Faithfulness (Flee Idolatry)

As we meditate upon the passage just read, Judges 17, and the next chapter, Judges 18, I wanna just begin by asking the question, how big is your God? How big is your God? And it's really important that we ask this question at the right time. For instance, when things are going well, is God so great that you're going to give Him honor and thanks and praise for the blessing? We need to ask this question when things are tough, in the midst of trials and difficulty, is He steadfast? Is He able? We need to ask this question in the midst of temptation. Does God have the authority to tell me no? Does God have the power to let me overcome this temptation? The big question here is, does God have the power and the authority? Is He big enough to redirect me? To change my disposition? To change my desires? Really we're asking, is God bigger than me? Is the God I worship just like me, as we typically like to make our idols? Or is the God that I worship, the God of the Bible, and there I'll say, like John the Baptist, I must decrease so he might increase. We're looking at a very bizarre story this morning. As judges continues to present us, they get weirder and weirder. Sin becomes more and more prevalent and obvious. There's less shame in the nation of Israel. And so it gets worse. This morning we're going to consider the simple truth, God is worthy of the worship he prescribes. God is worthy of the worship he prescribes. And the question for us is, am I following Christ and his commandments, or am I asking him to bless my disobedience? Am I following Christ and His commandments, or am I asking Him to bless my disobedience? Now, we're winding down in our study of judges. We're going to look at Ruth next, just so you know. And if your Bibles are open to judges, you can open up and just look over to Ruth real quick. In the days when the judges ruled, All right, so it's taking place at the same time. The reason we're gonna do this is to show how sweet the gospel truth is and how powerful God is to bring about a redemption in the midst of all the chaos of Judges. But we've got two more stories left in Judges, one today, one next week. Judges has three sections. Chapter one through chapter 2.15, that's the first section of Judges. It's really a summary. And let me just go back and read the simple summary, chapter 2.11 to 15. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and served thee Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, They went after other gods from among the gods of the peoples who were around them and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger. They abandoned the Lord and served the Baals and the Asheroth. So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them. He sold them into the hand of the surrounding enemies so that they could no longer withstand their enemies. Whenever they marched out, the hand of the Lord was against them for harm, as the Lord had warned, and as the Lord had sworn to them, and they were in terrible distress. When Israel tried to take control of their lives, it only led to problems. They continued to go after other gods, seeking control, and God disciplined because He loved them. The second section is the cycle of judges. That's chapter 216 through chapter 16, and it begins with Othniel. If you just look over there to Othniel, it's a nice, simple story. There's hardly any detail. It just goes through this simple cycle that God raised up a judge, he delivered Israel, and then they were returned back to evil. And then the stories get richer and sicker. We end with the story of Samson that we just concluded with. Now we're in the third section of Judges. There are no judges in this section mentioned. Really, I believe what's happening is our author is showing us what's happening out in the burbs. This is what's happening among the common folk. He's not talking about the leadership of Israel. He's not talking about the big picture of Israel. He's wanting to show what's happening among the common citizens, what's happening at the ground level, and it's sick. We see here how people treat God, how they abandon Him. And the reason we read 1 Corinthians 10 earlier, the reason Brian read that to us, is that we're supposed to see and be warned by these Israelites so that we might flee idolatry. The text breaks up, breaks down into two basic points, two sections. Our first one is this. We say false religion of prosperity. The false religion of prosperity. This whole section is about how Micah and the Danites are both seeking to establish their own religion, and it is a false religion. And the primary focus of Micah's religion is prosperity. You heard it with the last verse that Cheryl read. Now I know. that the Lord will prosper me. We see here the false religion of prosperity. And this has two parts, verses one to six, the making of the gods, and verses seven to 12, the appointing of the priest. Now we're introduced to a character, his name is Micah. His name is significant, his name is who is like our God. There's some irony there. because the gods he worshiped are nothing like the one true God. We're immediately dropped into a kind of an odd story, even an odd story. We have a woman who has 1,100 pieces of silver. If you recall last week, that's what Delilah was promised by the Philistines. Gaza is far away. This is not Delilah as far as I can understand. Just maybe it's a way of talking about someone who has great wealth. But it's an interesting connection from the last story. Not quite sure what to do with it. But we have a mother who's lost or has been stolen 1,100 pieces of silver. And then we see that her son Micah, he comes because she has put a curse on it, and he confesses. I have taken the money. from which you uttered a curse. Now, if you're gonna listen and read the story, there's two key actions that control this whole section, 17 and 18. The first one is take. Take. Micah has taken the silver. And he comes and he confesses, and it looks like a good, honest confession. It's in response to his mother's cursing, And we see