Idolatry

Let's pray together Heavenly Father, we thank you for today. We thank you that Even though many of us are finding our lives very pressured right now with papers to write and Classes to complete and exams to prepare for farther you are sufficient for every need and challenge that we face and far more than sufficient You have promised that in our weakness you will be made strong and we thank you for that promise. We Write them on our hearts. We pray and Father we Pray that you will be with us now help us to think clearly and faithfully in a chord with your word We ask in Jesus name our men

Okay, we were talking about deism very rapidly in class the other day and I just want to finish that section off very quickly Here before we turn to our study of idolatry today, and again, we're going to go fairly class in our class And I'll explain the notes of giving you. I have by the way emailed

To your trusty servant here a copy of the outline on deism and if people want them on

In electronic format I'll also email forward a copy of the Complete notes on deism if you'd like those on your computer. I Sent as well this morning a copy of this outline on idolatry So you should be getting those sometime in the next few days now at the end of class we were talking about Vanger signals with an evangelicalism at the present time and the steady drift towards deism in some parts of the church. I Want to finish that discussion of deism by pointing out first some areas for communication some bridges for the deist and And then to say just a little bit about some of the problems some of the areas to challenge the deist That late for your papers now, but that's Okay, I'm sure you came up with these yourselves anyway. Those of you who are writing to a deist No, I have confidence in you all that's First just some Bridges and I just mentioned a couple of things here Obviously the acknowledgement that there is a God is The most basic bridge just as it was the Paul when he was speaking to the people in Athens Secondly Most because many of those who are deists regard themselves as Christian at least in some way they have some respect for the Bible Though they won't regard it as the infallible word of God, but they have some respect for it and They have some respect for the person of Christ even though they may have very vague ideas about who he truly was and

They will also Have some respect at least for the second half of the ten commandments for those are some areas of bridging In fact, if you look back at the basic beliefs of deism That we went over at the very end of class last time Each one of those gives you some kind of bridging point where you can start to communicate But these three or four things I've just mentioned is some of the most important where you're really going to more readily gain a hearing in terms of the problems The first area of problem or challenge you can raise is the whole issue of comparative religions As I pointed out to you The statistics today are something like 70 to 80 percent of the members of almost all mainline churches Believe that all religions lead to God and that religions are all basically the same This was of course the view of Lord Herbert as well going right back to the origins of deism But it simply isn't true That all religions are the same. That's a very superficial Understanding of the great religions of the world the Religions as the more carefully you look at them and treat them at least with some respect you'll see that they have very different views of God

Christianity Declare is that God is personal As well as infinite most of those who belong to Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism if they believe in God at all think of him as Not him at all, but impersonal They tend to be pantheistic now there are some Hindus are monotheistic Harry Krishnas for example monotheistic but there is a radical distinction between that the personal try and God of Christianity and the impersonal

God is in everything of the great majority of Hindus and of many Buddhists Some Buddhists atheists especially if you look into Zen

Some Christians teach that God is absolutely one. I mean some religions teach that God is absolutely one like Islam and Judaism many ordinary hinders and Buddhists think of there being many many gods they're like the pagans of Lister in the first century and

Christianity have taught across teachers that God is Trinity Three persons in one Godhead There are radical differences about the character of God the attributes of God Christianity teaches that God has a very particular character of

love and justice and mercy and kindness in Islam the love of God and The mercy of God God tends to recede Because God is absolutely one So it's difficult for the Muslim to hold on to God being truly personal and truly loving in Hinduism in particular God has no particular Distinctives or character God is light and darkness good and evil kindness and cruelty Carly the God of destruction and Death is always represented with skulls and Hinduism skulls around her neck God is the reconciliation of all opposites in any pantheistic religion He has no particular character

Religions have different views of the sovereignty of God God is imminent Only with us and within us and so on there are many different views of God in different religions and these different views of God lead to very differing views of What our dilemma is is human persons and who we are as human persons Biblical Christianity teaches that our fundamental problem is a moral problem that we are rebels against God but in all new age religion Our problem is a problem of perception Not of our sin For the new age our problem is that we have forgotten that we are God That's our problem. It's not sin at all and Of course these different views of the human dilemma lead to different views of salvation and Religions have radically different views of the meaning of history at the most basic points The great religions of the world are very different from each other It's only at a very superficial level that they can be considered similar and where we do find similarities with Christianity It's usually because the religion is a Christian heresy Like Islam or the Jehovah's Witness religion or Mormonism They are Departures historically from Christianity. They are heresies Which have gone in particular directions that's a first area of problem a second is the source of truth and knowledge

