Welcome to The Word for Today.
The Word for Today is a continuous study
of the Bible, taught by Pastor Chuck Smith
of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California.
Pastor Chuck is currently teaching from the Old
Testament, and for those of you following along
in your Bibles, we'll be continuing today in
Isaiah chapter 14, beginning with verse 12, as
we continue with a topical message entitled, Ungodly
Ambitions.
1.
One thing is needful, O my Father, One
thing is needful, O my God, That I
sit at your feet and pour out my
love.
This thing is needful, O my God.
And now with today's study, here's Pastor Chuck.
When, in the beginning, God created man, God
said, let us make man in our image
after our likeness.
I am certain that we do not fully
understand all of the implications of being made
in the image of God and after His
likeness.
We so often think of it in the
terms of physical, but I think that it
is probably much more true in the realms
of the spiritual.
Made in the image of God.
You see, God's chief moral characteristic is His
self-determination.
God is a self-determinate being.
And when He created man in His image,
He created man with the capacity of choice,
and thus man became a self-determinate being,
made in the image of God.
I can choose my destiny.
When He created man, because God's chief emotional
attribute is that of love, He created man
with the capacity to love.
God desires to be worshipped, and created in
the image of God, man desires to be
worshipped.
We see this inclination manifested very early, for
little children are constantly saying, watch me daddy,
watch me.
And then they do some feat that perhaps
is daring, and we say, my, that's wonderful.
You jumped all the way from the top
step.
Isn't that great?
And they say, I'll do it again, I'll
do it again.
Watch me, watch me.
And they love to be noticed.
They love to be complimented.
They love to be worshipped.
In a sense.
To be told how brave they are, how
big they are, how wonderful they are.
Man was created with the capacity to worship.
Now let me rephrase that.
Man was created with the necessity to worship.
I am driven to worship.
I will worship something.
If I do not worship the true and
the living God, I will worship something.
And whatever is that chief object of worship
in my life, does become my God.
Now, the Greeks and the Babylonians and the
Romans, they named these objects of worship.
They gave these gods names.
And the person who worshipped himself was worshipping
the god Narcissus.
The god of self-worship, who was always
going around looking in the pools, admiring himself
and all.
And thus, the narcissism, the self-worship.
Now, the Bible recognizes that there are many
gods.
God said, thou shalt have no other gods
before me.
Whatever it is in our lives that is
important to us, is all right as long
as it doesn't take precedence over God in
our lives.
Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
He is to be first and foremost in
your life, as far as your attention, your
adoration, your worship.
Now, when God created angels, he evidently created
angels in his image and after his likeness,
because we know that angels were created as
self-determinant beings.
And being self-determinant beings, Satan, one of
the brightest angels, in fact, his name Lucifer
means son of the morning, decided that he
was going to exalt his position, his place.
And in Isaiah 14, we read the five
I wills that have to do with his
seeking to exalt himself into the God state.
I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God.
I will sit upon the mount of the
congregation in the sides of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds and I will be like the Most
High.
The desire to be like God can be
a good desire or an evil desire.
There's the upside to it and there's the
downside to it.
And every child of God, true child of
God, has that longing and desire to be
like the Father.
It is my prayer that the Spirit of
God might work in my life to conform
me into the image of Jesus Christ.
That's the longing of my heart.
That's the prayer of my heart.
Now being created in the image of God,
man fell from that image.
But there is the desire in the heart
of the believer to be restored into the
image of God that I might be like
him.
And God has given to us the Holy
Spirit for the very purpose of conforming us
into the image of Jesus Christ.
And like David, I will be satisfied when
I awake in his likeness.
John tells us, Beloved, now are we the
sons of God.
It doesn't yet appear what we're going to
be, but we know that when he appears,
we're going to be like him for we
shall see him as he is.
And he speaks about everyone that has this
hope in him.
And thus we have this hope in us
of being like God.
That's the upside.
The downside is what is demonstrated here by
Satan.
That desire to exalt self and to make
myself God.
Looking at myself as God for the purpose
of being worshipped and adored as God.
And so Satan said, I will exalt my
throne.
I will be like the Most High in
the exalting of himself into the God state,
declaring I am God.
And we are told that in the final
throes of man's failing governments that the Antichrist
will stand in the temple of God, showing
that he is God and demanding to be
worshipped as God.
This declaration of man that he is God
is something that originated here in Isaiah with
Satan, but has been something that has been
promulgated by Satan throughout history.
