An American Idol?
Judges 17:7-18:25
I have deliberately chosen the name of a popular TV show for the sermon title. The winners on that show do go on to become idols for many young people. I don’t want us to think about rock stars tonight, but of idols in a deeper sense.
The Roots of Idolatry
In verse 13 we see the roots of idolatry. St. Augustine pointed out "Idolatry is worshiping anything that ought to be used, or using anything that ought to be worshiped." Micah fulfilled that definition.
Micah wanted to do something that would guarantee God’s blessing, and an idol and a priest would do it. He wanted, and we all want, a god that can be controlled.
This young Levite in the story was a wandering opportunist and Micah was ready to take advantage of him. The Levite may have been too young to be a priest according to Jewish law, but he was looking for a job. Micah asked the Levite to be a father and priest to his family, but look what happened in verse 11: "He lived in Micah’s house, and Micah treated him like one of his own sons." Micah has retained control of the situation.
The people of Israel had a difficult time with idols. You notice Micah was recognizing Yahweh as well as his graven image. I think part of the problem was the understanding Micah and the Israelites had of God. Yahweh was a national God. The Tabernacle was in Shiloh and the Ark containing the stones of the 10 Commandments was in the Tabernacle. To worship Yahweh one had to go to Shiloh. They did not understand God could be worshipped anywhere. How could you worship Yahweh if you weren’t in Shiloh? Household gods were an every day substitute for Yahweh.
This is not as strange as it sounds. A person can be born into a very serious Christian family who at the same time worship money or success. One can be a child in a rather morally strict family where people are living secret or double moral lives. A man can be a deacon in a church and sexually abuse his children.
One of the purposes of God in creation was to create a people for himself; a people that he could have an intimate, personal relationship with.
Idolatry is wrong because it puts value on something, or someone--anything--in a way that hinders or rivals the love and trust we owe to God. Real idolatry is a matter of what we love and treasure in our hearts that is other-than God.
An American Idol?
We sometimes look at idol worship as something found only in the Old Testament or in Buddhism or a remote primitive tribe. Idol worship has no relevance to life in Bolivar, MO. We don’t have idols here! I am not so sure of that. Do Americans have idols?
You don’t have to worship a graven image physically to be guilty of idolatry. Ezekiel 14:3 warns us against "setting up . . . idols in the heart". America has a huge pantheon of idols. Riches, hero worship, pleasure, human praise, and the worship of self are too common. Ezekiel 14: 6 goes on to tell us, "Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols . . ." Writing in his first epistle, John warns us: Children, you must stay away from idols. (1 John 5:21)
What idols was John writing about? The Jews had certainly learned their lesson during the captivity, so he is not addressing a Jewish problem. Some gentile believers came from a religious background that included graven images, but I don’t think he was overly concerned with graven images as we think of idols. John was thinking of something less obvious than an image of some kind. John perhaps was thinking of idolatry that can take many forms:
An idol can be made by giving our devotion to the Bible, or to a set of beliefs, instead of directing our devotion to God. The Rev. C.D. Mallar preached a sermon before the Georgia Baptist Convention at Columbus, Georgia on April 22, 1859 titled "Denominational Idolatry Reproved".
In that sermon, Rev. Mallar said, "we cannot value too highly our denominational principles: but, . . . we may unconsciously give them a prominence unauthorized by the word of God. In our denominational zeal we may . . . create an impression on our own minds that we are better Christians than we really are . . . "
An idol can be a very strong attachment to one’s country that equates the country with the kingdom of God. Recently Congress rejected a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the desecration of the American flag. The title of the legislation was this: A joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States authorizing Congress to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.
As a Christian I opposed the amendment. The very word desecration in the resolution necessarily elevates the flag to sacramental status. The dictionary defines the word desecrate like this: "to violate the sanctity of by diverting from sacred purpose, by contaminating, or by defiling; to divest of sacred character or treat as unhallowed." Something that is capable of being desecrated is something that has sacred purpose, something that is hallowed. The amendment would turn our flag into an idol.
An idol is any selfish desire to gain illicit sex. An idol is any strong desire to gain fame or recognition for oneself. An idol is any obsessive desire to earn money.
When fully studied, idolatry is simply any desire or service that is placed before God. A person may not consider that an automobile, house, certain possessions, a hobby, a person, a political party, a cause, a job, a sport, an addiction, lusts, pleasures, or some other thing, can become an idol. Very few people realize that anything or anyone that is more important to a person than obeying God may be considered an idol.
What is the object of your affections, your efforts, and your attention? Where does the majority of your time go? On what do you spend the greatest amount of your resources?
We have the possibility of worshipping any number of idols, but I want us to look at three. The first is the idol of success.
The Idol of Success
Success is an idol when success becomes an obsession. You may get to the top of the ladder of success, only to discover you’re on the wrong ladder!
Success is an idol that can consume you. Many business people are driven. They become workaholics. Doctors in Japan have found a significant connection between high job stress and high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke. An example is the corporate "fight song" of one Japanese Pharmaceutical firm titled, "Can you fight 24 hours for your corporation?"
Someone sent out an email comparing work to prison: "In prison, you get time off for good behavior...at work you get more work for good behavior." We work like crazy to get promoted, and with each promotion comes increased responsibilities.
Success is an idol when you become defined by your job. Often, when you’re introduced to someone, you might ask, "Tell me about yourself." Often the first thing you’ll be told is what they do for a living. It’s healthy to feel good about what we do, to feel that what we’re doing is important, but not to the point where we lose our identity. Too many people love their jobs too much. We need to be "defined" by our family relationships, our friendships, and our faith.
