be delivering. The Judges would help deliver the people from their enemies.

Verse 17, yet they wouldn't listen to the Judges, but they played the harlot with other gods, and they bowed down to them. They turned quickly from the way in which their fathers had walked in obeying the commandments of the Lord, but they did not do so.

And when the Lord raised up Judges for them, the Lord was with the Judge, delivered them out of the hands of their enemies, for the Lord had pity because of their groaning.

But verse 19, and it came to pass when the Judge was dead, they reverted back.

The corruption continued, and it grew, and it be... and then notice, and behave, they behaved more corruptly than their fathers.

So this process of corruption was getting worse and worse as time went on.

And there's a lot that we could go through, the book of Kings, when we talk about corruption, a lot of examples, but let's turn to 1 and 2 Kings, chapter 22 and verse 1.

2 Kings, chapter 22 and verse 1. Now, at this point in the history of the people of God, they had grown very, very corrupt.

In fact, they had just had a very corrupt king by the name of King Ammon that had died, and his son, an eight-year-old son Josiah, was named as king to reign.

2 Kings, chapter 22 and verse number 1.

It says, Josiah was eight years old when he became king, and he reigned for 31 years in Jerusalem.

And his mother's name was Jededah, the daughter of Adiah of Boscoth.

And he did what was right in the sight of the Lord. Not what was right in his own sight, but he did what was right in the sight of the Lord.

So now, at this point, it's talking about his overall reign, that he had a good reign.

He reigned for 31 years. He was eight years old when he started, so he reigned until age 39, and his overall reign was a good reign.

And notice it says, and he walked in all the ways of his father David, and he did not turn aside to the right hand or to the left of the way of David, which, of course, he was a man after God's own heart.

Now, this was in contrast to those that had turned aside quickly, one way or the other, from the way of God.

He didn't add to what God had said. He didn't take away from what God had said.

In verses 3 through 7, we see that Josiah began a major reconstruction of the temple.

He asked for money that was being brought in to be able to be used to give to workers to begin to rebuild the temple of God.

So, apparently, the temple of God was still there, among many other gods. It was one of many, and they were still, apparently, worshiping Jehovah in some way.

While they're doing the work, they make an astonishing discovery.

They find the book of the law of God.

In the temple.

And this discovery, brethren, I think, brings to light some very revealing things at how far things had sunk.

When it came to religious matters, and when it came to the worship of God.

Let's pick it up in verse number 8.

Then, Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord.

And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

Brethren, what they found, literally, was the Word of God. Moses had been putting much of the information in there. Joshua had written some of it. These were God's words that they found.

The original copy of the laws given to God's people from God through Moses and Joshua.

And when they read this book, the impact on them was profound.

In fact, we, as modern readers, should have no less of that profound effect on us as we read what it was.

Because the impact, brethren, that they began to realize, because when they read the book, what it revealed to them and what it revealed to us is the corruption and the decay, how far it had gone.

How far it had fallen.

This is how far false worship can influence and corrupt.

No one even knew where the book of the law was. Nobody in their lifetime had even read it. And yet somehow they have this God, Jehovah, and they have a temple, and they worship. What were they preaching? What were they teaching?

They did not even know where the book of the law was.

That's astonishing.

Not even the high priest, who was supposed to have the responsibility for teaching truth, religious matters about Jehovah, had even seen it.

He had never read it.

In fact, no one in living memory had even read it.

So what did they do now that they found it? Verse number 10.

Then Shaphan the scribe showed the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book, and Shaphan read it before the king.

Now it happened when the king heard the words of the book of the law that he tore his clothes.

Further in that day and time, the rendering of garments, of clothing, was a sign of extreme grief and emotion.

Shaphan was only 26 years old when all this is taking place.

But he was deeply and profoundly moved and troubled by the words that were being read to him.

This had profound implications for him.

This had profound implications for the people.

This had profound implications for the kingdom.

And he was deeply disturbed by it. Verse number 12.

Then the king commanded Dukiah the priest, and four others went on a trip, and they went to see a prophetess by the name of Haldan. Verse number 13. He said, Go inquire the Lord for me, for the people, and for all Judah concerning the words of this book that I have found.

He said, I need some direction on what we are supposed to do.

And I think that's a very good question to ask.

What should we do?

For great is the wrath of the Lord that is aroused against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book to do according to all that is written concerning us.

