Insidious Idolatry

One insidious aspect of idolatry is the human capacity to make idols of things or activities that are not bad in themselves.  The problem of idolatry goes far beyond graven images, money or stuff.  We can turn a memorial of God's victory into a shrine we venerate as holy ground.  The children of Israel preserved and later worshipped the bronze serpent Moses had made, naming it "Nehushtan" and burned incense to it (2 Kings 18:4).  Gideon destroyed his father's altar and image before facing the Midianites, yet after God delivered them into his hand he used plunder to fashion an ephod which became a snare to all Israel and His house.  In Jerusalem. I have witnessed people moved to tears as they caressed and kissed stones Jesus might have touched, pouring out affection upon relics that are not God.

It isn't just objects that we can worship and put in God's place, but we can idolise things that can be good and even God-glorifying.  After king Solomon and the children of Israel built the temple in Jerusalem in obedience to the LORD, they venerated the temple because it was God's dwelling place--rather than reserving their affections for God alone.  There are some who, having benefitted from miraculous physical healing, make healing an idol they seek more than the LORD who heals.  It struck me today since a building consecrated for worship and physical healing can be idols, prayer itself can become an idol when we make the primary focus our activity and efforts rather than God who answers prayer according to His will.  The problem of idolatry is not in a place, object or spiritual exercise, but it is the natural inclination of our hearts to put ourselves, others or anything in God's rightful place.

Thus Christian ministry can be an idol; our abilities and exercise of spiritual gifts can be idolised.  One spiritual gift can be lifted up above the rest in emphasis because it gives us credibility among Christians.  Godly men and women who have been used by God and have been a blessing in our lives can be lifted up in our hearts, that we tend to look and listen to them and follow their lead instead of seeking the LORD first.  Easier than anything is to idolise ourselves:  our reputation, honour, role, convictions and methods.  What we have done, our successes and accomplishments, can be glorified in our eyes to the point we pursue them relentlessly to our own ruin--like a drug addict does a high.  Jesus taught His disciples in Luke 12:34, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."  God is to have our complete loyalty, desire and affection, for He is the Creator and LORD over all.

Through Jesus Christ, born again Christians have fellowship and a relationship with the living God.  Everything we can see, hear, hold, think and feel has the potential to morph into idols because of the weakness and folly of our flesh.  Our knee-jerk reaction is to rid ourselves of stuff, to avoid doing or having anything lest we be ensnared by idolatry--and completely miss our need for a transformed and renewed heart.  Like the Colossian believers, we tend to embrace a "touch not, taste not, handle not" approach (Colossians 2:21) and idolise legalism rather than putting Colossians 3:1-4 into practice:  "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. ² Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. ³ For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴ When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory."

By putting off the works of the flesh and putting on the new man who is renewed in the knowledge of Christ, we are divinely enabled to glorify God and be His conduits of forgiveness, peace and love to all.  Let us thank and praise God for delivering us from the sin of idolatry in its countless forms, that He would have all honour and praise.

Guided by the Light

 "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

Psalm 119:105

Due to the orientation of our house and dining area, direct beams of sunlight shine through the sliding doors.  Light reveals what a lack of light conceals.  Glass that previously appeared, both on the sliding doors and on the hutch, were exposed as streaky with water spots and in need of cleaning.  Without the sunlight directly hitting the glass, I never would have noticed or known.

It is one thing to realise glass is streaky, but another thing altogether to do something to clean it!  Streaky glass isn't the end of the world, but it certainly is more pleasing to look through clean glass.  Was this knowledge pleasing enough to drop what I was doing when streaks came to my attention and immediately clean the glass?  No.  I believe this provides a good illustration of how the LORD can make us aware of blemishes in our lives and character we do not bother taking intentional action to clean up.  Our procrastination and inaction suggests we imagine realising we are sinners is more important than stopping what we are doing, repenting of sin and doing what pleases God instead.

