Father, your word talks about things which many of us never think about, and virtually nobody in our culture thinks about.
And so sometimes, Father, your word is just a bit of a stretch for us.
It talks about things that don't seem to be very, very relevant, yet your word says that this is very relevant to us.
So we ask, Father, that you create within us an openness and a curiosity to see how you and your word analyze our situation and how your word wants us to see ourselves and see our own situation.
We ask, Father, that you make us open to that, hungry for that, and that you grant us that teachable heart, Father,
that allows your word to speak deep into our heart and create deep change within us for our good, for the good of this city, and for your great glory.
And all this we ask in the name of Jesus, your Son and our Savior. Amen.
One of the things which was, many of you know, about two years ago and a bit, I had the great privilege of being able to go to Angola.
I think I was gone for 20 days.
I was invited by SIM, an important missionary agency.
I was invited to come and be the speaker at their conference for all of their missionaries in Angola.
They gathered them together for a six-day conference, a time of retreat and refreshment, and many other missionaries came to it as well.
And I got to do some other stuff and do some other speaking in and around Angola.
And one of the really interesting things about going to something like this is because I was going to be with missionaries,
it meant I went to parts of Angola that tourists don't go to, not that Angola is much of a tourist destination.
It could be, but that would require a great change in the culture and everything like that.
Like I, some of you know, I joked how, I think it was like every day when I woke up in Angola and I was there in July,
every day you'd wake up, the question would be whether you'd see one cloud in the blue sky or two clouds in a blue sky
with a high of 31 degrees with no humidity.
And at night it would go down to 18 degrees with no humidity.
And that sounds like the perfect summer holiday destination for many people.
But anyway, so I got to go to a part of Angola that, I mean, I don't know why any tourist would ever go there,
but missionaries were there because there were a lot of very, very needy people.
And most of the missionaries were connected with a medical work and other types of development work around water.
One of the wonderful things I had, got to do is I got to go with a nurse one day as she drove around.
We were already in a very remote part of Angola, but we got to drive around other really, really remote parts of Angola.
And it was very, very striking to me.
Other than the fact that some people had cell phones and there was some steel, the huts, the village, the farming techniques,
the village life and these back, back, back roads that you needed like a land cruiser to drive to.
It was like unchanged in many of its ways of living.
Like I could have gone back 200 years ago and it would have just been the same.
It was quite stunning.
And one of the things that the nurse and many of the other nurses and doctors told us is not only, of course,
were they trying to deal with the actual physical problems,
but they were also trying to get people to change their ways in terms of how they fed babies
and how they dealt with things like water.
And one of their problems was, in fact, trying to get people to change their understanding of water.
They'd sort of say, and you can sort of understand why they'd say this.
I mean, the Portuguese colonial power wasn't actually a very, very good colonial power in Angola.
Like it didn't add a lot to them.
It was a very oppressive type of colonial power.
And, you know, the nurses and doctors would say,
well, you can't just drink the water out of the river or out of that well or out of that stream.
You need to do this or that.
And they'd sort of go along.
They'd be polite with it.
But when they'd go back and in their hearts and minds, they'd say,
well, woman, we've been drinking this water.
You know, we've been on this part of land for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
And we've been drinking this water for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
And why, on one level, should I listen to some white person come and tell me that this water is making us sick?
I mean, the nurse would say, yeah, but the water has been making your family sick for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years.
And you'd have fewer diseases and all this.
So anyway, it was an ongoing battle to try to actually have the people realize that what was going on
and what part of their custom and tradition was, was actually something that was making them sick.
The Bible's going to talk about something today that Canadians generally never talk about,
but it's actually something that causes us lots of distress and it corrupts us.
But it's not something you'll ever hear talked about in the Globe and Mail or in CBC or at the University of Ottawa or Carleton
or the Université de Québec in Hull.
I don't know if I pronounced that correct. I probably didn't.
You don't hear about it.
And it's going to talk about the problem of idolatry.
The Lord was very kind to me this week.
I mean, he's always kind to me.
But on Friday, in one of the coffee shops, which I'm a regular person at,
I was there in the morning working on something and the guy asked me where I was off to.
