Covenant

David Helton

Deep Creek Baptist Church

Ten Words • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

Idolatry

Worship

0 ratings

· 2 views

Notes

Transcript

The simplest way to look at the second Commandment is to see it as a prohibition against creating something with your hands or your heart that either reduces God or replaces God.

Replacing God

Reducing God

Incidental Idolatry

1 Kings 11:1-8 Page

“1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women, along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women, 2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the people of Israel, “You shall not enter into marriage with them, neither shall they with you, for surely they will turn away your heart after their gods.” Solomon clung to these in love. 3 He had 700 wives, who were princesses, and 300 concubines. And his wives turned away his heart. 4 For when Solomon was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods, and his heart was not wholly true to the Lord his God, as was the heart of David his father. 5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and after Milcom the abomination of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and did not wholly follow the Lord, as David his father had done. 7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the abomination of Moab, and for Molech the abomination of the Ammonites, on the mountain east of Jerusalem. 8 And so he did for all his foreign wives, who made offerings and sacrificed to their gods.”

Most people are surprised by what happened to Solomon. The collapse of his kingdom comes as a real shock. How could a man who was so wise be so stupid? Yet if we look at Solomon’s life carefully, we see that his heart started to turn away from God long before he ever bowed down in front of any idols. Solomon started well, but gradually he drifted away until finally he was worshiping completely different deities. The same thing happens to many Christians. Although we never intend to break the first commandment, our hearts are lured away by the temptation to follow other gods.What is so tragic about King Solomon is that he ended up serving the very gods he had once rejected. He did not ask God for gold; yet in time he started serving the god of wealth. The best example of this comes in 1 Kings 7, which describes how he built his palace. Chapter 6 tells how Solomon built a house for God and ends by saying that he “spent seven years building it” (1 Kings 6:38b). Then the king built a house for himself. Chapter 7 begins with words that can only be interpreted as a reproach: “It took Solomon thirteen years, however, to complete the construction of his palace” (v. 1). Once the king had done something for God, he decided it was time to do something for himself, and he took almost twice as long doing it! This shows how dangerous it is to be rich. Money brings many temptations, and even if we resist them at the beginning, they may come back to destroy us in the end.Solomon also began to worship power. Again this was not something he asked for, but in time he started serving the god of military strength. God had specifically forbidden the Israelites to build up a cavalry (see Deut. 17:16); yet Solomon amassed an entire army of horses and chariots (1 Kings 10:26–29).He made the same mistake when it came to women. God said, “[The king] must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray” (Deut. 17:17a). Sadly, Solomon failed to heed God’s warning. Although at the beginning he did not ask for pleasure, he started serving the goddess of sex, and this was his downfall. “King Solomon loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, ‘You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.’ Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray” (1 Kings 11:1–3). Some of these wives were acquired to satisfy his political ambitions; they helped him form strategic alliances. But most of them were acquired to satisfy his sexual addiction. Solomon had the wealth and power to pursue pleasure to its limits. All the while he was following after other gods, until finally he suffered the ultimate spiritual degradation: He bowed down to blocks of wood and stone.God punished Solomon by tearing apart his kingdom, but that was not the real tragedy. The real tragedy was not the punishment but the sin itself—the sin of breaking the first commandment. Solomon discovered to his own dismay how empty life is for those who follow other gods. Later, when he looked back on what he had done, he said, “I thought in my heart, ‘Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good’ ” (Eccles. 2:1a). Then he described his royal projects: “I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired men and women singers, and a harem as well—the delights of the heart of man” (Eccles. 2:4b–8). Solomon had it all.This was Solomon’s grand experiment: the pursuit of other gods. He summed it all up by saying, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure” (Eccles. 2:10a). What was the result? Was he satisfied? Did he get what he wanted? Was it worth it? No; his pursuit of power, pleasure, and prosperity led him into emptiness and despair. He said, “When I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.… So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me” (Eccles. 2:11, 17a).This is what happens to everyone who breaks the first commandment. In the end, of course, those who follow other gods will be judged for their sins, as Solomon was. But long before judgment there is emptiness and despair. The desire to have more and more is insatiable. But the shiny new products and exciting new experiences cannot quiet the nagging doubt. Is this all there is? Isn’t there something more to life? When we break the first commandment we discover that other gods do not satisfy and cannot save. “How weak the gods of this world are,” wrote Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a poem called “Idols”—“And weaker yet their worship made me!”

Discerning your idols

The story of Solomon is a warning to everyone who has made a decision to follow God but is gradually coming under the influence of other gods. Many people assume that idolatry is a thing of the past. Who would ever bow down to a figure made of wood or stone? It sounds so primitive! But the truth is that the spirit of Solomon is alive and well today. We may not worship Ashtoreth anymore, or Molech, but we do worship other deities. And in many cases we serve exactly the same gods that Solomon served: money, sex, and power.How do we identify our own private idolatries? There are two tests that we can use to determine which gods we are tempted to worship. One is the love test: What do we love? Back in chapter 26 we quoted Origen, the third-century theologian who observed that the first commandment has to do with what we love. Origen wrote, “What each one honors before all else, what before all things he admires and loves, this for him is God.” It only makes sense: We are called to love God with all our hearts and all our minds, but if instead we give our love to someone or something else, then we are serving some other god.So what do you love? Or to ask the same question a different way, what do you desire? When your mind is free to roam, what do you think about? How do you spend your money? What do you get excited about? A false god can be any good thing that we focus on to the exclusion of God. It could be a sport or recreation. It could be a hobby or personal interest. It could be an appetite for the finer things in life. It could be a career ambition. It could be personal health and fitness. It could even be a ministry in the church. Certainly we are allowed to enjoy the good things in life, but we must not allow them to replace God as the object of our affections.Another test is the trust test: What do you trust? Where do you turn in times of trouble? Martin Luther said, “Whatever thy heart clings to and relies upon, that is properly thy God.” Similarly, the Puritan Thomas Watson said, “To trust in any thing more than God, is to make it a god.” This makes sense too. We are called to trust in God alone for our salvation, but if we put our trust in someone or something else, we are serving some other god.So what do you trust? Some people trust their addictions. When they are in trouble—when they are lonely or discouraged—they count on drugs and alcohol or sex or shopping or some other obsession to pull them through. Other people trust things that are good in themselves but that nevertheless have a way of replacing our confidence in God. Some trust their jobs, their insurance policies, or their pension plans for their security. Some put their faith in the government and its control of the economy. Some trust their families or their social position. Some people trust science and medicine. God can use all of these things to care and provide for us, but we are to place our ultimate confidence in him alone.