How is it possible, with so much evidence for God’s existence and power, that to find anyone who believes Him is such a hard task? If God were expressing Himself in a human mind, this must have been what He was thinking regarding King Ahaziah, son of Ahab of Israel. Ahaziah was old enough to see the miracles of Elijah. He knew about the drought. He at least heard about the Mt. Carmel incident. And he knew of Micaiah’s prophecy that sent Ahab to his grave and gave him the throne.
Yet when Ahaziah fell through the terrace in his place, his first turn was to seek the Baals. Why? His mother was Jezebel, and she was one of Baal’s priestesses. His sister was Athaliah, who married Jehoshaphat’s son. Baal worship was rampant in Israel because of Jezebel and her children to the point where Elijah thought he was the last good prophet left. Ahaziah never turned to seek the Lord. He sought Baal, and Elijah stopped the messenger to force the king to face the Lord. Instead Ahaziah sent three different companies of soldiers to arrest Elijah. The first two were slaughtered because Elijah called fire from heaven, and the third pled for mercy. Elijah gave the same message: “Is there no God in Israel?” Ahaziah died and his brother took the throne until Jehu’s cleansing of Ahab’s line.
Let me ask a similar question: Is there no God in the United States? Is there no God in the Church in America? To be clear, Israel was under covenant with God and the United States is not, however the key problem is the same. Those who profess the name of Christ, those who proclaim to be in the covenant with God, are seeking other gods besides the Lord for their needs. Perhaps the greatest idol in the U.S. today, and there are many, is the “man of knowledge.” Yes, we have severe idols with drugs, entertainment, sex, celebrities, money, comfort, etc., but few are idolized greater than the academic. Understand that I am not talking about individuals but academia as a whole. And it's not merely the heathens who worship this god; the Christian in the U.S. worships this idol more than anything else.
There are a lot of good things that have come out of academic studies, but when academic credentials became the standard instead of actual quality work and character, all the academic fields fell into disarray and became total cesspools of false knowledge. Proverbs states that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. There is no true knowledge that can be had that does not find its source in the Lord. A militant anti-theist can say some truthful things from time to time, but those true things never originated out of that person’s thinking, but they actually came from a God-fearing man who got his ideas from the ultimate source. In all the academic studies we have, there are a lot of conundrums that cannot and will not be solved by man’s own efforts. The academics are seeking every source and possible answer except one that reveals the True God, and God is saying, “Here I am.”
George Washington Carver was born a slave and raised and adopted by his owners when slaves were politically freed. However, his people were still slaves to cotton economically because they knew nothing else. Carver had done his studies and realized the peanut plant would be the solution to not only freeing the blacks from cotton but the South itself, which had no other crop to work with. Where did Carver turn to? The academics? The witch doctors? No. He turned to the God of the Bible and asked God how he made each part of the plant and what each part could do, and he came up with 300+ recipes for the peanut plant. It was not even considered a possible crop at the time, and now he had it. He knew there was still a God in the U.S., and he turned to that God to rescue the South from its slavery to cotton.
In the churches, the situation is much worse. Is there a God in the American church? Look at the average church prayer meeting and you’ll find the answer as to whether that church actually believes in God or not. Where is the God that works miracles and shows supernatural deliverance? Where is the God who gave the U.S. the power to overthrow the most powerful empire in the world to earn our freedom? Where is the God that Carver prayed to and Edwards and Whitefield preached of? The answer is simple: He’s still here. He is just being silent because we are not seeking Him. We are not going after Him, not as a nation. I am so grateful for God placing me in a church at the right time to stop me from pursuing the academic-heavy slant I was heading in and reel me back in to use the academic strengths I have for God’s Kingdom instead of my own. My church is actively seeking in prayer for God to come back and do what God has been known to do in the church once again. But churches like mine are hard to come by.
Look at pastoral requirements. You see a standard list of business-like credentials. MDiv? Check. Previous pastoral experience with youth or associate or assistant? Check. Doctrinal statement of beliefs? Check. But show me the church that selects their pastors according to the official credential list found in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and I’ll show you a rare diamond in the rough. I will never forget Randy Guilluza of the Institute of Creation Research closing a conference back in 2018 with this statement. He said if he were on a pastoral selection committee, he would not ask about the Trinity. He would ask about how he handles the fear of man, because if he can handle the fear of man correctly, he’ll get the Trinity correct. When helping churches with their pastor selection team, Paul Washer will have the team list all the things they want the pastor to do and it usually ends up being a 160-hours-a-day list. Then he asks how long they want that pastor in prayer and Scripture seeking the face of God. In saying that, prayer and Scripture study and seeking God is almost never on the mind of church leadership.
Is there a God in the U.S.? Do we actually believe there is one? Because as God did with Ahaziah and the family of Ahab, God is going to remind the United States that He is still here, and it is not going to be for fun and games. Judgment is coming and it is here. We are seeing Psalm 50 being carried out before us – where the wicked, professing to be Christians, did all sorts of evil, thinking God was just like them and would readily forgive them all, but instead God is going to wipe them out and tear them to pieces. Our nation has forgotten God, but God has not left. He has merely been silent and left us to our own devices, and He is going to drop the hammer soon. That judgment will start in the House of God and since we have not and will not repent as a whole, the only option left is intense persecution. God is going to purify His bride before He comes to take her home. May we be as the 7000 who did not bow their knee to Baal. May we be among those who did not forget God, and may we proudly declare that there is still a God in the United States and He will be worshiped one way or the other.
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Hezekiah was a godly king who tore down high places and destroyed idols including good things such as the Bronze Serpent. He got sick halfway into his reign, and God granted him 15 more years of his life. There is an indication that he was childless at this point with no heir. God said he would heal him and give him an heir. That child was born a couple of years later, Manasseh. When Hezekiah died, Manasseh was just 12 years old, and he reigned for 55 years. He had the longest reign of any king of Israel or Judah, and he was the worst of them.
Manasseh followed all the idols that the pagans had around them – Baal, Asherah, Molech/Chemosh, not to mention practicing sorcery and divination and seeking mediums, a list that not even Ahab did. And as bad as all that was, he did something even more evil than all that: he put these idols and altars directly in the Temple itself. And catch this statement in 2 Chronicles 33:9: Manasseh led Judah to do even more evil than the pagan nations whom the Lord had already destroyed through the Assyrian empire. Ezekiel gave some fierce words for this in Ezekiel 23 and compared Israel and Judah to two harlots. For as bad of a rap as Israel has, Judah out-sinned Israel. If the trio of Jehoram, Ahaziah, and Athaliah were bad, Ahaz seemed to seek to top them and Manasseh went even further.
Isaiah was nearing the end of his ministry, and he rebuked Manasseh for his idolatry. Tradition holds that Manasseh had Isaiah sawn in half. Manasseh wanted nothing to do with the prophets of God. Ezekiel 22 gives a devastating lashing against the prophets and priests of that time: conspiring against God and using their position and the people’s innate trust in that position to rip them off for selfish gain. No one stood in the gap; no one stepped up to put a stop to it. Hezekiah tried. Isaiah tried. But the people didn’t listen to Hezekiah or Isaiah, and Manasseh had Isaiah removed.
God had enough and had Assyria take Manasseh captive along with formally proclaiming the upcoming captivity to Babylon. Keep in mind that when Assyria took captives, they marched them in their chains, naked, and pulled along with a hook in their nose. This was only one of the many ways Assyria showed their brutal cruelty. In captivity, Manasseh was humbled. The teachings and preaching of his father Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah would have come to mind, and he remembered and sought the Lord. He returned to Jerusalem and began tearing down all the idols. He did not tear down the high places, but the people used them to worship the true God. Manasseh committed the most atrocious sins of all the kings, but he was humbled, and in that humility, he returned to serve the Lord until he died.