And I said, well, actually, I'm going to Parliament Hill to speak on Parliament Hill.
I spoke on Parliament Hill on Friday.
And I went back to the coffee shop later on in the afternoon to get some more work done.
And he asked me two things.
He asked me how it went and he asked me what I talked about.
And I paused for a moment and I said, well, actually, I talked about idolatry.
I talked about idols.
And he said, he's a really, really, really, really, he's a friend.
He's a really, really, really fine young man.
And you'd love to have him as your employee.
You'd love to have him as your neighbor.
He's a really good guy.
And he looked at me blankly when I said that I was speaking about idols.
And he said, do you mean like people you look up to?
And I said, no, no, no, that's not people you look up to.
That's sort of talking more like about heroes or something like that or role models.
No, I talk about idols or something that you serve, that you get your meaning and identity from.
But they're not really something that will really give you a true identity or worth serving.
And he still looked blankly at me.
And I'm trying to think.
Somebody, you know, in heaven I'll find out that one of you was praying for me at that exact moment.
And I said, well, money.
You know, we can see how many people in our culture, they make a type of idol out of money.
They get their meaning from pursuing money.
They get their, they serve money.
They sort of put everything that they have into trying to accumulate money, keep money.
And he said, oh, okay.
And then he sort of paused for a second and said, I don't have any idols.
And I said, well, I think every single human being has idols that they struggle with.
And he said, hmm, this was Friday.
I haven't, I haven't been back to that coffee shop.
He said, well, I'll think about it, whether I have an idol.
So you can pray that about this young man, that he will, in fact, raise the conversation.
Or maybe I will with him on Monday or Tuesday when I see him next.
But you can see here a very, very common Canadian thing.
And actually a very, very common Christian thing.
That idols are something that, you know, when you go to Angola.
And Angola, one of the problems with rural Angola is that they still have a great belief in witch doctors.
And there's, in a sense, a very, very obvious type of idolatry and worship of gods and forces that go on there.
But we don't really think that that's something that goes on in Canada.
It's something primitive.
But the Bible is going to suggest that, in fact, it's a human problem.
It's something we have to think about very, very deeply.
So if you could turn with me in your Bibles to Judges 2, verse 6.
Let's look at it.
Judges 2, verse 6 and following.
And just as you're turning to this, a bit of a geek moment for those of you who are geeks about things to do with the Bible.
The way the book of Judges is written is that there's two introductions.
There's also two conclusions.
And the first introduction is what we looked at last week, chapter 1, verse 1 to chapter 2, verse 5.
And in some ways, that emphasizes a type of historical thing which happens after Joshua had died and brought them into the promised land.
But they haven't taken the whole promised land.
The book of Judges covers the time from entering the promised land to the time of the first kings.
And about 250 years or so, depending on how you date things in the book.
And so last week, we looked at the first introduction, which sort of just says nine tribes and what they did or didn't do to take the promised land.
Most scholars, all scholars, say that what we're looking at today, chapter 2, verse 6 to chapter 3, verse 6, is the second introduction.
And it's, in a sense, the more theological introduction, where you get, in a sense, God's perspective on what happens when you give yourselves, when you're in the presence of idols and you don't deal with them properly.
And for those of you who like, like, just straight, like, theology and straight ideas like that, then this is the part of the book you'd like.
And then the rest of the book, really, it tells the same thing as chapter 2, verse 6 to 3, verse 6, but it tells it in the form of stories.
A series of stories about 12 judges and what happens.
So the stories later on will, in a sense, you enter into truths in a different way when you read a story.
And that's what's going to happen in the rest of the book.
So this is the second introduction, and here's how it goes.
It begins with sort of a flashback to the past.
Verse 6, when Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land.
And we saw what happened with that last week.
And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua,
who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel.
And Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years old.
And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-Heres,
in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gesh.
And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers.
And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
And so what this is talking about here is how the Lord has saved them out of bondage into slavery.
He took them out of Egypt, and it was the Lord who did that.
And then the Lord kept them, even though the people of Israel had been unfaithful,
he kept them and provided for them for 40 years.
