The idols that make us idle.
Today many Christians are idle - not doing much.
The reason that they have subconsciously been overtaken by the idols in their lives.
Let’s look at the second commandment together:
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Deu 5:8-10 NIV).
. The Hebrew words "idol" and "form" in v. 8 describe any sort of manufacturing, whether chiseled from stone, carved from wood, or cast in a mold (NIDOTTE 3:645).
The bible is very clear about what we shouldn’t do. We need to note that not all see this as a separate commandment.
We are told not to make an idol of anything even in heaven and in the Reformation years the protestants were deeply concerned about the images of Mary and intercessory prayer made through her.
John Knox the founder of this denomination found himself in a castle. French troops captured the castle and its defenders, and Knox began 19 months as a French galley slave, under flogging and cursing learning to be an apostle of liberty to his people.
One incident during those months reveals something of the latent fire in the Scottish preacher, even while in chains. A picture of the Virgin Mary was brought on board, while the galley was in port, to be kissed by the slaves. When Knox refused, the picture was thrust into his face. Outraged, he flung the "accursed idol" into the river, saying "Let our Lady learn to swim."
It needs to be added that in his theology Knox was carefully to note the importance of Mary and the respect she deserved.
In the church there are two sorts of people in terms of the images that we have around us.
• Iconodules = those who made and venerated icons
• Iconoclasts = those who believed icons should be destroyed because they had become idols. Some iconoclasts acted on their belief.
Idols are always substitutes.
It seems to me that there are three areas to be concerned about in this command about idolatry. I think all three are represented in our passage this morning and I believe that there is something much better that God has given us to depend on instead of these substitutes.
The early Protestants wouldn’t even have a cross in the church because of the concern that people would worship the cross instead of the Christ who hung on it.
The first form of idolatry really is making religious images and symbols that narrow what the scriptures would reveal about God and Jesus.
What would Jesus be like today – Would he be green as and try to save the ecology of the planet?
Would he be a counter revolutionary or a freedom fighter or would we find him in the gutters of the slums of the world would we find him reasoning with the powerful and the rich?
Would we find Jesus at the Mormon temple trying to reveal that they got it all wrong or at the Catholic church telling them to get rid of the Statues.
Would Jesus be a Presbyterian?
Whatever way you try to present Jesus would be wrong. Not necessarily because of what we are saying but because of what is missed out.
"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above – Why? Because if you do it will be limited and inadequate!!!!
Whilst great artists have tried to picture Jesus all fail because you can’t contain Jesus in one shot.
As someone has said:- "I don’t, like to think of God as Judge. I prefer to think of Him only as a loving Father.” This pick-and-choose method creates an image or idol in the mind - an idea of God that does not fully represent Him. A. W. Tozer said; “Do not try to imagine God or you will have an imaginary God.” ... you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do. [Anne Lamott in Bird by Bird. Christianity Today, Vol. 41, no. 8.]
When Christians start to construct their own personal Jesus, watered-down versions of the truth will no doubt dilute our saltiness in this world.
If you want to represent Christ to the broken world around you don’t try and find the “right” picture of him. Let his word transform you and you will become like Christ yourself. Then avoid the temptation to idolise yourself.
Listen to this illustration by someone called Kirk M you will see how to avoid self idolatry or building false images of Jesus
There was this great woman of God lived in a small house in a dirt poor little town in eastern Mississippi. The town, as are many in the rural south, was entirely African American and pretty much forgotten by the white people running the state. These people were not bitter or angry about their lot but genuinely thankful for all God had given them and blessed them with.
One Wednesday night in 1979 I made my way to this little town to attend a prayer meeting. I remember little about the actual meeting but I will never forget the time I spent on the front porch talking with the woman I went there to meet. She was, to this day, the sweetest and most loving person I think I ever met in this life. Despite having basically nothing in this life, she was thankful and genuinely humble in her gratitude for all God had given her.
Outwardly I could see nothing to be thankful for. Her home was very small, at least 100 years old with hardly any furniture and no air conditioning. There was no car in the driveway and no pretty lawn in front of the house. But, what this woman did have was a home overflowing with love and the utmost respect and admiration for God.
As the people came to her home, they were greeted by someone who obviously loved them and was deeply thankful to see them. She hugged each person and her smile was contagious as well as uplifting. Despite being unbearably hot, everyone thoroughly enjoyed the meeting and prayers were made for countless people and situations. I was allowed to speak for about 10 minutes at the conclusion of the gathering.
As I was leaving, this incredible woman pulled me aside and handed me a small bag which contained money collected prior to my arrival to bless me in my travels. There was not much money in the bag but I just wept when I received it for I knew that every penny in there came from the hearts of those beautiful believers who just wanted to bless someone who took the time to bless them.
Before I left, this woman took me aside and prayed for me. She prayed for things in my life there was no way she could have known except God had told her. The love and faith in her prayer melted me and lifted me up at the same time. Never before or since have I been prayed for like I was that night.
I pray that we never forget that some of the most important people we ever meet in this life are many times people everyone else has rejected or forgotten. I have prayed for 35 years that God blesses this obscure woman for she succeeded in blessing me more than all the prominent and highly respected people I have known ever did - combined.