The psalmist said God's word was "a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."  The use of personal pronouns shows God's word is to be taken personally ourselves--not to be used like a torch to ascertain the way others walk, to note obstacles or the direction others chose to walk.  God's word is to guide our steps because we need illumination and course-correction only the Bible can supply.  If our hearts echo Samuel who said, "Speak LORD, for your servant hears," then we must subject ourselves to God's guidance, encouragement, rebuke, correction and instruction through His written word.

Even as the orientation of our house provides opportunity for the sunlight to stream in the window during the day, there are houses sheltered by shady trees or taller structures that do not allow direct sunlight in.  Thankfully people are not like houses which cannot be moved but can turn our eyes to Jesus and open His word with the intention to hear and obey.  Neglect of opening God's word and reading it keeps us in the dark about our own sinfulness, hardness of heart and foolishness.  Reading the Scripture without practicing it tends to foster pride and self-righteousness through hypocrisy.

Reading the Bible is vital, yet obeying what God reveals is just as important.  A little sunlight shining through the window can prompt an impromptu spring cleaning session, and opening God's word and allowing it to shine upon our own paths brings personal revival when we take action to heed Him.  Being the Light of the World, Jesus does not leave anyone in the dark.  He revealed the condemnation is people prefer the darkness over the light because their deeds are evil.  May God's people walk in the light of the LORD as it is written in 1 John 1:7:  "But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."

God Hears and Leads

Before mobile phones, once my friend and I went to his house and surprisingly, no one was home.  This posed a problem because he forgot to bring the key to the front door with him.  The prospect of sitting outside the house waiting for someone to come home potentially for hours did not appeal, so we looked around the house for an alternate means of entry.  I understood how to remove flyscreens without damage, and it turned out an open window accessed from the back yard was an easy way in.  This enabled us to open the front door from within.  Two lessons were learned that day:  always bring your house key when you leave the house, and for better security keep those back windows locked--that is, unless you choose to ignore the first lesson.

David sang in Psalm 61:1-3, "Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. ² From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. ³ For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy."  In times of trouble and feeling overwhelmed David called out to God, as he knew God would hear and answer him speedily.  One might think a rock higher than him or a strong tower would be easily visible from below, but unlike structures built on earth God dwells in heaven where no one can approach without His guidance and leading.  Unless God graciously revealed Himself to us, no one ever could have known Him or shared a relationship with Him.  David had a relationship with the living God, for he said God had been a shelter and refuge for him.

Unlike my friend's house that could be accessed from one unlocked window, strongholds and refuges were not meant to be accessed by anyone outside them.  There was no unlocking city gates in ancient times:  gates and walls needed to be scaled, broken down or tunnelled under to enter.  Once secure, someone inside the refuge was needed to open the gates to enter.  The lowering of the drawbridge before castle gates needed to be done by someone who was already across the moat and in the safety of the castle.  Thus it makes perfect sense David would ask for God to lead him to the rock of salvation and the strong tower of refuge from the enemy.  Would the LORD open to Him?  Based on the character of God revealed in Jesus Christ, He is indeed open to those who humbly seek Him, those redeemed by the Gospel.  John 10:7-9 read, "Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. ⁸ All who ever came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. ⁹ I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."

Like a door which is always open and accessible, God is a shelter and refuge for His people always by His grace.  Like chicks that seek refuge under the wings of a mother hen, so God's people flee and flock to Him when we are overwhelmed, and we learn to abide there continually.  The LORD guides and leads us like a shepherd does his sheep, and Jesus is our Good Shepherd.  Though we cannot see Him with our shortsighted vision in a world full of darkness, where confusion obscures our sight and even light dazzles us, our God is never far from us because He hears our cries and answers.  As a caring shepherd is drawn to the faint bleating of a lamb dying from exposure, the LORD draws near to us to help and save us when we cry out to Him.  Blessed is the one whose God is the LORD, for He is the open door to salvation, comfort, safety and eternal life now and forever.

