Richard Ellis Talks

Announcer: Today, on Richard Ellis Talks.

Richard Ellis: The second you say, “I’m done with God, I’m done with church, I’m done with anything. I’m tired of waiting. I’m going back to my old ways.” It becomes idolatry immediately. And when you get sucked back into idolatry, worshipping anything, trusting anything other than God Himself, then you go back to the old behaviors.

Announcer: Welcome to Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. Thanks for allowing us to share this time with you. You may be stuck in traffic or stuck in life. Either way, today's message is going to help you get on the right track as you learn how much God loves you right where you are.

Richard's unique style checks all the boxes, with a lot of hope, insight, truth, and, of course, humor. Today's talk with Richard will get our conversation started, but we want to keep it going with you. So, let's stay in touch through our website, RichardEllis.com. But right now, let's go ahead and get right into today's talk. Here is Richard Ellis.

Richard Ellis: The title of today's message is Fat Tuesday. I want you to turn to Exodus chapter 32. Now, let's start with the definition of Ash Wednesday. It's the first day of Lent. And then what is Lent?

Lent is the 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter observed by the Roman Catholic, Eastern, and some Protestant churches as a period of penitence and fasting. Some people take it very seriously and will fast. I guess you could fast everything for 40 days. Jesus did that, and I have some friends who have done that.

Now, let me go into this thing a little bit deeper because we all see these things happen in New Orleans. I grew up in Brazil. Down there we have a thing called Carnival. If you think New Orleans has got some wild thing figured out, you haven't been to Rio.

The missionaries, the Christians in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, leave the city during Carnival because it is so debased, so whacked, so out there, it's just wild. Mardi Gras, literally means, do you know what Mardi Gras means? Two words means, Fat Tuesday. That's what Mardi Gras means. Somebody like, "I came to church and I'm getting a lecture on Mardi Gras." Trust me, we'll get to the church thing.

Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday. It has grown in popularity in recent years as a raucous, sometimes hedonistic, event. But its roots lie in Christian calendar as the last hurrah before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. The name comes from the tradition. Listen to this. French Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday. The name comes from the tradition of slaughtering and feasting upon a fattened calf on the last day of Carnival. That's where this whole thing comes from.

The day is also known as Shrove Tuesday from to shrive or hear confessions, Pancake Tuesday, and Fetter Dienstag. The custom of making pancakes comes from the need to use up fat, eggs, and dairy before the fasting and abstinence of Lent begins. Now, let me tell you one of my concerns about this whole thought process. When we're going through the scriptures today, this will make more sense.

It's kind of a bachelor party mentality to marriage. Every once in a while, I come across these guys, they're going to get married. Some Saturday morning, night, whatever it is, they're going to get married. Their buddies, well-intentioned, say, "You know what, we're going to throw a bachelor party for you." Women do this, bachelorette party.

You've waited your whole life, maybe prayed, hopefully prayed, or you're really in trouble because now you're just winging it. You're about to get married the next day, and your buddies thinking they're doing something great for you. They throw this bachelor party and they pick a place, and these guys end up at strip clubs. Now, that's where you're going to be the night before you get married. This holy estate of matrimony, you want to be in a place with a bunch of strippers.

Or the guys think they're really going to do their buddy a favor, and they go to a private place and hire a stripper to come there and entertain them privately. Or if they're really, really, really, really good friends, they hire a hooker and they bring her to the bachelor party, so they can have a great time, the last night before you enter the holy estate of matrimony.

Guys, let me tell you something, that is the most whack thing I have ever heard of in my life. If that's where you're planning, if you're single and think, "Man, I'm looking forward to my bachelor party," you better stop, fall somewhere on your knees and think, "God, help me, I have missed the boat completely."

If you understand at all what marriage is about and what a holy, sanctified thing it is, you're not looking for some last-ditch blowout thing so you can wake up the next day and go, "Oh, glad that's behind me." You can't make those switches that fast. If you can, you're in trouble.

Let me tell you something, people are passionate about pleasure, about maxing life out, and they think by pursuing sin, these hedonistic whatever things, Mardi Gras. You know what, let me stop here and tell you this too. People who go to New Orleans or Rio for Mardi Gras or for Carnival looking for a good time, I don't blame them.

