Views on Idolatry
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· 3 viewsGod is greater than the idols of this world
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
If you are new this morning, we are going through a series from the book of Exodus for the purpose of developing a biblical view of the world we live in. With so many rapid changes in our culture, it’s important to see the world from God’s perspective and align ourselves to that end. Today, we will be looking at the subject of idolatry and the power that idols can have over us and how God ultimately breaks the power of these idols.
Passage
Passage
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Pharaoh’s heart is hardened; he refuses to let the people go. Go to Pharaoh in the morning, as he is going out to the water. Stand on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that turned into a serpent. And you shall say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, sent me to you, saying, “Let my people go, that they may serve me in the wilderness.” But so far, you have not obeyed. Thus says the Lord, “By this you shall know that I am the Lord: behold, with the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water that is in the Nile, and it shall turn into blood. The fish in the Nile shall die, and the Nile will stink, and the Egyptians will grow weary of drinking water from the Nile.” ’ ” And the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, their canals, and their ponds, and all their pools of water, so that they may become blood, and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, even in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’ ”
Moses and Aaron did as the Lord commanded. In the sight of Pharaoh and in the sight of his servants he lifted up the staff and struck the water in the Nile, and all the water in the Nile turned into blood. And the fish in the Nile died, and the Nile stank, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. But the magicians of Egypt did the same by their secret arts. So Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said. Pharaoh turned and went into his house, and he did not take even this to heart. And all the Egyptians dug along the Nile for water to drink, for they could not drink the water of the Nile.
Seven full days passed after the Lord had struck the Nile.
What is the cause of idolatry?
What is the consequence of idolatry?
How does God conquer idolatry?
Body
Body
If you remember from last week’s message, we looked at Pharaoh’s refusal to let the Israelites go to worship the Lord and the reason for that rejection was, “Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice? I don’t know the Lord...” For Pharoah, his denial was not because he was irreligious or an atheist but because he was a pluralist. In many ways, we too are becoming increasingly pluralistic as a society especially in places like San Francisco. When someone says, “I’m spiritual but not religious”, that is usually a clue that you are dealing with a pluralist, which is someone who believes in many gods. In the same way, Pharaoh and the Egyptians believed in many different gods and this idea of the one true living God demanding their obedience was altogether foreign. In Pharaoh’s religious views, the Egyptians had their gods and there was nothing he owed to the God of Israel. In fact, given the status of the Egyptians in comparison to the Israelites, a case could be made that the gods of Egypt were actually superior if anything else. Clearly from a worldly perspective, based just on material blessings, the gods of Egypt seemed to be in control.
In that regard, Pharaoh’s response is understandable. Why should anyone obey a god that they don’t know or have any interest in worshipping, let alone one that seems rather powerless. At the bottom line, these are the same reasons that anyone who is not a believer would give for not wanting to obey Christian ethical and religious demands. Why should we wait to have sex until we are married? Why should we try to protect the lives of the unborn? Why should we go to church and give our offerings? In their hearts, the main reason why a non-believer would refuse to obey is essentially the same as Pharaoh, “Who is the Lord that I should obey? I don’t know this God.” Unfortunately, I think this is also reason why some Christians refuse to obey God, they don’t know Him as they ought to. (I don’t know who said this, maybe I said it)
To know God is to love Him. To love Him is to obey Him.
Knowing God and obeying God are the bookends to loving God. The problem is, in this life, we don’t fully love God because we don’t fully know Him. As the apostle Paul says, we see God dimly in this lifetime. And since we don’t fully love Him, it’s difficult to fully obey Him. This is basically a negative extrapolation of what Jesus says in the gospel of John:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.
This then brings us to the root cause of idolatry, just because someone doesn’t believe in God and has no desire to know Him, doesn’t mean that they stop believing all together, that’s not possible for a healthy functional human being. Everyone has to believe in something whether that be yourself, your family, science, wealth, the list goes on and on. It would seem that we have been created to believe in something, anything that might give this life some sense of significance and meaning. Idolatry then stems from where you decide to put the full weight and conviction of your beliefs, whether its in the one true God or in something else. And in the end, as you pursue what you believe, you not only desire more knowledge of that belief, you come to love it, and eventually you’ll obey the impulse to follow it.
Now let me take a step back, because you might be wondering to yourself, that sounds like it could be true but what in the world does idolatry have to do with the passage that we just read? This passage which is the beginning of a much larger narrative on the plagues of Egypt has everything to do with the sin of idolatry. When you study the list of plagues that God visited on the Egyptians, it’s pretty clear to see that these were not just raw displays of God’s power. If God simply wanted to convince Pharoah to set the Israelites free, that probably could have been done with one miracle, not this long drawn out process with swarms of frogs, gnats, flies, and locusts. Could you imagine if lightning came out of Moses’ staff and inflicted Pharoah with surging pain? That would be cool but that would just make Moses like emperor Palpatine and it would make the God of Israel no better than Pharoah. Forcing someone to believe against their will through raw naked power is not the method that God uses in the Scriptures. Man is far more apt to abuse raw power. In contrast God is far more subtle, more patient, more merciful than than we might realize.
