I don't think that shocks any one of us that only 6% of Americans have a biblical worldview now. That's insane. But it lends into what we're going to talk about today. We're focusing in on the Ten Commandments and we're on the Second Commandment. I parsed out last time I spoke on this the commandment, but now I want to get into the application. We touched on a little of the application of it, but I want to go deeper still so I can show you how to connect dots about what's going on in our society and how idolatry really is the main culprit behind what's happening in America. Because as Romans 1 talks about, if you refuse to worship the Creator, you will worship the creation. And that's what's happening now here in America. We are in full-blown idolatry. And not you and me, obviously, but the rest of the world. And I want to show you how the dots are connecting and how things are going in line with this. Now, all of us know what idolatry is. It's to worship something other than God. And to worship things and money and materialism and our careers and things of that nature. I'm not going to bore you with that. You already know that. You already know that those things are idols. But what I want to show you is the subtlety of idolatry and how it's so subtle and so attractive that you and I could be practicing idolatry and not even know it. Is it possible for a believer to be caught up in idolatry? Yes, of course. Look at the warnings in Scripture. Sam, throw that up there. So here's the passage. He's talking to Israel. He's not talking to a bunch of pagans. He's talking to Israel, who believes in Yahweh. They've seen the miracles. They trust in Yahweh. They are saved. But yet, look what the command says. He gives a command to believers. You shall not make for yourselves a carved image, any likeness, anything that is in heaven above, or that is on earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of our fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me. but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love me and keep my commandments." Now, the last message, I parsed that out, and we're not going to spend any time going back over that. But there is the commandment to believers. Now, do you see these commandments in the New Testament? Yes, you do. Colossians 3.5, therefore, put to death your members which are on earth, fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is Idolatry, wait a second. No, I thought idolatry is worshiping a little statue. No, no, no, it's more than that. It's way more than that. You and I could be practicing idolatry with an attitude. Fornication is having sex before marriage. He says those who commit sexual immorality are idolaters. They're worshiping something else and therefore it comes out in their sexuality. Should we be shocked that all the cartoons now are promoting Crazy sexual expressions. Blue's Clues. Who would think a drag queen would be on there? When I saw the video, it just blew my mind. And it's not just Blue's Clues, it's all these little cartoons that these kids watch, ages 2 to 5. Ages 2 to 5. Why would they do that? I'll tell you why. Because of idolatry, they're grooming these kids. That's what they're doing. And the schools are just as guilty. A school in New York City, private school, parents pay $55,000 a year to send their kids to a private school in New York City. One crazy teacher goes in there and shows a cartoon video in their sex ed to first graders. And in this sex ed cartoon, he was teaching the kids stuff. I can't even say on Sunday morning. Parents were outraged, but what did the administrators and teachers say? Well, we're trying to get them to understand. Understand what at five? Understand what in the first grade? What are you, six, seven years old in first grade? What are you trying to get them? Oh, you're grooming them. You're grooming them to be what? To be LGBT. That's what you're doing, aren't you? See, sometimes idolatry is an attitude. It's a mindset. It's an ungodly mindset. Uncleanness. What does that have to do with? Well, it means being unclean sexually, being unclean morally. Passion, or just your desires are out of whack. You can't control yourself. That's a form of idolatry. You're serving something else. Evil desires, right? That's pretty obvious. Covetousness, yeah, wanting something that someone else has is idolatry, because you want that thing. That thing has become the issue, and that thing is a materialistic thing. So it's become a God to you. Let's continue on. 1 John 5.21, little children, keep yourselves from idols. So therefore, the command is to us, just as it was to Israel, don't get into idolatry. Okay, Brandon, I won't worship statues and things of that nature. It's way more than that. I'll show you in just a bit. But let me show you the seriousness of idolatry. The seriousness of idolatry and what is behind it. Next one, Deuteronomy 32, 17. When Israel practiced idolatry, guess what they were doing? They sacrificed two demons. Not to God, to gods they did not know, to new gods. So basically, Moses was saying, look, when you practice idolatry, you're worshiping a demon. That's what's behind the idol. And that's what will influence you in your walk with the Lord when you have a demon putting thoughts into your head and sending you into a different direction other than walking with Christ. Continue on. This is in 1 Corinthians 10, 19-20. What am I saying then? That an idol is anything? Or what is offered