An idol is anything that becomes an end in of itself.
In other words, there are many things in life, but when that becomes the whole point, it’s an idol paul would have, he’s walking and he sees, I mean, imagine the scene, it’s paul with a jewish guy bearded walking through walking through the city, seeing the statues of Zeus and Athena and Diana and Apollo and Poseidon and Hera and the others, A jewish man who had been grieved by this who from from early childhood he was taught thou shalt not make any graven image.

The people, the jewish people were people who were called away from idolatry. They were anti idolatry.
We are supposed to be people who are at we’re supposed to be at peace, paul wrote, I have, I’ve learned the secret of being content in every situation, having a lot of things, having nothing.
I’m content. But there are things we are not to be at peace with like evil, like people perishing without salvation, like Children being killed or being misled.
If we were believers in Nazi Germany, we would have to not be at peace with what was happening around us when the majority were only those who were not at peace were true believers.
And human nature seeks to be at peace with a crowd with a herd the majority because there’s less pressure that way.

You don’t stick out your stand against the crowd. There’s pressure.
That’s why, you know, in Germany you had a lot of people who call themselves christians and they were following Hitler and that’s why today you find a lot of quote christians or christian ministries or, or clergy or denominations that the next whatever, the next abomination we’re in for it.
Why? Because they’re just going along with the crowd has nothing to do with God, There’s no righteousness, there’s nothing to do with God at all.
They don’t know God paul is stirred up by all the idols.
Now, there may have been other believers in pagan lands that might have been living with these idols all the time.
They might have gotten used to it.
See after a while, what shocks you, you get familiar with the shock wears off.
You get desensitized, that’s what we have to guard against that because that’s what’s happened to America things that one shocked America one shock.
Next shock, you know, there’s a little controversy.
Then they get used to it, then comes the next one and the next one and the next one until the nation is following what it once was shocked by.
Well, even as believers, you have to be careful because what is familiar, what would have shocked us years ago, even as believers doesn’t shock us as much, it’s the culture, but you can become desensitized, You know, you know, I believe we have to guard against that again against accepting evil or being okay with it years ago if certain sins, like if I said there’s a sin, it’s gonna be like in, in a, in a movie, it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be promoting incest and and uh and pedophilia, you’d say well we’d never have anything to do with never go near that thing.
Well that’s that’s now shocking us now still.
But but but there are things in movies right now that would have shocked us years ago and you might say, well it’s all over the place, so I’ll go there.
It’s a little well guard against evil, guard against being corrupted against being defiled.
Here’s an amazing moment, paul, the jewish apostle in the crown city of the pagan world, walking after one idol past one idol and the other.
It’s a clash of civilizations, the pagan world and the word of God, the gods of the nations and the God of Israel.
A clash, that’s going to change the history of the world. There had never been a clash.
There has never been a clash like that until today because now we’re again, believers are in the same situation because now for the first time, the culture around us in the west is not quote christian now it’s becoming pagan and so we are in the same position that paul was, we are like paul in Athens, the culture is Athens and we have to act, you have to act just as strongly clearly uncompromised, boldly paul was grieved over it, God’s people are anti idol, we don’t have we, you know, we say, well we don’t have those idols now, we’ve got plenty of idols, what’s an idol.

