 Hey, man, so keep your place there in Deuteronomy chapter number four. We'll get there in just a minute. So I've got a unique title to the sermon this morning. The title of the sermon this morning, I'll just tell you the title and then I'll explain the context for you. The title of the sermon this morning is Pictures of Jesus. Pictures of Jesus. And I mean that quite literally pictures of Jesus or a likeness of Jesus. Now there's pictures, but keep your place in Deuteronomy four. We'll get there in just a minute. There's pictures or likenesses of all sorts of historical figures. I remember when I was a kid, I grew up in North Dakota. So if you live in North Dakota, the vacation that you go on every year is to South Dakota. That's your vacation every year. And what I've been to Mount Rushmore, you know, so many times I can't even count how many times I've been to Mount Rushmore. Who's been to Mount Rushmore here before? All right. So Mount Rushmore. I mean, I don't know. I think it's awesome. Every time I've gone there, even though my wife disagrees because she's been to Mount Rushmore dozens of times as well. But Mount Rushmore is this, it's a great likeness, right? It's a mountain that has Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, you know, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln literally carved into the mountain. I mean, talk about a feat of engineering. And it was done in the 20s. I mean, it was done by, you know, way back when. But the point is, is that they actually, the mountain actually looks like how these men looked. It looks like Abraham Lincoln and George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Theodore Roosevelt. I mean, it literally looks like these men. You say, how did he get, how did the sculptor get the, get the likeness correct? Well, he had, he had portraits. He had paintings. He had other sculptures. Obviously, he made a smaller sculpture. And I've seen the museum so many times, you know, he had a smaller sculpture that he used as a mock-up. And then he did it. But he made those likenesses from paintings or portraits that were done of the actual men. Now, there are much older likenesses of, you say, well, that was, you know, back in the 1920s. And these guys existed within the last few hundred years. So it's not the same thing. Jesus was walking on this earth, you know, 2000, over 2000 years ago. But there are actual likenesses of men that are, you know, beyond Jesus's time. You know, there is likenesses in the form of, I'm kind of an amateur coin collector. There's likenesses in the form of Alexander the Great on coins. You can actually see his actual likeness. And it shows you what he actually looked like on coins. There's very famous likenesses or statues of Julius Caesar that exist that actually look like, you know, Julius Caesar. So we know what Julius Caesar looked like. There's, there's Augustus Caesar, very famous sculpture of Augustus Caesar. Even Nero, this ugly wicked man, has, has like, you know, his face on coins. So even Nero, you know, these were around the time of Jesus. Remember, Nero, who I believe, you know, killed the Apostle Paul, was in, you know, AD 64, somewhere around that time. So there are likenesses. There are sculptures. There are paintings and, and, you know, representations of what historical figures in Jesus's time, and much older than Jesus's time, they exist. These likenesses exist. So the question is, why does no picture of Jesus exist? Why does no likeness of Jesus Christ arguably the most famous person in the history of the world, why is there no likeness that exists of him? I sort of want to explain to you this morning. Look, even people that aren't Christians, even people, nobody, nobody who's a serious historian doubts the existence of Jesus, doubts that he walked this earth. Even if they don't believe that he was God, don't believe that he was the Messiah, that most serious historians acknowledge that a person named Jesus of Nazareth walked the earth historically 2000 years ago. So the question is, why does this most famous person, there's never been a historical figure that has changed the world like this man? Whether you're a Christian or not, most people will acknowledge that. Why does no likeness exist of this man, of, of our God? The fact that it doesn't exist is a miracle in itself, is what I'm going to explain to you this morning, especially with all the people that want one to exist. The fact that one doesn't exist is a miracle in itself. And I want to show you this morning that the reason one doesn't exist is because God doesn't want one to exist. Look at Deuteronomy chapter number four. So let me just explain a few things this morning about why, you know, why no pictures of Jesus exist. And then we'll look at why that is important for us. Look at Deuteronomy chapter four and look at verse number 11. Deuteronomy chapter four, look at verse number 11. The Bible says, when you came near, so Moses here is explaining God, you know, that God giving the law to the people, God, you know, telling people they need to follow his word as they go into the promised land. Verse number 11, it says, he came near and stood under the mountain, and the mountain burned with fire under