to the idol is anything? He's saying, look, the piece of wood, the stone thing, that's not what you need to be focusing on. Rather, that the things which the Gentiles, or pagans out there, sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God. So there behind the pagan sacrificing is demons. And he's saying, look Corinth Church, you get involved in idolatry, you're going to make sacrifices to this demon who's behind the idol. So let's back up and take a breath. You're saying that the scriptures... are telling us that if you and I get into idolatry, you will actually be following a demon. Yes, that's what it's trying to say, how serious this is. So if I make money my idol, you're going to follow a demon in that trail. If I make my career my idol, then that's a demon that will be controlling you and influencing you on all your decisions that you possibly could make. You won't think you're worshiping an idol because you think an idol is worshiping a stone. It's not. It's worshiping things that you want in this life. See, the devil is trying to convince people out in this world that they can have their heaven here, that they can have their nirvana, they can have their utopia here and now. And because of that, He says, go out and get it. It's theirs for the taking. And people will sacrifice to get that very thing. Whether that's a career, whether that's education, whether that is money, all those things are okay as long as they are not owning you and becoming an idol for you. But let's get into the application of all this. Let's parse it out. Now, I got into a couple, I believe, last time, but I didn't have time enough to dig down, and so I want to dig down on a few things. I mentioned last time, number one, why is idolatry so attractive? Because it assures access to the God through a platform. Now, I talk about what idolatry did, is that when you went to this little stone, it's not that they believed the stone had any magical powers or anything like that. They believed if they sacrificed to this idol, that it would demand that the God come and inhabit that very object. So they knew there was nothing behind wood or stone or anything like it, but they knew though it was a conduit to that God. And once they did the rituals, then they could have a platform with that God and tell that God what they wanted from it. And then that God would give them things back, okay? Fertility, harvest, rain, so to speak, all those kinds of things that they wanted back from the God. Okay, but what they didn't know, what they didn't know that the God behind that was a supernatural creature, but it was a demon. And so that demon is not gonna let him get away with it. If you cut a deal with a demon, so to speak, through idolatry, you will pay a price more than you're willing to pay. People in Hollywood, in the entertainment industry, have done deals with the devil, so to speak, and the price that they pay is way more than they thought. So in idolatry, the demon is not gonna just give you what you want. The demon will start controlling you. The demon will start manipulating you to think a different way and introduce thoughts into your heads. That's why it's so dangerous. So, they were thinking they were getting a platform, and they did, so to speak, but in doing so, it warped their minds. Now, how is that any different than social media? See, when I study social media, and I study the mechanics of social media, I am intrigued by the fact that it's the same mechanics that I see in ancient idolatry. Well, what do you mean? You say anyone that's using that is idolatry? No, no, no, no, no. But why are so many kids addicted to this? Why are so many adults addicted to social media? You can't get them off these platforms. Because the platform allows them to say things, gives them a place, gives them value, makes them feel important, which is exactly what idolatry did for the person. And then the price they pay is what? They're addicted to it. Why are they addicted to it? Because it's what the platform gives them. It gives them value, gives them meaning in life, so to speak. It's all counterfeit, but it does. But at the same time, the platform is now reshaping their minds. Because to be on Twitter, to be on Facebook, to be on YouTube, if you don't say the right things, the community will hammer you. Okay? So then what starts happening is, because of that thought process, the person starts self-editing. And then to get the likes and to get the feedback that you're looking for, if they say what the narrative says, then they get likes. Right? But if you don't, you get dislikes, and they don't want that. But that's a form of idolatry. It's a give and take, but their minds are being reshaped. So why should we expect anyone in the younger generation that's stuck on these things not to think the way the world thinks? I mean, for goodness sake, LeBron James can get up there and say the stupidest things I've ever heard anyone say. The most ill-informed person on the planet is LeBron James. But yet he'll get a million likes when he says something stupid. Why is that? Because the platform is rewarding him, but he doesn't realize the platform is goofing his mind up. That guy covers for China. He covers what's going on in the NBA. And my thing to him, if you love China so much, why don't you go over there? If you hate our country so much, get out of here. Go live in China and see how it's like. Go play NBA over there. We could care less about the NBA at