Lesson 4: A Manageable Deity

covered going like Jesus Christ. So come on in and join us today as we tell you what we know now that the gospel is here to tell us. Make sure you join us at Inside Ephesus .org. So listen to the gospel. It's not just a news item. It's a message. It's an act. It's a message, right? And if you find this today teaching, or follow us on Melissa's journey, you can learn about some of these great gospels and some of these amazing tidings and teachings you might get from the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Matthew. So let's get right into it. I'm gonna ask you a question. I wanna ask to open up this lesson. What happens when people whom God has delivered from the world learned to live satisfied apart from his glorious presence? I'm gonna ask it again. What happens when people who God has delivered from the world learn how to live satisfied without his glorious presence? Let's get right into it. I'm gonna ask this question. I'm gonna ask this question,

because I'm gonna be getting a lot of questions for you. All right, let's go back to Exodus. Now Moses has been at the top of the mountain for 40 days. All right, maybe a little bit less, but he's been up there for a long time. And we read in verse one of Exodus 32. Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him. Now there is so much here, okay? First of all, you will find in the book of Exodus that there was actually a time when God said, Moses and Aaron, I want you both to come up here with me. However, Moses ends up at the top of the mountain. Aaron was also told that he was supposed to stay at the foot of the mountain, but he ends up back in the camp. So we'll talk a little bit more about this later, but let's talk about some things here. First of all, Moses delayed coming down from the mountain. When God seems silent or inactive, there's always the temptation, now listen carefully, to try to manipulate situations to appear as if God is moving. This is so important. If we do this, God will stand back. God said, I'm not gonna let any flesh glory in my presence. I have been in meetings before

where people have tried to manifest God moving in them. He wasn't doing it at all. They were manifesting it, hoping that his presence would come, and it's almost like the spirit of the Lord lifted. It's so important that we understand. We want God, not a manifestation. We want his presence. If you look at manna, manna never satisfied. I mean, the children of Israel would eat manna and last a day. Manna festations aren't meant to satisfy. The only thing that will satisfy your deepest yearnings and longings is the very glorious presence of God, and that is what we have been created for. You will never be satisfied. If you're born again, you will never be satisfied until you're absolutely in his presence. This is why King David said, I just would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God where his glorious presence is than to be living in mansions of wickedness. Listen, David understood. He had a glimpse. He realized how desirable, how beautiful, how magnificent God's glorious presence is. So now what happens is instead of seeking the Lord, so if God's not moving, we try to manipulate situations to make it appear that he's moving,

and then what happens is we gather together. We make more of the emphasis on community rather than the Lord. Listen, community is important. God is the one that said it's not good for man to be alone, but listen, this is not to take the place of us seeking God in our individual lives, all right? If all you are doing is seeking the Lord as a community, you're gonna end up probably being more like the children of Israel in their tents at the foot of the mountain playing church than you are gonna be like Moses. I'm sorry that's true. We need it all. We need the presence of God. We need community. I mean, even God said when Adam was in the garden, it's not good for man to be alone. So just being in the presence of God wasn't enough. God said for Adam to get his full needs met, but priority, top of the list, is to be in the glorious presence of God. Moses was in the community for a lot of times, but he spent two times that he was up at that mountain for 40 days getting in the presence of God. Now, second, who did the people gather to when Moses delayed coming down? Listen, they didn't say, we don't know what's become of God. They said, we don't know what's become of Moses. That's very important point, okay?

Moses, the man who walks with God, is on the mountain, and the people said, we don't know what's become of Moses, so they gathered together Aaron. Why did they gather together to Aaron? because Aaron has a gift on his life. It's called leadership and leadership attracts people. Do you know if you go to Romans chapter 12, you'll find out there are nine gifts listed, all right? One of those gifts is the gift of leadership. So this is how you can have somebody who has built a 5,000 member church and God's presence never showed up. They have the gift of leadership on their life and they have it on their life strong. You can gather people together and God not necessarily be in it at all. So this is what's going on down at the foot of the mountain. God's not in this. They gather together to the leader, Aaron, okay? They see the leadership, a gift of God on his life and then they make the statement, come make us gods that will go before us. Now, I think the translators were scared because I don't believe they did this correctly. Now, let's talk about the word gods. It is the Hebrew word Elohim. Elohim is found 2,000, approximately, 2,250 times in the Old Testament, all right? Over 2,000 times, it refers to God Almighty, okay? Genesis chapter one, Elohim appears 32 times.

