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JEREMIAH 10, 11

Intro: Place in history for Chapter 10, 11, 12.

I. WHEN MEN LOSE THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD, THEY DO NOT LOSE THEIR SENSE OF NEED.
        A. They thus substitute the false for true.
        B. The making of an idol follows the loss of consciousness of God. 
                1. Does not precede or cause loss of awareness.
        C. Disloyalty does not eliminate need for God.
                1. ResuIt - man makes his own God.
                2. So in case of Judah.
        D. Man must create a god of some kind if they have lost the God who created them.

II. CONTRAST BETWEEN FALSE AND TRUE GOD.
        A. Origin.
                1. A tree, killed - a dead tree.
                2. Tree fashioned by hands into some form.
                3. A dead tree decked with silver and gold.
                4. A dead tree fastened with hammer and nails.
                Imaginatively watch the people make it.
                What are they forming?
                Why are they doing it?
                1. Cry within heart of every man.
                2. Today scene changed only slightly.
                Contrast with God - vs. 6, 7, 12.
                1. All things appertain to God.
        B. Nature of the substitutes for God.
                1. Brutish and foolish.
                2. Stock doctrine of vanities.
                3. There is no breath in them.
                Contrasted with true God - vs. 10.
                1. True God.
                2. Living God.
                3. Everlasting King.
                4. Powerful, wise, discrete - vs. 12
                An idol is altogether false - a tree becomes a God in the
                proportion that may hide the fact that it is a tree.
        C. Worth of the false Gods.
                1. Power - vs. 5.
                        a. "They speak not."
                        b. "They must need be borne."
                2. Intelligence.
                        a. The instruction of idols, is but a stock (it is wooden).
                3. Their influence.
                        a. Vain - they are a work of delusion (mockery).
                Contrast true God.
                1. God is great.
                2. God is living - His voice is heard. 
                Men make gods they must carry.
                When God makes man, He carries him.
                Some have made idolatry of religion because they have to carry it.
                True religion carries you.

Ill. MAN TODAY STILL CREATING SUBSTITUTES FOR GOD.
        A. A God is that which you worship.
                1. After Israel's fall to Babylon - "They worshipped Jehovah and served their
                   own gods."
                2. Some worship money.
                3. Some worship sensation. The inability of our own gods to save.