Carl
2008-07-26 18:51:48 UTC
Pastor Jamie Greening's sermon is a strong warning to Christians about some
of the idols being worshipped today. Modern day versions of Baal & Molech
which are embraced by much of today's culture. This grieves God mightily.
We, as Christians escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ but the temptation of being ensnared in today's
idols, whatever form they may take, are present each and every day. I pray
and hope we Christians avoid those traps. With God's help, we will.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
American Idols: Baal And Molech Today
by Jamie Greening
Today we talk about two bad guys from the Old Testament; Baal and Molech.
These guys were like old luggage-they never went away and were always a
source of problems and temptations for the ancient Hebrews
This weekend Kim and I rented and watched Master and Commander: the Far Side
of the World and loved it. I think Russell Crowe might be one of the best
actors around. He's still no Mel Gibson, but he is certainly better than Ben
Afleck, especially now that Bennifer is gone!
There is a scene in the film when the captain played by Russell Crowe
proposes a toast. He holds his glass in the air and says with all
appropriate seriousness, "To our wives and our sweethearts". All the men at
the table, the officers say dutifully, "here here". Then Crowe says with a
giggle, "may they never meet!"
We who are Christians have committed ourselves in covenantal marriage to
Jesus. Yet we all live in secret desperation that he might find out about
our other sweethearts. You know, the ones we lavish such attention on, the
ones we can't wait to see again, the ones we spend so much money on. What a
terrible thing if God found out about them!
The weeping prophet from the Old Testament, Jeremiah, announced to Israel
that God had indeed found out about their other sweethearts named Baal and
Molech!
Jeremiah 32:30-35
30 "The people of Israel and Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight
from their youth; indeed, the people of Israel have done nothing but provoke
me with what their hands have made, declares the Lord. 31 From the day it
was built until now, this city has so aroused my anger and wrath that I must
remove it from my sight. 32 The people of Israel and Judah have provoked me
by all the evil they have done - they, their kings and officials, their
priests and prophets, the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. 33 They
turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and
again, they would not listen or respond to discipline. 34 They set up their
abominable idols in the house that bears my Name and defiled it. 35 They
built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their
sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my
mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.
Jeremiah, as the mouthpiece of the one true God, Yahweh, implores the people
to tear down their false idols for he will not bless them until they do.
Today we are equally guilty of harboring false idols and secretly devoting
our best energy to pagan deities. We cannot be the wife of the King until we
give up our other lovers.
We must tear down our idols.
Baal and Molech: Background Check
Through the words of the prophet Jeremiah, Yahweh, our one true God, is
telling the people why he is about to send them out and why he is so mad at
them. They have turned to Baal and to Molech. These were the two favorite
false gods of the Old Testament. Time and time again the people would turn
to these false demon deities.
Baal is one you've probably heard of. He has roots that go deep into the
Hebrew history. Baal is semitic in origin which means geographically he is
identified with Palestine. He is the local god. Archaeological evidence puts
Baal worship predating Abraham. Literary evidence both in the Bible and in
epigraphic sources outside the Bible indicate that Baal worship has been
around indefinitely.
One way we can identify this is with names. Oftentimes Baal would appear as
a prefix on a name like Jerubabaal in the book of Judges or Baal Peor as
place in the book of Exodus. Perhaps the most famous is Jezebel, whose
father's name was Ethbaal which means "Baal is alive". It is important to
note that the modern word Belezebub, a synonym for Satan or the Devil, is
actually a form of Baal zebub!
Whenever a good king would come into power, like David, Josiah, and Hezekiah
one of the first things the Bible says he would do is pull down and destroy
the high places and the Asherah. When you read the Old Testament, especially
the history books, you'll see the word Asherah a lot. Asherah and High
Places are directly related to Baal worship. Asherah is the name of the wife
of Baal. In fact, Asherah is a generic term that was applied to the female
consort of all of the Near Eastern gods, even Molech. There are even some
curious places where the archaeological record reflects a belief in an
Asherah of Yahweh.
Baal was worshipped in a rhythmic, cyclical way. The Asherah poles which
were high, hence high places is where the worship took place. Baal is
associated with weather patterns, seasons, and fertility. It was, for
example, believed that Baal died every winter and then was born every
spring. With his birth comes the spring harvest and blossoms. Then he
thrives through summer and ages in fall only to die in winter.
