Month: August 2020

Worship is an act due to God and God alone. No other being, real or imagined, is to receive worship of any kind.  To do so is one of the highest offenses we can commit against God.  Yet, throughout all of human history, mankind has been quick to bow in reverence to creations of their own making. Even worse, in modern day evangelicalism, we can find idolatry in the ranks of professing believers.

“And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.” – Exodus 20:1–6 (ESV).

God is very specific to His people that He alone is to be worshipped. Idolatry of any sort is condemned by God and for good reason.  He is the only God, there are no others. He alone created the universe and all that is in it.  God is responsible for our very lives, the air that fills our lungs, and the blood that pumps through our veins. Without Him we do not fail to live, we would cease to exist entirely.  To give worship to make believe “gods” that do not exist, imaginary deities who have no substance of any sort, to give the imaginations of our heart the worship rightly due to God alone is treasonous. Thus, God rightly commands all mankind to give Him and Him alone worship.

Yet, throughout its history, the nation of Israel routinely fell into idolatry. Even after God had demonstrated His power over Egypt in the Exodus, it took only forty days of waiting at the base of Mount Sinai before they pressed Aaron into making a golden calf that they could worship as their deliverer.  Because Moses interceded for them, the Israelites were not wiped out for this terrible transgression against the God who had saved them.

Despite demonstrating His great power before Israel again and again, the Israelites continued to build and worship idols of their own making.  Bowing to gods that are not while rejecting the one true God of Israel.  So great and continuous was their idolatry, God often sent the pagan nations against them. And yet, so merciful was God that He would send His prophets to the Israelites to tell them of their sins and command their repentance.

In both the books of Isaiah and Jeremiah, we see God chastising and warning His people against idolatry. The Jews were under judgment and would eventually face a desolation of their land for their false worship.  God pointed out the uselessness of the idols by showing them that these worthless gods were nothing more than statues made by the hands of men.

In Isaiah 44:9-20 (ESV) we read:

“All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth. They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together. 

The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house. He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” 

They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?” He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?”

God rightly mocks the false worship of a man who cuts down a tree with which half of it serves as fuel for a fire to make a meal and the rest is used to make a god for the man to worship.  It truly is a ludicrous act when you consider it. It is the act of a man that brings a hunk of timber into a shape that is recognizable as a being of some sort.  He spends hours of skilled labor to take wood, cut it, shape it, sand it, and layer it with metal. In any other instance, such as making tools, furniture, or decorative items, the man would be lauded for what he himself created. But when it comes to the idol, all rationality leaves. No longer is the wooden object a work of craftsmanship. It is now the embodiment of a god of the creator’s imagination. He literally worships the work of his own hands.

Speaking for God, the prophet Jeremiah reveals to Israel that the worthless idols of the pagan nations have absolutely no power to do anything whatsoever: 

“Hear the word that the Lord speaks to you, O house of Israel. Thus says the Lord: ‘Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.’” (Jeremiah 10: 1-5)

Israel was not to fear the false gods of the surrounding nations. They literally had no power at all. They could not even move themselves, they had to be carried by their worshippers! They were as useless as straw stuffed scarecrows in a field, they could do nothing! Jeremiah called upon the Israelites to fear the true and living God, the One who had power over all creation and could wipe out the nations with no effort at all.  Israel so often turned to the false idols created by human hands, but they ought to have always feared and worshipped the sovereign God of all creation.

In our modern era, we still do find some objects of idol worship. Clearly, pagan religions such a Hinduism, Buddhism and others have sacred idols that they worship. Further, even religions that claim to be Christian, such as Catholicism, have objects they do not claim to worship as gods, yet venerate, such as the bones of the “saints” and statues of the virgin Mary.  Yet, idol worship is not quite as widespread in our current culture, especially in the Christian church.  Or so we would like to think.

Remember that, at its core, idol worship was a people worshipping those objects made by human hands.  Men and women bowed to the work of their own hands, praying and calling upon gods that they had conjured up in their own minds. These gods had systems of worship, sacrifice and atonement that were demanded of its adherents. And, while they may have appeared have a form of godliness, they ultimately denied the power and existence of the One true God and His revealed Word.  Today, in Evangelicalism, we have a great many idols, we just don’t have the wood carved, gold layered statues to which we must bow down. Today, we have man made, secular psychology styled systems of worship which we have mashed into Christianity and claim they are nothing but God’s Word in practice.

