Idols For Destruction

Who on Earth is "Dagon," you say?  I Kings 5 relates the tale of the fall of Dagon, an idol and false god of the Phillistines.  When the Ark of the Covenant is stolen by the Phillistines, enemies of God's people, it's placed in the house of worship next to Dagon.  The next morn, poor ol' Phillistines walked in and said, "Dag' gone!" because their idol was cast down, on its face, before the Ark of the Covenant.  They re-erected the piece of glorified furniture, only to find the next morning it had fallen again.  This time, it was shattered in pieces before the Lord.

Message?  "I am a jealous God, you will have no other gods before me!  There is no other god like me."

Fast forward to Jeremiah's book of Lamentations.  What does this have to do with idolatry?  Amongst many other sins, idolatry was one that Israel had wrestled with from the start, despite many warnings from the Lord.  See this in Jeremiah 1:16, amongst other places.  Israel forsook the Lord, and replaced His glory with lies, idols who were deaf, mute and helpless, and the prophet laments the situation when the Lord visits their iniquity with fierce justice.  He says this in 4:17 of Lamentations:

"Our eyes failed, ever watching vainly for help; in our watching we watched for a nation which could not save."

Tonight, we watched the debate between McCain and Obama, two giants of the American faith.  I call it the "American faith" because, to hear the various talking heads (including many Christian ministries on the religious A.M. radio stations), we are facing so many challenges as a nation that we're hoping for a savior to arise out of the ballot box. 

We wait, and like Israel before us, we watch vainly for help, watching for a nation which cannot save.  We heard from both aisles how the next president promised to save the economy, how universal healthcare was a "right" according to Sen. O, even how we as Americans were going to save the planet with our greenhouse gas policies (both sides buying the garbage of global warming, or "chicken little says pay Unkie Sam more taxe$").

My friends, to quote Sen. McCain, my friends: our nation cannot save us.  Obama and McCain will not solve our problems, either with their fine-sounding rhetoric, nor their experience as POW's, nor their foreign policies (however congenial and friendly such policies may seem).

Our nation, if it be Dagon, must fall on its face before the Lord if any change will happen that we can approve of.  Our nation, either under a Marxist regime or under a "less bigger" government under the moderate/maverick McCain, will not save us.  Dagon fell before the face of the Lord and shattered.  What will we do?

What was that thing that Jesus did in the temple again?  Oh, yeah.  Chastised the money exchangers and those swindlers who turned His Father's house, our Father's house, into a den of robbers.  I believe Jesus also called His house back to what it should've been doing:  so don't put your trust (or worries) in the money.  Place your hope (and fears) in the God who saves. 

Dagon fell before the Lord, vanquished.  Let's do the same, on behalf of our nation, and wait on the Lord for salvation.  Like Dagon: America can't save us.

--JMH 

At All Saint's Presby here in Boise, seeing Christ in Exodus was today's sermon.  The beauty that is the infallible Word of God is jaw-dropping, especially in the hands of a preacher so concerned with such beauty as God's Truth.  Simple things like the manifold ways that it's all Christ, and Christ everywhere.  Things like the surpassing glory of Jesus even compared to the amazing story of Moses.

Walking away from church today, I was again reminded of this timeless truth:

Jesus is the source of all joys.  Idols, however, everywhere abound, to distract our eyes from the beauty that is our Saviour.

And a great diagnostic tool:

If you were to lose or to be limited access to [insert idol here], would you be mad?  Excited?  Depressed?  Do you find joy in someone or thing that is to be seen, touched, or apprehended in some way?

I ask this question knowing what a factory of idols, as John Calvin put it, the human heart is.  My heart has manufactured more idols since I met Christ 10 short years ago than Ford has produced Mustangs (gotta love the new GT!  Hold the phone...that's another idol, ain't it?!)

The idol I'm currently wrestling with: Nintendo Game Cube...  Actually, the fever ain't as bad as I thought it'd be, but I'd be embarassed if either John Piper or R.C. Sproul, two of my hands-down all-time fave and influential teachers of the faith, were to come by and see me playing the thing...See what I mean?  Even mentioning Piper and Sproul exposes yet two more idols: notice I didn't say I'd be embarassed if Jesus saw me playing (which He does, most every day)...

sheesh...

In all honesty, though in times past I have had an uncommonly strong love and adoration for all things Nintendo, I don't have the cash money for the machine of machines, the Nintendo Wii, and thank the Lord for that, nor do I play the machine I own as much as my twitchy fingers are wanting to do, but the fact is this: I am always in a struggle to find enjoyment more in the gifts and trinkets of God's grace than I am in finding enjoyment in God Himself.

This is the crux and curse of the matter: who do you love most, James?

My pastor hit me with that today, and the story was that age-old story of our brother, Moe. (To his friends, that is: "Moe.") 

Ouch.

Calvin put it this way (trying to recall exactly...)

"The human heart is a factory of all sorts of idolatry." 

Jack says it this way:

"All that we call human history--money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery--[is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy."

I'm reminded of John Piper's "Desiring God" maxim:

"God is most satisfied in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

There is a persistent cloud that has been looming over me for two years at least, a cloud that has blocked the full glory of the joy of Christ from penetrating to my very soul, and leaves me somehow wanting what's missing, looking under every rock, every tree...every circumstance.  It's difficult, been difficult, to pinpoint what my problem's been, but reading Lewis's quote today (on our iGoogle homepage widget) struck a chord in me, again.  There is a persistent rebellion in me, that dog returning to his vomit as Proverbs puts it, that makes me gloomy and downcast when the circumstances of life (oft the consequence of sin) don't provide me with reason to rejoice.

Attending church last Sunday reminded me of the simple Truth: I have every reason to rejoice, for "It is finished."  I have everything to look forward to, despite the lowliness of my estate.  Despite the trials and difficult circumstances, it is still true: all things work together for the good of those who love God, those who are called according to His purpose.

Romans 8 says, "24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."

Living by sight, not by faith, has the opposite effect I suppose.

In my impatience, I've turned many times into an idol-smith, hammering out golden calves and selling them on Ebay (at a discount)...leaving myself unsatisfied, and wanting.  If Christ is my Shepherd, however, "I will not want."

Cotton-pickin', good-for-nothing all-the-chisels-I've-dulled-carving-stone idols!!...wondering why my hands are callused, my fingers and joints aching, my brow sweating, in this effort to construct that perfect and satisfying 'god' of the perfect (under my control and not sovereign) circumstance.  God has other plans, including "discipline" and "rods," "trials, tribulation, endurance, patience, and character," but I'd have the smooth, paved, painless life.

(Fresh out of chisels, don't lend me one if I ask...)

--JMH