Embracing the Majesty and Incomparability of God

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Insofar as he is revealing himself to us through his word, and so the view of us through the eyes of God makes our man's eye view of God just doubly absurd, so that when we imagine God or we attempt to diminish God in any way, then it is absolutely ridiculous. [00:03:11]

The idolatry that is revealed here BC and the idolatry that is prevalent today AD is just a non-starter, and you will notice that whether the idol is crafted by somebody who's rich, I take it that's verse 19. The rich man can get a certain kind of idol, whereas the poor man, he he's not going to be able to do that. [00:05:05]

All of us are tempted, actually all of us have a compulsive desire to create a god of our own fashioning, so that we might have one who is manageable, uh that we might have a god who is if you like containable, and that we might have one who is able to go along with our views of morality. [00:06:13]

For although men and women knew God Romans 1 21, although they knew God as he has made himself known the creator, they did not honor him as God or gave thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened, claiming to be wise they became fools. [00:07:50]

We ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. That's it right there an image formed by the art and imagination of man, conceiving of God as we choose for him to be. [00:08:52]

And so he says it's absolutely ridiculous to manufacture idols because there is nothing and there is no one to whom God may be compared. He is the creator, and everything else is the creation, everything else is the work of his hands, which of course is another metaphor isn't it because God is spirit and therefore he has no hands. [00:10:07]

He is infinite and eternal and unchangeable, whereas his creation is limited and finite and temporal and mortal. So you'll notice that uh he comes back to this in verse 25. If you just jump ahead actually there to verse 25 the question is asked again virtually the same question as in 18 to whom then will you liken God. [00:10:44]

Man is made by God to contemplate the heavens, you think about it all the way through everything we read about in history people are always looking up, the fascination with space in the 20th century, uh the great concerns the fellow that shows up in in chagrin falls every so often with that big telescope which he allowed me to look through. [00:12:08]

When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers the moon the stars which we have ordained this is what we teach to our children our grandchildren isn't it, we were going down the driveway some months ago there was a beautiful moon, I said to the little one I said look at that, and he said it's the moon. [00:13:11]

The Babylonians were fascinated by the constellations if you read of the Babylonian empire you realize that they were so struck by the heavenly bodies that they were tempted not only to consider them but actually in the end to worship them, and so God is warning his people uh finding themselves in that circumstance. [00:14:04]

The danger is that we end up making them the very object that they are and the end that they are as opposed to a means to an end. Look up into the night sky, look up there, he who brings out the host by number, now I as you know that I, I ain't no scientist. [00:17:06]

You know that it is he that is the living and true God who sits above the circle of the earth, here's another amazing picture, I don't know what the circle that the earth really means, but I get the picture clear enough in my mind it's a picture of the fact that God is so transcendent and he is above and beyond everything. [00:22:03]

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