We don’t know when during Manasseh’s 55-year reign his arrest and repentance took place, but this sets up the backstory to his son Amon who was born 33 years into his reign. Amon lasted only two years because he followed the footsteps of his father into idolatry, only he did not repent of his sins. He was assassinated as a result. His officials had no interest in seeing another Manasseh who would turn Assyria against Judah again, so they killed him and installed Josiah in his stead, a boy of only 8 years old.
Let’s do the math. Amon was 24 when he was assassinated and Josiah was 8 at that time. So Amon was 16 when he fathered Josiah and 15 when he slept with Josiah’s mother. It’s not as crazy a situation as with Ahaz who fathered Hezekiah when he was 11, but still very young.
Manasseh and Amon show the reverse cases of Joash and Hezekiah. Joash started well and ended bad. Hezekiah started well and ended well. Manasseh started bad and ended well. Amon started bad and ended bad. Manasseh had all the markings, precedents, and foundations laid for a good backing. Because Manasseh was just 12 years old when he became king, it is possible that Hezekiah’s death triggered anger and resentment in him. He was old enough to have an attachment to Hezekiah, so it’s not implausible for him to blame God for it and go to all the idols to spit in God’s face. But that is speculation.
Amon likely lived through Manasseh’s repentance, but it may depend upon when that took place. I suspect the repentance was towards the end of his life, but I cannot prove that. I suspect Amon spent a good part of his youth engaged in idolatrous actions alongside his father. He clearly didn’t learn from his father about repentance and departing from the idols. He liked the idols and wanted to keep them. Instead of repenting from his sin, he multiplied it. In a way, God was merciful in allowing Amon to be assassinated, and the people in turn executed his killers. It wasn’t right to kill him, but God may have allowed it to give Amon’s little boy a chance to follow God and give him the opportunity to lead the nation in a last-minute revival while also fulfilling prophecy. That will be for next week.
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Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?
- 1 Corinthians 10:14-22
As I’ve said many times before and will probably say many times again, when you see a passage that begins with a “therefore,” you need to ask, what is the “therefore” there for? In this situation, it relates this section back to the previous one, which you can read about here. Paul has just given the first-century Corinthian believers a history lesson about the people of Israel, particularly at the time of the exodus from Egypt. The point of that lesson was that the first-century believers should NOT imitate what Israel did, as they did not do a great job of following God.
So, because of that heritage, Paul gives the believers a specific warning to “flee from idolatry” (verse 14). It is a command for them to flee from idolatry. Don’t just ignore it, don’t just stand by while it happens, but actively run away from it. Idolatry is really the pinnacle of all sin, as all sins we commit stem from some form of idolatry – putting something or someone else (including ourselves) in a greater position than God in our lives.
Paul knows that this concept is not difficult for his audience to understand (verse 15). He knows they can reason out what he is saying. It’s no great mystery; God is the one true God, and they have the example of the historical nation of Israel to look at to see how God punishes those who consistently and persistently engage in idolatry.
Paul then brings up the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion in verses 16-17 and relates that to unity in the church. As believers, everyone participates in the same fellowship with Christ that is represented by the cup and the bread. The term “cup of blessing” refers to a specific cup that was part of the Jewish Passover celebration, which Jesus and His disciples were celebrating when He instituted the Lord’s Supper. All believers are united in Christ because we share this cup together, and we are united as one body as we all partake of the body of Christ in this sacred meal.
In verses 18-20, Paul relates this back to the nation of Israel and back to his discussion of eating food that was sacrificed to idols from back in 1 Corinthians 8 (which you can read about here and here). When the Israelites made sacrifices to God, they would eat it, as commanded by God in Leviticus 7:15 and 8:31. They were fully participating in the worship of God through this sacrificial system.
Paul makes it clear that comparing sacrifices for pagan idols to sacrifices to God does not make the idols at all equal to God. Idols and their sacrifices are still nothing. Pagan sacrifices are worshiping demons, not God. That is an important distinction to be made, and Paul is being very clear so the Corinthian people know the consequences of their worship. If they participate in pagan worship, then they are worshiping demons. He does not want them to participate in demon worship as that would obviously pull them away from worshiping God.
Paul’s point in this section comes in verse 21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.” A person cannot participate in both the worship of God and the worship of demons; you have to choose your side. Are you focused on serving God and God alone? Or are you focused on the ways of the world and worshipping pagan gods?
The idea of the table was one that the Corinthians would be familiar with. Pagan worship in that area was often associated with having a meal at a table. Participating in the table of demons was a way of worshiping that demon. Similarly, participating in the Lord’s table is a way of worshiping God through the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the meal that He instituted. Christians cannot participate in a meal at the table of a pagan god and also participate in the Lord’s table.
If we try to worship at both tables, Paul tells us in verse 22 that we will stir up the Lord’s jealousy. There is precedent for this in Deuteronomy 32:21, Psalm 78:58, and in the Ten Commandments where God says that He is a jealous God (Exodus 20:4-6). God’s jealousy is not a sin because He is the only God who is worthy to be worshiped. As His creation, we are not stronger than God that we could somehow overcome His jealousy of His people worshiping false gods.
Just like the believers in first-century Corinth, we have that same choice to make. Do we participate in the Lord’s table and worship the one true God? Or do we participate in the ways of the world and worship idols – anything that is not God? We need to make that choice all the time in every moment. Every thought, word, or action shows our allegiance either to the one true God or to the sinful ways of this world and its demons. While we will not be perfect at worshiping God at all times, that is the goal that we strive toward. Make the choice today to participate in the Lord’s table!
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Well, friends, we have made it – Zedekiah is the last king of Judah, the last king of the divided nation of Israel before Judah was carried off into exile in Babylon. You may recall from last week’s post that the previous king, King Jehoiachin, was taken prisoner by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar was the one who put King Zedekiah (who happened to be King Jehoiachin’s uncle) in charge of Judah.
The narrative of King Zedekiah’s reign and the fall of Jerusalem is found in 2 Kings 24:17-25:26 and 2 Chronicles 36:10-23. Clearly, Judah’s demise was imminent, and it was just a matter of time. It’s not a good sign when a foreign king chooses the next king of your land! King Zedekiah did evil in the eyes of the Lord, just as many of the kings before him had done. In 2 Kings 24:20, the author reiterates the fact that what was about to happen was clearly because of the Lord’s anger at all of Judah’s disobedience.
So what brought about the actual fall of Judah? It’s in the second half of verse 20: “Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.” Babylon was a very strong nation, and they had already taken the previous king of Judah as a prisoner. This was a very foolish move by King Zedekiah!
Naturally, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon responded immediately and forcefully. King Zedekiah’s rebellion happened in the 10th month of the 9th year of Zedekiah’s reign, and Babylon laid siege to Jerusalem until the 11th year of Zedekiah’s reign! The city was completely cut off from outside resources for more than a year. The people of the city were in a time of famine with no food available.
Finally, the Babylonians broke through the walls of Jerusalem. The entire army that was in Jerusalem fled, but the Babylonian army pursued them and easily overtook them, capturing King Zedekiah. The Babylonians were exceedingly wicked people, and they killed King Zedekiah’s sons while he watched, and then they took out his eyes. The last thing he would remember seeing was the brutal execution of his children.
