Have You Tried Everything Else (Idol Worship)? Now Try Jesus (Pt.2) (347) - April 25 2026

Many people are looking for solutions to their current challenges, trials, and difficult life situations.

So many people are desperate to get the things, people, or opportunities they desire that they are willing to do evil—lying, cheating, stealing, controlling others, or even practicing witchcraft—to make things go their way. This is evil. It is coveting, idolatry, addiction, and serving false gods, ungodly statues, altars, shrines, graves, and dead people. It includes offering sacrifices to other gods in an attempt to force, manipulate, or control people, situations, or opportunities.

The truth is, if you are doing these evil things, there is always a price to pay. When you serve Jesus Christ, the Bible says in Matthew 10:8: "....Freely (without pay) you have received, freely (without charge) give.”

Topics include:
- If you are not serving Jesus Christ, you are serving other idols. What idols have you made your god?  
- You cannot serve two masters.  
- Results of worshipping idols.

This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC):Matthew 10:8, 1 John 5:21, Philippians 3:19, Matthew 6:24, Joshua 24:15, Galatians 6:7, 2 Corinthians 9:6, Exodus 20:3, Exodus 20:4, Psalm 135:15-17, Habakkuk 2:18-19, Leviticus 26:1, Hebrews 13:5, Jonah 2:8, Deuteronomy 5:7-9, Exodus 20:23-24, Joshua 23:7, Numbers 25:2-3, 1 Kings 18:21, 1 Corinthians 6:11, Exodus 20:13-17.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And welcome back to yet another episode of Touch of God. My name is Catrice and I'll be delivering the message for you this week. This week, we'll be talking about Have You Tried Everything Else, Now Try Jesus, Part 2, Idol Worship. Last week, we talked about Have You Tried Everything Else, Now Try Jesus, and that was about stagnation. How many of us are wanting to move forward but have been stagnant, running in so many directions, doing so many things, eventually we realize we are not moving forward the way we would like or the way we thought we were. Many people use the phrase, I am hitting up against a wall. This means there are obstacles in the way. You're going nowhere. You are stagnant. This is a sign that you are going the wrong way, doing the wrong things. It's like driving on the wrong side of the road or driving on the road and you're looking for where you are supposed to turn. A turn is supposed to be coming up, but you can tell that it is taking too long. You should have made the turn by now. All the signs are pointing to something being wrong. This means it's time to pause, reserve your energy, and regather yourself to come up with a new plan that works because what you were doing is not working. All your efforts, all your knowledge and information are leading you to a dead end. Truly, God is trying to tell you something. Those who are listening can hear God. Those who are not listening can see the signs by now. The big sign in your life is something is wrong. The topics for last week were what are obstacles that can be in your way? Who is God in your life? Understand that Jesus, who is bigger, wiser than you, is in control. This week on Have You Tried Everything Else? Now Try Jesus Part 2, it's about idol worship. This week, we'll be talking about many people are looking for solutions to their current challenges, trials, life situations. So many people are desperate to find a way to do things that they are willing to do evil, lie, cheat, steal, control, do witchcraft to make things go their way. This is evil. It is coveting, addictions, serving idols, evil gods, ungodly statues, altars, shrines, graves, dead people, offering sacrifices to other gods to make, force, control others' situations and opportunities. The truth is, if you are doing these evil things, there is always a price to pay. When you serve Jesus Christ, in Matthew 10, verse 38, it says, freely without pay you have received, freely without charge give. If you are not serving Jesus, you are serving other idols. The topics for this week are what idols have you made your God? You cannot serve two masters, the results of worshiping other gods and idols, removing idol worship from your life. Let's start with what idols have you made your God? In order to understand what idols you are serving, you need to understand what an idol is, the definition of an idol, an object of extreme devotion, a presentation or symbol of an object of worship, a false god, a likeness of something. The Bible understands that idolatry extends beyond worship of images and false gods. The biblical definition of idol, let's look in 1 John 5, 21, little children, keep yourselves from idols, false gods, from anything and everything that would occupy the place in your heart due to God, from any sort of substitute for him that would take first place in your life. Amen. So let it be. It is a matter of the heart associated with pride, self-centeredness, greed, gluttony. Let's look at Philippians 3, 19, where it says their God is their stomach, their appetites, their sensuality and love for possessions. In Matthew 6, 24, you cannot serve God and mammon, deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is entrusted in anything more important to you than God. An idol can be anything that takes the place of God as the most important focus and priority in your life. Let's look at some examples of idols. Every day we get to choose to serve good or evil. Joshua 24, 15 says, and if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve. If you're not serving the Lord with your lifestyle and daily choices, you are serving other gods. Examples of that are money, sex, food, alcohol, drugs, social media, TV, music, people, bosses, pastors, prophets, coffee, friends, job, addictions, women, men, having children, belief systems, and so much more. To some of you, you are thinking, how can these things be idols? How can any of these things be bad for you? Anything that is higher than Jesus, when something in your life is a addiction, where you can't stop using it, being around that person, place, or thing, or action. If that person, place, or thing is controlling, if that person, place, or thing causes you to stop doing what is right, if that person, place, or thing causes you to compromise. Another example, if money is your idol, if money is your God, what does this mean? It means that in order to get money, you will lie, cheat, steal, kill, or overcharge people, prices, where you're working. If someone offers you money to do evil, steal, kill, destroy, lie, cheat, manipulate, do witchcraft, if you are unable to stop serving that thing. This means you serve that person, place, or thing, that belief system. It's coming into agreement with what that person, place, or thing is wanting you to do. Another example, if someone says, kill that baby, and that