Where do we find knowledge? How do we know? How do we discern truth and

again religions have very different views here? Christianity declares that God has spoken to us for the deist the ultimate source of the knowledge of the universe and of God is human reason and the moral conscience and This eventually leads to skepticism and uncertainties. So this is a secondary one where one can challenge the deist What is the source of truth and knowledge the source the deist points to is one which leads in the end to complete ignorance? There are two fundamental problems with claiming that human beings are the source of truth and knowledge the first is that we are finite

And therefore we can never be sure whether we know clearly and perfectly It's the problem that postmodernism Ressles with praises back to the very beginning of the semester the second problem is that we are sinners all of our knowledge Is clouded by the sins of pride and Many many other sins you know this very well if you think about your response to other people or your response to God Your knowledge is clouded by your sin and all sorts of ways a Third area of challenge is simply the question about who is God for the deist Basically the deist is making a God who is suitable for the person They are deciding who God is and When only has to give this a little thought to recognize how absurd this is we have no freedom to decide who God is He either is or he isn't and he is who he is and of course, that's how he reveals himself to us. I am who I am He reveals himself to Moses God is who he is not what anybody wants him to be and it's one of the follies when you see these Surveys of famous people what they think about God who their God is usually their God is simply a blown up image of themselves It's actually What you get car barred Put it that way himself. He's talking about liberal theologians in the 19th century and he said they looked down 1900 years of history Down to the bottom of the well to the face of Christ and they saw really their own faces staring up from the bottom And that's a Perfectly appropriate Description of the deist as well The deist view of God is simply a kind of blown up image of who they would really like to be themselves But basically the deist makes God less threatening more comfortable less demanding He asks less of us and That's easier for us to cope with A fourth challenge is who are we? What is a human person the deist in denying Christianity loses the foundation for affirming true human dignity

Christianity gives us a wonderful account of our Humanity both in our glory as the image of God and in our shame as rebels and sinners a fifth Area of challenge is the question of what is good conduct? In the end the deist in rejecting biblical Christianity has undermined the possibility of being able to define What is good and what is evil and this of course is one of the most fundamental problems of the culture in which we live And the deist finds themselves in this same dilemma of The loss of moral certainty and a final problem number six and that is the deist has no way whatsoever of dealing with sin and

Making ourselves acceptable to God God is the source of our distinction between good and evil and is perfect and We are left with a problem Of how can we make ourselves acceptable to him? Now gone through that very quickly my apologies for that we yeah I want to turn that to the issue of idolatry and You'll see there on the outline up on the screen that I've called idolatry the home of the unbelieving heart Deism leads naturally to practical idolatry One way to put it very simply was the God is that would be that the God of deism is a far God Dick Kies up a Librean Massachusetts uses this expression the God of deism is a far God and We all need something near to worship and Because the God of deism isn't anybody you can really worship then the human heart and will will find something else to worship and Deism leads naturally to idolatry and The idolatry of some part of creation is one of the most fundamental problems of the culture in which we live and one of the primary areas where You can challenge people And so what I want to do today is to do a very rapid Study of idolatry I've given you full notes today and if anybody hasn't got them there if anyone not got these notes on idolatry who came in late Okay There's some more up here if you don't But I've given you full notes of the first section of what I want to say and that is just a kind of brief look at Romans at chapter one and two Where Paul addresses the issue of idolatry So I'm going to divide this study of idolatry into three sections go through the first section very fast because you've got these notes in front of you which you can refer to and read through Romans 118 through 216 yourself One of the interesting things about the letter of the Romans is that it's quite different from any of the other new testament to Pistols because it's setting out some of the most basic doctrines in detail Paul is laying out For the Romans the gospel that he proclaims and the reason that he's doing this is because he hasn't been there In all the other churches to which he writes him the new testament He's been there himself and made the foundation for them by proclaiming the gospel and In its form this so the other letters are dealing with particular questions and troubles that The church is wrestling with When Paul writes to the Romans that's not really the situation He is writing to a church there are particular issues. He deals with of course that he's heard about by letter and By people from people like Priscilla and Aquila who he knows well who have been there But the gospel has never been there he is laying an apostolic foundation and Proclaiming the gospel that he believes and that's how he expresses it in Romans 116 and 17 That he's not ashamed of the gospel of Christ It is the power of God to salvation for the Jew first and also for the Gentile and then from verse 18 onwards He's set of chapter 1. He's set set the gospel that he proclaims and What's very interesting to us and it mirrors precisely? Of course what we see in Paul's address the Athenians He starts Romans by dealing with the issue of idolatry and Rebellion against God and worshiping other things. That's where he begins this section of Romans which of course is where he started with his address the Athenians. That's where he challenged them here He's writing to believers in the church But because there are many Gentiles in the congregations this at least half a dozen congregations in the church at Rome and You see this at the end of the letter in chapter 16 where Paul lists Perhaps half a dozen has churches. That's what he's doing when he Gives that list of names of people He's listening half a dozen listening half doesn't has churches in Rome. Oh