Unless we step up to the plate as Christians and live a life that shows and says to them, "There is a better way to do this." Not that we are better than anybody, but there is a better way to live, there's a better way to die. You can pursue pleasure your whole life, there will be nothing, there is no joy. There is no pleasure, there is nothing like knowing Jesus Christ.

They go and come back, and they're still empty. They've got more shame and more guilt and more stuff piled on. It compounds the interest of the sin. It's unbearable sometimes. You talk to these guys who have these wild parties and then they get married and the wife is wondering what happened. The wife says, "If he did that the night before he married me, what's he going to do next Friday night when he's out of town?"

Or what's he going to do the next month when he's late coming home one night? If he had it in his brain that he could do something like that the night before he married me, then what does it do to the trust for the rest of the relationship? Now, what I'm going to try to encourage you and us to do today, guys, is this: don't mess with God.

I'm not saying you can't sin, we sin. But to deliberately, presumptuously, step into a place and say, "Oh, well, you know, let's sin, grace abounds. Jesus died, so everybody get forgiven. Let's use it up. Let's go for it." Now there's a story over in Exodus 32. Let's pick up at verse 1.

It says, "Now when the people," let me give you just a maybe a little background here. Moses is gone up onto a mountain somewhere to get the Ten Commandments, and he's spent time with God. He's up there, I think, with Joshua as I recall. He's up there on this mountain. These people have been led out of Egypt. Miraculous things happened to get them where they are.

Moses takes too long to come off the mountain. They go, "That's it, we're done, we give up. We're not waiting anymore. Forget God, forget Moses. It ain't going to work, it ain't going to happen." They got stiff-necked, hard-hearted, impatient. There are people listening to me today. God has busted it for you for your entire life.

He has been patient with you. He has been faithful with you. He has tracked you. He's gone after you when you've run away from him. He keeps bringing you back and comes after you and comes back. You pray and say, "Oh God, do whatever it is you want done," and he doesn't answer it just like that, and you go, "That's it. I'm done with God. I'm going to go do something that I used to do that worked because he's not going to come through for me."

And you bolt. This kind of thing happens here. Look at this, verse 1. "Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, 'Come, make us gods that shall go before us, for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what's become of him.'"

He's gone. Aaron said to them, he didn't argue with them. Look what he says, "Break off the golden earrings which are in your ears and your wives, your sons and your daughters and bring them to me." So they went on an earring collection. Go out there, gather, break off some kind of pierced ears, whatever they had, break those off. Earrings start coming in by the thousands.

So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He received the gold from their hand. Pay attention to verse 4. He received the gold from their hand and he fashioned it with an engraving tool and made a molded calf, a molded calf. So he takes these earrings, puts heat to it, puts it together and takes a tool and carves out a calf. Just remember that.

Then they said, "This is your God, oh Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt." You think, "Well, they're nuts. Why would they make a calf and bow down to some calf?" I ask the same question to you and me. Because the second you turn from following God and trusting God, you've made you a calf.

And said, "Well, God can't do it anymore. So now it's my job. That's my calf. God is not going to take care of me. I'm going to trust my husband, my husband only, because he's the breadwinner or my wife or whoever it may be." You say, "No, we're not trusting God anymore. We've given up on him. We're going to resort to our own means, our portfolio."

Some of you think that's something you put pictures in. The people with money know what I'm talking about. You've got all this money in reserve. You say, "Well, you know what, I'm tired of waiting on God. I'm going to trust in this." So when Aaron saw it, so Aaron sees a calf, he says, "Well, you've got a calf, you need an altar." So he saw it, he built an altar before it.

Aaron made a proclamation and said, "Now look at this. This is how twisted this gets." "Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord." We just ditched the Lord, but we're going to take our calf and haul it into our religious service and somehow mix it all up. There are religions all over the planet who take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, a little Catholicism, a little Baptist, a little Methodist, a little whatever, mix it with a little spiritism.

And say, "Well, we like this package better so we're going to worship God a little bit and the devil a little bit and we're all comfortable with that and we can do what we want to. We don't want to hear from God anymore so we'll do what we want." So he makes a proclamation, "Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord." Then they rose early on the next day, "Got to get up for church. Got us a calf now."

