Idolatry

I don't know if you can relate to something like this, but when I was a little kid in South Africa, that's always a good way to start a story, isn't it? Little kid in Africa. We used to go to my cousin's poultry farm, and it used to be on a Sunday after church or something like that. They were about an hour away, and we'd have these great big family lunches and get up to all sorts of stuff. The reason is my cousin was an absolute ratbag kid, and he would get into the most ridiculous trouble you could imagine.

So, of course, an unregenerate heathen devil kid like myself loved going there. Absolutely loved it. One time we snuck away from our parents after the Sunday lunch, and we went up to his room and we got out his air rifle that just so happened to be in his cupboard. And we went across the road to the industrial sized chicken coops that these guys had, obviously, on the poultry farm. He was going to show us how to shoot rats.

I don't know if you know someone who has a poultry farm, but you know that rats are a major problem because, of course, there's plenty of food around. Plenty of food. And I kid you not, some of these rats got so big and fat that they were the size of cats, some of these rats. And so on the farm, you had to do plenty of sort of pest annihilation. Anyway, these rats would run around along the ground, across the beams, along the walls, wherever.

And as we were walking through these chicken coops, he would be picking them off. And man, could this guy shoot. This guy was an expert. You know, there's one running along the roof, bang, taken out. There's one crawling through a hole in the wall, bang.

It doesn't have a head anymore. Just expert, expert sniper rifle shooter. And one by one, as we walked through these chicken coops, he'd show us how to get rid of them. Now this morning, I start with a really gruesome story to talk about the topic of idolatry. And we're going to be looking at a moment in the book of Acts where an entire city's idolatry became threatened by the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And we're going to see this morning how idolatry actually pops up in our lives like rats in a chicken coop, coming out through a hole here, running across a beam there. They sneak up on you like a rat going for a chicken. And every now and then we realise that we need to go and walk through the chicken coops of our lives to take care of these idols. If you've got your Bibles with you, let's turn to Acts 19, and we're going to be looking at verses 23 to 41. Acts 19, verses 23 to 41.

About that time, there arose a great disturbance about the way, which is, in other words, Christianity. A silversmith named Demetrius who made silver shrines of Artemis brought in no little business for the craftsmen. He called them together along with the workmen in related trades and said, men, you know we receive a good income from this business and you see and hear how this fellow Paul has convinced and led astray large numbers of people here in Ephesus and in practically the whole province of Asia. He says that man made gods are no gods at all. Now there is danger not only that our trade will lose its good name but also that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will be discredited throughout the province of Asia and the world.

And she will be robbed of her divine majesty. When they heard this, they were furious and began shouting, greatest Artemis of the Ephesians. Soon the whole city was in an uproar. The people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's travelling companions from Macedonia, and rushed as one man into the theatre. Paul wanted to appear before the crowd, but the disciples would not let him.

Even some of the officials of the province, friends of Paul, sent him a message begging him not to venture into the theatre. The assembly was in confusion. Some were shouting one thing, some another. Most of the people didn't even know why they were there. The Jews pushed Alexander to the front and some of the crowd shouted instructions to him.

He motioned for silence in order to make a defence before the people. But when they realised he was a Jew, they all shouted in unison for about two hours, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. The city clerk quieted the crowd and said, men of Ephesus, doesn't all the world know that the city of Ephesus is the guardian of the temple of the great Artemis and of her image which fell from heaven. Therefore, since these facts are undeniable, you ought to be quiet and not do anything rash. You have brought these men here though they have neither robbed temples nor blasphemed our goddess.

If then Demetrius and his fellow craftsmen have a grievance against anybody, the courts are open and there are proconsuls. They can press charges. If there is anything further you want to bring up, it must be settled in a legal assembly. As it is, we are in danger of being charged with rioting because of today's events. In that case, we would not be able to account for this commotion since there is no reason for it.

After he said this, he dismissed the assembly. So far, our reading. Now before we dig into what was happening here in Acts and get to the underlying stuff that was happening, perhaps it's useful to talk about and define some of the key aspects which we're dealing with here in Acts. And for me, it is the topic of idolatry. It's the topic of idolatry.

