Well, as I said, tonight we'll come back and look at the song of Simeon from Luke chapter 2. That'll be a nice contrast to the struggle that we're considering this morning in Exodus 32. So I invite you to turn to Exodus 32 as we look at the second part here of the golden calf event in our study of the book of Exodus. I'm going to read the first 24 verses this morning. This is the word of the Lord, second book of the Bible, Exodus chapter 32, and we'll begin at verse 1. When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered themselves together to Aaron and said to him, up, make us gods who shall go before us. And as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. So Aaron said to them, take off the rings of gold that are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord. And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. And the Lord said to Moses, Go down for your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way that I commanded them. They've made for themselves a golden calf and have worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, these are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. And the Lord said to Moses, I have seen this people and behold, it's a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them in order that I may make a great nation of you. But Moses implored the Lord his God and said, O Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say, with evil intent did he bring them out to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven And all this land that I had promised I will give to your offspring and they shall inherit it forever. And the Lord relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people. And now our text. Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand. Tablets that were written on both sides, on the front and on the back, they were written. The tablets were the work of God. And the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablet. when Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted he said to Moses there is a noise of war in the camp but he said it's the sound it's not the sound of shouting for victory or the sound of the cry of defeat but the sound of singing that I hear and as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing Moses's anger burned hot and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder and scattered it on the water and made the people of Israel drink it. And Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them? And Aaron said, let not the anger of my Lord burn hot. You know the people, they are set on evil for they said to me make us gods who shall go before us as for this Moses the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt we do not know what has become of him so I said to them let any who have gold take it off so they gave it to me and I threw it in the fire and out came this calf may the lord bless the hearing of his word the new testament reminds us in many places to read the old testament this was paul's whole point in first corinthians chapter 10 to tell us not to do what israel did and the old testament was all on his mind first corinthians chapter 10 the bible of course uh the new testament tells us that we have no idea the things that God is preparing for those who love Him. What's difficult for us is being patient to receive what He is preparing for us as we are what the Bible calls strangers and pilgrims. That's what the Bible calls us. Pilgrims traveling to the promised land. We get out in the wilderness. We get out into the struggle of life and things just don't go as planned. I don't look at my life and nothing has gone really as planned. At times, it can be so discouraging that we feel like we're going nowhere. We find ourselves looking back. We find ourselves in struggle. Where's power to all this? Where is the power in all of this life? Easily then, do we turn at those moments to idols, to real idols in the course of our lives to find relief and fulfillment. Things that we run to, things that we pay devotion to, things that give us a temporary escape and a moment of pleasure so that we don't have to think. Very important point. Last week, we studied what is clearly the event in the Bible that explains to us the nature and the problem of idolatry. The event. God had been up on the mountain with His servant Moses for a long time now preparing a kingdom for them. They had no idea of what was coming, the things that God had in store for them, how glorious it would be. But for the wilderness moment, the light affliction, which is but for a moment, the wilderness moment, the 40-day period, they had been sitting stuck at the foot of the mountain. Not a pleasant experience. This is wilderness life. Not easy. Nothing glorious about it. And they have, at this point, had enough. This is the boiling point. This is it. There was no action. There was no glory. Even though God had done a wonderful thing and pulled them out of all that bondage, it looked more attractive to them with all of its luster in the world of Egypt than where they were at this moment. This didn't look nearly as good. So with no patience, they turned to Pastor Aaron, remember? And they said, look, you make us gods, and it could be God, but I believe there's a play there with the first commandment that's really important. You shall have no other gods before me. You make us gods that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, we don't know what happened to him. The