40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Isaiah 43:22-44:8 (Episode 485)

Episode Date: November 13, 2025

God shows Himself to be a bearer and forgetter of sins. Isaiah repeatedly moves between Law and Gospel. And Baptism makes an appearance in the words of the Prophet. Have a listen. Show Notes: Support 1517 Podcast Network 1517 Podcasts 1517 on Youtube 1517 Podcast Network on Apple Podcasts 1517 Events Schedule 1517 Academy - Free Theological Education What's New from 1517: Coming Home for Christmas: 1517 Advent Devotional Face to Face: A Novel of the Reformation by Amy Mantravadi Untamed Prayers: 365 Daily Devotions on Christ in the Book of Psalms by Chad Bird Remembering Your Baptism: A 40-Day Devotional by Kathryn Morales Sinner Saint by Luke Kjolhaug  More from the hosts: Daniel Emery Price Chad Bird

Welcome to another episode of 40 Minutes in the Old Testament. 40 Minutes in the Old Testament is a 1517 podcast network podcast. You can go to 1517.org slash podcast. Check out all the other podcasts that are living over there. while you're over there, check out everything else that 1517 is doing, all the other podcasts that are over there. Man, we got the podcast network. We got friends of the podcast network. We got all kinds of stuff for you to click on over there. So go do that. Take a couple of academies, read some articles, and then go over that donate link in the right-hand corner

and help support the work. That would go a long way. We'd appreciate it very much. And if you already do that we do appreciate that very much chad we are in isaiah 43 you know i've i'd realized this the other day um i think this is the 42nd episode in isaiah oh so we are averaging about a chapter an episode we're real close so that's uh we've come a long way since we covered the first one verse in the first episode yeah yeah we're doing we're doing we're doing good uh but it does tell you we've been in this for a lot of weeks uh like this this uh 2025 is the the year of isaiah i don't i had to look and see what the the date was that we first public we published the first episode in isaiah but i think we've been in isaiah basically this whole year

yeah i think i think that we have yeah i knew that it would take us a little over a year you know maybe a year and a couple months that's what i was was planning on uh because especially with stuff like this it's pretty hard to like cover two chapters in episode maybe some of them if they're really short yeah but for the most part if if we cover a chapter an episode i'm i'm happy with it yeah so yeah well we're making progress we are so we will definitely finish up 43 today and get into get into uh 44 which uh has this great section on uh idolatry and uh the what silliness silliness i know it's crazy isaiah's talking about idolatry never saw that one coming is he gonna talk about is he talking about how dumb false gods are is he gonna do that yeah yeah

first time ever isaiah's preached against idolatry yeah well i mean we we ended you know like in a an interesting spot because, you know, we get to hear about like a new song and like the Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. We get to hear about God creating Israel out of nothing, which is pretty great. All that stuff. We get to hear that, you know, hey, a promise that the true King is going to return. You know, that's kind of nice. He's going to come. And he says, yeah, I'm going to do all this stuff because I formed a people for myself. And the reason I did that is that they might declare my praise. Now, they don't do this a lot. This, you know, this vocation of declaring praise that they've been given, they don't do it a lot. And he's

going to kind of do that in verse 22, I think, and say, yeah, you were kind of created for this purpose. And man, you don't live up to that purpose at all. No, we're going to see in 22 through 24, one of these many prophetic critiques of the worship of Israel. If you remember way back, we talked about how long we've been in Isaiah. Well, you know, 42 weeks ago or whenever it was when we started Isaiah, chapter one starts out with a critique of the worship practices of Israel. You know, they're gung-ho about all this worship, thinking that by the mere mechanics of it, just by doing it, they're going to make God happy, which was a pretty prevalent view in the ancient world. It wasn't like the Israelites were the only ones thinking, well, if we just, you know,