the midst of heaven, talking about the giving of the Ten Commandments here to the children of Israel under the midst of heaven with darkness, clouds, and thick darkness. It doesn't look like you can see very well in that situation. Look at verse number 12. And the Lord spake unto you out of the midst of the fire, you heard the voice of the words, but saw no similitude, and only he heard a voice. So the Bible here is saying that the people, when the law was given, they did not see God. As a matter of fact, Moses himself never saw God's face. You know, God showed him the back of God, and of course God told us that no one can look upon God the Father and live. God does not want people to see him. He does not want him to see his face, or his face. People, his similitude meaning his likeness, what he looks like. And then, you know, it explains why, because people would go and they would make an image of that. They would make an image of that, and they would start worshipping that image, that likeness. And God says, no, that's not what I want. Now, in verse number 11, it is very clear that God does not want a similitude of himself known. He does not want that seen by man in Deuteronomy chapter 4, and then he gives reasons for that. But many people claim today, even though no man has seen God the Father, or no one has seen what Jesus looks like, many people, you know, even Jesus himself, people will claim they know what he looks like. People will claim they had a dream, and they know what Jesus looked like. Or they saw a piece of a toast or something that Jesus appeared in, and this must be Jesus, and they sell it on eBay for, you know, whatever. But I'm kind of giving away, you know, there's many paintings of Jesus. There's many famous paintings. I mean, then there's the Shroud of Turin, remember that one? That's been proven fake, like I don't know how many times it needs to be proven fake. But what was the big draw of the Shroud of Turin? What was the big draw of this relic? It was that it had a similitude, apparently, of Jesus. It had the shadow of a man's face, and people so badly want to see an image of Jesus. There is a definite market for it. And look, folks, where there's a market, the need is going to be filled. All right? You say why? I mean, just money. That's why. I mean, you think about all the different portraits and paintings of Jesus that are in people's homes, and I mean, but here's the thing, folks. I mean, think of the most famous one that you could probably think of, which is Leonardo da Vinci's The Last Supper. You know, I mean, it's this famous picture of Jesus and all, you know, the disciples. And I mean, you think about, you probably don't know the name, but Warner Salomon had one in 1940, which was a side view of Jesus that most people, a lot of people had in their home. I mean, people in my family had this one in their home. If I showed you the picture, I'm not going to show any of these pictures here this morning, but if I showed you the picture, you've seen it before. It's so famous. It's so common. Lately, there's a, I don't know if she's Russian or Ukrainian or what she is, but there's a painting or a painter named Akane Chromaric who painted a new painting of Jesus, and this was kind of tied to a book that was written, I don't know, 15 years ago called Heaven Is For Real about some boy that had a vision of heaven, you know, some fraudulent thing like this, and then ties it to this painting that this is what Jesus looked like and all this, so, you know, that you can buy for $82 on her website. You know, so there's all these fantastic, you know, versions of Jesus, and you say, do they look similar? I mean, well, do all these pictures of Jesus, do they look similar? No, they're completely different. They're completely different except, except for the fact that Jesus always has long hair and he's always wearing some loose dress-like garment in every single one of them, which is, is there an agenda there, you think? I remember, I was talking to my wife yesterday, my wife said to me yesterday, she says, I remember looking at the Lord's Supper, you know, famous picture when I was a kid and just wondering how odd it was, like, if you remember the Lord's Supper, the painting, I'm sure you've all seen it. There's one of the disciples that is leaning his head on Jesus' chest, and my wife said, I always wondered why there was some woman laying her head on Jesus' chest. And of course, this is depicting the apostle John, who, who Jesus loved, the apostle that Jesus, the disciple that Jesus loved, but all these men have long hair, they're very effeminate. Tell me there wasn't even agenda going on then when that was painted. But again, all these paintings, all these likenesses are completely different people, except for the fact that they're very effeminate, you know, versions of what a man would look like. And I mean, there's no even reason other than the only reason I was talking with my wife yesterday about why people say that Jesus had long hair is because, oh, he was in a, he was, he was from Nazarene, he was from Nazareth, so he must have been under a Nazarite vow. And you're like, people know so little about the Bible, it's ridiculous. A Nazarite vow has