man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt. Aaron grabs a chiseling tool and fashions this state-of-the-art golden calf. We'll come back to that. Aaron knew, of course, that this was wrong. But remember what we looked at. He had tried to fix the problem the best way he could. He knew that they were asking for the calf. He knew they were asking for another god to exchange their god. And so he wanted to then bring back into this some resemblance of true worship. So he said, okay, we'll build the altar. We'll have the burnt offerings and the peace offerings. And then he said, I declare, tomorrow we will have a feast to the Lord. I declare it. Well, this led to the first great worship service at the foot of the mountain. remember this was the reason god had delivered them out of egypt moses had been saying it for a long time it was promised him at the burning bush as the sign you're going to come to this mountain you're going to worship this had all been promised here we are the worship service is happening well last time we left off with this wild wow worship service down there dancing people committing spiritual immorality with this golden calf, calling it the Lord who brought them up out of the land of Egypt. It's at this moment that God tells Moses in anger, get down there for I'm going to consume them. And we ended last time with this beautiful intercessory prayer of moses didn't we uh showing us the need for a a mediator and somebody a go-between who who would who would deliver and we know that's all speaking of jesus um the new testament tells us that we should look at this that jesus was there jesus was their rock in the wilderness well we left off with the text saying in verse 14 god relented from the disaster that he said he would bring upon them. Wouldn't it be great if it ended right there? I'd love the story to be done. But it really has to be developed a little bit more so that we understand the Christmas story, don't we? It's far from over. We're going to see grace and we're going to see gospel unfold, but the Lord's not done in addressing this issue. What we have this morning is a kind of trial that takes place the servant comes down the mountain and he is really bringing a covenant lawsuit against them and you have it all here he comes down you have an inquiry you have a demand for an account and then a judgment so we're seeing things happen here in light of this terrible sin and the entire story of the bible again is really being unfolded but right before our eyes this morning in this particular text. It is the story that we see. And it challenges us to deal very seriously with the problem of idolatry and to think about how it can be dealt with because it's that powerful over our lives. Moses is coming down. God said, Moses, get down there. Get down there verse 15 we read that moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets in his hand these were the tablets back at the end of 31 that were written with the finger of god god had inscribed on stone the law right there for them it was a covenant remember that we have been studying that was cut here and we saw this all the way through from exodus 20 to 24 as the law was provided it israel had promised in this covenant to keep every word of it promised all of this we will do and the lord said then you will be my special people in the earth so what a moment think of the imagery here here comes moses in his hands with the two the stones engraved with the finger of God, as he comes down the mountain, they are down there holding a calf saying, here is your God. First commandment, no other gods. It's just something, isn't it? God said they have turned aside quickly. What we find here is Moses comes down, and I'm really curious about the first thing that Moses would observe in Joshua. What do you think? If the Holy Spirit puts His spotlight on something as the first thing that comes out, He's telling you, observe it and think about it very carefully. If you're going to inspect their idolatry in worship, what is the first thing that is going to be captured? Joshua had been told to wait. He's halfway up the mountain. Moses begins to descend, meets up with Joshua. They began to descend down, and what happens? Verse 17. When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, there is the noise of war in the camp. Joshua was a military commander. Joshua knew war chants. Joshua understood what to do when you're getting people ready for war. before they went into battle. As they're coming down, they're hearing something. And he says, it sounds like that. I've never heard this in this kind of context. Are they heading out to war? It's an interesting moment in our study of Israel's sin because it highlights the extent of the idolatry and the dangerous phenomenon that had come over Israel. Something very dangerous had happened at this particular moment. And so this inquiry begins, doesn't it? Joshua hears powerful roaring, and he says, I can't quite figure out what this is, Moses. He hears the noise of the people. He looks at Moses and he says, it sounds like the noise of war, but no, no, it's not the noise of war. And then in most translations, they understand that a sort of poetry, a line of poetry has been given. So the Holy Spirit offsets something here to really make it clear for us what we should be thinking about. When the Holy Spirit does this, He's telling us something. This is very important for you to consider. He's offsetting it, so as to say, think about what's happening here. Verse 