You know, Josiah, young as he was, realized right at the outset what he was doing, or what he was dealing with here.

He knew what his fathers had done.

He knew what they had now broken these commandments. He knew the histories of the people, that they'd forsaken these commandments, that he was reading about.

You could see it everywhere. You could see it on every corner, on every hillside, the altars, the pillars, the statutes. They were all there.

He just hadn't realized the significance of it until now.

He sat down and read the book of the law of God.

Verse 14, So, Hilkiah the priest and these four others, they go to Haldah the prophetess.

Apparently, she was the only one that was known to them as a true prophet of God, was this woman.

Verse 15, They inquired of her and she said to them, Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Tell the man who sent you to me, that thus says the Lord, Behold, I will bring calamity on this place and on its inhabitants, and all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read, because they have forsaken me, they've burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with the works of their hands.

Therefore, my wrath shall be aroused against this place, and it shall not be quenched.

Now, this is God speaking here. This is His word.

Now, I imagine at this point in time, the hair on the back of their necks beginning to get raised a little bit.

Verse 18, But as for the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, in this manner you shall speak to him.

Thus says the Lord God of Israel, Concerning the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard what I spoke against this place, and against its inhabitants, that it would become a desolation and a curse, and you tore your clothes, and you wept before me, I also have heard you, says the Lord.

Well, you can sure see the value, can't you, when you've done something wrong, to be sorry for what you've done.

And so was Josiah.

Verse number 20, Surely therefore I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see the calamity, which I will bring on this place.

So they brought word back to the king.

So Josiah heard these words, and he considered them, but he couldn't let it rest there.

You know, just the fact that it wasn't going to happen in his day and age, he wanted to do something about it.

But, brethren, I think one of the lessons that emerges here from the story, to all of us here that are reading at this point, is that the people of God had traveled a long way down this road of the Gentiles, of the heathens. This corruption had gone a long way down this road.

They had got to the point where they had actually even misplaced the book of the law.

They even know where it was. Now, apparently, they must have known that it existed because when they found it, they knew what it was, but nobody knew where it was.

They'd come to the place where they had lost everything that identified the true God, and his ways, and the way that he wants to be worshiped.

Josiah begins to institute some reforms, and I think the level of the reforms that he has to institute really revealed the depth to how far this corruption had sunk to.

Let's pick it up in 2 Kings 23, verse 1.

2 Kings 23, verse 1.

Now, the king sent them to gather all the elders of Judah and Jerusalem to him. So he's bringing a lot of the elders, the leaders of the people.

And the king went up to the house of the Lord with all these men of Judah, and with all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the priests, the prophets, and all the people, both small and great, there was a great gathering there at the house of God, the house of the Lord.

And he read in their hearing all the words of the book of the covenant which had been found in the house of the Lord.

Brother, this was the first time in these people's lives that they had ever heard any of the words of God from the book of the law.

Verse 3.

After this reading, then the king stood by a pillar, and he made a covenant before the Lord. And it appears as if this is an individual covenant that he is making. He's not making it for all the people. He makes a covenant between himself and God to follow the Lord, to keep His commandments, and His testimonies, and His statutes with all of His heart, and with all of His soul, and to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book.

And it seems like the people hear this, and they're moved, and they're thinking, we ought to do the same thing.

And so then it says, and then all the people took a stand for the covenant. They said, yes, this is what we need to do.

Yes, this is the right thing to do.

Yes, we're going to worship and honor and respect and pay homage to this God and this God alone.

Now, I want you to notice the next few scriptures.

What had to be done to make things right?

What had to be done?

I think this is very revealing of the depths that they had sunk to prior to this time.

Verse number four.

In the King commanded Hilkiah the High Priest, and the priests of the second order, and the doorkeepers, notice to bring out of the temple of the Lord all of the articles that were made for Baal, and for Asherah, and for all the hosts of heaven, these things had to do with the moon, and the stars, and the constellations. They were in the temple of God.

He said, get every single one of them out.

And they burned them outside of Jerusalem, in the fields of Kidron, and they carried their ashes to Bethel.

Note well, they had to drag all of this stuff out of the temple of God.

And it's the temple that Solomon had built.

Asherah, otherwise known as Easter, a sex goddess, and other gods. Verse 5, then he removed the idolatrous priests, whom the kings of Judah had ordained to burn incense on the high places in the cities of Judah, and in the places all around Jerusalem, and those who burned incense to Baal, and notice, and to the sun, and to the moon, and to the constellations.