here something about Micah. One, he did not honor his mother. That's breaking a commandment. And he also stole something. That's breaking a commandment. Verse three, he restores the money. And then the mother says, I will dedicate the silver to the Lord. That is Yahweh. That is the covenant name of promise that God gave to his people. I'm going to restore the money to Yahweh. I'm going to dedicate it for my own son. Now, this is getting kind of odd. Because then she says, I'm going to have an idol made of this. Verse four, a carved image. This is odd. I'm going to make an idol. Make is the second key action. There's two key words, two key verbs that control the story, taking and making. And we're gonna see how they actually come together in chapter 18, but what we see here, the money that was taken from her, she's now going to make into an idol so that God would bless her son. And let's just be very clear, 200 pieces of silver, that's gonna make a very small God. Like a little Chihuahua. You know, you could carry it around in your purse. Not a great God. Not a big God. Most importantly, this is breaking one of the most clear commandments that God has given us. No carved image. No metal image. Why God tells us in Exodus 20? Because He's jealous. God created us for worship, and He longs for us to know Him, to praise Him, and to worship Him the way He has prescribed, the way He's truly worthy of worship. And yet here we see Israelites stealing from one another within the family and making images. They have the right name for God, Yahweh, but they apply it to a little sculpture made of silver. Even if it's the right God, they're worshiping in the wrong way. The loosest view of worship for Christians is you can't do what God forbids. That is the loosest understanding of worship. Really, we want to be much more tight than that. We want to say whatever God prescribes is what we must do. We just don't look around and say, I'm going to be creative and decide, all right, what has God forbidden? Everything else is up for grabs. I can do whatever He doesn't forbid. No, God actually instructs us who He is and how to worship Him. Let's go back to our order of service. This one we give you, it's important for what we do here because it's an order of service. And let's go to the first page. Notice there, the call to worship. Who's calling you to worship? God. It's an invitation from God. Oh, sing to the Lord, he invites us. A new song. A song of a new deliverance, a new redemption. Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations. For great is the Lord. It's a glorious invitation. The one true God who created all, the one true God who has seen us rebel against Him, the one true God who has sent His Son to die for us, He invites us. We only get to worship Him because He invites us. That's why that call to worship is so important. We want to begin our worship service with the actual call of God that invites us in. We don't come casually. Don't come late. come ready to hear that call to worship with an eagerness. God's asking me, who's rebelled against Him, but yet who is redeemed, to come and worship Him. You see, we want to follow what God has said, and we see there the great reason. Verse four of our code of worship. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. What a glorious great God we get to worship because he invites us. We like to secretize. We like to take our favorite parts of all the things we like and assume God likes it. I call this the religious cocktail. You know, we wanna squeeze a little of that and twist a little of that in equal parts tradition, Bible, and my personal preferences, and that's my own personal cocktail that I call worship. And I like it, so God must like it too. No. These people are sincere in their worship, but they are not. Worshiping the true God the way he's prescribed. Verse five, we see the elements all involved. He makes a shrine. There's an ephod. Now, God did prescribe the Israelite priest to wear the garment, the ephod. and had the 12 stones, and they would go in, and it was a way for them to represent all the tribes and the nations in the middle of the sacrifice. But here, this particular garment used among the nations was usually to try to figure out what God was gonna do next. It was a divination kind of activity. And this is clearly condemned to Deuteronomy 27. So we see here he's got a carved image, he's got a metal image, he's got idols, he's got an ephod, and he makes his own son, a priest. Now, look at verse six again. In those days there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That's really the key phrase that captures this last section, 17 through 21. If you just flip over very quickly to chapter 21 at the very end of the book, Notice how the book ends. In those days, there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. That sounds familiar. That's repeated four different times in our text, in these chapters, rather. Now, some people would say this is a polemic, right? So the author is trying to show why it's so important that Israel has a king. They're writing it to show why David or Saul, maybe, needed to be placed as king. You know, it didn't really matter which human king was on the throne. What really matters is that God himself desires to be the king of his people. The kingdom of God is this, God's people submitting to God's rule. The human king was simply supposed to represent God to lead people to submit to God's rule. No king really is representing the fact that Israel did not recognize God as king. They refuse to submit to him. It's important to recognize who's in control of this religion of Micah. It's Micah. It's all about Micah. He's deciding who he's going to worship and how he's going to worship him. True worship is submitting to God. My instincts, my desires, my thoughts, my words. True religion says, God, who are you and how do I know you? And here's what's beautiful. God answers those two questions clearly. Those are the two most basic questions that the Bible answers. Let's go on to the second part of this false religion