And now they've come to the edge of the promised land.
And Joshua is the one who God uses to bring them into the promised land.
And once again, God saves and delivers them.
It's God who brings them into the promised land.
And Joshua, in a sense, is the leader that he has called to do that.
But then you'll notice here what it says at verse 10.
And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers, their forefathers,
and there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
And the word there, know, is the same word that's used when I want to talk about matters of sex.
What I'll talk about is knowing another person.
And that's a biblical way of talking about it.
It's a bit of a more polite way in church to talk about a certain type of thing.
And it's the same word which is used there.
And so it's not talking about as if you went back in a time machine
and asked the people of Israel just after all this generation had passed,
do you know who the Lord is?
They'd say, oh yeah, I know who the Lord is.
The Lord is the one who, you know, did this and that.
And they might even be able to give you a bit of a theology about him.
But they don't know him.
They don't have that intimate relationship with him of trust.
That's sort of what a good marriage should be
where there is a knowing of the husband for the wife and the wife of the husband
that both involves something physical but is far more than physical.
It's something which should involve the imagination and the emotions
and how you spend your time and there's a sense of intimacy.
And so this new generation doesn't have that with the Lord.
And they don't even know those works of the Lord.
And once again, it's not so much that they don't have a sense
of being able to recount some of them.
But if you think about it, if you understand this fundamental image
of almost a marital type of sexual imagery,
a knowing imagery, it's the same thing of
I can tell you certain things about Louise
and I can think about different things that Louise has done
and there'd be many things like that that would make me smile,
that would give me pleasure, so to speak, just thinking about it.
Like the way she stands or the way she walks.
Like I can recognize her walking from a great distance.
And like I like it.
Like I know things about her.
It's not just that I know things about her,
that I know them connected to intimacy
and connected with affection and connected with delight.
And that's what has been lost.
There's no personal knowledge.
And when they think about different things that he's done,
they might just say, oh yeah, yeah,
it'd be the same thing as one of you being able to tell me
who the shortstop was for the New York Yankees in 1935.
It's just a fact that you could roll off.
I don't know if there'd be anybody here who could do it,
but there might be.
And it's just, there's not that intimacy.
And that's been lost.
So if you know the last week thing,
is the people of Israel didn't fulfill what Joshua had said.
And they also, there's been a lostness there.
There's been a loss of that relationship with the Lord.
And so what happens?
Well, that's what happens if you look at verses 10 to 13.
We'll look at, well, actually,
we'll look at verse 10 again.
And then notice verse 11.
In my version, there's like a different little chapter heading.
But it's really important to notice the move
between verse 10 and verse 11, 12, and 13.
Look at verse 10 again.
And all that generation also were gathered to their forefathers.
It's a way of referring to death.
And there arose another generation after them
who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.
And verse 11,
And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord,
and served the Baals.
And they abandoned the Lord, verse 12,
the God of their forefathers,
who had brought them, not the forefathers,
but God, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt.
They went, this is Israel,
after other gods from among the gods of the peoples
who were around them.
And they bowed down to them.
I'll talk about that in a moment.
And they provoked the Lord to anger.
However, they abandoned the Lord
and served the Baals and the Ashteroth.
And Ashteroth is a plural word for those different goddesses.
So they served these male gods,
the Canaanite pantheon of gods and goddesses.
And you'll notice here, it's very, very subtle,
but it's very, very important between verse 10 and 11,
is that when they stop knowing the Lord,
it isn't as if they go to something neutral.
But when they stop worshipping the Lord,
they immediately start, in a sense,
worshipping something else.
I'm going to unpack this more in a few minutes.
But you see, one of the things which the Bible
wants to communicate to us as human beings
is that, in a sense, human beings are hardwired to worship.
Every human being is a creature made in the image of God
who's hardwired to bow down.
And the word which is translated as bowed down,
what it's really talking about is,
this is very old-fashioned language.
Those of you who like fantasy novels,
which often recreate lots of things from medieval times
and ancient times in a fantasy or science fiction context,
what they really do, that the language is of paying homage.
That's what it says.