literally nothing to do with where you're from, nothing that has nothing to do with being from Nazareth. You have both words sound the same. That's it. And Jesus came eating and drinking, it was John the Baptist that was under the Nazarite vow. He was born to the Nazarite vow. People just don't have any idea what the Bible says. The Bible says it's a shame for a man to have long hair. You think the Lord Jesus Christ would have long hair and wear a dress everywhere? Give me a break. It's all fake, but it's weird. It's weird that people, nobody would do this with any other historical figure. Nobody would go and paint a portrait of Napoleon that looks nothing like Napoleon and then go and try to sell it and go and try to market that and be like, well, is this Napoleon? Is that him? No, I just made it up. It would sell zero copies. It's weird. It's strange. Think about it. I'm just going to give an example. I've given this example before. But we have some visiting kids here that maybe haven't met my son Jacob. And hopefully they meet him after the church service. But imagine if I was going to introduce my son to people, now saying, you know what, I have a son. He's 12 years old. He's not here right now. He's not here right now. Just to kind of give you an idea of how offensive this would be to the person who's having their likeness portrayed. Just say, well, you know, my son Jacob, he's 12. I really want you to meet him. You know, and I have a picture of him. So when you see him, you'll recognize him. All right, here's my son Jacob, kids. And when you see him, this is my son. How stupid would that be? How offensive would that be? And I was just like, here's my son right here. This is my son Jacob. Does he look like that? No. But this is him. It's offensive. I mean, it makes no sense personally for me to do that. But second of all, for Jacob, that's right there. I mean, look at that guy's teeth. But people do this with Jesus when they would not do it with any other historical figure. Turn to Isaiah chapter 53. So, God, what do we know so far? God didn't want a likeness. He did not want people to see a similitude of him. He does not want him. He does not want people to know what God the Father looks like. He does not want people to know what Jesus looked like. I mean, don't you think if God wanted, I mean, first of all, Deuteronomy chapter 4 tells us that God did not want people to see a similitude. The second thing is, don't you think that when Jesus was on this earth, somebody could have sketched a picture of him? It was something that God made not happen. It had to have been that way. Turn to Isaiah chapter 53. And as a matter of fact, even more importantly, the Bible tells us that Jesus' the way he looked was not important at all. The way he looked was not to be of any focus whatsoever. Look at Isaiah chapter 53 and look at verse number two. This is a messianic prophecy in the Old Testament. Look at verse number two. The Bible says, For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground, he hath no form nor comeliness. And when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. The Bible here is saying that the desire for Jesus or the draw towards Jesus will have nothing to do with how he looks. Nothing. He's going to look like a normal person. Look at verse number three. He's despised and rejected of all men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. And we hid it and we hid as it faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. See, folks, I hate to break it to you, but we inherently want to worship handsome people. That's a human condition right there. Especially, I hate to break it to you ladies, especially for the women. This is a problem, especially for ladies. Think about just like idols and movie stars and all this stuff. And I remember when I was in high school, all the boy bands, I don't know if they still have those, but like all the girls would just worship all these young men who were singers because they were, why? Because they were good looking or whatever and they're on the front of all the magazines that you see in the grocery store and all these things. They worship these people literally because of what they look like. They idolize these people because of how handsome they are. Even political candidates, even political candidates people will vote for because they're good looking, because they're better looking than other candidates or they're well spoken and all these things. But Jesus, the Bible is clearly telling us that the Messiah, it will have nothing to do with how he looks. He has no comeliness. He has no beauty. He's an average ordinary looking person. Because God did not want people being drawn to him because he was handsome, being drawn to him because how he looks is very simple. See, Jesus had nothing to do with how he looked as a man. It had everything to do with what he was doing here, with his purpose here. This is why all these different theories and all these other fake gospels that say, oh Jesus was married or whatever had children and all this Da Vinci code garbage is wicked heresy because Jesus came here to do nothing for himself. He came here to not look good. He came here to accomplish one specific thing, live