of prosperity. Verse seven, it gets better for Micah. Now there's a young man of Bethlehem in Judah, and he's a Levite, and he's a wandering Levite. And he comes to Micah, and Micah gets excited. He says, if you'll come, you can be like a father to me, and I'll pay you. And then he says, you'll be like a son to me, and there's some confusion there about who's the father and who's the son in verses 10 to 11. So the Levites, let's go again, let's go back and understand who the Levites are. The Levites are a tribe of Israel, and they did not get an inheritance of land. They're supposed to be spread throughout the other tribes, and they're there to teach who God is and lead Israel to worship. This Levite is supposed to be the leader of worship, and he's a wanderer, and now he's being asked by a man who has idols, and has set up his own little sanctuary, come and help me lead in my worship. And he submits to him. He's a man for hire. Notice what Micah says again. Now I know, now that I have all the elements, I've got everything in place, now the Lord will prosper me. He just betrayed who's the real God. It's not now I can truly worship and know the one true God. No, now I will be blessed. I know before we saw that he's a thief. He stole from his mother. That's a certain kind of criminal who does that, right? But this is worse. He's stealing from God. He's a glory thief. Our worship is meant to glorify God and exalt him. God called Israel out to bless them so there'd be a blessing and to bless them so they would know him, but his whole point is, oh God, I want you to bless me by prospering me. This is what's so sad about this. God saved Israel to prosper them. Yahweh said if you come into my land, if you follow me into the land, I will prosper you in the greatest ways. You will know me. You will see my abundance. But Israel says no. I'm gonna figure out my own prosperity. The prosperity God promises is not the prosperity I want. I want to be able to be in control. He set up A fake God with false promise is false religion. It's amazing how God has promised us so much, and yet we always want something else. It's gotta be frustrating. God has promised us so much, and we're always looking around saying, God, why haven't you given me this? Why aren't you prospering in that way? See, when we look at Micah, I mean, I hope we can see, this is quite ugly, this is gross. But we're very much like Micah. We set up our own kind of religion with our own kind of priorities. The prosperity gospel is alive and well among American Christians, and really, we all subscribe to it because my first religion, after all, is a love for me. That's my first religion. I loved me first. You know what's funny about what's in the Bible? The Bible never commands you to love yourself. There's no command, love yourself, because that's what we already naturally, automatically do. No, what does the Bible say? Love your neighbor as yourself. What's assumed there? You love yourself. And then it says, love the Lord your God with all your heart. See, the song we sang earlier, there's a treason. It poisons all my love. There's this constant fascination with a love for myself, and we were not designed to love ourselves in this way. No, we're designed to love God. And here's the reality of it. We're not going to stop loving ourselves as if we're the only one that matters until we realize that God himself loves us more than we could ever love ourselves. We're not going to stop being committed to the religion of self-love until we look and see the father did not withhold even his own son out of love for us. Then we're gonna stop pretending to be in control. And then we're gonna stop pretending to set up our own little religion that promotes me and thinks, how can I prosper? How can God bless me in what I'm doing? Repent of our little religious cocktails. The most important thing about being a disciple is being teachable. God, what do you have to say? How can I be more obedient to what you have commanded? Not a little God you can put in your purse and have control over, no. The great almighty creator who has all authority and all power. Let us continue and look at the second main section. Here we see a false religion of success. We repeat in verse one, in those days there was no king in Israel. Sounds familiar, he just said it seven verses ago, but we need to remind it. That is the key setting, no one is submitting to God. And we're introduced to a whole tribe now, the tribe of the people of Dan. They were seeking for itself an inheritance to dwell in, for until then, no inheritance among the tribes of Israel had fallen to them. Now that's an interesting way of putting that. Dan was the last tribe to get an allotment in the book of Joshua, and Dan never went to go fight. They did not trust God enough to go fight and capture the land that God had promised them, and so now they're wanderers and sojourners themselves. They're living in the cities of Judah, because their land is inhabited by the Philistines, who they refuse to remove. And so they decide they're gonna have their own mission. They're going to go find a new land. So the people of Dan sent five able men, verse two. And he said, go explore the land. And then notice verse three, they're camped right outside of Micah's house. This is why verse 17's really a setup for what's happening here. They're outside of Micah's house, verse three, and they recognize the voice of the young Levite. And they turn aside and said to him, who brought you here? What are you doing in this place? What is your business here? That's a lot of questions. Slow down, man. He said to them, this is how Micah dealt with me. He has hired me and I have become his priest. That's a very disappointing answer. This is a priest, someone who has been commissioned to know God and lead God's people to worship him. How did he answer the question? Why are you here? Because a man hired me, and I now serve him. That's not how you expect a man of God to answer that question. For instance, if somebody asked me, why are you here? Well, you know, the