We're going to look this morning at two false religions. Two false religions. Now it might help you, I think it will help you to have that Bible passage that Paul read open in front of you, page 604-605 in the church Bible, Isaiah chapter 43, verse 22.
What makes a false religion? What makes a religion fail? I guess if you were to ask people around you, people who you work with tomorrow morning, here is one standard answer to that question about what makes a religion false.
People will say a religion fails, or should fail, if that religion causes people harm or starts wars. Now I think we can agree with those answers, can't we? It's very strange indeed to find people who say that they are in touch with God and yet who want to harm and destroy and kill other people. What kind of God is that?
But in the Bible, it is something else that makes a religion false, that makes it fail, and it's this. Religions fail when they do not reach God. Religions are false when they lead people away from God and not towards Him.
Back in the 19th century, John Godfrey Sachs wrote a poem called The Blind Man and the Elephant.
And that poem has become a very famous way of talking about world religions.
There were six blind men who one day all were in a room with an elephant, and all six blind men each touched one different part of the elephant.
One man touched the elephant. One man touched the leg and said, I think this is a tree in front of me.
One touched the elephant's side and said, I think I'm touching a wall.
One touched the trunk and said, I'm holding a mighty serpent.
Each blind man thought they had the truth about the elephant.
And so the story goes, each world religion holds one small part of the truth.
No one religion has a total grasp of the truth.
Hinduism over here has one conception of what God is like.
Islam perceives God to be a bit like this.
You Christians, you say that God is a bit like that, and so on.
And that's all fine.
We are all blind, but touching somehow in some way the truth.
Religions are different paths, all going up the same mountain, different ways of getting to the same point at the top.
The Bible says, not all religions reach God.
Not all religion is true religion.
So what's the difference?
How would we know?
How can we tell what is true religion?
Can you spot it when it's laid out in front of you?
Can you tell the real thing from the fake?
This morning, two tragedies unfold before our eyes.
Two tragedies in the hearts of two very different kinds of worshippers.
And I want this morning simply to show you two tragedies in this passage.
Here's the first one.
Two points for you this morning.
Number one, the tragic folly of man-made gods.
The tragic folly of man-made gods.
I want to take the second half of the passage first of all.
Everything from chapter 44 verse 9 onwards is where I want to start.
Here's the first kind of false religion.
This is idolatry.
Out and out paganism.
And we need to be clear.
I mean, what did you think as Paul read it from verse 9 onwards?
Well, folly is quite a weak word.
This is, the writer saying, the tragic stupidity of man-made gods.
Look how it begins in verse 9.
All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit.
It's not just saying that what they make are nothing.
You see that?
Look how strong it is.
Those who make them.
The makers, they themselves, are nothing.
Those who make an idol to worship prove that they really have no sense of meaning or purpose in the world.
The things they delight in.
One commentator says, these things are their little darlings.
They're what they stroke with their hands.
Or stroke in their hearts with their affections.
And yet, you see what he says?
They are profitless.
Worthless.
Isaiah says, now let's take time to look at this.
Let's put an idol.
A statue.
Let's put it in the middle of the room.
Let's gather around and look at it.
Now, can you see?
Can you really see what it is you're looking at?
Look at verse 12.
Here's where sarcasm begins, doesn't it?
You see the blacksmith there in verse 12, covered in sweat and grime, bulging biceps, working away at his idol.
Look what he can make with his hammer and tongs.
He's skillful.
And yet, here's the thing.
You notice he makes something with his diminishing human strength.
At the end of making his God, he's knackered.
Needs a rest.
You're telling me, Isaiah says, that the human being who has grown so tired, now in need of outside sustenance to sustain him,
he's grown tired of making something that he's going to worship?
Making your God, Isaiah says, can be exhausting work.
Why don't you have a rest?
Put your feet up.
Have something to eat.
Is your God going to be able to revive you and sustain you and feed you?
Well, actually, it turns out he can actually sort of feed you.
You can, if you want, carefully plant a seed.
Grow a tree.
Cut it down.
You can burn half of it to keep you warm and cook your food on.
And the other half, you can worship.
Now, it's worth getting inside Isaiah's logic here.
It's so sensible, isn't it?
Surely, look at verse 19.
Surely, Isaiah is saying, surely anybody can see this.