18. He said, it's not the sound of the shouting of victory or the cry of the sound of defeat, cry of defeat, but it's the sound of singing that i hear catch that how do you compare and be confused about the sound of war with the sound of music i almost titled my sermon the sound of music how do you confuse those things back in chapter 15 israel sang their first pray song you know how powerful that psalm was do you know in that single song the first inspired song of the bible the lord is referenced in one song 33 times and this is the language the lord is my strength and my song and has become my salvation this is my god and i will praise him my father's god and i will exalt him the lord is a man of war the lord is his name is it possible they were singing that think about it is it possible they were singing that very song to the calf the curious thing is that the singing joshua hears is nothing like he had ever heard before i'm really moved by that do you know egypt and in egypt they were all used to a particular god who was known as the god of music i couldn't believe this his name is ihi he was a young naked boy said to have represented music and joy and ecstasy playing the sistrum a tanned instrument of course with metal rods that rattled when the instrument was shaken he was also known known as the lord of bread and was in charge of beer yeah a beer god when egyptian worship took place ehi was a kind of intercessor what they were used to what they knew is that the music was to bring about to bring worship to hathor this is all documented you know what hathor was a cow so hathor was the cow goddess so he was known as her calf egyptians believed that when they worship that to communicate with hathor they must first become intoxicated and they would transform him into a god of pleasure and I quote, lust and fertility. Ehi was the calf. Hathor the cow. Any of this connecting here? The madness of it all is that they're calling it Yahweh. Remember? The God, they said, that had brought him up out of the land of Egypt who had, of course, now in their cutting him down to manageable size, no law. He was everything they remembered from their past in Egypt. He required nothing from them. They could see him. They could touch him. Finally, they could see. They could touch him. They could handle him, which was a way of saying control him. And guess what? The first thing the Holy Spirit records upon inspection. They've created the most powerful praise music that could have ever been done out in the wilderness. I didn't inspire that. how they accomplish it i mean this was powerful so powerful you had so much shouting going on you had everyone's hand shouting it up they are into this they are rocking out down there so much so joshua says this thing sounds like war you know i was i was reflecting on this this week and i thought you know this has always been a problem biblically speaking on the same phenomenon in paul's day and maybe you've been a little curious about ephesians 4 do not be drunk with wine which is dissipation but be filled with the spirit speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the lord why in the world would paul put together drunkenness and singing well the combination may not make sense to you but it makes sense to many in the old world many in egypt and it would have made sense to many in the greco-roman world of paul's day and it's not so far from what happens today the pagan religions would become drunk and they would lose control so their worship services included massive amounts of food and alcohol and the whole religious experience would abandon them to sensuality. That's what rising up to play is getting at here, the euphemism here, rising, they rose up to play. He's tying it all together with exactly what they did in Egypt with all this stuff. And that's what Israel was doing. They were completely abandoned and lost all control to commune with the golden calf. And what happened then was a totally out-of-control, ecstatic experience. There was so much energy, so much roar to sing to this calf. They had never, ever, ever, ever given that kind of devotion and had that kind of experience with Yahweh. But now they did. Now they got it. Paul would be so concerned about this, and you sort of have everything here. A false Lord's Supper here out in the wilderness. They're feasting. That was the feast that was promised. Paul ties all this together in 1 Corinthians 10 with Israel's idolatry on the mount there with even the Lord's Supper saying, don't you know that when you do all this stuff, you can commune with demons? Serious stuff. What the Holy Spirit inspires here for us was the expression of that communion here, the music. What that means is it was the music that was being used to enter into this ecstatic state of the golden calf worship. And it kind of makes sense, doesn't it? If you cut down God to manageable size, a God that has no law, no attributes, no nothing, the music you're going to begin to choose will correspond to the God that you've made. Understand that. The music will demonstrate where you are. The music will be very telling about what you think of the God you're worshiping. Which means that in this case, they're really saying nothing, are they? Because you can't sing to a God who has no attributes. Anything substantial. He is nothing. The music is nothing. except for the experience of it all. It had no order. It had no intelligence. It was full, undoubtedly, and we know this of the pagan music, endless