About a month later, the commander of the Babylonian army arrived in Jerusalem to oversee its total destruction. They set fire to the temple and all of the homes in Jerusalem. Every building was burned down. The army broke down the walls around the city. Any people who remained were carried into exile, except for some of the very poor people who were left behind to work the fields and vineyards. The poor were unlikely to cause any problems, and they could be useful by tending to the land.
Details are provided about what happened to all the specific furnishings of the temple. Generally speaking, it was all carried off as spoils of war back to Babylon. After that, we read a description of what happened to all of the religious, military, and government officials. In short, they were all taken to Babylon and executed.
“So Judah went into captivity, away from her land” (2 Kings 25:21). After that statement of finality, we read some historical notes about the people’s time in exile. A man named Gedaliah was appointed to be in charge of the few people left behind in Judah, and he encouraged the people to basically just give up and serve the king of Babylon. But, a rebel named Ishmael rose up and assassinated Gedaliah and a bunch of people who were with him. After that, all the people fled to Egypt to hide from the Babylonians.
This era in the history of God’s chosen people of Israel began in disobedience to God, and it was that disobedience that caused it to come to an end. The people wanted a king, so God gave them one, even though He knew that was not in their best interest. After the reigns of Saul, David, and Solomon, it was during the reign of Solomon’s son Rehoboam that the kingdom split. The 10 northern tribes kept the name Israel, and the 2 southern tribes of Benjamin and Judah took the name Judah.
Israel had all evil kings for their entire existence as the northern kingdom. They were conquered and carried off into exile under King Hoshea. Judah lasted longer, as the nation did have some good kings who honored God, but they, too, were destined for exile due to their continued disobedience to God.
The overarching sin in both kingdoms was idolatry. The people worshiped many gods other than the one true God, despite God’s clear command to worship Him and Him alone (Exodus 20:1-6). God continually gave them grace and took care of His people, and they constantly repaid Him by going against His commandments and worshiping other gods.
What can we learn today from this era in the history of Israel and Judah? The most important lesson is to do what they did not: worship God and God alone. We may feel like we’re doing a pretty good job at that because we don’t have Asherah, Baal, etc. that we worship, but we have so many other little gods in our lives; we have cell phones, social media, celebrities, etc. Anything that we focus on as a higher priority than God in our lives is an idol. Idolatry is the chief sin among people today as well; in fact, breaking every one of the Ten Commandments is based on idolatry. (Learn more in the blog post series beginning with this post by Charlie Wolcott.)
Today, we are just as guilty of idolatry as Israel and Judah. The form of idols we worship may be different, but the idea is the same: we worship so many things that are not of God. Does God forgive us? Yes – when we are truly repentant of those sins, we are covered by the blood of Jesus and His sacrifice for us. But if we continually, habitually, and willfully disobey God and worship these idols, God’s judgment may come for us, too, just as it did for both Israel and Judah.
Learn from the history of the nation of Israel that our focus, both as individuals and as a nation, needs to be on being obedient to God and worshiping Him and Him alone!
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As we have seen with each king of the northern kingdom of Israel, the nation has been on a downward spiral ever since it split under King Solomon’s son Rehoboam. While the southern kingdom of Judah has had some good kings and some bad ones, not one king of Israel can be considered good with obedience to God. King Jehu is the only one who may be slightly considered as good, but only for part of his reign.
God kept delaying His judgment on the evil, idolatrous nation of Israel, but finally, under King Hoshea, their extra time ran out. King Hoshea is the last king of the northern kingdom of Israel.
King Hoshea’s reign even began in a tumultuous way. We read in 2 Kings 15:30: “Then Hoshea son of Elah conspired against Pekah son of Remaliah. He attacked and assassinated him, and then succeeded him as king in the twentieth year of Jotham son of Uzziah.” Hoshea only became king because he killed King Pekah who had been on the throne.
The rest of King Hoshea’s story is found in 2 Kings 17:1-6. Previously, under King Pekah, the nation of Assyria invaded Israel, but the Assyrians did not fully take over at that time. While some previous kings made alliances with the Assyrians to keep the peace, King Hoshea was against that. When he took the throne, it was during a military purge that was pro-Assyria, but then he quickly changed his tune. However, King Hoshea’s efforts to go against the Assyrians were not successful.
Outwardly, King Hoshea had become a servant to the king of Assyria, but inwardly he did not pledge his allegiance to the Assyrians. The previous king of Assyria had died, and his son Shalmaneser took over in his place. Shalmaneser discovered that King Hoshea was not truly a loyal subject, and that was basically the end of King Hoshea’s reign – and the nation of Israel being an independent nation.
Because of Israel’s lack of loyalty to Assyria, they invaded and fought for 3 years. Then, “In the ninth year of Hoshea, the king of Assyria captured Samaria and deported the Israelites to Assyria” (2 Kings 17:6a). While on the outside this appeared to be a political situation with Assyria, really this was God’s judgment on an evil people who had been disobeying him for a few centuries. King after king continued to be evil, even with God sending multiple prophets to try and get His people back on track. The people were so far gone from actually honoring God as the one true God that something drastic had to be done, and God used the nation of Assyria to accomplish that.
This true reason behind the exile can be found in 2 Kings 17:7-8: “All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the LORD their God, who had brought them up out of Egypt from under the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt. They worshiped other gods and followed the practices of the nations the LORD had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced.”
The whole section of 2 Kings 17:7-23 is a long discourse about why Israel was sent into exile. Israel continually did what was not right in God’s eyes. They built towers, high places, Asherah poles, and sacred stones to worship idols and the gods of pagan nations. They did all sorts of wicked things that made God angry. God clearly told them not to worship idols (Exodus 20:2-6), and yet they constantly did it anyway.
God sent multiple prophets to the nation – Ahijah, Jehu, Micaiah, Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, Jonah, Micah, and Isaiah to name a few. What was the result? “But they would not listen and were as stiff-necked as their ancestors, who did not trust in the LORD their God. They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, ‘Do not do as they do’” (2 Kings 17:14-15).
Reading through this section, it seems that the more that’s recorded about the evils of the nation of Israel, the worse it gets. “They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal. They sacrificed their sons and daughters in the fire. They practiced divination and sought omens and sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of the LORD, arousing his anger” (2 Kings 17:16-17).
The result of all of this was that God removed Israel from His presence. Even God’s mercy has a limit when His people continue to blatantly disobey Him again and again for a few hundred years. God rejected them and allowed them to be captured and taken into exile by the nation of Assyria. Now, this punishment was just for the northern kingdom of Israel, but the author points out that the southern kingdom of Judah should take note, as they were falling into idolatry as well.
A summary of the nation of Israel from the time the kingdom divided until the exile is given in 2 Kings 17:21-23: “When he tore Israel away from the house of David, they made Jeroboam son of Nebat their king. Jeroboam enticed Israel away from following the LORD and caused them to commit a great sin. The Israelites persisted in all the sins of Jeroboam and did not turn away from them until the LORD removed them from his presence, as he had warned through all his servants the prophets. So the people of Israel were taken from their homeland into exile in Assyria, and they are still there.”
We can learn a lot about God’s character through His dealings with the nation of Israel during this time. God is a patient God; this was not a quick judgment, but it took over 200 years for God to finally get to the point where He allowed them to be overtaken. God is a persistent God; He kept giving warning after warning through many prophets to try and get the people to turn back to Him. God is a merciful God; even when sending the people into exile, He did not totally kill off the people but instead gave them harsh punishment. God is a loving God; He never stopped loving His people and trying to win them back, and even their punishment of exile was an act of love to get them to see who He really is and how much He loves them.