To give divine honors to something I have made.
That cannot be right.
And for a human being to prostrate themselves in worship before something that they have created,
well, Isaiah is saying that is cart before horse.
It's back to front.
Which came first, me or the wood that I'm working with?
Which has more power, me or the wood?
I got tired making this little thing in front of me.
What do I now expect it to do for me?
Isaiah knows that the mere presence of worship,
the fact of adoration,
does not necessarily equal worship.
And we only need to use our brains to see this.
The fact of religion,
the fact of it in the world,
is no guarantee of true religion.
Real religion.
How different Isaiah is from the world in which we live.
Isn't it true?
No one wants to criticize.
No one wants to be rude.
No one wants to put their hand up and say,
I think the emperor has no clothes.
The edifice is beautiful.
The idol is stunning.
The traditions are well established.
The rituals are meaningful.
The culture is precious.
The beliefs are deep-seated.
And Isaiah says it can be all of those things
and be very, very wrong.
Now it's very important to see here
that this is not just a taunt.
This is not just sarcasm.
It's not just mockery.
It's not none of those things for the sake of it.
No, look at verse 17.
The rest of it he makes into a god,
his idol,
and falls down to it and worships it.
He prays to it and says,
deliver me,
for you are my god.
Look at verse 20.
He feeds on ashes a deluded heart
that has led him astray,
and he cannot deliver himself
or say,
is there not a lie in my right hand?
This is not just mockery.
This is an analysis of false religion.
Do you know what the analysis report says
as the prophet sits around the fire
with this man,
watching him cooking and eating and worshipping,
using one end of the tree for fuel
and the other for worship?
Do you know what Isaiah sees?
We need to see this.
Isaiah sees that human beings
long for the divine,
and we use man-made devices
to make us feel secure.
Isn't that what verse 17 is saying?
Deliver me.
Save me.
Rescue me.
Help me.
You are my god.
Let me ask you this morning,
what makes you feel safe?
Just over a week ago,
my wife managed to lose,
well, it actually wasn't my wife's fault in the end.
It turned out to be our two-year-old.
We lost a set of house keys.
Cars, doors, padlocks,
all gone,
in somebody else's hands as far as we knew.
We felt terribly, terribly insecure.
I hope in our hearts,
as we've been reading this,
as Isaiah is mocking idolatry,
I hope that we have not,
in our minds,
been tempted to mock
any other particular religious group
in the world
without seeing that Isaiah is speaking
even here to us.
What makes you feel safe?
Do you feel more safe and secure
when the bank balance is flush with cash
or when you're running low?
Do you feel more safe and secure
when the government party you voted for
comes to power?
When your football team wins the league?
When you have all your ducks in a row
and health is good
and children is fine?
Deep, deep, deep in the human heart
is a longing for someone
or something to save us.
And so often it is what makes us feel safe
and happy and secure
that receives the quiet gratitude of our hearts.
Now if you look at verses 12 and 13,
now of course we would nominate
different craftsmen today, wouldn't we?
I guess some of you may have
called a carpenter recently,
but probably not a blacksmith.
Well they're not in the ascendancy
like they used to be,
but who do we lift the phone and call?
Accountants, managers, builders,
doctors, teachers.
And what we say to them is,
can you make me safe?
Our devotion to what is man-made
knows no limits,
knows no ends,
and it is the story of the human heart
in every age,
in every generation.
And in it all,
here is the tragedy,
here is what is pathetic,
verse 20,
we are trying to save ourselves.
One human being
turning to another human being.
Save me,
help me.
The tragic stupidity
of man-made gods.
But I need to say this,
this morning,
that kind of false religion,
that kind of false religion
is not the worst kind there is.
It's pretty incredible to say that,
isn't it,
given what we've just seen
in those verses,
but there is something worse.
Here's the second thing
I want us to see.
Number two,
the tragic folly
of knowing the true God,
but not knowing him.
The tragic folly
of knowing the true God,
and yet,
not knowing him.
Look back at chapter 43,
verse 22.
Yet you did not call upon me,
O Jacob,
but you have been weary of me,
O Israel.
You have not brought me your sheep
for burnt offerings,
or honoured me with your sacrifices.
There's more than one way to worship.
You can do it.
You can do it in the forest,
round the shrine,
under the stars.