this point. It's all about critical race theory and all this other junk of what the NBA's turned into. It's a propaganda wheel for the Chinese. But my point is, he's an example. He is an example of a platform jacking his mind up. And then you have Shaquille O'Neal weighing in on this, and he believes the earth is flat. And these guys get likes and everything, but again, what am I pointing out? If you're not in the narrative, if you're not anti-Trump, anti-this, anti-whatever, you're not part of the system. Well, the system's controlling your mind. Now, let's not stop there. You get that, right? So what would happen in idolatry is, now that you got into the platform and you could speak to this God, and this God, this demon, would actually start messing your mind up. You started realizing, well not they, but what the demon was doing was organizing people in a group to have a group consensus and a group mentality. So if they worshiped whatever tree god it was or whatever, you would have a group consensus about the tree god. And everybody, everybody had to do whatever the tree god wanted for the success of crops and harvest and rain and things of that nature. Because what became important was not the individual worshiper, was that the country or the nation or the group, the collective was all doing the same thing for this God. So the individual left. So the only value that you had, the only meaning in life that you had is if you were part of the group. Being outside the group ostracized you. Wait a second, wait a second. I'm thinking I'm seeing a parallel here. What are they doing right now in our society? Group think. Consensus building. And that's part of the narrative. And if you go against that narrative, you're shut down on the platforms, right? But if you go with the group, you're rewarded, and you get certain benefits for saying stupid things. As long as that stupid thing fits the narrative. But do you understand that idolatry was meant to unify people without truth? It was meant to create a group who worship this demon without truth. Folks, when I look at that, I'm thinking that's exactly what's happening. They tell us we need to have unity. We need to come together and we need to solve the world's problems. And that's the only way we can we can do this, guys. And so the platforms are creating. A group mentality. and the individual is lost in that. The individual doesn't think anymore. So let me give you an example. Now that Fauci has been proven to be the biggest liar in the last hundred years, Okay, that guy's treasonous now. We already knew that something was up with that guy. But now all the emails reveal, this dude's wacko. He's completely wacko. He needs to go to jail for the rest of his life, he's treasonous, and he's in the back pocket of China, and don't tell anybody that he wasn't involved in the gain of, gain of, what's it called? Gain of function, there it'll go. He's involved in the gain of function, manipulating a virus in the Wuhan China lab, which we told you last year, this is the Wuhan virus. Gain of function, giving millions of dollars through another group, from the NIH, through this other group, to China, the Wuhan lab, to develop a virus, man-made manipulation, for what? The Wuhan lab is a biotech military Weaponry system for viruses Excuse me. This guy was the head of the United States making decisions for the whole world The shutdowns the mask is all a joke. He the emails revealed. He didn't believe in the masks Why do I still walk in stores today and they tell me to mask up? group think Group think. See, notice how the people don't have any minds. They can't think of, hey, look, the emails came out, man. It's like all these data points that say he's lying. The group think doesn't think like that because they've lost the individual ability to critically think because they're worshiping a demon through idolatry, and they're going with what the group tells them to go through. They're lemmings. What's happened to it? Because demonic influence does that to people. They can't think for themselves anymore. So I don't care what's gonna happen. All this information's gonna come out, and you and I are gonna be proved right. But they're not gonna send Fauci to jail. They're covering him. They're covering him. But my point is, notice what happened in America. This group think is idolatry. Oh my, Lanta. I can go on and on, man. Anyway, I gotta move on. Number two, idolatry is materialistic. Idolatry is materialistic. Now you think, okay, I get that. Yeah, so I could just come out and say, well, materialism is idolatry. Okay, I got that. No, no, let's get more subtle to this. Let's get under the radar that most people don't see what's happening. Because it's happening in our country. See, when you kick the God of the Bible out, you kick Jesus out of your society, Romans 1 says you worship the creation. You all of a sudden become a materialist. That all that matters is what's here and now, and we're going to build a utopia, and if we do all these things correctly and right, then we'll make a nirvana here on earth. We'll have the Garden of Eden without God. We'll have the kingdom without a king. That's what they really want. And so it's totally materialistic in their worldview. And so they kept saying this last year, follow the science. No, the science militated against you, but they kept throwing that out that we are the arbitrators of truth. We'll tell you what to do. We'll tell you to shut