Idolatry
In this session we look at substitutes that are made in man's life that offer false fulfillment and take our eyes off the One we are meant to be looking to.
Before we look at this section, please pause and answer the questions:
- What is an idol?
- When we stop worshipping God what happens?
- Name some of the false idolatrous systems we find in the Bible
- What are some of the results of worshipping false idols?
- Are all people religious? Explain your answer.
Idols
When we cease to worship God we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.
G. K. Chesterton
- What is an idol? An idol is anything within the created order that is worshiped, or put forward as a substitute for God.
- Therefore an idol can be anything from a physical object to finance, property, people's heroes, thought patterns and so forth. In all of these things man seeks to put something in God's place to fill the vacuum left by God's exclusion. Perhaps we should all spend a little time thinking about what we may have put in place of God at times during our life.
- We need to remember that an idol is a counterfeit; it is a lie, and is deceives us concerning what it is and what it does
- For example I may wrongly assume that earning £150,000 a year will solve all my worries. If I serve this thought I am serving a lie and become enslaved to it. In seeking to serve my 'idol' I end up distancing myself from family and loved ones, since I am so busy getting to the place where I earn £150,000 a year. In other words such servitude to a lie can have the opposite effect on my life: It destroys the very life I think I am building.
- One of the reasons we have so many books on counseling and codependency is because our belief system (our idol) has not produced the results it should have and so we try all the harder to achieve them. We may be trying to work out how to get to our goal, without realizing that the goalposts are in the wrong place already. For example:
- On a national scale this can be seen in the field of sex education. The goal is to reduce the number of teenage pregnancies by making young people more aware of contraception and how to avoid sexually transmitted diseases. Yet the result has been an increase in teenage pregnancy because it does not teach the child to say, 'no.'
- Yet what are we then told by the media? We are told that sex education has failed, not because it is wrong, but because it has not been taught early enough in a child's development. Think of a business that operated along these lines. How long is it going to last when, after failure, it applies exactly the same principles time and time again.
these idols have promised life, but are death-dealing, anti-human, and constricting. It seems to be exactly this role-reversal that the Psalmist has in mind when in discussing idolatry he writes, 'those who make them will be like them and so will all who trust in them' (Psalm 115:8). The idol begins as a means to power, enabling us to control, but then overpowers, controlling us.
No God But God, page 45. Ed. Oz Guinness & J. Steel
- Cain was an idolater in that he sought to make God in his image. He lived as his own reference point concerning how life should be lived. In his mind Cain 'built' his own idol concerning what God was really like. Cain's idolatry reveals several issues that we all have to face.
- These issues include self-centeredness, self-deception and thinking of oneself more highly than one should.
Functionally, gods - whether in India, Greece, Canaan, or Israel - are not so much independent entities as they are projections of man's search for significance and meaning.
A Light Unto My Path. O.T. Studies in Honour of Jacob Myers, p75
Cain believed in one God
- Cain was a monotheist, and all the earliest belief systems across the ANE reveal ancient man as initially being monotheistic. However when we find information being added to God's revelation of Himself we see that men often ended up worshiping their own picture of God, and not the original One given in grace and mercy by their heavenly Father.
- Throughout scripture we see that it is very easy for all of us to end up building our own picture of God when we say such things as, 'God won't really mind' when we are doing something wrong, or 'God doesn't love me' simply because things have not gone our way.
- One example of monotheistic belief in the ANE is found early Egyptian history in the Hymn of Aton about an Egyptian king who tried to make all Egyptians worship the one god Aton. The hymn speaks of Aton as the one who is far above creation and who created all humans, plants and animals. This would be a corruption of the truth taught through Noah cornering what God is really like
- Through the fall man has become an idol-worshipper. As already stated, an idol is anything in creation that takes the place of God (even self!), and idolatry is simply worship of that idol. In the Ancient Near East this idol, or idols, were usually represented by images made of wood, metal or stone.
- In all these systems we see how fallen man strives to find meaning and purpose in life, and gain some sort of security or power over those around him and the environment in which he often feels so vulnerable. For example in Egypt things such as the rivers and all manner of creature were deified (as was Pharaoh), as the Egyptians sought to control their environment.
- When Israel left Egypt she did so with all manner of false teaching imprinted on her mind. Those she had lived amongst for hundreds of years had influenced Israel.
- In combining this wrong thinking with feelings of insecurity and vulnerability some Israelites ended up making a golden calf. They believed this calf, was the god who brought them out of Egypt (see Nehemiah 9:17-18). This image then gave them (albeit briefly) a feeling of security. In reality it was a projection of their thinking ( and that which had subtly been imposed upon them) which ultimately would lead to destruction.
