A New Year Heart Check

Intro

What is idolatry today? Are there still idols today? Maybe when you hear those words you think of Indiana Jones adventure films, exotic tribes and ancient cultures worshipping carved statues, totems Or maybe you think of Catholic praying to Mary or a saints? Perhpas you think of witchcraft, charms and shrines.

Back along we had Pop Idol TV show where we literally got to phone in to pick who would be our next rock God - appropriately enough most of them are nowhere to be seen now. - or maybe you don’t know what to make of the word.

So this is going to be a two part sermon - in this video we’re going to look at three points I’ve titled:

The Outrage of Idolatry

The Root of Idolatry

The Objects of Idolatry

and next week, we’re going to look at

4. 10 things that happen when we give in to idolatry, and use them to

5. Steps to avoid Idolatry

6. Identify idols, or potential idols in our lives

1) The Outrage of Idolatry (2-3, 9)

The first thing I want us to see here is the sheer outrage of Israel’s idolatry. Take a look at verses 2-3 again:

2 “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem,

Thus says the Lord,

“I remember the devotion of your youth,

    your love as a bride,

how you followed me in the wilderness,

    in a land not sown.

3  Israel was holy to the Lord,

    the firstfruits of his harvest.

All who ate of it incurred guilt;

    disaster came upon them,

declares the Lord.”

God pictures his relationship with Israel as a romance, like a courtship. If you’ve ever been head over heels in love only to be badly mistreated or hurt by a partner or a husband or wife, you’ll know something of what Yahweh is describing through Jeremiah here; you’ll have experienced something of the pain that God feels as he looks back on those early days. He says “I remember...”

I chose you and set you apart; you were beautiful to me, precious, and pure. I committed myself completely to you, my people; and for a time you were wholeheartedly devoted to me too; we made covenant promises - I swore to be faithful to you, to bless and provide for you, and you promised that you would be faithful to me. We were newly married and you were full of love for me; you trusted me completely and followed me even when it was hard. You were set apart for me, an example to the world of the love I had for all people, and if anyone tried to hurt you; to corrupt you or steal you from me - in my jealousy for you I judged them, I destroyed them. But it was a long time ago.

Who wouldn’t want to be loved like this? And yet, Israel, God’s holy bride, cheated on him. She was his lover, chosen to know Him and be known by Him. She was meant to show the nations the light of God. She was devoted for a time, she loved her husband for a little while, she followed him while it suited her.

So God uses this picture of breaking a covenant, love relationship to show us what is happening when we commit idolatry, and it’s this: we commit adultery.

We cheat on our lover. We

And in the context of our relationship with God, it means we break faith. We break loyalty. We don’t reserve our love for him but we give it to someone or something else. Our desire for him grows cold and we look elsewhere, for something else to give it to.

2) The Root of Idolatry (13)

What does Idolatry boil down to? What is it in it’s purest form? Take a look at v13:

13  for my people have committed two evils:

they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters,

and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Here we see the sheer foolishness of idolatry. God says there are two things that Israel have done and they are both categorically evil. They are two sides of the same coin.

One one side the people have forsaken God. They have neglected Him, and set him aside.

Israel’s most frequent sin was idolatry. Again and again throughout the Old Testament they turned to worship the gods of other nations. And so God would judge them - they would get invaded or enslaved and then they would cry out to God and he would show them grace and rescue them. And it’s ours too.

What do we worship? What do you assign worth to?

3) The Objects of Idolatry

So what things might we idolise?

I want to pick up on three that might be a bit more unusual, but

i) Politics

ii) The Occult

iii) Nostalgia

4) What Happens When We Give In To Idolatry

i) We Reject (Forsake) God (5)

ii) We remove ourselves far from his presence (5)

iii) We stop seeking Him first (6, 9)

iv) We reject his good gifts, worse, we replace Him with them (7)

v) We Make Him look like a fool (5)

This is the reason he must contend with us, discipline and judge us.

vi) We make ourselves look like fools, and we lose out (10-11)

vii) We become like what we love (5, 11)

viii) We make ourselve worthless (5, 11)

ix) We put our trust in the promises of created things that WILL break them (13b)

x) We digust and amaze the heavens (12)

5) How do we Avoid This?

6) Conclusion - What Might Be Your Idols?

Do you see how serious this is?

And so, we need to examine our own hearts.

What might be your idol, or idols?

What created thing has made promises to you that you trust over and above the promises of God?

What created thing you do love, and want to be with more than the saviour?

What idea or invention of man has captured your heart more than the words of God?

What priority of this world seems more true to you than