down your society because we know better than you. See, that's materialistic mindset. Science is not made to give wisdom. That's not what science is for. And yet they kept saying follow the science because that's a materialistic mindset. That scientists and medical people are the only ones that know truth. No, we found out the medical and the scientific community are a bunch of liars. There is groups of doctors and scientists that are true, but they got ostracized or they were forced to leave their jobs and all kinds of stuff going against the narrative. Okay, let's go one step further. The subtlety in materialism is this. For these people, money is always the answer to problems. Now what do you mean? Now take, for instance, crime. They'll say, well, you know, these people commit crimes because they grow up in poverty, and it's because they lack education. And if they just grew up in the kind of environment that you all, patriotic white Americans did, then they would have the same privilege that you do, your white privilege, they say, as they call it, and they wouldn't act like this. They wouldn't be criminals and things of that nature. You know what? That's a lie. See, because they can't think straight, because they're demonically influenced, they believe that money is the answer to solve crime. It is not. It's the fact that you took morality out of society, Thou shalt not steal, should have been taught to them at an early age. Thou shalt not murder, should have been taught to them at an early age. But you ripped it from them and put in your new age, fandangled religion in education and screwed them all up. That's why they're criminals. It has nothing to do with the poverty. It has nothing to do with the environment. Because if I can go to the Bible, I will find all kinds of instances of godly people who were poor and in bad environments. And they were godly. It has nothing to do with that. But see, their answer is always money. Take, for another example, California. California is spending themselves into oblivion. And we're here. And unfortunately, the last time I looked at the California budget, about 51% of the budget is given to education. Yeah, you're right. K-12 gets about 51% of California's budget. 51%! And they keep cranking out the kinds of kids that they crank out. And what is their answer every time you say, hey man, the kids you're producing can't even read, they can't do math, they don't know history, but they know Marxism, and you ask them, What is your solution, Mr. Educrat? What is your solution, Mr. Principal, Mrs. Superintendent? What's your solution? We just need more money. Right? That's all they ever say. We just need more money. Oh, do you need 75% of the California budget? Let's give you 75% because our future is the kids, and we've got to do everything for the kiddos. Baloney. They think getting Chromebooks to kids is going to make them smarter. Hey, no, no, no. How about you teach them reading, writing, and arithmetic, and quit indoctrinating them into your Marxism and your LGBT agenda? Why don't you stop that? But they don't want to. Give us more money! Again, that's just one industry, but it's the biggest industry here in California, and it's sucking us dry. getting the kinds of kids that's getting cranked out of our public schools. God bless you if you're a teacher. My wife's a teacher. You guys are fighting the good fight, but I'm telling you, that system is broke. It's jacked up. They see it's materialistic money. Let's bring it down to our level. You and your wife are sitting there, or you and your husband are sitting there, and you're thinking, here's our problems, and if you say this, well, if we had more money, Be careful. Be careful. You're slipping into idolatry. If we just had more money, we could solve this problem and that problem. No, no, no, no. When you're facing problems, it's not an issue of money. We go to God and find out the solution. What would God have me to do? But if your default is, we just need more money, you're acting like an educrat. You're acting like a flat out pagan. And so materialism is a big deal. In fact, one of the companions of the Apostle Paul, I mean, could you imagine doing ministry with Paul? Yikes, that dude was type A, he's on fire, and he's just gonna drag you along as fast as that guy's going, right? And Demas used to be a partner with him in ministry, but look what happened. Demas finally left him, he couldn't do it. For Demas has forsaken me, having loved the present world. Yeah, Demas turned into a worldly individual, and he left ministry with the Apostle Paul to what? To mess around in this world, to play around in this world. Could you imagine the opportunity of serving with the Apostle Paul and you saying, hey man, you guys go ahead and do that. I'm going home. I want to buy a boat. Who does that? Who does that? A materialistic individual does. A believer who is wrapped up in the world and following an idol. Three, idolatry is a give to get system. a quid pro Joe. I mean, quid pro quo. Freudian slips. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, man. I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine mentality, right? You know, China's in his back pocket, he does favors for China, covers them up, and they all, the media, quid pro quo covers up Hunter Biden. By the way, in Delaware, I believe it is that the incentive to be vaccinated, you get 10 copies of Hunter Biden's book if you get vaccinated. Just joking. Quid pro quo. I'll give you something, you give me something back. So in idolatries, you would give the gods something, food. Apparently these gods couldn't eat on their own. And so you would have to give the god food. You ever been in one of these places in town or restaurants, and they have a little idolatry thing up there, and there's like an orange and an apple up there? And you're like, what is that? It's their feeding their ancestors, they're feeding their gods, and you're thinking, that's about the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Why would a god need to be fed? But anyway, the way it works is you would give that God something and he'd give you something back. It's quid pro quo. So the term quid pro quo actually is a form of idolatry. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. So if you bribe somebody with something, I'll do this for you, you do this for me, if you're bribing people, then you're practicing idolatry. Oh my goodness, that's like all the politics, right? They're all doing that quid pro quo, right? They're all doing it, for goodness sakes. But you even see it on local levels, man. You see it in Kern County, you see it at your job. The biggest people who advance up in a job and a placement is because they're doing quid pro quo behind the scenes, and you're not realizing it. Well, how come they gave a promotion to this guy and not so-and-so or myself that's more qualified? Why would they do that? Quid pro quo. You should know what happened behind the scenes. That's what happened. You see this at schools. You see this in athletics. The athletics here in Beggsville are making me absolutely sick. Quid pro quo is everywhere in athletics. At the high school level, college level, it's everywhere. I'm telling you what, when you start seeing that in your job, in this society, in sports, whatever it is, it is a form of idolatry. Because that's what they would do to the gods. Sick, man. It just makes me sick to watch this. But here's something else we've got to be careful about on this quid pro quo. Right now, our society is doing that with the government, quid pro quo. What do you mean? The government's coming to this. Look, we'll give you peace and safety. We'll give you health. We'll tell you what to do. You just give us a little portion of your freedom and we'll make it all better if you just give us something in return. Get vaccinated, we'll give you something in return. You won't have to wear a mask. Oh, no, wait, sorry, you have to do wear a mask, I guess, if you get vaccinated. You know, I saw these videos online, people have been vaccinated, they put magnets on them. Why would I need, why would, why would magnets stick to me after getting an injection? Why would that happen? Along with all the other crazy things that are happening with people getting the injections, paralysis, heart inflammations, and things of that nature, and death. Well, why? Why? Again, people are giving away their personal rights, and you saw it all last year, quid pro quo, for peace and safety. Everything's gonna be okay. We'll just follow High Priest Fauci, and he'll make it all better. That's how people are, right? You go on the platforms now, the Twitter, Facebook. You're giving up your free speech on there, by the way. You can't say everything anymore. Free exercise of religion? Churches were fine shutting that down. They didn't care. Oh, it's for our safety. It's for loving others. That's what the churches were saying. We're going to love others. It's baloney. Now it's all fake. It was a lie. But people are doing quid pro quo. Fourth. Idolatry is ritualistically easy with no moral duty or demands of obedience. Have you noticed that everybody you talk to is now spiritual? But they're doing their own thing. Worshipping their own God, whatever. But they say they're spiritual, but they're not Christian. Christianity, we are in a post-Christian country now. But everyone's still spiritual. You know why spirituality is so attractive, which is a form of idolatry? It's because being spiritual makes no demands on your behavior. You can quote-unquote be spiritual and act like a lunatic. You can be spiritual and act like an absolute animal. Right? That's what spirituality does for people. They love Mother Earth, they say Gaia worship's going on, but then in the back room they're practicing all kinds of sexual immorality. Because idolatry says, look, do the ritual, And you can act and believe and do anything you want to do. See, I grew up Catholic. I know that. That's what I did. I did the rituals. I said the 10 Hail Marys. I did the 10 All Fathers. I went to confession and made up stuff, because I'm not going to tell them what I'm doing. Would you tell them anything? So yeah, I told the white lie. to my dad, okay, I'm never gonna say, yeah man, I totally was messing up here. You think you're gonna tell that to a priest? Forget that. Okay, do my 10 Hail Marys and I'm out of there. So what happens, I knew this, sorry, this ritualistic thing because Catholicism was easy. If I did the rituals, I'm cool. But then I can act like a devil the rest of the week. And then I could make it up next Saturday or next Sunday and do the same thing over and over and over again. That's idolatry. And that's what's happening now. People are pretending to be religious, but they are wilder than peach orchard boar hogs. That's what they are. They're crazy. They're out of their minds. I mean, who would ever think we would