a perfect life without sin and take the sins of the world upon himself. That's it. He didn't come here to make it look good or to have people follow him because he was cool or looked like something or somebody that was somebody. It had nothing to do with it. It was all about his purpose. And for you, it's all about whether or not you trust in that purpose and who he was, not what he looks like. No tricks. No gimmicks. Just what he came here to accomplish. That's it. So you say, what's the point? What's the application? Turn to Exodus chapter 20. The point is this. Men love idols. I'm not talking about spiritual idols or idols that you put in front of you. I'm talking about physical idols. Men love idols. This is why God gives this direct command in Exodus chapter 20. Look at verse number four. The Bible says, thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image. He's literally talking about making an idol of something or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water of the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God visiting the iniquity of the fathers, the children and the third and fourth generation of them that hate me and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me. Which side of that coin do you want to be on? And keep my commandments. You think about how much men love idols. You say, well, this was maybe at, you know, back in the book of Acts with Diana and the, you know, Demetrius, the silver Smith, and no, there's idols today. If you go soul winning, you will see idols today. You will see people with pictures of Mary over their door or on their door. You will see statues of states in people's yards. These are idols. These are graven images that people are using as religious, that things that give them religious power. They are worshiping these things to a degree. I mean, the Catholic Church was literally, the Roman Catholic Church is literally a combination of Christianity and Roman paganism. I mean, everybody thinks that everybody, if you talk to the average Christian today, they're going to tell you, oh, Constantine. Yeah, he was the first Roman, you know, first Christian emperor. Constantine was a politician. He was not Christian by any means. He was a politician that after 10 Roman persecutions just decided, hey, we can't beat these people. They won't go away. The more we persecute them, the stronger they get. The more this spreads. If you can't beat them, join them. So he calls together a council and he creates the Roman Catholic religion that is not Christian. And it combines all the, he made sure he got everybody in there. We're going to get the goddess, we'll get the goddess, we'll give them the goddess to worship, Mary. We'll make some idols. We'll get, you know, all these different gods. We'll make them worship saints. Everybody will get what they want. He was a politician. He was bringing people together. That's what he was doing. You see, it sounds pretty good. Jesus said, I come to divide people. That's what Jesus does. He divides. He divides. Talk to somebody yesterday. Well, we respect all religions. We just believe everything. And we believe everything that everybody tells us and all these things. And I'm like, well, okay, that's great. You know, the Bible says that I am the way, the truth and the life. No man coming to the Father, but by me. There's only one way to heaven and that is through Jesus Christ. I'm sorry to spoil your day with the Bible this morning, but there's only one way. That's why Jesus divides. Constantine was a compromising politician. That's all he was that created this religion. Turn to 2 Kings chapter 18. Back to idolatry. This has been a problem throughout history for even Christians. Idolatry. Look at 2 Kings chapter 18. 2 Kings chapter number 18. The Bible says in 2 Kings 18, we're looking at King Hezekiah here. Good King. He's cleaning up. He's cleaning up some mess in Israel right now. He's cleaning up some idolatry, some false practices, some false worship that was going on in Israel. Look at verse number 1. It says, Now it came to pass in the third year of Hosea, the Eli, King of Israel that Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz, King of Judah began to reign. Now we got the northern kingdom of Israel and the lower kingdom of Judah, remember. Twenty and five years old was he when he began to reign. And he reigned twenty and nine years in Jerusalem. That's a pretty good long period for a king, by the way. His mother's name also was Abbey and the daughter of Zechariah. And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. According to all that David his father did. Look at this. He removed the high places. So the high places are where people went to worship false gods. And break down the images. These are idols. And cut down the groves. That's another place people would go to worship false gods. And break in pieces. Look at this. And break in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made. This was a massively important relic in the history of the nation of Israel right here. This is the brazen serpent that Moses held up in the wilderness. This was six or seven hundred years ago at this time. This thing they've kept it for hundreds of years. Remember