The Idol Factory

Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you and destroy all their figured stones and destroy all their metal images and demolish all their high places.

Numbers 33:51-52

 

God wanted the idolatry of the Canaanites eradicated. Israel was supposed to do this fully when they moved into the Promised Land. God warned them that if they did not obey Him in this matter, idolatry would lead to their own regrettable demise (see Numbers 33:55-56).

 

By now in the story, this generation of Israel should have had ample opportunity to have this taught to them. They had grown up with the Ten Commandments. The first two of these explicitly deal with the exclusivity of a relationship with God and forbid any semblance of idolatry (Exodus 20:3-6). They had seen their parents flagrantly disobey with the golden calf. They had seen the more recent Midianite flirtation with idolatry and sexuality and how it devastated the camp. This warning was quite real.

 

The propensity of the human heart for idolatry is enormous. We always want to make our own god that we can control. We want tangible gods with tangible results. And this is not just an Old Testament warning. The apostle John warns us today of the idol-making and idol-following ways of the human heart (1 John 5:21). Left to myself, my heart is an idol-making factory looking for something other than God to worship. I have to shut it down in real worship and obedience to God my Father!

 

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Exclusivity with a global impact.

And many nations shall join themselves to the LORD in that day, and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you.

Zechariah 2:11

This is one of the Old Testament passages that shows the outcome that God desired with Israel. It was nothing short of reaching the world for Him. He wanted Israel to be “the light to the gentiles” that He had always called her to be. And in this prophetic call to the exiles in Babylon, God promises to rebuild Jerusalem into such a large city that the population would overflow the walls. It is obvious that God wanted the worship of Himself in Jerusalem to be a magnet to the peoples of the earth.

What is interesting is that God fully expected that the gentiles would be drawn to Israel to worship Him, and would enter into the same type of exclusive relationship with Him that Israel enjoyed. This sheds light into Jesus’ harsh criticisms of the leaders of Israel in His day. They had so locked down Judaism that it was hard to truly proselytize because gentiles were hated and despised. Jesus threw open the doors again. By decrying and destroying the threat of Pharisaical prejudice, He was living the heart for the world that is truly God the Father’s will for everyone. Gentiles could come to God. God would make them His people just like the Jews were His people.

God’s heart has always been that the nations would rejoice at His goodness. And the church is also a people uniquely called by Him to the world. Jesus freed the good news by demanding that His followers take the message to the world. And we dare not create a church that is so tight in our sinfully exclusive personal or political views that we cannot reach the world around us. It starts with all people around us and the gospel is meant to make a global impact. That is why even today churches and individuals should support missions to all peoples of the earth. They need to hear the gospel. They need to be able to read God’s Word. They need to be discipled in the life of following Jesus. And they will know that God is in their midst and that they are His people.

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The Spiritual Disaster of Inclusionism.

You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you.

Exodus 23:32-33

When it came to God’s instruction for Israel for entering the promised land of Canaan, God was not big on toleration and inclusion. There were provisions, but they were for the individual, not for the groups of Canaanites around them. If find it interesting that at the first part of this chapter, God warns Israel to take care of the sojourner. This would be a person who was a refugee or traveler seeking refuge in Israel. This is what the New Testament would later call a “God-fearer”, a gentile who was drawn to Israel and her God. They were not to take advantage of that type of person. They were to welcome them and receive such proselytes. They were to instruct them in the ways of the Lord.

But this was not the same treatment they were to give to the large ethnic groups and nations of Canaanites once they reached the promised land. God told Israel that His plan was to slowly “drive out” the Canaanites because Israel would not survive well any contact with their idolatry. And history bears this out. Archeology has uncovered evidence of rampant infanticide, the worship of dogs, bestiality, homosexual prostitution, and all sorts of immoral perversion as the regular practice in the worship of fertility gods among the Philistines and other residents of the land God was giving the Jewish nation.

Even with these warnings, Israel still managed to get so enamored with the idolatry of the nations around them that they lapsed into apostasy and God had to bring them to ruin in captivity in Babylon before Judaism truly grasped monotheism and His people committed to Him exclusively. The Old Testament shows us an accurate record of how inclusion and tolerance lead to spiritual disaster.

More and more, secularism calls for the sins of Israel’s past to be the defining marks of morality in our culture. And we must not be deceived by it. It is one thing to live in a culture that practices religious liberty. It is another thing altogether to make every adherent to every religion agree that all religions are equally valid. And in our culture there is an insane push to make all moral judgments equally valid. To do so is to divorce religion from reason on a permanent basis, to make Christianity admit that it is a collection of logically disconnected dogma. And it is not! Inclusionism (the belief that any and all religions will eventually lead someone to God) is as dangerous today as it was for Israel. For them it was a national spiritual suicide. For us it is also individual intellectual suicide.

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Spirituality is not enough

Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, "Plead with the LORD to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the LORD."

Exodus 8:8

Pharaoh was a spiritual man in a land that practiced a lot of spirituality. In fact, he was worshiped as a living god. But all that spiritual interest was not enough to save Egypt. God was giving the land of Egypt an unprecedented revelation of His power and purposes. And Pharaoh was blinded and hardened by his own brand of spirituality.

Each one of the plagues was meant to show the falseness of their idolatry. They worshiped the Nile and it turned into a stream of blood and death. They had a frog god. And frogs overran the land. Pharaoh was himself a god, but was powerless to stop any of the plagues that Israel’s true God brought upon the nation.

It is popular today in our culture to applaud “spirituality” as a good thing. But that alone will not save a person, neither does it provide character or promote virtue. Satan is more “spiritual” than any human on earth, and he is dead set against God and His work! So there has to be something more. We must be brought to encounter God. We must come to grips with who we are and how great and holy He is. It is only after that kind of humble worship of Him that we are in place to truly know Him. It is not just about displays of His power. Pharaoh saw God’s power like no other human on earth and STILL hardened his heart against God. Even when He submitted to God’s desires, He still regretted it, and then died fighting against God’s work. Human beings can know joy in surrender to God, and avoid the defeat of fighting against Him.

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Exclusivity

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
Matthew 11:27

In an age of pluralism, this exclusive claim of Jesus needs to be investigated! And it is a claim to a unique and exclusive "way to God". Just a couple of nights ago while watching a news channel show run through the events of the day, the host brought together a panel of Americans to discuss a comment from our president that America is "not a Christian nation". Included in the panel were an aging model, a former NFL football player, and a political pundit. To a person, they agreed that it is wrong to claim that Christianity is the "only way to God". "I think we all know there are many ways to God". Well Jesus did not preach that!

As we head into contemplation on the events of that Passover Week so long ago, it is good to remember that what Jesus did is exclusive. It is the only way that we may be saved. Jesus claimed it. His apostles preached it. The church has held exclusive claim to it for two millennia. And just because secular arrogance wants human sovereignty to rule does not diminish its impact.

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