The God of the nation of Israel is still the same God we worship and serve today. He is still patient, persistent, merciful, and loving; but He also has the right to punish a nation that continually and blatantly rejects Him. Consider yourself warned!
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After looking at two kings of the southern kingdom of Judah for the last few weeks, this week we turn our attention back to the northern kingdom of Israel. While Jeroboam was king of Israel, Judah had Rehoboam, Abijah, and Asa as kings. In the second year of Asa’s reign in Judah, Jeroboam died and his son Nadab took over as king of Israel.
Nadab had a very short reign of just two years. That may seem insignificant in the history of Israel, but every king is important and contributes something to the nation as a whole, so today we’ll look at what Nadab did during his short time as king. You can read the entire account of Nadab in 1 Kings 15:25-31.
Unfortunately, we see in verse 26 that, “He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, following the ways of his father and committing the same sin his father had caused Israel to commit.” It is likely for this reason that Nadab’s reign was not long and did not go well for him.
In the second year of his reign, Nadab attempted to capture the Philistine city of Gibbethon. But, during that battle, Nadab was assassinated. Baasha, the son of Ahijah from the tribe of Issachar, had been plotting against Nadab with the motive of becoming king himself. Note that Baasha’s father Ahijah was a different person (with the same name) as the prophet who had advised Nadab’s father Jeroboam. Once Baasha killed Nadab, he seized the throne for himself (1 Kings 15:27-28).
After Baasha took over, he killed the rest of Jeroboam’s family, not leaving one person left alive. This happened to fulfill the prophecy given to Jeroboam through the prophet Ahijah back in 1 Kings 14:14: “The LORD will raise up for himself a king over Israel who will cut off the family of Jeroboam. Even now this is beginning to happen.” The king who was spoken of in that prophecy was Baasha, who used Nadab to begin the killing spree that was foretold to Jeroboam.
We see how this all happened and why in 1 Kings 15:29-30: “As soon as he began to reign, he killed Jeroboam’s whole family. He did not leave Jeroboam anyone that breathed, but destroyed them all, according to the word of the LORD given through his servant Ahijah the Shilonite. This happened because of the sins Jeroboam had committed and had caused Israel to commit, and because he aroused the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel.”
This raises the question of whether people are punished for the sins of others. Was Nadab only allowed to reign for 2 years and then killed because of the sins of his father Jeroboam? Yes and no. God did prophesy that He would cut off Jeroboam’s entire family due to Jeroboam’s sins, and Nadab was part of that family. But the Scriptures record for us that Nadab also committed evil and did not follow God, which deserves to be punished as well.
But what about the rest of Jeroboam’s family members – other children, wives, etc.? Were they sentenced to death because of Jeroboam’s sins? Again, the answer is likely yes and no. As with Nadab, they were likely committing the same sins as Jeroboam and Nadab in turning against God and worshiping idols.
Worshiping any God except the one true God is clearly a violation of God’s first commandment to the nation of Israel. Exodus 20:1-6 in the Ten Commandments says, “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
The last part of that references punishing children for the sins of their parents. God had clearly warned Israel that one of the effects of idolatry would be the children suffering for the sins of their parents. Was this God being unjust and punishing people for sins they did not commit themselves? Not necessarily. Generally speaking, if the parents are committing idolatry, the children will follow that practice as well, thus becoming deserving of the punishment that God gives them for that sin. It can often take many generations to break that sin until something happens to break them out of it, often God intervening in some great way to change the hearts of the leader and then the people follow.
Nadab’s short reign was significant in that it fulfilled God’s prophecy to cut off the line of Jeroboam as a punishment for the many ways he continuously disobeyed God. Jeroboam was clearly not repentant of these sins, and neither was Nadab, so God followed through on that prophecy. If Jeroboam or Nadab had realized their sin and repented of it, then things likely would have turned out differently for them and for their nation. But so goes the leader, so goes the fate of the nation.
What can we learn from Nadab that will help our Christian faith today? The primary lesson is to not only follow God ourselves but to be wise in what our families and those close to us are doing. If a family member is intentionally going down a path that leads away from God, we need to seek the Holy Spirit’s guidance in how to deal with that family member. Perhaps they need us to speak God’s truth in love to them to bring them back to the right path. Or perhaps we need to steer clear of them so we do not get drawn into their sin and suffer the consequences of it. There is no one “right answer” for every situation, as each person and situation have nuanced details to them. We need to trust that God is sovereign and to follow His leading through the Holy Spirit in our lives.
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For the past few months, I’ve been addressing idolatry and expressing just how wicked it really is. Let’s be real and face the facts: we’ve all done it. We’ve all committed idolatry. We have all replaced God with something or someone else and given it an image. We’ve all taken God’s name lightly and disregarded it, nor remembered Him on our “Sabbath” day. We’ve all dishonored our parents. We’ve all hated someone to the point we would murder them if we knew we’d get away with it. We’ve all lusted after others who aren’t our spouse. We’ve all stolen, all lied, and all lusted after something that isn’t ours. We are all guilty of breaking all Ten Commandments and I do not believe I am off-base to suggest we did all this because of following a god or serving an idea, person, or thing that isn’t God. We are lost and without hope on our own, because God is going to make us face Him on Judgment Day when the books will be opened.
Idolatry is like a prison. It deceives us to think we are being free to do what we want, but in actuality it is slavery and the further we go, the tighter the chains get. It’s like any addiction. The moment you want to put it away, you find out you can’t. It won’t let you. You have made a covenant bond with it, and it won’t let you go. But there is hope! That bond can be severed. Those chains can be broken. There is one Man who did it: Jesus Christ. Jesus came and lived on this earth as a man. He was temped in every way known to man and beat it.
There was no point in Jesus’ life when He put another god, person, idea, or thing before God. He submitted completely to the Father. The very notion of going against His Father’s will was anathema to Him. There was no physical object He served to give Him hope or direction. It was only the Father. He never took His Father’s name in vain, even when He identified Himself as being one with the Father. Everyone else thought it was blasphemous, but they didn’t understand the Scriptures. It was not wrong for Jesus to identify Himself with God because He was God. He was and still is part of the Trinity.
Jesus honored the Sabbath. He understood its point and purpose: to rest the body and remember God. He dismissed the strict regulations of the Pharisees, who frequently were violators of their own laws themselves. He honored His mother and father. He submitted to them, when even at 12 years old and was teaching in the temple, He went home with His parents and submitted to their authority.
He was firm and at times fierce, but He never committed murder nor hated even those who rejected His message. He wept over the Pharisees and how they missed the mark with Him, and He rebuked James and John who in their anger sought to call fire down from heaven. He never lusted after another. There are false ‘gospels’ that suggest Jesus married Mary Magdalene, and I could only slightly agree with the idea that there may have been a temptation there, but not one Jesus would have given a second thought. I can only suggest this because Scripture says he was tempted in every way known to man, and if Jesus didn’t overcome sexual temptation, what hope do we have? Jesus never stole anything that wasn’t His, including the name of God. He never claimed anything that wasn’t His. He never lied, nor spoke even half-truths, nor hid the truth. He only spoke that which was true. And He never lusted after anything that didn’t belong to Him. He never coveted after anyone’s home, their clothes, their lifestyle, anything. He only asked His Father to meet His needs and was willing to go without anything His Father needed Him to go without. Jesus fulfilled every single commandment, perfectly. Nothing led Him astray.