do exactly the ritual perfectly, then God will be happy. That's what a lot of people, not just back then thought, a lot of people think the same thing to do today, just kind of go through the motions. So you have that prophetic critique going on there, and you got the same thing happening here with a slightly different focus. So I think one thing that might be helpful if you use a printed Bible, I use Logos Bible software, so I've done it here, but just circle all the me in 22 through 24. Me, me, me, me. There's seven times, I think, something like that. The focus is not upon Israel not doing things, but they're not doing it for God. In fact, the Hebrew word order in verse 22 indicates this right away. So in English, it comes across as,

yet you did not call upon me but the hebrew word order fronts that me part it says not on me did you call so that's going to be the focus so as i read through these verses just kind of listen for that so 23 through 24 yet you did not call upon me oh jacob but you have been weary of me oh israel you have not brought me your sheep for burnt offerings or honored me with your sacrifices I have not burdened you with offerings or wearied you with frankincense. You haven't brought me sweet cane with money or satisfied me with the fat of your sacrifices. But, all right, here's the but coming up here. So what have they done?

But you have burdened me with your sins. You have wearied me with your iniquities. Yeah, that's a pretty sharp dagger point at the end of that. So you haven't been called upon me. We know, of course, from not just the Torah, but from various parts of the prophets, that there never was a time, and I do mean never, there never was a time when Israel was wholly devoted just to the Lord. And like, yep, we're only offering sacrifices to him. I mean, over and over in the Torah and then on into Joshua, the Israelites are called upon to put away your gods, quit sacrificing to the spirits. What are you still doing with this?

You know, all the way to the very end of Joshua, he's telling them to do this. So there never was a time when Israel was just like Yahweh only kind of people. They were always doing stuff on the side. They had their side worship happening. So that's one of the things that's going on here with this critique. You weren't calling upon me. You were calling upon all these other gods, first with the golden calf and then with a lot of other idols as well.

And so when he gets to the end here and he says, you know what you have burdened me with? You know what you have wearied me with? Your sins, your iniquities. That's what you were heaping upon my altar, if you will. And so I'm bearing those burdens because that's what you keep throwing my way in your mechanical worship and in your blending of my worship with the worship of other gods and goddesses. Yeah, you know, one of the things that's cool about this is that, you know, sometimes people get this idea, I get it, where like in the Old Testament, God is like pretty mad about sins and stuff, you know, he's pretty angry about disobedience and all this kind of stuff. But in the New Testament, Jesus comes and he's like, God's going to be nice now. And he's got a plan to be nice to you.

But like passages like this show you that God has always been like a sin-bearing God. And you're going to see that really clearly in the next verse. So like this isn't just simply, hey, I'm frustrated with your sins and tired of your iniquities. He is. Those things. But I think the language here is intentional. Like, I'm bearing your sin. What is the burden? I mean, that's something you're bearing, right? Like, this is something that's been placed upon you. Yeah, you carry this thing around. And I'm weary with your iniquities. Your sins are wearing me out here. This burden is heavy. There's a lot of sins on this. So I do think you get this real picture of Christ here. You were made to proclaim my praise, which is what? To declare the praise for God is to sing for his salvation, for the things that he's done for you. Instead

of that though i just end up bearing all your sins like i'm not hearing the praises that you're giving me uh instead you're just heaping sins upon me and you know when you have jesus and and you listen to paul paul be like yeah that's expressly what jesus comes to do right i mean this is what john the baptist says he is he is here to do like behold the lamb of god who takes away the sins of the world you could say that at the same you could say the same thing as uh Behold the Lamb of God, who is going to burden himself with your sins. Yeah. Well, that's the language of Isaiah 53, right?