It was believed that public, cultic sex would bring his rebirth every
spring. Baal worship included female and male prostitutes along with
homosexual acts.
Baal worship emphasized the environment.
Baal was worshiped through by practicing sexual perversion.
Baal was tangible. One could taste the crops yielded. People could feel the
pleasure of sex. It felt like the right thing to do.
Molech is a little more mysterious than Baal. Admittedly we do not know as
much about him. He comes from the region of Tyre in Palestine, but most
certainly was imported to Tyre by the ancient Phoenicians. You'll remember
the Phoenicians from your world history because they are the empire that
fought three wars with Rome and lost. The great military strategists
Hannibal was from Phoenicia. Their great city was named Carthage.
Even the Romans hated the worship of Molech! Most of our information comes
from them.
The name of Molech appears early in the Bible. He is in the book of
Leviticus as worship to him is strictly forbidden. This means that he was in
Canaan before the Exodus. Molech was a fire god who demanded human
sacrifice. Moloch had a human shape with a bull's head. His arms were
outstretched and a fire was built within the idol to a great heat. Then the
parents would come with their baby and place the baby on the outstretched
arms of Moloch and watch: they had to watch without emotion or tear to
convince this angry demon god that sacrificing their baby was voluntary.
Drums and flutes would be played loudly at the site, to drowned out the
tortured cries of the babies.
It makes sense that these two gods, Baal and Molech would coexist. When our
having all that sex trying to get Baal to be reborn with Spring, your going
to have to have somewhere to put all those extra babies.
The shrine to Molech, there in the valley of Hinnom is the first Planned
Parenthood.
The arms of Molech and the wiles of Baal are long indeed and somehow they
had seduced, as hard as it is to believe, even the Hebrews who had tasted
God's goodness.
Or maybe its not so hard to believe at all!
This is last weeks People Magazine. There is an interesting article in here
that is nearly as heartbreaking as Molech worship.
It talks about the effects of pornography on the internet. Of specific
interest was a fake userid that the magazine set up as CR8ZYSUE13. They set
it up on AOL and YAHOO! Here are their results (Read directly from the
magazine p. 72)
"We clicked a box saying we were 18. Then we went surfing. On web browsers
and in chat rooms CR8ZYSUE13 was barraged with sexuality in every form. In a
"romance" chat room she was propositioned, many with links to sites where
anything goes-bestiality, orgies and S&M. 'Kids are going t osee things they've
never seen in their lives' says cyberporn expert Patty Aftab. 'It's
unbelievable stuff you wouldn't be able to buy in most porn stores. We need
to prepare kids for this."
I really respect People magazine for at least admitting the problem. But
with all due respect to Mrs. Aftab, the expert we do not need to prepare
kids for this. We must protect them from this.
Somehow in our world we have managed to combine the worship of Baal and
Molech satisfying our sexual appetities at the same time we sacrifice our
children.
It's sick, twisted, and these idols must be torn down.
We worship Baal and call it Playboy or we worship Molech and call it choice.
It's all the same.
The furtherance of the effect is child molesters moving into neighborhoods
with playgrounds and parks. Monsters like this should not be allowed to roam
our society freely.
But we worship at the altar of personal choice and watch our children burn
in Molech's outstretched arms.
Old heresies never die, they just come back with new names.
Today in modern English we spell Baal MTV as hip hop artists and their
record labels make millions with lyrics that exploit women and glorify
violence.
Molech is recognized as corporation after corporation dehumanizes workers
and cuts health care benefits to make a profit leaving untold numbers with
financial heartache while executives build bigger and bigger mansions with
California, Florida, and Redmonds zip codes.
A Timeless Problem
Evidence of these idolatries are found throughout the Old Testament. Earlier
in the worship service we read from 1 Kings about Solomon's failure.
Solomon, who had a personal encounter with Yahweh in his Temple still
failed.
The book of Hosea talks about how some had mislabeled Yahweh as calling him
Baal. Can you imagine that, some got so confused the mixed up Yahweh with
Baal.
This problem of idolatry carries throughout the ages. The last book of the
Bible, Revelations, records the letters from Jesus to seven specific
churches in Asia Minor. Two of those churches he writes and lists specific
problems of idolatry. One group he even calls Jezebel.