Any commentary on the book of Exodus will tell you that each of the first nine plagues was carefully orchestrated by God to dismantle the gods of Egypt (lowercase g) so that He might make himself known to them. To Pharaoh’s question of “Who is the Lord?”, God’s answers in verse 17 or our passage, “By this you will know that I am the Lord, when I strike the waters of the Nile. For many reasons, the Egyptians were connected religiously to the Nile. It was the source of food, providing as much fish as the nation needed. It was the source of water, their entire agricultural industry was tied to the fall and rise of this majestic river. It was their source of transport. The only way they were able to build the pyramids where they stand today was to move those large stones on water. And so it makes sense that one of the gods they worshipped with great devotion was Hapi, the god of the Nile. The Egyptians had no idea why the Nile flooded yearly and so they would throw their offerings into the river so they could appease this god to bring enough flooding for the silt to fertilize their land but not so much that it would destroy their homes. Because of their dependence on the Nile, some considered Hapi to be the god of life itself.
For these reasons, Hapi is depicted as an androgynous figure, male but with breasts like a woman, symbolizing his role in fertility and like a mother he was portrayed as being compassionate and caring for the Egyptians. (I’ll pick this up later in another message but human sexuality is closely connected to our religious views. It has been that way from the very beginning of civilization. Transgenderism and homosexuality are often elevated in importance in pluralistic societies that tend to have many idols). And as I am describing Hapi, you might be thinking to yourself, this god doesn’t sound half bad. I like his name and what he represents and even if he isn’t real, what’s the harm in believing the myth. I’m sure Pharoah and the Egyptians thought exactly the same thing and this brings us to the consequence of idolatry.
In his book playing God, Andy Crouch describes how idolatry then functions in the human heart:
At the heart of primal idolatries, but also at the heart of many of our most closely held addictions, is the belief that we have found a way to bring a recalcitrant and unpredictable part of the world under our control.
It is the lie of the enemy that makes us think that idolatry only deals with statues and icons and pagan rituals. Those things are nothing more than the superficial symptoms of man’s inner desire to personally control everything in our world as much as possible. (Are there any control freaks in the room? No one wants to admit it but all of us have control issues because we live in a world that is largely outside of our control. Did you determine the day of your birth, the personality or temperament or IQ that you would have? Do you know the day of your death? No! In fact, the most important things in life will happen to you not because of you.)
And whether it was by coincidence or the power of Satan, these rituals and incantations of the priests of Hapi must have worked to some degree because the Egyptians began to trust in this religion. But I’m sure there were years when their offerings didn’t lead to the desired results, years when there was not enough water and it led to drought and famine. I’m sure there were other years when there was too much water and it flooded their homes, destroyed their property, and threatened their lives. And you might be led to believe that this would create a strong case against the power of their idols. But that is not how idolatry works.
Idolatry promises god-like control over your world but as it fails to deliver on this promise, instead of becoming disenfranchised by its power, most people get more fixated and even addicted to their idols. Psychologists will tell you that intermittent positive reinforcement is the most habit-forming system of reward. Gamblers get addicted to gambling because of the rush of the occasional random big win. In laboratory experiments, mice will get full and lose interest when a lever rewards them with tasty food all the time. But if the lever randomly gives tasty rewards, then mice will continue to push that lever whether they are hungry or not. If you reinforce that behavior strongly enough, the mice will push that lever with no reward until the collapse from exhaustion. The idols in our lives can have that kind of impact on us.
Let’s consider the idol of career or success. At first, there is the excitement of landing your first dream job. It gives you a sense of security, maybe purpose for your life, you begin to feel a sense of significance as others applaud your good work. Then slowly, you work longer hours. Your mood goes up and down based on your performance at work. Then before you know it, your other interests are put to the side, you don’t have time for relationships, your walk with God begins to feel less and less important. And it’s not because your spiritual life is any less, it’s more of the case that your faith happens to be focused on something else, your idols.
The psychiatrist Jeffery Satinover gives us this warning about the consequence of idolatry:
“Idols ask for more and more, while giving less and less, until they eventually demand everything and give nothing.”
Even among those of us who profess faith in Christ, the idols of our society still threaten the right worship of our God. The golden calf that is found later on in the book of Exodus is a timeless warning about the dangers of religious syncretism which can be defined as
Syncretism: the blending together of different religions into one.