Success is an idol when you start to do whatever it takes to get ahead. We saw this in the recent Enron and WorldCom scandals. In the race to succeed and make money, moral and ethical considerations can take a back seat. Pragmatism and materialism then become the driving forces. We need to name our values, and live by them.
Success is an idol when you begin neglecting family and God. It is easy to develop a misguided loyalty. A wife was complaining about her husband’s unreasonably long work hours. She reminded him that their next-door neighbor came home and had dinner with the family. The husband proudly explained to his wife, "That’s because he’s not going where I’m going."
At a retirement ceremony for a Command Sergeant Major he publicly thanked his wife "for taking care of the family so I could devote 100% of my efforts for the Army."
Our values can get so twisted that we can be proud of our neglect. Accolades and making a good income aren’t enough. Being loyal to our company is admirable, but we need to appraise our priorities.
What other gods could we have besides the Lord? Plenty. James Packer says that "for us there are still the great gods Sex, Shekels, and Stomach, and the other enslaving trio, Pleasure, Possessions, and Position, . . . Football, the Firm, and Family are also gods for some. Indeed the list of other gods is endless, for anything that anyone allows to run his life becomes his god and the claimants for this prerogative are legion. In the matter of life’s basic loyalty, temptation is a many-headed monster."
The Idol of Greed
The second idol is the idol of greed. Paul wrote in Colossians 3:5 that greed was among the matters to be put to death. He wrote: Don’t be greedy, which is the same as worshiping idols. Listen to these definitions of greed: An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth.
Greed is excessively and culpably desirous of the possessions of another. Greed is marked by extreme desire to acquire or possess. Greed is an envious eagerness to possess something. Greed is a strong desire after the possession of worldly goods. Greed assumes sometimes the more aggravated form of avarice, which is the mark of cold-hearted worldliness.
What are you willing to do for $10,000,000? In 1991 James Patterson and Peter Kim, in their book The Day America Told the Truth, reported a survey where that question was asked. Two-thirds of Americans polled would agree to at least one, some to several of the following:
Would abandon their entire family (25%)_
Would abandon their church (25%)_
Would become prostitutes for a week or more (23%)_
Would give up their American citizenships (16%)_
Would leave their spouses (16%)_
Would withhold testimony and let a murderer go free (10%)_
Would kill a stranger (7%)_
Would put their children up for adoption (3%)
That shows us what greed can do.
Leona Mindy Rosenthal Helmsley owns a string of hotels. She owns the Empire State Building. She is a billionaire. Yet, in September 1989 Leona Helmsley was convicted of 33 counts of tax evasion, for which she spent time in prison. According to Time magazine, she emerged as a penny-pinching tyrant who tried to stiff just about everybody. No amount of money was too small to fight over. After the sudden death of her only son at age 40 in 1982, she sued and won the lion’s share of his estate, $149,000, leaving his four children with $432 each and his widow with $2,171. That shows us what greed can do.
The third idol is the idol of entertainment.
The Idol of Entertainment
Someone has said that we are in danger of entertaining ourselves to death. In his blog, Michael Spencer has said that "work must be entertaining. Education must be entertaining. Marriage must be entertaining. Family life must be entertaining. Children must be entertained. Our lives must be full of more and more entertainment. Entertainment will save our economy. Entertainment is the ultimate judge of talent, worth and value. We are entertained from cradle to grave. Leaders provide it, and the mob insists upon it. Of course, religion, church and God must all be entertaining, or we will have nothing to do with them.
We do not, however, say this to one another. We talk about worship, or church growth, or evangelism or youth ministry, but what we are actually doing is more and more entertainment. We call it ministry, but it is increasingly merely entertainment. Preachers have been traded for comedians and vaudevillians. Specialized ministries for children, youth, students, music and senior adults must be entertaining, but we are quite skilled at saying they are actually about fellowship or discipleship."
The entertainment industry has been invading the Christian marketplace. Large entertainment conglomerates have bought Christian publishers and Christian record companies because there is money to be made from Christians. This means that only those items that make a profit will be offered to the public. In the past, Christian companies published materials that were valuable for evangelism and discipleship when they didn’t make a profit. The aim was to be of service and not to make a profit for absentee shareholders.
There is a point at which entertainment is used rightly to the glory of God. However, there is a point at which it consumes our thoughts, our faith, our lives and us. Where are we on that line? Much closer to the end, I suspect, than to the beginning.
The Rest of the Story
As Paul Harvey would say, "Here’s the rest of the story." What we see here is something that lasted for some 300 years.
Even though the place of worship was in Shiloh, the people of Dan set up the idol Micah had made. They worshiped the idol, and the Levite was their priest. His name was Jonathan, and he was a descendant of Gershom the son of Moses. His descendants served as priests for the tribe of Dan, until the people of Israel were taken away as prisoners by their enemies. (Judges 18:30)
Now you may think idolatry is no big deal in the 21st century. What spiritual influence are you going to pass on to your children and their children? What are the long-term results of the kind of life you are living right now? I have a granddaughter who has not made a public profession of faith in Christ. That is worrisome. What about her children? Will they hear the gospel? The way we live right now will influence how future generations will live. We need to heed the warning of the apostle John when he said: Children, you must stay away from idols. (1 John 5:21)
My challenge to you is this: search your heart for the idols that are there. Admit your idolatry, whatever it is. Confess it and ask Christ to take control of your life. Recommit your life to serving Christ right now.
Pray with me please. Father, we confess that we have idols. We like them. They are comfortable. They make us feel good. Forgive us our waywardness. Convict us of our idolatry and help us to put our idols away, never to pick them up again. For we ask this in Jesus’ name, amen.