You can do it in the temple,
round an altar,
in the church.
There is something worse,
Isaiah is saying to us.
There is something worse
than a taunt
of religious falsehood.
There is heartbroken rebuke
for religious facade.
That is worse.
If you look at verses 22 and 23,
do you notice,
again and again,
God uses this phrase,
you did not.
You have not.
You have not done this,
nor that.
Actually, in the book of Isaiah,
that is a very strange phrase to use,
because Isaiah has kept saying,
again and again,
all the way through the book,
starting from chapter 1,
that people were doing nothing
but bringing sacrifices to God.
Listen to chapter 1, verse 11.
God says,
the multitude of your sacrifices,
what are they to me?
I have more than enough
of all your burnt offerings.
How can he say here now,
in verse 22,
you did not bring me these things.
Actually,
this is a different way
of making exactly the same point.
In an even stronger way,
the problem wasn't that the people
weren't bringing sacrifices to God.
It was how they were doing it.
The way in which they were doing it.
That was the problem.
Listen to Alec Mateer,
a man who has devoted most of his life
to studying the book of Isaiah.
Put your eyes on verse 22.
And Alec Mateer says that the Hebrew
in that verse is better translated like this.
Not me did you call.
In other words,
you were calling someone down there.
I saw you.
I heard you in the temple courtyard.
But it's not me you were calling.
Verse 23.
Mateer says that the pronouns,
me, me,
are meant to be emphasized in that verse
so that the meaning is this.
Burnt offerings you brought,
but not to me.
Oh, which is worse
here in our passage this morning?
Which is worse?
To never know the true God
and worship an idol?
Or to be brought to know
the true God
and yet lose your way to his house?
And take your sacrifices and offerings
and have God say,
I don't know who you think those are for.
There's an incredible play on words here.
It's actually visible to all of us
in our translation.
Verse 23.
God says,
I have not burdened you
with demands for loads of sacrifices.
That verb,
to burden,
it's the same word
that's used in the book of Exodus
where the Egyptians
burdened the people
by making them their slaves.
That's what the verb means,
to make a slave of someone.
I rescued you,
God is saying,
from one form of slavery
not to lead you
into another form of slavery.
I didn't make you slaves
all over again.
I didn't take the bricks
off your back in Egypt
only to put
sacks of grain
for sacrifices
on your backs
now instead.
I have never stood over you
with a whip
saying,
give me,
give me.
I have not been
demanding of you.
But look what you have done
to me,
verse 24.
I have not burdened you,
but you have burdened me.
You've made a slave of me.
You see,
here's what's happening.
God gave his people
the sacrificial system
to liberate them,
to set them free
from their sins.
It was a sign
of God's friendship
and love and grace.
I want to be close to you,
God said,
and near to you.
And to come close to you,
your sins need to be wiped out.
I can't come close to you.
You can't come close to me.
Unless you do this,
burnt offerings
and grain offerings.
Do you know what the people did?
That gift of friendship
they took
and turned into
a new form of slavery.
Incessant religious ritual
with no love for God
at its heart.
And God sees it
and knows that they have
lost the heart of it.
He knows that they think
that if they bring a sacrifice,
it's like rubbing the lamp
and out will pop the genie,
God, their slave,
their servant.
These people think
religious ritual
is a technique
for manipulating
divine blessing.
Listen to Alec Mateer.
by making ritual
into the exclusive content
of their religion,
they cut themselves off
from the benefits
the sacrifices
were intended to bring.
Ritual divorced
from spiritual commitment
neither satisfies God
nor blesses his people.
I can see
all your religious fervor
says God.
The problem is
I can see
no religious reality.
There is worship
and services
and meetings
and programs
and events.
Your diary
and calendar
is full.
But here's what
I can also see.
That your heart
is empty.
Your heart
is empty.
I can see
what you're saying
but not me
did you call.
I can see
what you're bringing
but not to me.
These sacrifices
were designed
for relief
and delight
and joy
and homecoming
to God
every single time.
God's people
turned it
into drudgery
and attendance
and box ticking
and rule keeping
and keeping up
appearances.
Look at verse 24.
You have not
brought me
sweet cane
with money
expensive
sweet cane
or satisfied
me with the
fat
of your sacrifices.
