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The Idolators

SERIES: In Tables of Stone #3 of 11

2008-09-28

PRODUCTION #: 1122

SPEAKER: Shawn Boonstra

I’m guessing that you’ve never been tempted to worship a picture of the Egyptian god Horace or the Babylonian god Ishtar. But is it possible, here in the 21st century, that many of us are doing exactly the same thing without even knowing it?

When we think of pirates in the 21st century, the first thing that often comes to mind is Johnny Depp swinging his sword around on a pirate ship. Unfortunately, the goofy antics of Captain Jack Sparrow don’t even begin to depict the horrors that real piracy brought to the unfortunate souls who were victimized by them.

Even though piracy was a problem from the very minute that human beings took to the seas, in the centuries around the time of Christ, piracy was a really bad problem in the Mediterranean, making already dangerous sea voyages far more risky than they needed to be. Hordes of sea marauders, coming from what is now southeastern Turkey, not only plundered the ships and stole their goods, but they also took captives and sold them into slavery, which proved to be a very lucrative trade. You know, it’s been estimated that on one single day, pirates sold 10,000 people into slavery, most of them going to work on the plantations of rich Roman citizens.

Now here is the interesting thing about it. The pirates put the Romans in a real bind. On the one hand, as rulers of the ancient world, the Romans were responsible to keep law and order. But on the other hand, they also really liked the steady flow of cheap slave labor that they needed for their farms and massive building projects. So over the years, they only made some halfhearted attempts to actually deal with pirates. And not until the time of the emperor Pompeii, when strong political considerations forced the Romans to do something, did they finally take any real measures to stop the pirates.

Now, the pirates didn’t always sell people into slavery. When they got their hands on a wealthy captive, they would hold him for ransom, getting a whole lot more money than they would get by selling him as a slave. So in the middle to late first century BC, the pirates captured a young Roman aristocrat, a man who came to be known as Gaius Julius Caesar.

According to the story, when the pirates told their new captive they wanted 20 talents for his release, the young man actually started to laugh. “Twenty talents?” he said. “Are you kidding me? Don’t you know who I am? Who my family is? I’m worth more than double that.” And at that point, Caesar told the pirates to ask for 50 talents. And naturally, the pirates agreed.

Now, here is how it played out. Back then you didn’t have FedEx or Western Union, so you couldn’t wire the money. And because of that, it took over a month for the ransom money to come. While they waited, Caesar spent his days schmoozing it up with the pirates, playing games with them and cracking a lot of jokes. In fact, history tells us that sometimes Caesar actually acted as if he were the leader instead of a prisoner.

It’s hard to imagine, but Caesar started to call the shots. He wrote songs and poetry on board, and would share it with the pirates. If they didn’t like it, he would mock them to their faces, calling them illiterate savages. At night, when he was trying to sleep and the pirates were making noise, he would yell at them to be quiet. And on more than one occasion, with a gleam in his eye, he told them that he was going to return with ships one day and hang every single one of them on a Roman cross.

Of course, the pirates didn’t think much of it, and they refused to take him seriously. After all, he was the prisoner, right? But that proved to be their biggest mistake, because after the ransom was paid and Julius Caesar was released, he gathered a small militia of ships, hunted the pirates down, captured most of them, and had every one of them crucified just like he promised.

It’s that kind of story that shows us why Julius Caesar became the kind of man he did. His bravado, skill and determination marked his rise to power, and gave him the resources he needed to preside over one of Rome’s greatest military expansions, during which he managed to capture both France and England. With one success after another on almost every front, Julius Caesar became the undisputed ruler of Rome, and really, because Rome ruled the world, Caesar became the undisputed ruler of the world. His statues were adorned like gods, and he even called himself “the unconquerable god,” because in his mind, he was worthy of the people’s worship.

The problem with this was that as his power kept increasing, other people started to get nervous. He was too close to becoming a king, and if the Romans hated one thing, it was the idea of a king ruling them like a dictator. So they eventually hatched a plot to kill him before he destroyed the Roman republic and replaced it with a monarchy.

Now to be honest, we don’t know exactly what happened, but William Shakespeare gives us this discussion between two of the conspirators: Cassius and Brutus. And in that discussion, Cassius talks about how he once tried to swim across a river with Caesar, and how Caesar got a cramp and Cassius had to save him from drowning. “So how is it,” Cassius wonders, “that a mere mortal has to rescue a so-called god?”

“And now,” says Cassius, “Caesar is considered a god and Cassius is a wretched creature and must bow down if Caesar even carelessly nods at him.” Cassius recounts another incident, this time in Spain, where the great Julius Caesar gets sick with fever and he says, “When he was having fits, I saw clearly how he shook. It is true, this god shook. His lips turned pale…I heard him groan. Yes, and that tongue of his that persuaded the Romans to watch him closely and write his speeches in their books cried, ‘Give me something to drink…’ Just like a sick girl!”