Verse one, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. You know what it reads in the Hebrew? In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth. Okay, so 250 times in the Old Testament, it refers to a false god. So you always have to read the verse in context to understand if Elohim is referring to God Almighty whom we serve or a false god. Now, let's read this in context. So let's go to verse two. So Aaron looks at the people when they said, make us Elohim that will go before us. Aaron looks at him and says, give me the gold that's on your wives, on your rings and all that. Bring all that gold to me. And so what he did, I'm gonna read verse four. He received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it. Remember the word fashion. With an engraving tool and made a molding calf. Then they said, the people said, this is your God. Again, the Hebrew word Elohim. This is your God, oh Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt. All right, now, the word fashion, when it says he fashioned the calf, is the Hebrew word yatsar, which means to form it with an engraving tool. Make a mental note of that. We're gonna come back to it in a second.

Now, the people said, this is your God, Hebrew word Elohim, that delivered you out of Egypt. What did Aaron say in the very next verse? Aaron said this. So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it and Aaron made a proclamation. Aaron said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and they rose up to play. In other words, they had a big sexual orgy. They were drunkenness, all this stuff, right? All right, now, here's where it gets really good. Aaron said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. Now, the Hebrew word for Lord there is Yahweh, all right? The Hebrews considered this word so sacred that they wouldn't even write the full word. We would spell it Y-A-W-E-H. They would spell it capital Y, capital H, capital W, capital H. They wouldn't even write the vows. It is so sacred because it is the proper name of God. So, if you look at the Old Testament, you see that Yahweh is a God. Nowhere in the Old Testament does Yahweh refer to a false God except right here, all right? Now, let me help make this really clear, all right? I'm gonna give you an example. John Bavir is a man.

That would be equivalent to the word Elohim. But if I say, my name is John Bavir, when they use the word Elohim, they were saying God, but when they said Yahweh, they were saying his specific name. Now, remember, God could be capital G or little g, 2,000 times capital G, 250 times little g, all right? So, this is getting interesting, right? So, they don't look, Aaron doesn't look at that calf and say, behold, Baal, who delivered us out of Egypt. He doesn't say, behold, Ra. Ra was one of the foremost gods in Egypt. He doesn't say, behold, Ra. He acknowledges still that Yahweh delivered them from Egypt. So, Aaron is saying, there is Yahweh. The people said, that's who delivered us out of Egypt. Aaron's saying, hey, he's the one that healed you. He's the one that's provided for you. He's the one that did all the miracles. But what has he done? He's changed the image of God from who he is. is that glorious being, and he reduced him down to what he saw almost all of his life growing up, a calf. These were images that the Egyptians had in them. Okay. Now I'll get to that in a minute. So meanwhile, up at the mountain, God says, hey Moses, your people, it's really interesting. It's not my people. Your people have corrupted themselves.

This is Exodus 32 verse seven. Go down because your people have corrupted themselves. The word corrupted means to decay. All right. So everything that's distanced from God, just remember this, everything that's distant from God will eventually deteriorate. So Moses comes down and Moses is red hot. Okay. And Moses said to Aaron, what did this people do to you that you have brought such a great sin upon them? So Aaron said, hey, don't let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people that they're set on evil. For they said to me, make us gods. Hebrew word is Elohim. 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. They don't say as for God, we don't know what's become. As for Moses, we don't know what's become of him. And I said to them, now listen carefully. I said, whoever has any gold, let them break it off. So they gave it to me. I cast it into the fire. Now watch this.

And this calf came out. I remember when I saw this, I literally had my Bible in my hand and I threw my Bible on my bed and I said, okay, wait a minute. God, you're actually angry at this point. And this is a bald face lie. What do you mean this calf came out? He formed it with an engraving tool. Remember the Hebrew word is yatesar. He literally molded it and formed it. And I'll never forget this as long as I live. The Holy Spirit spoke to me right in that moment. He said, son, I invited Aaron to come to the mountain. He didn't go. If he would have come to the mountain, he would have had his image of me developed of more of who I am in my glory. He said, as a result from him not coming to the mountain and not coming to me, the image of me was shaped by the deity in the society he was raised in. You got to remember again, I'm gonna say it again. Egypt had all these statues of animals. And one of the most predominant ones was a calf. His image of God was shaped by the society he was raised in. For 83 years, Aaron was raised in that nation, in that society, and he was raised in a society where there were all sorts of false gods.

His image of God was shaped and formed by the culture he grew up in. Now listen to what Paul says is gonna happen during the church age, especially in the last days, the days we're living in. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory, changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man. And then he said, and four-footed animals and creeping things. Other nations do that, but in the West, in the United States, we don't worship four-footed animals and creeping things. We worship mortal man. So this has been running around in my spirit. Have we created a Jesus in the image that has been shaped by what our society worships? In other words, we say he delivered me, he saved me, he made me into a new creature, but yet the way we perceive him is by what our society worships, and that is mortal man.