Paul is Writing this to both Jewish and Gentile believers and so he begins with the issue of idolatry He doesn't begin with a person of Christ, but with the knowledge of God and With the issue of idolatry and that's of course where often we're going to begin today in the culture where we are because Almost everyone around us is an idolatry in some form or other and Is suppressing the true knowledge of God. So that's where Paul begins now. He makes Five basic points in this section on idolatry Number one God has revealed himself to the whole of the human race He has made himself known to everyone He says that very plainly at the beginning of that section from verse 18 onwards that Paul's basically answering the charge that because you can't see God. We really don't know anything about him and Paul says God has made himself clearly known and this is true for every human being They are all faced with this clear declaration of the knowledge of God and He tells us three things that can be known about God From his revelation of himself in the creative universe His eternal power as the creator it is evident to everyone that this is a created universe and It's remarkable in this Country despite the teaching of evolution in the schools for generations The overwhelming majority of Americans still believe in some form of creation It may be mixed with evolutionary ideas, but in the end they believe it had to be started by God no matter what they're taught And no matter what they hear on the radio and read in the paper and see on the television over and over again So God's eternal power as the creator secondly God's divine nature that there is a supreme being who has existence in himself and Thirdly God's moral nature Paul says they know God's righteous decree Everyone understands that this is a moral universe that there is a distinction between good and evil People may be morally relativist or say they are but in the end everyone makes clear Distinctions between right and wrong at some point in their lives and I Point here to the illustration that Francis safer used to use of excellent illustration and He used this talking about Romans one Paul is making the point that all of us Every human being you'll ever meet no matter how much they say there are moral relativist Will constantly be making moral judgments of other people and Shae for uses the image of it's as if every individual had a tape recorder around their neck Just imagine yourself a little tape recorder around your neck and the only thing that tape recorder recorded was Was the moral criticisms you made of other people? whether if let's say If you are a liberal Democrat your criticisms of Present president George Bush or if you are a conservative republican your criticisms of Bill Clinton Just think of all those criticisms that people make and the criticisms of people around us of Members of our own family Of neighbors even a friend's of fellow students of your faculty Anybody you like to criticize just think of that tape recorder automatically recording every criticism you ever make of another person in your mind or verbally and Shae for makes the point all God is going to have to do on the day of judgment is to press the playback button and You are going to be condemned out of your own math That's the reality for every one of us and This underlines the fact that we all make Distinctions clear distinctions between good and evil We are accountable to God So that's course first major point here Then clear knowledge of God that is present for every human being You're never going to meet somebody who is not constantly confronted with God's revelation of himself That's the point the poor makes to the pagans in Listera and in Athens Secondly, people have no excuse for not worshipping God God's revelation of himself is absolutely clear Our human problem is not ignorance Just think of the way Sam 19 expresses it the clarity of God's revelation of himself day after day pause fourth speech That's how Sam 19 puts it night after night declares knowledge There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard Their voice has gone out through all the world their words to the ends of the earth The Samist could not possibly put it more strongly The human problem is not ignorance of The existence of God of his supreme power or divine nature or his moral authority That's not the human problem people may say it is but that's not their problem and