The very thing God said back in Jeremiah, don't look at those heavenly hosts, to the Gentiles they're influential, they mean nothing.

They had learned the way of the Gentiles.

They did all this stuff, and they did it all over the place. It wasn't just in Jerusalem, it was all around the cities of Judah.

They'd forgotten about God.

They were burning incense to almost every god, but God.

Verse number 6, and notice he brought out the wooden images from the house of the Lord, to the brook Kidron outside of Jerusalem, burned it at the brook Kidron, grounded to ashes, through its ashes on the graves of the common people.

Then he tore down the ritual booths of perverted persons.

I think the old King James says, Sodomites, that were in the house of the Lord where the women wove hangings for the wooden image.

Right there, right next door, where the women wove hangings for the wooden image, there were these little houses where the male prostitutes were, that served the men that came to the temple of God.

Right there, part of the worship near the temple of God.

Why?

Because of false worship.

Because of the corruption where it leads.

It took the people away from God.

Their choices on how to worship God took them away from that God.

They had gotten to the point where they had lost the book of the law, and someone somewhere stopped paying attention a long time ago.

Verse number 10.

And he defiled Tophith, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or daughter pass through the fire to Molech.

You know what this is all about? The valley of Tophith just outside of Jerusalem, just a little to the south, was the garbage dump. But that's not what it was at that time.

They were sacrificing their sons and their daughters alive in the fire to a false god, a pagan god, of Molech.

They burned their children there to a pagan god in the valley of Tophith.

And Josiah put a stop to it.

But never again in this area would people be sacrificed, human sacrifices, to a false god.

But you know, believe it or not, there was a lot more to be done.

This isn't all that Josiah had to do to be able to clean up all the things that had happened and all of the religious environment that had eventually showed up on the scene after years of false worship and corruption.

One of the things that Josiah had to do was probably something that nobody had the nerve to do prior to him.

And that was to address the mess that King Solomon himself had brought to God's people.

Remember King Solomon? Of course, he married many foreign women from all over the empire at that time. And he built right next to the temple of God. He built several altars and places for some of these false gods.

They're called in this particular passage of Scripture and Abomination. Verse 13.

It says, Then the king defiled the high places which were east of Jerusalem, which were on the south of the mount of corruption.

Isn't that interesting how God calls it what it is?

Here, all these false gods, all these false wooden images, these idols, these statues that they were worshiping to east of Jerusalem, that was all on this mountain there, God calls it what it is.

A mount of corruption.

Notice, which Solomon, king of Israel, had built for Asheroth, again Easter, the Abomination of the Sidonians, for Chemosh, the Abomination or the detestable God of the Moabites, and for Milcom, the Abomination of the people of Ammon. These were all things that had been corrupting them, because those gods don't exist. It was changing those people.

And now the same corruption was right there among God's people.

Verse 14.

And he broke in pieces the sacred pillars of... We're talking about the mount of corruption. He broke in pieces the sacred pillars. He cut down the wooden images. He filled their places with the bones of men.

He broke them into pieces so that no one would ever worship again these false gods.

Verse 15.

Moreover, the altar that was at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam, the son of Nebad, who made Israel's sin, had made, both that altar and the high place that he broke down, and he burned the high place. He crushed it to powder, and he burned the wooden image.

He was one man who was very determined to wipe out the worship of false gods and pagan gods that were in and around Judah at that time.

A good king. A righteous king.

Verse 21.

Then the king commanded all the people, saying, Keep the Passover.

You know, one of the festivals of God, the first of the festivals, Keep the Passover to the Lord your God as it is written in the book of the covenant.

Such a Passover, surely, had never been held since the days of the judges who judged Israel, nor in all the days of the kings of Israel and the kings of Israel, or the kings of Judah.

They'd never had a Passover like that until this time, until they found the book of the law, until they started to worship God the way that He had instructed them to worship Him, until they had a king with backbone.

They could go up against the edifices that Solomon, one of the greatest and most powerful kings of Israel, had built to destroy those edifices and to restore true worship.

Verse 23.

But in the 18th year, King Josiah, again, he's aged 26 at this time, this Passover was held before God. They came into his presence before God and Jerusalem, the greatest Passover from the time of the judges all the way through the kings of Judah and Israel.