Offered burnt offerings, made sacrifices to this calf, this golden earring content calf. And brought peace offerings. So they got church over with. Look at the next phrase, "And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." It's Carnival time. We got church and God right where we want it. Enough of Moses, enough of God, little bit of this, little bit of that. We're going to have some fun now. We got church out of the way. Let's party.

To play here, the word means to jest, to sport, to play, make sport, toy with, make a toy of. The Lord said to Moses, so meanwhile, if you've got a video of this, a movie going on this, you got clips coming out here, the scene is down there in the valley where they are, and boom the scene now goes back up on the mountain where God's with Moses.

God starts telling Moses, "You've got trouble down in the valley." The Lord said to Moses, "Go, get down." He didn't mean it the way you took it. They were getting down all right, but he said, "Go, get off of this mountain. You don't need to be up here with me right now. You need to be down there with those people. Go, get down, for your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves."

This word means to destroy, corrupt, ruin, decay, spoil, to pervert, corrupt, deal corruptly in an immoral sense. "They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf and worshiped it and sacrificed to it and said, 'This is your God, oh Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt.'"

The Lord said to Moses, "I have seen this people and indeed it is a stiff-necked people. Now therefore, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, and I will make you a great nation." "I'm going to wipe them out, Moses. I've had it." Then Moses pleaded with the Lord his God and said, "Lord, why does your wrath burn hot against your people whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians speak and say, 'He brought them out to harm them and to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth?'"

"Turn from your fierce wrath and relent from this harm to your people. Remember Abraham, Isaac, Israel, or Jacob, your servants to whom you swore by your own self and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven. All this land that I have spoken of, I'll give to your descendants and they shall inherit it forever.'"

"So the Lord relented." Now this word means to be sorry, console oneself, repent, regret, comfort, be comforted, to be sorry, be moved with pity, have compassion. People say, "Well, did God change his mind?" I don't think that's what this is talking about. God had compassion. Let me tell you what happens every day of my life. I can take you back 24 hours, the last seven days. I can give you all kind of reasons why the God of the universe should have squashed me.

I should not even be standing here, shouldn't even be alive anymore. I do not deserve his love, I never will. I do not deserve his mercy. This is a merciful, gracious, loving God who will put up with a lot, but he will not put up with the rejection of his son. That's where he stops. You reject his son, he rejects you.

You say, "Well, I don't believe that way." You know what? You believe whatever you want to believe, you knock yourself out. If it's working for you, you just better pray to your God, whoever he is, that when you get there, you're right, because it's hell if you're not. All right, here we go. Verse 15, "And Moses turned and went down from the mountain and the two tablets of the testimony were in his hand." He's carrying the tablets, the Ten Commandments.

"The tablets were written on both sides and on the one side and on the other they were written. Now the tablets were the work of God and the writing was the writing of God engraved on the tablets." "When Joshua," now look what happens to Joshua. Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted and he said to Moses, "There is a noise of war in the camp." It is so crazy down there.

Joshua knows what the sound of war is. He goes, "There's a battle." They're not down there yet, maybe they're still in the clouds coming down, and they hear this sound. He says there's a noise of battle, "War in the camp." But he said, "Now, it's not the noise of the shout of victory. It's not them celebrating because they've won a battle, nor the noise of the cry of defeat. It's not moaning like they've been lost in a battle."

"But the sound of singing I hear." It's this weird mix of singing like it's a war going on. It's gotten so out of hand. It's just a free-for-all. So it was as soon as he came near to the camp that he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses' anger became hot and he cast the tables out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Then he took, look what he does. He took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and he ground it to powder, and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it. "You want a God? Well, put this God in you." They drank this water with this powder, this crumpled up, pulverized calf.

Moses said to Aaron, "What did this people do to you that you have brought so great a sin upon them? What did they tell you? What happened down here? How did this get so out of control?" "For they said to me," Aaron, verse 22. So Aaron said, "Do not let the anger of my Lord become hot. You know the people that they are set on evil. It's not me, don't look at me. It's them."

"For they said to me, 'Make us gods that shall go before us, as for this Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him.'" "And I said to them, 'Well, whoever has any gold, let them break it off.' So they gave it to me." Look what he says, "And I cast it into the fire and this calf came out."