search committee, they asked me to put my name as a candidate, and then they put me forward, and then the church voted on me. That's a completely insufficient answer for why I'm here. I have to believe God called me here. It's not a man-centered thing. Yes, God uses people to confirm a call, but he has no sense of God. The man is supposed to be leading in this religion. He's merely committed to Micah. He's a gun for hire. He's a spiritual gun for hire who's working for a wage. Love for self dominates him. We see then, verse five, and they said to him, inquire of God, please, that we may know whether the journey on which we are setting out will succeed. And the priest said to them, go in peace, the journey on which you go is under the eye of the Lord. Now, there's not a whole lot of break between verses five and six. Was that just a quick answer? I know what they wanna hear. Yeah, go in peace, it's gonna be great. Did they go and burn incense? Did they make a sacrifice? We don't know, but he's given what appears to be a very quick answer of assurance. And then if you read on in verse seven to 13, they do find a land. It looks like a good land. And those spies, they go back. And so then they take hundreds of men. 600 men of the tribe of Dan, armed with weapons of war, set out from Zorah, verse 11. Let's look at verse 14. The five men who had gone out to scout the country of Laish said to the brothers, do you know what's in those houses there? So here we are, these spies, they've come back, they're right outside of Micah's house, they have 600 armed men, and they ask the question equivalent to, hey y'all, guess what? In that house right there, there are carved images, there's graven images, there's a metal idol, there's an ephod, and there's a priest. Consider what you will do. Key question there. Consider what you will do. Now this is what the godly people of Israel should be considering. God, what kind of punishment do these people deserve? Because those who worship idols, some were completely destroyed. Remember the golden calf, God crushed it, put it in a powder and made Israel drink it. That was their judgment. It's not a matter of should we bless them. No, it's a matter of what kind of punishment. How severe should the punishment be for Micah and this Levite for their false religion of Yahweh? What do they do? Verse 17, and the five men who had gone to scout the land went up and entered and took the carved images. You should hear that key word. They took the carved images. The ephod, the household gods, the metal image, while the priest stood by the entrance of the gate, with the 600 men armed with weapons of war. Now, okay, there's a little intimidation factor going on here. When these went into Micah's house and took the carved image, the ephod, the household gods, the middle image, the priest said to them, what are you doing? And they said to him, keep quiet, put your hand on your mouth and come with us to be with us a father and a priest. It is better for you to be a priest to the house of one man or to be a priest to a tribe and clan in Israel. Verse 20. And the priest's heart was glad. He's only working for a wage after all. His prospects just got better. He got a better job offer. He would rather go serve a whole bunch of people with probably more money than the one guy. Yeah, his heart was glad. This is a better opportunity. So they turn and depart it, putting the little ones and livestock and the goods in front of them. Okay, this is a slow-moving group. And when they had gone a distance from the home of Micah, the men who were in the house near Micah's house were called out, and they overtook the people of Dan. They were able to catch up with them. And they shouted to the people of Dan, who turned around and said to Micah, what's the matter with you, that you have come with such a company? Now maybe that's a reference to how small the company, like we have 600 armed men, you have a bunch of neighbors? You have your HOA with you? Verse 24. And he said, you take my gods that I made. See those two key verbs come together there. You take the gods that I made. Let's just hang out there for a moment. That should be a good opportunity of self-awareness for Micah. You take The gods that I made. As those words just roll over your tongue, what kind of gods are these? They're vulnerable. I need to protect them. They're needy. I must provide for them. They're dependent upon me. I've made them. This is what the great theologian, the Hulk, would say. Puny God. It's truly a puny God. His whole life has been dedicated here to building up the shrine of himself to worship these puny gods. Let's consider the one true God. You can turn to page 599 of the Pew Bible, Isaiah 40, beginning in verse 18. Page 599 of the Pew Bible, Isaiah 40, beginning in verse 18. Remember, Micah's name is who is like God. Verse 18. To whom then will you liken God? Or what likeness compares with him? An idol? A craftsman cast it out and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains? He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot? He seeks out skillful craftsmen to set up an idol that will not move? Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundation of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and his inhabitants are like grasshoppers, who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in, who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness. Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth. When he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me? That should be like him, says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these. He who brings out their hosts by number, calling them all by name. By the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel? My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength, even you. shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, and they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. God, he created the wood. He created the tree. He created all things. And all things are for his glory, but he clearly says, do not make for me an image. That's not how I'm to be worshiped. I'm a weak God. I don't need your protection. I don't need your provision. No, I'm going to be the one who holds you up. I'm going to sustain you when you're exhausted. I'm the one who gives you strength. Israel has forsaken the one true powerful God who can and promises to provide for their every need, and they've sought to find their provision from other gods. I believe it's a matter of control. If you look further in verses 25 and 26, the people of Dan said to him, do not let your voice be heard among us, lest anger, angry fellows fall upon you, and you lose your life for the lives of your household. Here we, they're trying to cover all the commandments here. It sounds like murders on the table. Micah saw they were too strong. There's irony there. His God's too weak and he's too weak. They're too strong, they've taken everything. And so the people of Dan took what Micah had made. Again, you see those two key words. Together. They set up their own religion. Dan now is the uppermost, farther north tribe. Not where God originally allotted them, but there they're going to set up their own religion with the gods that Micah made. This is a small glimpse into everyday life of Israel. The forsaking God, the building of their own idols, seeking to take from one another. What's sad is every person in this story is an Israelite, and every person in this story is an idolater. Every person is an Israelite, and every person is an idolater. They have all forsaken God. We go back to that Judges 2 section I read earlier. They are doing exactly, exactly what God says they would do. It's interesting, we go to Romans 1. We see there God's description of what the pagans are like. They did not receive the special word from God, so they're supposed to be able to look around at creation and see how great he is and show him honor and give him thanks, but instead, they forsake God. They exchange his glory for the things created. I believe here you see Israel, who's been given a clear word from God, a clear redemption from God. They're acting just like those pagans. And we actually have to ask ourselves, where is God in all this? Yahweh's name has been used, but we have not seen God act or speak. Where is He? There's no redemption very clear here in the story. There's no obvious care. Is He too weak to handle this? I fear again Romans 1 is the answer to this question. He's giving them over to what their hearts desire. And there is nothing more terrifying than that judgment. He who is worthy of all honor, He who has invited them in to worship Him, He who has told them who He is, given His covenant name, and then they take that covenant name and abuse it using every other kind of worship than the one He prescribes. God lets them have their way as a form of judgment. This is terrifying. This is a cause for us to take a step back and consider 1 Corinthians 10 that tells us to flee from idolatry. To consider how these folks are a warning to us and how we set up our own religion too easily. How we like to make our own ingredients for what God must like because it's what we like. It's a warning. I also wanna point out, it's a call to praise God. First, I want us to praise God because He's clearly patient with sin. He's patient with sinners. We're just like Micah. We can praise God that He is patient. He is slow to anger. Whenever He calls us even out of our own sin, He doesn't expect us to change everything in every possible way. There's a patience there that God has with us from which we should praise Him for and thank Him for. Secondly, God is praiseworthy because he will bring clear judgment on all sin. Sin does not go unpunished. That's one thing we see in judges over and over again. Sin will be punished. He will execute perfect justice. And third, we praise God because he has the power to save sinners even like Micah. He has the power to save sinners like Micah. He has the power to call us out of theft, of coveting, of idolatry, of murder. When we look to Christ, we can see his death is more powerful than any sin we've committed or anyone has ever committed in all the world. If not, we're saying there's some sin that's more powerful than God? God's not big enough. If you're burdened with guilt and you're wrestling, no, how could God forgive me for this? And how could God love me? You're questioning how great and powerful God is. Or maybe we're looking at our neighbor and saying, how could God forgive that person? How could God love that kind of sinner? No, you're questioning the power of God. If you're here this morning and you do not know Jesus Christ, and you do not know God, and you're not a worshiper of the one true God, Jesus Christ came to die for every kind of sinner. His death is powerful to save. He gave his life over for those of us who do not live a righteous life. He only dies for sinners. He doesn't die for the people good enough. He only dies for sinners so that he takes God's wrath upon us, the punishment we deserve, and rises again to give us new life. You need to only realize you're a sinner who is not powerful enough to fix your own sin and that Jesus Christ forgives. Call upon him. Christian, recognize what an invitation we have to know God, to know how to worship Him, to receive the kind of gracious instruction. When God says don't do something, it's not good. When God gives us prescription, those are the things we should be prioritizing. So let's end. How big is your God? Do we try to put limits and parameters on God and the things He can't speak to us about? You know, when we worship a puny God, we usually become very petty people. We can measure our God, how we think of God, based upon how easy it is for us to come under anxiety, anger, and guilt. So we need to realize God is great. He is in control. He has not withheld any good thing from us. He's the one who promises. Put off your anxiety and trust him. Put off your anger and forgive. Put off your guilt and trust. Praise the one true God who gives us great promises and always provides. Let us pray.