Today I want to introduce you to two people who, perhaps more than any other Bible characters, show us how easily you and I can fall into idolatry. How easily you and I can turn our backs on God, and then tell ourselves that what we’re doing is just fine. These two people are like mirrors of who we are, and how stupidly we sometimes behave. 

TURNING GOOD INTO BAD

As I said I want to introduce you to a couple of Bible characters from the Old Testament Book of Judges who in a single chapter, Judges chapter 17, show us how easily we can fall into idolatry. Now these aren’t any of the A list players like Abraham or Moses or Isaiah, these are just two people who only appear this one time whose story in the context and in the whole sweep of Israel’s story told across the Old Testament is frankly pretty insignificant.

And yet God chooses to have their story included in the Bible in a Book that frankly not many of us go to all that often, in fact when I shared a message about these two people at our Church recently my Pastor came up to me afterwards and commented ‘that’s great, it’s good for us to go to Books in the Bible that we don’t go to all too often’.

Well there is a reason I’ve gone to this chapter. We’re told in the New Testament:

All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness so that everybody who belongs to God maybe proficient, equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16)

Now this particular one is one of those sorts of Scriptures. It’s the story about a woman, we don’t find out her name and her son Micah. Now this is not the Micah who wrote the Old Testament Book of Micah, different guy altogether. So let’s dive in and have a bit of a look at their story. We’re going to Judges chapter 17 beginning at verse 1.

There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘The eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession, I took it but now I will return it to you,’ and his mother said, ‘May my son be blessed by the Lord’.

Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, ‘I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal.’ So when he returned the money to his mother, his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith who made it into an idol of cast metal and it was in the house of Micah.

This man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and a teraphim and installed one of his sons who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what’s right in their own eyes.

Now it starts off as quite a bizarre story, mum has lost eleven hundred pieces of silver, that was a huge amount of money for them back then, no doubt this was her life savings. There were, of course, no banks with high interest accounts or even with safety deposit boxes for her to secure her fortune in. So she did what everyone else did back then had to do, she hid it.

Nevertheless, it was stolen. Imagine having your life savings stolen, all of your financial security, any sense of a happy retirement is gone. And then all of a sudden it emerges that her son, young Micah, was the thief, her own flesh and blood. He nicked all her money and now, obviously, his conscience gets the better of him and he returns the money.

Now mum should have been outraged, she should have been angry at this terrible act of theft and deceit. Instead she says ‘may my son be blessed by the Lord’. Well of course it’s good to forgive someone quickly but only Freud would have a field day with that one.

And then to celebrate she does what? She goes and makes an idol cast of metal using two hundred pieces of silver which in itself was a huge amount of money. And she consecrates the silver idol to the Lord our God, have you heard of anything as crazy as that? I mean the first of the Ten Commandments:

You shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:3)

The second of the Ten Commandments:

You shall not make for yourself an idol whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them and worship them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God punishing children for the inequity of their parents to the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. (Exodus 20:4)

How could they have taken something good, the silver and turn into something bad, the idol? The answer comes in the last verse of the passage that we read earlier: Because in those days there was no king of Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes.

And that right there is exactly what we do, we reject authority, we reject the authority of Gods Word and we do what’s right in our eyes. I had an elder in a Church tell me recently that he doesn’t read the Bible because he finds in boring. Really? That same elder has come to the conclusion that he thinks that sex outside marriage is fine.

Well of course he would because he’s rejected Gods Word and that’s exactly what we do when we take something good and we turn it into an object of sacrifice and worship which displaces our worship of God and the rule of God’s Word in our lives. It removes Jesus as the Lord of our lives. We ignore Gods Word and replace it with what seems to be right in our own eyes.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, idols are imposters. They rob us of Gods best. If Micah’s mother had truly wanted to bless God to celebrate the return of her life savings there’s a whole bunch of other things she could have done with two hundred pieces of silver. She could have given it to the poor, she could have taken it to the Levite’s to use in the service of God, hey she could have even thrown a party in honour of God and his goodness.

The one thing she couldn’t do to honour God was to build an idol which by the way then took up residence in Micah’s house to further lead him astray. And just as easy as it was for Micah and his mother to pervert the Word of God, that’s how easy it is for you and me when we reject His Word because we think we’re smarter, we think we’re wiser, we think that our ways are better than His ways.

I see it happen in people’s lives time and time again and I have to guard against it in my own life over and over again. Idolatry is singularly one of the most natural sins that we can commit and we do it at our peril.

DO NOT BE LED ASTRAY

Before the break, we met Micah and his mother who took something really good and turned it into something really bad. They took what was, in effect, a blessing from God and turned it into a curse. Something that you and I, if the truth be known, are incredibly adept at doing. Let’s just remind ourselves of their story:

There was a man in the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Micah. He said to his mother, ‘the eleven hundred pieces of silver that were taken from you about which you uttered a curse and even spoke it in my hearing, that silver is in my possession, I took it but now I’m going to return it to you’. And his mother said, ‘May my son be blessed by the Lord.’

