Chapter Seven — Part Six: The Book of Acts
By: Pastors Rodney & Adonica Howard-BrownePublish date: 08/15/2021
Foundation Scriptures:Acts 7:41-43
1. Idols and False gods.
a. Acts 7:41 AMPC — And they [even] made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice to the idol and made merry and exulted in the work of their [own] hands.
b. Exodus 32:4,6
c. The height of deception is to worship an idol made with your own hands.
d. Idols can be made of silver and gold (Isaiah 2:20, 31:7) or they can be idols of the heart.
e. Ezekiel 14:4 AMPC — Therefore speak to them and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Every man of the house of Israel who takes his idols [of self-will and unsubmissiveness] into his heart and puts the stumbling block of his iniquity [idols of silver and gold] before his face, and yet comes to the prophet [to inquire of him], I the Lord will answer him, answer him according to the multitude of his idols.
f. Rebellion and self-will is an idol, every bit as much as idols made of silver and gold.
g. In fact, they usually go hand in hand.
h. Jeremiah 19:13 KJV — And the houses of Jerusalem, and the houses of the kings of Judah, shall be defiled as the place of Tophet, because of all the houses upon whose roofs they have burned incense unto all the host of heaven, and have poured out drink offerings unto other gods.
i. Acts 7:42 AMPC — But God turned [away from them] and delivered them up to worship and serve the host (stars) of heaven, as it is written in the book of the prophets: Did you [really] offer to Me slain beasts and sacrifices for forty years in the wilderness (desert), O house of Israel?
j. This is a rhetorical question.
k. Amos 5:25 KJV — Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?
l. No, they did not sacrifice to Almighty God, Creator of Heaven and earth—Who loved, protected and provided for them.
m. Acts 7:43 AMPC — [No!] You took up the tent (the portable temple) of Moloch and carried it [with you], and the star of the god Rephan, the images which you [yourselves] made that you might worship them; and I will remove you [carrying you away into exile] beyond Babylon.
n. Rephan/Remphan is the Coptic name for Saturn (also called Chuin), who was the star god of Babylon.
o. Amos 5:26-27 KJV — But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves. 27 Therefore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus, saith the Lord, whose name is The God of hosts.
p. Moloch was the national god of the Ammonites, to whom children were cruelly sacrificed by fire.
q. Psalm 106:37 KJV — Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils.
r. They sacrificed even their own children to demon gods!
s. Leviticus 17:7; Deuteronomy 32:17; 2 Chronicles 11:15
t. ALL idol worship is worship of devils—whether the worshipers realize it or not.
u. God had no choice but to give them up to a reprobate mind—to worship their idols and become more and more depraved.
2. Reprobate Mind.
a. This is the inevitable result of unchecked sin and reprobate minds.
b. Romans 1:20-32 AMPC
c. Vs 20: For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification], [Ps. 19:1-4.]
d. Vs 21: Because when they knew and recognized Him as God, they did not honor and glorify Him as God or give Him thanks. But instead they became futile and godless in their thinking [with vain imaginings, foolish reasoning, and stupid speculations] and their senseless minds were darkened.
e. Vs 22: Claiming to be wise, they became fools [professing to be smart, they made simpletons of themselves].
f. Vs 23: And by them the glory and majesty and excellence of the immortal God were exchanged for and represented by images, resembling mortal man and birds and beasts and reptiles.
g. Vs 24: Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their [own] hearts to sexual impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves [abandoning them to the degrading power of sin],
h. Vs 25: Because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, Who is blessed forever! Amen (so be it). [Jer. 2:11.]
i. Vs 26: For this reason God gave them over and abandoned them to vile affections and degrading passions. For their women exchanged their natural function for an unnatural and abnormal one,
j. Vs 27: And the men also turned from natural relations with women and were set ablaze (burning out, consumed) with lust for one another — men committing shameful acts with men and suffering in their own bodies and personalities the inevitable consequences and penalty of their wrong-doing and going astray, which was [their] fitting retribution.
k. Vs 28: And so, since they did not see fit to acknowledge God or approve of Him or consider Him worth the knowing, God gave them over to a base and condemned mind to do things not proper or decent but loathsome,
l. Vs 29: Until they were filled (permeated and saturated) with every kind of unrighteousness, iniquity, grasping and covetous greed, and malice. [They were] full of envy and jealousy, murder, strife, deceit and treachery, ill will and cruel ways. [They were] secret backbiters and gossipers,
m. Vs 30: Slanderers, hateful to and hating God, full of insolence, arrogance, [and] boasting; inventors of new forms of evil, disobedient and undutiful to parents.
n. Vs 31: [They were] without understanding, conscienceless and faithless, heartless and loveless [and] merciless.
o. Vs 32: Though they are fully aware of God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them themselves but approve and applaud others who practice them.
p. In every generation, when people reject and dishonor God, they also condemn themselves to be dishonored, and rejected by God.