That gives us hope. And because Jesus perfectly lived out a perfect life, He could offer Himself to the Father to satisfy the Wrath of God against sin. If Jesus has sinned just once, His death would only be able to cover His own sin, not that of another. That’s why none of us could die in the place of another. We have our own debt to pay, and our death can only pay for our own sins. Jesus could do it instead. And on that cross, a scandalous substitution took place. Jesus became sin and took on the full wrath of God in one go. He then traded His righteous perfection to us so that we do not carry our own righteousness but His. The debt is paid. The wrath of God is satisfied. But we would still be dead and so would Christ, so there was one more thing: the Resurrection.
It is the Resurrection that changes everything. It is the Resurrection that transforms a person and restores life. In the Resurrection of Christ, there is no more sin, death, disease, or even sadness. That has not yet been fully realized, but as the Old Testament saints looked forward to our day where Christ has come and done His work, we look forward to the day where we will finally be delivered from the very presence of sin. How does this happen? While the entire work is done by Christ so we have no means or ability to boast, we still have a response to make. The response Jesus taught in His ministry was, “Repent and believe.” We must renounce the old way of life, turning away from it. We no longer want that old life, and we forsake it. We must nail it to the cross, too, so that Jesus’ work can be accomplished. Then we must believe. It’s trust and dependence upon Christ, ultimately letting Him do His work in and through us. The real secret to Christianity is Jesus living His life in and through us, not us trying to live out Christianity. If we are willing to forsake our idols, destroy them, tear down the “altars” where we worship them, and replace them with the only True God, we will see true freedom and the idol’s hold on our lives will be broken. It’s a continual journey and we’ll never exhaust the end of it on this earth, but those who have done this have never regretted it. Once you know and taste the freedom God gives, you will never want to return to idols that can’t do what only God can do.
Do you want freedom? Do you want to break away from worthless practices that never satisfy and never let you know if you did “enough”? Get ahold of any of us at Worldview Warriors: Jason DeZurik, Katie Erickson, Steve Risner, Chad Koons, Eric Hansen, or myself. We will gladly work with you and show you how to meet Jesus and get freedom. Our hope is in Jesus Christ and He can be your hope too. Even if you are already born again, Jesus can offer deliverance to any area of sin that you have not yet experienced victory over. But you have to let it go so He can. When we turn to Jesus, He has the answer to ALL of our problems, and we can rest with assurance and confidence that He will take care of us. It may not be the way we think, but He will take care of us and it will be worth it. Put your trust and your faith in Christ Jesus. Unlike any idol, Jesus does what He claims, and He never leads anyone astray. Follow Him. You won’t regret it.
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We have all heard the phrase “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” That’s Paul writing in 1 Timothy 6:10. However, while it is not explicitly stated in Scripture as such, I do not believe I am off-base to suggest that idolatry is the root of all evil. Before I go into that claim, let me review the previous ten posts of this series.
Idolatry is the practice of putting anything before God, be it a person, place, thing, or idea. Any noun that we utilize to seek to supplant God, or replace God, or to get from that which only God can offer, can be or is an idol. As I have read the historical accounts and the prophets, idolatry is the primary sin that is marked above all sins. All the kings were judged by how they handled idolatry: by allowing it, by participating in it, or by shutting it down. The prophets were more interesting because they don’t just describe how the kings did it but also how the average family engaged in idolatry. Jeremiah 7:17-19 describes how a family would all participate in idolatry. Jeremiah 32:29 describes how the roofs of homes in Jerusalem were used to worship Baal. And get this, even while wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, after having received the Ten Commandments and after the Golden Calf incident, the Israelites carried the Tabernacle and also idol of Molech.
In the Old Testament, the idols were the gods of their neighbors and including Baal, Asherah, Molech, Dagan, and many others. The idols took indirect forms through kings and other leaders. And I would suggest that ancient Israel had also crafted their own image of God that they worshipped instead of the true God. Otherwise, the Psalmist would not have rebuked the people for thinking God was like them. Isaiah would not have had to say that God’s ways were higher than our ways, His thoughts higher than our thoughts. And the Jews would have been ready for the Messiah when He came instead of expecting a military leader who would rescue them from Rome.
It was idolatry that made Israel misrepresent the name of God, taking His name in vain. It was in idolatry that they ignored the Sabbath’s purposes and led to dishonoring of parents. Idolatrous practices involved the intentional murder of children, sexual depravity, stealing from God and giving to another, lying about God, and greedily coveting what the other gods had to offer.
Idolatry is practiced today, too, and you can see my posts in this series for those details. But here, I am going to make the claim that ALL sins come out of a root of idolatry. That claim goes back all the way to Genesis 3 and the Fall of Man. One of the lies that Satan used to get Eve to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was that in doing so, she would be like God. This was the tipping point. This was the clincher. You could be like God. You could be the judge of right and wrong. You could rule your own life. You could live as you please. You could live submitting to no one. Eve took the bait, and Adam who was with her let her do a test run before joining her in it. They believed the lie and turned themselves into idols. One of the great sins of original sin was the worship of self.
So, what about the love of money? Actually, that makes money an idol. Jesus said you cannot serve both God and mammon. Mammon was the Greek god of money. What about pride? God hates pride more than idolatry, doesn’t he? Actually, pride is simply the worship of self. The idol of pride is you. The proud and arrogant worships self.
But there is another form of this idolatry of the worship of self: the god of your own making. This one is very subtle, but it’s still the worship of self. Brian McLaren in A Generous Orthodoxy showcases this issue. On pages 84-85, he describes “God A” and begins to list all the attributes of a god he doesn’t like: wrath, anger, vengeance, jealousy, etc. Then he says we should imagine “God B” which has all these lovely and fluffy attributes: love, mercy, kindness, gentleness, etc. Then he says, “I'm not sure which comes first--the kind of universe you see or the kind of God you believe in, but as a Christian who believes in Jesus as the Son of God, I find myself in universe B, getting to know God B.” This is blasphemy. McLaren has sought to redefine God as he would like him to be, while claiming to be a Christian. This is not Christianity. This is an entirely different religion altogether (and I believe he’s gotten a lot of other things very wrong too).
This comes out of post-modern thinking where truth cannot be known and is constantly changing (thanks to Evolutionary thinking). It is a purposeful rejection of truth being defined outside of self. Post-modern thinking is simply the modern version of: “In those days there was no king, and each man did that which is right in his own eyes.” We expect this kind of thing in the world, where sin runs rampant anyway. But it’s gotten into the church and Satan has made it his business to deceive the church to keep us from knowing the truth, let alone speak it.
One of the clearest places I’ve seen this kind of idolatry is through the origins debate. How one views their origins is a reflection of how they view God. If we have a high view of God, we’ll have a high view of the record God gave on origins. If we have a high view of Scripture, we’ll have a correct view of God. But the reverse is also true. If Scripture is “malleable” and “unclear” about one of the fundamental questions about life, and we can basically just “fill in the gaps” with whatever “historical” claims are made by the secularists claiming to be scientists that do not reflect a worship of the True God but a worship of a god that does what we think he should do.
One thing you will notice about “Old Earth” models is that as the “science” changes, so do their models, and so does the account and description of God with it. The “Young Earth” position does not have this issue. While our specific scientific models may change, the core history has never changed because the text of Scripture nor its meaning has changed. When one takes a method of interpretation that changes with the times, one has a god in his mind that changes with the times too. I describe such a god this way: “He likes what they like, dislikes what they dislike, does what they think should be done, does not do what they disprove of, and overall looks a lot like them.” Now, I’m not making this as a blanket statement, but I would suggest it represents a large majority of those in churches today. They don’t worship God on Sunday mornings; they worship their own ideas about God.
