Dave’s Monday Blast – May 11, 2020
“You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow to it, for I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 26:1). Is this verse, which was obviously relevant in a day when Israel’s Promised Land was filled with peoples worshiping idolatrous deities, still relevant to us today?
INTENTIONAL Men of God KNOW that one of the foundational principles of Christian theology is that the Bible IS the word of God, not just that it WAS. Its words are as relevant today as when they were first inspired. It is “living and active” with present-tense authority to speak divine truth into our lives and culture (Hebrews 4:12). While Christians are unlikely to set up a figured stone and worship it, we are enduringly tempted by secularism and materialism.
Another foundational principle of Christian theology is that where the Bible does not speak as precept, it speaks as principle. Pastor Jim Denison of the Denison Forum explains: “Christians are not obligated to follow the kosher dietary laws of Leviticus 11; this is made clear in Acts 15:28-29. But these laws are nonetheless relevant to us as principle: God cares about our physical health and wants us to eat and live for his glory and our good. It is the same here. The precept in Leviticus against physical idols is enormously relevant as principle: anything we trust and serve more than we trust and serve the Lord functions as an idol in our lives and souls. In other words, idols can be both physical and spiritual.”
Some examples are obvious. When we know something is wrong but we do it anyway, we have made that sin our idol. Conversely, “whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin” and thus idolatry (James 4:17). Theologian Paul Tillich was right: we each have an ultimate concern, something or someone we value as our highest priority in life. Dension comments: “If our ultimate concern is not the Lord, it is our idol.”
As Christ-followers, our problem is not atheism, our problem is pluralism: the claim that there are many gods and that each should be trusted and served. As mentioned before in this blast, Pastor Craig Groeschel wrote a great book several years ago entitled The Christian Atheist. His premise: we want the benefits of biblical faith, knowing that our Savior has saved us from hell and that He is available to us when we need His help. In our transactional minds we are willing to give Him a percentage of our time and money for His “gift of salvation,” but are unwilling or unable to trust Him with the day-to-day!
We must choose between what the world asks and offers and what our Lord asks of us and offers to us. It is at that moment of choosing that Leviticus 26:1 becomes urgently relevant for us. King David learned to make this declaration his commitment: “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7). May this also be our declaration.
The challenge today is to ask the Lord to show you if you are being tempted by an idol today? If you are, will you trust in chariots and horses or in their Maker?