person kills that baby, the idol, the God you serve, has caused you to sin and kill, because you agreed and did not say no, and do whatever that person, place, or thing tells you, they are your God. Let's look at another example of an idol. Addictions. Addictions are idols because a person cannot control themselves and say no. For example, food, money, drugs, drinking, smoking, sex, pornography, masturbation, gossip, stealing, and many more sins. All of these things show that if you're not able to fast and walk away from it, then it's that addiction that is in control of you, that all day long, that's what you're thinking about. Another example is coming into agreement with things. Coming into agreement to serve witches, statues, idols, altars, pots, evil spirits, rituals, and any other God but Jesus. Another example is something that's controlling. A person says they do not like you. Their example, that person is a witch doctor doing New Age to make that person like them, love them. This is witchcraft, evil. The same thing applies when people get jealous of another's job. Things, friends, success, also putting spells on people's food, drinks, giving people objects you have cursed, the desire to want to make things happen even if they are wrong, making someone like you when they don't like you, and then doing witchcraft on them to make them like you. That is evil, and it's demonic, and that's serving the idol of witchcraft and control in Jezebel. Another idol are distractions. For example, you are supposed to be working, supposed to be at school, and you are with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You are supposed to be working, but you are on your phone talking to a friend. This is an idol because you are ignoring what you're supposed to do, what is right, and you are pulled towards doing what is wrong, even if you get in trouble, even if you know you're not supposed to do it. You are serving that thing, that person, that place, that thing. Every time you come into agreement with one of these things, you are placing something at the altar to serve that demon, that God, that statue. Manipulation and controlling others is witchcraft. When you do this, you're serving the altar of witchcraft. The more you want things your way, the more you are willing to do and forget that witchcraft is evil. At this point, you are serving another God. If you are wondering why life and things are not going as planned, it is because you have sown evil. You reap what you have sown into others. Let's look at Galatians 6, 7. Do not be deceived and deluded and misled. God will not allow himself to be sneered at, scorned, disdained, or mocked by mere pretensions or professions or by his precepts being set aside. He inevitably deludes himself who attempts to delude God. For whatever a man sows, that and that only is what he will reap. Let's look at 2 Corinthians 9, verse 6. Remember, he who sows sparingly, grudgingly will also reap sparingly and grudgingly. And he who sows generously, that blessings may come to someone will also reap generously and with blessings. Let's look at Exodus 20, verse 3. You shall have no other gods before or besides me. Let's look at Exodus 20, verse 4. You shall not make yourself any graven image to worship it or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Psalms 135, verses 15 to 17. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of men's hands. Idols have mouths, but they speak not. Eyes have they, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not. Nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make idols are like them. So is everyone who trusts in and relies on them. Let's look at Habakkuk 2, verses 18 to 19. What profit is the graven image when its maker has formed it? It is only a molten image and a teacher of lies. For the maker trusts in his own creations as his gods when he makes dumb idols. Woe to him who says the wooden image, awake, and to the dumb stone, arise, teach. Yet it cannot, for behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all inside it. Let's look at Leviticus 26, verse one. You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it. For I am the Lord, your God. So God is telling you right there that we are not to make engravened images and bow down to it because you are supposed to be bowing down to the Lord, your God. Let's look at Hebrews 13, verse five. Let your character or moral disposition be free from love of money, including greed, avarice, lust, and craving for earthly possessions, and be satisfied with your present circumstances and with what you have. Let's look at Jonah 2, verse eight. Those who pay regard to false, useless, and worthless idols forsake their own source of mercy and loving kindness. So what this is referring to, when you pay worship to useless and worthless idols, you forsake your own source of mercy and loving kindness. The source of mercy and loving kindness is Jesus Christ, but when you pay tribute to other gods, you're forsaking God. You shall have no other God before him, and yet when you worship other idols, you're forsaking your only opportunity for mercy and loving kindness upon your own life. That's something that we need to look at. Let's look at Deuteronomy 5, verses seven to nine. You shall have no other gods before me or besides me. You shall not make for yourselves to worship a graven image or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. So God is letting you know that he's jealous for your love and he's jealous because you're his children and he considers you his children. So when you turn away from him, it's like a mother whose children turn away and turn to something else. The mother is jealous for their love because she wants them to love her just like God wants us to love him. But when we turn and we serve other gods and graven images and alters and we do these things in the name of these other gods, it's not in the name of him and he's jealous for your love. Let's look at Exodus 20, verses 23 to 24. You shall not make gods to share with me my glory and your worship. Gods of silver or gods of gold, you shall not make for yourselves an altar of earth. You shall make to me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen in every place where I record my name and cause it to be remembered. I will come to you and bless you. We can see from this verse that the only alters made for worship are to be only to the Lord and not to any other gods because the Lord says you shall not make gods to share with me my glory and your worship. So God is letting you know when you go and you, you make other altars and you're serving other gods, those gods do not in any way share God's glory. They are not gods as God, Jesus Christ is Lord. Let's look at Joshua 23, 7, that you may not mix with these nations that remain among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them