You see, we have to rewind a little bit to the very beginning, according to Acts one, Genesis 1:26-28. In the very beginning, we human beings were created to worship. We were designed and hardwired to worship. And we were designed to worship and serve God. And we were given the instructions to rule and have power over all other created things.

We were given an amazing responsibility to rule and care for all of created things under God's name. But instead, Genesis 3 shows us that we fell into sin. When humanity fell, it meant that instead of worshiping God, we now choose to worship any other part of creation and glorify it instead of the living God. That is the story of humanity. Instead of worshiping God, we worship everything else.

Romans 1:23-25 speaks of this fact in fallen humanity in this way. It says, we exchange the glory of the immortal God for a lie and worship and serve created things rather than the creator. We exchanged the glory of the immortal God for a lie and worship created things rather than the creator. In essence, what's wrong with humanity is not that we like voice kids and think that's good entertainment because it's not. What's wrong with humanity is that we have exchanged or changed the intended order of things.

We have changed the intended order of things. Human beings have come to worship and serve created things instead of the creator, and these created things that we were meant to rule over, ironically, rule over us. And that is what the biblical definition of idolatry is. The great theologian John Calvin said that human hearts are perpetual idol factories. Our hearts are perpetual idol factories.

We churn out idols like an Apple factory churns out iPhones. All throughout the Bible, we see God stamping out idolatry amongst His people, warning them to turn away from these worthless, stupid, dead things and turn to Him who is the only living God. All throughout the Bible, we see this. Scholar Richard Keyes writes this. He says, a careful reading of the Old and the New Testaments show that idolatry is nothing like the crude simplistic picture that springs to mind of an idol sculpture somewhere in a distant country.

As the main category to describe unbelief, the idea of idolatry is highly sophisticated, drawing together the complexities of motivation in individual psychology, the social environment, and also the unseen world. Idols are not just on pagan altars, but in well educated human hearts and minds. Not on some strange altar, but in well educated human hearts and minds. The apostle Paul, he says, associates the dynamics of human greed, of lust, of craving and coveting with idolatry. The Bible, Keyes writes, does not allow us to marginalise idolatry to the fringes of life.

It is found on centre stage. Our hearts are perpetual idol factories, and idolatry finds centre stage in our fight against sin. Why do we lie? Why do we cheat? Why do we fail to love?

Why do we break our promises? Why do we live selfishly? We may answer it's because I'm a sinner, but the more specific answer is because there is something besides Jesus Christ that we feel we must have in order to be happy. And we will lie to maintain that. We will live selfishly to protect that.

We may cheat to promote that. Idolatry says, although God is good and He is important, I cling to something that I value even more for my satisfaction and my joy. And it can be anything. These things are more important to our heart than God is. And it's all pervasive, and it's viciously addictive.

It's all consuming. It's enslaving. And so with that understanding, we come to Acts 19, to Ephesus. And Paul is preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ, and his preaching has caused people to forsake their idols and to come back or to come for the first time to know the living God. And this was absolutely massive.

Absolutely massive. We can't even begin to imagine the uproar that this caused, how revolutionary it was. We see the city, the entire city literally in uproar. In verse 26, Demetrius, the silversmith, who crafted these little idols of Artemis, he says in verse 26, this message of Paul, he was saying that man made gods are no gods at all. Man made gods, man made idols are no gods at all.

And this meant for Demetrius not only that he would lose his source of income, his livelihood, but the people would also stop worshiping Artemis. And, if we understand the context, Artemis was the god of Ephesus. They had the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, which was then one of the ancient wonders of the world. It was glorious. It was majestic.

Everything stood in the shadow of the Temple of Artemis. If Artemis was dead and fake, what would Ephesus be? Ephesus would lose its identity. So he says that the gospel would rob Artemis of her divine majesty, and this causes a huge commotion in the city. And at one point, everyone is yelling.

Even people who have no idea what the heck is going on are yelling. And Paul preaches the gospel in Ephesus and calls a spade a spade. Man made gods are no gods at all. There is only one God, and His name is Jesus Christ. If we have a look just a little bit earlier before this, we'll see what this preaching actually resulted in.

