Wednesday, October 12, 2022 PM

Idols as False Gods and the Biblical Warnings Against Idolatry

Good evening, everybody. Last call for cupcakes and pumpkin cookies. I'm trying to get rid of them. And so tonight, we'll be speaking about idols. Speaking of cupcakes and cookies. If you'll join me in a word of prayer.

God, we thank you so much for this time that you've given us. We thank you for bringing us together as a family. We thank you for your word that we can study it and know you better. And that you don't just leave us with your word and questions, but you give us your spirit to guide us.

We thank you for the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We thank you for your holiness. And for you revealing that to us that we might live in accordance with your word. We pray tonight as we look to your word that we would seek to know you more.

Lord, I know that I'm not the oldest or most wise, but I pray that it would be edifying to the saints. And I pray that all of us would seek to know your truths and that we would all grow closer to you.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. So our primary text this evening will be 1 Corinthians 10. We'll start in 1 Corinthians 10. And I do have some other supporting verses that I'll go through pretty quickly.

But if you'll hold your place in 1 Corinthians 10. Also Exodus 20 and Colossians 2 and we'll get that there later. But 1 Corinthians 10 starting in verse 6 and I'm going to go through 21. Now these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did.

Do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did. And 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did. And were destroyed by serpents. Nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example.

But they were written down for our instruction. On whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall. No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.

God is faithful and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability. But with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape that you may be able to endure it. Therefore my beloved flee from idolatry.

I speak as to sensible people. Judge for yourselves what I say. The cup of blessing that we bless is not a participation in the blood of Christ. The bread that we break is it not a participation in the body of Christ.

Because there is one bread we who are many are one body. For we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? What do I imply then?

That food offered to idols is anything or that an idol is anything? No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.

You cannot partake at the table of the Lord and the table of demons. Shall we provoke the Lord to jealousy? Are we stronger than he? So tonight in speaking of idols I have something very specific that would come to my mind when I thought about idols.

And in doing the study I thought we would kind of take a look at what is an idol? What are some of those characteristics? What are some of the signs that we might have an idol in our life? And what can be done about it?

What can be done about it? So Martin Luther when talking about idols he says, Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God. Whatever your heart clings to and confides in, that is really your God.

I've often told my children anything we love or desire more than God is an idol. Anything that we love or desire more than God is an idol. Or anything that we're willing to sin in order to get or to accomplish.

Rather than being obedient to God there's something that we want, we want to do, we want to have. We're willing to sin to get it. That thing has raised itself up in our affections more than our affections to God.

So that would be an idol. Acts 17, 29. Being then God's offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man. So that's where my mind went first when talking about an idol.

Something made of gold, silver, something made by human hands. So if you'll turn to Exodus chapter 20. This is one of the key chapters talking about idolatry in the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20, let's start in verse 1.

And we will be turning back to 1 Corinthians 10 so hold your place there. Exodus 20. And God spoke all these words, saying, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth.

You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

And so here again we have this repetition of carved things, created things or made things. Let me run through a few more verses in the Bible. I'm going to rapid fire these so you don't have to turn there.

But be thinking of common things that you hear in these verses. This is Psalm 135. The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak. They have eyes, but do not see.

They have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them become like them, and so do all who trust in them. Isaiah 45, 20. Assemble yourselves and come draw near together, you survivors of the nations.

They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols and keep on praying to a God that cannot save. Psalm 115. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak.

Eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear. Noses, but do not spell. They have hands, but do not feel. They have feet, but do not walk. And they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them.

Jeremiah. Their idols are like scarecrows in the cucumber field, and they cannot speak. They have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Deuteronomy 27, 15. Cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image.

Isaiah 46. They lift to their shoulders. They carry it. They set it in its place, and it stands there. It cannot move from its place. So given all of those descriptions throughout the scripture, what are some of the characteristics that are being described about idols?

What else? What else?

Anything else? Yeah, it's related to that, and we'll come back to that. Some of the other characteristics that stood out, so this would go under creation, but it mentioned wood, stone, silver, gold. Some of them talk about precious jewels.

Some of them say carved or made by human hands. So those are some of the characteristics listed there in those verses. And with being part of creation, carried around wood, stone, and silver, one of the characteristics is that they're maybe physical.