So idolatry is a very convenient form of worship, and there's two kinds of idolatry. Now, I want you to stop and think about it. There's the idolatry where they make a statue of a calf, of an animal, of some kind of being that you would see in other nations, like some kind of figure they made up, and they worship that idol. And who creates the idol dictates what the idol says to do to be in right relationship. So in essence, they can create this idol and get what they want. So they can create an idol and say, hey, to have a right relationship with me, you have to have temple prostitutes. have a bunch of orgies, have a bunch of sex, and they get the satisfaction of their flesh. The other type of idolatry is when we reduce Jesus down to become more like us, and now Jesus can give me my life of looking at pornography, or cheating on my wife, or substance abuse, and he is okay with it because he saved me by his grace. That's just another form of idolatry, except we're using Jesus. Now, I'm gonna prove to you, because God says in Isaiah 44, verse 10, who would form a God, or mold an image that profits him nothing? In other words, God says, you're gonna create an idol, and that idol's gonna give you what you want.

Now, if you go and you look at Exodus, that's exactly what happens. The people sat down to eat, and they rose up to play. They're committing all kinds of lewd acts, and they are saying, Yahweh, who's right in front of them, is okay with this. Well, they played church. Their manner of church was formed by what their culture in Egypt had put in them. Their behavior of Egyptian worship of their false gods looked very much like the sexual immorality and the drunkenness Israel was engaging with while worshiping their Yahweh. They were unrestrained, the Bible actually says. Now, Romans 118 makes this statement. It says, but God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. In other words, when we say, now listen, we're not just talking about people who say, I don't believe Jesus exists. We're talking about people who say, I believe in Jesus, yet they're watching pornography without any kind of guilt, without any kind of conviction, without any kind of remorse. And they're going, you know, Jesus is okay with it. So Jesus lets them know, take this lesson, put it in your history. Romans 118 says,

Jesus did not say, you know, this is what I will do. We have people who put their faith in him putting their faith in him and proclaiming him as a good God, God, the Creator of the world. These are the people who put their faith in him and proclaimism this theory of symbolism, of Holocaust, right? If you go to the mountain, you change. If you stay at the foot of the mountain, God's image in you changes. I'm gonna say that again because I want you to write it down. If you go to the mountain, you'll change. You'll be conformed in the image of Jesus. If you stay down at the foot of the mountain and play church, God's image in you changes. What you end up with is a different Jesus, okay? Have we today created a Jesus who will give us what we want? We say things like Jesus understands my needs, Jesus is my friend, Jesus wants me blessed and happy while ignoring his commands, his word. In essence, we form a different Jesus. Now Paul had to deal with this with the Corinthian church. He said to the Corinthian church, this is 2 Corinthians 11 verses three and four,

but I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. Now, I want you to look at 2 Corinthians 11 verses four out of the CEV version. We told you about Jesus and you received the Holy Spirit and accepted our message. That's the American church, that's the Western church, but you let some people tell you about another Jesus. Now you are ready to receive another spirit and accept a different message. That's what Paul wrote to the Corinthians. And for those that don't know instructively about Christianity, weDailyMessages has a teaching download that tells you more about the work of the Holy Spirit and what's described as the Holy Spirit. And that how he deals with all this personal trouble and problems in the church there, they're suing each other, they're arguing with one another, they're living like worldly men and he calls him carnal fleshly. And without realizing it, we have now created a manageable deity. We say, Jesus is my Lord, he's my King, I go to church, but yet we're living no different than the world

because we're being driven by the dictates of our flesh, by the desires of our flesh. Instead of crucifying the flesh and living from our spirit and building our spirit with his eternal word and through prayer, we're now living no different than the world. We're entertaining ourself with what the world entertains itself with. We are doing the same things the world does. We're having the same arguments, strife. We're not forgiving the way the world doesn't forgive. We're now becoming like more racial than we are believers. You know, we're so concerned about this race, that race. We're so concerned about male, female. We're so concerned. about gender, and we call ourselves Christians. Okay, this is what's happening. It's leading more and more to a life of suppressing the truth, and now we really believe we're right with God, when in reality, we're not. When Jesus is asked about the last days, right before His return, He said four times in just one chapter alone, Matthew 24, be very careful that you are not deceived. There's only one problem with deception, and that's this, it's deceiving. The person who's deceived believes with all their heart, I'm right with God, when in reality, they're not. Let me tell you something, holiness keeps our eyes open. Holiness keeps our ears open.

Holiness keeps our heart sensitive to what God is saying. When we stop pursuing holiness, when we start walking in the dictates of our flesh, what happens is, our senses, our inward senses start growing dull. Our ears grow dull, our eyes grow dull, our heart grows dull. Now, we are thinking we're walking with God, and we call Him Jesus still, it's another Jesus. We'll even listen to messages that will give us the permission to continue to sin, to continue to do the very thing that He died to set us free from. Telling you, it's destroying people's lives. Do I sound passionate? I'm passionate for a reason, because I'm seeing too many lives be destroyed. Why is 80% of the people that make a decision for Christ walking back into darkness? Why, why have we lost over 30 million Americans in the faith from the year 2000 to the year 2020? 20 years, over 33 million people walked away from the faith. And another 33 million went to non-practicing Christians. I don't even know what that is. A non-practicing Christian, according to Barna's study, and they polled 95,000 people. Most polls are like three, 4,000 people. His poll stated that these people, they don't go to church, they don't attend any gatherings, okay? The Bible says don't forsake the assembling of yourselves together, okay?