Church history also bears out an incredible tolerance for idolatry. During
the middle ages it was common for missionaries to stumble across a group of
pagans worshipping at the sacred tree at the center of the village. They
would cut the tree down, make into an altar and drag it into the church. The
people would come into the church to worship, but who were they worshipping?
The tree in the altar or Jesus?
It's a good question.
In reality the archaeological and literary evidence of Palestine indicates
there was never a time of true monotheism in ancient Israel. Even under the
good Kings. There were always high places where idols were worshipped. God
was always pleading with the people to get rid of the idols.
They never did.
The problem is idolatry but is technically called syncretism. This is the
practice of blending, or melding religious practices into something new. So
the family who sacrificed to Molech and partied with Baal would also observe
Passover. It's convenient in covering all its bases.
The same thing happens in the church today.
One of my first impressions of Port Orchard, when we moved here, is from
downtown. It was a Saturday and we went down and folks from the church here
were showing me around. Immediately I noticed the big Native American totem
pole by the waterfront. It shocked me. It piqued my interest. It made me
think.
The reason it made me think is because I know what that is. It is a part of
Native American religion. It shares a common sociological ancestry with the
Asherah pole of Baal. I am not attacking Native Americans-what white anglo
Saxons like myself did to the indigenous population of North America is a
travesty written in blood on the pages of history. But religiously they are
not Christian. They are pagan.
But the longer I pastor and the more I minister, the less and less totems
bother me. The less and less little golden buddhas with worn bellies bother
me. The less Yin and Yang bother me.
What really bothers me is the way in which Christians, people who profess
Christ, build altars to false gods in their lives and in their hearts. The
real problem of idolatry is not the Native American totems or Wiccan covens.
The problem is the hearts of Christians who worship at the altars around us.
We can tell what we worship by our time and money.
We obviously worship television. Born again Christians will spend twenty or
more hours a week watching television but say they don't have time to read
their Bible or serve on a ministry team. I often wonder how many innovative
ministries and community involvement could be done by a people who would
just watch television half as much!
We clearly worship the sex god. I wish I could say that sexual deviance was
a practice only of the secular world but its not. We in the church are just
as guilty of enjoying pornography, lusting in our hearts, and of
extra-marital relations. You can tell by the way we dress and the way we act
that we worship our own sexual pleasure.
We worship entertainment. The same people who will say they cannot afford to
tithe, to financially contribute to the Kingdom work will spend twenty
dollars without thinking for a DVD of a movie they've already seen.
We worship youth as we are going to botox ourselves to beauty.
We worship celebrity as everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame.
We worship success.
We worship money as we think it will solve all of our problems.
These idols must be torn down.
I think, now I may be out on a limb here, but I think the greatest idol
today is none of these. These are all expressions of the one true idol of
today. The idol of today is self. As a culture we are preoccupied with self
indulgences. Cosmetics is a multi-billion dollar industry. These are the
incenses burned to the altar of self. Personal opinion is the holy
literature of our time. The creed "I believe" has been transformed into the
new statement of faith, "I want. . ." The high priest of this neurotic self
absorbed sacrament is found only in one place: the mirror. Our high
priestess is the female navel. The theologians of this sect write for Vogue,
Cosmo, and GQ, and Maxim.
Consumerism has arisen to feed and fuel our new religion.
Adultery (Conclusion)
The metaphor throughout Scripture for idolatry is adultery. It is so
powerful that one man, Hosea, was commanded by God to take a wife who was a
prostitute and when she prostituted herself, he commanded Hosea to go buy
her back. The image is that of Israel the faithless with to God.
One can almost hear the broken heart of God crying over his wayward wife.
Yahweh weeps from heaven over these words-the people have rejected him.
He has loved them and cared for them, yet they build altars to others.
God is jilted, as a jilted lover---no one loves us as much as Jesus!
It is sad when lovers go bad; especially when a husband or a wife throw away
a strong relationship by chasing skirts and hunks.
The language of theology is the language of lovers. It's always been that
way. Recently I've been reading the lovers poetry of Christina Rosetti and
writings of Jim Kavanaugh. He writes about the strength of real, true,
genuine love. One piece is called "There are Days":
"There are days when I could run for president, direct General Motors in the
morning and Chrysler in the afternoon, When I could thrill an audience of
ten thousand, and walk hand in hand with the most prestigious leaders on
earth, when my conversation sparkles and my imagination is in overdrive.