the people complained that they didn't have any food, anything to eat in the wilderness. And they're telling Moses like, why did you bring us out here? Why don't you just leave us in Egypt? You just bring us out here to starve us to death? And they had no faith in the God that rescued them. And so God sent these serpents upon them. And people were dying from this judgment that God put upon them. God was angry with them. And God had mercy on them. And he told Moses make this brazen serpent and anybody that looks at it is a picture of Christ. Hold this up on a staff and look at the serpent and you'll be saved. You'll be your life. You can be bitten by the snake. You look at the serpent and you're saved. So it's a picture of the coming Messiah. It's a picture of Christ, first of all. Notice how many pictures in the Old Testament are about Jesus. What's the Old Testament about? It's about Jesus. So this is a massive important item in their history. What were they doing? They started to worship it. They literally gave it a name and began to worship this thing. So Hezekiah is like, yeah, you know what? He smashes it. He smashes this important historical item. You know, I'm sure the museum keeper was like, no. But he's like, they literally gave it a name, Nehushten, and started worshiping the thing. Why? Because men love idols. I think they're worshiping a bronze snake, a brass snake. I mean, relics, by the way, relics are a huge deal today. Relics are a huge deal not only in the Catholic Church, but in Orthodoxy. All the different Orthodox Christian religions out there are deep into relics. I remember I visited, 22 years ago, I visited Armenia. And one of the things I wasn't saved at the time, but one of the things that I did in my spare time was I went and I toured some of the churches in Armenia. They had these massive, this massive reyton Yerevan, they had this massive marble church. I mean, you'll never see a building like this in the United States. The blocks of each block of marble that this church was constructed on, it was magnificent, this church. And it was this Armenian Orthodox church. And I remember going into the church and just admiring the building. And at the very front of the church were these steps that you walked up. And there was this converging little platform and there was a little glass window. And people were walking up these steps and they were just kissing this window and putting just flowers and all these things in this window. And you looked in this window and here it was a finger bone of some past saint of the church. I mean, it's insane. And what are they doing? They're literally worshiping it. They're worshiping a bone of a dead person who they claim is a saint. Anybody that trusts on the Lord Jesus Christ is a saint, folks. Nobody gets to go and just decide who's a saint. And the irony of all these churches is like none of them are saved. None of them are saints. Let me define irony. But the point is men love idols. Men will worship literally anything. You're worshiping a carcass of somebody that wasn't even saved. Men love idols. God didn't want people to know what it looked like because they knew they would create all these things and start to worship Him. And start to worship the thing. Turn to John chapter 20. You say, so why? So what are we supposed to do? If we're not supposed to have a, you know, what's the problem with a similitude or something that would look like Jesus? The problem is this. God doesn't want you to see what He looks like. God wants you to have faith in Him. Look at John chapter 20. This is the problem with Thomas. Thomas wanted something to touch and to feel. But look at what Jesus says to Thomas. So Thomas of course, he didn't believe that Jesus rose from the dead. Even when Jesus was standing in front of him, he still didn't believe. Look at John chapter 20. Look at verse number 24. But Thomas, one of the 12, called Didymus, was not with him when Jesus came. The other disciples, they tell him about it. He wasn't there the first time Jesus showed up. The other disciples therefore said on him, we've seen the Lord. But he said unto them, except I shall see. In his hands, the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I believe. After eight days again, his disciples were within, and Thomas was with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, peace be unto you. Then said he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, behold my hands, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side, and be not faithless, but believing. So Jesus is literally giving Thomas what he needs to see here. He's there. He's saying, here you go. Touch my hands, put your finger, you know, put your hand in my side. And Thomas answered and said unto him, my Lord, and my God. So Thomas was honest. He at least said, if I see him and I touch him, I will believe. And he did see him, he did touch him, and he did believe. But now look what Jesus says. And this is us in verse number 29. If you're saved this morning, if you've decided that this person of Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago was God and man at the same time, and he came here for the sole purpose to take the punishment of whosoever's sins would