In Exodus 32, we see the real danger of syncretistic worship.
So all the people took off the rings of gold that were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow shall be a feast to the Lord.” And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.
Clearly, idolatry is still an issue with the Israelites but what makes this doubly dangerous is the fact that this idolatry is blended with the worship of the Lord. You’ll notice what Aaron says in this passage, “Tomorrow will be a feast to the LORD.” When we think of all the distortions of Christianity in our country, they are the result of syncretism, the blending of our worship of Christ with the idols of our society. Let me give you a few examples:
The prosperity gospel is a blending together of Christianity with the idol of wealth. The promise you will be blessed with great financial wealth along with physical health if you follow God and give money to your religious leaders which plays right into the power of our modern idols.
The progressive gospel blends true biblical faith with the idol of human sexuality among other idols. (When the passage says the people rose up to play, it doesn’t mean they broke out their board games or started playing Mah Jong. It’s a euphemism for a mass orgy. Remember what I said before, human sexuality is closely tied to what we worship.)
The therapeutic gospel blends our worship of God with the worship of ourselves. More and more we are becoming lovers of self just as the Scriptures warned about the end of this age.
Herein lies the ultimate consequence of idolatry, they distort our worship of God by challenging His identity, His nature, and His claims to truth.
This is how the apostle Paul describes the danger of idols.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
What Paul states here in Romans is something that is all around us, more prevalent than we even realize. This week, Mira and I went to the Guo Pei exhibit at the SF Legion of Honor which is a beautiful exhibit of dresses from one of the most famous designers in the world. Her handmade dresses require thousands of hours to make, each by hand. They are really works of art and you might ask, how can anyone devote that much time to one dress? Not surprisingly, much of her work is inspired by her own idols. I took a picture of the description of one her collections and as you can read at the end, this is the power that she attributes to her collection of dresses:
“Elysium will free every soul to embrace beauty, understand the true meaning of life, and ultimately find the roots of one’s soul.”
It’s no wonder that John Calvin calls the human mind, a factory of idols.
Conclusion
Conclusion
If humans are so intertwined with their idols, how does God conquer idolatry? In the chapter right before the one that we read, we are given the answer to this question.
God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them.
Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
What we see here in this passage is the setting up of circumstances in which God will enter into human history in a way that we have not seen prior to this point. Jewish rabbinic tradition notes a clear difference in God’s involvement in human affairs from the book of Genesis to what we read here in Exodus. More specifically, we see signs and wonders that seem to bend the force of nature to create a favorable result for His own people. In the book of Genesis, God’s interaction was mainly in the form of visitations, communication through angels, and general judgment of sin. However, God did not go out of his way to supernaturally rescue His followers until He was ready to make His name known.
Several weeks ago, if you remember, I spoke about the name of God that was revealed to Moses, Yahweh or I AM. The thing is Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob knew of this name but up to this point in history, God did not make this name known through a real life demonstration. Any god can claim that they are the Great I Am, the Creator of all things, the one true living God but until they demonstrate it, how will people actually believe? The signs and wonders that God performed in Egypt are just the beginnings of God removing all doubt that He is exactly who He says He is. To all the challenges to His identity and the counter-claims agains His truth, He will make himself known.
The Jewish rabbi Nahmanides writes this paraphrase of what God said to Moses:
“I have appeared to the patriarchs…but with my name Hashem, with which all existence came into being, I was not made known to them, that is, to create new things for them by the open change of nature.”
In the plagues, God demonstrated his power over nature in a way that the idols of Egypt could never do. But in the grand scope of life, these miracles are nothing compared to the miracles created by the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God. To change nature is one thing but to change the nature of man is something entirely different.
Many years ago, while I was doing college ministry, a student came up to me after service and I knew that she had been struggling with her faith in light of what she was learning in her humanities classes. She told me that she had come to the conclusion that all religion is man-made, social constructs created by the human mind. She was right to some degree and what we just read from Guo Pei is clear evidence of that. But what I tried to show her was that the God of the Bible is not one of those social constructs, which seems arrogant to say but here is my reasoning. The true God of Christianity is not one that any human mind would want to create for itself. Who wants a god that tells us that everything is under His control and that we have no control? Who wants a god that tells us that nothing we do can actually appease Him and the we are completely dependent on His grace alone? Who wants a god that tells us the path to true life is to lose our life in the here and now? I could go on and one about the problems that the Christian God poses to the natural human mind that is predisposed to idolatry. Who in their right mind would invent such a God like ours? No one that I know because it would a complete reversal of our natural state.
In our songs, we sing about the fact that the same power that conquered the grave lives in me. That same power also breaks the hold that the idols of this world have on our heart.