Then he returned the eleven hundred pieces of silver to his mother and his mother said, ‘I consecrate the silver to the Lord from my hand for my son to make an idol of cast metal’. So when he returned the money to his mother his mother took two hundred pieces of silver and gave it to the silversmith who made it into an idol cast of metal and it was in the house of Micah.

This man Micah had a shrine and he made an ephod and a teraphim and installed one of his sons who became his priest. In those days there was no king in Israel, all the people did what was right in their own eyes. (Judges 17:1-6)

The bizarre twist as we saw in this story is the woman is so overjoyed at getting her life savings back that she decides to take that which is good, the silver or at least part of it and turned it into something which is bad, an idol which then went on to live in her son’s house to lead him further astray.

In fact there’s not a single worse thing that she could have done than build an idol because that’s right at the top of God’s rather small list of things that we shouldn’t do. Why? Because God wants the very best for us and idols fall a long, long way short of that.

God is God, God deserves our honour and our worship and when instead we worship the works of our own hands as it seems we so readily do it’s like slapping God in the face with a wet fish. But right now we’re going to take this idolatry thing a step further because there are those leaders in our Church who not only fail to address the idolatry that’s happening amongst their flock, they not only fail to preach the sort of messages that need to be preached and hold people to account to God’s Word but they actually support and promote idolatry themselves.

‘Impossible!’ I hear you say. Hmm not at all, in fact the very next verses in this story of terrible idolatry that is such a salutary lesson to us, that’s exactly what happens. Let’s take a look, Judges chapter 17 verses 7 to 13.

Now there was a young man of Bethlehem in Judah of the clan of Judah. He was a Levite residing there. This man left the town of Bethlehem in Judah to live wherever he could find a place. He came to the house of Micah in the hill country of Ephraim to carry on his work.

Micah said to him, ‘where do you come from?’ and he replied, ‘I’m a Levite of Bethlehem in Judah and I’m going to live wherever I can find a place to stay’. Then Micah said to him, ‘stay with me and be a father and a priest and I will give you ten pieces of silver a year, a set of clothes and your living.

The Levite agreed to stay with the man and the young man became to him like one of his sons so Micah installed the Levite and the young man became his priest and was in the house of Micah. Then Micah said, ‘now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest.

So along comes this Levite, this priest, who should have known better, he was a Levite after all from the tribe who was meant to be, in effect, the priests who served the one true God and minister to God’s people. And this Levite, instead of showing Micah the error of his ways in this idolatry that he was doing, the priest instead joins him in this terrible act of idolatry and becomes an accessory to this crime against God.

And in his failure to correct Micah in his complicity that is idolatry he further leads Micah astray as Micah concludes, ‘All must be good. Now I know that the Lord will prosper me because the Levite has become my priest’. In other words given now that he has the Levite’s stamp of approval in effect Micah is now further convinced that what he’s doing is fine by God and that God will indeed bless him and prosper him.

Listen to me, just because the Church doesn’t stand up and speak against the idolatry of our times it doesn’t make it right. Just because some preacher far from speaking against the idolatry of wealth and deceit and sexual immorality and disunity, they even endorse those things, it doesn’t make them right.

Now please don’t get me wrong most Churches are good Churches but there are also many out there who will lead you astray into idolatry and away from God’s Word. See it’s precisely what Jesus predicted would happen, Matthew chapter 24 beginning at verse 9.

Then they will hand you over to be tortured and put you to death and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. Then many will fall away and they will betray one another and hate one another and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray and because of the increase in lawlessness the love of many will grow cold but the one who endures to the end will be saved and this good news of the Kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to all the nations and then the end will come. (Matthew 24:9-14)

In other words, they’re the ones who will tell you that you’re not meant to suffer, you’re not meant to sacrifice, God wants to bless you and make you rich and make your life comfortable. Or others will come along and tell you Jesus isn’t the only way. In fact other faiths and belief systems equally get you into heaven, plenty of those guys out there, there are plenty of those Churches out there.

Just as the Levite, through his complicity, led Micah astray so there are those preachers, teachers, leaders and Churches who will do the same. Be warned. The Churches seal of approval to something doesn’t always mean that it’s right, the only authority for right and wrong, good and bad, blessing and curse is the Word of God and that’s why it’s so vitally important that each one of us should be men and women of God’s Word.

THE SACRIFICE OF ABRAHAM

Right, so you’ve decided to deal with the idols in your life. Something or someone has set itself up in your heart above God, ahead of God. It might be a person or a possession or a position, it might be a loved one, it might be that new car you’ve been dreaming of and you’re prepared to go way into debt and compromise your giving to God’s work in order to get it. Or it might be a career or what other people think of you.

You know in your heart of hearts that this one thing has gone from being something good in your life to overtaking your life, from something that was good for you to something that has enslaved you, from a servant to a master, from a thing to an idol, a little god of some sort that you sacrifice your whole life to.