When I could be loved by starlets and international beauties, Create
elaborate stories for the stage and screen, wander from country to country
at home in every land, solving political conflicts that have endured for
centuries, and healing the wounds of starving children and despairing
adults.
And there are days when emerging from bed seems impossible, when a barking
dog or cooing dove can drive me quite mad, when taking a shower and fixing
cornflakes is a major undertaking, and taking my car into repair a wiper
blade a complex enterprise, when I could not shine shoes or run a hot-dog
stand, and I tremble at the thought of saying, "Hello" to the postman, when
the cleaning lady is bored by my dialogue, and no woman in her right mind
would give me time for lunch, when to leave the living room frightens me
beyond endurance, and I could not create a story for a high school paper.
The miracle is that on either kind of day, your eyes still gaze at me as if
no one else walks the earth, And your smile forever says, "I love you no
matter what."
Then General motors means not nearly as much as the tears we shed on the
living room floor, or the sunset we share in serenity and silence."
Those other lovers, those sweethearts will all walk away. They will not be
there to share life's joys and pains. Molech doesn't love us. His political
and social mind games only want to consume us and our children.
Baal doesn't love us-Baal just wants gratification. When he's through he
leaves us to rot diseased and spent.
Only Jesus loves us. He proved it by dying for us and by being there in the
living room when we cry and on contemplative sunsets.
Men and women; friends; we know we have an idol problem. We know we have
other lovers we flirt with. We rendezvous in the darkness around the soft
glow of the T.V. screen or in the pagan Temple of Tacoma Mall.
But we also know Jesus waiting to receive us back. He aches the same way we
do. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, never has been,
and he's not going to start now. There is only forgiveness for those who
repentant. Let us repent by tearing down those idols and coming home to
Christ Jesus our one true LORD!
of the idols being worshipped today. Modern day versions of Baal & Molech
which are embraced by much of today's culture. This grieves God mightily.
We, as Christians escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ but the temptation of being ensnared in today's
idols, whatever form they may take, are present each and every day. I pray
and hope we Christians avoid those traps. With God's help, we will.
May God bless,
Carl
my website -- http://www.nettally.com/saints/
my blog -- http://www.anniemayhem.com/cgi-bin/wordpress/
---
American Idols: Baal And Molech Today
by Jamie Greening
Today we talk about two bad guys from the Old Testament; Baal and Molech.
These guys were like old luggage-they never went away and were always a
source of problems and temptations for the ancient Hebrews
This weekend Kim and I rented and watched Master and Commander: the Far Side
of the World and loved it. I think Russell Crowe might be one of the best
actors around. He's still no Mel Gibson, but he is certainly better than Ben
Afleck, especially now that Bennifer is gone!
There is a scene in the film when the captain played by Russell Crowe
proposes a toast. He holds his glass in the air and says with all
appropriate seriousness, "To our wives and our sweethearts". All the men at
the table, the officers say dutifully, "here here". Then Crowe says with a
giggle, "may they never meet!"
We who are Christians have committed ourselves in covenantal marriage to
Jesus. Yet we all live in secret desperation that he might find out about
our other sweethearts. You know, the ones we lavish such attention on, the
ones we can't wait to see again, the ones we spend so much money on. What a
terrible thing if God found out about them!
The weeping prophet from the Old Testament, Jeremiah, announced to Israel
that God had indeed found out about their other sweethearts named Baal and
Molech!
Jeremiah 32:30-35
30 "The people of Israel and Judah have done nothing but evil in my sight
from their youth; indeed, the people of Israel have done nothing but provoke
me with what their hands have made, declares the Lord. 31 From the day it
was built until now, this city has so aroused my anger and wrath that I must
remove it from my sight. 32 The people of Israel and Judah have provoked me
by all the evil they have done - they, their kings and officials, their
priests and prophets, the men of Judah and the people of Jerusalem. 33 They
turned their backs to me and not their faces; though I taught them again and
again, they would not listen or respond to discipline. 34 They set up their
abominable idols in the house that bears my Name and defiled it. 35 They
built high places for Baal in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to sacrifice their
sons and daughters to Molech, though I never commanded, nor did it enter my
mind, that they should do such a detestable thing and so make Judah sin.