It would actually be more literal to say
they paid homage to the Baals and the Ashtaroth,
to the gods and goddesses of Canaan.
And to pay homage means to become a vassal
under a Lord and swear fealty to the Lord.
So they no longer, in a sense,
understand themselves as being the Lord's people,
that he is their great deliverer,
who delivered them out of Egypt,
provided for them in the wilderness,
brought them into the promised land,
and has carried them and cared for them.
And that when he refers to them,
he uses languages of almost like marital intimacy,
that that's what he desires for his people.
And as they lose that,
they don't become neutral,
but now they enter into a new relationship instantly,
and this instance is now one of homage.
They acknowledge themselves or see themselves
as the vassals of these gods and goddesses,
and they pledge fealty to them.
They will serve them.
They understand that these gods and goddesses
are higher than them,
and are worthy of their service,
and of their loyalty.
Now, the problem is,
and most of the rest of the Old Testament,
there's many, many scathing, scathing,
scathing things about idolatry.
The shocking thing in an entire ancient,
a whole planet that saw idolatry as natural,
God begins to teach the Israelites
to have no image and no likeness,
that there's not gods,
excuse me,
that there's not gods and goddesses,
that there's only the Lord.
And Isaiah and Ezekiel and all,
they make fun.
They say, you know,
you go into the woods,
and you kill some game,
and then you want to cook your game.
So you see a nice piece of,
you see something there,
a tree,
and you cut the tree down,
and you take half of the tree,
and you turn it into fire,
and you roast your game,
and you eat your game.
And the other half of the tree,
you carve it into an idol.
And that same tree,
part of it you burned in the fire,
to roast your meat.
And then after you've roast your meat,
you bow down to the other half of the tree,
which has become your idol,
and worship it,
and give that other half of the tree thanks
for the fact that you've received this food.
And the prophets keep saying,
how foolish is this?
How can you not see that this is completely,
utterly ridiculous?
ridiculous.
You see,
the fact of the matter is,
is that every human being is made in the image of God.
No other created thing,
no other created thing,
no other creature will most help you to know what God is like,
rather than actually seeing another human being.
And yet human beings,
who are made in the image of God,
they pledge their allegiance and loyalty
to something vastly less than them,
a piece of wood,
to money,
to the job,
to having power,
to having sex with a particular person,
with having a war where you're able to kill other people.
And all these things are less,
or evil,
or demonic.
And we bow to them,
and say,
you are greater than me.
I will serve you.
I will be loyal to you.
I will do whatever I have to do.
Because you are my Lord.
Now,
this other type of theological critique,
this prophetic denunciation of how foolish it is,
how foolish it is.
You killed the game.
You cut down the tree.
You took half of the tree to make a fire,
to cook the meat.
And the other half of the tree,
you turned it into an idol,
and then you bowed down to that wood,
thanking you for this.
Like,
how can you not see that that's nuts?
That type of theological critique will come later on in the Bible.
But,
what Judges does is set the stage for it,
by talking about how,
well,
let's look at how it talks about it.
Verse 14 and 15.
So the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel,
and he gave them over to plunderers who plundered them.
And he sold them into the hand of their 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 his Lord had sworn to them.
And they were in terrible distress.
Now,
there's several things here
that we see from the rest of the text.
First of all,
we can see that God is angry,
but he's justly angry.
Just as I would be angry,
just as Louise would be angry.
Why make it me?
I'll be the bad guy.
Louise is far better than me.
If Louise came in and found me flirting with women,
none of you would say,
she's wrong to be mad at me.
You'd all say,
you go, girl.
You go, girl.
You give it to him.
Let me help.
That's what you'd say, right?
And so,
because there's this desire for the Lord
to have this relationship with human beings like us,
and when he sees human beings like us
serving money,
or serving the state,
or serving the race,
or serving nation,
or serving our own ambition,
serving our ego,
serve,
and it,
it,
there's a proper anger which is there.
And the language,
it's very,
very important language here,
because it's,
it's how you have to understand
a whole lot of the Lord's judgment
in the entire Bible
from the Old Testament
to the New Testament.