How can you call yourself a Christian yet you don't go to church, okay? These people don't pray. How can you call yourself a believer and you're not praying? How can you call yourself a believer and yet you're looking at pornography on a regular basis? And you don't even feel guilty about it. Do you know that almost half the men in church, now we're talking about people in church, who are watching pornography said they don't feel guilty about it. What happened? We preached a different Jesus. That's what's happening. I'll never forget, man, this was years ago. 40 years ago, I was a youth pastor. And I remember this woman calling me and she goes, you know, my husband and I just don't get along and I've met, you know, my husband's not saved and I met a Christian man and he speaks so tenderly to me. He cares about me so deeply. I want a divorce. My friends are telling me to divorce my husband and marry this man. I said, has your husband committed adultery against you? And she said, no. I said, that's the only reason Jesus said you can walk away from your husband. I said, do you understand the Bible says if your husband's an unbeliever, stay married to him.

Don't leave him. And especially don't leave him for another man. Well, you know, I realized, and the phone call, I realized this woman was just trying to get me as an authority, as a pastor, to give her permission to do it. Sad thing is she eventually found some pastor who consoled her and she felt the ability to do it and she divorced her husband and married the other man. Okay, now a couple of months later, Lisa and I meet a woman, one of the most godly women I've ever been in the presence of. I mean, when you're in the presence of this woman, you feel like you're in the presence of Jesus. I, she left to this day. I mean, Lisa and I were with her and her husband over 30 years ago. To this day, her life left such an impression on me. And I remember she told Lisa and I her story. Her husband was an associate pastor of a large, large church in California, but he was living a homosexual lifestyle in secret. And he got caught four times. The fourth time he got caught, the undercover policeman, this is back in the days when it used to be illegal to commit homosexuality. The policeman brought him to the house. He was an undercover policeman. He solicited sex with him in a park in San Francisco.

Policeman brought him to the house and the oldest son opened the door. She said, John and Lisa, he was immediately fired as pastor of our church, as associate pastor of our church. And she said, God spoke to me and said, I know what he's going to do. I know he's going to change, but you can leave him because he's been maritally unfaithful to you. You can leave him. He said, but the Lord said, if you stay with him, I will bless you double. She decided to stay with him. She said, we got to the point where we just had a can of beans in our house. We had nothing to eat. And she said, we suffered greatly. And at that time she was telling us the story. She and her husband, now he's totally delivered, been free for 17 years. And they were pastoring their own church and they had a 12. But God didn't just create a thousand square foot house with a beautiful garden and an orchard in their backyard. You talk about double blessed, and yet that woman radiated the presence of God. I just think about that. You know, they will not endure sound doctrine. They will not endure because they want to go and make it easiest for them in the flesh.

Instead of realizing that Jesus said, difficult is the way, difficult. It's difficult. Your flesh doesn't want to do the things sometimes that God tells you to do, but your spirit does. And if your spirit is built up, you'll end up going with him. If you've been to the mountain, if you've been to the mountain and you've been in his presence, you're like Moses. I don't care what I'm living in. I'm living in this desert. I mean, I'm eating the same food every single day. The people are complaining about it, but I don't care. I've got God. And Moses never wanted to go back because he had been to the mountain. The people on the other hand, they kept complaining. They kept saying it was better for us before we got saved. Let's go back to Egypt. It was so much better. Why are people walking away from the faith? Why? Because they haven't encountered the glorious presence of God because they haven't pursued holiness. They haven't pursued a sanctified life, a set apart life. Listen, this is all about getting your heart on fire. You know, one of the most beautiful, beautiful words in the New Testament is repentance.

God is so ready to come in and change your life. But all you have to do is say, God, I repent. I have created a different Jesus. I have disobeyed your word. It's been a form of idolatry. Lord, I don't want this anymore. I want you. And you know, just like that, he forgives you because he's quick to forgive. But he forgives those who genuinely repent. The person who repents says, this has been my wisdom. It is ridiculously stupid. I'm gonna embrace the wisdom of God and that's the way I'm gonna live. Then God gives you the strength in order to obey it. I hope you got something out of this. This lesson, I know it brings it all together and what we're going to in the next two lessons, oh my goodness, it will answer a lot more questions for you. But listen, what's most important is that you have a heart on fire for God. You have a heart on fire for God.