get to the point where we're doing a drag queen story hour with kiddos? Who would think like that? And who would think that this transgender thing is okay? Especially to kids, that's like child abuse, man. But you know, here's the deal. The funny thing about idolatry and the same thing you're seeing today, in the idolatrous religion of that God, all they really cared about was unity. So long as the corporate body was all unified under the umbrella of that particular God, then everything was okay. But if you went against the group, went against the consensus, went against the corporate body, then you were left out of that society. How is that any different? How is that any different today? For goodness sake, you're seeing it all over the place. If you don't stick to the narrative and don't have unity, then you're out of the group. And you keep hearing this word unity, unity, unity. I hear all these politicians saying it. We need to unify. We need to unify to solve these problems. By the way, they're gonna say now, we're gonna unify to solve the alien problem. You watch. That's why we gotta come together. Because all of a sudden it's Star Wars, and Chewbacca is attacking. There's an interesting joke about Chewbacca. Someone said, who was the first person to walk on the moon? And someone says, Neil Armstrong. They said, no, it was Chewbacca. And I thought, that was so funny, but that's my Star Wars mentality. Chewbacca was not the first one to walk on the moon. But what are they doing with this? You saw on the Prophecy Update, the Pentagon's releasing all these things, right? You're like, what is that about? It's that materialistic mindset, it's that whole thing that they won't admit that these are supernatural creatures that are appearing, and they've always been appearing, and they're called fallen angels, they're called demons. They won't go to the supernatural. And so they're saying this is, you know, could be aliens. It's not Russia, it's not China. But anyway, my point is about this. They're going to use this as they did the Wuhan China virus as they're doing with global warming. They're going to use that we're under alien invasion, guys. And the best thing we can do is we got to come together. Got it. Unity. We have a common threat. We have a common crisis. Let's get together. And you saw all those slogans this last year. We can do this, right? Hope is not dead. All those crazy slogans people put on their houses, right? Did you see that? They were doing that to con us into groupthink. Unity. That's why the churches are going south now, because the churches want to play this game. We just need to be unified in Christ. No, no. John 17 says you're unified in truth, not crazy crises. You're unified in truth. The only way we have unity is if we believe the same things. We can't unify with Muslims or Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses or any of these other crazy cults. We can't unify with that. Hmm. Last one, I got to end on this one. I'm running out of time. Idolatry is on demand. What do you mean? Idolatry is on demand. So, like, on your new smart TVs, man, you can have everything is on demand. Do you sit down ever anymore and, like, watch a show? Hey, it's 8 o'clock. We got to go watch. Maybe you do. I don't know. In the old days, we used to, right? Man, it's coming on. We got to go. You know, and now everything's like on-demand, right? It's just like, I don't watch that tonight, man. You know? But man, on-demand has changed the world, right? And it's convenient, right? It's nice. Fits our lifestyle. But I'm not saying that's idolatry. I'm not saying that at all. What I'm saying is there's a principle there. What's the principle? Idolatry is on demand. What do you mean? See, if I had an idol in the ancient world, I could worship this idol anytime I wanted to, day or night. I could come before it anytime, ask anything I wanted. So it was like on demand. And the God was on demand. that once I did the ritual, then it demanded that the God respond to me. So everything was on demand, the God was on demand, like a genie type thing, right? That's how sometimes Christians treat God, like a genie, like he's on demand. Well, idolatry has that involved in it, and it makes the religion that the person practices very convenient. Let me give an example, real quick, of what happened in Israel about the convenience of worship. So this is what happened. When Solomon had two boys, and Solomon passes off the scene, the kingdom splits and divides between Rehoboam and Jeroboam. And here's what Jerusalem looked like. Okay, so the point was this. The kingdom split, but... The religion of Israel was not to change. Every year, you had to go to Jerusalem three times. You had to make the trek. Whether you lived in the land or outside of the land, you had to make the journey three times and stay there, usually seven days, eight days, and then come back. It was a long journey. It was a long time. But you had to do this. And you had to go to Jerusalem. You had to go to the temple. And you had to be there at certain times. Nine in the morning, all the way to three in the afternoon. You were prescribed to be there. There was no excuse. So what happened was the kingdom split. So Jeroboam goes to the north. So let me show you some pictures real quick. There's Solomon's Temple. This is where you had to go, obviously. So up in the north is Dan. Do you see where the tribe of Dan is? So what happened in Dan is Jeroboam sets