You have not
given to me
the very best
that you have.
The point
of true religion
is not that it
satisfies people
but that it
satisfies God.
You have not
lavished
on me
your love
God is saying
in verse 24.
Our worship
is something
we should lavish
on God
and you will know
as well as I do
that what we
do not love
and whom
we do not love
we do not
lavish.
Only if we
love
do we
lavish.
Toll bridge
on the M6
many of you
I know
have had the
joy
of travelling
it.
You reach that
point don't you?
£3.50
the barrier
is down.
£3.50
please
to be allowed
to pass.
What do you
say when you
get to that
barrier?
£3.50
you must be
kidding.
I love
that this
road is here.
Is that
all you want?
£3.50?
I can't believe
how good
you've been
to me.
Let me
give you
more.
£35
I'll move
the decimal
point.
No hang on
I love
this road
so much
£350
I'll pay
you.
You've
been so
good to
me.
Mr.
Osborne
is that
all you
want to
take
from my
salary?
Why not
more?
I love
that you
do this
to me.
No
those
things
are a
tax
aren't
they?
A burden
a weight
we pay
it
and we
would
take
back
every
single
penny
if we
could.
I can
see
several
young
men
here this
morning.
Young
men
just
try
that
same
approach
to your
taxes
when it
comes to
buying an
engagement
ring
for the
woman you
love
or an
anniversary
present.
What
is the
least
I can
get away
with here?
Keep
that up
and let
us know
how it's
going
in ten
years
time.
No
love
real
love
knows
nothing
of
taxes.
Real
love
is
lavish.
It's
glad.
It's
joyful.
It takes
the very
best that
I have
and says
God
this is
for you.
That
is what
pleases
me
says
God.
Is
ritual
the
sum
total
of your
religion
this
morning.
Not
all
religions
reach
God.
And
sometimes
the
very
religion
which
God
himself
has
created
can
end
up
falling
the
most
short.
The
worst
kind of
false
religion
is not
the
idolatry
in the
forest.
The
worst
kind of
false
religion
is when
God
himself
reaches
down
to
us
and
we
take
what
he
gives
and
turn
it
into
a
way
of
rejecting
him.
Not
because
we've
turned
our
back
on
him
but
precisely
because
all we
have
turned
towards
him
is
simply
our
faces
and
nothing
more.
The
tragic
folly
of knowing
the
true
God
and
yet
not
knowing
him.
So
what
do
we
do?
What
do
we
change?
Well
I want
to
finish
with
this.
There
are
three
commands
here
for
us
in
this
passage.
You
probably
missed
them
in
the
size
of
the
reading.
Three
things
God
tells
us
to
do
and
they
are
all
connected
to
him.
Verse
26
of
chapter
43.
Here's
the
first
one.
Remind
him
God.
Put
me
in
remembrance
God
says
verse
26.
Let
us
argue
together.
Set
forth
your
case
that
you
may
be
proved
right.
You
see
what
does
it
mean?
How
do
we
not
fall
into
the
trap
of
verse
23?
Empty
religious
ritual.
How
do
we
stop
it
happening?
Because
here
you
are
in
your
church
family
again
like
you
were
last
week.
Like
you'll
be
next
week.
Like
you were
last
year.
Hopefully
like
you'll
be
next
year.
Here
we are
saying
and doing
the same
things
week in
week out.
You'll
try and
pray and
read your
Bible this
week.
Just like
last week
with all
the same
ups and
downs and
successes and
failures of
doing so.
God
So
what
does
reality
with
God,
an
authentic
relationship
with
God,
what
does
it
look
like?
Well
look at
verse 26.
God
says it
looks like
this.
Get
last
week's
photo
album
out and
let
God
see
it.
Not
what you
posted on
Instagram
but
everything
about
you
out
into
the
open.
The
things in
your
heart
and your
head
that sum
up
what you
are really
like.
The
things you
saw
and said
and did
and thought
that no
one else
knows that
you saw
or said
or did
or thought.
Put
me in
remembrance
God
says.
Just
remind me
what's
been going
on with
you?
How
did
you get
to this
point?
How
did
you get
here?
What's
happened?
It's a
lovely
phrase
isn't
it?
Put
me in
remembrance.
God
hasn't
forgotten
of course.