Again a series of thoughts sub points here the vast majority of people acknowledged that there is a God No matter how passionately atheism is taught we have lived in a Society that has taught secular worldview for generations and Yet well over 90% of Americans continue to believe there is a God Regardless of what they are taught

Secondly here be even the minority who are Committed atheists spend their lives fighting against God It's one of the fascinating things they protest too much a third point here when see the problem is not ignorance It is a willful refusal to acknowledge God. That's how Paul expresses it. They suppress the truth in Unrighteousness. That's how Paul states it They did not think it was worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God. They refused to have God in their knowledge It's as if every human being has the knowledge of God constantly arising in their hearts and they are doing all they can to press it down and try to avoid that revelation and Pointee there they refused to give thanks to God and worship him By Paul says to the people in mystery every day God gives you your food and your crops in their seasons The sun the rain he fills your hearts with joy You constantly have good gifts some gods hand and yet you refuse to give thanks to him or worship him Point three Paul makes in every culture people claim wisdom for their own ideas and

Just roll down on this in this outline here. We're getting ahead of it, but you've got it in front of you, so that doesn't matter too much and You will get it on your computer. The claim to wisdom in Every culture All cultures claim wisdom For their own ideas about the universe about what is true about God They develop their own wisdom Their own world view But Paul says pointee these ideas are actually empty. They are vain They claim to be wise, but they are really folly They are simply an invention of the human mind People's views of God are simply an invention of the human mind That's all they are So he said they became fools. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. He talks about people having a depraved mind It's not just our wills that it preved or Our emotional makeup. It's our minds. That's the human condition People think evil things Paul says elsewhere that they are alienated from God in their understanding Pointee their hearts are also foolish Their hearts become darkened with folly and this is because of The kind of devotion they indulge in rather than the worship of God and that leads us to point four The folly of idolatry This folly of both heart and mind is demonstrated by idolatry and

Because people are innately religious they all worship something and Paul talks about the worship of oneself as a human being a worship of humanity and of other parts of creation and Three points here pointee we may worship actual idols Images of some part of creation like the statue of Diana in Ephesus or of Athena or whoever in the city of Athens We may worship some part of creation directly Like the Sun or the moon or material possessions Our sexuality whatever or we may worship Humanity in some form I may worship myself as an individual I May worship some hero lots of people's Idol is not McGuire Or all sorts of other people out there sports figures film stars musicians and singers Or they may worship the nation There's lots of people who have fundamentally a civil religion and Whose idol is the United States or whatever other nation they are a part of So they are exchanging Paul says the glory of the immortal God For something which is worthless in comparison and then point five Paul goes on to say that The folly of idolatry is further demonstrated by the moral consequences of not worshipping God and Paul in the second half of Romans one the latter part of Romans one talks about those moral consequences That Wherever people turn away from God Paul says God gives them over to But to pray mine to do what ought not to be done That's the practical reality part of God's the present revelation of God's wrath People don't just face the future revelation of God's judgment They have to live daily with the constant reality of God's judgment revealed in the present Paul says God's wrath is being revealed now against all Godlessness of People whenever they turn away from God God will give them over to Immorality, that's the consequence and he says that three times to talk about the present reality of God's judgment and Paul picks on First of all the issue of the breakdown of sexual morality One of the first indicators of false religion is the breakdown of the family of Chastity and of fidelity in marriage and Paul expresses that both in terms of radical sexual promiscuity and also homosexual behavior and Then he goes on to say be that that moral breakdown that Revelation of God's wrath in the present is also demonstrated by people being given up to every other kind of sin as well And he gives a an appalling list a shocking list of The kind of sins that people are involved in And one final point there we may add this point C That the closer any religion is to the truth the less moral breakdown there will be Because any element of the truth acts as a kind of break or a constraint on