Look at this here again in verse 14.
So the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel.
And notice here,
he gave them over to plunderers
who plundered them,
and he sold them into the hand
of their surrounding enemies
so that they could no longer
withstand their enemies.
Here's the thing.
You see,
what happens is that God,
by his common grace,
restrains us from the full effect of evil.
Day after day,
I want to serve an idol.
Day after day,
I want to serve my ego.
Day after day,
I want to be my own boss,
my own law.
Day after day,
I want to think I'm the center of the universe.
I want to think I'm the center of the church.
This is the most important person in the world.
I want to think this over and over and over again.
And God in his kindness,
and so do you,
and God in his kindness and his mercy,
he restrains us experiencing the full consequence
of such ideas and such desires.
He restrains us.
But at some point in time,
God's judgment is to remove his common grace
and let me have what I want.
He gives me over.
The language of sold into
is a technical language in the ancient world
for committing.
He, in a sense,
commits into our hands
what it is we want to do.
But this type of committing
is also connected to slavery.
And what we end up doing
is, if you think back to that analogy,
what is it like
if your entire imaginative world
and everything is
is that you bow down to something
which is either less than you
or evil or demonic,
it will plunder you.
it will cause you vast distress.
So,
let's just sort of capture
some of these things
and some of the points.
Here's the first thing
which we have to understand
behind all of this text.
If you understand
that even in the Old Testament,
how it's the Lord
who delivers them out of slavery,
how it's the Lord
who keeps them safe,
how it's the Lord
that fed them in the wilderness.
It's the Lord
who brings them
into the promised land.
It's the Lord
who desires
that they be idol-free.
The Lord longs for you
to be fully human,
fully free,
fully whole,
fully his,
fully idol-free.
That's what the Lord longs
for each and every one of us
who is here
and every person
in the city of Ottawa
and every person in Angola
and every person
in any people group,
his desire for every human being
is to be fully human,
fully free,
fully whole,
fully his,
and fully idol-free.
But here's the problem.
As a creature made
in the image of God,
you are hardwired
to give homage
and fealty.
As a creature made
in the image of God,
you are hardwired
to give homage
and fealty.
And that's because
we've been made for God.
We've been made
to be fully human.
We've been made
to be whole.
We've been made
to be free.
We've been made
to be at home
in our bodies
and at home
in the planet.
I mean,
part of being
at home in the planet
is
I mean,
even the worst polluter
wants somewhere else
to be polluted.
They don't want to live
where the pollution is,
right?
So if you understand
that to be fully at home
in the planet
is that you have
to be opposed
to things that
degrade the planet.
Nobody wants to live.
Nobody wants to go swimming
in a polluted river.
They go somewhere else
where it's not polluted.
Right?
But the Lord wants us
to be fully idol-free.
No idols at all.
He made us
to walk with Him
to be fully transparent,
to be at peace
with the garden,
at peace with one another,
at peace with Him,
to be able
to have conversation
and not
to
bow down
to anything
that Him,
but He made us
to know Him
and to acknowledge
that He is our God,
He is our creator,
He is our sustainer.
We were made for Him.
He's made in His image.
He hardwired that into us.
And when we turned away
from God
and rejected God
and desired to be
our own God,
the terrible irony is
is that seeking to be wise,
seeking to be a God,
we became fools.
And that part of us
which is hardwired
to bow down,
we now bow down
to the evil within us.
We bow down
to the pride within us.
We bow down
to the narcissism within us.
And we start to bow down
to other things.
You know,
you look at the terrible history
of the 20th century,
you bow down
to the social class,
you bow down
to ethnic purity
or racial purity,
you bow down
to capitalism
or ideology
or communism,
and you bow down
to sex,
you bow down
to violence,
you bow down
to war,
you bow down
to consumerism,
you bow down
to things
which are evil
or demonic
or which are just
vastly less than you
and they corrupt you
and they plunder you.
And the main problem
with most idolatry,
it is something
that we see
as a problem
for other people
and not for ourselves.
It's other people
who serve money,
not us.
It's hard for us
to think that
that other person
might look at us,
look at me,
as an example
of somebody
who serves money.