An idol is anything that becomes an end in of itself.
In other words, there are many things in life, but when that becomes the whole point, it’s an idol.
Whatever you serve most, that’s your idol or your God. Whatever most motivates you to do things. That’s your God.
Not that if you’re motivated by yourself, that’s your God. Whatever you follow without question, that’s your idol.
Whatever you most dwell on in the day, whatever you most serve that is your idol.
We live in a city of idols. Modern culture. Money is certainly an idle.
Pleasure is an idol, sexuality can be an idol. Self is an idol.
Success and career prosperity can become an idol.
Even in many churches, even ministry can, as God’s people, we have to be anti idol.
We have to have served no idle serve God alone. The living god stand against the idols.
We must stand against the idols of the age.
When when when the culture tells you, you have to accept something without question. That’s an idol. That’s a god.
You have to be able to stand against that.
And when everybody is praising the emperor and his new clothes, you have to be the one who says no, the emperor is naked, there’s no clothes, he’s naked.
Stand against the idols. That’s your heritage, paul was stirred up troubles and he wanted and paul is in Athens Crown City and he’s not impressed, Not impressed.
All the art. Not impressed. We are not to be impressed by the world.
I mean, we can be blessed by things and we can use technology can use all those things.
But God doesn’t want you in all of the world.
I remember once once taken to a broadway show, big show and I look at a bunch of people in skin tight suits crawling around as animals and everything.
Isn’t this so good, so exquisite. Look at this. It’s so a vanguard. It’s so wonderful. It’s so intellectual.
It’s so incredibly creative. And it’s a bunch of people crawling as animals.
There are movies with millions of dollars spent for special effects, but inside it’s moral poison.
And you have to say, no, I don’t need keep your special effects. I don’t need your special effects.
I’m going with God, I’m going with purity. I’m going with right, I don’t need that.
You need to know the spirit that is behind what you’re doing or what you’re seeing what?
It’s not the glitter. What’s behind it? Where is it heading? What’s the point?
It didn’t matter to paul that the Greeks were good artists didn’t matter there when they’re depicting demonic entities.
It doesn’t matter if Hollywood or Disney can produce good special effects.
It doesn’t matter if it’s promoting darkness in those effects.
Who would think we’d be living in a day when you have to guard against Disney.
I mean, it became the point came to the point, you know where they were, their own company, said to each other in their own communication, where where in the business of querying Children is what they said.
Those are their words, not mine. What has happened?
These are the end times Paul was stirred up by the darkness.
He was stirred up by pagan as it was stirred up by the empty and stirred up by the lie of it.
We have to be stirred up.
I went to brazil on a mission and then they have a lake in a park and on the lake there were these strange figures, colossal figures standing on these platforms and they were all gods.
Each one was a gad floating in the water.
And when the mayor had agreed to this and we were grieved as we’re we’re there. We’re looking at it.
I had no idea that one month later God was sending me to africa to the land where those gods came from and to their shrines.
I didn’t know it was all. And and literally to confront it with salvation.
We went to India all over God’s God’s idols grieved. There’s a place, you know, it called Calcutta.
Calcutta. Why is it called Calcutta.
It’s named after the God Kali kali cut the God Kali Kali is one of the most repulsive God’s the one with all the all the hands and arms with a sword blood coming out of her mouth.
She’s drunk with blood destruction. And I and it was agreed it was a dark place where we that the whole the whole place where we were and I said to the guy I said can you take me to the to the temple of Kali?
He said oh no no no you don’t want to go there sir.
I said no no can you take us?
There’s no no no we’ll drive by, it’s okay but you can’t go.
And father, we got them, we went anywhere because there was a lot of things happening that were dangerous.
So we went inside and I’m in their were there within all the worshippers there’s a crowd of worshippers and they’re being ushered into the temple and were there in the midst of it were ushered into the temple all this dark thing into the temple of Kali.
And I had with me a shofar.
And when I’m in, when I’m at one point I said okay, it was in a case I said let me unzip it as ions just as I unzip it, take it as I took it out, we don’t know what happened, it was like the whole place became like a beehive swarming.
I mean I went crazy, we don’t even know why Wayne craig was spiritual.
I took this out, you know and yeah and and so I we we were led to the unholy oven holies and I’m standing there and there’s the priest there and the priest there and they expect you to give offerings and prayers to Cali and I I don’t, I lift up a shofar and they’re looking at, they look at me like what’s this I’m saying no, no it’s good, it’s a good thing, good, it’s good and then I pray that I sounded and say Lord release these people Lord bring revival to this place you know and and and not long after that we had a mission to Calcutta and we had people from here we prayed and for them to go and when we pray there was a woman who had a vision of the mission, she told me at that time they went there and on the, when they went to the event, it was a friday night, it was the weekend where they were having the event in Calcutta on the stage and that weekend I was led to do hear the story of jehoshaphat where they come, Israel comes to the army that they’re outnumbered but God says don’t don’t bring weapons, just bring some worship, bring someone so have a great worship time, they start worshiping the Lord
and the enemy is going to confusion, jehoshaphat when they’re, when the group was heading on a bus down to the place to minister one of the people said oh I have a word and he starts reading jehoshaphat to them and they go on the stage in the middle of the event.
These radical hindu men a whole bunch of all planned out start charging the stage to take it over and to end the event and and there was danger you know christians have been killed in India and they charged the stage and every and everything goes into confusion.
I don’t know if they cut the sound or something and they’re they’re trying to get on the stage and and and and and and so all the people on the stage are people start worshiping the Lord like jehoshaphat, they’re worshiping, praising God, praising God and the people the man for some reason there was confusion, they couldn’t get up the steps, we don’t know if they bumped it, we don’t know what happened, they couldn’t get up, they couldn’t get up and finally the police came and it went on and people got saved and but I remember the vision that the woman had months before was that she saw them on the stage and she saw the men rushing to the stage, she saw it all and she said but she said then she saw as they’re rushing God sent these colossal armored angels down and they came down and she said specifically she saw them as they were trying to get off the steps, they’re pushing them back with the armor, pushing them back with the shield and they went into confusion and then they saw she saw at the end of the vision, she saw this big dark statue idol of Kali and it just exploded.
We wore not against flesh and blood. We wore against Principalities, rulers, powers of this present darkness.
We need to be strong. We are in a warfare.
We need to be provoked and stirred up, paul was provoked and stirred up and he didn’t just stay there with his provoking, he didn’t just stay there grieve, He acted upon him.
He started proclaiming the most anti idle message in the world.
The gospel throughout the city, in the synagogues, in the market squares and he prepared a speech or he got a speech ready to speak on mars Hill, the hill of the God mars where they all gathered and there he gave a speech that has become the central template of all evangelism to nations that has saved probably millions of people because he was provoked and stirred up and acted upon.
It acted upon it. It’s not enough to get stirred up. We have to be but it’s not enough.
It’s not enough to be grieved or burden. That’s not enough convert. What’s in your heart into action for redemption.
The Salvation Army was started because one man was stirred up by what he saw in the cities of England revivals have begun because of one person who was stirred up over the loss going to hell ministries have started because one person was stirred up enough.
One person hospitals have been built for the poor because one person was stirred up over the poor.
Ministries to leopards have started because one person had a burden for them. Ministry to orphans.
Mission societies, we need to be like that. We need to be like that.
So much good has happened because people were stirred up provoked. They weren’t okay with it.
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