Human Immorality and disobedience So let's say for example, you're a confusion and You have a very strong conviction that there is a moral order to life to the universe that's going to act as a break as a constraint on human sin or if you Passionately believe that there is one God to whom you're accountable like an orthodox Jew or Committed Muslim that's going to act as a break on all kinds of sin Certainly won't make people righteous But any element of the truth is going to act as a constraint on sin Now those are five of the basic points that Paul makes of add the nature of idolatry And that leads us to a second area of study and here I'll go through this in a little more detail that it's gonna have to be quick How idolatry works and you have no notes here, so I'm just going to use this outline Which again you'll be getting On your computers those of you who have that now as you Think About this issue of idolatry People have the knowledge of God, but they refuse to acknowledge him, refuse to worship him and Develop their own religion in place of worshiping God It is that Turning away from God That leads inevitably to idolatry because people have to live their life for something God has set eternity in our hearts The people have a longing To worship something now Here we might I want us to think about The nature of idolatry today We can break religious needs down in three basic ways in three basic ways number one Everyone has a need for an explanation of life They have a need of the mind Every human person needs to have some account of the world of who they are as human persons of what Life is for every Culture on the face of the earth has such an account we might say every culture has a story a story which explains And gives meaning and order to life This is true for every culture It's true for every individual to some degree Everyone has a story that tells them What life is about Now as Christians Who have bowed before God by the work of his spirit in our hearts and minds. We have come to know that God's word is the truth That God gives us the true account of reality The true account of who he is of who we are of what our problem is and what his resolution to that problem is and Where our history is ultimately going? The creed Any statement of faith is simply an Account a brief setting out of that story What we believe about the nature of the universe and of God and about ourselves That's the first Fundamental need that all human beings have a need for an account which makes some sense of the world secondly Everyone has an emotional need a need for emotional Satisfaction and commitment That's true for every person you will ever meet

Everyone has the need for rituals You think of the rituals that every family has it Christmas Whether they're believers or not For traditions Everyone has the need to give honor and praise to something and Receive the emotional satisfaction that arises from this Everyone has a need for worship to see something as the source of joy in their lives the source of joy and emotional satisfaction You might say everybody gives thanks to something That's The emotional need What does somebody think as the source of satisfaction in their life? Now again for us as Christians

Catechism puts it this way That we have been created to glorify God and to enjoy him forever That's how our emotional need is truly met By knowing God To worship him to enjoy him To find fulfillment in knowing him Impraising him and thanking him for all the gifts of life There is a third Fundamental need and that is the need of the will Every human being you will ever meet has a need for Direction for their wills We all live for something we all have some purpose Around which we order our lives and make our Priorities we live in obedience to some organizing principle What do I live in obedience to what controls? My moral choices We all have something again God has created us to acknowledge him as our Lord and Master and judge He calls us to live in obedience to him Following his commandments walking in his ways and Finding fulfillment in our humanity as we do that's what we are created for to live in obedience to God To walk in our father's Footsteps, that's how the scripture puts it. This is the way God walks And that's the way we we are made to walk We've got to walk the walk is a thoroughly biblical expression Now the gospel brings all three of these deep needs of the human person together We might put it simply and say Christ is the way the truth and the life

The rational the emotional the volitional the mind the emotions and the will are all met in the worship Of God and we find the deepest possible satisfaction in that and that's what we're created for That's how the eternity which is set in our hearts and minds and wills is met Now what's happening in our culture today? What's happening in our culture today? For most people around us These three are split apart in some way We may have one idol of the mind and another of the heart and Will now in terms of the need of the mind The rational need point one here For most Americans as we saw in class on Tuesday and as you'll discover as you get to know people around you And as probably half of you at least wrote your papers for it'll be interesting to see to do it means to do a survey Of the proportion of the papers, but my guess is it's going to be about a half that usually is each year That at least a half maybe two-thirds of you will have written for somebody Who's basically a functional deist Most Americans who say they believe in a god are deists And that god is distant That god is a distant god Who certainly doesn't satisfy The needs of the heart or the will He's just there to give an explanation. He made it all We don't think it came about by chance So we think god is there and again I'm not going to go through these in detail But it's very rapidly because in looking at the beliefs of deism These are going to be basically the same A god is needed to start the world as a creator But there is no sense of god as provider or as ruler of creation or of the nations or of god acting in history That's completely missing In the minds of most of our contemporaries god is simply the distant god who made the world B god is unknown We can have no certain knowledge of him because he has not spoken to us in any kind of Word which is trustworthy So point B god is an unknown god We don't really know much about him The deist has no creed or formal set of beliefs And there's going to be no worship of him or love for him You can't really worship and love an unknown god Who is far away See there is no sense of god as judge In the sense that People around us do not think of themselves as accountable to god They may think of some extremely wicked people as being judged but not them