I think,
I don't serve money,
they serve money.
And they're thinking,
I don't serve money,
they serve money.
It's always
somebody else's problem.
If you could up
the third point,
Andrew,
idols seem full
of promise
but really only
plunder you.
Idols seem full
of promise
but really only
plunder you.
I want to just
give you two quotes,
I'm mindful of the time.
Many of you
are famous,
familiar with
David Foster Wallace
and a very important
intellectual and writer,
committed suicide,
but about a year or two
before he committed suicide,
he gave a commencement
address at Oberlin College.
It's a very famous,
you can go Google it,
it's still available,
it's very,
very famous.
And one of the things
he talked about
is he uses this example.
He said there's this
old fish swimming
in the water one day
in the ocean
and swimming in the water
and old fish
comes across
these two young fish
that are swimming
the other way
and the old fish
says to the young fish,
how's the water?
And the two young fish
say, great.
And they swim on
and a couple of minutes later
one young fish
says to the other young fish,
what's water?
Because it's just so part
of their environment
they don't even think
about the fact
that they have an environment.
And David Foster Wallace
went on from that
to say the fact
the matter is
is that human beings
live as idol worshippers.
This is a secular agnostic
and that idols beat you up
and plunder you
and destroy you.
Remember,
those of you
who were here last week
who remember
I shared how I came across
one of these
Ricky Gervais type writers.
He's a novelist
by the name of Mike Marshall.
He also does screenplays
and stuff
and I was reading a novel
because I don't look up quotes.
I do this weird thing.
I read books.
I don't look up quotes.
I read books.
And sometimes
you come across good quotes.
And in this book
one of the characters
in the novel
it's all about this person.
He's always doing
the right thing.
He has the right
political views.
He's concerned
about the environment.
He has the right
type of possessions.
The right type of career.
And he uses social media
and he does all
the right things
and his life starts
to unravel
and this is part of it.
I'm going to say a word
which you don't normally
say in church
and you have to give me a pass.
I'm just reading it.
Okay?
Here's the quote.
From Mike Marshall.
He's in a burger place.
The place reeked
of fries and ketchup.
He's brought into
a burger place
sort of against his will
as his life is unraveling.
So sort of again.
The place reeked
of fries and ketchup
and sounded like
an experimental station
called Radio Human.
People chewing,
bawling out kids,
talking on phones,
belching,
breathing,
existing.
I don't come
to burger joints
very often
for the very same reason
that I do head
to the gym
and read positivity blogs.
Because we're supposed to.
Supposed to eat right,
think right,
act right by the planet.
That endless series
of secular rituals
intended to keep others
thinking well of us
or keep us thinking
well of ourselves.
People rag on
about God,
how lucky we are
to be getting rid of him,
short of him.
But he at least
would throw
the occasional bone,
handing down
a good harvest
or a ticket to heaven
once in a while.
The internal taskmaster
we're working for now
doesn't believe
in fripperies
like motivation.
He,
she
just wants you
as his bitch.
Steph and I
have a ritual though.
Once in a blue moon
we'll go out
to an ultra burger,
a kingdom of fries,
though usually
it's a McDonald's
and slum it,
showing the world
that we are bigger
than how the world
all talks.
That we can make
our own choices.
And I suddenly realized
we hadn't done this
in months and months
and months.
I had been getting
deep into the program.
We both had.
Time had been
patiently breaking
Steph and me,
turning us into
everyone else.
Like what he's describing
as idolatry.
The serving of these
things that at the
end of the day
don't care about us,
don't love us,
don't die for us,
don't save us.
Very conscious
of the time.
But let's,
let's look at
how God responds
to all of this.
If you could go
back to verse 16.
We're going to read
verse 16.
How does God
respond to this?
People giving
themselves to idols.
In fact,
actually this is really,
just before we go to this,
you know,
I was thinking about this
a lot yesterday.
So my friend
at the coffee place
who said he had
no idols.
And then I said
everybody has idols.
And he said
he was going to think
about whether he had
an idol.
And I was thinking
about this.
Let's say he finds out
that he has an idol.
