![]() Seeing Him as the Source of our strength, comfort, help, love, acceptance and joy – that’s the essence of the Good Life.Although no single biblical passage contains a complete definition of idolatry, the subject is addressed in numerous passages, so that idolatry may be summarized as the strange worship of idols or images the worship of polytheistic gods by use of idols or images the worship of created things (trees, rocks, animals, astronomical bodies, or another human being) and the use of idols in the worship of God ( YHWH Elohim, the God of Israel). Returning again and again to Him is our only liberation from enslaving idols. In Chalmers’ words, there is an expulsive power to a new affection.īut there is the greatest power in that original affection: the Presence and Image of the unseen LORD, Jesus Christ. Now we all have a much healthier perspective on career. Fast-forward 5 years again and now it’s kids that dominate the discussion. ‘I wear a nappy to save on bathroom breaks.’ Now we compete over who has worked the longest week: Fast-forward 5 years and we are changed people. At university we’d talk about the parties we’d been to, the concerts, the drugs, the sexual conquests. This works in every area of life – religious or otherwise. The heart is… so constituted the only way to dispossess it of an old affection, is by the expulsive power of a new one. As the old Scottish preacher, Thomas Chalmers, once said: We’ll only wean our hearts from graven images when we behold the true Image of God, Jesus Christ. His very first word to us is to seek life in Christ. More importantly the whole thing breaks God’s heart (as we’ll see tomorrow). And when we invest our hopes and dreams into these little idols they break our hearts. Which only goes to show – it was a graven image all along. When something is your life and it crumbles, it feels like death. And when my cricketing dreams were ended, how did I feel? Did I feel like a failed cricketer? No, I felt like a failed person. I used to have a T-shirt that said “Cricket is life, the rest is mere detail.” And though I’d laugh about it, that was essentially the way I lived – spending every hour I could chasing a little red ball around a field. Isn’t that the nature of our hearts? We go after sex, money, power etc but the things we choose end up choosing us.įor me it was something as paltry as cricket. We start off in charge, but we bow to it, and it rules us. That’s just like carving an idol and then bowing to it. ![]() Or embark on some scheme and find ourselves dancing to its beat. Or choose a career and then get enslaved to it. So we might start a hobby and then get obsessed. Our hearts are captured by any number of enslaving passions. But the bible speaks equally of the “graven images of our hearts” (see Ezekiel 14 for instance). ![]() So, obviously, it’s stupid to make a wooden statue and then serve it (read Isaiah’s devastating send-up of that kind of idolatry). ![]() But “graven images” are not defined by their materials but by their effect. Perhaps we think we’re free from idolatry since we haven’t bowed down to a religious statue recently. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them. When you stop worshipping Jesus, you start worshipping something – anything – else.Īnd so, here comes the second word from Sinai: ![]() But when people resist the first word from Sinai – Look to Jesus – they will immediately look to other images. He is the One we’re meant to look to in order to see God. It’s the Son of God who is the true Divine Image. And so the Father says to the people, “You’re mine, I’ve redeemed you, here’s the Good Life: you won’t have any other gods except my Son!” Well actually the King James have done what the majority of translations have done and finished the sentence with the word “me.” But more literally the Unseen LORD on Sinai says “You will have no other gods before My Face.” Or you could equally say “ My Presence.” It has been the Face or Presence of the LORD who has saved the people and brought them to Sinai (e.g. The Good Life means not prefering any gods before…. The human race was made to worship, but estranged from the life of God, we worship everything but God. That is to say, our hearts are forever being set on idols: things that are not God. Where do we look for strength, for comfort, for help, for love, acceptance and joy? Where do we look for life?Īccording to the bible, the answer is: all the wrong places. ![]()
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