trust on him. He took the punishment for everybody's sins, folks, for the sins of the entire world, but whosoever would trust in him or believe in him shall not perish, but instead have everlasting life. Look, that, if you believe that, you're in verse 29. Jesus said to him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. I've never seen what Jesus' face looks like. I've never seen what Jesus' face looks like. But just like Deuteronomy chapter 4, you know what I have seen? I have seen the words that God gave us telling us what to do. I have listened to what God has given to us and told us to do. I have listened to the gospel. And I have believed the gospel without seeing Jesus' face. You know what? I don't need to see Jesus' face. I don't need to go to Israel and visit some historic site. I don't need that. It means nothing to me. I just believe the word of God, which by the way, the word became flesh, that is Jesus. I mean, people are like, oh, I'm going to go get baptized in the Jordan River. You know, it's like, first of all, isn't it dried up? I'm not sure. But I'm going to go get baptized in the Jordan River and that will make my baptism more powerful. No, it's a baptism. If you've believed and trusted in Jesus, you should get baptized. And it doesn't matter if you get baptized here or in someone's swimming pool or in the Jordan River. It makes no difference. You are not more powerful because you are baptized in the Jordan River. You are not more powerful because you visited the holy land or whatever. That is an idol, if that's the case. That is something physical that has become an idol for you. We shouldn't have any graven images, by the way, folks, that we feel are giving us faith. That we feel are giving us power. That we feel, I mean, are giving us spirituality, just like that guy that's baptized in the Jordan River, the guy that's visited Israel. I mean, we shouldn't have statues in our yard or in our houses. I remember when I was a kid in high school, I had a little pewter angel that was clipped onto my visor in my car and it had some words on it. I can't remember who gave it to me. But it was, I had some words on it like this guardian angel will protect you and all this. I literally thought that thing gave me protection. That's an idol. We should not have things like that. Some people brought up the cross necklace when we were talking with the guys the other night. Now, here's the thing on cross necklaces and crosses. I'm dead set against crucifixes. Anything that has the Lord Jesus Christ on it, that is blasphemous. That is not Jesus Christ and that is sick and that's weird. You know, why in the world would you try to like, oh, here's the person that I love more than anything and in his most shameful moment the Bible says he despised the shame. I'm going to put a picture of that or a likeness of that in my home. That's sick and that's weird. Across necklace, personally, I wouldn't have one myself. I wouldn't, you know, have my family, you know, wear one. But if it's something that's identifying you as a Christian and you don't feel like it's giving you protection or giving you power, you know, like a cross on a church building or something, you know, it's not, I wouldn't call that like idolatry if it's just something that identifies as a Christian. I personally wouldn't do it myself just because I also think it's a little strange like, okay, you know, I have this good friend that was killed by getting his head cut off by guillotine or whatever and I'm going to have a picture of a guillotine in my house or something. It's weird. It's strange. But, you know, as long as you don't think things, folks, this is really the line. As long as you don't think things are giving you faith or giving you spiritual power or giving you some kind of religious protection, you know, that's the difference between idolatry and not, in my opinion. This is kind of a standard thing. I mean, there's different people that fall on different spots on things like this. Like, I have deer heads in my house. Like, I don't worship them. You know, I think they're cool and they're awesome. But I don't worship them. They don't give me spiritual power. You know, they just mean I'm a good hunter. I'm just kidding. Anyway, but I mean, I don't think that those things are images that people would worship and have religious, you know, implications. I hope that's making sense. But the point is, is it God, back to the point of the sermon. God did not want a similitude of himself in the Old Testament scene. And he did not want, he clearly kept a similitude from being taken or done of Jesus on purpose. Why? Because men love idols. Because men would have made a painting of Jesus and they would have worshiped it. They would have put it in their house. We make paintings that aren't Jesus, call them Jesus and worship those. We definitely would have made a sculpture or a statue or something and started worshiping it. For sure. Because that's what men have done throughout history. But here's another point about God, why God? Turn to Romans chapter 12. But why God didn't allow any pictures of Jesus? Look at Romans chapter 12 and look at verse number one. The second point is this, the physical vessel does not matter. The physical vessel does not matter. That is what the Bible was telling us in Isaiah chapter 53. And if it doesn't matter for Jesus, folks, it doesn't matter for you. Look at Romans chapter 12 and look at verse number one. What matters with your physical vessel, your body, how you look is the purpose that it's used for. That's what matters. Look at verse number one of Romans chapter 12. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies, look at this, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. This is what God wants from your physical self. He wants you to serve Him. He wants your life, your physical life, your physical body to be used as a living sacrifice to God. What does that mean? He wants you to listen to what He says in the Bible. He wants you to do those things. That's how He wants you to spend your life. That's what matters. Not how you look. How you use that physical vessel. Look, just like with idols, if you take your physical vessel in your life, if you take your body and you use it only for your glory, you're literally turning your own self into an idol. You're replacing God with yourself, your glory. You're supposed to use your physical body, your physical self for God's glory in your life. Look, if you use your body, yourself, your life for your gain and your glory throughout your life, that is the definition of vanity. See Ecclesiastes. See the words of the preacher, somebody that used his physical self just to gain for himself, just to gain things in his life. He literally says, Solomon literally says in Ecclesiastes, I did it better than anybody else. Talking about Ecclesiastes chapter 2, he's talking about keeping up with the Joneses. He won. You'll never, look, you'll never win the keeping up with the Joneses, having the nicer car, having the nicer house. You'll never win that because there's always somebody with a nicer house. There's always somebody with a nicer car. There's always somebody that makes more money. Solomon won. He's like, I had more than everybody. I had everything. I had more men's servants. I had more, I had more everything. I won. He's like, I hated life because he was pursuing vanity. He used his physical vessel for his own glory only. That's what Romans chapter 12 is saying. It doesn't matter what your physical vessel looks like. It matters what you use it for. That's why it doesn't matter what Jesus looked like. It matters why he was here. That's what matters. Look at verse, or actually go to Isaiah chapter 40. There's no pictures of Jesus folks on purpose. Look at Isaiah chapter 40. Look at Isaiah chapter 40. The Bible says in Isaiah chapter 40, to whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness will you compare unto him? God here is saying in Isaiah chapter 40, he's like, all right, you're going to make a likeness of me. He's like, who are you going to compare me to? What are you going to liken me to? It says, the workman melted the graven image and the goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold and casteth silver chains. He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation. No oblation means there's a guy that doesn't have any belief towards God. He's like, he's got no oblation. He chooses a tree that will not rot. He goes, look, if he's going to make an idol, he's going to get some good hardwood and make a good idol here. He's going to use some good materials. It says, he seeketh unto him cunning workmen to prepare a graven image that shall not be moved. Then God says, have you not known? Have you not heard? Hath it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? God is saying, all this desire to make all these graven images, have all these statues, have all these literal idols in your life. He's like, you're not understanding who I am. He's like, something's not connecting here. You're not getting it. It says, it is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth. This is God's describing himself here. The inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. God is saying, like, I'm sitting up on the circle of the earth. You know, there goes your flat earth people. I'm sitting on the circle of the earth and everybody in the earth is like grasshoppers. You're like bugs. What are you going to do? You're going to make a graven image of a bug and call that me? God is saying, you're not understanding the difference here. Look at verse number 23. It says that bring it to princes to nothing. He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity. It says, yea, they shall not be planted, yea, they shall not be sown, yea, their stock shall not take root in the earth, and he shall always blow upon them, and they shall not wither, and the world shall take them away as stubble. He's saying, even the princes, even the great rulers are nothing. God is saying, what are you going to liken me to one of them? This kind of shows you, this same theory shows you how wrong they were to want a king in Israel. Because God is like, can you imagine, remember how offended Samuel was? Samuel was so offended to say, God said, don't be offended. He's like, they're not rejecting you, they're rejecting me. Because God is sitting here and he's like, I'm sitting on the circle