- Today we see many people 'sacrificing' themselves to things, which they believe, will give them meaning and significance and the feel-good factor that so many strive for.
Men and women nonetheless strive to exhibit a special meaning in their individual lives, to establish themselves as personally unconventional and unique and therefore irreducible to the mass in which all selves become but statistical averages. The artist seeks to set reality to a new symphony of colour and melody; the scientist to unveil the still hidden secrets of cosmic behaviour.Men will sacrifice everything for a career or profession that dignifies life with prominence and meaning, and subordinate all else to it, pitifully unaware how much this idolatry ultimately mirrors their deepest self-interest.
Prof C. Henry in God, Revelation and Authority, Vol 1. P142
How the Ancient Babylonians viewed Idols
- In cultures, such as the early Babylonian culture, it was thought that each idol was a favour granted by the gods as a sign that they were interested in the community.
- In this sense idols were sometimes seen as theophanies (god or gods in physical form) since they could now be approached.
- The idols were sometimes washed and clothed and fed by the priests. The god represented 'ate' the spiritual essence of the food and the priests then disposed of the rest. The same practices can be found amongst some Buddhists and Hindus today.
- The Babylonians believed the gods had created them to be their servants. Worship of these 'gods' would often begin with a meal and sacrifices were often made - even human sacrifice.
- In understanding this we see how the story of Abraham and Isaac (whom he was initially asked to sacrifice) is unlike any other story in the Ancient Near East. In the events that occurred Abraham learnt that this God who had called him was not like other gods - he provided His own sacrifice.
- As we have been saying, throughout history we see a problem that we can all so easily face today: Man builds his own picture of God. This 'God' of his imagination becomes easy to ignore, as other things are brought into take the place of God. Note, for example, the story of Manassah.
He rebuilt the high places his father Hezekiah had destroyed; he also erected altars to Baal and made an Asherah pole, as Ahab king of Israel had done. He bowed down to all the starry hosts and worshiped them. He built altars in the temple of the Lord, of which the Lord had said, 'In Jerusalem I will put my Name.' In both courts of the temple of the Lord, he built altars to all the starry hosts. He sacrificed his own son in the fire, practiced sorcery and divination, and consulted mediums and spiritists. He did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, provoking him to anger. 2 Kings 21:3-6
- As 2 Chronicles 33:10 says, God spoke to Manasseh and his people but they took no notice.
- Manasseh ended up alone in an enemy prison with a hook through his nose and bronze shackles on his feet. When he came to his senses and called out to the One true God, God restored him to his people.
- Manasseh had learned something that we pick up from the following scripture
And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God. 2 Chron 33:13
- What this verse is saying is that Manasseh now realised that the Lord (speaking of covenant relationship with Israel), was actually the God (Creator God) of the Universe.
- How many of us are imprisoned in our heart and mind because we serve false images of God and ignore God's revelation of Himself.
Back to the Exodus and release from idolatry
- During the time leading up to the Exodus the people of Israel were suffering the consequences of living under a false and therefore idolatrous belief system imposed by the Egyptians.
- Therefore, during God's dealings with Egypt we see the demands of God, the rightful king, to the ones who wanted all the glory and honour. God said, 'Let my people go' (Exodus 5:1).
- The devastating way in which God removed all that Egypt trusted in showed the Egyptians that He alone was the one true God. Even Pharaoh's magician's realised this: 'The magicians said to Pharaoh, 'This is the finger of God.' Exodus 8:19.
- As we get to know God He will help us break down and remove all the wrong thinking that we can often serve as one would an idol. For example, a person who always feels that they are useless lives as a useless person, whilst someone who wrongly believes no one cares for them will not be able to reach out to others who may be very close by. We all need God's help to break down these wrong thought patterns and come into the freedom that is ours through Christ.
- As Creator and King God gave the land of Canaan to Israel. Everything belonged to God and He had the right to dispose of it as He wished.
- Despite all the blessings given to Israel, called to be a light to all other nations, we find Israel constantly being drawn into pagan worship; but why?
- Because man is a worshipper created for covenant relationship, yet man is also a rebel. If we do not relate to God we will relate to something or someone else. Think about it!
Manipulation
- Although idols were worshipped (regarded as of value and worth) the worshippers often sought to manipulate the gods represented by the idols by good works. This was often done as a means of gaining power over others. For example it became very easy for a priest to deal with a person he or she didn't like purely because they said the gods wanted them to!
- In a more modern setting it became easier for Hitler to deal with the Jewish people when he followed the idolatrous thinking that said that blue-eyed blonde people were top of the evolutionary pile, so to speak.