repetition and ecstasy is what they called it. There's a reason Jesus said, do not even pray to me with endless repetition. There's a reason. So common. Totally controlling the emotions that Moses observes, they're dancing and out of control. this just overtook them word means that they were wild and out of control the music being used to whip and blast their emotions to lead them into this wild experience of endless repetition left them in a sort of trance connecting them with a total kingdom of darkness everyone was saying man this is the best worship we've ever had we have never experienced worship like this finally something alive now what does that tell you about the idolatry of music you know it's in us we were at a wedding not so long ago and the DJ starts playing rap and I watch my son who's never danced in his life go out on the dance floor my little son and do moves that I've never taught him because I can't dance and i said to him music is a wonderful blessing isn't it i'm not condemning music i love to sing i can't really sing i always tell him to turn off the mic god's given it to us as a blessing but nowhere does it say that music is a means of grace in other words nowhere in scripture did god ever say by the power of the music sung i will save those who sing? No way. And it's all what we're focused on. Why? What's the number one thing on people's list for a church? You know it. How good is the music? You know how powerful it can be. How many divisions and how many problems have there been over music in the life of the church? What's been the greatest battle in the church? I can tell you in my 12 years of ministry coming on now, 13, right? It's music. It's the hill people are ready to die on. I'm always encouraging people to lift up their hearts to the Lord in song. We're going to look at that in the next few weeks with the celebration of the birth of Jesus and tonight. But it's a struggle somewhat, isn't it? Singing takes a lot of work. Just like everyone else in the wilderness, You have to know the songs, right? There's harmony. There's order. God is a God of order, loves order, loves to beat people to be very controlled. To sing in a way that's profitable, you have to sing truth. Truth has to engage the mind. And you realize that people could sing feeling really good and sing a lot of bad things to God, right? That's proof here. You could sing heresy and think you've said something and done something and get some kind of experience that made you feel good. I mean, look at how deep the songs are in the inspired songbook God gave us. They're not mindless. They take work. They take effort. They take thought. You just can't. They're not songs that are designed to let sheer emotion run you wild. They're not designed to do that because it always is music in the Bible according to truth. God is a God of order. Satan's pulpit, of course, and I'm not saying that all worldly music is wrong. Please don't hear me that way. But I am saying that Satan's pulpit in the world is the music industry. I have no doubt about it. Listen to where he gets the most in. You think my kids come to me asking for psalms or the pop culture music of the day? Why? Grab some. does something there's a power there there's a there's something that holds there imagine if satan can move that into the church calvin said in this particular context satan baits this way you know that he baits false worship this way he baits with false attractions that's how he's always baited satan is a baiter and he takes that which most holds people when it comes to worship. It's this. And I've got to say, this goes for conservatives too. Do you know who has the most powerful old school organ? Old school music who sings on earth? Do you know who has the most powerful choir on earth? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Go figure that. You ever heard them? You don't think that's a bait from Satan? That they, of all groups, can create the most powerful choir on earth? People tired of all the evangelical goofiness who say, I miss the organ. And I want the old songs that I grew up with. I want to experience all that again. While they sing to a false god. With that music. Amazing, isn't it? music exposes a calf, and easily. The Lord knew what he was doing in inspiring this for us. Music is a means, and song is a means of overflowing heart of gratitude to praise God, and I promise to give you a positive presentation of it, especially on Christmas Day. A praise of his deliverance, according to the truth of who he is. But notice here that all of this was gone in Israel, totally emotionally under-restrained and under another power, another control. And that goes on in the church constantly. As long as Satan has false ministers and people who are come and robed and light, angels of light, pastors, they know what to do with this. They're good at it. So to summarize so far in our study, they've remanufactured God. They've cut Him down to manageable size. They've formed a God from Egypt. They've bowed to it. They finally got to dance and worship uncontrollably before it. They finally got to feel everything they did in Egypt. It had the most powerful worship experience ever with music indistinguishable from war. That's what you got. The question is, did they know that this push, And I think this is the ironic play on words here. It's a declaration of war against God. Moses comes down and he sees the music and the dancing. Moses' anger gets hot. He casts the tablets, the stones