Crush the Idols

The Heart of Christianity

"The opposite of Christianity is not atheism, but idolatry." ~ Peter Kreeft

Recap

A Love Story Gone Wrong

The central theme of the Bible is a love story between God and a fallen humanity.

Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people broke their covenant with him by embracing and worshipping other gods.

In Hosea, his marriage served as a reflection of the Lord’s relationship with his people.

The prophets of God served as a reflection of Christ, and their relationships with the wives or people represented the adulteress state of God’s people.

Lastly, we talked about Samson Samson loved three women throughout his life. The third is Delilah. Interestingly, all three showed no love for him.

But today were going to talk about Jonah, Moses and Solomon.

The Shema

Deuteronomy 6:4–6 ESV

4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

“Another word we need to look at is all or whole, which comes from the Greek word holos, meaning “complete.” The Hebrew word for all in Deuteronomy 6 means “everything.” All is all. Complete. Everything. When God said He wants us to love Him with all our heart, it means all our heart. He doesn’t want to share our heart. Likewise, when He said He wants all our mind, He wants it all. He wants all our thinking, all our reasoning, and all our decision-making. He wants our walk.” - Rabbi Greg Hershberg (A Life for God)

The Day God Did the Unthinkable

Dated sometime between the 8th-end of the 3rd century.

Deuteronomy and Jonah have about a 5-10 century gap.

Jonah 1:1–2 ESV

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.”

Mercy Extends to the Gentiles

Jonah 2:7–10 ESV

7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple. 8 Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. 9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Salvation belongs to the Lord!” 10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

The phrase “those who pay regard to vain idols” refers to the pagan sailors, who prayed to false gods, but it is also a message to Jonah’s idolatrous fellow Israelites. Ironically, these sailors ended up experiencing God’s steadfast love, while Jonah ended up in the sea.

For the Lovers

Deuteronomy 7:5–9 ESV

5 But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire. 6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 9 Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations,

“Before Me”

Exodus 20:3–6 ESV

3 “You shall have no other gods before me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

The Hebrew expression“before me” means “in preference to me,” or “in my presence,” or “in competition with me.”

“God will put up with a great many things in the human heart, but there is one thing that He will not put up with in it--a second place. He who offers God a second place, offers Him no place.” -John Ruskin

You Have to See Things the Way I Do

"The heart of all idolatry in the Bible is the de-godding of God." ~ D. A. Carson

Exodus 32:15–19 ESV

15 Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain with the two tablets of the testimony in his hand, tablets that were written on both sides; on the front and on the back they were written. 16 The tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved on the tablets. 17 When Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted, he said to Moses, “There is a noise of war in the camp.” 18 But he said, “It is not the sound of shouting for victory, or the sound of the cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.” 19 And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses’ anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

Teacher of Lies

Habakkuk 2:18 ESV

18 “What profit is an idol when its maker has shaped it, a metal image, a teacher of lies? For its maker trusts in his own creation when he makes speechless idols!

The Heart that Turned Away

1 Kings 11:9–10 ESV

9 And the Lord was angry with Solomon, because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods. But he did not keep what the Lord commanded.

The High Places

1 Kings 15:12–14 ESV

12 He put away the male cult prostitutes out of the land and removed all the idols that his fathers had made. 13 He also removed Maacah his mother from being queen mother because she had made an abominable image for Asherah. And Asa cut down her image and burned it at the brook Kidron. 14 But the high places were not taken away. Nevertheless, the heart of Asa was wholly true to the Lord all his days.

"If you love anything better than God you are idolaters: if there is anything you would not give up for God it is your idol: if there is anything that you seek with greater fervor than you seek the glory of God, that is your idol, and conversion means a turning from every idol." ~ Charles Spurgeon

The Temple of the Living God

Eidolon - Idols (Greek)

2 Corinthians 6:14–18 ESV

14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? 15 What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? 16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 17 Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty.”

Idols of the Heart

Colossians 3:5 ESV

5 Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

"The heart clings to collected treasure. Stored-up possessions get between me and God. Where my treasure is, there is my trust, my security, my comfort, my God. Treasure means idolatry." ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Keep Yourselves from Idols

1 John 5:18–21 ESV

18 We know that everyone who has been born of God does not keep on sinning, but he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one does not touch him. 19 We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20 And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Little children, keep yourselves from idols.