And of course, Cassius asks the question, “What kind of god is Caesar?” And the answer is simple. He’s a god of human devising, the kind of god who can’t save himself, let alone those who put their faith in him—the kind of god that people all over the world, in every country in every century, have managed to create for themselves—a god who can’t help them because he doesn’t really exist.

The great Russian writer Dostoevsky said that human beings must worship something, anything, and whatever we worship—money, fame, power, celebrities—these things become our gods, our idols, the things we look up to. We sell our souls for them and they become the focus of our lives. And the problem with idolatry is that we never rise higher than the idols we worship. In fact, we become like the idols we worship, and that’s a pretty scary thought when you consider some of the people whom we consider to be idols.

That brings me to our subject for today. We’re doing a series on the Ten Commandments and how those commandments still make sense for life in the 21st century. Some people have come to the conclusion that not only are the Ten Commandments outdated and outmoded, but we don’t really need any kind of moral code for modern life. Instead, people are saying that we can just follow our own conscience and do what it says. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the famous French thinker, wrote this:

“O Conscience! Conscience! thou divine instinct, thou certain guide of an ignorant and confined, though intelligent and free being;—thou infallible judge of good and evil, who makest man to resemble the Deity.”

What was Rousseau saying? He was saying our own minds are powerful enough to form our own moral code, and that essentially makes us our own gods. And that kind of thinking is very popular today. After all, we’ve been living in what some people call the post-modern era, an era where we all get to march to the beat of a different drummer, where everybody can follow the dictates of whatever resonates with us personally. Each culture, each society, each individual is different. And so working from different premises, from different backgrounds, we can’t really pass judgment on the actions of others. We just do what we think is right.

That kind of thinking creates some real sticky problems. Maybe you read about that woman in Denver who murdered her own grandchild because she says she was getting spiritual messages from the geese that were flying above her head. She said the geese told her to do it. And so following her own conscience, her own sense of right and wrong, she followed the instructions. Now, I know what some of you are thinking. That’s a pretty harsh example, and it doesn’t really fit in to what happens in most people’s lives. And you’re right. It is a bit extreme. But it makes a good point we shouldn’t ignore.

You see, let me give you another example. And this one sounds a little more rational and reasonable. Listen to this famous quotation:

“If there is a God, then he gives us not only life but also consciousness and awareness. If I live my life according to my God-given insights, then I cannot go wrong, and even if I do, I know that I have acted in good faith.”

Now, that sounds reasonable, right? That’s a logical way to live your life. If you just listen to your heart and follow what your conscience tells you, then you can’t go wrong. And frankly, if you have a good internal guide to get you through life, then you don’t need a set of rules like the Ten Commandments. Just one tiny problem with that kind of thinking—that wonderful, rational quote about following the dictates of your conscience came from the mind of Adolf Hitler. And there are very few people who would argue that he was right.

There’s just no question. Human beings need a moral code that’s outside themselves and their individual cultures, and we have one in the Ten Commandments—a set of laws developed by the Creator. And one of those commandments, the one I want you to focus on today, says this (Exodus 20:4-6):

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—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 nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and forth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Now I know what some people are thinking. Just how relevant is that commandment today? How many people still bow down and worship graven images, especially here in Western civilization? How many of us still know people who bow down and worship images of frogs or goats? And how many of us actually know a pagan sun worshiper?

Now, that’s not actually the point. Anything that becomes the complete focus of our lives—anything that becomes the supreme object of our love and devotion, anything that rules our souls and comes before the God who created us—becomes an idol, the very thing that God warns us about. And the reason He gives us a warning is because worshiping idols will eventually devastate us morally and spiritually.

In the history of ancient Israel, the Hebrews were surrounded by idolatrous nations, people who made images of animals, fish or birds, and then they worshiped these idols. And I can’t help but think that that kind of worship led directly to the kinds of horrible moral practices associated with those people, things like temple prostitution and child sacrifices. I mean, if the god you worship is an animal—a goat, a fish, a bird—do you really think you’re going to rise to a higher moral plane than that animal? If your highest ideal is a goat, bull or fish, you’re just not reaching for the highest moral ground.

Now, again, I don’t know anyone who actually worships the idols of Dagon, the ancient fish god of the Canaanites. But I do know a lot of people who worship idols like Andrew Jackson, George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. And, of course, I’m not really talking about famous presidents. I’m talking about the portraits of these men on our money.

You know, Americans were shocked by the Enron scandal, which led to the loss of billions of dollars because of the sheer greed of men who had already a lot of money to start with. Ken Lay, Andrew Fastow, Jeffrey Skilling—even though they were already richer than most of us can imagine, apparently they still didn’t have enough. Now, to be honest, I don’t really know their hearts. But it’s hard to deny that for a lot of people, money does become an all-consuming god. We’ll throw out our honesty, our morality, our fiscal responsibility, all for the sake of the money god. And usually, a lot of people get hurt in the process. Please, don’t miss this important point. Listen to the second commandment, and focus on the last few lines in particular. Here it is (Exodus 20:4-6):

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—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 nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and forth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”

Now, some of this commandment has really confused a lot of people, but it’s not really talking about God punishing someone for something their grandpa did. This is talking about the impact, the results of sins that reach across time and hurt the lives of other people, even three or four generations later. Imagine the suffering that the Enron executives’ families have had to live with, and how many years they’re going to have to pay the consequences for the things that happened. And while it’s really easy for us to pick on money, it’s not the only idol out there.