The more I study idolatry, the more I see how it is the root of all sin. Sin is by definition a violation of God’s moral character or God’s intended purpose for something. Idolatry is the practice of replacing God with something else or seeking something else to give you what only God can give. So, since idolatry is a rejection of God, it is at the core of every sin. It is the root of all evil. I hope by now we can see why God takes such things so seriously. But there is still hope! God seeks that we break free from our idols. Next week, I will wrap up this series to talk about the One who did not commit idolatry in any way and kept all of God’s Commandments: Jesus Christ.
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“You shall not covet…” -Exodus 20:17
This is the last of the Ten Commandments. You shall not lust after that which belong to your neighbor. Not his wife, nor house, nor car, nor children, nor things, nor anything that belongs to your neighbor. Not even their skills and talents, and interestingly enough, some people covet other people’s trials because they think they could handle them more easily than their own.
Covetousness had multiples causes; greed, control, jealousy, and lack of being content are the first four that come to mind. Greed, because you want things and if someone else has something you don’t, you want it too. Control, because if someone else has something you want and you don’t have control over it, then you can’t control that person either. Jealousy, because someone else is happier than you are, even if you have more stuff. Lack of being content, because “stuff” never satisfies and always leaves us wanting more. One could argue that covetousness is a root of breaking the other horizontal commandments, and I’ll make the argument that it can also be a root of idolatry. Unlike the other commandments where idolatry either is the violation of the commandment or leads to the violation of the commandment, violation of this commandment of covetousness leads to idolatry.
Few stories showcase covetousness more than Ahab. I give credit to David Wilkerson for pointing this out to me. Jezebel is perhaps the most wicked woman recorded in Scripture to the point where her name means “false teaching” or “false spirit.” She was the one who manipulated Ahab and controlled him. She led him into an even greater level of idolatry than Jeroboam had done, and as a result Ahab was considered the most wicked king of Israel. Ahab saw a vineyard owned by Naboth and because it was convenient and looked good, he wanted it. Naboth could not sell it according to the Law, and so Ahab threw a fit before Jezebel, and Jezebel did her thing to kill Naboth and give Ahab the land. In Ahab’s greed and covetousness, he turned to a false god and a false prophet to get it. His covetousness led to idolatry, turning to someone (in this case Jezebel) other than God.
During the time of the Judges and the Kings, the people of Israel and Judah kept turning to the gods of their neighbors. Why? 1) They wanted to be like their neighbors. Hint: that’s a form of covetousness. That’s why they asked for a king. Their neighbors had something they wanted: a physical ruler to represent them, rather than God. 2) The false gods offered something they didn’t believe God offered: fertility, rain, money, prosperity, etc. The gods offered all the people desired there and then, out of God’s will and out of God’s timing. There’s one big problem with all that: God DID promise He would provide everything they would need and above and beyond that. They just needed to trust Him.
Covetousness leads to turning to sources other than God for our needs, and that leads to idolatry. At the same time, already having an idol in your heart produces covetousness as well. When we have an idol, it means we don’t trust God to provide for us. And when we don’t trust Him, it means we end up seeking something that caters to our flesh instead of trusting God for what we need. Remember what Jesus faced in the wilderness? You can summarize the temptations in three words: health, wealth, and prosperity. That’s what Eve saw in the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It’s also the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That’s what Satan offers, and it’s what the coveter seeks in his lusts. When a man seeks something, he will seek that which will give it, even if it is an idol and even if it means a deal with the devil. And Satan will gladly offer it, but it won’t last nor endure.
If we instead seek God, He will provide all we need and above and beyond that. But it will be in His timing and it won’t be for the purpose of satisfying our lusts. I have never seen God fail to deliver on His promises, though He will intentionally delay them to test us to see if we will prove faithful. There are many times where man may jump the gun and go too early where if they had only waited, the right thing or the right person would be in place to direct them. God often allows a counterfeit to go first to see if we will take the bait, but if we trust Him, there will be no need to seek after the other gods to give us what we think we want.
There is always a cost when we covet, and that cost is not merely failure of our endeavors. People have lusted after fame and fortune, coveting the lavish lifestyle, the media love, the popularity, the money, the expensive toys and large houses, etc., and many of them got it. They turned to their gods and their gods delivered them. But their gods also have their own “quid pro quo” terms. It often comes in the form of serving the gods in demonic ways. If the people of Israel turned to performing sex orgies, drunkenness, and child sacrifice to serve their idols, how much more so are people doing that now? When Jesus said, “If you gain the whole world but lose your soul…” this kind of thing could very well be part of that. Jesus knew what went on behind the scenes, behind the publicity and the paparazzi. History books don’t tell you those things and the few who are allowed to speak out, are allowed because they won’t be a threat to those pulling the strings.
When it initially dawned on me how idolatry can be or is involved in the breaking of all Ten Commandments, I was still thinking surface level, but as this series began to come together, it’s hit me on a greater level how deep and how dark idolatry is. I am seeing more and more now why God took it so seriously. There is absolutely nothing good that can come out of idolatry. However, every one of us has engaged in idolatry is some way shape or form, and in that idolatry, we’ve broken these Ten Commandments from mere dwelling of hatred of our brother or lusting in our hearts to the actual deeds themselves. And as a result, every one of us are guilty before God of treason deserving of death. Next week, I will talk about how idolatry is the root of all evil, but fortunately there is hope for us, which I will write about after that.
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“You shall not bear false testimony against your neighbor.” -Exodus 20:16
No one likes being lied to. But it sure is amazing how in reality, a person will lie to either make themselves look better or to protect themselves from scrutiny. Lying is a sin that no one is taught; it’s an instinct. That’s the sinful nature easily on display. The first recorded lie told by man was Cain covering his tracks for his murder of Abel, and man hasn’t stopped lying since. Lying lips are the second thing listed by God in the things he hates the most behind a proud look/haughty eyes. Pride is why we lie, because it’s all about self-image. When we exaggerate, we are lying (the use of hyperbole is not a case of this). Those white lies are still lying. Guess what? It does not take much for me to know that I am a liar. I have told lies. I generally am truthful, however all it takes is one lie and by definition I am a liar. I’ve broken this commandment. And guess what? So have you. I don’t have to know your heart or your lifestyle. I just know how mankind is and what Scripture say about us.
Idolatry in regard to lying is like murder or adultery: idolatry leads to it. Now before I go further, I want to make clear that many people are truly sincere in what they believe, and they actually believe it. So while like murder, not all idolatry produces lying, but it certainly plays a role in the practices of idolatry.
Perhaps the clearest example of lying as a direct result of following an idolatrous practice is in Islam with the practice of taqiyya. It is the teaching that in the face of persecution or if it helps the cause of Islam, you can lie to the face of an “infidel.” It is important to realize that Islam teaches conquest and there truly is no such thing as a “moderate Muslim.” They are only “moderate” when they are in the minority, but the moment the majority is Muslim, suddenly they become “radical” in part because the last thing they want is for the “radicals” to think they aren’t Muslim. So they will lie to your face and not think twice about it.