Like what,
what can he do?
Because you see,
if we're hardwired
to have idols,
then all we can do
is switch idols.
Right?
And this may be,
in many cases,
this is probably progress.
Right?
If you've gone from,
you know,
from making pornography
into something you serve
and instead you're able
to defeat that,
but you end up doing that
by making your husband
or your wife
into your idol.
Or,
you know,
you've been maybe
serving money
and that's wrecking
your life up.
You're serving career
and it wrecks your life up.
So you make your family
into your idol.
And it's,
in a sense,
a better idol.
Less harmful.
Better.
Still an idol.
Like there's a problem.
In a sense,
that's the problem of Canaan.
All they could do
is they could maybe say,
you know what,
I think I'm going to
stop worshipping Moloch
because I want to stop
having my kids
burned to death.
So maybe we'll switch
to this idol
because it's not as bad.
But in a world
where all you have
is idols,
all you can do
is switch to one
which is less bad.
You see,
unless God replaces
the idols,
listen to what happens.
Verse 16.
Then the Lord
raised up judges.
Remember,
they were in terrible distress
to serving the idols.
The Lord raised up judges,
deliverers,
who saved them
out of the hand
of those who plundered them.
Yet they did not
listen to their judges
for they prostituted
themselves after other gods
and bowed down to them.
That's paid homage to them.
They soon turned aside
from the way
in which their fathers
had walked
to obey the commandments
of the Lord
and they did not do so.
Whenever the Lord
raised up judges for them,
the Lord was with the judge
and he saved them
from the hand of their enemies
all the days of the judge.
For the Lord
was moved to pity
by their groaning
because of those
who afflicted them
and oppressed them.
Just pause there
before we read any further.
You want to notice
this is very,
very important.
It is,
it's that,
it isn't that
the Lord said,
look at these people
they've become so religious
and so hard working.
I think I'll show mercy.
Or,
whoa,
look at those people.
They've become
very penitent.
They really repent well.
I think I'll show mercy.
They're not seeking the Lord.
They're not showing repentance.
They're pursuing idols.
And it's plundering them.
And it's oppressing them.
And the Lord's heart breaks
with mercy and compassion
for them.
You see,
His mercy and compassion
precedes our religion
and our spirituality
and our achievements
and our holiness
and our religion
and our accomplishments.
His mercy and compassion
comes out of our distress,
not out of our
secular
or idolatrous
or religious
accomplishments.
Verse 19,
it continues,
but whenever the judge died,
they turned back
and were more corrupt
than their fathers,
going after other gods,
serving them
and bowing down to them.
They did not drop
any of their practices
or their stubborn ways.
So the anger of the Lord
was kindled against Israel
and He said,
because this people
have transgressed
My covenant
that I commanded
their fathers
and have not obeyed
My voice.
I will no longer
drive out before them
any of the nations
that Joshua left
when he died
in order to test Israel
by them,
whether they will take care
to walk in the way
of the Lord
as their fathers did
or not.
So the Lord left
those nations
not driving them out quickly
and He did not give them
into the hand
of Joshua and His people.
I don't have to unpack
all of that.
I just want to,
I noticed the time
we have to just close.
If you could put up
the final point, Andrew.
In light of your idol problem,
you need the true
and greater Joshua.
In light of your idol problem,
my idol problem,
I need the true
and greater Joshua.
Some of you
might not know this,
but Jesus,
the name Jesus
and the name Joshua
are the same name.
My oldest son, Tosh,
he married Amy
and by coincidence,
Amy's father
had the same name as me
except he's an immigrant
from Germany
so his name was Jorg
and I'm George
but it's the same name,
just one's German
and one's an English pronunciation.
It's the same pronunciation,
Jesus and Joshua.
It's the same name
and it means God saves.
I mean,
you're true and greater Joshua.