Have a look in chapter 19, verses 18 to 20. Many of those who believed in Jesus now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. They repented. A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burnt them publicly.

When they calculated the value of these scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas. In this way, the power of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. In this way, the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. A huge, huge bonfire. The truth of Christianity says that there is only one God, the living God, and that God is embodied in Jesus Christ.

And that you must forsake all idols in order to worship and serve this one God. You cannot have an idol and worship God rightly at the same time. And this preaching causes people in Ephesus to start a bonfire of which any country boy would be proud. Massive. And the calculated worth of these scrolls, of these parchments, of these things that facilitated the idolatry of these people amounted to 50,000 drachmas.

A drachma was a single day's wage. And if we bring that in our sort of amount, our currency, that would equate to roughly 5,000,000 dollars or more or less. Millions of dollars, millions of dollars burnt up in response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Friends, we have to realise that idolatry isn't something that stuck in the first century AD. Idolatry really is what Tim Keller describes as the sin beneath the sin.

The sin beneath all sin. As soon as our loyalty to anything leads us to downplay God's prominence in our life and causes us to disobey Him, we realise we have an idol. And it can be anything, the Bible says. Even good things like family or being well liked. When any finite created thing, whether a statue or an idea or a philosophy, an object or a person is elevated as the final source of meaning and identity for us, then you have created a god.

You have an idol. And you will know it when you hold on to something which if it was taken away from you, you would lose all joy in your life. If it was taken from you, you would lose all joy in your life. You wouldn't be able to live joyfully without it. Think of it this way.

If you're a Christian, imagine if someone was to come to you tomorrow and claim undeniably that Jesus Christ never existed, that He never died on the cross and rose from the grave. And imagine that soul destroying, gut wrenching realisation. Now, if you compare that to something you value deeply, how would you feel? Would it be similar? Let's dig this a bit deeper.

How would you feel if you were never able to drink alcohol again and get a little bit loose at a party to, you know, to dance a little bit? What if you were never to smoke again? How would you feel? Would your life crumble if you lost the excitement of playing Xbox or PlayStation? If we feel so lost without our smartphones, could that be an indication of idolatry?

Oh, it's getting a bit personal now, isn't it? Now to really twist the knife in life, how would you feel if you lost your family? How would you feel if your husband or your wife left you or passed away? Would these be gut wrenching, soul destroying moments that if these things were taken from you, you could no longer live a joyful life? The second thing we see in Acts 19 is just how deeply rooted idolatry can be.

It's not simply a person's private life, but idolatry can be connected to all parts of society, to all parts of a people's worldview. You see, the goddess Artemis was worshipped by all of Ephesus. It gave them an identity and a self worth. And idolatry and worldview are integrally connected. I don't know if you've noticed in the last month or so, there's been a lot of talk and a lot of things in the media about the AIDS epidemic.

You'll remember a few weeks ago, there was a Melbourne conference on AIDS. And again, recently, the stats came out about AIDS telling us who gets infected and who's to blame for it and so on. And I won't go into the details, but as I listened to it again, I realised that if one single generation was to stop sleeping around and to stop using drugs and sharing needles, AIDS, we know it, would disappear along with every STD that exists in one generation. But in all the talk with the scientists and the academics and the activists and the politicians, not once was there a mention that this was an option. Why is that?

Well, it's because of our Western worldview. The freedom of individuals to choose their sexuality, their level of promiscuity, and what drug they wanna put in their body. It's our freedom. It is our rights. But held up against the truth of scripture, the glaring reality rises to the top.

People may call this a worldview, and it sounds really nice. But what it really is is that the idol of sex and that it is really dear to us. And Christians are not immune to it because we live in this society just like the Christians in Ephesus who lived in the shadow of the Temple of Artemis. And so we get very protective about this freedom. We get very protective of this freedom.

And we see what these guys in Ephesus did, shout for two hours, great is the goddess Artemis. And you can go to any rally and you can see similar things being shouted. We'll get very protective over our rights, over the right of an abortion, but we won't deal with the underlying problem that someone has become pregnant in a situation where they can't raise a child. Similarly, we'll talk a lot about the lack of education for HIV AIDS and people blame the government for that or teachers for that. But the reality is that AIDS is still by far spread through promiscuous sex and choosing to worship sex as the thing that makes us who we are.