My heart cries out to be a man who labors in obscurity, gives anonymously and loves without partiality or hypocrisy, just like that beloved woman I met many years ago in Mississippi
We get to know Christ not through icons or symbols but through a personal relationship with Him.
When you accept Christ as your Lord and saviour through Faith you get to know Christ on a daily basis.
But our passage goes on "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.
Not only should we not form an idol out of heaven but we should not make an idol out of anything on earth.
The first way we can do that is to worship the created instead of the created.
In avery real way Muslims and Budhists do this and that is why Christians reacted strongly against a Budhist program being inmplimented in their childrens education.
Just as Mohommed and Buddha and Joseph Smith and so many others can be the object of idolatry so can things in our lives.
One of the great tragedies of recent centuries is that man has worshiped himself.
The Spirit of the Western world is Atheism or secular Humanism. Secular humanism’s proposition is that human beings are capable of being ethical and moral without religion or a god.
In the end Man becomes God.
This is beautifully summed up in 2 Timothy 3 (NIV)
3 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
6 They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, 7 always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth.
It is in this setting that people become their own idols and they have to make sacrifices to that idol.
There was a man called William Kelly a theological student in Trinity college in Dublin in the 19th century.
One day one of his professors presumably a little frustrated at him said:-
"But you are interested in making a name in the world for yourself aren’t you Mr Kelly?"
To which Mr Kelly reply – "To which world are you referring?."
I once heard in a Queenstown church this illustration
A certain man wanted to sell his house for $200,000. Another man wanted very badly to buy it, but because he was poor, he couldn't afford the full price. After much bargaining, the owner agreed to sell the house for half the original price with just one stipulation: He would retain ownership of one small nail protruding from just over the door.
After several years, the original owner wanted the house back, but the new owner was unwilling to sell. So the first owner went out, found the carcass of a dead dog, and hung it from the single nail he still owned. Soon the house became unlivable, and the family was forced to sell the house to the owner of the nail.
The conclusion: "If we leave the Devil with even one small peg in our life, he will return to hang his rotting garbage on it, making it unfit for Christ's habitation."
We can’t afford with Christ to have one nail as an idol – we have to let Christ take full possession of our house.
Adoniram Judson sweated out Burma's heat for 18 years without a furlough, six years without a convert. Enduring torture and imprisonment, he admitted that he never saw a ship sail without wanting to jump on board and go home. When his wife's health broke and he put her on a homebound vessel in the knowledge he would not see her for two full years, he confided to his diary: "If we could find some quiet resting place on earth where we could spend the rest of our days in peace. . ." But he steadied himself with this remarkable postscript: "Life is short. Millions of Burmese are perishing. I am almost the only person on earth who has attained their language to communicate salvation. . ."
We can’t afford to make idols of ourselves or anything else in this world.
The third area we need to understand about idols is they are too expensive, for they cost us the blessing of God.
Idols are too expensive we need to get rid of them all.
Our passage reads.
for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments" (Deu 5:8-10 NIV).
Replacing God with an idol separates us from his love and blessing.
When King solomon was dedicating the temple
We read this 1 Kings 9.
9 When Solomon had finished building the temple of the LORD and the royal palace, and had achieved all he had desired to do, 2 the LORD appeared to him a second time, as he had appeared to him at Gibeon. 3 The LORD said to him:
“I have heard the prayer and plea you have made before me; I have consecrated this temple, which you have built, by putting my Name there forever. My eyes and my heart will always be there.
4 “As for you, if you walk before me faithfully with integrity of heart and uprightness, as David your father did, and do all I command and observe my decrees and laws, 5 I will establish your royal throne over Israel forever, as I promised David your father when I said, ‘You shall never fail to have a successor on the throne of Israel.’
6 “But if you[a] or your descendants turn away from me and do not observe the commands and decrees I have given you[b] and go off to serve other gods and worship them, 7 then I will cut off Israel from the land I have given them and will reject this temple I have consecrated for my Name. Israel will then become a byword and an object of ridicule among all peoples. 8 This temple will become a heap of rubble. All[c] who pass by will be appalled and will scoff and say, ‘Why has the LORD done such a thing to this land and to this temple?’ 9 People will answer, ‘Because they have forsaken the LORD their God, who brought their ancestors out of Egypt, and have embraced other gods, worshiping and serving them—that is why the LORD brought all this disaster on them.’”
What God said – happened. Solomon himself allowed idolatry in his nation and it grew until the nation was totally devastated and the temple was in ruins.
Some years ago I was attending a home group in a town in Central Otago. During the home group I was asked to pray for the lady of the house who had cancer. I prayed and had, as far as I can remember, a definite impression that the woman had some item that was offensive to God. I asked her about it and she told me she had a idol in her house. I suggested to her that she get rid of it. This I understand she did and her cancer was gone.
Idols cost us the blessing of God in so many areas of our lives.
We can’t afford to have any idols in our lives.
Our dependence is on our personal relationship with God and our worship of him. Our whole lives need to be an act of worship.
When they are we will have no need of idols. We will be totally sold out to Him who made us.