What about the withheld information about that engraving tool and all that work making this little calf? "I just threw all these earrings in the fire and look what happened. I don't know anything about this." Blaming somebody else. Verse 25, "Now when Moses saw that the people were unrestrained, for Aaron had not restrained them to their shame among their enemies, then Moses stood at the entrance of the camp and said, 'Whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me.'"

All the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. He said to them, "Thus says the Lord God of Israel, 'Let every man put his sword on his side and go in and out from entrance to entrance throughout the camp and let every man kill his brother, every man his companion, and every man his neighbor.'" So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses and about 3,000 men of the people fell that day.

Guys, you know, this part of me says, "Oh, don't read this stuff. People go, 'I don't want a God that puts swords on and kills people.'" Why does this happen? It's a consequence of sin. You say, "But God is merciful, there is no consequence." Let me tell you something. You do something wrong, you get forgiven. There is consequence.

You go rob a bank, realize what you've done, turn yourself in. "Oh God, forgive me." You know what, he'll forgive you. It'll be wiped out, blotted out. You're going to jail. You say, "Well, what about this forgiving God?" You live on a planet with laws that he put in place. You're going to be used of God in a jail cell somewhere, but you're going to jail.

Do not rule out consequence. This wild stuff. "I'm going to party all night and show up at church tomorrow and pray God forgive me." You know what, there's consequence to that. God hates sin. Why does he hate sin? Not because he hates us, he hates sin because of what it does to us. He's sick of it. It's the thing that God's son killed. He hates it.

Sometimes we stumble and we fall. The devil trips us up and we go, "Gosh, why does this keep happening to me? God, help me see where this snake is in the grass and where he comes after me." But there are times when we deliberately, presumptuously, premeditatively say, "You know what, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do that sin right there, right now, because I want to and I can."

God goes, "All right." But there's consequence. Verse 28, "So the sons of Levi did according to the word of Moses. About 3,000 men of the people fell that day." "Then Moses said, 'Consecrate yourselves today to the Lord.'" Set yourselves apart that he may bestow on you a blessing this day. From punishment, from discipline, immediately then Moses turns it to blessing, says, "Okay, enough. Now let's figure out how God can bless us."

"For every man has opposed his son and his brother. Now it came to pass on the next day that Moses said to the people, 'You have committed a great sin. So now I will go up to the Lord, perhaps I can make atonement for your sin.'" Then Moses returned to the Lord and said, "Oh, these people have committed a great sin and have made themselves a god of gold. Yet now, if you will forgive their sin, but if not, I pray, blot me out of your book which you have written."

The Lord said to Moses, verse 33, "Whoever has sinned against me, I will blot him out of my book. Now therefore, go, lead the people to the place of which I have spoken to you. Behold, my angel shall go before you. Nevertheless, in the day when I visit for punishment, I will visit punishment upon them for their sin." So the Lord plagued the people because of what they did with the calf which Aaron made.

He forgave, he let a lot of them live, but there was consequence. I don't want to show a hands, but I'm telling you guys, you know what I'm talking about. Hopefully at some point, you have enough crazy nights and then repentant mornings and crazy nights and repentant mornings and you play this game thinking this is how it works and you go, "This doesn't work."

What kind of God is there out there who says, "Go, you know, raise hell and then come looking for heaven the next morning." Do you really want that kind of God? That that's his plan, that's the scheme he's put together so we can all party like crazy and then get religious like crazy and go back and forth?

Turn over to First Corinthians chapter 10. This is Paul writing to the people in Corinth. If you want to go to a Rio de Janeiro, Corinth was it. You want to get in a time machine and go see something that's just unbelievably off the charts, it would have been Corinth. Their idea of going to church was this temple up on a hill that had a thousand prostitutes in it and a guy would go up there and pick a prostitute and go worship.

Forget a strip club. They got church and all of it going together. They had figured it out. Verse 1, "Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea." Talking about the people of Israel. They came out under a cloud, passed through the sea.

"All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." What are they talking about? Jesus back in the wilderness. Go back and read Exodus 32. It said an angel, capital A.