You have laid on him the iniquity of us all. So, yeah, he's the sin bearer. He's the one that doesn't just bear the cross, but all the sins connected with that cross, all the sins of humanity. So, yeah, you're right. I mean, this is not innovative way of the New Testament speaking of God. he's always been the one who carries this burden around of his people's sins yeah and you might ask the question that verse 25 is going to answer what are you going to do with all these sins that you're bearing i mean okay so like you've been burdened up uh with all these sins it's wearing

you out um what are you going to do with them like are you gonna throw them back down on the people or what do you what's what's the plan what's the plan with the sins yeah because i mean Now, I suppose he could say, you got to do something about this, Israel, right? I mean, you got to take care of these sins that you're burdening me with. But he doesn't. This is one of these cases where you see it in English, you can hear it in Hebrew as well. In Hebrew, it's Anokhi Anokhi Hu, which is translated rightly by the ESV as I. I am he who, who does what?

Who blots out your transgressions for my own sake. and i will not remember your sins and i'll just read through yeah i'll finish this up this is only uh 26 through 28 and it'll be the end of the chapter put me in remembrance let's argue together set forth your case that you may be proved right your first father sinned and your mediators transgressed against me therefore i will profane the princes of the sanctuary and deliver jacob to utter destruction, and Israel to reviling. This is such a law and gospel dance. Yeah, dude. I know we talked about this last episode, about this sort of feeling that you get of God speaking out of both sides of his mouth, that you can't understand it if you don't

understand law and gospel, because here the order is reversed. But it's like, hey, man, these sins are heavy but you know what i am i'll tell you what i am i'm the one that forgives transgressions i i don't even remember sins uh but let me tell you what i do remember that your father sinned and i do remember that the mediators transgressed against me and i am gonna do some utter destruction you're like hold on wait a minute what like how well how does this work this is like a master's class in law gospel isaiah is because yeah he's he's going back and forth between these uh preaching just beautiful incredible good news and then incredible bad news just right after it and then good news and then bad news so you got all these sins that you burden

god with you worried him with well who's going to take care of it and that's why he starts out with I, I am the one who blots out your transgressions. It's not going to be you, you're burdening me with them, but I'm going to be the one who blots them out. This is the verb that occurs in Psalm 51 as well, blot out my transgressions. Actually, it occurs twice in Psalm 51. The first verse, blot out my transgressions, and then the ninth verse, hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquities.

So blot it out. You can also translate that as wipe it away. But same picture. The only one who's able to blot out or wipe away the transgressions, of course, is God himself. And that's why it's to him that we confess our sins and he won't remember your sins. And I love the juxtaposition here. He says, I will not remember your sins. And then he says to us, put me in remembrance. I'm not remember your sins. And because of that, I want you to remember me, put me in, put me in remembrance. And we'll have an argument here. This is one of these very brief courtroom sins. So let's, let's put forth the case, right? Let's, let's see what happens. And then it's verse 27 is a bit, I think probably purposely ambiguous. He says, your first father sinned. Now, if I just read

and stop there i would think adam and maybe that is what he has in mind but then he goes on to describe your mediators transgressed against me and so i'm going to profane the princes of the sanctuary so it it could be adam it could be because there tends to be a shift to people associated with the sanctuary it could have been aaron i mean he's the first priest right i could have been somebody else and maybe it's purposely ambiguous so you can think of multiple people at the same time. Either way. If you're talking about someone sinning, it could literally be anybody. Could be anybody. Yeah. Either way, what he's doing is he's saying, hey, you know what? This didn't even start with you. This goes way back. It's not like you guys came up. Not that

I remember it. No, yes. Not that I remember it. It wasn't like you guys were the ones who came up with this. You know, your generation just started, you know what? Let's start burdening God with sins. No, your first father did that. Your mediators did this. Your priest or the princes of your sanctuary did this. And so God says, and that's why I'm going to hand Jacob over to utter destruction and Israel to reviling. So law, gospel, law. And that's the way the chapter ends. Yeah. And look, if you're trying to square this, this is how it works, guys. he's not dealing with a repentant people here right that's not what we're talking about right uh you're this is not um the prodigal son coming home and then his father saying welcome back to