All of those mentioned there. And I think this would be my, would have been my primary thought of when I think of idols, physical. Now, I haven't been to all of your houses, but I don't imagine going in and seeing any statues sitting around that you bow down to.

All of a sudden, okay, statues, bad. Don't bow down to statues, not a good thing. Idolatry, got it, not good. But something stood out to me when going through this study, that their idols are not merely physical.

Ezekiel 14 .3, son of man, these men have taken their idols into their hearts and set the stumbling block of iniquity before their faces. 1 Timothy 6 .10, for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they erred from the faith and pierced themselves through many arrows.

And that word coveted is in that verse about the love of money. In two other places that word coveted comes up. Colossians 3 .5, put to death therefore what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passions, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Ephesians 5 .5, for you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is an idolatry, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. That's heavy, that's deep.

Another verse is 1 Samuel 15 .23, he's talking to Saul, for rebellion is as the sin of divination and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. So presumption. Given this understanding, we have these characteristics, which are very much true.

What are some other things that might be idols in our lives besides wood and stone and gold and silver? So power, house, kids. What was another one? Relationships. So some that came to my mind, I think of a young father who comes home from work, has had a long day, and just wants some time to himself and yells at his children and makes them go to their room.

Right? Time. I think of time. What about comfort? We just want to be comfortable. Comfort. One of those things with time would be quietness, having a quiet house. But I couldn't find a verse in the Bible where saying being loud was a sin.

It's just something that I wanted above treating my family the way they should have been treated. What about sleep or food? Those are things that we need, we have to have. But they can also become an idol in our lives.

I might step on some toes with these. Sports or entertainment. So going back to that second definition, anything that we desire more than God or that we're willing to sin to get, we've elevated our affections of that thing above where it should be.

Now, I want to give a caution here. So turn to Colossians 2 .16. It should be our desire that we remove idols from our life. But when we go idol hunting to find idols, there's also a pitfall on the other side.

So one of the descriptions of idols is it talks about slavery, people becoming slaves to those idols. But you can also become a slave in the reverse sense, that you become legalistic in trying to abstain from idols, that you become a slave on the other side of it.

So Colossians 2 .16. Therefore, let no one pass judgment on you in question of food or drink or with regard to festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. There are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Let no one disqualify you insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his centrist mind, and not holding fast to the head from whom the whole body nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments grows with a growth that is from God.

Verse 20. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations? Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch, referring to things that all perish as they are used according to human precepts and teachings.

These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So we have these ditches, idolatry and legalism, these two ditches of slavery.

And by abstaining from idols, it says here that there's no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh. So what can be done? That leaves us in a pretty big predicament. Before we come to the solution, let's talk about some of the signs.

What are some signs that there might be idols in our life? So one of them would be anger. So we're made to worship and whatever we are worshiping, if that is threatened, if someone threatens to remove that thing, oftentimes we strike out in anger.

We think maybe if I'm angry, I have enough power to hold on to that thing, to change the circumstance and hold on to that idol. We're made to worship, we're zealous about whatever our God is. So one sign, if we respond in anger.

Now this is not to be confused with a righteous anger. Not all anger is sin, but if the fear of losing something is causing you to become angry, rather than trusting in God, there might be an idol. Another one in our main text, so 1 Corinthians 10, what it lists there is grumbling.

We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. So grumbling against losing this idol is ultimately grumbling against God.

It says do everything without grumbling and complaining. If we begin to grumble in our hearts, it might be a sign that something is an idol. Uncontrollable sadness, right? Despair over the situation or the loss of something.

Again, I'm saying uncontrollable sadness because sadness is an emotional response given to us by God. And so uncontrollable sadness might be an instance of an idol. Obstinate denial. So again, our text, 1 Corinthians 10, verse 12, it says, therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

We see this oftentimes in people who are on drugs or alcohol or addicted to it. They deny it. I don't have a problem. No, there's nothing wrong here. There's nothing to see. That can't be a problem. Not with me, maybe some people, but not me.

When confronted with possible sin, the believer should be willing to examine themselves ready to repent if sin is there. If someone is unwilling to consider if something is a sin, claiming that it's not possible, they're in danger of that thing being an idol.