- From all of this we see that idols were a power to be tapped into with man exploiting that power for his own ends. In reality the power was often no more than man's own power, yet at times the demonic was involved.
You shall have no other gods before me. Exodus 20:3
Unregenerate man may be very religions, millions are, but it is not knowledge of the true God that they desire, but a god or gods fashioned in their own image and likeness, either in one form or another, gods who pander to their pride by making salvation depend wholly on their own merits, or sacrifices which they provide - gods who do nothing to save men.
F.S. Copleston in, ' The Witness of the O.T. to Christ', page 139
A god who does my work
- In Jeremiah 10 God warned his people not to learn the ways of pagan nations, which, amongst other things, involved practices used to try and control life.
- God pointed out that their practices were worthless and that the false idols were like scarecrows. Through Jeremiah God says, 'Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm nor can they do any good.' (Jeremiah 10:5).
- A scarecrow is put in a field to keep birds off the crop. In a sense the scarecrow could be said to have a limited area over which it exercised 'power.' However, in reality it is the mind of the bird that is deceived into thinking a person is in the field; it is this, the power of the mind that keeps the birds out of the area in which the scarecrow is placed. In a modern day setting if you can get someone to believe that astrology works they are more likely to put themselves under the false authority of daily readings. What sort of thought patterns may we be under the control of today?
- Pagan idols, such as those of the Canaanites were used as a means of exercising power over others. In getting others to believe certain things to be true, the priesthood exercised the power of the individual's own mind to bring about what the priest wanted.
- One of the problems Israel had, and indeed any believer is that they often gave power to that which had no power, and saw God in the way the imaginations of their own hearts painted him. Seeing they did not see and hearing they did not hear.
Jeremiah pictures a tame god, a user-friendly god, who exists by human manufacture, is at human disposal, and is under human control. The god would never rebuke, warn, threaten, or talk back.
No God But God, p 38. Ed Prof Oz Guinness & J. Seel
In the Ancient Near East we see that the fabrication and worship of false gods always resulted in a different set of laws, ethical codes and ways in which individuals viewed and treated one another - even members of their own family. This can be clearly seen in the following passage about the people in Sodom.
Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom - both young and old - surrounded the house. They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them." Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him and said, "No, my friends. Don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don't do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof. Genesis 19:4-8
Think about it. Who would want to live in a society based on the way people viewed others in Sodom, or upon the ethical codes of the Pharaoh's or Jezebel?
You shall have no other gods before me.' For any 'other god' would result in a different ethic. Israel found this when they went after Baal. Did they really want a society based on the ethics of Jezebel? Or, if they truly believed what they protested to Elijah at Mount Carmel, that 'Yahweh, he is God,' then let him strive for a society that mirrored his justice.'
Dr. C. Wright in O.T. Ethics For The People Of God, p 47
None of us would want to live under the idolatrous systems of such people as Jezebel, yet many of us may be living under the domination of wrong thinking and a wrong view concerning what God is really like. We may be leaning on that which is not God. We may have priorities that damage our relationship with God and destroy the very life we think we are building.
How a community is recognised
In the ANE a communities belief systems were not initially seen on paper (or pottery or papyrus!!) but in the nature and character of the people that they systems produced.
By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matt 7:16-20
- So how should a church be recognised in the community? First and foremost a church should be recognised by the character of her people that points clearly to the work of Christ.
- Do we really know what God is like, or are we simply someone who believes in God yet goes no further that this: 'I know he's out there somewhere.' Believing in this way doesn't really get us very far (James 2:19)
- Throughout scripture we see God revealing Himself in ways that encourages people to go beyond belief to really understanding and putting their trust in God.
- We are called to place our trust in God, and to actively engage with our heavenly Father recognising that His word is true. The warning to all of us is seen throughout scripture when we see how easily people slip into outward lip service with no inner substance.
I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! Amos 5:21-14
Real biblical faith is the opposite of unconcern, because faith embraces and acts upon what it finds to be true.
Commenting of the famous slogan of Augustine: 'I believe in order that I may know.' Here faith is understood not as an alternative to knowledge but as the pathway to knowledge. We do not come to know anything except by believing something. We have to begin by believing the evidence of our senses, the veracity of our teachers and the validity of the traditions into which we are seeking apprenticeship.we have to begin with an openness to a reality greater than ourselves in relation to which we are not judges but pupils.
Faith and Modernity, ed P. Sampson, V. Samuel and C. Sugden, p 61
Are we really open to the God of the Bible?
Now go back and look how you answered your questions. Can you add anything else to your answers? Has this session made you question your priorities? What have you learnt about the God who helped Manasseh when Manasseh humbled himself?