the family but then also changing his mind and saying but also you're also my slave now uh i am going to take it that's not what that's not what this is what this is is a proclamation about like who god is and what he does with sin uh and if you uh are if you don't like that and don't want to avail yourself of that well here's another thing that you can look at too which is uh there's sort of like these two options right uh hey i'm the god who forgives transgression and i can forget all about your sins because i'm god i can do that but if you don't want that you know we could also do utter destruction and reviling and guess which of these two things they're gonna pick that's what if you if you're just trying to figure it out in your head like i don't know how to how

to make this work that's what it is like this this all looks different if if all of a sudden all the all the leaders of israel all like repent and sackcloth and ashes and bear fruit in keeping with repentance this can go very differently but that is not what happens yeah and this is of course this is a this is a prophetic book so this is not the same as an individual sermon to an individual sinner who has been confronted with his sin i mean this is a this is a collection of all the various sermons oracles that isaiah preached over a period of decades to various people at various stages of israel's both repentance as well as impenitence and so if it feels like this strange kind of dance uh sometimes a very you know rapidly changing dance from a lot

of gospel but that's that's why yeah it's uh it's this is not the father talking to the prodigal son when he's come back this is a prophet talking to all of israel and even beyond his own generation to those who are to come afterward. Yeah, it's a prophet speaking to the prodigal son when he's very much in the far country, right? That's what that is. Saying, hey, you know, your father, he knows what to do with sin.

He can take care of it. Also, buddy, there's like destruction coming. You got to understand. And I think that like maybe a good thing to have ringing in your ears, maybe when you're reading Isaiah or maybe any of the prophets. and you're trying to figure this out, is maybe to have in your mind Jesus, like,

looking out over Jerusalem, saying, Jerusalem, O Jerusalem, city that kills the prophets, how I would have gathered you under my wings like a mother hen gathers her chicks, and you would not. That's probably a good thing to have in your mind. Yeah, it's that kind of divine lament, you know, would that you had listened to me. oh that israel would listen to me yeah that's that just it's a heart-rending cry from god who loves his people lamenting the fact that if they would only listen yeah and when he says like city that kills the kills the prophets right what what's happening there is by the way isaiah is one of those guys okay right that he's talking about um i don't know if you know historically i know

you know chad what people what the what people believe happened to isaiah wasn't great um but the what that means is like uh city that kills the prophet is uh is the what he's saying there is city that i have sent messaged after message after message made call after call after call too right that's what that's what that is yeah yeah uh yeah now my mind is going to what happened to isaiah yeah for those who have not heard the hebrews 11 mentions some were sawn into well yeah that would be isaiah that's a tradition associated with his with his martyrdom yeah the message was well received not a great way to go okay so um chapter 44 let's see what comes next. But now, here we have another but. But now, hear, O Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have

chosen. We have those two titles again. We ended the chapter with Jacob and Israel. We begin this chapter with Jacob and Israel. So listen up, Jacob, my servant, Israel, whom I have chosen, thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you. A lot of similar language we had at the beginning of chapter 43 about what God does for Israel. So that's kind of a lead, a preamble to what he has to say. He says, don't be afraid. Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, Jeshurun, whom I have chosen. So we have a new, well, it's not really a new title. It's a Deuteronomy 32 and 33 title for Israel. So we'll just stop there for a second. So he's mentioned Jacob and Israel.

They're going to be given utter destruction to reviling. But then he says, listen up. I got another message for you. You're the one I've chosen. You're the one I've made. You're the one I formed from the very womb and will help you. So don't be afraid because you're my servant. You're Jeshurun whom I have chosen.