Reason and Faith

I am blessed there are countless people in this world that are more intelligent and learned than I am.  My life and perspective has been greatly enriched by their contributions--even when I was not in agreement with those with different biblical interpretations and conclusions.  This has goaded me to dive into the Scripture to ensure I am convinced in my own mind concerning doctrines as well as I can and worked to sharpen my own views with greater precision.  Like a sharp blade requires maintenance to operate at peak performance, so a biblical worldview is improved by sound doctrine put into practice.  Carbon steel knives rust simply by exposure to the air, and unless we are grounded in God's word inhabiting this sin-steeped world tends to dull us.

Recently I read an abridged letter sent by Galileo Galilei (yes, THE Galileo) to the Grand Duchess Christina to defend his position from those who criticised his scientific discoveries as incorrect and heretical when they had little to no knowledge of mathematics or astronomy.  At some points I feel he articulated skillfully what I have felt at times concerning those who dismiss wholesale physically demonstratable evidence because of their own interpretation of a verse or word of the Bible.  Galileo held God and the Bible in very high esteem, yet some in the church branded him a heretic because the hard evidence he presented ran contrary to their assumptions--that he ought to abandon reason and evidence for spurious interpretations of Scripture.  He quoted an "...ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: "That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how one goes to heaven, not how heaven goes."  Rather than being hemmed in, Galileo was free to delve into mathematics and all the sciences, giving God the glory for the order and meticulous details he came to comprehend.  He went on to write:

"It is the function of expositors to seek out the true senses of scriptural texts. These will unquestionably accord with the physical conclusions which manifest sense and necessary demonstrations have previously made certain to us. Now the Bible, as has been remarked, admits in many places expositions that are remote from the signification of the words for reasons we have already given. Moreover, we are unable to affirm that all interpreters of the Bible speak by Divine inspiration for if that were so there would exist no differences among them about the sense of a given passage. Hence I should think it would be the part of prudence not to permit anyone to usurp scriptural texts and force them in some way to maintain any physical conclusion to be true, when at some future time the senses and demonstrative or necessary reasons may show the contrary. Who indeed will set bounds to human ingenuity? Who will assert that everything in the universe capable of being perceived is already discovered and known? Let us rather confess quite truly that "Those truths which we know are very few in comparison with those which we do not know."

 We have it from the very mouth of the Holy Ghost that God delivered up the world to disputations, so that man cannot find out the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end. In my opinion no one, in contradiction to that dictum, should close the road to free philosophizing about mundane and physical things, as if everything had already been discovered and revealed with certainty. Nor should it be considered rash not to be satisfied with those opinions which have become common. No one should be scorned in physical disputes for not holding to the opinions which happen to please other people best, especially concerning problems which have been debated among the greatest philosophers for thousands of years. One of these is the stability of the sun mobility of the earth, a doctrine believed by Pythagoras and all his followers, by Heracleides of Pontus (who was one of them), by Philolaus, the teacher of Plato, and by Plato himself according to Aristotle..." (Internet Modern History Sourcebook, Public Domain, © Paul Halsall Aug 1997)

It is evident by this letter Galileo was troubled by coming to a conclusion concerning the physical world based on factual evidence by careful observation (the movement of the earth around the sun), only to have his discoveries dismissed entirely without consideration or rebuttal by other physical evidence contrary to his theories.  As Galileo intonated, mathematics is not a matter of faith:  in a sense he said if his sums were wrong, he would be pleased to humbly receive correction.  Those who castigated him could at least confirm his errors by showing their work with the correct solution.  To dismiss his sound arithmetic with unsound Bible interpretation was problematic--and being accused of heresy for utilising his God-given skill and understanding was repugnant.  God has provided the heavens which declare the glory of God, and the natural sciences do this incredibly well with a God-honouring lens.  Our Creator has also provided the Bible to reveal Himself to us personally, and thus in matters of faith and the observable world the LORD has supplied all the evidence required to know the truth.  Reason and faith are not contrary to one another but pair perfectly in the Christian faith.  Ours is not a blind faith, for we are those whose eyes have been opened and born again into a relationship with God--who sees and knows all.