Verse 24. And moreover, Josiah put away those who consulted mediums and spiritists, the household gods, the idols, the abominations that were seen in the land of Judah and in Jerusalem, that he might perform the words of the law which were written in the book that Healkiah the priest had found in the house of the Lord.

Notice verse 25. There was before him no king like him, who turned to the Lord with all of his heart, with all of his soul, with all of his might, according to all the law of Moses.

Nor, sad to say, after him did any arise like him.

No one quite like him before, no one quite like him afterwards.

But then let's turn over to Isaiah 11, verse 9. Isaiah 11, verse 9.

The corruption of false worship, God shows, is pretty clear, isn't it?

It's pretty clear false worship leads. It leads to corruption. It eventually leads to forgetting the very God who you thought you were worshiping when it goes full circle.

This particular verse here is one that we often utilize or quote, or is part of a message during the Feast of Tabernacles. But I want to focus on one of the words here, brethren, in the context of the message today.

Isaiah 11, verse 9 says, They shall not hurt nor destroy, and all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

I'd like to focus on that word, destroy.

You know, it's that same Hebrew word that we've been talking about that's been translated corrupt, or corruption, or spoiling, or wasting.

God says, it's part of the meaning of this verse, that in His kingdom, they shall not hurt nor corrupt.

God's not going to allow that. It's going to be nipped in the bud. See, it's going to be nipped in the bud. False worship is going to be nipped in the bud. This corruption is going to be nipped in the bud, which eventually leads to destruction.

They shall not hurt nor destroy or corrupt in all of my holy mountain, because the earth is going to be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

1 Corinthians chapter 10.

Bless something that these are Old Testament stories.

They have no relevance to New Testament Christian today.

1 Corinthians chapter 10.

Pick it up here in verse number 11. 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

We'll pick it up in verse 9 for some of the context. Don't let us tempt Christ as some of them, Dan, he's talking about the children of Israel. Christ was there. He was the rock with them.

That was going along with them on their way.

Nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted. It were destroyed by the serpents, nor complain. As some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now, all of these things that happened to them were examples.

Examples for who?

They were examples for you and me.

For those of us that would read later on.

All of these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, or our instruction is how it could be translated. They're written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come. I would suggest that has to do with us, and the New Testament Christians, and the ones that were there, the first century Christians, up until the end of the age.

They were written for us.

God says, I want you to learn from them.

I want you to learn from their example, everything that happened to them.

I want you to learn from them.

Unless something that the stories that we read in these lessons again are simply Old Testament, no longer apply, the Apostle Paul makes another point in 2 Corinthians 6. Let's go over there.

2 Corinthians 6 and verse 14, where he addresses whether unbiblical religious customs and practices have any place in the worship of God's people.

2 Corinthians 6.

2 Corinthians 6.

Pick it up here in verse number 14.

Don't be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.

We apply that, of course, to marriage, but it also has to do with religion.

For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness, and what communion has light with darkness, and what accord has Christ with Belial, basically talking about the devil or demons, and what part has a believer with an unbeliever, and what agreement has the temple of God with idols?

For you are the temple of the living God.

As God has said, I will dwell in them, I will walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Therefore, come out from among them.

And be separate, says the Lord, and don't touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.

And you shall be, I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters.

Brother, God shows us clearly.

He loves us.

He cares for us.

He knows where corruption leads, whether it's sin or the sin of false worship. He knows how that changes people that worship in a false way. And so, he tells us very clearly about false worship and the corruption of it.

One last scripture here.

Leviticus 20, verse 26.

Leviticus 20, verse 26.

God is a holy God.

He's the only God.

And he tells us how he wants to be worshiped.

And he says here in Leviticus 20, verse 26, he says, And you shall be holy to me.

He said, You shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and I have severed you from other people.

I've entered into a relationship with you that you should be mine.

And then let's drop back to verse number 7 in this same chapter.

Verse 7 here of Leviticus 20.

He says, Sanctify yourself. Set yourselves apart.

Sanctification means set apart for holy use.

Sanctify yourself therefore and be you holy, because I am the Lord your God.

He's a holy God and he wants us to be holy, too.

Brethren, God wants us to worship him in a true way.

He's seeking true worshipers to worship him in spirit and in truth.

So let's put our trust and our faith in the one and only true God.

And let's be obedient and worship him the way that he instructs to worship.