So one of the particular challenges in our culture that people have lost that sense of accountability to god Point D god is needed personally only for moments of crisis People will cry out to him when they're in need and they will blame him for the troubles in their life But they have no real expectation that god will intervene in their life or answer their prayers There are lots of people around you who pray in moments of need but they don't really expect god to do anything

There's sometimes sort of superstitious views there like quite a few of my neighbors Add in Baldwin and Manchester very statues of Joseph or Mary and they're of Joseph in their garden when they're going to try to sell their hats And that's a kind of form of prayer, but it's more like superstition than prayer

Point E some attend worship services A good proportion of the population still does some time to time And some will say formal or ritual prayers But their attendance at worship and their prayers are primarily for themselves They go to a worship service because maybe the music or the form of service gives them a lift Makes them feel a bit better But they have no real sense of communication with god It's one of the things that always surprises people when they meet a real Christian talking to one of you about this yesterday and they hear Christians pray it It really surprises people because They will never have heard somebody before many of them Who actually appears to be really talking to somebody they know And expecting some response and that's very surprising to people and very interesting to them too for many of them Point E they think all religions are the same and we won't go over that and many of them think that sort of real involvement in religion is the people who are kind of psychologically weak So children many men will say it's for women It's for needy people or people who have a religious nature I often have people say that to me Well, you're obviously a very religious person And I say no, I'm not at all I'm completely uninterested in religion in that sense I'm interested in truth and I don't have a particularly religious nature in fact. That's my problem At the deepest level Point G there is no word from god So there are no commandments to live by

But that god of deism is a distant god That brings us to point two Here the emotional need

the emotional need There are no commandments from god

Now point two the emotional need obviously deism creates a called formal religion Which does not satisfy the need for worship In any full way Though obviously there are people who go to church And who enjoy the ritual and the music And the beauty of liturgical worship All the intense emotional power Of some forms of contemporary worship But they think of it primarily simply as meeting a need rather than Actually worshiping god But people still have a god-shaped hole in their heart And they're going to meet that in all sorts of different ways and again a series of points here Point A one of the primary ways is through new age religion and spirituality

the great attraction for The vast millions of people in this country who Get involved in new age religion and spirituality Is the promise of emotional and spiritual satisfaction and peace as a search for inner peace For being at rest for being at peace with oneself and You read almost any new age book and that's what you're going to find the promises The promise of emotional and spiritual fulfillment and satisfaction point B For many people And this is true particularly for women human relationships Marriage and the family Are the primary means of meeting this emotional need

though if one sees One's marriage Or one's relationship with one's children one's children As what is going to give one ultimate Satisfaction One can very very easily destroy Marriage Or one's relationship with one's children the more demanding A person is of ultimate satisfaction in a human relationship The more many men are going to run away That lots of this going on around us And Many women will drive their children away By demanding too much of them The family marriage Relationships are beautiful gifts of God But if we turn them into the basis for our ultimate Realization of emotional satisfaction We can start destroying them Point C Sexual fulfillment Is Another way that some people try to meet This emotional need

Though there are diminishing Sexual returns and pleasure And wilder experimentation to give the same pleasure For those who try to find Their full emotional Satisfaction in sexuality And in the end they'll experience dissatisfaction and frustration

A fourth area here is the arts A particularly music Is the emotional idol for many people around us

Whether the music itself or the people who play it And sing it And E For many Americans particularly for males Sport Takes the place of worship And is the primary means of gaining emotional satisfaction A lot of people have a sports team or a sports player Or their devotion to sports as their idol I'm sure that's an idol in the hearts of some of you guys too Which you need to deal with Not that you shouldn't enjoy sports. That's another gift Of God like Eric Liddell said when I run I feel God's pleasure But it's something to be thankful for not to worship Thirdly the need of the will the need of the will