For when man was created and placed in
the Garden of Eden and given such tremendous
liberty, only one restriction, he was not to
eat of the tree in the middle of
the garden.
And Satan came to Eve and he said,
Can you eat of all of the trees
that are here in the garden?
She said, Yes, all except that one there
in the middle.
And God told us we're not to eat
of that, for we would die.
And Satan said, Oh, you wouldn't die.
But you see, God knows that if you
eat of the fruit of that tree, you're
going to be like God.
Knowing good from evil.
And this desire to be God, to be
like God, was the thing that Satan used
to trip up Eve and Adam and caused
the fall.
Even as it says in our text, How
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son
of the morning?
What perpetrated his fall?
His declaration, I will be like God.
And yet he said, You'll be brought down
to hell.
And it's the thing with man, in that
you'll be like God, you'll be God.
And in that desire, the exalting of self
to the God state, it brought the fall
of man.
There's a pastor of a very large Pentecostal
church, who had his congregation say, I am
an exact duplicate of God.
He said, No, say it louder, with more
meaning.
And the congregation said, I am an exact
duplicate of God.
No, no, louder, until he had them all
shouting and chanting, I'm an exact duplicate of
God.
And then he said, When God looks in
the mirror, he sees me.
And when I look in the mirror, I
see God.
How can men get so confused?
You go back to the origin of it,
and it's found in Isaiah chapter 14, where
Satan said, I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God.
I will be like the Most High.
I will be God.
What does God say about this?
Turn to Isaiah 43, verse 10.
Just the last phrase.
Before me, there was no God formed, neither
shall there be after me.
Turn over to 44.6. Thus saith the
Lord, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer,
the Lord of hosts, I am the first,
I am the last, and beside me there
is no God.
45, verse 5.
I am the Lord, and there is none
else.
There is no God beside me.
Verse 22.
Look unto me, and be saved all the
ends of the earth, for I am God,
and there is none else.
I hate to disappoint you, but God said
there are no other gods.
I know not any.
So you may be confessing to be God,
but he doesn't know you.
He doesn't know of any other gods.
How can people be so deceived?
The Mormons and the TV evangelist will point
you to the Scripture in John chapter 10,
where Jesus was talking with the Jews and
declared unto them, I and the Father are
one.
They took up stones to stone him.
And Jesus said, I've done a lot of
good works.
For which of these good works are you
going to stone me?
And they said, not for your good works,
but because you being a man are constantly
saying that you are the Son of God,
making yourself equal with God.
And Jesus answered them and said, is it
not written in your law that I said
that you are gods?
And if he called them gods, unto whom
the word of God came, and the Scripture
cannot be broken, then why do you say
of him whom the Father has sanctified, that
you blaspheme, because I said that I am
the Son of God?
Now, Jesus is referring to the law of
Moses in which God said, you are gods.
And they will usually then cross-reference back
to Psalm 82, where this same passage out
of the law is quoted.
And in Psalm 82,5 or 6 rather,
the Lord speaking through the psalmist Asaph said,
I have said you are gods.
And all of you are children of the
Most High.
It's too bad they don't read the next
verse.
But you shall die like men.
You're not God because you're going to die
like men.
Then where did God say ye are gods,
and what is it talking about?
You have to go back to Exodus chapter
22, the reference that Jesus was making to
in his statement as he said in the
law.
He didn't say in the Psalms I said
ye are gods, but in the law it
was said.
And the situation involves the seeking to discern
the truth of a matter in judgment.
Let us say that I was going to
be going away for a while, and I
had a very expensive dog.
And I asked you to watch my dog
for me while I was gone.
Would you mind keeping him?
And so I entrust my dog into your
care.
When I get back, you say, oh Chuck,
your dog jumped the fence and ran away.
And I look at the fence and I
realize it's higher than my dog can jump.
And I begin to question your story.
And I begin to look around, and I
find my dog.
And I say, hey, that's my dog.
And the fellow says, no, no, I bought
this dog, and he's mine.
Well, who'd you buy him from?
Oh, from the fellow up the street there.
So it says you bring your case to
the judges that they might determine.
He's saying, no, no, it ran away.
It's my dog.
I bought him.
You say, now whose dog does it belong
to?
So it says you come to the judges
to see whether your neighbor put his hand
to your dog.