up an alternative worship site in Dan. and creates a golden calf for goodness sake. He actually created two golden calves. I think one in Bethel and one in the area of Dan. Now if you've ever been to Israel, you might have went to Dan. Well anyway, this is what the remains look like. It's there today. And this is where the alternative worship of Yahweh was made. You can see the altar, the burning altar right there in the middle. They have a metal thing now, you can see. That's where they did the sacrifices to Yahweh. And it was wrong. It was completely wrong. Because Jeroboam wanted to make it convenient for the northern tribes not to have to make the trek all the way to Jerusalem. Convenience so obviously this was idolatry. This is what the place looked like it was full-blown idolatry, and it was wrong But what is the point they were worshiping a golden calf, and it was convenient you go You know you didn't have to make a trek to Jerusalem Okay, so Why did God? Prescribe that you travel three times a year to Jerusalem because of this faith Faith is never convenient ever God will ask you to do things that create a sacrifice in order to do them. And so it was a sacrifice to go down to Jerusalem, because dude, if you lived up way in the north, it could take you two, three days, and you had to walk on a trail that sometimes you could lose your life on. You could be robbed, you could be murdered, you could be fall in ditches or whatever. Animals could get you, whatever. So you had to travel in caravans and together you would make it down to Jerusalem. So it wasn't entirely safe. But why? God wanted to make the point to the Israelites, look, I'm not going to spoon feed you. I demand sacrifice from you on a personal level. You will sacrifice your time, your energy to worship me. I will make that demand. I'm not making it convenient for you. Hence, what has gone on in the American church. The American church has now went towards convenience. Convenience. Well, you know, I don't have to go every Sunday. That's true. Being in a church doesn't make you a Christian just as much as being in a garage makes you a car. I get that. But there is a command, do not forsake the gathering of yourselves. And so I've heard it over years and years and years, this whole attitude. Well, I'll go to church when it fits my schedule. I'll I'll serve when it fits my schedule. I'll serve when I have. I'm not as busy. Look, I've seen couples tell me 20 years ago. Hey, Brandon, I'll serve when my kids are growing up. OK. And what happens when the kids grow up? The kids split, they're empty nested and say, hey man, this is our time. So they go buy a Winnebago and they tell me, yeah, you know what? Yeah, I remember that promise I told you, but you know what? We gotta go see the world right now. We're gonna go travel all through the United States and we're gonna go on a tour of the United States. Again. Another excuse. And then when they come back, yeah, we're done touring, can you serve? No, no, man, we're so busy with the grandkids, forget it, Brandon, we gotta go here and there, we're going to their ballgames, we don't got time for that. I've seen the whole thing play out and the person just kept making excuses after excuses because it wasn't convenient to their schedule. Wow, are you kidding me? Do not think you're gonna stand before the Lord and he's gonna say, hey man, what happened? Well, you know, it really wasn't convenient for our schedule, and we're waiting for our kids to grow up. You think that's gonna fly? Do you really think that's gonna fly before him? I don't. If you think it does, I think you're in an illusion, because he's pretty serious about our worship, and he's pretty serious about our service to him. Huh. Sam, take me to the last picture, my friend. I gotta end on this. The last idol, the last idol is coming. Do not think for a moment that man has reached so sophisticated that he's above idolatry, uh-uh. Believe it or not, man is going backwards right now. And we're going to eventually see the world go into full-fledged idolatry. In fact, everybody on the planet except believers will bow a knee to the Antichrist. And what does the false prophet Produce. He produces an idol. An idol made in the image of the Antichrist. And I don't know, he's gonna stick one of them in the temple, but this idol will be worldwide. And this idol, I think is AI, it has the ability to kill you if you don't worship it. Maybe they'll have something inside people's bodies by then that they could just flip a switch if you decide not to bow a knee before the idol of the Antichrist. But it's coming. Man is not getting more sophisticated, he's getting more pagan. And eventually the whole world will bow a knee, except the believers, except Israel, will bow a knee to this idol of the Antichrist. They won't be able to buy or sell if they don't do that. But Daniel sees the image of the metallic man, and these are the Gentile empires all the way to the end. We're at the tento stage, we're right before that. That will be the last stage of the Antichrist empire. So, the good news is this. Daniel says, I see a stone coming out of heaven that's cut out without human hands. And that stone came to earth, and that stone smashed, crushed, just pulverized the last Gentile empire under the Antichrist, and crushed the last vestige of idolatry. He's coming, and when he comes, He's going to crush all idols. They will be gone once and for all. Amen? Amen. Let's pray.