So these kinds of divine descriptions, I think are helpful because they orient us all the way back to, okay, this is not only who God is, but what he's done. He chose Israel. He made you. In fact, he didn't just make you all the way in the womb. He's the one who formed you. And that one who chose and made and formed you is here to help you because you're his servant and you are Jeshurun whom he has chosen. So that goes all the way back to, as i mentioned deuteronomy 32 and 33 that's where it first occurs it's kind of a it's an erotic name most people uh suggest that it comes from the the hebrew yashar which means upright so the un on the end is sometimes referred to jesu rune the un as a diminutive of affection

kind of like a dear or beloved. So you might translate it literally as, oh, dear upright one. Now what's ironic about that, of course, is that Israel and Jacob is not upright, right? It's like when you call a NFL linebacker tiny, that's like calling Israel a Jeshurun. But it's a term of endearment. It's God saying, hey, you're my dear upright one, because I have, I've chosen you. The Greek translated it as, and the Greek translated with a word from which we get agape. So beloved one, agape menos, the one to whom I show my agape, agape love. But so it's just another way of basically saying, you're not just Jacob and Israel. You're, you're the one that you're the upright one that I really care about. You're the

one that I love and I've chosen. So that's kind of a lead into what he's going to say in the next couple of verses. For I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. So that's the first part of the verse. Now listen to the parallel with this. So he's going to pour water in streams. Then he goes on to say, I will pour my spirit upon your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams. This one will say, I am the Lord's. Another one will call on the name of Jacob or maybe be called by the name of Jacob, something like that. Another will write on his hand, the Lord's and name himself by the name of Israel. I think we talked about this back in

chapter 32. Yes, it was. Chapter 32 also uses the same parallel use of the pouring of water and then the pouring of the Spirit. And I traced this once all through the scriptures. You see this in the New Testament, where the Holy Spirit is poured out on us richly. Of course, that's from Titus chapter three. Romans five says God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. John seven uses the image of rivers of living water flowing out of him. And he's talking about the spirit. It's all through the scriptures, the image of pouring and then the spirit. So water and spirit are intimately connected. And you see this already from Genesis chapter one, verse two, where the Spirit is hovering over the face of the waters.

So the pouring of water to give drink to the thirsty ground or to cause growth, that's a very earthy way of describing what God does as He pours out His Spirit into us or onto us to give us His own life so that there is cleansing and there is growth and there's all the things that the Spirit works within us. Sounds very baptismal. very baptismal yeah yeah yeah that's uh that's that's why when you when do you receive the holy spirit when you're baptized that's right yeah pouring of water pouring and pouring of the

spirit yeah this is uh this is yeah a little bit you have uh god saying hey don't don't be afraid i've chosen you and i got some baptism to prove it right that's it yeah that's a it's a beautiful old testament background to what happens when you're uh when you're baptized so you don't have a uh a pouring of water and later we have a pouring of the spirit all happens at the same time because it's through the water that the spirit brings the word and pours himself into the thirsty land of the sinner who is given drink and cleansing and life by means of the spirit Yeah. And what does this result in? It results in people identifying themselves as God's possession, right? So what happens after baptism? You could say, I am the Lord's. Like, that's what I am. Like, that's who I belong to. That's how this all works. yeah so next time someone's preaching on baptism or having a baptism we'll pull out isaiah 44 1

through 5 and and drop that yeah drop that in your congregation i mean this is it this is what this is all about yeah i mean you could you could preach a rich baptizable sermon on on these verses so we're gonna here we have this sinner and man you know what the sinner is thirsty land he's dry ground and you know what thirsty land and dry ground need well the water so that's what we're going to do we're going to pour the water of the spirit on this person and the result will be they belong to god this uh right toward the end it says another will write on his hand the lord's a couple couple things could be happening there you know there is this this uh command back in the Torah to bind God's word between your eyes and on your hands. So this idea of you're so

connected to the word of God and what he does for you that it's like it's tied to you, that could be going on. I checked the, I think the resource was, yeah, the IVP Bible background commentary, something I consult on a pretty regular basis. It will relate a lot of the biblical verses to kind of nearest and cultural background and they suggest that this could be uh riffing off the idea of you're a servant or a slave of someone when you have a tattoo on your hand to mark you so that could be what's going on here too which which kind of fits so who do you belong to well look at my hand that's it's right there says i belong to to yahweh so baptism also is a way that You're marked, you're tattooed to show that you are the one who belongs to God himself.