We have this special talent for making idols out of anything. Agrippina, the mother of the ancient Roman emperor Nero, went to an oracle to ask about the future of her boy, and the oracle told her Nero would become the emperor of Rome. Before Agrippina could get too excited, however, the oracle continued and said that young Nero would become emperor, but after he did, he would kill his own mother. And history tells us that Agrippina, so thirsty for power over the empire, said, “Well, let him kill me. As long as he gets to rule.”

Do you see what bad spiritual priorities are going to do? I once read about professional bodybuilders vying for the Mr. Universe title. They were asked by pollsters that if there was a pill that could guarantee them the title, would they take it? Even if the pill would kill them three years later? And I know it’s hard to believe, but half of them said they would. And that really amounts to idolatry—having the wrong priorities and selling your soul for them. No wonder the Bible says what it does (1 John 2:15-17):

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”

Let me ask you, what exactly are idols, except just things of this world? Empty, useless things that don’t deserve our worship. Now, I don’t pretend to see things like God does, but I imagine that worshiping money, or power, or prestige, or science or Elvis—those things probably seem just as foolish as worshiping statues of cats or bulls. In the book of Isaiah, the Lord had these words for idolators (Isaiah 44:6):

“…I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me, there is no god.”

And later on in that chapter (Isaiah 44:13-17):

“The craftsman stretches out his rule, he marks one out with chalk; he fashions it with a plane, he marks it out with the compass, and makes it like the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house. He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak; he secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it and warm himself; yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; indeed he makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image, and then falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire; with this half he eats meat; he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, ‘Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.’ And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”

Did you follow that? In the end, if you worship something or someone other than God, that’s all you’ve got. Is a statue of a bull going to save you from sickness or death and destruction? Is the statue of a frog going to raise you from the grave on the morning of the resurrection? Is the statue of a goddess going to give you the promise of eternal life?

Even though those things are ancient history, it’s really not much different today. What’s Madonna going to do for you when your child dies? What’s money, fame or power—all the things that people idolize—what are they going to do on your deathbed when all your vital signs are fading fast? What are you going to say? Where are you going to turn? How are you going to pray? “Save me, wealth. After all, I gave my life to you. Save me, power. Look at how I worshiped you. Save me, success. I devoted my whole existence to you. Save me, Elvis. Save me, Madonna. Save me, Tom Cruise…”

Do you see the point? In the end, wealth, power, Madonna and Tom Cruise are no different than the statues of wood and stone worshiped by the pagans. They’re just worldly things. And it’s all going to pass away. That’s why the Lord calls us away from worshiping idols. He calls us to worship Him instead, the Life giver. The one who created us, sustains us, and offers us eternal life through Jesus, his Son. And then you have something you can stake your future on. The book of Isaiah says (Isaiah 43:11):

“I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no savior.”

And that’s the whole point. There is no savior besides the Lord Jesus Christ, and He alone can bring you the promise of life at the end of the age. He’s the only one who can bring your loved ones back from the grave. And He’s the only one who sacrificed Himself on the cross for you. And that’s why only God should be worshiped.

Now here is the good news. Right now, it’s not too late to shift your focus and create new priorities that can literally save your life. Walk away from the idols, and let God spare you from the heartache and devastation that they’re eventually going to bring. Give your heart back to God, and I guarantee you’re going to find out what it really means to live.

Let me ask you a big question. Who are you really worshiping? And is it making your life any better? Why not give your heart back to Jesus Christ today? Let’s pray about it together.

PRAYER:
Father in heaven, it’s so easy to get distracted in this world, so easy to set our eyes on the wrong things, and then when trouble comes, we’ve got nobody to lean on. Take our eyes off this world and put them back on you. Teach us to lean on Jesus so we can learn to have life, and have it more abundantly. For we pray it in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Scriptures Used in “The Idolators”

“You shall not make for yourself a carved image—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 nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and forth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.”
—Exodus 20:4-6

“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever.”
—1 John 2:15-17

“…I am the First and I am the Last; besides Me, there is no god.”
—Isaiah 44:6

“The craftsman stretches out his rule, he marks one out with chalk; he fashions it with a plane, he marks it out with the compass, and makes it like the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man, that it may remain in the house. He cuts down cedars for himself, and takes the cypress and the oak; he secures it for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a pine, and the rain nourishes it. Then it shall be for a man to burn, for he will take some of it and warm himself; yes, he kindles it and bakes bread; indeed he makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image, and then falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire; with this half he eats meat; he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, ‘Ah! I am warm, I have seen the fire.’ And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”
—44:13-17

“I, even I, am the Lord, and besides Me there is no savior.”
—Isaiah 43:11