It's
a lovely
gentle
way of
saying I
don't need
to be
reminded
about the
past
but you
do.
Because
here's
the thing
here is
the hinge
of true
religion.
It is
all about
forgiveness
of sin.
That is
the heart
of true
religion.
That is
the whole
point of
what I
gave you
God
says.
The
lambs,
the grain,
the incense,
the punishment
falling on
someone else
instead of
you.
it's
because my
past,
my guilt
needs to
be dealt
with,
needs to
be forgiven.
Lose that
sense of
need and
you will
very soon
lose your
need of
Jesus.
It's
why you
confess
sins,
why we
confess our
sins together
in our
services week
by week.
It is
the essence
of true
religion.
A review
of the
past which
states things
to God
as they
really are
and comes
to him
with open
hands to
receive his
grace.
If you
look at
verse 26
again,
let me put
it like
this.
For real
religion to
be alive
in your
heart,
come to
church
every single
week to
state the
case for
your innocence.
come to
do that.
Then let
yourself be
found guilty
and then go
home justified.
That is
real religion.
I'm here,
Lord.
Here's what's
happened.
I'm guilty
and because of
you I'm
forgiven.
Secondly,
real religion
also does
this.
Look at
verse 21
of chapter
44.
It
remembers.
It
remembers
God.
Look at
that verse.
Remember
these things,
O Jacob,
and Israel,
for you are
my servant.
I formed
you.
You are
my servant.
O Israel,
you will not
be forgotten
by me.
Short-term
memory loss
is the fast
track to
false religion.
Forgetting
who God
is and
what he's
done.
Lovely
contrast here,
isn't there,
in that verse,
verse 21.
We've just
had the man
making his
idol,
his fuel,
his food,
his worship.
We've had a
human making
the thing that
he worships.
And how does
God follow it?
Straight away
in verse 21.
Never forget,
I made
you.
I made
you,
my child.
But not
just that.
Look at the
contrast between
the start and
the end of
the verse.
Israel,
my servant,
my child,
always remember
that I
never forget.
Don't
forget that
I always
remember.
You see
the principle?
Real religion
is never about
what we do
for God,
but what
he does
for us.
We don't
make things
for him.
He made
us for
him.
We don't
make things
to worship.
He made
us to
worship him.
Alec
Matir,
last time,
he says
this,
there is a
narrow dividing
line between
giving our
all in
devoted service
to Jesus
and
finding our
all in
our devoted
service to
Jesus.
There is a
narrow dividing
line between
giving our
all in
devoted service
to Jesus
and finding
our all
in our
devoted service
to him.
Giving our
all is good,
but finding
our all in
giving is
not good.
Then Alec
Matir says
this,
it is why
many ministers
struggle to
retire.
They have
lost that
which they
were devoted
to.
They become
devoted to
the ministry,
not the
master.
If you're
like me,
you will
know this
morning that
you know
what it is
like to
slowly drift
from the
depths of
God's love
and compassion
and care and
friendship for
you.
Do you
know what
it's like to
lose that?
God's sense
of delight in
you as his
child?
It's so easy
to do,
isn't it?
It happens
slowly.
God's grace
in our hearts
kind of
leaks out
and goes
faint and
runs low.
So we all
need to do
the final thing.
Look at
verse 22,
chapter 44.
I have
blotted out
your transgressions
like a cloud
and your sins
like mist.
Return to
me,
for I have
redeemed you.
Remind God,
remember God,
return to
God.
Confession of
sin every week.
Paul said
this,
didn't he?
It is never
about entering
a world of
morbid
introspection
or self-hideal
gloominess.
How can it
be when our
God is like
this in
verse 22?
Clouds that
roll through
the sky,
everything that's
happened in
your past,
God says,
I just roll
it out of
the way.
That mist
in the morning
that's here
when you first
wake and then
is gone in
no time.
You don't
even notice
it going.
I treat
your sins
like that.
here is a
God who
always,
always leaves
the light
on.
A God who
always puts
water by
the door for
us to wash
in.
A God who
always leaves
food on the
table, bread
and wine.
A God who
always, always
points back to
the cross of
his son and
says, I
have redeemed
you.
Look what I've
done, what
I've given.
So won't you
return and
come back to
me?
Amen.
Let's pray
briefly together.