Jeremiah, as the mouthpiece of the one true God, Yahweh, implores the people
to tear down their false idols for he will not bless them until they do.
Today we are equally guilty of harboring false idols and secretly devoting
our best energy to pagan deities. We cannot be the wife of the King until we
give up our other lovers.
We must tear down our idols.
Baal and Molech: Background Check
Through the words of the prophet Jeremiah, Yahweh, our one true God, is
telling the people why he is about to send them out and why he is so mad at
them. They have turned to Baal and to Molech. These were the two favorite
false gods of the Old Testament. Time and time again the people would turn
to these false demon deities.
Baal is one you've probably heard of. He has roots that go deep into the
Hebrew history. Baal is semitic in origin which means geographically he is
identified with Palestine. He is the local god. Archaeological evidence puts
Baal worship predating Abraham. Literary evidence both in the Bible and in
epigraphic sources outside the Bible indicate that Baal worship has been
around indefinitely.
One way we can identify this is with names. Oftentimes Baal would appear as
a prefix on a name like Jerubabaal in the book of Judges or Baal Peor as
place in the book of Exodus. Perhaps the most famous is Jezebel, whose
father's name was Ethbaal which means "Baal is alive". It is important to
note that the modern word Belezebub, a synonym for Satan or the Devil, is
actually a form of Baal zebub!
Whenever a good king would come into power, like David, Josiah, and Hezekiah
one of the first things the Bible says he would do is pull down and destroy
the high places and the Asherah. When you read the Old Testament, especially
the history books, you'll see the word Asherah a lot. Asherah and High
Places are directly related to Baal worship. Asherah is the name of the wife
of Baal. In fact, Asherah is a generic term that was applied to the female
consort of all of the Near Eastern gods, even Molech. There are even some
curious places where the archaeological record reflects a belief in an
Asherah of Yahweh.
Baal was worshipped in a rhythmic, cyclical way. The Asherah poles which
were high, hence high places is where the worship took place. Baal is
associated with weather patterns, seasons, and fertility. It was, for
example, believed that Baal died every winter and then was born every
spring. With his birth comes the spring harvest and blossoms. Then he
thrives through summer and ages in fall only to die in winter.
It was believed that public, cultic sex would bring his rebirth every
spring. Baal worship included female and male prostitutes along with
homosexual acts.
Baal worship emphasized the environment.
Baal was worshiped through by practicing sexual perversion.
Baal was tangible. One could taste the crops yielded. People could feel the
pleasure of sex. It felt like the right thing to do.
Molech is a little more mysterious than Baal. Admittedly we do not know as
much about him. He comes from the region of Tyre in Palestine, but most
certainly was imported to Tyre by the ancient Phoenicians. You'll remember
the Phoenicians from your world history because they are the empire that
fought three wars with Rome and lost. The great military strategists
Hannibal was from Phoenicia. Their great city was named Carthage.
Even the Romans hated the worship of Molech! Most of our information comes
from them.
The name of Molech appears early in the Bible. He is in the book of
Leviticus as worship to him is strictly forbidden. This means that he was in
Canaan before the Exodus. Molech was a fire god who demanded human
sacrifice. Moloch had a human shape with a bull's head. His arms were
outstretched and a fire was built within the idol to a great heat. Then the
parents would come with their baby and place the baby on the outstretched
arms of Moloch and watch: they had to watch without emotion or tear to
convince this angry demon god that sacrificing their baby was voluntary.
Drums and flutes would be played loudly at the site, to drowned out the
tortured cries of the babies.
It makes sense that these two gods, Baal and Molech would coexist. When our
having all that sex trying to get Baal to be reborn with Spring, your going
to have to have somewhere to put all those extra babies.
The shrine to Molech, there in the valley of Hinnom is the first Planned
Parenthood.
The arms of Molech and the wiles of Baal are long indeed and somehow they
had seduced, as hard as it is to believe, even the Hebrews who had tasted
God's goodness.
Or maybe its not so hard to believe at all!
This is last weeks People Magazine. There is an interesting article in here
that is nearly as heartbreaking as Molech worship.