You see,
because people go
to sacrifice
to idols
and to evil things
because they feel
senses of guilt
and senses of shame
that they have a sense
need to be atoned for
but we need
a true and greater Joshua
who can deal
with those sense
of our need for atonement
and our need
to deal with shame
by dealing with everything
that we ever have
to atone for
and we can't atone for
and he deals with it
in his sacrifice
and we feel incomplete
and need to have
some type of other things
to buffer us up,
some other type
of accomplishment
excuse me,
because we feel incomplete
and we need
a true and greater Joshua
whose death upon the cross
would not only deal
with those things
that need to be atoned for
but would in fact
clothe us
with all of the righteousness
that we ever possibly need
to stand before God
and we need
a true and greater Joshua
who is not just
the one that God uses
to deliver
but then he dies
and we are left helpless
but we need a true
and greater Joshua
who after he has
not only dealt with atonement
and giving us righteousness
will actually come
to live within us
to take that seat
in the heart
of every human being
that was designed
for the Lord
and not for an idol.
and because we cannot
not be hardwired
for idols
we need the true Lord
in our heart
to give us that sense
of security
and that presence
and that power
whereby we can examine
the idols of our lives
and realize
why should I pursue
that idol
or serve that idol
when there is
the true Lord
and the true God
whose way I should follow
and whose way I should serve
whose way is only that
which will make me whole
and make me free
and make me idol free
and not oppress me
and not corrupt me
and not in fact
be my enemy
but my friend
who desires
to be in a relationship
of love with me
and his people
for all eternity.
So just in closing
if you feel anxiety
or distress
in your life
one of the things to do
is ask the Lord
what idol
is causing me
that anxiety
and distress
what am I serving
that is not you
and my lack of service
is causing me
this anxiety
and this distress
if you feel compulsions
to have to do
certain things
ask the Lord
what idol am I serving
that creates this sense
of compulsion with me
to look at your life
whether it's money
or time
and ask yourself
would I do
what the Lord says
in all of these areas
of my life
or would I not want to do it
and if you don't want to do it
there's an idol.
You see
one of the reasons
why we give an offering
and why we give a tithe
is because
the most
one of the deepest
most persistent idols
is money
and one of the ways
of being free
of the idol of money
is to give money away.
Money says
I will protect you
I will bless you
I will make you safe
I will make you secure
I will blah blah blah
blah blah blah blah
blah
can't take it with us.
Second after Bill Gates dies
and the poorest person
in the world
if they die
at the same moment
the second after they die
they both have the same
bank account
after death
which is zero
and part of the way
we put the idol to death
is by giving money away.
Part of the way
that we put to death
the idol
around sexuality
is by being faithful
in heterosexual marriage
or being abstinent
in singleness.
Part of the way
we deal
with the idol
of pride
is by learning
to be humble
humble not by thinking
less of ourselves
but much of Christ.
part of the way
that we deal
with the idol
of violence
is by being gentle.
The idol
of pride
by showing compassion.
Please stand.
Let's bow our heads
in prayer.
Father
many of us
are just like
my friend
from the coffee shop
we either
don't think
we have any idols
well
we just don't think
we have idols
and we don't even
think in those categories
because Father
we have to be honest
like nobody
thinks in those categories
like nobody
nobody on Instagram
or Facebook
or hardly anybody
thinks in these categories
so we don't think
in these categories
Father
we just don't.
We ask Father
that your word
would become
deeply real to us
and we ask Father
that you help us
to see
Father
don't help us
to see the idols
in other people's lives
ask us Father
we ask that you
help us to see
the idols
the functional idols
in our own life
and we give you
thanks and praise
that through faith
in Jesus
you are so patient
with us
and so kind
with us
that we keep
wanting to put
some idol
Father
on the throne
of our heart
to sit there
with Jesus
and Jesus
never leaves
the throne
of our heart
and he nudges
us
and pushes
us to
throw that idol
away
so that it
has no place
in our lives
Father
we ask
that your
Holy Spirit
your word
would make
the idols
that we are
tempted to
real to us
that we might
flee them
that we might
make much
of Jesus
we might
make much
of you
that we
might make
much of your
kindness
and your
grace to us
that that
would form
us and be
how we
understand
who we are
and how we
see our
life in this
world and
our future
and all
these things
we ask in
the name of
Jesus
your son
and our
savior
amen
our
gravel
Sports
after
Job
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