Yeah, that's, you know, everyone knows what a watermark is, right? That's what you get in baptism. Oh, that's good, yeah. Yeah, that's what you get. You are marked. And, you know, in May, we'll be having a conference in Northwest Arkansas about being baptized into Christ. chat us to talk about the old testament roots of baptism and i think he just found his text i think i i think i did yeah so everyone who listened to this episode forget everything i

said because i'm gonna be saying sorry he's gonna have to go for like 35 minutes on it so like yeah i'll have word i got i got a sneaking suspicion that this text might appear yeah yeah and it's the i mean i'll i won't uh i won't keep talking about it much but there when i do talk about baptism and i've got some longer videos on youtube about this too there is such a uh a richness an embarrassed embarrassment of riches in the old testament about what god does through water and it all is uh just to build on the metaphor it's all streaming to the baptismal font. So that's the source

of where all of this spirit, water, cleansing, getting of life, all of that from the Old Testament is working its way downstream until it finally pools in the baptismal font.

By the way, if that's going to be a banger conference because it's a great topic, you can register for it. I'm going to put the plug in there right now. You can just go to 1517 and go to the events page. You can register and come hang out with us. So go ahead and do it. The registration for that is now open.

Yeah, yeah. Get your name on there and come join us. Okay, so that took us through verse 5. Let's see what we've got coming up now. This is kind of a lead-in, actually, verse 6 through 8. For those of you who look in printed Bibles, or maybe will later after you listen to this episode, We're going to have three more verses of poetry, which is the way that most of this part of Isaiah,

I mean, the prophets wrote with a poetic structure, Hebrew poetry. So you got six to eight poetry, and you can see that laid out in your Bibles that way. Verse nine, though, shift to something different. And we don't see a lot of prose in this part of Isaiah, but nine all the way through 20 is going to be in prose. And then we have more poetry after that. So this whole section is going to be basically God's way of affirming once again, as he has before and as he will again, that when you're looking out at the God options in the universe, there is one and there is only one. Yes, of course, as Paul says, there's many gods and many lords, but if you're talking about the true God, if you're talking about the Creator, if you're talking about the one who is redeeming and saving and doing all the things that only God can do, well, then you have one and only one option, and that is Yahweh, the King of Israel. So I'm going to read 6-8, that's kind of a lead-in to the satire, I guess we could call it that, the satire which is to come. Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel, and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts

I am the first and I am the last Besides me there is no God Who is like me? Let him proclaim it Let him declare and set it before me Since I appointed an ancient people Let them declare what is to come and what will happen Fear not, nor be afraid have i not told you from of old and declared it and you are my witnesses is there a god besides me

there is no rock i know not any well there's not much more to be said after that right you got you got alpha and omega language you hear you got i'm the first and i'm the last which which of course by the way when jesus says things like that when things are said of jesus like that i'm the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Well, I mean, if there's any doubt in anyone's mind as to whether Jesus is in fact Yahweh incarnate, well, there you go right there. That proves it. This is Yahweh speaking.

He's the first and he's the last. And that language is then applied to Christ in the New Testament. And also, I was thinking, just looking through this this morning, getting ready for our conversation. You know, I don't know, and I could be wrong here, but I don't know that we accent enough the, what would you call it, how God through prophecy in the Old Testament especially is demonstrating his faithfulness and his power and his love to actually do for his people what he's promised to do. I mean, maybe that happens in a lot of teaching and preaching. I don't know that I always hear it. But when you look at the Old Testament prophecies, these are God's way of

saying, hey, I'm the one who knows what's going to happen. I have the omniscience to be aware of this. I have the power to bring it about. And therefore, I also have the fidelity to fulfill the promises that I make. So the very existence of prophecy and its fulfillment undergirds the the the trustworthiness of god and the exclusivity of god of course which is the the main point that isaiah makes here i don't know i could be off there dan what do you what do you think i just i don't know we hear enough about prophecy and its fulfillment uh as it's accented in the old testament yeah yeah no i think i think that's that's totally right i mean we said this a million times. But idolatry is always just like the thing. What this has to do with is that it's not just

that God has got this massive ego and it's just like, it's got to be worshipped so bad. I just need it so badly. But what happens and why God gets so sarcastic and snarky about other gods is because, one, it's horrible for you, and you hear that all the time with these people. And Paul will say, you know, just not say that, hey, there's only one God, but he'll be like, well, yeah, you have options. It's God or demons, so, you know.