For in all manner of trespasses, whether they
be for an ox or a donkey or
a sheep or for clothes or for any
manner of lost thing, which another challenges to
be his, the cause of both parties shall
come before the judges, and whom the judges
shall condemn, he will have to pay double
unto his neighbor.
Now the word translated judges there in Hebrew
is Elohim, which is the Hebrew word for
gods.
So in saying that you're gods, he is
talking about the judges who would give forth
the judgment in the discerning of the truth
of a matter.
And they then speak as gods.
In other words, their word becomes as God's
word.
Their decisions become final, and having then the
control over the issue, placing the issues in
their hands for their control, they become as
a god in the issue in that their
word stands.
And that is why they were referred to
as gods, but correctly translated here, judges.
It is the Hebrew word Elohim, which is
God's plural, where as we read in Psalm,
the gods of the heathen are many, the
idols that they've made.
There are many gods, plural, little g.
And they are to come before the gods.
But it's not saying that you are God.
All you need to discover is the God
within you.
And so we have people today that are
saying, you are gods.
All you have to do is discover that
God nature within you.
You can come into the consciousness of the
universal consciousness.
You can come into the God consciousness.
You can go through a transition, an evolutionary
kind of a transition into the God state,
and you become God.
You can have power.
Your words can have power, creative force of
your words.
And you can create your own reality.
Just by speaking the word of faith, you
can become gods, you see.
You are gods, and you can speak these
things into existence and create your own reality.
And it's all a farce.
It's all predicated upon a false interpretation of
the scripture.
And it all originates back with Lucifer, son
of the morning, who sought to exalt himself
and say, I will be like the Most
High.
So the thought that I'm going to be
like God can be a blessed thought or
a damning thought.
It all depends on what I mean.
I'm going to be like God that I
might bring glory to him by my conformity
to his image.
Or I'm going to exalt myself and come
into that God state so I can be
worshipped, so I can have power and dominion
over others.
And you see, we're all striving for one
or the other.
You're either striving to bring God glory or
you're striving for your own glory.
You're seeking to bring praise to God or
you're seeking to bring praise to yourself.
For man is driven to worship.
And if I don't worship God, I will
worship myself.
And my God will become a projection of
myself.
And that's why it's so important.
Pastor Chuck Smith will return with a few
closing comments.
But first I'd like to remind you that
today's message is available in its unedited form
on cassette or CD.
Simply write or call and ask for ordering
details on tape or CD number T-3258.
Again, that's tape or CD number T-3258.
As we come to a close in today's
program, we'd like to introduce a new book
by Pastor Chuck Smith written especially for today's
young generation.
Do you have what it takes to abstain
from the immorality of our culture?
Would you stand up for Jesus Christ in
a group of complete strangers?
What about in a group of your closest
friends?
It definitely takes a commitment to follow Jesus
Christ.
The word for today presents Pastor Chuck Smith's
new book, Standing Up in a Fallen World,
a Bible study based on the book of
Daniel, a young man who took a stand
for righteousness in a time when he could
have lost his life.
Filled with encouragement and application, Pastor Chuck teaches
a powerful message for today's young adults between
the ages of 12 and 20, urging them
to stand up against the compromise in the
world today and get ready for the Lord's
coming.
And now for the first time, the word
for today is made available clothing, T-shirts,
beanies and hats for a limited time only,
equipping young adults to witness and revive their
generation.
Also available is a study guide especially designed
for students and family devotions.
To order your copy of Pastor Chuck's new
book, Standing Up in a Fallen World, the
clothing apparel and study guide, you can call
the word for today at 1-800-272
-WORD or write to us at P.O.
Box 8000, Costa Mesa, California 92628.
Once again, that number to call is 1
-800-272-9673.
And for those of you that would like
to visit our website, you can do so
at www.twft.com.
Or if you would like to email us,
you can do so at info at twft
.com.
Well, coming up next time on the word
for today, Pastor Chuck will be continuing his
fascinating study through the book of Isaiah.
That's coming up next time on the word
for today.
And now with a few closing comments, here's
Pastor Chuck.
Shall we pray?
Father, we thank you that you are making
us into your image by the work of
your Holy Spirit within our lives.
Lord, we look around and we see man
on the other hand seeking to make you
into his image and into his likeness as
he creates his own God a projection of
himself.
But Lord, we thank you that you've called
us and chosen us that we should be
your children.
And as your children, Lord, our desire is
to be like you in our attitudes, in
our responses, in our actions, in thoughts, in
deeds.
Help us, Lord.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.