It talks about the effects of pornography on the internet. Of specific
interest was a fake userid that the magazine set up as CR8ZYSUE13. They set
it up on AOL and YAHOO! Here are their results (Read directly from the
magazine p. 72)
"We clicked a box saying we were 18. Then we went surfing. On web browsers
and in chat rooms CR8ZYSUE13 was barraged with sexuality in every form. In a
"romance" chat room she was propositioned, many with links to sites where
anything goes-bestiality, orgies and S&M. 'Kids are going t osee things they've
never seen in their lives' says cyberporn expert Patty Aftab. 'It's
unbelievable stuff you wouldn't be able to buy in most porn stores. We need
to prepare kids for this."
I really respect People magazine for at least admitting the problem. But
with all due respect to Mrs. Aftab, the expert we do not need to prepare
kids for this. We must protect them from this.
Somehow in our world we have managed to combine the worship of Baal and
Molech satisfying our sexual appetities at the same time we sacrifice our
children.
It's sick, twisted, and these idols must be torn down.
We worship Baal and call it Playboy or we worship Molech and call it choice.
It's all the same.
The furtherance of the effect is child molesters moving into neighborhoods
with playgrounds and parks. Monsters like this should not be allowed to roam
our society freely.
But we worship at the altar of personal choice and watch our children burn
in Molech's outstretched arms.
Old heresies never die, they just come back with new names.
Today in modern English we spell Baal MTV as hip hop artists and their
record labels make millions with lyrics that exploit women and glorify
violence.
Molech is recognized as corporation after corporation dehumanizes workers
and cuts health care benefits to make a profit leaving untold numbers with
financial heartache while executives build bigger and bigger mansions with
California, Florida, and Redmonds zip codes.
A Timeless Problem
Evidence of these idolatries are found throughout the Old Testament. Earlier
in the worship service we read from 1 Kings about Solomon's failure.
Solomon, who had a personal encounter with Yahweh in his Temple still
failed.
The book of Hosea talks about how some had mislabeled Yahweh as calling him
Baal. Can you imagine that, some got so confused the mixed up Yahweh with
Baal.
This problem of idolatry carries throughout the ages. The last book of the
Bible, Revelations, records the letters from Jesus to seven specific
churches in Asia Minor. Two of those churches he writes and lists specific
problems of idolatry. One group he even calls Jezebel.
Church history also bears out an incredible tolerance for idolatry. During
the middle ages it was common for missionaries to stumble across a group of
pagans worshipping at the sacred tree at the center of the village. They
would cut the tree down, make into an altar and drag it into the church. The
people would come into the church to worship, but who were they worshipping?
The tree in the altar or Jesus?
It's a good question.
In reality the archaeological and literary evidence of Palestine indicates
there was never a time of true monotheism in ancient Israel. Even under the
good Kings. There were always high places where idols were worshipped. God
was always pleading with the people to get rid of the idols.
They never did.
The problem is idolatry but is technically called syncretism. This is the
practice of blending, or melding religious practices into something new. So
the family who sacrificed to Molech and partied with Baal would also observe
Passover. It's convenient in covering all its bases.
The same thing happens in the church today.
One of my first impressions of Port Orchard, when we moved here, is from
downtown. It was a Saturday and we went down and folks from the church here
were showing me around. Immediately I noticed the big Native American totem
pole by the waterfront. It shocked me. It piqued my interest. It made me
think.
The reason it made me think is because I know what that is. It is a part of
Native American religion. It shares a common sociological ancestry with the
Asherah pole of Baal. I am not attacking Native Americans-what white anglo
Saxons like myself did to the indigenous population of North America is a
travesty written in blood on the pages of history. But religiously they are
not Christian. They are pagan.
But the longer I pastor and the more I minister, the less and less totems
bother me. The less and less little golden buddhas with worn bellies bother
me. The less Yin and Yang bother me.
What really bothers me is the way in which Christians, people who profess
Christ, build altars to false gods in their lives and in their hearts. The
real problem of idolatry is not the Native American totems or Wiccan covens.
The problem is the hearts of Christians who worship at the altars around us.
We can tell what we worship by our time and money.
We obviously worship television. Born again Christians will spend twenty or
more hours a week watching television but say they don't have time to read
their Bible or serve on a ministry team. I often wonder how many innovative
ministries and community involvement could be done by a people who would
just watch television half as much!