You’ve realised that and now you want to do something about it but it’s just not easy because you are so used to having that idol in your life. Now what? Where do you turn? What do you do? Are you relating to this? Are you feeling God tugging at the tender part of your heart that’s wrapped around your idol calling you to let it go? You know you should but it’s kind of like, like being addicted to chocolate. You know it’s bad for you but man, I just want one more piece, right? It tastes so good, right?

So where do you turn? To God of course, to God’s Word. And that’s why we’re going to spend a few minutes with a man who had exactly this same problem, not just any man but one of the Bible’s A list, his name of course was Abraham. Called out of his comfortable wealthy existence by God to head off on a hair-brain twenty-five year journey.

He and his wife were childless and they were already in their mid seventies but God promised them a son and called them onto a journey to the so called Promised Land that Abraham’s multitude of descendants would inherit. Huh, like I said a pretty hare-brained idea.

Cut a long story short, Abraham and Sarah went on this tortuously long journey, they honoured God, believed in God and eventually having even laughed at God over this stupid, ridiculous promise of becoming parents, father and mother to a multitude of descendants at the age of a hundred. God gives them a son and tells them to call him Isaac which means in Hebrew ‘he laughs’. In other words God’s great sense of humour, God got the last laugh and of course he who laughs last laughs best.

But as times go on this wonderful son Isaac, you can imagine how Abraham doted on him after all that had happened. Isaac starts to displace God in Abrahams heart. So God decides to put Abraham to a test, Genesis chapter 2 verses 1 to 8:

After these things God tested Abraham. He said, ‘Abraham’, he said, ‘Here I am Lord’, he said, ‘Take your son, your only son Isaac whom you love and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains that I will show you.’ So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey and took two of his young men with him and his son Isaac. He cut the wood for the burnt offering and set out and went to the place in the distance where God had shown him.

On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place far away. Then Abraham said to his young men, ‘stay here with the donkey, the boy and I will go over there, we will worship and then we will come back to you’. Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and laid it on his son Isaac and he himself carried the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.

Isaac said to his father Abraham, ‘father’ and he said, ‘Here I am my son’, he said ‘The fire and the wood is here but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?’ Abraham said, ‘God Himself will provide the lamb for a burnt offering my son.’ So the two of them walked on together.

Hey it’s pretty scary stuff, isn’t it? But there’s more, it goes on, Genesis chapter 22 verses 9 to 14.

When they had come to the place that God had shown them Abraham built an altar and there he laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Then Abraham reached his hand out and took his knife to kill his son. The angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, ‘Abraham, Abraham’ and he said, ‘Here I am’, he said ‘Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him for now I know that you fear God since you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

And Abraham looked up and he saw a ram caught in the thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son so Abraham called that place ‘the Lord will provide’, as it is said today ‘on the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.

Listen to me. God loves you too much to let you continue in your idolatry. If He sees your heart straying away from Him He will put you to the test, He will bring you to a binary decision point, in other words a place where there are only two options, either to lay down your idol or hang onto it and keep worshipping it. To keep heading on into the wrong direction or to give up your idol as much as it may hurt and turn your life back to Him.

The whole point of today’s message is to tell you this one thing, God loves you and if an idol has seduced your heart He will test your heart and give you the opportunity to turn back to Him. He won’t force you but He’ll test you and He wants you to know that and be ready so that when the test comes you’ll know what’s going on.

Oh by the way, would you like to hear how Abraham’s test ended, what God said to him? Here it is, Genesis chapter 22 verses 15 to 18.

The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, ‘By myself I have sworn’ says the Lord, ‘because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will bless you and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and of the sand that is on the seashore and your offspring shall possess the gate of their enemies and by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessings for themselves because you have obeyed my voice.

It kind of makes you want to pass the test, right? Of course it does because the whole point of letting go of your idols, that person, that possession, that position, whichever it is is so that God can give you His very best for your life. God does want to bless you but like any good father that’s something He can’t do when His child is haring off in the wrong direction away from Him and towards destruction.

He will pull you back, He will bring you to that decision point and with all my heart I want you to be ready for when that happens because passing that test, making the right decision is how we get hold of God’s promises and blessings for our lives.

It of course sounds so simple as I explain it to you, doesn’t it? But let me warn you I know it’s much harder to do than it sounds and because it is, I’ve made a decision in my life, I hold onto God’s blessings loosely. I want to be ready, if God wants to take something away from me to give it up to Him willingly because if that’s how I look at my blessings. If that’s how I treat my blessings they’re far less likely to wrap their tendrils around my heart and become my idols.

An idol is something that you won’t let go of for God’s sake. It’s something that displaces God as your Lord and King and invariably it’s something that leads to a world of pain and hurt no matter how much of a blessing it may have seemed to you. You can’t argue that Isaac was a huge blessing from God to Abraham but even God’s blessings have to be put in the right place in our lives.

Lest they become idols, lest they lead us astray, lest we turn our backs on God and make gods out of our blessings. When that test comes you’ll know it and I pray that you will have the courage to lay down your idols and discover God’s very best for you.