Some have idols of the heart Others have idols of the will in place of God And again a series of points here Point A religion Particularly the cults Appeals to many people who are aimless Lots of young men in prison becoming Muslims For this reason because for the first time in their lives They've got something around which to order their priorities Something to live in obedience to Something which they feel if they devote themselves To this way of life They're going to find fulfillment That's why so many people get involved in cults like let's say those who follow David Kuresh So cults like that or heaven's gate And some of the more extreme new age groups Are appealing to this longing For something to give one's life to Something to obey There were lots and lots of aimless people One of the fascinating things in the late 60s and early 70s Were so many young people who got involved in the hippie movement And completely entranced by the idea of total personal freedom Ended up becoming followers of cults They'd banced I know a lot of people personally who banced Out of being Extremely involved in the hippie movement Living completely wild lives And then became followers of people like Moses David in the children of God Most of the people in the children of God Which is a really extreme Christian heretical cult Are people who were completely morally aimless And then joined that cult And that's true for many of these young men in prison who are becoming Muslims It's the same thing I talked to a young white guy out here In St. Louis County last year who's at college in his second year And he's become a Muslim and this is really the reason he had nothing to live for In terms of directing his will and now here he is of fundamentalist Muslim Who's just going off to Saudi Arabia to study there And devote his life to this and He was an idolator My daughter of the need of his will Point be a political cause For those on the extreme right or left politically Politics becomes the idol of the will And you will know people like this And it's another it's a temptation for Christians as well In this area Point see work Work is one of the Biggest idols of the will For people around us People's job defines them Is their primary source of their own sense of meaning to themselves and their value to Themselves to their family and to the world Now this may be quite an unconscious idol until Somebody loses their job they get laid off or retires and you've seen lots of men in particular This is true. They life completely falls apart When they no longer have a job because the job was their idol The lots of pastors whose job is their idol you need you need to watch that one

The primary sense of meaning and identity and the value to God and One's self and the church So work can easily become an idol and of course God created work to be a gift for us to enjoy and find fulfillment in But not to give our lives over to remember polylong saying Dr. Long who was teaching all passenger his wife was in this class three or four years ago And she was talking about one of her own relatives. I think her brother-in-law and he said He'd completely destroyed his marriage And family because of his devotion to his work And he said this about himself. I'm no longer a human being. I'm a human doing No, what do you do? What do you do people define themselves by what they do not who they are? Welfth point D is another idol of the will money and possessions Another obvious idol for many people Living for more money more bits and pieces shopping Shopping even gets designed defined as a disease in this culture I mean, there's people who become completely addicted to shopping it controls their wills

when the pleasure and self-fulfillment living for the satisfaction of myself is another idol of the will

Now obviously there are many people where the emotional need and the need of the will points two and three here a bound up together And can't be separated. I'm setting it out in this way just to help us think it through what's actually going on in people's lives Now Let's turn to our last section and again, I'm going to have to go very quickly here idolatry empty promises part three of this study

Now again as we've said the Christian needs to recognize and this is something we need to remind ourselves that I am to find my ultimate satisfaction in knowing God in knowing the truth and delighting in that truth In living an obedience to him and delighting in that call to obey his commandments and in loving him enjoying his mercy and forgiveness Oh the satisfaction of my heart and will and mind is all found in the gospel So he calls us to give ourselves to him in every way Now what I want to do here is to ask the question about to think about how idolatry works when what's actually going on in somebody's life as they become an idolater And our first question here is why is idolatry attractive Why is idolatry attractive what are the attractions of idolatry we know that God Has revealed himself so clearly in creation in his word And supremely in his son Jesus Christ. So why Don't people worship him? Why do they worship idols instead? Why is it that people worship things which are so clearly foolish to worship they are clearly not God What you need to do is to read very carefully Isaiah 40 through 49 because Isaiah addresses in great detail this issue of idolatry and what's going on When somebody becomes an idolater He puts it this way In Isaiah 44 19 through 20 Nobody stops to think no one has the knowledge to say Half of this bit of word I used for fuel I even baked bread over its coals I roasted meat and I ate and then I made a detestable thing with a bit of wood that was left And I bad down to it Now people don't stop and think about the folly of idolatry

Now why? Why is there so much self-deception in idolatry? What's going on? The series of points here point a One of the consequences of the fall Is that we are divided from ourselves. We are all in a sense schizophrenic Use that word very carefully not to be rude about People who are schizophrenic, but we all are divided We don't know ourselves. You don't know yourself. Well, at all

Our hearts are deceitful. We don't want to know ourselves That's one of the consequences of sin Is a lack of self-knowledge When you read Jesus in canters with people He's constantly pushing people towards a greatest self-understanding To clear away that deceitfulness of heart and mind

point B The answer to this question about the attractiveness of idolatry is the divided loyalty people Want to keep God at a distance