God doesn't really want you worshiping demons. That's not going to work out great. But I think that, like, all— when you're talking about prophetic stuff, like leading to Christ, that the idea that there are other gods besides this god is also like an attack on the incarnation where god the god the only god takes on flesh which is the thing that like the all of all of the the prophets are pointing to uh and this can't this this is an offense then to god that

That this would just be like one God among many that comes in and takes on flesh and takes her sins away and all this stuff. Like God does this, not a God. Like the only God reduces himself in this way, humiliates himself in this way. He's not just like the God who humbled himself. It's God humbled himself. You don't have to put anything before it. There's only one. um i i think that matters it does and it does i do think it's something that we don't hardly

ordinarily link with idolatry too because what really what are all these people making the statues of gold or silver or wood or stone or whatever it is what are they trying to do they're trying to incarnate their god in a sense in this way they're trying to demonstrate that they can take the objects of creation and make them a true icon of whatever, whether you're looking for Roman gods or Greek gods or Babylonian or Assyrian gods. I mean, it's all the same. You're trying to take a created object and to say that in some way, this stuff of creation contains or conveys the God that it represents.

And then along comes the true God and says, oh, no, no. If you want to see me like in a created sort of way, well, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily in Jesus. That's it. Yeah. Not wood or stone or gold or silver, but in our own humanity, God has become truly incarnate. And he's the only one, the only God who exists and the only God who has become incarnate so that you will have access to him in the very humanity that he shares with you. Yeah, I even think that's why, like, you know, you take something like Moloch and why there's a child sacrifice or other gods infant sacrifice and stuff. This is all just an attack on the incarnation.

That's what it is. like that uh that's why the devil likes that stuff uh so much yes he just likes he's a murderer from the beginning and all that but like the the sort of infanticide part of a lot so much idolatry or sacrifice um i think is a direct a finger in the air at the incarnation um that because he knows that this god will not just become a man but will be in the womb and be born in this kind and and uh and this is this is an affront to that uh it's a rebellion against it yeah yeah it's and it's a powerful reminder too that uh idolatry is never simply making statues of wood or stone or you know to modernize it uh making politics or possessions or whatever it is your your god these are never

mere just alternatives to the one true god they're always the masks of demons yeah so when they're when there was child sacrifice taking place this was this wasn't just horrible on a on a moral scale this was horrible because it was thoroughgoingly satanic in nature and it's the same with it's the same with with all idolatry and and paul will say that i mean he'll he'll say on the one hand there's only one god you know there's only one true god but then he'll also say well yeah of course we all know there are many gods many goddesses many lords and i want you to know paul says that when you offer sacrifices to them and of course in in paul's culture unlimited number of deities that you were offering sacrifices to including the roman emperor right

yeah yeah when you offer these sacrifices to idols whoever it might be whether it's the imperial cult or one of the the plethora in the roman pantheon you're actually offering it to demons they're the ones who are behind these these idols so yeah kind of you got to bear all of that in mind when you're talking about idolatry whether it is in the old testament new testament or or today it's never just you're choosing the false god you're actually choosing a demon dressed up in religious garb yeah yeah and yeah there's there's one god there's lots of options for you to direct your worship towards uh all of them are demons that's that's what it is uh boils down to so yeah uh one god lots of quote gods or things you could worship just turns out that when you peel away what's

behind all those other things like oh again what what do you know another demon and that's that's what it is so all right well we are out of time we'll leave it there um he's got more to say about this coming up so we'll get into that next episode chat i'll see you then all right see you you