So those are some of the signs of possibly having an idol in your life. Some of the consequences, real quick, in those verses that I went through, in Isaiah 45, it says, they have no knowledge. The idols have no knowledge and people pray to them and they're not answered.

If someone cries out to it, it does not answer. It does not save. Jonah 2 .8 says, those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope for steadfast love. Psalm 16, the sorrows of those who run after another God shall multiply.

So multiplied sorrows. Those who take them become like them, all those who trust them. Psalm 135. So that's a lot of big picture stuff and all of us struggle with that. So what can be done? One option is to remove the idols.

Say, okay, I'm going to get rid of it. Problem solved? Not really. Because the human heart is a perpetual idol factory. That's from John Calvin's Institute. Our hearts are a factory of idols. So if you get rid of one, more come back.

Just like that verse that talked about the idols are not actually real gods, but they're like demons. And Jesus says, actually it's verse 20. So 1 Corinthians 10, verse 20. No, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God.

I do not want you to be participants with demons. So then Jesus, it's not exactly the same, but Jesus says, if you cast out a demon, but you don't clean house, it'll bring a bunch of its buddies back, seven of them that are worse than it.

Just like idols, if you remove it, there's other idols. We can make anything idol. We're made to worship. And so if we remove one idol, we'll come up with another one to worship. So that's not really a solution just to remove the idol.

The actual solution is to replace the idol. Look to Christ. Replace the idol with the true God. So if we look at these characteristics of the idols and we look at the consequences of the idols, if we look to Christ, he is the exact opposite of those things.

The idols are temporal. Christ is eternal. Colossians 1, 17. He is before all things and in him all things hold together. John 8, 58. Jesus said to them, truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.

The idols are made of wood, stone, metal, and our own will. Christ came in the flesh to do the will of his father. 1 John 4, 2. By this you know the spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is from God.

John 6, 38. For I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. The idols can't walk. Christ walked among us. Matthew 1, 23. Behold, the virgin will conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

The idols are speechless. What does John 1, 1 say? In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The idols have no breath. 2 Timothy 3, 16. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.

The idols are deaf, dumb, and blind. Christ hears our prayers. He knows our needs. He sees our distress. The idols make us deaf, dumb, and blind. Christ brings hearing. He brings knowledge. He brings sight.

Idols cannot save. Christ is mighty to save. Idols are abundant. We can come up with anything. The Savior, Christ, is scarce. There's only one Savior. No one comes to the Father except through Him. Idols multiply our sorrows.

Christ takes our sorrows. He's a man of sorrows. Idols give no hope of steadfast love. Christ is steadfast love. In the Ten Commandments, Exodus 1, 6. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

Kind of a side note here, this verse about third and fourth generations and generational curses, I don't know exactly what that means, but I do know that three and four generations is a lot less than thousands of generations.

So His steadfast love is much more abundant. Idols bring a curse to those who make them, to those who worship them. Christ became a curse for us, Galatians 3, 13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it was written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

Second Corinthians 5, 21. For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Idols are made in the heart and corrupt our heart. Christ gives us a new heart, Ezekiel 36, 26, and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit and I will put within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Idols bring sin which separate us from God and from other people. Christ brings righteousness that reconciles us to God and to each other. Second Corinthians 5, 20 through 21. Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making His appeal through us.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. Idols, praying to them does not answer our prayers, they cannot answer our prayers.

Christ prays for us, Romans 8, 34. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Idols have no authority and no goodness.

Christ is King of Kings and has all of the fruit of the Spirit. Idols bring slavery, both in worshiping them and legalism in trying to deny them. Christ brings liberty and freedom and salvation. It's my hope that as we look at the sins in our life and all of the things, all of the many blessings that God has given us, these good things, that we would have a proper affection, a right ordering of what He has given us and a love for Him first and foremost.

Removing all idols for the sake of growing closer to Him and closer with each other. Kind of a side note, this is mainly for examining ourselves. It's easy to see faults in others, but one thing we can do when we see these things or see signs of idols, we can pray for our brothers and sisters, not trying to remove the idol for them, but leave it to them, leave it to Christ who removes idols, that they would grow closer to Christ and replace the idols with Christ Himself.

Thank you very much. Brian, would you like to lead us in prayer?