You know they want to satisfy themselves with vague ideas about God But not allow those ideas to intrude On the devotion of their hearts and wills

So there's we have divided loyalties Think of how the apostle warns us against that divided loyalty. What's That's what all of us wrestle with Trying to worship to masters God and money or God and work or God and my own personal happiness or whatever it is point C idolatry is attractive Precisely because we choose our own idol We create it That's why Isaiah describes a great detail how people fashion idols the devotion and the care Which the craftsman puts into making his idol now That's a helpful insight Because if you think about The idols which tempt you Which tempt your heart Think about the devotion You lavish On the thing your heart derives satisfaction from Think about a person who is in love with himself With her own body. This is true of many homosexuals Now sissism love for oneself is one of the fundamental issues in homosexuality Especially in male homosexuality But a lot of heterosexuals as well who are in love With themselves with their own body think about the vast amount of time Someone who is in love with himself spends on looking at themselves in a mirror washing themselves Clothing themselves and the money they spend on clothes and on makeup Though people can spend an enormous amount of time grooming and admiring themselves Think of some of the guys hopefully not you Dan at the sports center lifting weights in front of the mirror And admiring themselves as they do so

Now all idolatry is like that Because I choose the idol I feel in control I'm the one who makes the money. I'm the one who's doing so well at my job I'm the one who holds the family together I'm the one who's made this beautiful home I'm the devoted sports fan

Now that's the fundamental attractiveness of idolatry the sense that I'm in control that I'm doing this In contrast point D. God demands submission to his will He demands that we bow to him and acknowledge him as Lord as creator sustainer Provide a redeemer and judge

becoming a Christian requires humbling of oneself idolatry leaves us with a sense of power and control and that's its primary attraction

Choosing something I feel in control of rather than being controlled by God That's the fundamental nature of sin The refusal to bow to God The demand to be the master or mistress of my own life Point two one of the rewards of idolatry One of the rewards of idolatry what rewards do idols give That they make lots of promises Idols promise sexual satisfaction Personal peace financial freedom realized ambition Success whatever it is Now point a there are some rewards and pleasures Because idols are actually God's gifts to us And because they're his good gifts say sexuality or work or whatever other family There are of course rewards There is indeed some satisfaction Because these are true gifts of God

But point B the sense of control is an illusion Idols demand sacrifices

Idols demand sacrifices they Ask us to give to them And the demands become more and more insistent as time goes by Now consider the example of work If I live for work as my idol and find my identity from my work Then my job is constantly going to raise the price that it demands More time More energy More commitment Last time for my friends Last time for leisure Last time for my children Last time for my wife or my husband

The longer one is an idolater the more the idol raises its demands and the more I give up The demands increase and touch the worshiper closer and closer to their heart

point C The worshiper loses control

The worshiper loses control

The idol starts to control us It gives less satisfaction it demands more devotion It starts reducing one's humanity In fact one will become like one's idol Some 113 Some 115 rather Expresses this Talks about idols being Silver and gold made by the hands of men They have eyes and they don't see Years they don't hear feet they don't walk those who worship them will become like them We become like what we worship When it becomes like one's idol Just think of statements like this money is written all over him Money is written all over him Sex is all she thinks about Or he thinks about

We become shaped by our idol Think about scrooge you think of the film Christmas Carol it's an excellent example This is a wonderful study of idolatry Scrooge loses everything As a young man he has his beautiful fiancee has lots of friends he's a decent person But the more he bows to the idol of money

The more he loses and his humanity's divinity diminished terribly diminished He'd become selfish and self-centered and grasping and mean His fiancee leaves him he has no friends He has no humanity It's a very powerful study of idolatry or some of you will have seen the film a few good men It's an excellent study of idolatry in that case the idolatry is being a marine And serving the marine core And it becomes totally destructive all idolatry is like that Once humanity is diminished when human relationships destroyed When it's less able to choose anything You are controlled by the idol The person loses dominion And finally there's a spiritual reality here There's a spiritual reality people become absolutely addicted To their idol

They become banned and only god can deliver them They become trapped by the thing they worship Psalm 107 speaks about this And many other passages of scripture as well Now we're going to have to stop there And I'll finish off this last section At the beginning of next class and then we'll look very briefly At the new age movement