Where do you think Jesus was when his people were out in the wilderness? He's right there with them. Now, let me parenthetically, not so parenthetically say this. Moses went back up on that mountain to intercede for the people and ask God for mercy. You know what? I don't need Moses anymore.

You know who I need? I need the Lord Jesus Christ, who didn't go up on some mountain, didn't kill some calf. He laid his own life down, died on a cross, they nailed him to cross, he shed his blood, suffered there, took all my heat, all my sin, all everything on me. Died, was buried, raised from the dead by God the Father.

Now, when I get in trouble, I don't need Moses. I need Jesus. Verse 5, "But with most of them, God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness." It cost them. Now these things became our examples. Why do I spend so much time reading the Old Testament usually? For this reason, look what verse 6 says.

"These things became our examples." God allowed these things to happen and we refer back to them and they're quoted by Paul here in Corinthians. So you say, "Do you get it?" This has been going on for thousands of years. Paul goes back, "Look what happened to them." Don't learn the hard way. Read about it in a book and go, "Ooh, don't need to go there."

"These things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted and do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play, nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in one day 23,000 fell. Nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents."

It goes on explaining some other things that subsequently happened. It's interesting here, we don't get it in clear terms in Exodus. It was an orgy of sorts. These people went crazy. Look at verse 12. "Therefore, let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. But with the temptation will also make the way of escape that you may be able to bear it."

"Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry." Now, what happens, I'm taking this all the way back to Exodus. The second you say, "I'm done with God, I'm done with church, I'm done with anything. I'm tired of waiting. I'm going back to my old ways." It becomes idolatry immediately. When you get sucked back into idolatry, worshipping anything, trusting anything other than God Himself, then you go back to the old behaviors.

Somebody's a crack addict. Trusting God, it's tough. They stay clean. They say, "I'm tired of waiting on God." I want to play this. The second they stop looking to God and trusting God, you know what, they're using almost just like that. You pick a sin, whatever it is, and the same thing will happen.

Announcer: We'll get back to Richard in a moment to close out today's talk. But first, I want to share something with you about the program. Our mission is actually very simple: to take the planet. So, it's our prayer that these daily talks from Richard aren't something you only hear and enjoy, but that they inspire you to share with others. Together we can do this. The message of the gospel is something everyone needs to hear. That's why it's a huge priority to us. And you can join us in this important mission. Call us at 855-6-RICHARD to say you're in. Or you can get on board with us through our website, RichardEllis.com. Well, here's Richard with some closing thoughts for us.

Richard Ellis: "Flee from idolatry." So if you're going to run from idolatry, worshipping anything but God, then run to God and say, "God, help." Let me stay where I need to be, under your arm, under your wing, as close as I can get. I mentioned a verse Romans 6:1 a little while ago, "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?"

"Certainly not," he says in verse 2. "How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?" You cannot justify Fat Tuesday to Ash Wednesday. You can't do it. If you're doing this kind of thing at Mardi Gras, this time of year, or any day of the week, a Saturday night to Sunday, whatever you're picking, you can't do it. You can't live that way and make any sense of it. You're not going to find it in the book for one thing.

The word Carnival, Carnaval, comes up from two Latin words, carne and vale, which means this, farewell to the flesh. Goodbye to the flesh. Let me make a suggestion. You want to give up something for Lent? Give up sin. Don't just make it Lent. Make it everyday, every week. Just say, "God, help me hate what you hate and love what you love." Live the way you intended for me to live. Then every day will be fat in the best of ways, the way he intended.

Announcer: This has been Richard Ellis Talks with Richard Ellis. The message of the gospel is one we take very seriously in our mission to reach the planet, and you have a vital part of doing that along with us. If you've been encouraged by these talks with Richard, be sure to tell someone about the change they've made in your life. You can even share today's talk with them through the website, RichardEllis.com. And we'd love to hear your story, as well as to how these talks have made a difference to you. Give us a call, 855-6-RICHARD. You can also reach us through our website, RichardEllis.com. And while you're there, check out all the pages we've put together for you, RichardEllis.com. Also, be sure to click on the contribute tab to send your very generous gift. If the program is making a difference to you, your gift will make a big difference to us. Until next time, thanks so much for listening to Richard Ellis Talks.