Grace Bible Church
Pastor Teacher
Robert R. McLaughlin
Tree of Life Weekly Review
Week Ending 100117
Dispensation of the Mosaic Law. The First and Second
Commandment. Doctrine of Idolatry.
Point 4. Idolatry also Distorts and Perverts the Divine Design of Sex. It motivates the human race to get involved in the whole realm of sexual sins as in the Phallic cult, EZE 22:1‑16, 23:37‑49.
Remember Satan has one goal in the life of every believer. His goal is to lead all believers astray by deceiving them! Deception is simply the infiltration of satanic thought which why Satan’s thoughts are called doctrines of demons, 1TI 4:1.
It just isn’t expressed in terms of evil, but in terms of improving this world and doing nice things for your fellow man so that Satan can try to be like the “Most High,” (ISA 14:12-14). Therefore, deception is the invasion of the soul with thought that is false thinking, i.e., the policy and principles by which Satan operated prior to the creation of man and afterwards as the ruler of this world.
And the doctrine of idolatry is designed to produce this deception and this type of thinking. What does Satan really want and desire? Satan desires to promote sin and evil or to improve this world and try to make himself to be equal with God? And here is where the alert pastor comes into the picture and reveals the spiritual and invisible purpose of “True Idolatry” which comes in by means of blinding and deceiving us from divine solutions.
We are deceived by looking at marriage, family, money, wealth, friends, social life, materialism, fame, fortune or power as a means of blessings and we forget the One who blesses us. There is nothing wrong with any of these people or things in and of themselves, but what is wrong is the believer’s attitude of idolatry toward them. This develops into what the Bible calls “unnatural affections.”
In idolatry you always end up elevating someone or something over the Lord or Jehovah Elohim. But without the Lord we are all said to really be nothing as man is called in PSA 39:5, “Behold, Thou hast made my days as handbreadths, And my lifetime as nothing in Thy sight, Surely every man at his best is a mere breath. Selah.”
Even demons and angels are also said to be nothing without Him.
PSA 96:5, For all the gods of the peoples are idols, But the Lord made the Heavens.
Point 5. Idolatry and the influence of the Phallic Cult.
Today, the Phallic cult is still around, however, it has many different facades! For example, we noted that the Phallic cult came from the Phoenicians and includes all kinds of immorality, such as: Incest, fornication, homosexuality, bestiality, demonism, human sacrifice, rejection of authority, and social degeneracy.
The Phallic Cult was very popular in the Old testament and was even called by its name – the Phallic religion. However, even in the early church, the apostle Paul dealt with it when he said in COL 3:5-11, Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is on account of these things that the wrath of God will come, and in them you also once walked, when you were living in them. But now you also, put them all aside: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive speech from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him ‑ a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.
In COL 3:5, the Greek word for consider is the pres-act-imp of the Greek verb nekroo means to render impotent certain members of your body. It refers to the fact that believer’s take certain parts of their body and they use them either to glorify God or to fall away from God and become apostate or reversionistic.
So “the members” refers to the different parts of the human body, which according to the word of God, should be offered to god and not to the cosmic system. And here in context the apostle Paul is dealing with idolatry and the influence of the Phallic cult in the early church.
Remember, all believers are commanded to present their “physical body” as a sacrifice unto God, ROM 12:1, I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
Notice that the “presentation” of your earthly body is said to be your spiritual service of worship. This means that a “part” of your worship toward God is the presentation of your physical body. And this is one of the reasons why you should keep your body as healthy as you can and present it unto the Lord! We are commanded to present our bodies a living sacrifice because our physical body actually “belongs” to the Lord, 1CO 6:12-20.
1CO 6:12, all things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but i will not be mastered by anything.
In other words, we are free to put anything inside of our body that we want to. However, we are not free to become slaves to the cravings of the physical body!
1Co 6:13-20, Food is for the stomach, and the stomach is for food; but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord is for the body. Now God has not only raised the Lord, but will also raise us up through His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take away the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? May it never be! Or do you not know that the one who joins himself to a harlot is one body with her? For He says, “The two will become one flesh.” But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
The beginning of presenting your earthly body is rebound. Rebound is a means of presenting our bodies as clean vessels unto the Lord.
HEB 10:22-26, Let us draw near with a sincere heart with full assurance from doctrine, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
The bodies being washed with pure water is a reference to rebound cleansing us from all unrighteousness and qualifying us for spiritual worship.
HEB 10:23-26, Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more, as you see the day drawing near. For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
Now, the body must be presented unto God through the filling of the Holy Spirit or else there is no glorification of God, 1CO 13:3.
1CO 13:1-3, If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
The power of the Holy Spirit gives life and energy to the physical body for the purpose of glorifying God.
ROM 8:11, but if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who indwells you.
The physical body of the believer is effected and influenced by the eye of the believer or the perception of the soul; MAT 6:22-23, “The lamp of the body is the eye; if therefore your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”
Notice that there is a direct relationship between your soul perception and the presentation of your entire body. Then, once doctrinal soul perception takes place, the believer must make his physical body “his slave” rather than becoming a slave to the needs of his body.
1CO 9:24-27, Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win. And everyone who competes in the games exercises self‑control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. Therefore, I run in such a way, as not without aim; I box in such a way, as not beating the air; but I buffet my body and make it my slave, lest possibly, after I have preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.
Prin – Without making your body a slave to the new nature, your body will become a slave to the old sin nature. There is NO in-between. You are NOT an original thinker! You have NOT discovered what it means to be free from your Christian obligations and free from the OSN. You are either a slave to the new nature or a slave to the old nature! Therefore, the believer must make his physical body “his” slave rather than becoming a slave to the needs of the body.
The believer is commanded to present the “members” of his physical body, such as the eyes, ears, hands, feet, etc. as instruments for God to use.
ROM 6:11-12, Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let the sin nature reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts,
Notice that even though the sin nature is located in the body, you do not have to present the members of your body as a slave to the sin nature.
ROM 6:13-18, and do not go on presenting the members of your body [your ears, eyes, feet, hands, etc.] to the sin nature as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members of the human body as instruments of righteousness to God. For the sin nature shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? May it never be! Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin [a slave to the sin nature] resulting in death, or of obedience [slave to the new nature] resulting in righteousness? But thanks be to god that though you were slaves of the sin nature, you became obedient from the heart [right lobe] to that form of doctrine to which you were committed, and having been freed from the sin nature, you became slaves of righteousness.
Notice that freedom does not mean irresponsibility, no commitment, dedication and devotion, freedom means the opportunity to become a slave or servant to God.
ROM 6:19, I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members [the members of your human body] as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present the members of your human body as slaves to righteousness, resulting in experiential sanctification.
It is only as we control the different members or parts of our human body that we begin to live in the PPOG and receive God’s highest and best for our life.
Therefore, our human body should reflect the brand-marks of being a Christian, GAL 6:17, From now on let no one cause trouble for me, for I bear on my body the brand‑marks of Jesus.