So we exist in a world where Artemis is sex. Where sex is Artemis. And every negative consequence thereof, we can deal with. We can throw money at. We can research.

We can set up committees for. As long as we can worship it, we can deal with every negative consequence of it. But the Christian gospel is always going to clash with this worldview. Christianity says that sex, along with all the other things that we could possibly worship, is always secondary to God's place of prominence in our lives. It means that God has the final say about all these things and how they should be used.

That, for example, again, that sex should be enjoyed in an environment and a capacity that is exclusive between a husband and a wife. But try and tell this to most Aussies and you'll cop an earful. Now again, please don't underestimate. I'm using this as an example. So I'm not trying to be inflammatory or prejudiced or anything like that.

But the point I'm trying to make is idolatry now is no different to it was in Acts 19 in the first century AD. What we see in Acts 19 is that the preaching of the gospel started turning people away from their worldviews and what they generated from what was around them. The preaching was very politically incorrect. But any worldview which does not hold Jesus Christ as the King of everything is not simply just another worldview. It is idolatry. When Paul preached in Ephesus the message of the gospel, put every aspect of their culture under the microscope, and every single thing that was not God honouring had to be repented of and was destroyed.

Radical. The idolatry of Artemis, which incidentally, she was the queen of fertility, so of reproduction and having children and sex. The idolatry of Artemis was inseparably connected with all sorts of cultural things. We see that the idolatry of Artemis was not just a religion, but permeated right down to the economy. Demetrius was gonna lose his job.

Craftsmen were out of a job because there were so many Christians converting in Ephesus. It goes right down to the economy. It goes right down to the sense of people's identity and their national pride. The people stood in the amphitheatre shouting, great is Artemis of the Ephesians. In other words, if Artemis doesn't exist, if she's not worshipped anymore, who would we be?

Who would we be? If Aussies can't drink a cold beer anymore, are we still Aussie? What would it be if Artemis was destroyed? What would we be without freedom for sex, for drugs, for alcohol? What would we be if we didn't have that healthy savings account?

What would we be if we could enjoy the finest things in life? You know something is an idol when you are willing to bite and claw and fight and scratch out people's eyes to protect that one thing. And we see in Ephesus that they were willing to kill Paul's fellow missionaries to protect their idol. Friends, it can be anything. And it doesn't mean that it's bad, but it's just come to that place of prominence where God is secondary and that thing is primary.

It can even be our style of worship. It can even be our theology that we preach. I've seen people scratch and claw and fight for those things. So because we were designed to worship something, we will always have a yearning in our hearts to worship. We will always have that desire, whether it be God or an idol.

It means you'll never simply be able to say, alright, I'm gonna stop idolising this. You won't simply be able to stop worshiping those things. You can't just turn it off. Idols will keep popping up like those whack a mole games you play in the arcade, trying to hit them down again. So having identified those idols in our life, how do we overcome it?

Now the great news in the gospel is that, yes, at one time we would have been held ransom by every idol in our heart and every idol that our heart could fashion. But now there is a reality that Jesus Christ, having died on the cross, means that we have a King who has the power to overcome and destroy these idols. That is our great hope. The same King that caused people in Ephesus to burn all their valuable scrolls worth millions of dollars, the same King who has turned chronic alcoholics in front of my eyes overnight, turned them off the grog, the same King who can overcome even homosexuality. The good news is that the bondage of sin and idolatry is broken when we believe the gospel of Jesus' salvation.

Paul says in Romans 6:14, sin shall no longer be your master because you are not under that old law, that old way of gaining your joy and your identity, but you are now under grace. Having entered into a perfect relationship with God with full access to His generous love, we can, as Psalm 34 says, taste and see that the Lord is good. That faith becomes tangible. That joy is like food to be tasted. It is rich, and it is deep, and it is lasting.

It doesn't fade. It's that inheritance that is held in heaven for us, protected and guarded for us. It cannot fade. It cannot wear out. It is constantly new and refreshing.