We clearly worship the sex god. I wish I could say that sexual deviance was
a practice only of the secular world but its not. We in the church are just
as guilty of enjoying pornography, lusting in our hearts, and of
extra-marital relations. You can tell by the way we dress and the way we act
that we worship our own sexual pleasure.
We worship entertainment. The same people who will say they cannot afford to
tithe, to financially contribute to the Kingdom work will spend twenty
dollars without thinking for a DVD of a movie they've already seen.
We worship youth as we are going to botox ourselves to beauty.
We worship celebrity as everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame.
We worship success.
We worship money as we think it will solve all of our problems.
These idols must be torn down.
I think, now I may be out on a limb here, but I think the greatest idol
today is none of these. These are all expressions of the one true idol of
today. The idol of today is self. As a culture we are preoccupied with self
indulgences. Cosmetics is a multi-billion dollar industry. These are the
incenses burned to the altar of self. Personal opinion is the holy
literature of our time. The creed "I believe" has been transformed into the
new statement of faith, "I want. . ." The high priest of this neurotic self
absorbed sacrament is found only in one place: the mirror. Our high
priestess is the female navel. The theologians of this sect write for Vogue,
Cosmo, and GQ, and Maxim.
Consumerism has arisen to feed and fuel our new religion.
Adultery (Conclusion)
The metaphor throughout Scripture for idolatry is adultery. It is so
powerful that one man, Hosea, was commanded by God to take a wife who was a
prostitute and when she prostituted herself, he commanded Hosea to go buy
her back. The image is that of Israel the faithless with to God.
One can almost hear the broken heart of God crying over his wayward wife.
Yahweh weeps from heaven over these words-the people have rejected him.
He has loved them and cared for them, yet they build altars to others.
God is jilted, as a jilted lover---no one loves us as much as Jesus!
It is sad when lovers go bad; especially when a husband or a wife throw away
a strong relationship by chasing skirts and hunks.
The language of theology is the language of lovers. It's always been that
way. Recently I've been reading the lovers poetry of Christina Rosetti and
writings of Jim Kavanaugh. He writes about the strength of real, true,
genuine love. One piece is called "There are Days":
"There are days when I could run for president, direct General Motors in the
morning and Chrysler in the afternoon, When I could thrill an audience of
ten thousand, and walk hand in hand with the most prestigious leaders on
earth, when my conversation sparkles and my imagination is in overdrive.
When I could be loved by starlets and international beauties, Create
elaborate stories for the stage and screen, wander from country to country
at home in every land, solving political conflicts that have endured for
centuries, and healing the wounds of starving children and despairing
adults.
And there are days when emerging from bed seems impossible, when a barking
dog or cooing dove can drive me quite mad, when taking a shower and fixing
cornflakes is a major undertaking, and taking my car into repair a wiper
blade a complex enterprise, when I could not shine shoes or run a hot-dog
stand, and I tremble at the thought of saying, "Hello" to the postman, when
the cleaning lady is bored by my dialogue, and no woman in her right mind
would give me time for lunch, when to leave the living room frightens me
beyond endurance, and I could not create a story for a high school paper.
The miracle is that on either kind of day, your eyes still gaze at me as if
no one else walks the earth, And your smile forever says, "I love you no
matter what."
Then General motors means not nearly as much as the tears we shed on the
living room floor, or the sunset we share in serenity and silence."
Those other lovers, those sweethearts will all walk away. They will not be
there to share life's joys and pains. Molech doesn't love us. His political
and social mind games only want to consume us and our children.
Baal doesn't love us-Baal just wants gratification. When he's through he
leaves us to rot diseased and spent.
Only Jesus loves us. He proved it by dying for us and by being there in the
living room when we cry and on contemplative sunsets.
Men and women; friends; we know we have an idol problem. We know we have
other lovers we flirt with. We rendezvous in the darkness around the soft
glow of the T.V. screen or in the pagan Temple of Tacoma Mall.
But we also know Jesus waiting to receive us back. He aches the same way we
do. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, never has been,
and he's not going to start now. There is only forgiveness for those who
repentant. Let us repent by tearing down those idols and coming home to
Christ Jesus our one true LORD!