The problem with idolatry is that is substitutes the genuine worship of God and the practice of His commandments with the worship and practice of manmade concepts. False gods are rooted in our own beliefs and feelings. Those gods reflect our own fallen nature and thinking.  It is no wonder that the gods of old were capricious, vengeful, manipulative and highly sexualized.  The false gods are nothing more than man’s sinful heart given “deity” status.

In our modern day, we have rejected religiosity and cloaked our ideas in the robe of scientism.  By attaching psychological significance to manmade beliefs, we give it an air of authority.  No longer do we have to conjure up a spirit to inhabit a wooden doll, we simply must appeal to theoretical systems and the “experts” who developed them.  On the basis that human experts have studied these matters, apart from the God’s Word, and come up with principles of practice, which are not aligned with Scripture, we are told that human flourishing is given its best opportunities when we are obedient to their commands. And, unfortunately, Evangelicalism has too often absorbed these ideas and promoted them as a means of staying “relevant” with modern culture.

Most recently, this includes adopting ideas such as Critical Race Theory which teaches that justice is only served when persons of a white ethnic origin give up or divest themselves of power and privilege in order that persons of black ethnicity can be lifted up. This is based upon the premise that American culture is built upon a white supremacist system designed to keep the black community from prospering.  As such, it is considered unjust that people of color do not have an equal opportunity of outcome.  For actual justice to occur, Critical Theory demands a complete tearing down and rebuilding of the existing cultural and governmental systems. This would remove systems of government that, allegedly, give privilege to ethnically white persons and elevate persons of color based on the amount of melanin contained in their biological structures.  Justice in this definition in not color blind, its entire basis is color.

Because Scripture deals extensively with God’s justice, proponents of Critical Theory argue that their definition of justice is biblical.  Where God is concerned with the justice applied to those who have sinned against Him (which includes sinning against other persons in rebellion to His commands), Critical Theory seeks to redefine sin to mean an unwillingness to tear down existing systems and justice to mean supporting  the establishment of a utopian ideal. By deconstructing the biblical definitions of sin and justice, they seek to import a system of beliefs that are actually opposed to God and His Word.

God’s Word does speak to people individually and His people at large.  God’s commands were given to His people, Israel, nationally in the form of the law.  As a people, they were commanded on areas of worship, sacrifice, moral behavior and even civil financial obligations. The Jews were expected to be obedient to these laws as individuals. It was expected of the leaders of the nation to hold individuals accountable for their transgressions. The priests were to represent God to the people and call them to repentance to God. It was when the people’s rejection of God spread so far and severe, that God would bring His wrath upon them nationally. God would indeed, through his prophets, call out the sins of the nation to include idol worship, sexual immorality, and even depriving the poor of justice. But all of the sins were rooted in the people’s rebellion against God as the sovereign Lord for which they would be judged.

Critical Theory bypasses this and focuses on the idea that oppression of a particular ethnic group (as it defines oppression) is really the greatest injustice with which Christians ought to be concerned. National judgment is based, not upon the growing rebellion of individual people against God, but upon the theoretical concept that a governing system, as it currently exists, is systemically racist.  Thus, a nation can and must be held guilty of sin and must repent in the manner prescribed, not by Scripture, but by Critical Theory. Should Christians reject this proposition, they are considered guilty of injustice, which has been deconstructed and redefined beyond Scriptural bounds.  This is the handiwork of man forced up Scripture and its adherents demand Christians bow and worship the god of Critical Theory.

Much like the lifeless and worthless wooden idols condemned by God, Critical Theory is nothing more than the creation of men. The idols of old could do nothing to help those who created them. They could not even move from one location to another without men to carry them along. Yet, entire nations rose and fell worshipping those lifeless wooden statues. Today, the idol of Critical Race Theory, imagined and created by men, has been carried and propped up into the public square. Men have called upon all people everywhere to stare in awe at their creation and worship at its altar. And worse, they have demanded the people of God likewise bow in adoration.

In Babylon, three young Jewish captives, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, also faced such a demand. In fact, they faced execution if they did not do so.  These three men stood resolute in the face of certain doom and refused to bow to the golden idol. They chose to trust in God alone for their deliverance. And even if God allowed them to be burned in the fiery furnace, they knew they would stand before Him in genuine worship for eternity.  Christians today must choose to stand as resolutely and not bow before the golden idol of Critical Theory. While it may seem as though we may stand alone at times, we are truly never alone. God stands with us unwaveringly. Even if the church faces hard times, or even persecution in full, we can never bow to any false idol or system. May we have the courage of those three young man, trusting wholly and completely in God and His Word alone.