to serve them or bow down to them. So God doesn't want us to mention the names of any other gods. He doesn't want us to swear by them. He doesn't want us to bow down to them. And also in the previous verses, we are not to make altars in them or make graven images for those other gods. Idolatry substitutes another God in place of God, Jesus Christ. It violated the people's holiness and was parallel to adultery. Adultery in marriage is when you go and sleep with another person and become one with them and serving them instead of the one you are married to. This is how God sees it. When we go and serve other gods, we're committing adultery on the Lord and we are unfaithful to God. When we go to other gods and we're serving them, we're bowing down to them, we're carving graven images and we're doing what they want us to do instead of what God wants us to do. And know when you do that, things will not be well with you until you turn from your wicked ways and repent and pray so that God can heal your land. Let's look at Numbers 25, two to three, who invited the Israelites to the sacrifices of their gods and they ate and bowed down to Moab's gods. So Israel joined himself to the God Baal of Peor and the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. So you can see that Israel went and was bowing down to other gods in this example and it kindled God's anger towards them because they shall have no other God but God. So you cannot serve two masters. Let's look at Matthew 6, 24 and what I mean by two masters, you can't serve God, Jesus Christ and have another God or idol or statue that you're worshiping and that you're following instructions from. No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, deceitful riches, money, possessions or whatever is entrusted in. Let's look at first Kings 18, verse 21, Elijah came near to all the people and said, how long will you halt and limp between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him and the people did not answer him a word. Let's look at Matthew 6, 24. No one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will stand by and be devoted to the one and despise and be against the other. You cannot serve God and mammon, deceitful riches, money, possessions, or whatever is entrusted in. So I thought I would just repeat that because it's very important that we understand to not serve other gods. Therefore I tell you, stop being perpetually uneasy, anxious, and worried about your life. What you shall eat or what you shall drink or about your body, what you shall put on is not life greater in quality than food and the body far above and more excellent than clothing. Look at the birds of the air. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father keeps feeding them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by worrying and being anxious can add one unit of measure cubit to his statute or the span of his life? And why should you be anxious about clothes? Consider the lilies of the field and learn thoroughly how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. Many people are serving other idols because they're trying to get to things in life that they're worried about, that they're concerned about. But if you turn to the Lord and you are worshiping God, just like he takes care of the animals, he's going to take care of you. We have to turn to the ways of the Lord and not what we're wanting and how we're wanting things. But when we're obedient to God's word and in the order that he's trying to show you, then you can grow and you can prosper when you let go of the things that you are trying to make God do and simply let God be the Lord of your life. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his magnificence, excellence, dignity, and grace was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and green and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will he not much more surely clothe you? Therefore, do not worry and be anxious saying, what are we going to have to eat or what are we going to have to drink or what are we going to have to wear? Let's look at the results of worshiping idols. 1 Corinthians 6 verse 11. We must not gratify evil desire and indulge in immorality, as some of them did. And 23,000 suddenly fell dead in a single day. We should not tempt the Lord, try his patience, become a trial to him, critically appraise him and exploit his goodness, as some of them did and were killed by poisonous serpents. Nor discontentedly complain, as some of them did and were put out of the way entirely by the destroyer of death. Noun, these things befell them by way of a figure as an example and warning to us. They were written to admonish and fit us for right action by good instruction. We in whose days the ages have reached their climax, their consummation and concluding period. This is talking about when the Israelites were freed from Egypt and they were walking in the wilderness and they were disobedient and they served other gods and they carved a golden calf and God was not happy with that because God was providing everything for them, but they chose to serve another God and to worship another God. And some of them were destroyed in the wilderness. We don't want to be destroyed in the wilderness and we need to be very careful as far as who we're worshiping, who we're getting involved with, what is it that we're getting attached to that we're forming addictions to and creating idols in our lives where we're unable to turn away from them and to turn to God. When you make God your source, when you make God your everything, he can become your everything. But when you're trying to control God and tell God what to do, when to do things, how to do things, then God is not your God. You have become your own God because you're trying to tell God what to do and that's not how things are set up. It's supposed to be not our will, but God's be done. And when we're obedient to God's will, he can direct your paths. He can lead you to the green pastures. He can lead you to the still waters, but you have to want the green pastures. You have to want the still waters. So many people say no weapon formed against me shall prosper. But if you're the weapon formed against yourself, you're the one bringing in evil, serving other idols, you're the one who has addictions and you're trying to control people or to do wicked things and yet still come to God, then you become the weapon formed against yourself because you have sin in your life. And it's not that God's not protecting you. It's you've come out of his will and you're no longer hidden in Christ. And that means you are left susceptible to being under attack because you were out of God's will. And we don't want that for you and we want better for you, but you have to want better for yourself. Amen. God bless you all. And until next week, keep the faith.