The occult practices are heavy on lying. Remember, a lie is not just a blatant falsehood. It’s also a withholding of the full truth, and it’s speaking partial truths. In the occult, people seek the “advice of the spirits.” They are literally communing with demons. You don’t mess around with that stuff. To the youth reading this or to the parents of youth reading this: things like Tarot Cards, Ouija Boards, Palm Readings, Crystal Balls, the “Charlie Charlie ‘game’,” etc. are talking with demons. These aren’t games. These spirits will talk to you and they will tell you what you want to know. They are skilled observers, and they know things about you that you likely don’t know yourself. They’ll tell you partial truths to suck you in, but it won’t be the whole truth. They will say they are guiding spirits, your imaginary friend, or whatever, but they are demons. And they will get you to believe lies and once you start to believe the lies, you will start to speak them as though they are facts.
Identity politics has taking lying and blown it up to excessive proportions. We have men identifying as women, women identifying as men, blacks identifying as white, whites identifying as “Native Americans,” a grown woman identifying as a cat, and a man identifying as a 6-year-old girl, just to name a few. This is not only insanity; it’s lying. It’s lying to yourself and lying to public about yourself.
Don’t think the church is exempt from lying either. There is a lot of disillusionment in the young community about the church in regard to hypocrisy. Hypocrisy is a form of lying, and in many cases the hypocrisy comes from an idolatrous view of God. A recent book I read is “The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity” by Michael Kruger. It’s an excellent exposé of ten of the major teachings of this movement, but what he points out is that there are a bunch of half-truths in each of these tenets. The Progressive Christian movement does have some legitimate complaints about how the evangelical church has been, but their solution is to ditch truth, ditch facts, go by emotion, “love everyone” (without addressing sin), and forget any real relationship with God or that we have a sin problem. They want gracious behavior but not sound doctrine, and in reality, you can’t get gracious behavior without sound doctrine. They teach we should be loving towards each other and be good people, but when it comes to sexuality, how dare anyone question that. How can they have it both ways? They have an idolatrous view of God, coming out of post-modernism, and as a result they are not being truthful about what they actually believe. Kruger points out that this is not Christianity. It’s something else entirely.
One thing that pushes my buttons when it comes it evangelism is the idea that we can “agree with the world” on a number of things so they will know we are on their side, and then we can tell them the truth about Jesus. This is a classic bait-and-switch, and frankly it’s a deception. Whoever does this is lying to whomever they are trying to convert. They teach in practice that it is fine to move them from one lie to another lie only then to reveal the actual truth. Here is a modern example of this. The world believes that the earth is 4.5 billion years old and they think the idea of the earth only being 6000 years old is silly. So, if we say that God created the heavens and the earth as the Bible describes, the “educated” won’t listen to us, therefore, we need to agree with them about the age of the earth so they will not shut us down and we can tell them about Jesus. I’ve heard this many times. They are sincere about it. They truly think that is the best way to approach it. But they are lying to everyone they speak to in doing so. The rest of the world can read the Bible too and they KNOW it teaches 6-day creation with only a 6000-year history.
So, what happens? Either the evangelist who does this is dismissed, or they get the person to believe a half truth. And that half-truth includes what it means to be a Christian. Now I am not saying you must believe in a 6-day creation and a 6000-year history to be saved. I am saying you must believe the Bible means what it says if you are saved. Otherwise, you have the Holy Spirit within you saying it’s okay to not believe His inspired message when it comes to a controversial topic. It may take a while for the Holy Spirit to get deeply ingrained lies rooted out of you. I give grace for that. But any person who actively and openly questions the clarity of Scripture is not operating by the Holy Spirit, very likely is not saved, and has a false image of God. It’s idolatry, and such positions lead to lying about God, lying about your standing with God, and lying to others about God
John MacArthur makes a harsh statement about those who do not accurately represent God (he was specifically talking about those whom in current post-modern thought teach that God cannot be known or His word is not clear): “They hate the true God and are scared to death if anyone finds out who He really is.” I can say from my encounters with such people that they don’t just hate God, they also hate all who speak correctly about Him. They are idolaters and don’t want their delusions shattered, so they lie through their teeth about God, feigning a form of godliness but denying it.
Idolatry leads to lying – lying to others, lying to God, and lying to yourself. The only way to deal with it is to get rid of your idols and tear down your high places. Then return to the True God who speaks only truth and will deal with all forms of error. I have one more commandment to address next week: covetousness.
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“You shall not steal.” -Exodus 20:15
I hope that over the past few weeks, you’ve seen the dangers of idolatry and why we must take it seriously. The last couple of weeks have been very heavy. It’s very difficult to address the murder and adultery of idolatrous practices “softly,” and trust me that I held back as much as I could on it. But these are issues our little kids are being confronted with the moment they step outside the house (if they haven’t been flooded with it on TV already). This post will be much lighter, however, I’m not done yet. Idolatry does not merely lead to stealing. It is a form of stealing. Yes, if you worship any god other than the True God, you are a thief. Idolatry is thievery.
There is only One True God. He is the Lord. There is none like Him. There is none who can compare with Him. There is none who can create, none who can deliver, none who can perform great acts, none who can save, none who can produce life, and none who control all things. None, other than the True God. One thing greatly missing in many churches is the study of God. It is rare to hear a sermon about the attributes of God and an accurate description of who He is and what He is like as revealed in Scripture. I know of a few books about the attributes of God, but good luck finding them in your local Christian bookstore and good luck finding one among contemporary preachers. When the preachers themselves don’t preach about God and who He is and what He is like, why are we surprised when the general population doesn’t know about Him either? The fact is that God’s true character is scandalous to culture. God is offensive to us in our sinful state, but unless we describe God as He revealed himself to be, then we are practicing idolatry and are attributing that which belongs to God to a being of our own liking. This is stealing.
When someone takes part of God’s message but mixes it with other philosophies and ideas and proclaims it as their religion, they are stealing from God. I call the atheism of our day a form of plagiarism, since they love to boast about their academics. As we know, plagiarism is the greatest sin of academia. You get expelled from college for it, yet plagiarism is practiced most heavily by the professors at these universities. How can I say that? They steal from God and claim it as their own models. Where does morality come from? The atheist will say “society.” Where does “society” get it? In reality: God. Or they will say, “Everyone knows what is right and wrong.” To which I agree but then follow up with Romans 2:14, John 1:9, and Romans 1:19-20 which reveals that the reason why everyone knows what is right and wrong is because God has told everyone what it is and given us a conscience to prove it. But the atheist claims it as his own morality and doesn’t give its proper credit to where it is from. That, by the book, is plagiarism.
Jesus lashed out at the Pharisees for attributing His works and deeds to Beelzebub. They had seen and heard all Jesus had done and instead of wonder and awe, they attributed His works to demons. Jesus called this the “blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.” As John MacArthur put it in this sermon, “This puts them out of the possibility of being saved.” The Pharisees had an idol in their minds. They had a picture of the Messiah being a great military leader, yet nothing in Scripture ever suggests that. They had a false image of God and it prevented them from seeing Him when He was right in front of their eyes.
There is a lot of idolatry going on today. A lot of people proclaim a version of God that fits their ideals then call it “God.” That’s not just blasphemous; it’s theft. It’s stealing from God and putting it where it doesn’t belong. If your idea of God changes based on the culture, the latest “scientific findings,” or on whatever some person tells you rather than being based on Scripture, then you have an idol and you are stealing God’s glory and God’s name for your personal gain.