There is a love that invigorates the soul, that satisfies the heart, that warms our hearts, that gives significance and purpose to life and tells us that we are significant, that we are infinitely special and valued. Why exchange that for a one night stand? Why exchange that for a guilt ridden relationship? Why exchange that for a brain numbing night on the booze? Why?

It doesn't last. You don't feel good afterwards. Why give up on those things? Sorry. Why continue going on with those things and running after those things that will disappoint?

Why exchange the love of God for idols? So the question is, how do we overcome this? To get really practical now, the only way to completely destroy an idol, the only way to completely destroy an idol is to replace it. You can't just whack it back in the hole like in that whack a mole. It's just gonna come up again.

You have to replace it and fill that hole. You have to take out that rat and then make sure the rat poison is there. To replace it with something that is worth worshiping, and that is Jesus Christ. And the message that you are His and that He is yours forever. And if we set that message in the centre of our hearts and if we reflect and remember that often, regularly, then nothing will be able to rob you of a joyful life.

Nothing. Not even the harshest things. If you know you have idols in your life, things in your life that take precedence over God and rob you of lasting joy, I'd like to encourage you to do these three things. And it's very practical, and they come from advice that Tim Keller writes in his Gospel in Life. And some of us have dealt with this.

It's really, really helpful, I find. The first thing is to identify and name these idols to God. To take stock, to walk through that chicken coop, and see those rats clamberingr around. To identify and name those idols to God. To say and pray, Lord, these are the things I have built my life and my heart around.

So identify and name these idols. The second thing is to repent of these idols. To realise that when you desire an idol, you are saying, Lord, You are really not enough. You're really not enough for me. This thing is more important, more beautiful, more fulfilling, more joyful to me than You are.

And so we are to repent and say, Lord, this thing might be good in essence. This thing may give me some sense of joy, yet I've made it my absolute. And what is it compared to You? This does not give me life. This does not give me lasting joy or self worth.

It can never give me these things. Only You can, and I thank You that You have. So repent and give up on these idols. And then the last thing, the last thing is to rejoice in Christ. That's replacing those idols with Jesus.

Reflect on how Jesus has provided you what these idols cannot provide. Don't simply stop with giving up on these idols. Replace them with the only God who is worth worshiping. Remind yourself of the scriptures. You know, Psalm 16:11, Lord, only in Your presence is there fullness of joys, joy and pleasures forevermore.

Only in Your presence is there fullness of joy. Your idols are just pleasures that will wear off soon while the richness of God lasts forever. Pray things like, Lord, when I am tempted and feel anxious to clutch at these things for comfort and self worth, I know I don't even deserve anything to go right for me, yet I know that You are working all things for the good of those who love You. Reflect and rejoice in what Jesus Christ has given you. The more you do that, the more you count your blessings, the more you realise how wealthy you are in Jesus Christ, the more you'll start replacing these idols and undermining them and cutting them down and replacing them with the truth and the lasting joy that is in Jesus Christ.

Name the idols, repent of the idols, and then replace them with Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we need to come to these moments every now and then to take stock of how things are in our lives. So often, Lord, in a world that is so idolatrous, that operates in completely different ways than we understand and see the world. Father, it is easy to be swept up.

It is easy to try and run after the things that many people are running after and yet fail to realise that these things are empty and void and last for a day, for a week, for a month. But Lord, in You, in Your presence, in knowledge of You, there is fullness of joy, pleasures forevermore. Lord, help us over the coming weeks or the coming days or the coming hours, even today, to reflect on these things and to name these idols that have come into our lives that are robbing us of peace, robbing us of lasting joy. Lord, give us the ability to crush them and to replace them, Lord, with the knowledge of Jesus Christ in our lives, to worship You more, to change our habits, to worship You, Lord. Because in those moments, Lord, we know that we are fulfilled, that we are in tune, that we respond to the rhythms of Your grace.

And life is good then. Life is sweet. Lord, we want those things. We need those things. We ask, Lord, that You will help us through Your Spirit.

You know us, Lord. You see our hearts anyway. Help us, Lord, to overcome these things. We need Your help. We ask Your help.

We invite You into our lives. Replace these things, Lord, so that we may have great lives, joyful lives. In Jesus' name. Amen.