of the earth and all these men are as grasshoppers and they want a grasshopper to rule them. Because men love earthly things. This is why God would never allow a man to know what he looks like. Because we would make some earthly thing into God. And he knows how far separated he is from earthly things. He said, you shouldn't have a king. You shouldn't have a king. You should just follow me. Look, we don't need a king today. You know what? We don't need a president today. I mean, maybe we don't have one. But we don't need a president today. You know what we need? We need the Bible. That's it. We don't need some government coming over the top of us, telling us what to do and what not to do. I mean, they're all wrong anyway on everything. All we need is the Bible. That's what God has been saying since the beginning. Well, people don't believe the Bible. So many are the princes thereof. You're going to throw the Bible away. You're going to have all these grasshoppers ruling over you. The more you throw the Bible away, the more grasshoppers will rule over you. The more you reject the Lord, the more men that will rule over you and the less real freedom you will have. We don't need any of it. We just need the Word of God. But people have rejected that. I'm offended as a pastor, but I shouldn't be offended. God's offended though. And as a preaching the Bible, I'm offended at people that don't preach the Bible. I'm offended at other grasshoppers that say they're pastors and don't preach the Bible. That offends me. We don't need any of it, folks. All we need is the words that came out of the fire. That's why God didn't show his face. He said, you know what? I just told you what to do. And he didn't listen. And he knows if we were to show his face, we still wouldn't have listened. We would have carved some image and we'd start worshiping that and then we'd throw his words away anyway. How does he put up with us? He didn't show himself on purpose. Look at verse number 25. This is really the clincher of the whole sermon right here. Verse number 25. As he just explains the dichotomy between who I am and who you are. He's like, you're not understanding at all. And then he says, to whom then will ye liken me? Or shall I be equal? Sayeth who? Sayeth the Holy One. Sayeth God. We don't need to see what Jesus looked like. Because what he looked like literally means nothing. That he was God in the flesh and his purpose means everything. And ultimately, who would we liken him to anyway? His body person, it was just an earthen vessel. It was just an earthen vessel. And what he did with it was the key. Not what he looked like. It means nothing. This is why there's no picture of Jesus. This is why you're never going to see a picture of Jesus. And anybody that's trying to sell you a picture of Jesus for $87.95 is a fraud. Because the Bible, you know, I can say that no matter what. I don't care what dream they dreamed. I don't care what country they're from. I don't care what the picture looks like. I know every single one is a fraud because the Bible, the Word of God tells me that God doesn't want us to know what he looks like. You literally die if you look at God the Father. And that Jesus Christ, you know, it didn't matter what he looked like. Look, it's a miracle in itself. I even think that, you know, you think about the ladies that went to the tomb and they didn't recognize him when they saw him at first. I think that God literally created this miracle to not allow a simile tool of Jesus out into the world. Because he knew what we would do with it just like he told us in Deuteronomy chapter four and in Isaiah chapter 40 here at the end of the sermon, what Jesus did was the key, not what he looked like. And that is the same with your body. That is the same with your physical vessel. It does not matter what you look like. It does not matter if you look like that, which no one looks like that. It does not matter if you're some handsome person or what the world would think is handsome, which by the way, that changes all the time too. I mean, who defines what is beauty and what's not? I mean, Hollywood, give me a break. Give me a break. Look, it doesn't matter what you look like. This is why like this should be much easier to find a spouse if you think this way, by the way, all the young people out there. Because if you just look at the inside of the vessel and quit just following all these stupid rules about what the outside vessel is supposed to look like by Italy or by Hollywood or whatever media the media of the decade says. I mean, you go back and you look at, you know, like, you know, my high school yearbook or something and people would look at that and they'd be like, ah! I mean, because like you just can't believe what people like what their hair looked like and all these different things. All that changes. It's just earthly vessels. It doesn't matter. I mean, we should look like what the Bible says. You know, we should dress ourselves. We should groom ourselves according to what the Bible says, but everything else, it doesn't matter. It's what we use our vessel for. That's the key. That's the key. Just like with Jesus. Just like with us. Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.