with the finger of God. And by the way, Moses is not condemned for this angry episode. He is for striking the rock, not for breaking the tablets. Why? It's God's righteous anger. He smashes them at the foot of the mountain in front of Israel, smashes them. When the tablets were broken, it was a prophetic act that the covenant on Sinai had been broken. Jeremiah 31, my covenant which they broke, this one. It was over. Well, maybe. Moses wants you to think about this under the inspiration of the Spirit. You see, if this is the judgment, the question turns to now, who's responsible for this? Aaron becomes a sort of representative here for the people because he had led them into the sin. And you'll notice that in verse 21. This is rather remarkable in verse 21 of what he says. And Moses said to Aaron, what did these people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them? Aaron says, let not the anger of my Lord get hot. You know the people that they are set on evil. You can't help but apply this somewhat to pastors who feel an incredible amount of pressure to cave to people's wants and desires, and it proves that we're all prone to give in. I could give in in a second. Trust me, we're constantly approached with issues that deal with justifying patterns of sin in people. We have the pressure to act on the Word of God, and if we do, someone gets mad. Or we become men-pleasers. I've lived with this and struggled against that, praying often, Lord, let me decrease. Let Christ increase. But I know it's all in us. Aaron totally compromised. Pastor Aaron. Aaron, what caused this? How could you do this? What should Aaron have said? I've sinned. God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I wrecked this. I messed this up. I royally messed this up. And I really hurt your people, Lord. Is that what you get? Don't let the anger of my Lord get hot. Come on, Moses. A little too extreme. In other words, back off. You're way overreacting here. You're way too worked up. You're taking this all way too seriously. Sound familiar? The theologically liberal pastor just pulled it off really well, didn't he? Here we go with you guys who are taking this all too seriously. Notice the flip. I'm shocked at what you're suggesting. You really are the one with the problem. Get control of your anger. A little extreme. So then notice what he does. How about this? You know the people. That's nice. Just throw them under the bus, right? You know the people. You know what they're like. They're just bent on evil. They always want this stuff. It's always going after this. They're always pushing me to this stuff. They're never satisfied. They're grumpy, complaining. they made me do it they made me do it for they said to me make us gods that shall go before us as for this moses the man who brought us up out of the land of egypt we don't know what's become of him look at verse 24 so i said to them let any of you who have gold take it off so they gave it to me and i threw it in the fire and out came this cow oh the thing just popped right out huh that salad head just popped right out did it i don't find it any coincidence that aaron's sons aaron's sons fell into the same trap of abusing worship and face the judgment of god dad taught him they dab in a buy who i've studied this afresh and i thought it's so amazing the lord enters into this covenant with us. Now I'm going to talk about the covenant of grace here in a minute. But how are they going to get out of breaking this? Here's what I want you to see this morning. God's repeating history. What do I mean? Have you seen the bigger picture here yet? God gives the construction of the tabernacle six times since Exodus chapter 25. The Lord God said, the Lord said, the Lord said, the Lord, six times. get to the end of chapter 31 he gives a sabbath rest then he has this people for himself near the mountain for worship and what happens they fall great fall and the representative says not my fault puts it on everyone else and you have in front of you a broken covenant will you tell me where that comes from it's creation tell me if this sounds familiar god made the heavens and earth made it really good in six days rested the seventh and on the on the seventh they rested and then what happened god had created man the crown of his creation in his image and he quickly fell god comes and confronts adam and eve and what happened adam and eve wanted to do what Exchange their God. That was Satan's lie. You don't, this God's too restrictive. You can be your own God. Go get your own God. You can do that. And all the scripture twisting starts to happen. What happens? God comes and inquires. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? And so he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. It's time for an account. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree which I commanded you that you should not eat? Here comes the blame. The man said, the woman whom you gave me did it. And the Lord said to the woman, what's this you have done? The woman said, the serpent. He deceived me. Not my fault. Broken covenant. Death. Death. The whole story is being repeated. You got it all again. And the purpose of it is to say, you need to take really seriously the problem of idolatry and sin. We're not taking it seriously. I'm publishing the law. That's what Paul said. He published the law so that we might know this. From the beginning, God said, I'm going to raise up a champion who will crush the head of Satan, grind that head to pieces. Well, isn't there a shining figure this morning who shows us that? You listen to what Moses says in Deuteronomy. I took the two tablets and I threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. And I fell down before the Lord. As at the first, 40 days and 40 nights, I neither ate bread nor drank water because of all your sin, which you committed in doing wickedly in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. For I was afraid of the anger and the hot displeasure with which the Lord was angry with you to destroy you. but the Lord listened to me at that time. And the Lord was very angry with Aaron and would have destroyed him. So I prayed for Aaron also at the same time. Well, that's wonderful. That means the Lord listened to this servant. Well, by the intercession of Moses, all of this is relieved and God looks, listened and notice what Moses does here. He takes that idol, verse 20, he burns it in the fire and he grinds it to powder and he scatters it on the water and then he made the children of Israel drink it. You want to have intestinal problems? That had to have caused it. Church discipline was serious in the Old Covenant. Yeah. Aaron has showed us nothing but failure. Moses shows you a deliverer. You need to know what that deliverance looks like. He's going to take your idols and grind them to powder. He's doing what the first Adam did not in the garden to Satan's head. They're dancing around the idol. They're having a rock and wow worship service full of idolatry, justifying it, never wanting to see it, always fighting against it. What does Moses do? He takes that idol. He pulverizes it in front of their eyes. And God wanted them to taste how bitter that idolatry is. It's bitter. You see, Jesus has to deliver you from this. He has to deliver me from this. I'm a lot like Pastor Aaron. you are these people who else can pulverize your idolatry and save a people to himself except him the job of the faithful mediator is to free you from bondage and that means that he has a continual ministry among you to cast down your idols an idol is anything in your heart that displaces the Lord. A.W. Pink said it wonderfully. It may be something which is quite harmless in itself, yet if it absorbs me, if it be given first place in my affections and thoughts, it's become an idol. It may be my business. It may be my loved one. It may be my service for Christ. And I'm going to add, it may be church music. Anyone or anything that comes into competition with the Lord ruling me in a practical way is an idol. And you know you're never really satisfied when you're holding idols. It'll always let you down. That's why the church world is the most unsatisfied group I've seen today. Because we're constantly moving to find something bigger and better. A bigger golden calf. The Lord desires mercy. I want you to know this. God had planned from the foundation of the world to send His Son. That whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. He would intercede and save. And I love thinking that He goes out into the wilderness. He never bows. He never fails. He keeps the law. Even when Satan said bow down in worship, he wouldn't do it. He never complained and is called the last Adam for a reason. because He came to deliver us. But it all starts with ending the excuses. Don't make excuses. Get on your knees and say, I'm an idolater. He's promising you'll forgive it all. He's going to preach a great sermon on that mountain in the next section. Jesus is, in verse 34, the Lord, and this was quoted all throughout Israel's history, the Lord God, merciful, gracious, long-suffering, abounding in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. That's what he's doing. But it starts with stop the hiding. Be open with him. He'll take your idol and he'll grind it to power. But here's my question. Do you want it ground to powder? That's the question that has to be answered this morning. Do you want it ground to powder? I close with this. You know, one of the only other times I read of music and dancing together in the Bible? It's this. And bring the fatted calf here and kill it. And let us eat and be merry. For this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found and they began to be merry. Now his older son was in the field and as he came and drew near to the house he heard music and dancing. Why? Because there's more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents than over 99 just persons who don't need it. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank You for teaching us these things. And we confess, Lord, this real problem in our lives. And we don't hide it from Pastor Chris to the congregation. We have a great problem of idolatry. And You do take this very seriously. Forgive us. and may lord we understand and appreciate wilderness life under your leading care that we won't have all the glory now would you lord tear down this insatiable sort of desire for constant sensuality and feeling good a hedonism that we just can't seem to get away from and let us be satisfied in the truth as it is in jesus so that our worship in music and in song and in everything would be in spirit and in truth the worship of the only true and living God. Thank you that the Savior came to set us free and to grind our idols to power. But we can't do it without you. And so we express full reliance today and that our whole lives would be brought in conformity to the obedience of Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.