One form of this stealing is on display in Matthew 7:21-23. Many in the church are false converts and they will speak the language, do great deeds, even perform miracles and cast out demons, but Jesus will turn on them and say, “I never knew you.” The Message’s paraphrase of Jesus’ statement essentially goes: “You just used my name for your own platform.” Let me make this clear: there are many who claim the name of Christ and they don’t have a right to it. They are stealing from God, claiming something for themselves that isn’t theirs to claim. It has not been given to them by God to wear in the process God calls to get it. They just claimed it, but God knows the real from the fake. Often the fakes do a fine enough job to reveal themselves as such. The false convert isn’t just a false believer; he’s a thief. He is stealing from God that which isn’t his. Some of us need to get right with God right now. I’m not innocent of this charge either. There are times where I’ve declared I’m doing something for God’s glory and His purposes, when I’m really doing it for mine. Frankly, that’s stealing. A thief will not enter the Kingdom. That should disturb us.
Next week, we’ll deal with lying. Don’t be surprised if there is a lot of similarity to what I am saying here today.
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Disclaimer: This post contains sexual details that may not be suitable for our younger audiences.
“You shall not commit adultery.” -Exodus 20:14
We live in a sex-charged society. Sexual depravity is exceedingly rampant and in the last ten years, I’ve seen a change in society. No longer are people hiding their sexual depravity; they are flaunting it in arrogance as though they are daring God to do something about it. There are many forms of sexual depravity. I’ll name them, because this commandment doesn’t apply to just one form of it.
Adultery: Having sex with someone outside of marriage
Affair: A married person sleeping with someone not their spouse
Bestiality: People having sex with animals
Bisexual: Having sexual attraction/activity with both genders
Drag Queen: Men dressing up as women (the reverse is also applicable here)
Fornication: Sexual activity with anyone prior to marriage
Homosexuality: Having sex with someone of the same gender (male-male or female-female)
Oral Sex: The act of using the mouth for sex
Pedophilia: Having sex with children (usually prepubescent, but teens count here too)
Polygamy: Being married to multiple people at the same time
Sodomy: The act of anal sex
Transgender: Declaring yourself a different gender than what you biologically are
There is only one thing in this list that isn’t publicly accepted yet: pedophilia, but there’s a big movement to change that. See my post from last summer about it how that’s happening. Polygamy is accepted in Utah, where the Mormons dominate culture. I still remember when these actions were considered not just immoral but also insanity. It wasn’t long ago when homosexuality was considered a mental illness. The Bible describes male prostitutes as perverted persons. The book of Romans describes these behaviors as being unnatural and a result of a “reprobate/debased” mind. And it’s not merely adults who do this in their rebellion against God. Numerous children are being seduced into engaging in this behavior, and there’s no age limit to their lusts.
Adultery is a serious issue. Paul describes all sexual sin as a sin against the body, not just against God. God has designed the body to have “in-holes” and “out-holes.” When the purposes of these holes are misused, it does physical damage to the body. There are other side effects of sexual activities besides just the STDs, some of which are too graphic to describe here. I’ll compare it to drinking. While someone might have “fun” while they are actively drinking, they don’t tell you about the immediate and long-lasting side effects that are not fun. The same is true about sexual promiscuity. Just like abortion, there is no safe way to do it. Along with teaching the kids how to act sexually, they also teach the kids to get abortions and give out condoms without parents’ direct consent. Satan plays dirty and he loves going after precious, innocent life… especially children.
How does idolatry play a role here? It’s often not mentioned, but a large majority of the rituals of the Ancient Near East in their worship involved sexual orgies. The image of Asherah was shaped as a penis. I’m not joking. The Greek gods had all sorts of sexual issues. It can be rightfully said that much of the problems in Greek mythology would have been easily solved if Zeus had simply kept his pants zipped. No matter where you went, if the ancient idols were involved, sexual deviancy went with it. It was said that during the “party” of Israel’s Golden Calf in Exodus 32, there was singing, dancing, drunkenness, and when any of that is involved, you know sex is happening along with it. Sexual depravity is how Balaam told Balak to get Israel to effectively commit suicide by seducing their men with his women. When the kings tore down the high places where these idols were worshiped, there is also mention of removing the prostitutes of the temples, both male and female. Yes, men served at the temples for giving sexual pleasure to the “customers.” And it was not just adults serving these idols; so did many children, mostly young girls. In India, many young girls work at the Hindu temples serving as sex workers. Amy Carmichael was able to rescue and raise 300 of these girls.
There’s nothing new under the sun. The temples of the Ancient Near East haven’t gone away. They’ve just changed forms. We call them “Adult clubs” or “brothels” today. There are the dance areas in the front side of the store, then there are the rooms in the back where what takes place is too graphic to describe on a Christian forum. In third-world countries, these clubs/brothers are also occupied by young children, who are sold and trained for “performance” at/or by age five. Even in Europe, there are buildings used for boy or girl sex and you knew which room had which by the color curtains. When sexual depravity is practiced and embraced by society, no one is safe, and no one is “out of bounds.” Fortunately, here in the U.S., we aren’t there yet. Pedophiles dread going to prison because that is the “no-no” crime among the prison culture and they often get what they did to the kids done to them.
However, there is an aspect of modern culture where adultery is directly taught as approved by idolatrous practices: the cults. Jude 3-4 says there are two keys to watch for to identify a false teaching: denying Christ and teaching an immoral act as being good, namely sexual immorality. The Church of Thyatira was a generally good church, but they had a false teacher who was among them, permitted to speak, and taught sexual behavior was good. The Church of Pergamum had the same issue. When you are looking at a genuine cult, there is sexual immorality somewhere taught in that group. Let’s examine a couple.
Mormonism: Mormon theology is primarily about sex. Men were to have as many wives as possible so they could have as many children as possible. Then when they get to heaven, they will become their own gods and with their many wives get to have many spiritual babies to rule their own planet. The idolatry of the false god of Mormonism teaches sexual depravity.
Islam: One of the promises given to a faithful Muslim is to have seven virgins waiting for him in heaven. While they do teach specifically against homosexuality (killing them), and they demand women to remain chaste, Muhammad was a pedophile. He “married” a 9-year-old girl and raped her. It is a common practice for very young girls to be “married” to men along with others to be part of the harem. Polygamy is part of Islam, too.
The strange cults of Branch Davidians (David Koresh) and others like him would renounce the marriages of those in the cult so David Koresh could produce his “apostles” by his own seed. In these cults, the “guru” is usually some sexually depraved maniac, and with his skills in charisma can control the minds of his followers.
I can go on and on, but I’ll wrap up with this. In Romans 1, the denial of God as Creator leads to a denial of God’s moral standards. When a society takes this path, sexual deviancy is frequently the highlighted form of sin. When the True God is not viewed as being on the throne, then any sexual deviancy becomes permissible and to justify his lusts, man will come up with any god he chooses to justify it. In American society, the secular/atheistic worldview has become the idolatrous religious. Yes, I will say that “no God” is just as much as an idol as any other false god. When “no God” is the religion, what takes God’s place is a combination of government/society and self, and that becomes “god.” And when you are your own “god,” whatever sexual desires you have will be fulfilled. It is a great evil and any basic study of world history will reveal that when homosexual and pedophilic practices are embraced by the culture, that culture’s doom shortly followed. Idolatry leads to adultery in all its forms. It also is a theft of that which belongs to God. That will be for next week, when we look at idolatry as a practice of stealing.
This forum is meant to foster discussion and allow for differing viewpoints to be explored with equal and respectful consideration. All comments are moderated and any foul language or threatening/abusive comments will not be approved. Users who engage in threatening or abusive comments which are physically harmful in nature will be reported to the authorities.
